The charter, the Act to Incorporate the University of Buffalo that constitutes Chapter 193 of the Laws of New York 1846, is contained in one of several volumes of laws passed during that year and has a permanent home in the New York State Archives and Records Administration in Albany.

The volume containing the charter is being loaned to UB for display in "UB Remembers," a sesquicentennial exhibit being organized by the University Archives. The six-month exhibit will open on March 7.

It will be transferred to representatives of the university Feb. 27, in a ceremony at 3:15 p.m. outside the state Senate chambers in Albany. Accepting it on behalf of the university, and hand-carrying it back to Buffalo, will be UB President William R. Greiner and Leon Henderson, president of the UB Alumni Association. They will be in Albany, along with members of the association's Legislative Action Committee, to meet with state lawmakers as part of the annual UB Day in Albany.

Shonnie Finnegan, UB archivist who arranged for the loan, said that the New York State Archives and Records Administration agreed to lend the volume for the exhibit after careful review of the security, environmental controls and professional care available in University Archives.

Finnegan said this is the first time that the volume will be outside of the state capitol. During UB's centennial celebration in 1946, she noted, the volume was unavailable for loan and organizers of that event had to settle for displaying a photographic copy. The charter consists of six folio-size pages that, like the other chapters of the Laws of New York 1846, are hand-written.

The Act to Incorporate the University of Buffalo was passed by the state Assembly on April 22, 1846, by the state Senate on May 9 and was signed into law by Governor Silas Wright on May 11, 1846.

While colleges and universities often have a sponsoring parent body, the movers behind the chartering of the University of Buffalo were a group of citizens, among them Millard Fillmore, who became its first chancellor and president of the United States.

"These were citizens representing not themselves, but the desire of Buffalonians to have a university," Finnegan explained. While their immediate goal was to open a medical school, they had the foresight to propose a charter for a full university.

The law establishing the university actually created a joint-stock corporation to raise capital, not to exceed $100,000, to get the university off the ground. Individual shares were offered for $20. Finnegan explained that the corporation was viewed by those who invested in it as a philanthropy, that no dividends were paid, nor were they expected to be paid. In 1909, Chapter 193 of New York Laws 1846 was amended to call in the stock of the university. With cancellation of the stock, the university ceased being a stock corporation.