A town of Linn county, Iowa, U.S.A., 16 m. E. of Cedar Rapids. Pop. (1900), 1629; (1905, state census), 1664. Mount Vernon is served by the Chicago & North Western railway. It is the seat of Cornell College (Methodist Episcopal; coeducational), which was opened as the Iowa Conference Seminary in 1853, and was chartered in 1857 under its present name, adopted in honour of William W. Cornell (1823-1870), an iron manufacturer of New York City and a benefactor of the institution. Cornell College includes a collegiate department, an academy, a conservatory of music, a school of art, a school of oratory and a summer school; in 1907-1908 it had 40 instructors and 755 students. Mount Vernon was settled in 1842, was laid out in 1847, and was incorporated as a town in 1869.