University of Nauvoo
university in Illinois (1841–1845)
The University of Nauvoo was a short-lived university in Nauvoo, Illinois.
After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints had been expelled from Missouri, they crossed into Illinois and settled in Nauvoo in 1839. They were granted a city charter from the Illinois state legislature in December 1840, which included authorization to found a university. The school was founded in 1841 as the University of the City of Nauvoo.
Several notable leaders in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints acted as officials and staff. The chancellor was John C. Bennett, the registrar was William Law, and among the regents were Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Hyrum Smith, William Marks, Samuel H. Smith, Daniel H. Wells, Newel K. Whitney, Charles C. Rich, Don Carlos Smith, John P. Greene, Elias Higbee, James Adams, Robert B. Thompson, Samuel C. Bennett, and George Miller. On February 15, 1841, James Kelley (A. M., Trinity College, Dublin) was elected as university president.
The institution "probably was among the first municipal universities in the United States". A building committee was organized, though there was no campus. Many American colleges at that time were "one-building affairs" and "in fact not colleges at all, but glorified high schools or academies that presumed to offer degrees." Shortly after its organization, the Nauvoo city council delegated oversight of common schools to the university regents and chancellor.
“University of Nauvoo” enters the record as university in Illinois (1841–1845). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what University, Nauvoo and university can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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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 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q17144844. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1839, 1840 and 1841.
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This entry incorporates text from “University of Nauvoo” 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.