Ezra Goodrich raised the original stock of Milton Academy

The evidence

• “He has been an active participator in Milton events and filled many local offices of responsibility and trust in town, in church, in college, in schools and societies, etc. He raised the original stock of Milton Academy in 1854 and furnished the money (by loans to the subscribers) that secured the control of this institution to his denomination — the Seventh-Day Baptists ; in 1868, the institution having become a college (its founder, Joseph Goodrich, having died), and the college President having involved himself and certain trustees in the erection of an addition to the college, their notes for $1,500 of the amount being held by the bank in Janesville, and near protest, and without a dollar in the treasury or that could be raised to pay them (a special effort of the college Trustees having been made and utterly failed), Ezra Goodrich finally determined to make a personal effort to set the institution entirely out of debt and to secure for it an endowment fund. Having his house completed, but not yet occupied, he adopted the novel expedient of getting up a big party (but keeping the purpose carefully concealed); he accordingly gave out invitations to about 300 persons to assemble ”

  1879-history-of-rock-county/25-bios-milton.md, PDF p. 818 / book p. 822

  Butterfield, C. W., et al. The History of Rock County, Wisconsin: its early settlement, growth, development, resources, etc. Chicago: Western Historical Company, 1879. Cornell University Library via the Internet Archive, archive.org/details/cu31924028871585.

  Grade A: Found on a page of one of our sources