John Blair Smith

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For other people named John Smith, see John Smith (disambiguation).
John Blair Smith
2nd President of
Hampden–Sydney College
In office
1779–1789
Preceded bySamuel Stanhope Smith
Succeeded byDrury Lacy (Acting)
1st President of Union College
In office
1795–1799
Succeeded byJonathan Edwards
Personal details
Born(1756-06-12)June 12, 1756
Pequea, Province of Pennsylvania
DiedAugust 22, 1799(1799-08-22) (aged 43)
Philadelphia
Alma materB.A. Princeton University

John Blair Smith (June 12, 1756 – August 22, 1799) was born in Pequea, Pennsylvania Colony, the son of the Rev. Robert Smith, who ran a celebrated academy there. Like his older brother, John Blair Smith was valedictorian of the Class of 1773 at the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University. He was in the graduating class of 1771, with William Graham, the rector of Liberty Hall Academy (now Washington & Lee University) and Henry "Light Horse" Lee, governor of Virginia and father of Robert E. Lee.[1] He was recruited at the age of 19 to come to Virginia as a tutor at the new Hampden–Sydney College, then being founded by his elder brother, Rev. Samuel Stanhope Smith.

While a tutor at the College, John Blair Smith was chosen in 1777 as a captain of a company of students (about sixty-five total) during the American Revolutionary War, assigned to the defense of Williamsburg.[1]

In 1779 Samuel Stanhope Smith resigned his presidency and the pastorates of his churches, in order to answer a call to be president of the College of New Jersey. The younger Smith, who was ordained and elected president of Hampden–Sydney on the same day his brother resigned, managed to revive the flagging enterprise, and, with the assistance of Trustee Patrick Henry, then Governor of Virginia, persuaded the General Assembly of Virginia to grant a charter in 1783 – bestowing the power to grant degrees and establish a self-perpetuating Board. Smith was also pastor in Cumberland and Briery, as these positions were part of the college presidency.[1] At Hampden-Sydney, Smith also added the theology school.[1]

John Blair Smith resigned in 1789, after being pressured by trustee Patrick Henry, whose position on ratifying the constitution Blair Smith had written a dissention of.[2] He accepted a position as pastor to the Old Pine Street Church in Philadelphia. Four years later he was elected the first president of Union College in Schenectady, New York. Eight months after returning to his pastorate in Philadelphia in 1799, he died there in a yellow fever epidemic.[3][4]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d "Smith, John Blair". The National Cyclopædia of American Biography. Vol. II. New York: James T. White & Company. 1921. pp. 21–22.
  2. ^ "H-SC | Office of the President: Presidents". 2006-09-02. Archived from the original on 2006-09-02. Retrieved 2021-01-18.
  3. ^ Brinkley, John Luster (1994). On This Hill: A narrative history of Hampden–Sydney College, 1774–1994. Hampden–Sydney, VA: Hampden–Sydney College. pp. 11–37. ISBN 1-886356-06-8.
  4. ^ "John Blair Smith, 1779–1789". Archived from the original on September 2, 2006. Retrieved 2009-07-16.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link). Hampden–Sydney College
Academic offices
Preceded by President of Hampden–Sydney College
1779—1789 		Succeeded by
Religious titles
Preceded by
Rev. William MacKay Tennant
 Moderator of the 10th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America
1798–1799 		Succeeded by
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