The historic founding of Iowa Wesleyan College is rooted in the religious, educational and cultural aspirations of early settlers in the frontier settlement of Mt. Pleasant. Their aspirations were shaped by an impelling vision and a bold determination to build an institute of learning in the rapidly developing southeast corner of the Iowa Territory. On February 17, 1842, the Territorial Legislature granted a charter for the Mt. Pleasant Literary Institute, later named the Mt. Pleasant Collegiate Institute. On March 8, 1843, Aristides Joel Priest Huestis, a New Englander by birth, signed a contract, the first dated document of the Institute, to act as Agent for raising money and supervising construction of the Institute Building. Three days later, four Mt. Pleasant residents donated twenty acres of land in four adjoining plots so that trustees could "within three years from this date erect a substantial building on some part of said donation, which building shall be used and forever appropriated as an institution of higher learning."