The oldest college in New Hampshire is older than the U.S., one of top 15 U.S. colleges

It’s one of the best colleges in the country, according to U.S. News & World Report 2026 ranking of the country’s best colleges, but it also hold another prestigious honor: the oldest college in New Hampshire.

New Hampshire‘s first school, founded seven years before the country, is Dartmouth College, an Ivy League institution along the banks of the Connecticut River in the small town of Hanover.

Since its founding in 1769, Dartmouth has survived through challenges like the Revolutionary War and a U.S. Supreme Court Case.

Here’s what to know about the school’s early history.

History of Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College was originally founded by Rev. Eleazar Wheelock, a Congregational minister from Connecticut. Wheelock suggested the school be named after New Hampshire Gov. John Wentworth, who has provided a land grant, but Gov. Wentworth opted to honor his friend, the Earl of Dartmouth, who provided money for the school.

While the Earl provided money, he wasn’t the only one that contributed. In the early days of conceptualizing the school, Wheelock turned to one of his students, Rev. Samson Occom, an ordained minister of the Mohegan Tribe and writer, with the idea of creating Moor’s Indian Charity School. In 1765, Occom went to England to fundraise, bringing back £12,000, according to Dartmouth Libraries. But while Occom was gone, Wheelock’s focus shifted from a school for native peoples to creating a college for Anglo-Americans, reallocating the funds. Angry, Occom never stepped foot on Dartmouth’s campus.

Founded in 1769, Dartmouth is seven years older than the country. It is one of only nine colonial colleges to be founded before the American Revolution, and it is the only of those nine to conduct its education without interruption through the war.

However, the college as it stands today almost ceased to exist in the 1800s, when the state of New Hampshire attempted to change Dartmouth’s original charter to make it a state university. The case of Dartmouth College vs. Woodward eventually worked its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Dartmouth College prevailed under the leadership of alumnus and lawyer Daniel Webster, who re-founded the college in 1819.

Over a century later, Dartmouth President John Kemeny grappled with Dartmouth’s history with Native peoples. The school only graduated 20 Native students between 1769 and 1970, according to the Dartmouth Native American Program, and Kenney set out to change that, establishing the Native American Program in 1972. More than 1,200 Native American students have graduated from Dartmouth since then.

How highly regarded in Dartmouth University?

Dartmouth College represented New Hampshire in the top 15, finishing in a tie for 13th place with Rhode Island’s Brown University and two other schools, in U.S. News and World Reports recent ranking.

According to U.S. News & World Report, Dartmouth College ranked at No. 13 for its its prestigious 5% acceptance rate, its 6:1 student-faculty ratio and its 75% graduation rate, just to name a few factors. Dartmouth is also ranked highly for its professors, placing third overall in the best undergraduate teaching category.

Dartmouth is one of the eight Ivy League schools. It’s joined by Brown University, Columbia College, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, Yale University.

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: The oldest college in New Hampshire is older than the U.S., one of top 15 U.S. colleges

Reporting by Catherine Messier, USA TODAY NETWORK – New England / The Patriot Ledger.