On December 6, 1849, Franklin College
and Marshall College began to explore the possibility of a merger as a method to secure the future of both institutions. Three
years later, on June 7, 1853, the combined
college was formally dedicated at Lancaster's Fulton Hall. The merger created
an all-male Reformed Church institution that combined the resources
of both schools. James Buchanan, four years shy of becoming the 15th
President of the United States, was
named president of the first Franklin & Marshall board of trustees. The college’s first two presidents, Emanuel Vogel
Gerhart, a Marshall College graduate, and Nevin struggled to keep the young school afloat with an inadequate endowment. But the
hope of creating a reputable liberal arts institution fueled their efforts to push on. “No second- or third-rate school
will do,” said Nevin at the formal dedication of the united college. “We must either have no college at all or else
have one that may be in all respects worthy of the name.”In 1854, Phi Kappa Sigma was
founded as the all-male college's first fraternity. (The chapter existed for
129 years, until losing its national charter in 1983.) Chi Phi, founded later that year, remains the oldest
fraternity still in existence at F&M.On May 16, 1856, Franklin and Marshall College
dedicated its main building, "Recitation Hall." The distinctive, tall-towered structure, designed in the Gothic Revival style, was constructed on "Gallows Hill," the former site of
Lancaster's public executions and the highest point of ground in the city. At the laying of the building's cornerstone in 1853,
Henry Harbaugh, a Marshall College graduate and pastor of the Reformed
Church of Lancaster noted that the city's lowest point was the location of the Lancaster County Prison. Harbaugh stated:
"Thank God! The College stands higher than the jail. Education should be lifted up and let crime sink to the lowest depths!"
Recitation Hall came to be known as Old Main and the ground as College Hill.