Thomas Jefferson Lamar: A Memorial Sketch

Lamar Memorial Library

MaryviHe ColSege

WSaryvilSe, Tennessee 37801

neBOUNO By

MARSHAIX
11 aiii/BRVCE Co.

LrBRARY BrNOERS

*««Vllu,lEli«-

Professor Thomas Jefferson Lamar.

Sljnmaa J^ff^rann Hamar

^umnH (E^nhuU Mltlfion

1920

Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive

in 2010 witii funding from

Lyrasis IVIembers and Sloan Foundation

http://www.archive.org/details/thomasjeffersonlOOsamu

DEDICATED TO

MARYVILLE COLLEGE

THE MOST ENDURING MONUMENT
OE

THOMAS JEFFERSON LAMAR

BY HIS WIDOW

u.i\(kc.

CONTENTS

Chapter Page

I. The Boy and His Lineage. An Unrecorded Life —
But Worthy of Record — French Forbears — Ameri-
can Blending — East Tennessee Nativity — A Farmer's
Homestead — The Father — The Mother — A Patri-
archal Family — Thomas Jefferson — Boyhood Days —
Grandmother Lamar — Beyond the Mississippi — An

Exile from Home — Elder Meek, Foster-Father 7

II. The Student and His Teachers. The Old-Tlme
Article School — Holston Academy — Orientation of
Life — A Momentous Matriculation — Modest Mary-
ville — Mighty Maryville — The Professors — A Room
in the Seminary — Winning His Way — Literary So-
ciety— Four Influential Years — Graduation 15

III. The TheolocuE and His Training. Call to the Min-

istry— Maryville's Theological Department — Dr. An-
derson's Methods of Teaching — Dr. Anderson's Per-
sonality— Transfer to Union Seminary — The Union
Faculty — The Seminary "Boys" — The City of New
York — A Seminary Graduate 24

IV. The Minister and His Ministry. Licensure to the

Ministry — Ministry at Weston, Missouri — And at
Savannah, Missouri — Back to Tennessee — Blount
County Churches — War-Time Ministry — After-War
Church Reorganisation — Stated Clerkship of Synod —
Earnest Preacher — Sage Counselor— Missions His

Great Commission 31

V. The Teacher and His Teaching. Predilection for
Teaching — A Professorship at Maryville — This An-
other Momentous Event — "Professor Lamar" — Try-
ing Days — Better Days Coming — The New Pro-
fessor's Scholarship — Patience in Class-Room Drill —
Kindliness in Discipline — Sympathetic Heart — Fruit-
ful Pedagogy 38

VI. A Christian Statesman. The Teacher Also a States-
man— Higher Christian Education — Extension of
Maryville's Contribution to It — Its Clientage In-

Chapter Page
creased — The "South Hills" Expansion Planned —
But War Engulfs Everything — Everything! Every-
thing!— Yet Unwavering in Purpose — Only Await-
ing an Opportunity — Planning and Praying — Peace
and Work Again 45

VII. A College Builder. Facing a Scrap Heap— What
Synod Did — A Winter of Torture — Year One of the
New College — The Salutatory — A Good Beginning —
Finding Colleagues — The Motives He Urged — Win-
ning Friends and Donors — Jehovah-jireh! A New
Campus — And Four New Buildings — But Unremit-
ting Toil and Cares — For Fourteen Long Years —
Success! Two Hundred Students! — But Anxiety,
Deiicit, and Debt 51

VIII. An Endowment Founder. Endowment or Collapse! —
Enlistment for the Forlorn Hope — The Task an
Impossible One — The Means, a Modest Man — The
Dynamics, Faith in God — A Three Years' Struggle —
The Cost of the Campaign — Nothing Impossible
with God — His Helpers — The Donors — The Day
of Victory — Hallelujah! — The Supreme Sacrifice —

Post-Mortem Endowment Building 63

IX. A Home-Loving Man. His College Home — His Mis-
souri Home — His Savannah Providence — A Home of
His Oivn — Little Katie — The Home Broken Up — A
Loving Nature — "Uncle Tommie" — A Home Again —
Mrs. Lamar's Father — Mrs. Lamar's Mother — Mrs.
Lamar's Brothers — The Wedding Tour — The Ad-
vent of Little Ralph Max — The Stay of Ralph
Max — The Departure of Ralph Max — Partnership
in Sorrow — The Last Home-Coming — His Wife's

Devotion 73

X. A Typical MaryvillE Man. A Builder of Maryville
Men — An Embodiment of the Maryville Spirit —
In "Breadth of Human Interest" — In "Thorough
Scholarship" — In "Manly Religion" — And in "Un-
selfish Service" — A Gentle Man — A Man of God —
A Friend of Men — Honored of Men — Honored of
Heaven 1 85

CHAPTER I
The Boy and His Lineage

Thirty-three years have elapsed since Professor
Thomas Jefferson Lamar rested from his labors, and yet
his memory stays fresh in the hearts of those who were
associated with him in those labors. This biographical
sketch is prepared by his friends, to express it as the
inscription that is found on the monument erected to the
memory of Dr. Isaac Anderson puts it, "not because they
fear they will forget, l?ut because they love to remember
him" who was once their companion ; and also because
they would have others know more about the memorable
qualities and services of their departed friend.

An Unrecorded Life. To an extent seldom noted
in any public man, the subject of this sketch avoided
both in speech and in writing all references to his per-
sonal history. He wrote no diaries, made no genealogical
researches, and left practically no personal memoranda
that would be of service in the preparation of such a
story as is here attempted. Much he did speak and write
regarding the causes that enlisted his heart's devotion ; but
with utter self-effacement and the most sincere humility,
he always kept himself in the background. He never
sought or took pleasure in prominence. Had it not been

8 Thomas Jepfdrson Lamar

for the fact that others felt that it was due the causes
he represented that his memory should not perish, and
for the additional fact that the memories of friends could
supply some of the data that he failed to record, his story
would never have been told.

But Worthy of Record. In "A Century of Mary-
ville College," Professor Lamar's services to the College
were somewhat fully recounted and dwelt upon. But this
fact has only made his friends the more anxious to save
from oblivion the complete story of a life that was so
worthy of commemoration and imitation. The writer,
first a student and then a colleague of Professor Lamar,
has deemed it at once a pleasure and a duty to collabo-
rate with Mrs. Lamar, the widow of the professor, in the
preparation of this brief biography. Like Old Mortality,
he would chisel away the moss and lichens that are grow-
ing over a beloved name, and would seek to deepen the
impression that that name has made in men's memories-
French Forbears. Thomas Jefferson Lamar's pater-
nal grandfather emigrated from France to the United
States late in the eighteenth century. It is believed that
he was a representative of that most worthy people, the
French Huguenots, the expulsion of many of whom as
the result of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and
the loss of many of whom in the natural course of emi-
gration, proved the most serious blow that France ever
sustained. It is also believed that his grandfather left
France on account of the political troubles that not much
later came to a head in the French Revolution. Even
his son showed his interest in French history by naming
three of his sons after Frenchmen of recent renown —

The; Boy and His Line;age 9

Napoleon Bonaparte, Jerome, and Lafayette. This was
in keeping with what the Lamars did in other parts of
our country; for example, General Lamar, the third
president of Texas, bore the name of Mirabeau; while
the Lamar county people of Texas named their county
seat Paris. The Lamars of Mississippi, however, went
even farther back when both father and son were named
Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar.

