Jeremiah Chamberlain

Jeremiah Chamberlain
Born January 5, 1794
Gettysburg, Adams County, Pennsylvania
Died September 5, 1851
Lorman, Jefferson County, Mississippi
Education Dickinson College
Princeton Theological Seminary
Occupation Preacher, educator
Religion Presbyterian
Spouse(s) Rebecca (Blain) Chamberlain
Children Susan Ann Chamberlain
Sarah Matilda Chamberlain
Isabella (Chamberlain) Hyland
Rebecca Clarissa (Chamberlain) Sleeper
Relatives William S. Hyland (son-in-law)
Fabius H. Sleeper (son-in-law)

Jeremiah Chamberlain (1794-1851) was an American Presbyterian minister and educator. He served as the President of Centre College in Kentucky from 1822 to 1825, and founder and President of Oakland College in Mississippi from 1830 to 1851. He was murdered by a pro-slavery planter for his abolitionist views.

Biography

Early life

Jeremiah Chamberlain was born on January 5, 1794.[1][2] His father, James Chamberlain, had served as a Colonel in the American Revolutionary War of 1775-1783.[1] He grew up on a farm near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.[1][2] He was educated in York County, Pennsylvania and graduated from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1814.[1][2] He was a member of the first graduating class of Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, New Jersey in 1817.[1][2] He then joined the Carlisle Presbyterian Ministry.[1][2]

Career

He served as a Presbyterian missionary in the Southwest in 1817.[1][2] The following year, he began serving as a Presbyterian minister in Bedford, Pennsylvania.[1][2]

He served as the President of Centre College in Danville, Kentucky from 1822 to 1825.[1][2] The college was in grave financial straits.[2] To improve the situation, he negotiated for the control of the college to be relinquished by the state to the Presbyterian Church, which was effective in 1824.[2] As a result, the Presbyterian Church was responsive for the election of the Board of Trustees and the finances of the college.[2] He then served as the President of the College of Louisiana in Jackson, Louisiana from 1826 to 1828.[1][2]

That year, in 1828, he attempted to found a new Presbyterian academy in Mississippi.[1][2] Meanwhile, he served as the minister at Bethel Presbyterian Church in Alcorn.[3] Two years later, in 1830, he was appointed as the President of Oakland College in Lorman, Mississippi.[1][2] However, the college closed down at the outset of the American Civil War of 1861-1865.[1][2] It was replaced by Alcorn State University, and the old Oakland Memorial Chapel, built in 1838, remains on its campus.[1][2]

He supported the Union and was opposed to slavery.[1] As early as the 1830s, together with other slave owners Isaac Ross (1760-1838), Edward McGehee (1786-1880), Stephen Duncan (1787-1867), and John Ker (1789-1850), he co-founded the Mississippi Colonization Society, whose aim was to send freedmen to Liberia on the African continent.[4][5] The organization was modeled after the American Colonization Society, but it focused on freedmen in Mississippi, a large slave state.[4][5]

Personal life

He was married to Rebecca (Blain) Chamberlain (1792-1836).[6] They had four daughters:

Death

On September 5, 1851, he was stabbed to death by George A. Briscoe, a pro-slavery planter, after he spoke out against the peculiar institution.[1][2] He was buried in a cemetery on the campus of Oakland College, now Alcorn State University, where his grave and an obelisk still stand, alongside his wife and four daughters.[6] A week later, his killer Briscoe committed suicide.[2]

Legacy

In 1879, the Chamberlain-Hunt Academy in Port Gibson, Mississippi was named after him and David Hunt (1779-1861), a prominent plantation owner in the Antebellum South.[7][8]

His papers are preserved in the Mississippi Department of Archives and History in Jackson, Mississippi.[2]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 Dickinson College: Jeremiah Chamberlain (1794-1851)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17 2.18 Centre College: CentreCyclopedia
  3. ↑ Natchez Trace Travel
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Mary Carol Miller, Lost Mansions of Mississippi, Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2010, Volume II, pp. 53-56
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Dale Edwyna Smith, The Slaves of Liberty: Freedom in Amite County, Mississippi, 1820-1868, Routledge, 2013, pp. 15-21
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 William L. Sanders, Carved in Stone: Cemeteries of Claiborne County, Mississippi, Dorrance Publishing, 2014, pp. 11-13
  7. ↑ Mary Carol Miller, Must See Mississippi: 50 Favorite Places, Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2007, p. 135
  8. ↑ Samuel J. Rogal, The American Pre-College Military School: A History and Comprehensive Catalog of Institutions, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2009, p. 163