Longwood College - Virginian Yearbook (Farmville, VA)

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WILLIAM HENRY RUFFNER, LL. D.

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Milliam Ibetir IRuffncr, %%, 2). WILLIAM HENRY RUFFNER, LL. D., was born in Lexington, Virginia, in the year 1824. His father was Dr. Henry Ruffner, the founder of the Presbyterian church at Charleston, West Virginia, and for many years the president of Washington College, now Washington and Lee University. He was a distinguished scholar, thinker, and writer, and was one of the most influential of the advocates of the gradual abolition of slavery in Virginia. The subject of this sketch graduated at Wash- ington College in 1842, and afterward studied theol- ogy at Union Theological Seminary, Hampden- Sidney, Virginia, and Princeton, New Jersey. The theological training, with its prominent psy- chological feature, seems, in the light of subsequent events, to have been an enduring force in his life. At Washington College he excelled in physical sciences, and at Princeton his best essay writing was on Genesis and Geology. From 1849 to 185 1 he w as chaplain of the University of Virginia, and from 1 85 1 to 1853 pastor of the Seventh Presby- terian Church, Philadelphia. While at the latter place he delivered a course of Wednesday evening lectures on the Relations of Science and Scripture. Broken down in health, he was compelled to resign his charge in Philadelphia, and returning to Virginia, he resided on a farm, but gave a con- stantly increasing amount of attention to field geology. In i860, in conjunction with Professor Campbell of Washington College he began a neological reconnaissance of Virginia, which was