Bethany College - Bethanian Yearbook (Bethany, WV)

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Hleianber Campbell. ALEXANDER CAMPBELL, founder and first President of Bethan)- College, was born in county Antrim, Ireland, September 12th, 1788, and died at Bethany, West Virginia, March 4th, 1866. In coming to America with his mother and family in 1808, they were shipwrecked ofif the coast of Scotland, and being mercifully preserved from a watery grave, made their way to Glasgow, where Mr. Campbell entered the LIniversity and pursued his studies unti Au- gust. 1809, when they again embarked for New York, reaching that port in October, from whence they proceeded to Phil- adelphia, and on over the mountains to Washington, Pa., where the father, Thomas Campbell, had located in 1807, and made for them a home. Here Mr. Campbell read and studied the Bible, and dedicated his life to the ministry and service of Christ, preach- ing his first sermon in July, 1 810, in a grove near Washington, from Matthew vii;24: Whosoever heareth these sayings offline and doeth them, t will liken liim unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: and surely he did build upon a rock, and that rock was Christ. Dr. Richardson beautifully says in his Memoirs, it was most appropriate that he who was destined to call men away from human plans and systems should deliver his first discourse, not in any secta- rian temple or place of worship built by human hands, but in the open air of free America and beneath the overarching trees which God had planted ' The first year of his ministerial labors (which began before he was twenty-two years old), he preached 106 sermons, and later on, when land was purchased at Brush Run on which to build the first church of the Disciples, beneath a wide-spreading oak, he preached the first discourse ever delivered at Brush Run, from Job vii:7: Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase, which was a singularly appropriate and phrophetic text, since from that little band of Disciples, numbering only a few souls, there are to-day more than a million communicants, strong in the faith once delivered to the Saints! In 181 1 he was married to Miss Margaret Brown, of Brooke County, Virginia, and from that date became a citizen of this State. He continued to preach at home and abroad, always presenting the plea for Primitive Christianity, upon the claims of the Bible, and the Bible alone. In i8tS he founded Bufifalo Seminary, for the education of the youth of the countr) ' . In 1823 he began the publication of the Christian Baptist, which increased in circulation until in 1830 it was merged into the Millenial Harbinger, of which he was editor-in-chief for 34 years. By his first marriage he had eight children, and after the death of his beloved wife in 1827, he married, in 1828, i liss Selina Huntingdon Bakewell, of Wcllsburg, who survived him thirty-one years. By this marriage he had six children, four of whom are yet living. In 1840 he founded Bethany College, and was its President for twenty-five years. Up to the close of his life it was as dear to him as an own child, and its prosperity, and opportunity for educating young preachers, to convert sinners, were ever uppermost and supreme in his good, great, grand and noble heart.

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ALEXANDER CAMPBELL.

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mailliam Ik. Ipenbleton. WILLIAM KIMBROUGH PENDLETON was born in Louisa county, Virginia, September 8th, 1817 He was educated at the Universit v of Virg-inia, where he completed an elective course in classical, scientific and philosophical studies and was also graduated from the law school. In 1840 he was admitted to the bar, but soon after, in 1841, having married a daughter of Alexander Campbell, he removed to Bethany to take part in the founding of Bethany College. He was Professor of Natural Science and Astronomy, and later divided with Professor Loos the classes of the ministerial course. After the burning of the first College building in 1857, he accompanied Alexander Campbell through the west and south, soliciting funds for the erection of the present building. He had been for some years Vice President of the College. On the death of Ale.xander Campbell, in 1866, he became President, and during the many years of financial distress, dating from the civil war, which crippled the work to which he was devoted, he also filled the difficult and laborious office of Treasurer. He was associate editor of the Millenial Harbinger from its beginning, and was for some years associated in the editorship of the Christian Standard. Amid these labors he found time for much preaching, for much traveling and a large correspondence in the interests both of the College and the Church ; and to prepare and deliver addresses in behalf of almost every public interest. In 1876, as a result of a movement begun by the teachers of the state, he was elected Superintendent for a term of four years. During this period he gave to the labor of reducing to method the practical workings of a school system that he found in imperfect order, every moment that could be taken from the occupations of an already busy life. Dr. Pendleton has been thrice married; in 1840 to Malvin M., and in 1847 to Clarinda, both daughters of Alexan- der Campbell, and in 1855 to Catherine PL, daughter of Judge L. King, of Warren, Ohio. In 1887, retiring from active service in Bethany College, lie removed with his wife and younger children to Eustis, Florida, where he now resides. 10