The University of Georgia: Class of 1804

While my intent is to include a later description of what I would like to accomplish by posting information about the various classes at the University of Georgia, my initial inclination is to begin posting rather than explain. While my approach, I hope, will be systematic, I intend to include as much information about the specific classes as possible without going to the lengths of Thomas Walter Reed whose 4,000+ page manuscript history of the University is, quite simply, burdensome, though it will inform some of my posts on UGA's various classes.

As this will take some time to go through all the classes, I hope to offer a decennial review of some of the patterns and demographic shifts of the class, including not only student nativities, hometowns (as best they can be deduced), later occupations, fathers' occupations, and occasionally religious affiliations.

Class of 1804: Alumni Primi (the First Alumni)
It is fitting that among the members of UGA's first class were the son of the man for whom Clarke County is named, and the man for whom Clayton St, County, and the town of Clayton.

Issuing its first degrees on 31 May 1804, the University sat on the edge of the wilderness, a short distance from the border of the state of Georgia and the Creek Nation in an area far enough removed from the potential sinful vices offered by the Eagle Tavern in Watkinsville and removed from the heat and 'tropical' diseases of coastal Savannah.

As Reed notes, the University's first permanent structure was incomplete and tradition holds that the first commencement ceremonies were held immediately to its west & slightly north. The building, of course, is Old College or as it would variously be called throughout the 19th Century: Franklin College, the Summey House, Yahoo Hall, etc. Old College would not be operational until 1806.

The class of 1804 included 10 young men who were sons of the elite in the state of Georgia and the southeast. Save for one student, all graduated who began with that class, as far as records are able to show.