The University at Buffalo is founded on…
May 1846 CE
City leaders of Buffalo had sought to establish a university in the city from the earliest days of the city.
A "University of Western New York" had been begun at Buffalo under the auspices of the Presbyterian Church and property had been purchased at North Street and College, (the site of the later YMCA), on the north side of the Allentown district.
This university was chartered by the state on April 8, 1836.
However, the project collapsed and no classes were ever offered, and only the layout of College Street remains.
The University of Buffalo is founded as a private medical school to train the doctors for the communities of Buffalo, Niagara Falls, and surrounding villages.
Future U.S. President Millard Fillmore, a lawyer who had recently served in the United States House of Representatives, is one of the principal founders.
James Platt White, who was instrumental in obtaining a charter for the university from the state legislature, will also teach the first class of eighty-nine men in obstetrics.
The doors will first open to students in 1847 and after associating with a hospital for teaching purposes, the first class of students will graduate the medical school in July 1847.
Fillmore serves as the school's first chancellor, a position he will hold until 1874, even as he serves in other capacities during that time, including Comptroller of New York, U.S. Vice President, and eventually President.
Fillmore's name now graces the continuing education school Millard Fillmore College on the South campus as well as the Millard Fillmore Academic Center, an academic and administrative services building at the core of the residential Joseph Ellicott Complex, on the North Campus.