The history of Bates College began shortly before its founding on March 16, 1855, in Lewiston, Maine.
 The university was founded by Oren Burbank Cheney and Benjamin Bates.
 Originating as a Free Will Baptist institution, it has since secularized and established a liberal arts curriculum.
 After the mysterious 1853 burning of Parsonsfield Seminary, Cheney wanted to create another seminary in a more central part of Maine: Lewiston, a then-booming industrial economy.
 He met with religious and political leaders in Topsham, to discuss the formation of such a school, recruiting much of the college's first trustees, most notably Ebenezer Knowlton.
 After a well-received speech by Cheney, the group successfully petitioned the Maine State Legislature to establish the Maine State Seminary.
 At its founding it was the first coeducational university in New England.
 Soon after it was established, Canadian and American donors stepped forward to finance the seminary, developing the school in an affluent residential district of Lewiston.
 The university struggled to finance its operations after the financial crisis of 1857, requiring extra capital to remain afloat.
 Cheney's political activities attracted Benjamin Bates who was interested in furthering his business interests in Maine.
 Bates donated installments of tens of thousands of dollars to the college to usher it out of the crisis.
A recall election (also called a recall referendum or representative recall) is a procedure by which voters can remove an elected official from office through a direct vote before that official's term has ended.
 Recalls, which are initiated when sufficient voters sign a petition, have a history dating back to ancient Athenian democracy and feature in several contemporary constitutions.
 In indirect or representative democracy people's representatives are elected and these representatives rule for a specific period of time.
 But if any representative comes to be perceived as not properly discharging their responsibilities, then they can be called back with the written request of specific number or proportion of voters.
The Bates family ( ) is an American political and banking family from Maine and Massachusetts whose members include the first and only Commander of the Devonshire Forces as well as a prominent member of the prestigious Hell Fire Club, the 26th U.S. Attorney General serving under Abraham Lincoln, the second Governor of Missouri, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Arkansas, and a prominet textile tycoon who founded the Bates Manufacturing Company and Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.
 The family includes various merchants, politicians, inventors, clergymen, artists, and socialites.
Bates College ( ; legally incorporated as the President and Trustees of Bates College) is a private liberal arts college in Lewiston, Maine.
 It was founded by abolitionist statesmen and established with funds from industrialist and textile tycoon, Benjamin Bates.
 The college is the oldest coeducational college in New England, the third oldest in Maine, and the first to grant a degree to a woman in New England.
Daniel C. Heath was born in Franklin County, Maine in 1843.
 He studied at Nichols Latin School at Bates College (then called the Maine State Seminary) and then attended the college until his completion of his first degree in 1864.
 He then went on to attend Amherst College and graduated in 1868.
 Heath worked as a high school principal for two years before briefly attending Bangor Theological Seminary.
 After traveling through Europe for a year, Heath returned to the United States and worked for Edwin Ginn, a publisher.
 Together they started a firm called Ginn & Heath.
 Heath then sold his interest in the company and founded D. C. Heath and Company in Boston in 1885.
 He died in 1908.
The Campus of Bates College includes a 133-acre main area, in Lewiston, Maine, and which is maintained by Bates College.
 It also includes a 600-acre Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area, and an 80-acre Coastal Center fresh water habitat at Shortridge.
 The eastern campus is situated around Lake Andrews, where many residential halls are located.
 The earliest buildings of the college were directly designed by Boston architect Gridley J.F. Bryant, and subsequent buildings follow his overall architectural template.
 The quad of the campus connects academic buildings, athletics arenas, and residential halls.
 The overall architectural design of the college can be traced through the Colonial Revival architecture movement, and has distinctive neoclassical, Georgian, and Gothic features.
 Many buildings are named after prominent abolitionists, politicians, businessmen, alumni, and academics.
Cecil Higgs (28 June 1898, Thaba Nchu, Orange Free State - 16 June 1986, Cape Town, South Africa) was a South African artist.
 She was the third child and second girl of the five children of Clement Higgs and his wife Florence.
 In 1912, Higgs's father died at the age of 50.
 In 1916, Higgs became a boarder at the Wesleyan Girls' High School (now Kingswood College) in Grahamstown.
 Her oldest brother, Clement jr., was killed in 1916 in World War I.
 Higgs briefly enrolled in the Grahamstown School of Art in 1918, however in 1920 she sailed to England and stayed abroad for 13 years.
 She trained in London at the Byam Shaw School of Art, at Goldsmiths' College and, from 1926, at the Royal Academy of Arts.
 Higgs was called back to South Africa, however, due to the illness of her mother, who died in 1934.
 Higgs held her first solo exhibition in the Domestic Science hall of Stellenbosch University in 1935, meeting the painter Wolf Kibel and the sculptor Lippy Lipshitz.
 In 1938, she held a joint exhibition with Rene Graetz, Maggie Laubser and Lippy Lipshitz.
 In 1938 she returned to Paris, however she left due to World War II.
 Higgs joined the New Group which was revolting against tradition forms of art.
 In 1939, Higgs began a lifelong friendship with English painter John Dronsfield.
 In 1953, she held her only solo exhibition in the Orange Free State.
 Higgs eventually settled in Sea Point, however the influence of the sea in her paintings led to her label as a marine painter.
 In 1964, she built a house in Onrust.
 Higgs was eventually diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease and in 1984 she moved to Protea Park Nursing Home where she died on 16 June 1986.
The Bates Bobcats are the athletic teams of Bates College.
 The college's official mascot is the bobcat, and official color is garnet.
 The school sponsors 32 varsity sports (16 men's, 16 women's), most of which compete in the Division III New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC).
 The school's men's and women's ski teams and men's and women's squash teams compete in Division I.
 Bates has rivalries with Princeton in Squash and Dartmouth in Skiing and selected hockey bouts.
 The college also competes with its Maine rivals Bowdoin and Colby in the Colby-Bates-Bowdoin Consortium (CBB).
 This is one of the oldest football rivalries in the United States.
 This consortium is a series of historically highly competitive football games ending in the championship game between the three schools.
 Bates has won this championship at total of twelve times including 2014, 2015, and in 2016 beat Bowdoin 24–7 after their 21–19 abroad victory over Colby.
 Bates is currently the holder of the winning streak, and has the record for biggest victory in the athletic conference with a 51-0 shutout of Colby College.
 The three colleges also contest the Colby-Bates-Bowdoin Chase Regatta.
 The college is the all-time leader of the Chase Regatta with a total of 14 composite wins, followed by Colby's 5 wins, concluded with Bowdoin's 2 wins.
This list is of notable people associated with Bates College includes matriculating students, alumni, faculty, trustees and honorary degree recipients of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.
 Members of the Bates community are known as "Batesies".
 This list also includes students of the affiliated Maine State Seminary, Nichols Latin School, and Cobb Divinity School.
 Bates alumni have included leaders in science, religion, politics, the Peace Corps, medicine, law, education, communications, and business; and acclaimed actors, architects, artists, astronauts, engineers, human rights activists, inventors, musicians, philanthropists, and writers.
 As of 2015, there are 24,000 Bates College alumni.
 In 2016, two Bates alumni were featured on the "Forbes"' 30 Under 30 list.
The Bates College Museum of Art is the art museum of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.
It holds various mediums of arts that showcase Maine and the greater American area.
 The museum's collection offers an overview of modern and contemporary art.
 The Museum publishes numerous art collections, and art publications every year.
 The primary focuses of the main collections are works on paper, including modern and contemporary art including drawings, prints and photographs.

Question: What was the Bates College called back then?
Answer: Maine State Seminary