Eleutherian College, Madison

Eleutherian College, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1993 and declared a National Historic Landmark in 1997, was founded as Eleutherian Institute in 1848 by a group of local anti-slavery Baptists at Lancaster in Jefferson County. The institute's name comes from the Greek word eleutheros, meaning "freedom and equality." The school admitted students without regard to ethnicity or gender, including freed and fugitive slaves. Its first classes began offering secondary school instruction on November 27, 1848. The school was renamed Eleutherian College in 1854, when it began offering college-level coursework. It is the second college in the United States west of the Allegheny Mountains and the first in Indiana to provide interracial education. The restored three-story stone chapel and classroom building was constructed between 1853 and 1856 and presently serves as a local history museum. ()