This month in Harvard history

April 19, 1775 – Six Harvard students march off with the Minutemen.

April 1861 – A student chronicler at the Divinity School describes responses to the start of the U.S. Civil War: “The patriotism of some of the students was beyond all computation; several being ready to bear arms, they were stationed a few hours a day as guards at the Cambridge Arsenal. It being a rather ‘dull business’ the ardor of some was cooled down almost to the state of desertion. The country was safer than they knew. [. . .] Quite a number, however, of the school from the first opposed the war spirit, and retained their anti-war principles throughout the year.”

April 26, 1862 – The Rev. Thomas Hill, Class of 1843, AM 1846, is elected Harvard’s 20th President. He is the first Harvard chief executive to have served in a comparable post elsewhere (as President of Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio).

April 25, 1870 – Oliver Stearns, Class of 1826 and Parkman Professor of Theology, becomes Dean of the Faculty of Divinity.

April 1897 – The Harvard Corporation makes a second attempt to forge an alliance with MIT, but negotiations reach an impasse in January 1898.

– From the Harvard Historical Calendar, a database compiled by Marvin Hightower