John Baldwin (founder)
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John Baldwin (October 13, 1799-December 28, 1884) was the founder of Baldwin Institute (later Baldwin University) in Berea, Ohio, which would eventually merge into Baldwin-Wallace College. He was also the founder of Baker University and Baldwin City, Kansas.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
John was born in Branford, Connecticut in 1799. The names of his parents are lost in history. His mother was a well-educated woman, as well as intensely religious. She attempted to become a student at Yale University, but was not allowed because she was a woman. Due to this, John resolved to make no distinction between races or sexes should he ever found a school.[1] His father enlisted in the Continental Army during the American Revolution as a private and left as a captain. When John turned eighteen, he joined the Methodist Church, whose influence led him through the academy, despite being taunted by the aristocrats. As a student at the academy, he paid his way by chopping firewood, ringing the bell, and building fires.[2] Afterwards, he became a teacher in Fishkill, New York, Maryland, and Litchfield, Connecticut. As a teacher in Maryland, his stance on slavery, a well as black people as a whole, was revealed. A mulatto boy was sent to his school daily as a servant for his master's son. Baldwin began to teach them in common. When the student's father found out about this, he demanded Baldwin not teach him any more, to which he replied, "I do not charge anything for teaching him" and continued to teach him.[3]
[edit] Founding Berea
After marrying Mary Chappel on January 31, 1828, they moved to Middeburg Township in Cuyahoga County, Ohio in April of that year. It was there that Baldwin would join forces with James Gilbrith, a disciple of Josiah Holbrook who wanted to found a lyceum village. This village was founded in 1837. Baldwin ran the Lyceum Village School just north of his farm for five years until June 1842, when it went bankrupt.[4] However, one day while walking home, he had an impulse to take a new route across the river on his farm. He noticed a grouping of exposed rocks, which would make superior grindstones. This was the beginning of the Berea grindstone industry.[5] Baldwin would ship his grindstones to Cleveland by ox carts. After the Big Four Railroad was built from Cleveland to Cincinnati, Baldwin built a railroad which would connect his quarries to the Big Four Depot. It was then that Baldwin and the others of the Lyceum Village tried to think of a name for their new town. After Gilbrith proposed Tabor, John Baldwin suggested Berea, citing Acts 17:10-11. After a coin flip, Berea was chosen.[6]
[edit] Baldwin Institute
In 1843, Baldwin noticed that the Norwalk Seminary, located in Norwalk, Ohio, was dissolving due to lack of funds. He approached Thomas Thompson, who was the elder of the Norwalk District (which included Cleveland and Berea), and asked him to visit Berea. At Baldwin's Old Red House, an agreement was made where Baldwin would create a campus on his farm similar to the Norwalk Seminary. Baldwin Institute officially opened in April 9, 1846. It was meant to open in 1845, but the process was delayed until the completion of a building on Baldwin's farm, which was erected by Baldwin himself, made of stone quarried on his farm and brick made of clay.[7] It was open to people of all races, male or female, as Baldwin wanted.[8]
[edit] Life in Kansas
At age 58, Baldwin desired to satisfy his nature of being a pioneer again by moving to Kansas, which was at that time a territory. He arrived as the brunt of the fighting in the territory was ending. Upon his arrival, he founded Baldwin City, built a saw mill and grist mill, and built the first college building in the territory, which would become the foundation for Baker University.[9] Within a couple years, he turned over the town to the Methodist Conference and returned to Berea.
[edit] Philanthropy
[edit] Death
John Baldwin died at his home in Baldwin, Louisiana on Sunday, December 28, 1884, at 10 A.M.[10]
[edit] Personal views
John Baldwin was a person whose views seemed to run counter to the conventional customs of man at the time.[11] Despite his accomplishments, he never wrote a book, held public office, or even kept books.[12] Although he was not an abolitionist by definition, he has no problem teaching blacks and whites as equals, as evident by opening Baldwin Institute without regard to race of gender. His parents taught him to fear god, and from being raised as such he devoted himself to living humbly, righteously, godly, and being kind to the poor,[13] as well as joining the Methodist Church.[14]
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- Clary, Norman J. Baldwin-Wallace College. Cradles of Conscience. Ed. John Wiliam Oliver, Jr. Kent State University Press, 2003. 39-51
- Markham, Virginia Gatch. John Baldwin and son Milton come to Kansas: an early history of Baldwin City, Baker University, and Methodism in Kansas. Baldwin City, Kansas. The University, 1982.
- Webber, A.R. Life of John Baldwin, Sr. Caxton Press, 1925.
