The Presidents to 1893

1842–1893 · the succession in Sorin's lifetime

Sorin held the presidency without interruption from 1844 to May 1865, doubling as local superior of the congregation, with Alexis Granger — arrived 1844 — his first vice-president and Cointet his second. The succession in his lifetime runs whole in the jubilee history's table. Patrick Dillon, vice-president from 1858, held the presidency for the year or more after Sorin (1865–1866), developed the commercial and scientific courses, and died at Chicago on 15 November 1868. William Corby served from August 1866 to 1872, the standard of education, in the history's judgment, substantially elevated, and again from 1877 to 1881 — the presidency that carried the fire. Augustin Lemonnier, Sorin's nephew, chosen at the general chapter of 1872, founded the students' circulating library that became the Lemonnier Library, and died on 29 October 1874; Father Gillespie died twelve days later, and the Dillons in 1868 — the history prints the deaths as a cluster, a founding generation going within a few years. Patrick Colovin acted from Lemonnier's death and held the presidency to 1877, the higher-studies standard, the record says, sensibly raised. Thomas E. Walsh, barely past twenty-eight at his elevation in 1881 and vice-president and director of studies through the preceding four years, held the office until his death on 17 July 1893, at about forty; his stated mission, in the history's words, was to lift the courses "to a higher plane... equal to the greatest universities of the land," and the jubilee history's verdict is that "in his thirteen years' presidency, he had made Notre Dame a grand institution of learning" — the Archives' table dates his presidency 1881–1893, and the count and the dates stand as their carriers give them. Andrew Morrissey, at Notre Dame since he was twelve and Walsh's director of studies, succeeded at Walsh's expressed wish.

1. A Brief History of the University of Notre Dame du Lac (1895), presidents and vice-presidents tables
2. University of Notre Dame Archives, Presidents of the University of Notre Dame