American Blending. The father of our Professor
Lamar was William Lamar. He married Rebecca Hodges.
The Hodges are said to have been of German or Dutch
descent. Thus, in accordance with the rule rather than
the exception in American family life, the heads of the
family represented European races very different in their
historic careers and racial characteristics. The Melting
Pot began operation soon after the first settlements were
made; and nowhere did it operate with more ease and
with less delay than on the Southwestern frontier. Here
men entered as foreigners, and in a few short years were
amalgamated into the purest Americanism.

East Tennessee Nativity. Nowhere on the frontier
was this blending more quickly and effectively accom-
plished than in the great glen or cove or valley of East
Tennessee. The encircling mountains shut out all foreign
influences and at the same time shut in all the native
American influences, and gave them free scope. So it
was no wonder that Thomas Jefferson Lamar, born and
brought up in the valley of East Tennessee, where his
parents also had been both born and reared, should have
been so completely an American that not only was the
French tongue of his grandfather entirely forgotten, but

lo Thomas Je;fi?erson X,amar

so were all foreign ideals that he brought with him across
the sea. Thomas Jefferson Lamar was an American to
the manor born. The De la Mar had been anglicized
into plain Lamar ; and Thomas Jefferson, the name of a
Virginia commoner, had been prefixed to it. And his
schoolmates called him just plain, "Tom Lamar." He
was a full-fledged American.

A Farmer's Homestead. The purest and most un-
adulterated Americanism is found in the homes of the
farmers of our country. Thomas Lamar was born in a
farmhouse, and spent his boyhood on a farm. There he
secured at first hand, from a farmer father, and from
his mother, a farmer's daughter, insight and indoctri-
nation into the simplest and most loyal Americanism as it
is developed in the rural home and in a farmer's family.
The Lamar farm was located near what is now Hodges,
nearly four miles east of Strawberry Plains, near where
the Southern railroad crosses Beaver creek. From the
farmhouse could be seen on either side the mountain
walls that enclose in a happy homogeneity both xA.merican
homes and patriotic hearts.

The Father. William Lamar was born in Jefferson
county, Tennessee, near the close of the eighteenth cen- .
tury, on January 21, 1797. He had brothers named
Thomas, James, Henry, and John, all of which names he
afterward gave to sons of his own. In this same county
of Jefiferson he grew up on his father's farm, and in it
he founded a home of his own, and there most of his
children were born. His son, Thomas Jefiferson, was
still a school boy when the father removed the rest of
his family to Missouri. There he resided until his death,

'^-21- ■.

V

%-

Thomas Jefferson Lamar. William Lamar.

Ralph Erskine Tedford. Daniel Meek,

The Boy and His Lineage ii

which occurred on October 2, 1872, when he was in the
seventy-fifth year of his age.

The Mother. Rebecca Hodges, the daughter of Cal-
loway Hodges, also of Jefiferson county, Tennessee, was
born on November 23, 1806, and so was nearly ten years
younger than her husband. She was married to William
Lamar on October 23, 1823, when she was only sixteen
years old. Rev. Thomas Wilkerson officiated at the wed-
ding. She died in their Missouri home on July 30, 1866,
being then fifty-nine years of age.

A Patriarchal Family. From this union there was
born a patriarchal family. Mrs. Lamar was nearly
eighteen years old when she first became a mother, and
in her forty-third year her fifteenth child was born.
There were ten sons and five daughters — two sons to each
daughter. The children were : James Calloway, born
on November 5, 1824; Thomas Jefferson, November 21,
1826; Napoleon Bonaparte, February 22, 1828; Joseph,
November 8, 1829; EHza, January 21, 1832; Charles H.,
May 10, 1833; John, December 18, 1834; William, Au-
gust 2, 1836; Lewis Lafayette, June 28, 1838; Sarah
Elizabeth, February 19, 1840; Henrietta, September 12,
1841 ; Martha Jane, December 20, 1843 ; Diana, Sep-
tember 8, 1845; Jerome, July 8, 1847; and Ferdinand
De Soto, March 13, 1849. I" 1874, when Professor and
Mrs. Lamar visited Missouri, fourteen of the family were
still living; in March, 1920, two were still living, namely
Lewis Lafayette, aged eighty-two years, at the old home
near Weston, Missouri ; and Mrs. Henrietta Hall, aged
seventy-nine, at Denver, Colorado.

Thomas Jefferson. The second child and second son

12 Thomas Jei^^e^rson Lamar

in this large family is the subject of this biographical
sketch. He was born, as is stated above, on Novem-
ber 21, 1826. ' His mother's twentieth birthday occurred
two days after his birth. The statesman, Thomas Jeffer-
son, had died on the fourth of July of the same year, the
fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence;
and perhaps this fact suggested the name for the baby.

Boyhood Days. There was no lack of playmates
even then, and playmates multiplied as the years went on.
But so did the need of helpers on the farm. Thomas and
the other boys were brought up to industrious and health-
ful habits in the daily routine of the farm. Dr. Thomas
Theron Alexander, in his biographical address regarding
Professor Lamar, which was delivered at the dedication
of the Lamar Library in 1888, quoted one who had
known Thomas Lamar from childhood as saying that he
was an "unusually kind and bright boy, making friends
everywhere." It was a wholesome life he lived, and, as we
may be sure, a useful one as well. His time was divided
between work on the farm and attendance at school.

Grandmother Lamar. Just as in the case of Isaac
Anderson, the founder of Maryville College, it was a
grandmother who devoted herself especially to his re-
ligious instruction, so in the case of Thomas Jefferson
Lamar, the refounder of the College, it was his paternal
grandmother who gave him his principal religious instruc-
tion and training. "Begin with his grandmother" is the
familiar recipe for the making of a good man. In these
two successful instances of the making of good men, the
value of the recipe was abundantly vindicated. Paul hon-
ored Timothy's "Grandmother Lois"; and we may well

The Boy and His Lineage 13

honor these later grandmothers. How much Maryville
College owes to them ! What stars will there be in their
crowns !

