Nicholas B. Worthington, a magazine and newspaper editor and professor, was acting president from 1864 to 1867.

He ran the college as a preparatory school for boys over 12 until June 1866. It did not open at all the following fall.

Worthington sold 200 acres of the original 428-acre campus to meet outstanding debts. As a result of the college's bankruptcy and the Maryland General Assembly's decision to designate it a Morril land-grant institution, the state took a partial ownership stake in the college.