John C. Burroughs

Last updated December 16, 2021 • 2 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

John Charles Burroughs (December 7, 1818 – April 21, 1892) was an American educator from New York. A graduate of Yale University, Burroughs was the first President of the Old University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois, serving from 1859 to 1873. He then served as the school's chancellor until 1877. He was later Assistant Superintendent of Schools for Chicago.

Biography

John C. Burroughs was born in Stamford, New York on December 7, 1818. He descended from Puritan preacher Jeremiah Burroughs. He moved with his family to Western New York in 1821. Burroughs was raised there on the family farm, attending public schooling. When he was sixteen, the Inspector of Public School commissioned Burroughs as a teacher. He taught for four seasons, working the family farm during summers. In 1838, he moved to Medina, New York to study law. When Burroughs realized he did not have the proper background for the field, he instead pursued a classical education, studying at the Brockport Collegiate Institute and Middlebury Academy. He was admitted to Yale University as a sophomore in 1839 and graduated three years later.^[1]

Burroughs took a position as Principal of the Hamilton Academy, managing the school for the next year and a half. He then entered the Madison Theological Seminary, graduating in 1846. He preached in Waterford, New York for a year and then was the pastor of the Baptist Church in West Troy for five years. In 1852, he was named pastor of the First Baptist Church of Chicago, Illinois. He started publishing the Christian Times in 1854 as a Baptist newspaper for the Northwest. Shurtleff College in Alton, Illinois offered Burroughs the college presidency, but Burroughs declined.^[1]

Later in 1854, Burroughs worked with United States Senator Stephen A. Douglas to establish the original University of Chicago. When the school was completed in 1856, Burroughs was elected its first President, though he declined to serve. The same year, the University of Rochester awarded Burroughs an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree. However, when Francis Wayland, a former President of Brown University that was Burroughs' choice for president, declined the offer in 1859, Burroughs accepted the presidency. Burroughs was one of three professors when the university opened to students.^[1]

Burroughs resigned on December 30, 1873 and was succeeded by James Rood Doolittle. Burroughs was named chancellor of the institution and served this role until 1877. In 1881, Burroughs was named to the Chicago Board of Education, serving as Assistant Superintendent of Schools from 1884 until his death. Burroughs supported fundraising efforts for the erection of the current University of Chicago in 1889.

Burroughs married Elvira S. Fields, Principal of the Ladies' Seminary at Hamilton Academy, in 1843.^[1] He died on April 21, 1892. John C. Burroughs Elementary School in Brighton Park, Chicago was named in his honor.

Related Research Articles

George Foot Moore was an eminent historian of religion, author, Presbyterian minister, 33rd Degree Mason of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, and accomplished teacher.

Andover Theological Seminary (1807–1965) was a Congregationalist seminary founded in 1807 and originally located in Andover, Massachusetts on the campus of Phillips Academy. Andover Theological Seminary and Newton Theological Institution merged in 1965 to form the Andover Newton Theological School (1965–2018). In its original and merged forms, it was the first and thus the oldest theological seminary founded in the United States. The seminary continues as Andover Newton Seminary at Yale Divinity School launched in 2017.

Julius Hawley Seelye was a missionary, author, United States Representative, and former president of Amherst College. The system of Latin honors in use at many universities worldwide is said to have been created by him.

Francis Wayland, was an American Baptist minister, educator and economist. He was president of Brown University and pastor of the First Baptist Church in America in Providence, Rhode Island. In Washington, D.C., Wayland Seminary was established in 1867, primarily to educate former slaves, and was named in his honor.

Cobb Divinity School, founded in 1840, was a Free Will Baptist graduate school affiliated with several Free Baptist institutions throughout its history. Cobb was part of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, United States from 1870 until 1908 when it merged with the college's Religion Department.

The Old University of Chicago was the legal name given in 1890 to the University of Chicago's first incorporation.

George Thacher was the fifth President of the University of Iowa, serving from 1871 to 1877.

Gideon Williamson (1898-1981) was a minister, president of Eastern Nazarene College (1936–1944), general president of the Nazarene Young People's Society (1932–1940), and general superintendent in the Church of the Nazarene (1946–1968).

John Adams was an American educator noted for organizing several hundred Sunday schools. He was the 4th Principal of Phillips Academy. His life was celebrated by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. in his poem, "The School Boy", which was read at the centennial celebration of Phillips Academy in 1878, thus recalls him:

Uneasy lie the heads of all that rule — His most of all whose kingdom is a school.

William Adams was a noted American clergyman and academic.

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) is a Baptist seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. It is the oldest of the six seminaries affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). The seminary was founded in 1859 in Greenville, South Carolina, where it was at first housed on the campus of Furman University. After being closed during the Civil War, it moved in 1877 to a newly built campus in downtown Louisville and moved to its current location in 1926 in the Crescent Hill neighborhood. For more than fifty years Southern has been one of the world's largest theological seminaries, with an FTE enrollment of over 3,300 students in 2015.

John Albert Broadus (1827–1895) was an American Baptist pastor and President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

William Herbert Perry Faunce was an American Baptist clergyman and educator.

Joseph Cummings was the president of Wesleyan University from 1857 to 1875, president of Northwestern University from 1881 to 1890, and had been president of the predecessor of Syracuse University from 1854 to 1857.

William Cleaver Wilkinson, D.D. was a Baptist preacher, professor of theology, professor of poetry, and literary figure. He popularized the "Three W's and the Five W's".

William Bullein Johnson was an American Baptist minister, one of the founders of the South Carolina State Baptist Convention in 1821, and later was the first president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1845 to 1851. Johnson is also the founder of Johnson Female Seminary, later renamed Johnson University, in 1848 the predecessor to Anderson University.

Robert Everett Pattison was an American clergyman, and served as both the third and sixth president of Colby College.

David Schley Schaff was a United States Presbyterian clergyman, educator and pioneer of American football.

George Barker Stevens was an American Congregational and Presbyterian clergyman, theologian, author, educator, and Yale Divinity School professor.

Rev. Henry Lawrence Hitchcock was an American minister and the third President of Western Reserve College, now Case Western Reserve University. He was mayor of the village of Hudson, Ohio in 1861.

References

1 2 3 4 Biographical Sketches of the Leading Men of Chicago. Chicago, IL: Wilson & St. Clair. 1868. pp. 583–589.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[chicago-1] 1 2 3 4 Biographical Sketches of the Leading Men of Chicago. Chicago, IL: Wilson & St. Clair. 1868. pp. 583–589.

[1]