Wabash College - Wabash Yearbook (Crawfordsville, IN)

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— Charles White, B B. 1841-1861 The second president of Wabash College was a proud descendant of a pilgrim family that came to America on the Mayflower. Dr. White was born in Randolph, Massachusetts, on December 28, 1795. In keeping with the New England tradition his parents lived by a pious, religious faith so common in those days. Because of the death of his father when he was two yenrs old, his mother exerted the chief influence on his youth. By 1817 White had fitted himself for college. He went immediately to Dartmouth College and was gradu- ated with highest honors four years later. Refusing to accept a tutorship in Dartmouth, he went to pursue his studies at Andover Theological Seminary. a ccna Illness forced him to go south for a year, but he completed his preparation for the ministry in 1824. From 1825, the year in which he was married, until 1841, Dr. White per- formed successfully the duties of a pastor, first as a colleague in the Congre- gational Church of Thetford, Connecticut, and after four years there, as minis- : ter of the Presbyterian Church in Cazenovia, New York. Whence he went to Bidee: a pastorate in Oswego, New York, where he remained until he became presi- | EES dent of Wabash College after the death of President Baldwin. Dr. White had ets been given the Doctor of Divinity degree by Union College, New York, in mi gees 1840. He was president of Wabash College until his death in [861. Aside from oe his religious and academic successes, it is interesting to note that Dr. White de- Le | voted much time to his large family of ten children. In 1861, one year after the bee | death of his wife, when Dr. White was apparently in the best of health, he was stricken suddenly by a fatal illness. Pid ba Dr. White was both a thinker and a master of expression. His frequent A ea sermons were models of clarity and graceful expression, the results of thorough Bitiay preparation. His writings, it is said, were almost perfect in form and in nicety rf of phraseology. With firmness and foresight he directed the affairs of Wabash College. Undoubtedly the words describing him in ‘The History of Mont- gomery County” speak truth when they say, “He was the highest style of a Christian Scholar.” Paye Twelve A Committee, to act temporarily as Trustees of the Institution, was appointed at this meeting, consisting of the following individuals, viz.: Hon. Williamson Dunn, Rev. Messrs. Edmund O. Hovey, James Thomson, James A. Carnahan, John S. Thomson, Martin M. Post, Samuel G. Lowry, and John Gilliland, E'sq. A public meeting of the citizens of Crawfordsville and vicinity was called, and the subject of the new institution presented to them on the 22d of November. The movements of the previous meeting were

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Its central position, healthfulness, facilities of access, while re- tired from the then prospective great commercial centres of the land, in the estimation of those present, as also others consulted upon the subject, rendered Crawfordsville, above others, decidedly the most desirable location. At that time there was no literary institution, ei- ther located or projected, in this State, north of Bloomington, and of course it was thought that the interests of this enterprise would not interfere with any other.

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From the Portrait by Lucile Stevenson Dalrymple approved, and a liberal subscription was commenced to carry forward the enterprise. A tract of fifteen acres of land was presented by Hon. Williamson Dunn, upon which, the Trustees having selected the site for a building, in the forest, in the midst of nature’s unbroken loveliness, consecrated this enterprise for the furtherance of virtue and knowledge among mankind, to God, and solemnly invoked upon it the Divine Blessing.