students, 52 of whom were from other states such as New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Virginia. For the 1837–1838 school year, there were 91 students enrolled, 43 of whom were from Missouri, with 16 states represented in the student body. The financial panic of 1837 led to a decline in enrollment. There were only 70 students in 1838, and 62 in 1839. By 1841, there were only 47 students. Marion College started its final term in operation on May 5, 1843. Funding For unknown reasons, the founders of Marion College did not seek funding from the Missouri state legislature, which showed considerable interest in manual labor schools in the 1830s, or from the state seminary fund. Marion College initially received a pledge for $10,000 from the education board of the Presbyterian Church to purchase land, but the agreement was dissolved after a misunderstanding. In April 1833, founders Nelson, Muldrow and Clark borrowed $20,000 from a bank in New York City which they used to purchase nearly 5,000 acres of land. At this point, they had envisioned hiring 12 professors and having at least 420 students. In 1834, they traveled East and raised another $19,000. A major donor to the school was Reverend Ezra Stiles Ely, who joined the faculty and invested between $60,000 to $100,000 of his own money. Ely was put in charge of the lower campus. Large-scale building work began in the summer of 1835. By this time, the trustees of Marion College announced that they hoped to add a law school and a medical school in the future. They were also considering opening a girls' school nearby. The Philadelphia campus included "a president's house, a recitation hall, dining hall, all in brick, and the famous 'Brick Row' of twenty-eight dormitories." The "lower" campus near Ely included "a one-story brick boarding house, 90 x 26 feet, with a kitchen back, six brick cottages, two one-story frame cottages, a frame storehouse, log-cabins, barns, a blacksmith shop, and other buildings." Marion College was also part of a massive speculative scheme on the part of William Muldrow and Ezra Stiles Ely. Together, they sold lots of land in Marion City, which Muldrow envisioned as the future "metropolis of the West", as well as Philadelphia, and promoted the development of the Marion City and Missouri railroad. The speculative bubble burst after the financial panic of 1837 led to the ruin of many