Beyond the Mississippi. The family of William
Lamar had become so large that it was evident that no
ordinary upland farm among the hills of East Tennessee
could adequately provide for their wants. Some of the
Lamar relatives had emigrated to Missouri, and they sent
back glowing accounts of their river-bottom farms. So,
in 1844, William Lamar decided also to try his fortunes
in the West; and preparatory thereto he sold to William
Walker his three-hundred-acre farm, part of which he
had inherited, forty acres of which he had entered in
1824, and seventy-five acres of which, together with some
slaves, he had received as a marriage portion with his
wife, from Calloway Hodges in 1825. Then he embarked
in a house-boat, with his large family, and made the long
and interesting but tortuous journey, down the Tennessee
and Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and up the Missouri, to
the rich Missouri river bottoms of Platte county, Mis-
souri. He settled not far from his kinfolk, near Weston,
a little city located just across the river from Leaven-
worth, Kansas. Here he, and later on, his children, when
they made homes of their own, became prosperous citi-
zens. Two of the sons, "Jim" and "]oe," removed to
the territory of Washington, and there, by stock-raising,
became very wealthy.

An Exile from Home. An honored elder of the
Strawberry Plains Presbyterian Church, Daniel Meek,
had become a warm friend of "Tom" Lamar while he
was still a small boy. He saw the bright possibilities of

14 Thomas Jefferson Lamar

the lad, and determined to do what he could to enable
the boy to realize what he found was his chief ambition —
the securing of a college education. So when the Lamar
family made their plans to remove to the West, he under-
took the hard task of persuading Mother Lamar to leave
her son in Tennessee in his care, promising to stand by
him until he should secure a college education. Thomas'
thirst for an education overcame his own strong aversion
to separation from his family; and at last his mother,
too, gave her reluctant consent to the plan proposed by
Mr. Meek. The separation from "little Tom" nearly
broke her heart; but she comforted herself with the
thought that her maternal sacrifice would aid in securing
for her son the education he so much coveted.

Elder Meek, Foster-Father. And now, until his
years of school life should end, young Lamar found a
foster-father in good Daniel Meek; and during that
period his home was in the Meek household. In all his
school days he had the cordial sympathy and the financial
support of this providential friend. At Mr. Meek's home,
during his vacations, he was at home ; on his farm he
worked ; and at his family altar he knelt with the family
in prayer. And the affection he felt for his benefactor
and family came to be like that of kinship. And Daniel
Meek found his own swift reward in the rapid develop-
ment of his young friend, and in his promise of great
usefulness in coming days.

CHAPTER II

The; Studisnt and His Teachers

The Old-Time Article School. Those were the days
before the present free-school system had been intro-
duced. Each community had to rely upon itself in
securing schooling for its children. A school teacher
received his pay from the families whose children he
taught. Usually his school was called an article or sub-
scription school, for the custom was for his prospective
patrons to sign their names to articles or a subscription
paper stating how many children they would pay for at
the tuition rate specified. Such schools were found in
most self-respecting communities. It was in such neigh-
borhood schools that Thomas Lamar and his brothers
and sisters received their first introduction into the paths
of knowledge. Though the schoolhouse was built of logs
and the seats were made of puncheons or slabs, the mem-
ories of that first temple of learning were always sacred
to him,' as in later years he looked backward to that
schoolhouse in the woods.

Holston Academy. The village of New Market was
situated only about four miles from the Lamar home-
stead, and about six miles from the Meek homestead. It
boasted a school, chartered in 1832, that bore the name of
Holston Academy. In the course of the years, Thomas
Jefferson Lamar was promoted from the article school to
a desk in Holston Academy. Here he found a congenial
atmosphere, and formed a strong attachment for the
place, an attachment that showed itself when in later

i6 Thomas Jefferson Lamar

years he helped in the establishment and development of
the virile presbyterial institution, New Market Academy,
an institution which rendered excellent service to the
cause of Christian education during the years extending
from 1885 to 1915. Here he came under the influence
of Dr. William Minnis, pastor of the New Market Pres-
byterian Church, and a resident of the village. Dr.
Minnis had graduated at Maryville College, or the South-
ern and Western Theological Seminary, as it was then
called, in its first class, the class of 1825. He was one
of the ablest and best ministers of East Tennessee. His
influence on the modest lad, Thomas Lamar, was both
helpful and wholesome.

Orientation of Life. It was during these school
days that young Lamar became a Christian. He united
with his home church at Strawberry Plains, in 1842, when
he was sixteen years of age, his pastor, Rev. Gideon Steb-
bins White, receiving him into its communion. Among
the elders of the church at that time was Daniel Meek,
his foster-father. Mr. Lamar always retained a deep love
for this church home of his boyhood. Among his papers
was found a receipt for a liberal contribution made when
the congregation, in 1871, built a new edifice. Here it
was that he adopted high and Christian ideals of service,
and decided that he would devote his life to the Christian
ministry. And it was with this distinct purpose in his
mind that he earnestly prosecuted his studies during the
last year or two at Holston Academy. It was with this
purpose before him that he decided to enter Maryville
College to carry forward his preparation for his life work.

A Momentous Matriculation. It did not seem to

u

The Student and His Teachers 17

those present when this modest and timid youth of
eighteen presented himself at Maryville, before President
Anderson, in the fall of 1844, for admission to the Col-
lege, that a specially noteworthy or unusual event was
then taking place. But the fact was that no more mo-
m.entous matriculation was to take place in Maryville's
first century than was this lad's matriculation. There was
present in this retiring youth the potential dynamic that
was to create out of the rubbish of a ruined Maryville a
new Maryville that was to surpass by far the earlier one.
No prophet foretold the future service of this coming
man of destiny ; but the college historian of today looks
back upon the wonderful achievements of the man that
grew out of that quiet lad, and realizes the rare impor-
tance of the matriculation of Thomas Jefferson Lamar on
that October day in 1844. It was the Master who said,
"The kingdom of God cometh not with observation."
God calls his chosen to their posts of responsibility and
to their missions of service, not with the clangor of arch-
angel's trump in the vaulted sky, but by the still small
voice that speaks to the faithful heart; "for lo, the king-
dom of God is within you." And his chosen ones silently
heed his voice and obey his command and take their
assigned posts, often with small realization on their part
of the greatness of God's plans that are involved in the
transaction.

Modest Maryville, The Maryville College of 1844
was a very modest Maryville in every respect. Its re-
sources were found principally in the men who had
given themselves to its service. The two buildings — ^the
two-storied, six-roomed, brick "Seminary," and the two-

2

1 8 Thomas Je^i^e^rson Lamar

storied, six-roomed, frame "College" — and the two quar-
ter-acre lots constituted the college plant. Of endowment
there was only a Professorship of Didactic Theology
Fund that amounted then to less than $8,000. The entire
property valuation of the institution, including the fund,
the buildings, the library, and all, was less than $15,000.
The student body was also small, as schools now run.
During young Lamar's first year at Maryville there were
seventy-eight students enrolled, of whom twenty, or over
one-fourth, were candidates for the ministry, and one
was in the theological department. Maryille was modest,
too, in fame and prestige. It had never blown its own
trumpet, and though it was widely and favorably known,
it did not have the renown that comes through wealth or
political influence.

