If you were to walk the countryside of Andover, Massachusetts in the afternoon of September 28, 1808, you would probably hear the chapel bell ringing long before you crested the hill and stumbled across a group of people who had assembled that day.  As the cool fall breeze fluttered in the tall oaks of the Massachusetts countryside, an astute looking man with a receding hairline and premature gray hair is atop a wooden platform addressing the crowd that had gathered. This was not a church meeting. In fact, the man that was speaking was not even a pastor. The man speaking is Timothy Dwight and he is there to preach the opening message for the first academic institution of its kind in the new world.