Florida Southern College - Interlachen Yearbook (Lakeland, FL)

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• - • ♦ I JOSHUA HOLLINGSWORTH First President At Leesburg t « • 4

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Golden Anniversary IMS. 5 ■ 1935 terncory and urge the claims of the school, securing pupils, and appealing to our friends for the money needed for its establishment on a sound and ample financial basis. We also recommend the appoint- ment of Rev. Pasco as principal of Duval High School in Jacksonville. On June 4, 1888, the trustees fixed the salaries of the president and teaching staff as follows: Presi- dent, $1,200; first assistant, $675; second assistant, $500; third assistant, $400; music teacher, $600. Apparently having some difficulty in getting trustees to attend meetings regularly, they resolved that The members of the board of trustees are expected to be present at each meeting or send a satisfactory excuse. Any member absenting him- self unexcused for two successive annual meetings shall be considered as having vacated his position on the board. PRESIDENT HOLLINGSWORTH RESIGNS President Hollingsworth ended his administra- tion in June, 1888. In appreciation of his splendid efforts, the trustees adopted the following reso- lution: In severing our relations with Professor Hollingsworth as president of The Florida Confer- ence College, the board of trustees desire to express their appreciation of his management of the affairs of the institution. To his untiring efforts much of the present prosperity and its bright prospects for the future are due, and we part from him with hopes that with restored health he may find a field of labor commensurate with his abilities, and that great success may attend him wherever he may go. President Hollingsworth was succeeded by W. W. Seals, who served one year. Those who labored with him have recalled the difficult financial prob- lems with which he had to deal. Money had been contributed with enthusiasm during those first months that the school operated at Leesburg, but the task of advancing the interests of the institution soon settled for the most part upon President Seals and the trustees. President Seals served with de- votion, and was disappointed that sufficient funds for more buildings and better equipment were not forthcoming. He was especially eager to raise the academic standard of the school to the point where it would attract many students who were going outside the state for their education. His report to the annual conference was made on January 9, 1889, at Bartow. The institution then had an indebtedness of $1,606.45- DR. MOORE ELECTED PRESIDENT Dr. Theophilus Wilson Moore, who was elected president on June 21, 1889, served two years, mak- ing many friends for the school and increasing its prestige among the people of Florida. Dr. Moore was born at Mount Tirza, North Carolina, in 1832, a son of Dr. Portius Moore, and a grandson of Colonel Stephen Moore of the Army of the Revolution. He was graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1852. In the same year, he married Mary Ann Smith and went to California as a missionary. At the end of two years, he returned to North Carolina, where they remained until the outbreak of the Civil War. He offered his services to the Army of the Confederacy and was made a chaplain in the Carolina regiment. Soon after the close of the war, he moved to Florida, in order that he might accept an appoint- ment in the Florida Conference. After serving at Tallahassee and Lake City, he was made presiding elder of the Jacksonville district in 1874. While living in Jacksonville, he developed a 100-acre orange grove twenty miles south of the city, on the St. Johns River. In 1881 he wrote and published a book on orange culture, which was regarded as a standard work on this subject for perhaps thirty years. He was sent to Monti- cello in 1882 to serve as a pastor, and remained there two years. It was at this time that he was elected to membership on the board of trustees of what was then known as Emory College, in Geor- gia. His work with the Georgia institution caused him to become interested in higher education in Florida. He was among the first to take active steps for establishing the college at Leesburg, and was a member of the first board of trustees. The honorary degree of doctor of divinitv was conferred upon him by Emory College. His Florida appointments also included Sanford, Bartow, Fort Pierce, West Palm Beach and Quincy. While serving in Lake City a second time, he wrote a book entitled Revelation, which was pub- lished several years later. In 1892 a patent was granted to him for a flying machine. He worked upon this several years, but the gasoline engine had not then been perfected, and he was forced to let the machine go unfinished for lack of motor power. He later obtained patents on a rotary steam engine. While living in Sanford, Dr. Moore persuaded the town council to run water from several artesian wells through tiling laid a foot beneath the sur- face of the main street. This made possible a cool and firmly-packed street, even in the warmest weather. Several years later, truck farmers adop- ted this method for irrigation and drainage. Dr. Moore ' s first wife died while they were living in Leesburg in 1891. They had two sons, T. V. Moore, who was born in 1857 and died in 1927, and E. T. Moore, who was born in 1874 and is now living in Miami. Several years after the death of his first wife, Dr. Moore married Mattie P. West, of Quincy, Florida, who died in 1911 in California. He spent the last few months of his life in the home of his eldest son, T. V. Moore, dying in 1908. He was a Mason and an Odd Fellow and a member of the American Pomological Society. C. E. Pelot was elected chairman of the board of trustees on January 10, 1889. Other officers chosen Page Eleven 4 4 4 4