After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints had been expelled from Missouri, they crossed into Illinois and settled in Nauvoo in 1839.
They were granted a city charter from the Illinois state legislature in December 1840, which included authorization to found a university.
Shortly after its organization, the Nauvoo city council delegated oversight of common schools to the university regents and chancellor.
[4] However, the University of Nauvoo was ambitious in its plan to offer languages (German, French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew), mathematics, chemistry, geology, literature, and history.
"[6] The Times and Seasons, the church newspaper in Nauvoo, in 1841 announced that "the department of English literature is now in successful operation" and advised that the university was ready to offer a "general course of mathematics, including arithmetic, algebra, geometry, conic sections, plane trigonometry, mensuration, surveying, navigation, analytical, plane and spherical trigonometry, analytical geometry, and the differential and integral calculus."