Mighty Maryville. But Maryville had a might that
none could challenge — the might that comes from strength
of character. The force of character in the Christian
leaders who had devoted their lives to the service of the
institution was an endowment richer than gold. The
peculiar might of Maryville was found also in the ster-
ling Christian character that its training was able to
develop in the young men who were under its tutelage.
The College was destined to contribute largely to the
arousing in this latest matriculant, ere he should graduate,
of altruistic ideals that should lead him to render priceless
services in behalf of Christian education in the valley of
East Tennessee. In short, Maryville, small as it was in
most respects, was mighty in the men that taught and in
the men that were taught, because in them the prevalent
grace of God was operative. Like Bethlehem Ephratah,

The Student and His Teachers 19

little among the thousands of Judah, little Maryville, too,
was great because God was in her, and out of her he
should bring those that should be rulers in Israel.

The Professors. The Maryville faculty then, as for
many years in that period, was a triumvirate. Chief of
the three mighty men of valor was, of course, the head
of the institution, Dr. Isaac Anderson himself. In 1819,
when he founded Maryville College, then the Southern
and Western Theological Seminary, he was only thirty-
nine years of age; but a quarter of a century of almost
unbelievably exhausting work had been performed since
that time; and now, at sixty-four years of age, he was
devoting all the wealth of his rich experience and un-
selfish devotion to the institution which he loved with
so intense an affection. His powers had not yet notice-
ably begun to fail. Young Lamar learned to love Dr
Anderson with a devotion that caused him always to
speak of him with profound reverence and filial regard.
He imbibed from his spirit invigorating drafts of the
"disinterested benevolence" that animated it. Wherever
such a living embodiment of Christian principle as Dr.
Anderson was teacher would be a great college, were
there no other endowment or equipment! Then there
was Rev. Fielding Pope, the able professor of Mathe-
matics and Natural Philosophy. For eleven years he
had shared with Dr. Anderson the cares and toils of the
school-room. A polished and courtly gentleman, an accu-
rate scholar, and an efficient teacher, he left his impress
upon young Lamar, who recited to him for four years.
The third member of the faculty was Dr. John S. Craig,
Professor of Languages. H? had been a teacher in the

20 Thomas Jefferson Lamar

institution for seven years and a professor for four years.
Rugged, severe, kindly, incisive, brilliant, original, deter-
mined, and entertaining, he also was a prime favorite of
the students. He took great interest in the youth Lamar,
who was to be later on a colleague and always a loyal
friend. In the days of small faculties, the personal influ-
ence of the teacher upon his pupils was often as great as
was that of parents. Thomas Lamar profited much from
the personal interest of this illustrious triumvirate that
then made up Maryville's faculty.

A Room in the Seminary. Young Lamar was as-
signed a room on the second story of the seminary build-
ing, a little two-story brick of about twenty-five feet by
forty, that was located at the east corner of the lot on
which New Providence Presbyterian Church now stands.
The unfinished building, intended for a female seminary,
was purchased by the Theological Seminary for $600 in
1820, and it was thereafter in constant use until the Civil
War. There were recitation rooms down-stairs, and dor-
mitory rooms up-stairs, but not more than six rooms in
all. There were six fireplaces, one of which was in young
Lamar's room. The Seminary was located a square north
of the Court House, the center of the village, and about
two squares south of where the pioneers had built their
Craig blockhouse. For nearly forty-five years it was the
oldest building of the institution to which it belonged.
During the Civil War Professor Lamar had the sorrow
of seeing it demolished by Federal troops. Its bricks
were used to make ovens for the army cooks. The
Duncans, with whom Professor Lamar was then living,
secured some of the bricks to make a walk in their front

Tun Student and His Teachers 21

yard ; and so these bricks were to him for several years
daily reminders of his school-boy days.

Winning His Way. The college days of young
Lamar were days of incessant industry. He was forced
to be a Committee on Ways and Means to provide for
the expenses of his education. Little help, if any, did
he receive from his father after the family removed to
]\Iissouri. Something he earned at College by work, and,
toward the end of his course, by tutoring. As we have
seen, he worked at Mr. Daniel Meek's during the vaca-
tions. He once said that he had plowed all over the hills
of the Meek farm. Mr. Meek largely took the place of
the absent father, and encouraged Thomas to go forward
with his studies, and he backed up his counsel by sub-
stantial gifts and loans of money. The entire expense
of a college year at Maryville was then advertised to be
only $71.75. "'The student's expenses are reduced to the
very lowest possible sum, and are certainly less in com-
parison with the advantages afforded than at any other
institution in the South or West." Thus did the College,
as in thousands of other cases it has done, assist this
young man in securing the inestimable treasure of a
thorough college education. In this case and in many
such cases, the bread cast upon the waters was found by
the College in later days, as these sons of hers devoted
their life's labors to the service of the College.

Literary Society. There were two literary societies
at Maryville, both of which, as was befitting in a theo-
logical seminary, were designated by Hebrew names. The
older one was the Beth-Hacma (House of Wisdom) Lit-
erary Society; and the junior one, the Beth-Hacma-ve-

■li Thomas Je^i^erson Lamar

Bcrith (House of Wisdom and Covenant) Society. Young
Lamar cast in his lot with the latter organization. In the
program presented by the society at its thirteenth anni-
versary, on September lo, 1845, at New Providence
Church, his name appears as that of an orator. His sub-
ject was "Mind." On the program for the first joint
anniversary exercises of the two societies, held on Sep-
tember 14 and 15, 1847, his name is given as that of a
vice-president.

Four Influential Years. In national matters, the
annexation of Texas, the war with Mexico, and the treaty
of Guadalupe Hidalgo all belong to these four college
years. In the history of Maryville College these years
mark the development of the institution into a college
and the relegation of the seminary to the position of a
fast-disappearing and subordinate department of the in-
stikition. After twenty-three years of waiting, the legis-
lature had in 1842 granted a charter to Maryville Col-
lege; and it was in 1846 that the final amendments
were secured, that rendered the charter acceptable to the
directors of the institution. In the personal development
of young Lamar, too, the four years were also epochal
ones indeed. He grew out of eighteen years into twenty-
two, and out of immaturity into manly maturity. The
years were far and away the most influential ones in the
making of the man that he came to be. They established
his reputation for the sterling qualities of intellect and
character that he always afterward displayed. Four years
of Maryville, the magician, developed in young Lamar
the Maryville character, which, in turn, he helped to
impart to later generations of Maryville students.

