1869: The college is granted a charter by the Legislature of Pennsylvania to begin operations in its current location on the grounds of Todd's School (founded 1832) and the adjacent Freeland Seminary (founded 1848). Dr. John Henry Augustus Bomberger, for whom the campus' signature Romanesque building is named (see "Gallery", below), served as the college's first president until his death in 1890. Bomberger proposed naming the college after Zacharias Ursinus, a 16th-century German theologian and an important figure in the Protestant Reformation.