This Day in History: <br />First African-American College Is Chartered April 29, 1854 Ashmun Institute was <br />established in southern <br />Chester County, Pennsylvania. Created by an act of the <br />Pennsylvania legislature, the <br />institution was named after Jehudi Ashman. Ashman was the U.S. agent <br />who assisted in the preservation <br />of an African-American colony in <br />Africa that later became Liberia. The institution named for <br />him was initially chartered to <br />provide theological, scientific and <br />classical training to African-Americans. Under its first college <br />president, John Pym Carter, <br />Ashmun Institute opened on January 1, 1857. It was renamed Lincoln University <br />in 1866, after the end of the U.S. Civil War.