The Stude:nt and His Teachers 23

Graduation. The terms were not then arranged as
now, and Lamar's graduation took place in the fall. On
Tuesday night, September 12, 1848, a class of six young
men delivered their graduating orations. Their diplomas
were signed by Isaac Anderson, President ; Fielding Pope,
Professor of Mathematics and Philosophy; and John S.
Craig, Professor of Languages. The subject of Lamar's
oration was, "Utility of Literature." The other mem-
bers of the class were James Monroe Meek of Straw-
berry Plains, William Edward Caldwell of New Market,
Samuel Wright Wallace of Maryville, Sylvanus Howell of
Mossy Creek, and John Maxwell Hofifmeister of Rogers-
ville. In a letter written in August, 1848, William E.
Caldwell asked his classmate Hofifmeister, "What is Tom
Lamar's subject for a valedictory?" Besides Lamar, both
Caldwell and Hofifmeister entered the gospel ministry.
Mr. Caldwell rendered eminent service in the ministry
in Tennessee and Texas, and lived to see all his seven
sons ofificers in the church of their fathers, and his only
daughter the wife of a minister of that church. And
so Thomas Jefiferson Lamar joined that worthy host of
educated men who could not have had a college training
hacTit not been that Maryville offered them a helping
hand. Well did he pass on to others and also repay to
his alma mater the benefits that had been extended to
him. He had been graduated into Maryville's confrater-
nity of altruists. The prime glory of the Christian col-
lege is the character contribution it has bestowed upon its
students. Maryville's glory in this regard is a substantial
and fadeless one.

CHAPTER HI

" The Theologue; and His Training

Call to the Ministry. It was while he was still a
youth that he decided that he was called to the ministry
of the gospel. The ministers with whom he was espe-
cially acquainted, such as his pastor at Strawberry Plains,
Mr. White, and the pastor of the neighboring church of
New Market, Dr. Minnis, commended to him by their
virtues and zeal the gospel ministry which they adorned.
His faithful friend, Ruling Elder Daniel Meek, and others
of his friends, encouraged him to dedicate himself to the
sacred service of the ministry. But above all these influ-
ences was the conviction born in him by God's Spirit
that his mission in life was to be that of a minister of
the gospel. Always conscientious, he heeded the call, and
immediately set out to prepare himself for this high call-
ing. He entered Holston Academy, and then Maryville
College, and there prosecuted his studies with the pur-
pose of equipping himself as a preacher of righteousness
to his people. And throughout his academy and college
courses he ever kept in mind his sacred vocation, and
thoughtfully and earnestly sought to make ready worthily
to discharge its high and noble duties. His graduation
from college in 1848 marked the successful completion of
the literary preparation for his life work.

Maryville's Theological Department. The story of
the twenty-nine years of Dr. Anderson's training of young
men for the ministry that had elapsed after the Southern
and Western Theological Seminary had been founded,

The; Theologue and His Training 25

in 1 81 9, is a very remarkable one indeed. Almost one
hundred and fifty candidates for the ministry had been
trained under the masterly tutelage of the great theo-
logian and greater Christian, who, under God, was the
founder and the chief laborer of this school of the proph-
ets. But now, owing to many conspiring influences, the
supply of candidates had almost ceased, and the seminary
had become a college, and even the theological department
had, in Dr. Anderson's old age, almost disappeared. And
yet such was Mr. Lamar's reverence for Dr. Anderson
and his loyalty to Maryville that, at the beginning of the
next scholastic year after his graduation from the liter-
ary department of Maryville College, he entered its theo-
logical department in order to carry forward his studies
for the ministry. He said of himself that he studied
theology under Dr. Anderson "nearly two years."

Dr. Anderson's Methods of Teaching. Mr. Lamar
had come under the influence of Dr. Anderson's wonder-
ful personality and benevolent character during his entire
college course ; but now he felt that influence more vitally
as he came in contact with him in the study of the great
subjects of God and man and salvation. There were few
teachers of his day who were more efficient educators
than was Isaac Anderson. He used a very complete syl-
labus of 112 pages, in the form of question and answer,
which he himself had prepared and published. The title
page contains the following: "Questions on the System
of Didactic Theology taught in the Southern and Western
Theological Seminary. By Rev. Isaac Anderson, D.D.
'A Bishop then must not be a novice, lest being lifted
up with pride he fall into the condemnation.' — Paul. 'A

26 Thomas Js^ferson Lamah

Bishop then must be apt to teach.' — Paul. 'The Priest's
lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law
at his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Lord of
hosts.' — Malachi. Maryville, Tenn. Printed at the Intel-
ligencer Office by Parham & Hoyt. 1833." The plan of
instruction as stated on the last leaf of this syllabus was
as follows: "In Didactic or Christian Theology the class
have the subject given to them, as, for example, Natural
Theology. They are then directed to read such and such
authors; if the subject is a controverted one, they read
on both sides. After they have done reading, they then
hear a lecture from the professor, and are required to
write an essay on the same subject and then read it be-
fore the professor for remarks. Afterwards the class are
examined, according to the preceding questions (in the
syllabus), and such others as the professor may think
proper. On archaeology, hermeneutics, biblical criticism,
sacred chronology, ecclesiastical history, church govern-
ment and discipline, and polemic theology, the students are
required to read the most approved authors. And that
they may make themselves familiar with these branches,
the professor has lectures on these sciences in the form
of question and answer. The students have the use of
these manuscript lectures, and are required to be able to
answer every question."

Dr. Anderson's Personality. In this simple and yet
thorough-going method young Lamar and his few fellow-
students in theology were taught by the man of God the
great themes they were to present to their fellow-men.
But the most effective teaching of Dr. Anderson was that
which proceeded from the noble Christian example that

The TheiologuE and His Training 27

he set before his boys. No one could be associated with
him day by day and year after year without being pro-
foundly affected by his Christian devotion, magnanimity,
and zeal. In his ripe old age and before his mind had
broken under the strain of untold toils and crushing bur-
dens, he exerted a mighty and happy influence upon his
beloved students. Mr. Lamar learned lessons from him
which he continued to pass on to other Maryville students
so long as he lived to labor for them.

Transfer to Union Seminary. During the latter
part of the scholastic year, 1849-50, Mr. Lamar left
Maryville and entered the Class of 1852 at Union Theo-
logical Seminary in New York City. He was admitted
on February 23, 1850, and signed the matriculation book
on April 18, 1850. Dr. Anderson was beginning to fail
somewhat, and doubtless encouraged those that could do
so to prosecute their studies in other theological semi-
naries, well-equipped and well-endowed, to which the rail-
roads now made access easier. Almost all of Maryville's
ministerial candidates during the Fifties "went away" to
Seminary. Three graduates of 1850 entered other semi-
naries. Mr. Lamar wanted the best possible training,
and he secured what he coveted. His theological training
included the nearly two years under Dr. Anderson that
have been referred to, and more than two years at Union
Seminary. His grandfather, Calloway Hodges, and his
father assisted him in meeting his expenses while he was
in New York.

