Columbia College is the oldest undergraduate college of Columbia University, a private Ivy League research university in New York City. Situated on the university's main campus in Morningside Heights in the borough of Manhattan, it was founded by the Church of England in 1754 as King's College by royal charter of King George II of Great Britain. It is Columbia University's traditional undergraduate program, offering BA degrees, and is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York and the fifth oldest in the United States.
First skin of the Charter of King's College, 1754
College Hall in 1790
Hamilton Hall (left), new home of Columbia College, and Hartley Hall, the college's first dormitory, in 1907
Van Amringe Quadrangle houses a memorial to John Howard Van Amringe, who served as the college's first dean after the formation of Columbia University
John Jay
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John Jay was an American statesman, diplomat, abolitionist, signatory of the Treaty of Paris, and a Founding Father of the United States. He served from 1789 to 1795 as the first chief justice of the United States and from 1795 to 1801 as the second governor of New York. Jay directed U.S. foreign policy for much of the 1780s and was an important leader of the Federalist Party after the ratification of the United States Constitution in 1788.
Jay's childhood home in Rye, New York is a New York State Historic Site and Westchester County Park
Jay's retirement home near Katonah, New York is a New York State Historic Site
The Treaty of Paris, by Benjamin West (1783) (Jay stands farthest to the left). The British delegation refused to pose for the painting, leaving it unfinished.