Manasseh Cutler, Rufus Putnam, Winthrop Sargeant, and Benjamin Tupper of the Ohio Company conceived Ohio University, which was encouraged by the Ordinance of 1787 and the Northwest Territorial Legislature in 1799, incorporated as the American Western University in 1802, and chartered by the Ohio State Legislature on February 18, 1804. It was the first institution of higher learning in the Northwest Territory, second west of the Allegheny Mountains, and the first in the United States to be endowed with land by the government, with proceeds from two townships set aside to support its operations. Opened on June 1, 1809, as an academy with three students, it awarded its first undergraduate degrees in 1815. The Ordinance of 1787 declared that religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, meant that schools and the means of education should forever be encouraged. Land laws for Ohio in 1804 established an university in the town of Athens by the name and style of Ohio University. Thomas Ewing and John Hunter, Class of 1815, earned the first college degrees in the Northwest Territory. Cutler Hall, built between 1816 and 1819, is the oldest building dedicated to higher education in the Northwest Territory and is on the National Register of Historic Places.