The Union Faculty. During Mr. Lamar's course at
Union Seminary, he profited by the instruction of able
and distinguished teachers. Drs. Henry White and James

28 Thomas jEi^ifERSON Lamar

Patriot Wilson were professors of Systematic Theology;
Dr. Edward Robinson was Professor of Sacred Liter-
ature ; Dr. Thomas Harvey Skinner was Professor of
Sacred Rhetoric, Pastoral Theology, and Church Gov-
ernment ; Dr. Henry Boynton Smith was Professor of
Church History, while Dr. Luther Halsey was Instructor
in Church History; William Wadden Turner was In-
structor in Sacred Literature ; and Edward Howe was
Instructor in Sacred Music. Some of these men ranked
among the leading scholars of America in their depart-
ments. The curriculum they laid out for their students
was one of the most extensive and scholarly then offered
in any theological seminary.

The Seminary "Boys." There were twenty-two men
who graduated in the Class of 1852, while eighteen others
were connected with the class for a shorter or longer
period. Among the men that were seminary mates of
Mr. Lamar were the following : P. Mason Bartlett, D.D.,
LL.D., '53, afterward President Bartlett, and Professor
Lamar's colleague at Maryville from 1869 to 1887; Car-
son William Adams, D.D., LL.D., '53, afterward the
founder of Maryville's "Carson W. Adams Fund" ; Elijah
Woodward Stoddard, D.D., '52, also a donor to Mary-
ville; Elias Levi Boing, '53, later a financial agent of
Maryville ; Samuel Audley Rhea, '50, later the "Tennes-
seean in Persia" ; John McCampbell, '53, and George A.
Caldwell, '53, other Tennesseeans by birth and ancestry;
Thomas Samuel Hastings, D.D., '51, the preacher and
hymnologist; Wilson Phraner, D.D., '50, who outlived
almost all his seminary mates ; while among those who
became foreign missionaries were George Whitfield Coan,

The Theologue and His Training 29

'49, Persia; Charles Livingston, '49, of Blantyre, Scot-
land, Africa; Dwight Whitney Marsh, D.D., '49, Tur-
key; WilHam Woodbridge Eddy, D.D., '50, Syria; Seth
Bradley Stone, '50, Africa; William Pratt Barker, '51,
India ; Jasper Newton Ball, '52, Turkey ; Edward Toppin
Doane, '52, Micronesia ; Jerre Lorenzo Lyons, D.D., '54,
Syria; and Sanford Richardson, '54, Asia. Among these
and scores of other seminary men, Lamar formed many
delightful and stimulating friendships.

The City of New York, Mr. Lamar looked upon
his mission in life as being so serious an undertaking that
he coveted a thorough preparation for it. Instead of cur-
tailing that preparation, as the manner of some sluggards
and some zealots has been, he lengthened, as we have
seen, the course prescribed by his church to those who
desire to enter the ministry, by a full year. And he
sought and obtained also the benefit of more than two
years' residence in the metropolis of his country. Those
were the days of sectionalism and provincialism, but he
longed for the fullest acquaintance with all the sections
of our country and first-hand knowledge of their ideas
and ideals. xA.nd so the farmer's son from East Ten-
nessee profited largely from the indirect education that
he received from those years spent in the great Northern
city of New York. In mission work in the neglected sec-
tions of the city, too, he had an experience that broad-
ened still further his already broad sympathies for the
unfortunate.

A Seminary Graduate. The rich years of inter-
course with able Christian scholars and with the edu-

30 Thomas jEFifERSON Lamar

eating influences of a great city came all too soon to an
end. On June i6, 1852, he graduated from Union Theo-
logical Seminary, receiving his diploma signed by Pro-
fessors Edward Robinson, Thomas H. Skinner, Henry B.
Smith, and James P. Wilson. He was now a thoroughly
educated man. Always of painstaking and accurate schol-
arship, he had profited fully by the training in the coun-
try school, Holston Academy, Maryville College in both
college and theological departments, and Union Seminary.
And now, at almost twenty-six years of age, he was ready
to enter upon his ministry of the gospel, a ministry that
was to continue nearly thirty-five years.

CHAPTER IV

The Minister and His Ministry

Licensure to the Ministry. In May, 1852, before
he left New York, he was Hcensed to the gospel minis-
try by the Presbytery of Brooklyn. His examination
was eminently satisfactory, and, in reply to the solemn
questions of the moderator, he declared his faith in the
Scriptures as the Word of God, his acceptance of the
Confession of Faith as containing the system of doctrine
taught in the Scriptures, and his promise to study the
peace, unity, and purity of the Church. And now having
reached the goal toward which he had been pressing for
ten years, he hurried westward with two purposes in
mind, namely, first, to see his parents from whom he had
parted when he was only a boy, and, then, to enter upon
his ministry in the home mission field of the West.

Ministry at Weston, Missouri. Although a Ten-
nesseean, and very loyal to his native State, the fact that
his parents and his brothers and sisters were now Mis-
sourians, and that the need of the churches on the Mis-
souri frontier was great, led him to begin his ministry in
Missouri. During the years 1852 to 1855 he was located
among his relatives near Weston, Platte county, and was
in charge of churches of that locality. In the gazetteers
of the Fifties, Weston, though settled first in 1838, is said
to have been at that time the most important commer-
cial town on the Missouri river or in the State, with the
exception of St. Louis. Its population was three thou-
sand, and it was the principal point of departure for

32 Thomas Jiif^FERSON Lamar

emigrants starting for California by the overland route ;
it provided the supplies for Fort Leavenworth ; and it
also carried on an extensive trade with the Indians and
the Far West. The town was picturesquely located on
the Missouri river, five miles above Fort Leavenworth,
and was described as "a flourishing city and river port."
Here among his kindred and amid the rich river farms
of Platte county, he did his first work as a Christian
minister. And while here he was ordained to the minis-
try by the Presbytery of Lexington. His ordination at
the hands of his brethren took place on May i, 1854.
And he carried out their injunction and ever afterward
gave full proof of his ministry.

