Minor corrections and additions.

Conventional section designations added to the text of the Charter.

Amendments section refined using October 2007 copy of Charter provided by Dartmouth in the exhibits (pdf) appended to the Board's memo in support of its motion to dismiss the alumni lawsuit. The new annotations for this version of the Charter must be read carefully to avoid the conclusion that the Charter actually refers to nominations for the firt time:

By vote taken September 8, 2007, the charter was amended to increase the number of Trustees to twenty-six, provided that the number of Trustees to be elected upon nomination by the alumni shall be eight, and that the Governor ex-officio and the President during his or her term of service shall continue to be Trustees.

In other words, the Board resolved to handle nominations in a certain way, and it voted to amend the Charter to increase the number of Trustees. One presumes it did not amend the Charter to state anything regarding nominations.

Amendments section refined and recent amendments added.

This site reformatted and reorganized.

The state legislature last year granted the Trustees permission to alter the charter. The Trustees expanded the board to 22 members, or one more than the number to which the legislature tried and failed to expand the board in 1816.

This site on line.

Eleazar Wheelock, who had operated Latin and Indian schools in Connecticut since the mid-1730s and a collegiate department of Moor's School since 1768, drafted Dartmouth's charter during the spring and summer of 1769; it is written in the voice of King George III (the royal "we," referring to "our trusty and well beloved John Wentworth"). Wheelock sent it to The Royal Governor of the Province of New Hampshire, John Wentworth, during August, and Wentworth granted the charter to Dartmouth College on December 13, 1769. This act was the last royal chartering of a college in the North American Colonies that would become the United States: the crown itself or colonial governments had granted eight charters earlier, of which seven had so far created institutions in operation.

Wheelock soon selected from among various offers the township within New Hampshire where he would place his school, picking Hanover, which John's uncle Benning Wentworth had given a charter in 1761. Wheelock arrived during August of 1770 to build the college on lands that Wentworth gave the school as well as Wheelock personally. Classes began soon after for the students who arrived that October, several of whom had begun their undergraduate work at Yale College. The first class graduated during 1771 at a Commencement ceremony that Wentworth managed to attend by having a road cut through the wilderness, the Wolfeboro Road.

The charter is important to the school as well as to legal history, since it is the document around which the Dartmouth College Case revolved. In deciding that the Constitution's prohibition against government interference in contracts also applied to a government grant, preventing the state legislature from altering a charter that their predecessors the royal government had issued,, the case provided a foundation of American corporation law.

Along with an outline of the charter and list of notable clauses; and a list of amendments to the charter, this page links to a copy of the charter taken from Charles Franklin Emerson, preparer, General Catalogue of Dartmouth College and the Associated Schools 1769-1910 including a Historical Sketch of the College (Hanover, N.H.: Dartmouth College, 1910-11), 1-13. Line breaks and orthography follow those of the General Catalog; I have added line numbers and inserted section indicators in the conventional places.

Dartmouth provided a version of the Charter that was revised October 17, 2007 (pdf) in connection with the lawsuit by the Association of Alumni. This version seems to leave out the word "the" before the word "case" in the phrase "that in the case of the ceasing or failure of a president, by any means whatsoever."

Dartmouth has provided a copy of the charter on line as well as documents related to the case at least since June 2003.

fragment of the charter on the Hood Museum's "Treasures of Rauner Library" site, listed as "Gift of George III, King of England; Ms. 769663."

The best facsimile of the charter is the version hanging in the College History Room at the west entrance of Baker Library.

Dartmouth mission statement.

"Corporations in the American Colonies" by Joseph S. Davis, from Essays in the Earlier History of American Corporations (Harvard University Press, 1917).

William & Mary, 1693, Williamsburg, Virginia

Information on the Princeton charter from A Princeton Companion.

Royal Charter of Queens University, 1841 and later, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

University college, ca. 1845, Cork, Ireland.

McGill University, 1852, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

University of Sydney, 1858, New South Wales, Australia.

University of Leeds, 1880, England.

Imperial College of Science and Technology, 1998 founded 1907, London, England.

University college,1909, founded 1876, Bristol, England.

