Sunday February 16, 2014
Winooski Senior Center
1:00 P.M.
Speaker: Vince Feeney
Freemasons, Unitarians, and the Founding of The University of Vermont
The inscription on the base of Ira Allen’s statue on the UVM Green reads: “Ira Allen, Founded this University, 1791.” But how much of a founder was he? Might the true founders be a small group of individuals associated with the Masonic order and the liberal wing of the Congregational church that came to be known as Unitarianism? And could UVM be considered the first public institution of higher education in New England? Vince Feeney’s current historical research sheds light on the origins of the university and of the social controversies that plagued it in its earliest days.

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