Lawrence University, chartered on January 15, 1847, was the first college in Wisconsin founded as a coeducational institution. Preparatory classes began in 1849, and college classes began in 1853. Its first collegiate class of seven students, four men and three women, graduated in 1857. Milwaukee College was founded as a women’s college in 1851 under the guidance of Catharine Beecher. The Wisconsin Female College, later renamed Downer College for Judge Jason Downer, was founded at Fox Lake in 1854. Those two colleges merged in Milwaukee in 1895 to form Milwaukee-Downer College. In 1964, the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee purchased the Milwaukee-Downer campus, and Milwaukee-Downer College consolidated with Lawrence College, as it was then known, to form today’s Lawrence University.