University of Keele, 1962, founded as University college of North Staffordshire, the first new twentieth-century UK university.

Brunel University, 1966, founded 1928, Acton Technical College, Uxbridge, England.

University of Dundee,1967, Scotland.

Wheelock considered naming the first building after Governor Wentworth and the college itself after Lord Dartmouth; after advice he suggested naming the school for Wentworth instead, but the Governor demurred. Lord Dartmouth was neither a major benefactor nor the founder of the college, though he was president of the board of trustees in England that oversaw the money raised there for Moor's Charity School. The proposal to use Dartmouth's name may have been intended to appease the English Trustees since the school had been transformed into an English college.²

Eleazar Wheelock, specifically titled "founder" in the document [228] described the new school as an "academy" but suggested Wentworth elevate its status as he reveals in a letter to the Governor: "Sir, if proper to use the word 'College' instead of 'Academy' in the charter, I shall be well pleased with it."¹

The crucial words that allowed the school to be an English college and not an Indian academy comprise the phrase "English Youth": "[We do ordain] that there be a college erected in our said Province of New Hampshire by the name of DARTMOUTH COLLEGE for the education & instruction of Youth of the Indian Tribes in this Land in reading, writing & all parts of Learning which shall appear necessary and expedient for civilizing & christianizing Children of Pagans as well as in all liberal Arts and Sciences; and also of English Youth and any others." [103-109]

The 1754 Moor's Charity School from which Dartmouth sprang was "coeducational;" however at the time the word "youth" often meant young males.

The campus is created in language: The Trustees are "to purchase receive or build any House or Houses or any other buildings as they shall think needful & convenient for the use of said Dartmouth College and in such Town in the western part of our said Province of New Hampshire as shall by said Trustees or the major part of them be agreed." [142-150]

Religious tenets in the document seem particularly liberal: Seven of twelve Trustees must be laymen, and the Trustees may make laws "not excluding any Person of any religious denomination whatsoever from free & equal liberty & advantage of Education or from any of the liberties and privileges or immunities of the said college on account of his or their speculative sentiments in Religion, & of his or their being of a religious profession different from the said Trustees of the said Dartmouth College." [301-306]

The various officers are, in order of creation or mention: Trustees, President, Tutors, Professors, Ministers, other Officers, Students, Senior Professor or Tutor (a Trustee who acts as Vice President of the college), Treasurer, Clerk, Usher, and Steward.

The Trustees, President, Tutors and Professors were authorized to put the college laws into execution [309-313]. Before the faculty became known as such they were called the executive authority (also the Constitution's term for state governors), lasting until about the late 1820s.³

The charter required each officer to swear an oath and sign a declaration within a year of his appointment [198-213]. The oath and declaration were "provided by an act of Parliament made in the first year of King George the first entitled 'An act for the further security of his Majesty's Person & government & the succession of the crown in the heirs of the late princess Sophia being Protestants, & for the extinguishing the hopes of the pretended Prince of Wales & his open & secret Abettors.'" Such an oath was a standard inclusion in royal charters and commissions of the time, as demonstrated by the Commission appointing Thomas Graves Governor of Newfoundland (1763).

The Act for the Security of Her Majesty's Person (1707) required justices of the peace to swear to two sets of oaths:

The oaths mentioned in an act made in England in the first year of the reign of their late majesties King William and Queen Mary, intituled, An act for abrogating the oaths of allegiance and supremacy.

