A pioneering manual labor college in antebellum Missouri, chartered in 1831 and closed by 1844.
Marion College operated three departments: a preparatory school, a classical literary or collegiate department emphasizing Greek, Latin, and humanities, and a theological seminary established in 1835. The institution was conceived as a manual labor college where students would work several hours daily on assigned farmland to offset tuition and living costs. Faculty included notable scholars such as Ezra Stiles Ely (professor of polemic theology), William S. Potts (belles lettres and moral philosophy), and John Thomson (natural philosophy, mathematics, and chemistry).
Founded by Reverend David Nelson, William Muldrow, and Dr. David Clark, Marion College attracted students and faculty from eastern states and was described as having 'the airs of Yale and Harvard.' However, Nelson's abolitionist views made him unpopular in proslavery Marion County; he was driven from the state in 1836. The college was also entangled in a speculative bubble involving land sales in Marion City and a planned railroad. Enrollment dropped sharply after the financial panic of 1837, falling from 91 students in 1837–38 to 47 by 1841. The college closed in spring 1844; its buildings and 1,350 acres were purchased by the Masonic Grand Lodge of Missouri in September 1842.
The founders initially received a $10,000 pledge from the Presbyterian Church education board but the agreement dissolved. In 1833, they borrowed $20,000 from a New York bank to purchase nearly 5,000 acres, and raised an additional $19,000 in 1834. Major donor Reverend Ezra Stiles Ely invested $60,000–$100,000 and managed the lower campus. The Philadelphia campus featured a president's house, recitation hall, dining hall, and a famous 'Brick Row' of twenty-eight dormitories. The lower campus near Ely included boarding houses, cottages, barns, and workshops.
Marion College educated several figures who achieved prominence in politics and education, including Henry Watkins Allen (17th Governor of Louisiana and Confederate officer), Thomas Hart Benton (Iowa politician and educator), Frederick T. Kemper (founder of Kemper Military School), and Alfred William Lamb (Missouri Congressman and University of Missouri curator).