When the University of Georgia was incorporated by an act of the General Assembly on January 27, 1785, Georgia became the first state to charter a state-supported university. In 1784 the General Assembly had set aside 40,000 acres of land to endow a college or seminary of learning.

At the first meeting of the board of trustees, held in Augusta on February 13, 1786, Abraham Baldwin was selected president of the university. A native of Connecticut and a graduate of Yale University, Baldwin -- who had come to Georgia in 1784 -- drafted the charter adopted by the General Assembly.

The university was actually established in 1801 when a committee of the board of trustees selected a land site. John Milledge, later a governor of the state, purchased and gave to the board of trustees the chosen tract of 633 acres on the banks of the Oconee River in northeast Georgia.