CENTRAL COLLEGE BUILDING
Restoration of this Central College building would be a worthy Project
for some historic-minded organization.
The first educational enterprise in this romantic Franklin County village was a school taught by the Rev. Ebenezer Washburn, the pioneer of higher education in Blendon Township.
About 1835 Squire Timothy Lee took measures towards the realization of what had long been a cherished idea — the establishment of a permanent seat of higher learning. With this idea in mind, he made liberal proposals to the new school branch of the Presbyterian Church.
The Presbytery of Franklin county accepted his generously offered gift of money, lands, and buildings. He gave a tract of land of one hundred acres, and erected, at his own expense, a number of buildings. One, a large brick three-story dormitory, forty by sixty feet, is still standing and bears date on a stone name plate above the main entrance of the building of "1842."
The college was organized and obtained a charter that year. The village of Amalthea, now Central College, was laid out by the college board of trustees on the lands donated by Squire Timothy Lee, in 1849. The building could, with little expense, be restored and made to reflect some of the dignity it exhibited over a century ago.
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