Philip Schuyler, an Albany native, stayed true to his word. Despite growing political pressure on him to support an Albany committee’s competing application for a charter to establish a northern college in his home city, he remained committed to the citizens of Schenectady. In a letter to the Albany committee in response to their plea Schuyler writes, “ I am bound by every consideration which ought to influence a moral mind to support the application of our brothers of Schenectady…”
On February 1795 the Regents met again to consider the latest Schenectady petition and voted in favor of the long desired Union College charter, the first the N.Y. State Board of Regents had ever granted. Philip Schuyler continued to demonstrate his support for the new college not only through personal financial contributions. In his capacity as state senator, Schuyler proposed a legislative provision to pay to the trustees of Union College 1,500 pounds to be applied to the purchase of teaching apparatus and books.
In accordance with its charter Union College became the first non-sectarian college in the country as intended by its founders. Historians surmise that the name Union was given to the college because it was brought into being by a movement supported by all classes and all religious sects within the community.
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