In 1867, Reverend Brackett's school came to the notice of John Storer, a philanthropist from Maine, through Rev. Oren B. Cheney, founder of Bates College, a Freewill Baptist school in Maine. Storer offered a $10,000 grant to the Freewill Baptists for "a school which might eventually become a College, to be in located in one of the Southern States, at which youth could be educated without distinction ot race or color", if the Freewill Baptist Church matched his $10,000 donation by January 1, 1868.