Sidney Brownsberger

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Sidney Brownsberger

Sidney Brownsberger (born September 20, 1845, Perrysburg, Ohio; died August 13, 1930, Fletcher, North Carolina) was an American Seventh-day Adventist educator and administrator. Brownsberger completed preparatory studies at Baldwin University in 1865. He enrolled in the University of Michigan and pursued a classical degree and graduated with an A.B. degree in 1869. While there he became a Seventh-day Adventist but his conflict as manager of a boarding house interfered and he ceased observing the Sabbath. After his graduation he became a superintendent of a public school in Maumee, Ohio, and in 1872 superintendent of public schools in Delta, Ohio. It was here that he resumed his observance of the Sabbath. The following year (1873) Adventist church leaders invited him to head the fledgling school that had been established in Battle Creek, Michigan. Brownsberger became the first principal of Battle Creek College, now Andrews University. Later that year he married Florinda Camp and in 1875 received an M.A. from the University of Michigan. Poor health forced him to retire from his leadership role at Battle Creek College and he moved to Cheboygan, Michigan, where he and his wife taught public school. In 1882 Brownsberger became president of Healdsburg College. In the Spring of 1886 he resigned and moved back to Cheboygan, Michigan where was self-employed for a year, and did not oppose his wife seeking a divorce. In October 1887 he became reacquainted with Edith Donaldson and married in November.

Some Adventists disagreed with Brownsberger's remarriage after his first wife divorced him; as a result, and despite support for him from Ellen G. White, he stayed out of official denominational employment. He moved to North Carolina, where he and A. W. Spalding founded the Asheville Agricultural School and Mountain Sanitorium in 1909. He lived the rest of his life in North Carolina where he died and is now buried.