Gideon Blackburn

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gideon Blackburn (August 27, 1772–August 23, 1838) was an American Presbyterian clergyman, born in Augusta County, Virginia, of Scotch-Irish descent. As a youth he studied at Martin Academy in Washington County, Tennessee, was ordained in 1792, and received his preacher's license from the Abingdon Presbytery, Virginia, in 1795. His first notable project (1803-1809) was as a cultural missionary to the Cherokee, opening two schools for Cherokee children in southeast Tennessee -- one at Hiwassee, Charleston, Bradley County, in 1804 (where future Chief John Ross attended), and one at the mouth of Sale Creek, Hamilton County in August 1806. Both schools appear to have been terminated in 1809 due to lack of funding.

Blackburn served as pastor at Marysville and Franklin, Tennessee, in 1811-13, and at Louisville, Kentucky, in 1823-27, and as president of Centre College, Kentucky, from 1827-30. He moved his family to Carlinville, Illinois in 1833, and died there, in the process of founding a new seminary, four days short of his 66th birthday.

Blackburn Theological Seminary, now Blackburn College, in Carlinville, Illinois was named after him in 1859.