And at Savannah, Missouri. At the urgent invita-
tion of Rev. Elijah A. Carson, an alumnus of Maryville,
ordained in 1834, and then pastor at Savannah, the
county seat of Andrew county, the second county far-
ther up the Missouri river valley, Mr. Lamar removed to
Savannah to take charge of an academy that ofifered a
great field for useful Christian service. Savannah was
located six miles from the river, and in the midst of a
fertile farming region. Here he united the work of
teacher and preacher, as he was destined to do during the
rest of his life. It was while he was at Savannah, as will
be seen elsewhere in this narrative, that he was married.
Mr. Lamar was now in the prime of life. His five years
of preaching and teaching in Missouri were fruitful years,
and left a permanent impress upon the communities in
which he labored. And they were especially enjoyable
years, too, on account of his reunion with his relatives.

Back to Tennessee. In the midst of this congenial

The Minister and His MirJisTRY 33

work of his, there came an urgent call from the Synod of
Tennessee for his return to Maryville to accept the pro-
fessorship of Sacred Literature in his alma mater. While
the call was to educational work, it in reality added a
full-time ministry to the Synod of Tennessee; for, from
his arrival in Tennessee and up to the last year of his
life, he had pastoral charge of churches in addition to his
college professorship. The call was extended to him by
the Synod on September 27, 1856, but his engagements
and family responsibilities at Savannah were such that he
could not leave until the scholastic year had ended. So
it was not till the summer of 1857 that he and his family
reached Maryville. He began his work in the College at
the opening of the fall term of the year 1857-58.

Blount County Churches. Mr. Lamar, like the other
professors of the college faculty, took charge of such
country churches in Blount county as would otherwise
have been pastorless. In spite of the weariness that came
as the result of long over-hours of teaching, he regularly
preached for these churches, and, in addition, did all the
pastoral work that he could find time for. He buried the
dead and married the living, and proclaimed the gospel
of the kingdom; and the people loved him and he loved
the people. He preached for the people of Clover Hill,
Forest Hill, Unitia, and other churches for many years.

War-Time Ministry. The Civil War overturned in
confusion all the institutions of peace, such as civil gov-
ernment, social intercourse, the school, and the church.
Blount county twice passed from one government to the
other, social ties were strained and severed, the college
and other educational institutions were closed, and so

3 I

34 Thomas Jhfferson Lamar

were many of the churches, though some were opened
intermittently. Mr. Lamar, always a courteous gentle-
man, endeavored to avoid giving needless offense to those
of other convictions. Friends on the other side of the
house, at critical times, lent their best efforts in his behalf
to such good effect that he escaped the perils of the war,
and nothing more serious befell him than the loss of his
horse and some other property. During most of the four
years in which our country was a house divided against
itself, he was permitted to conduct services on Sab-
baths for such people as could collect for the worship of
Almighty God. He had lost his wife before the begin-
ning of the war; and so his child, a motherless invalid,
demanded all his attention; otherwise he could have en-
tered the service as chaplain. As it was, he was acting
chaplain for the sorely distressed people who lived in
a section that was the battleground of many armies.
And grievously did the people need the consolations and
the cheer of the gospel, while they were harassed on
every hand by the especially fratricidal strife that raged
throughout East Tennessee. Mr. Lamar did all that lay
in his power to keep alive in his countrymen, both friends
and foes, faith in the presence, power, providence, wis-
dom, and love of God. Anxious men and women and
children listened to his messages and took courage.

After-War Church Reorganization. At last the war
came to an end, and peace returned to a weary land. A'Ir.
Lamar searched for and found the records of the Synod
of Tennessee, and then led in the reorganization of the
Synod. A quorum was secured, and the Synod of Ten-
nessee came together at New Market in October, 1865.

The Minister and His Ministry 35

The ecclesiastical machinery was salvaged from the dump
heap and set to going again. He was the principal figure
in this historic meeting of Synod. Around him gathered
a goodly number, and they united in laying the founda-
tions of the church anew after the destruction and deso-
lation wrought by the war. His wisdom and sagacity and
sympathy as a counsellor made him sought out by the
people of many churches, as they endeavored to feel their
way out of the darkness and wreckage of the war into a
brighter day and into constructive work. And he was
kept very busy preaching in these many churches.

Stated Clerkship of Synod. The Synod appointed
him stated clerk, and he ably discharged the duties of this
office for twenty-two years, or until the time of his death.
The fact that the Synodical College was located at Mary-
ville led often to the appointment of a Maryville man as
stated clerk. Professor William Eagleton held the office
from 1825 to 1830; Professor Darius Hoyt, 1830-1836;
Professor Fielding Pope, 1 836-1 851 ; President John J.
Robinson, 1851-1855; Professor Thomas Jefferson Lamar,
1865-1887; Professor Gideon Stebbins White Crawford,
1887-1891 ; and President Samuel Tyndale Wilson, 1891-
1919. Professor Lamar kept the records with his usual
care and accuracy. The task of writing the records was
a heavy one and was performed as a labor of love for
the work of the Synod. The salary was merely nominal.
The manuscript records of the Synod are, by order of
the Synod, kept deposited in the college safe at Maryville.

Earnest Preacher. Mr. Lamar was an able sermon-
izer. Dr. Alexander says, "As a sermonizer he had few

36 Thomas Jefi^erson Lamar

equals in this section of country." He sometimes preached
extemporaneous sermons, but usually employed manu-
script. He wrote out each sermon in full and with pains-
taking care. He made his own goosequill pens, but his
writing resembled electrotype work. He composed very
rapidly, usually standing at a high desk. His sermons
were always thoughtful and always earnest. A brother
minister who often heard him, testified that he never
heard him preach a poor sermon, or an uninteresting one.
He was always an able preacher, but it was a matter of
common remark that his very best preaching was that of
his last year in the pulpit, the year closing in May, 1886,
at which time his health broke down and put an end to
his active ministry.

Sage Counsellor. Reference has been made to the
great service he rendered as a wise counsellor at the time
of ecclesiastical reorganization in 1865. His service in
this respect was by no means limited to that period.
Always he was a sage counsellor. He had the gift of
organization. He could set others to work, to do work
that they did not know that they could do, and work that
sometimes he himself could not have done. His study
was a council-chamber where brother ministers and ruling
elders of local churches and the presbyteries and the
Synod, and colleagues of the college faculty, and present
students and former students came for counsel and advice.
His study was a council-chamber for Presbyterianism in
East Tennessee, as well as for the College and the county.
Indeed his place in this regard has never been filled. His
most beneficent work for the church, aside from his
service through the College, was rendered in the sage and

The Minister and His Ministry 37

sympathetic counsel that he freely gave to the many that
sought it in his quiet study.

Missions His Great Commission. The work of the
church occupied his heart's devotion. He was busy day
and night in advancing its sacred interests. His commis-
sion to preach was a mission entrusted to him by Christ
and his church. Home and foreign missions enlisted his
enthusiastic cooperation and inspired his tireless support.
The work in the Southern mountains — the work for which
Maryville was founded and to which it has been devoted —
stirred his liveliest sympathies. Christian education to
him was a passion because it was a means to lead men to
Christ and a means by which to carry forward the work
of the Great Teacher. He rejoiced to see many of his
choicest students go to foreign fields, and to destitute
home mission fields. He was an able minister of the
New Testament, called and commissioned to a congenial
service — the proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom
to a world that needs it.