I, A.B. do truly and sincerely acknowledge, profess, testify, and declare in my conscience, before God and the world, that our sovereign ___________ is lawful and rightful ______ of this realm, and of all other _____ Majesty's dominions and countries thereunto belonging. And I do solemnly and sincerely declare, that I do believe in my conscience, that the person pretended to be Prince of Wales during the life of the late King James, and since his decease pretending to be, and taking upon himself the style and title of King of England, by the name of James the Third, has not any right or title whatsoever to the Crown of this realm, or any other dominions thereto belonging; and I do renounce, refuse, and abjure any allegiance or obedience to him. And I do swear, that I will bear faith and true allegiance to ______ and _______ will defend to the utmost of my power, against all traitorous conspiracies and attempts whatsoever which shall be made against ____ person, crown, or dignity. And I will do my utmost endeavour to disclose and make known to ____ Majesty and ____ successors all treasons and traitorous conspiracies which I shall know to be against ______ or any of them. And I do faithfully promise, to the utmost of my power, to support, maintain, and defend the succession of the Crown against the said James, and all other persons whatsoever, as the same by an act, intituled, An act for the further limitation of the Crown, and better securing the rights and liberties of the subject, is and stands limited to the Princess Sophia, Electress and Duchess Dowager of Hanover, and the heirs of her body, being Protestants. And all these things I do plainly and sincerely acknowledge to the plain and common sense and understanding of the same words, without any equivocation, mental evasion, or secret reservation whatsoever. And I do make this recognition, acknowledgment, abjuration, renunciation, and promise, heartily, willingly and truly, upon the true faith of a Christian. So help me God.

---

¹ Frederick Chase, A History of Dartmouth College and the Town of Hanover New Hampshire (to 1815) (Brattleboro: Vermont Printing Co., 1928), 114.

² Ibid., 117; Leon Burr Richardson, A History of Dartmouth College (Hanover: Dartmouth College Publications, 1932), 1: 88-89.

³ Chase, 560n3; Richardson, 1: 298.

[1-4]	Greetings
[5-22]	Eleazar Wheelock is the founder of the successful More's [Moor's] Indian Charity School in Connecticut in 1754.
[22-32]		Wheelock sent Occom and Whitaker to raise funds in England for the school.
[32-52]		A group of Trustees in England now oversees the funds raised.
[52-77]		Wheelock showed the Trustees worthy offers to host the school from various provinces and they preferred western New Hampshire.
[77-80]		Wheelock believes the school should be legally incorporated.
[80-97]		Wheelock says that it is best in the beginning that the American Trustees he has already named should be in this corporation.
[97-109]	Therefore we ordain etc. that Dartmouth College be erected in N.H. for education of Indian youth in order to Christianize them, and also to educate English and others.
[109-117]	The trustees will be a body politic.
[117-134]	These are the members, there shall be twelve of them.
[135-168]		They shall be able to hold property, etc.
[169-189]		They shall meet once a year at Dartmouth, with Wheelock setting the first date within a year.
[189-198]		A quorum is seven, majority rules.
[198-213]	All officers must take swear to support the line of Princess Sophia against the Prince of Wales, an oath that is to be recorded in college records.
[214-225]		The President or three Trustees can call interim meetings for minor matters.
[225-238]		Eleazar Wheelock is appointed President with the ability to choose his successors.
[238-251]		The Trustees shall appoint a new President if one fails, with the Senior Professor or Tutor serving in the interim.
[251-260]		The Trustees may hire and fire tutors and professors.
[260-273]		The Trustees hire and fire officers and empower them to act as any others in the Realm do.
[273-284]		The Trustees shall appoint replacements to fill openings in the board.
[284-291]		Eight trustees will be Freeholders of N.H. and seven laymen.
[291-306]	The Trustees may make laws to govern the college that accord with British and provincial law and do not exclude anyone on account of religion.
[306-313]		Laws that are made are binding and officers may execute them.
[313-322]	To encourage students, the trustees may grant such degrees and honorary degrees as are granted in Oxford, Cambridge or other colleges in the Realm.
[322-324]		The Trustees shall give diplomas for graduates to keep.
[324-332]	The Trustees shall design and use a seal for all college business.
[332-341]	Trustees have the authority to appoint officers not named here, empowered as any in the Realm.
[342-355]	The President shall give an annual report to the Trust in England of the use of the English fund and of future plans and remarkable occurrences so they can publish it.
[355-358]		This is to continue as long as the board lasts and there are Indians benefiting from the fund.
[358-369]	This charter shall be legally in effect, notwithstanding errors etc.
[369-389]		All privileges etc. in the charter are granted to the Trustees as the seal of New Hampshire testifies, witness John Wentworth this day etc. Recorded by Theodore Atkinson in the book of charters. Signatures.

