Wesleyan University is a highly selectiveprivate liberal arts college founed in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. Wesleyan is the third oldest college in Connecticut, after Yale University (1701) and Trinity College (1823). Founded by Methodist leaders and prominent residents of Middletown, the now secular university was the first institution to be named after John Wesley, the Protestant theologian who was the founder of Methodism. There are about twenty other unrelated colleges and universities subsequently named after Wesley.