Carroll College, chartered by the territorial legislature on January 31, 1846, is Wisconsin's oldest college. Named for Charles Carroll, signer of the Declaration of Independence, it advanced the work of Prairieville Academy, founded in 1841 in Prairieville, the town soon to be called Waukesha.

Carroll College opened on September 8, 1846, with an enrollment of five men and a faculty of two. Of the latter, Professor Eleazur Root subsequently became Wisconsin's first superintendent of public instruction, and Professor John W. Sterling served as vice president of the University of Wisconsin from 1869 to 1885. The college became affiliated with the Presbyterian Church in 1852. On land donated by Morris D. Cutler and Charles R. Dakin, both of Waukesha, a two-story stone college building was erected in 1853.

Under presidents John Adams Savage 0850-1863) and Walter Lowry Rankin 0866-1871, 1893-1903) the college grew and became firmly established as Wisconsin's pioneer college.

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