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St. Bonaventure University

Catholic university in Allegany, New York, USA

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 20, 2026
Entity authorityQ93662 ↗
Source-derived summary

St. Bonaventure University is a private Franciscan university in St. Bonaventure, New York, United States. The Western New York campus is home to 2,134 undergraduate and graduate students, with an additional 919 graduate students enrolled in online programs. The Franciscans established the university in 1858.

In athletics, the St. Bonaventure Bonnies play National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I sports in the Atlantic 10 Conference. Students and alumni often refer to the university as Bona's, derived from the school's name.

History

The college was founded by Utica, New York, financier Nicholas Devereux, one of the first to gain land grants in newly surveyed Cattaraugus County from the Holland Land Company. Devereux founded the town of Allegany on the grant, hoping to build a new city.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “St. Bonaventure University” as catholic university in Allegany, New York, USA. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Bonaventure, University and Catholic.

Editorial reviewA useful synthesis for locating the documentary relationships between formal authority, participants and affected communities. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1858—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1858. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Bonaventure, University and Catholic providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “St. Bonaventure University”, the useful work is to connect “catholic university in Allegany, New York, USA” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q93662. VIAF identifies the subject as 150955274. The Library of Congress control number is n50046532. Authority coordinates are 42.078, -78.481. 5 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1858.

Critical limits

Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “St. Bonaventure University”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow St. Bonaventure University primary sources, St. Bonaventure University archive and Bonaventure research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “St. Bonaventure University”?
  2. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
  3. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “St. Bonaventure University” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.