The New Hampshire Legislature purported to amend the charter in an Act of June 27, 1816 in response to the Trustees' removal of President John Wheelock. The Act changed the name of the institution to Dartmouth University; increased the number of Trustees from twelve to twenty-one; and created a board of twenty-five Overseers including ex officio the Governor and Council, the President of the Senate and Speaker of the House, and the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor of Vermont.

The Trustees refused to accept the amendments on August 27, 1816. The Legislature then voted on December 18, 1816 to give the Governor the power to fill the vacancies left by the Trustees who would not submit and lowered the number required for a quorum.¹

The college continued to refuse to submit and commenced a state court suit to recover its status; the school had to sue for possession of the charter document itself, valued at $10,000, as well as the seal and the school's records. The case of Trustees of Dartmouth College v. William H. Woodward went to the Supreme Court, where Daniel Webster '01 argued the side of the college. He phrased his partisan view of the document this way: "A charter of more liberal sentiments, of wiser provisions, drawn with more care, or in a better spirit, could not be expected at any time or from any other source."²

The Court's February 2,1819 decision in the Dartmouth College Case, in the opinion by Chief Justice John Marshall, declared the Acts unconstitutional interferences with the obligations of a contract, whether between Wheelock and the Crown or between the donors and the Crown or in some other form. Thus the Court invalidated the Legislature's changes, dispatching Dartmouth University and restoring Dartmouth College to its buildings, charter, seal and existence. By the twentieth century the case had become a milestone in constitutional jurisprudence.³

It is not that the college was averse to university status or state influence per se. The school used the terms "college" and "university" almost interchangeably in its early years. The college accepted state grants of land and money, including state funding for the construction of its medical school a few years before the case arose, and included in its first board of Trustees the Governor, the President of Governor's Council, two Council members, the Speaker of the N.H. House, and an Assistant of the Colony of Connecticut. The college would accept some state support through the early twentieth century, in gratitude for which it named a dormitory "New Hampshire Hall." And the 1819 decision, while important in economic history, did not spare other "private" schools from state interference.

Chief Justice John Marshall's opinion

from the Marshall section of an American History site at the University of Groningen, Netherlands

Robert C. Palmer's annotations about the case

his opinion in Documents for American Legal History

---

¹ Charles Franklin Emerson, preparer, "Historical Sketch," in General Catalogue of Dartmouth College and the Associated Schools 1769-1910 including a Historical Sketch of the College (Hanover, N.H.: Dartmouth College, 1910-11), 35-6; Richard N. Current, "'It is... a small college... yet, there are those who live it:' Dartmouth College v. Woodward," American Heritage 14, no. 5 (August 1963): 11-15, 81-84; Charter of Dartmouth College (rev. October 17, 2007), 3 n.2.

² Emerson, 21, 37; Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 17 U.S. 518 (1819)

³ Emerson, 31.

State Officers:   In June 1807, the Legislature enacted the Second College Grant Act, proposing to amend the Charter to make the three members of the Governor's Council, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the Chief Justice of the Superior Court Trustees ex officio in respect to the Grant and any future grant.¹ The Board is presumed to have adopted this amendment, although it is not clear how much it has been expected to follow the new requirement.

School Income:   Originally the Charter stated that "[We grant that the Trustees shall hold property] nevertheless that the yearly value of the Premises do not exceed the Sum of six thousand pounds Sterling" [155-156]. In 1883, the legislature passed an Act stating: "The Trustees of Dartmouth College may have, accept, receive, and hold, for the use of said College, any and all rents, profits, annuities, gifts, legacies, donations, and bequests of any kind whatsoever, which may come into their hands in that behalf." The Act became effective on July 13, 1883 and the Trustees accepted it as a Charter amendment on December 20, 1883.²

Alumni Trustees:   The legislature passed a law in 1891 that, if the Board had accepted it, would have amended the Charter to add five new trustee seats to the board of twelve. The new seats would have been reserved for people elected directly by alumni and limited to terms of five years. The board did not adopt this proposed amendment, and the Act expired by its own terms.³

Property Ownership:   In 1893, the legislature proposed that the Board be authorized to take and hold up to $25,000 worth of stock in the Hanover Water Works Company.⁴

