What's Our Past

The Sloop Hero Weathervane
Colby WeathervaneColby's Mayflower Hill campus is a short poke from the nearest salt water, and the hill was named for its spring wildflowers, not the pilgrim ship. So what's with the sailing-ship weathervane on the library tower? It is the sloop Hero, and it goes back to the College's first president. In 1818, before Maine was even a state, Jeremiah Chaplin and his family sailed from Boston to Maine and up the Kennebec River in the Hero to open the College. When Colby moved from its old downtown campus to Mayflower Hill, it built the 191-foot Miller Library, then the tallest building in Maine. An alumnus found a drawing of the Hero, a six-foot-long bronze replica weathervane was made for the tower, and the legend and the image of the Hero connect today's Colby with its rich history.    

.A Brief History of Colby

 
A Tradition of Innovation
Established as Maine Literary and Theological Institution (1813)
First college-based anti-slavery society (1833)
First previously all-male college in New England to admit women (1871)
First college in Northeast to adopt Jan Plan, 4-1-4 calendar (1961)
Pioneer in environmental science and environmental studies (1971)
Pioneering African-American Studies program (1973)
Pioneered collegiate outdoor orientation trips with COOT program (1974)
Nation's first NCAA varsity women's ice hockey game, vs. Brown (1975)
First college to divest in apartheid-South African investments (1980)
First college to issue universal student e-mail accounts (1983)
Founded Oak Institute for the Study of International Human Rights (1999)
Launched new Colby Green campus district and Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement (2003)
Received national Senator Paul Simon Award for Internationalizing the Campus (2005)