College of William & Mary

The College of William & Mary is a public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia. Founded in 1693 by letters patent issued by King William III and Queen Mary II, it is the second-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, after Harvard University.

William & Mary educated American presidents Thomas Jefferson , James Monroe , and John Tyler , as well as other key figures pivotal to the development of the United States, including the first President of the Continental Congress Peyton Randolph of Virginia, the first U.S. Attorney General Edmund Randolph of Virginia, the fourth U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall of Virginia, Speaker of the House of Representatives Henry Clay of Kentucky, sixteen members of the Continental Congress, and four signers of the Declaration of Independence, earning it the nickname "the Alma Mater of the Nation." A young George Washington also received his surveyor's license at the college in 1749, and he would become the college's first American chancellor in 1788.

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