Which was founded earlier, Amherst College or the University of Pittsburgh?
University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (commonly referred to as Pitt) is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1787 after the American Revolutionary War, it was founded on the edge of the American frontier as the Pittsburgh Academy. It developed and was renamed as Western University of Pennsylvania by a change to its charter in 1819. After surviving two devastating fires and various relocations within the area, the school moved to its current location in the Oakland neighborhood of the city; it was renamed as the University of Pittsburgh in 1908. For most of its history, Pitt was a private institution, until 1966 when it became part of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education.
Zephaniah Swift Moore Zephaniah Swift Moore (November 20, 1770 – June 29, 1823) was an American Congregational clergyman and educator. He taught at Dartmouth College during the early 1810s and had a house built in Hanover, New Hampshire that now serves as Dartmouth's Blunt Alumni Center. He served as the President of Williams College between 1815 and 1821 and the first President of Amherst College between 1821 and 1823. He is most famous for abandoning Williams in order to found Amherst, taking some of the faculty and 15 students with him. Supposedly, he also took portions of the Williams College library with him. Though plausible, this account is unsubstantiated, and was declared false in 1995 by Williams College President Harry C. Payne. Moore died two years after Amherst was founded, and was succeeded by Heman Humphrey, a trustee of Williams College. His departure from Williams established the foundation for the intense Williams-Amherst rivalry that persists to the present. To this day, he is regarded with a measure of derision on the Williams campus.