Meeting Times:  A legislative Act of 1893 stated: "The Trustees of Dartmouth College may hold a legal meeting at any time, upon such notice as may be prescribed by a rule adopted by them, . . . " The Trustees accepted the Act as an amendment to the Charter on May 3, 1893.⁵

Local Trustees:   The legislature passed an Act stating that the Trustees, when filling vacancies, "may elect persons not resident in New Hampshire to a number not exceeding five." The Trustees accepted this proposal as an amendment on May 3, 1893.⁶   (William Schpero's description of this amendment states that it gave the Board of Trustees the right to meet without informing the state and required all members to be state residents.⁷)

Local Trustees:   In 1921, the legislature amended the 1893 Act to replace "five" with "seven" as the number of persons not resident in New Hampshire who may be elected to the Board. The Trustees amended the Charter to reflect the changed Act on April 22, 1921.⁸

Number of Trustees:   The legislature enacted a proposed amendment in 1961 that would change the number of Trustees from 12 to 16. The Board accepted the amendment on April 21, 1961.⁹ The Board accepted alumni nominations for two of the new seats, raising the number of alumni nominations to seven.

Local Trustees:   The legislature passed an Act in 1961 amending the 1893 Act, as amended, by substituting "eleven" for "seven" in order to expand once again the number of non-resident Trustees who may be elected. The Board amended the Charter to reflect this amendment to the 1893 Act on April 21, 1961.¹⁰

Local Trustees:   The legislature passed an Act in 1967 that amended the 1893 Act yet again, replacing the prior section 1 with this language: "Section 1. The Trustees of Dartmouth College may hold a legal meeting at any time, upon such notice as may be prescribed by a rule adopted by them, and, in filling vacancies in the board, may elect persons who are either resident or not resident in New Hampshire." The Trustees adopted this proposal as an amendment to the Charter on April 14, 1967.¹¹

"Home Rule":   The legislature passed a law in 2003 stating: "Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, Dartmouth college shall be permitted to amend its charter in accordance with the provisions of RSA 292:7, provided that the governor shall continue to serve as an ex officio member of the board of trustees."¹²

Number of Trustees:   The Trustees amended the Charter by a vote of November 15, 2003 to change the number of Trustees from 16 to not more than 22, including the two Trustees ex officio.¹³ The Board added only two of those seats by the fall of 2007, however, resulting in eight Alumni, eight Charter, and two ex-officio seats.

Number of Trustees:   The Trustees amended the Charter by a vote of September 8, 2007, changing the number of Trustees from 18 to as many as 26 including the two ex officio.¹⁴

Bylaws:   The Charter empowered the Trustees "fully & lawfully to make and establish such Ordinances Orders & Laws as may tend to the good & wholesome government of the said College [296-298]. The Board resolved in September 2007 to adopt formal bylaws.

Meeting Times:   Originally the Charter stated that "[We grant] that there shall be once a year & every year a meeting of said Trustees held at said Dartmouth College" [172-180]. On May 5, 1893, the Board adopted a rule stating that "special meetings . . . may be called by order of the President upon seven days notice deposited in the post office."¹⁵

Alumni Trustees:   On June 23, 1891, the Trustees adopted this resolution:

I. Resolved, that the graduates of the College, the Thayer School and the Chandler School, of at least five years standing, may nominate a suitable person for election to each of the five trusteeships, next becoming vacant on the board of trustees of the College (except those held by the Governor and President) and may so nominate for his successors in such trusteeship;

II. Resolved, that whenever any such vacancy shall occur in such trusteeship or the succession thereto, the trustees will take no action to fill the same until the expiration of three months after notice to the Secretary of the Alumni of the occurrence of such vacancy, unless a nomination therefor[e] shall be sooner presented by the Alumni to said Trustees.

III. Resolved, that this plan of nomination shall be taken to supersede the plan heretofore adopted in 1876.¹⁶

The Board has modified or replaced the resolution several times in succession, such as when it permitted Medical School and Tuck School alumni to nominate trustees, when it changed "five" to "seven" and then "eight" trusteeships, when it omitted the requirement of five years' standing, and when it ignored or omitted the Chandler School reference.

The Association of Alumni adopted resolutions that were similar but not identical to those above on June 24, 1891.¹⁷

The Oath:   The Oath is no longer administered or entered in the records.

Presidential Succession:   Eleazar Wheelock used his will to bequeath the presidency to his son John in 1779, but no president has chosen his successor since: "[We] do will give & grant to him in said Office full power authority & right to nominate appoint constitute & ordain by his last will such suitable & meet person or Persons as he shall chuse to succeed him in the Presidency" [231-233].

Alumni Nominations:   With each Charter amendment expanding the number of Trustees (1961, 2003, and 2007), the Board resolved to accept a certain number of nominations from the alumni. The specific numbers were, respectively: seven, up to ten (with only eight reached), and eight.¹⁸

---

¹ Richardson, 1: 89; Charter (rev. October 17, 2007), 3 n.2.

² Charles Franklin Emerson, preparer, "Historical Sketch," in General Catalogue of Dartmouth College and the Associated Schools 1769-1910 including a Historical Sketch of the college (Hanover, N.H.: Dartmouth College, 1910-11), 22; 1883 N.H. Laws, Chap. 177. Trustees' Records 4, p. 346; Charter (rev. October 17, 2007), 4, n. 3.

³ Leon Burr Richardson, A History of Dartmouth College (Hanover: Dartmouth College Publications, 1932), ___; 1891 N.H. Laws, Chap. 5; Charter (rev. October 17, 2007), 3 n.2.

⁴1893 N.H. Laws, Chap. 290, sec. 5; Charter (rev. October 17, 2007), 4, n. 4.

⁵ 1893 N.H. Laws, Chap. 43, s. 1; Trustees' Records 5, p.49; Charter (rev. October 17, 2007), 6, n. 5.

⁶ Richardson, 1: 89; 1893 N.H. Laws, Chap. 43, sec. 1; Trustees' Records 5, p. 49; Charter (rev. October 17, 2007), 8, n. 7.

⁷ William Schpero, "Mooney Moves on Bill to Let State 'Check' Dartmouth Charter," The Dartmouth (3 November 2007), available at http://thedartmouth.com/2007/11/03/news/mooney/ (viewed 21 November 2007).

⁸ Richardson, 1: 89; 1921 N.H. Laws, Chap. 245; Trustees' Records 7, p. 15; Charter (rev. October 17, 2007), 8, n. 7.

⁹ 1961 N.H. Laws, Chap. 320; Trustee Records 12, p. 260; Charter (rev. October 17, 2007), 3 n. 2.

¹⁰ 1961 N.H. Laws, Chap. 320; Trustees' Records 12, p. 260; Charter (rev. October 17, 2007), 8, n. 7.

¹¹ Schpero. 1967 N.H. Laws, Chap. ___; Trustees' Records 14, p. 174; Charter (rev. October 17, 2007), 8, n. 7.

¹² 2003 N.H. Laws 0161 (Senate Bill 133).

¹³ Dartmouth College Office of Public Affairs, "Dartmouth Trustees Vote to Expand Size of Board," press release (November, 17 2003) ; Charter (rev. October 17, 2007), 4 n. 2.

¹⁴ Ed Haldeman to the Dartmouth Community, letter (September 8, 2007), available at http://www.dartmouth.edu/~news/features/governance/haldeman-090807.html (viewed November 21, 2007); Charter (rev. October 17, 2007), 4 n. 2.

¹⁵ Emerson, 8 n1; Trustees' Records 5, p. 62; Charter (rev. October 17, 2007), 6, n. 5.

¹⁶ Emerson, 50; Richardson, 1: 101; Trustees' Records 4, p. 528; Charter (rev. October 17, 2007), 8, n. 6.

¹⁷ "Dartmouth's Alumni Meet," New York Times (June 25, 1891).

¹⁶ Annotation to October 2007 copy of Charter, contained in exhibit attached to memorandum in support of motion to dismiss suit of Association of Alumni, available at http://www.dartmouth.edu/~news/features/governance/aoasuit/exhibits.pdf (viewed January 24, 2008).