CHAPTER V

The Teacher and His Teaching

Predilection for Teaching. Professor Lamar was
a teacher from his youth onward. While a student at
Maryville, during his collegiate and theological courses,
he was an assistant teacher or tutor. Mr. James Gillespie
tells of reciting Vattel's Law of Nations to him. He
had been out of the Seminary only three years when he
became a "teacher" at Savannah, Missouri, and was so
listed in the Minutes of the General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church. After two years he was called to
Maryville College, and there discharged the duties of his
professorship until the outbreak of the war. And even
during that dread vacation period of four years of civil
strife, he taught a little private school in the home of the
Duncans. It was attended by the Duncan and McCon-
nell children, Nannie McGinley, and the household help.
Mrs. Jennie Duncan Crawford recalls the professor's
seating her on a trunk to work off a condition in her
spelling book before permitting her to join the family in
a day's outing that was being planned. He was always
and everywhere a teacher.

A Professorship at Maryville. On September 2'],
1856, a day after the overwhelming defeat of the last
effort ever made to remove the College from the town of
Maryville, the Synod of Tennessee, in session at Athens,
unanimously elected Mr. Lamar as Professor of Sacred
Literature, to succeed Dr. John J. Robinson, who had

The Teacher and His Teaching 39

resigned. This professorship had been founded by the
Synod through the agency of Rev. Thomas Brown, the
most efficient agent of the College in ante-bellum days.
The salary offered was $600, but the amount received
was always less than the stipulated amount. Professor
G. S. W. Crawford, in 1876, in an address that was re-
vised by Professor Lamar, stated: "From 1819 to 1861
no professor ever received so much as $500 salary, while
the average was about $300." The first incumbent of
the professorship was Rev. John J. Robinson, D.D., from
1850 to 1855 ; Professor Lamar was the second, from
1857 to 1861. The Synod recognized the special interest
attaching to the recall of a favorite son into the service
of alma mater, and added a touch of sentiment to their
action by appointing a special committee of two to pre-
sent and urge the call, namely. Ruling Elder Daniel Meek,
of Strawberry Plains Church, his benefactor and foster-
father, and Rev. Gideon Stebbins White, the pastor of his
boyhood days, who had received him into the church and
encouraged him to enter the ministry.

This Another Momentous Event. It was a mo-
mentous event, as we have seen, when, in 1844, Thomas
Lamar matriculated at Maryville. And another momen-
tous event was it, indeed, when, in 1857, Rev. Thomas
Jefferson Lamar returned to Maryville to reenter the
College as one of its professors. It was a noteworthy
event in the accession of a scholarly and faithful teacher;
but it was a most significant event because in this modest
teacher there was also found an educational statesman and
financial wonder-worker — thaumatourgos, as his Greek
language would have called him. In this silent school-

40 Thomas Jefi^iIRSOn Lamar

teacher there was embodied far-seeing vision and un-
conquerable resolution. On that momentous day there
entered the little college circle a man who was to snatch
up the blazing torch of Christian education that had just
fallen from the dying hands of Dr. Anderson and carry
it onward, sometimes unaided and unaccompanied by
others, until he should, almost a third of a century later,
pass it over into the hands of others of Maryville's men.
There entered into the service of alma mater that autumn
day a man who was to defy the destruction of war, and,
by God's assisting grace, was to establish on a lordly
campus on the southeastern hills, the new buildings of a
bigger and better Maryville than the fathers had dared
even to hope for. There dawned upon Maryville on that
day of his return the certainty of a new and glorious
future. And yet perhaps none realized it, and no one
less than he!

"Professor Lamar." Mr. Lamar entered upon his
professorship in the fall of 1857. And thus "Tom
Lamar" became, by the quick nomenclature of college
boys, "Professor Lamar," and Professor Lamar he re-
mained to the end of his life. Nominally, he was Pro-
fessor of Languages in the Literary Department, and
Professor of Sacred Literature in the Theological Depart-
ment of Maryville College; but practically, as was the
case in almost all the heavy-laden teachers of that day,
his work extended over most of the departments of the
school. As Dr. Anderson, who had closed his earthly
career only a few months before, had at some time con-
ducted every class scheduled at Maryville, so Professor
Lamar had ample opportunity to show his versatility, for

The: Teacher and His Teaching 41

the classes he conducted ranged all the way "from A to
Izzard" in nature and variety.

Trying Days. The College had been passing through
hard experiences. Dr. Anderson for several years had
been incapacitated both mentally and physically for work ;
and on January 28, 1857, after Mr. Lamar's election as
professor but before he had entered upon his duties, had
closed his earthly career. The General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church, in session at Cleveland, Ohio, in
May of that year, only echoed the general sorrow of the
church when it recorded "with deep regret the decease
of the Rev. Isaac Anderson, D.D., late President of the
Institution at Maryville." In 1855 Dr. Robinson had
resigned his professorship to accept a call to Kentucky.
The only professor from 1855 to 1857 was Rev. John S.
Craig. He was assisted by Charles C. Newman as tutor
and other students as assistants. In 1855-56 there were
only fifty-eight students enrolled ; in 1856-57, sixty-two
students, of whom twenty-two were in the College Depart-
ment. There was a strong efifort being made to remove
the College to Rogersville. The fortunes of the College
were at their lowest ebb. Many of the old friends of the
institution despaired of its future.

Better Days Coming. The Synod of Tennessee
ended the contest for the removal of the College by de-
ciding in October, 1856, by a decisive majority, to have
the institution remain at Maryville for at least ten years.
It also called Mr. Lamar to the professorship, which he
entered a year later. It took steps toward the completion
of the brick college building, which had been begun in
1853. Immediately after the death of Dr. Anderson, the

42 Thomas Jkfferson Lamar

Directors elected Dr. John J. Robinson as the second
president of the College, and he entered upon the dis-
charge of his duties at the opening of the summer session,
April 7, 1857. Professor Lamar's estimate of Dr. Robin-
son was that he was "a fine scholar, an able theologian,
eloquent preacher, and thorough instructor." Thus the
steadfast Dr. Craig and the tutors were reinforced by two
as able men as Maryville had ever had in her faculty,
Mr. Lamar and Dr. Robinson, one a former student and
tutor and the other a former professor of the institution,
and both of them graduates of Union Theological Semi-
nary. Popular confidence was reestablished, and the flow
of students set toward the College again. Prosperity and
growth, to a greater degree than before, seemed the sure
destiny of the school. The worst was over, and a better
day had dawned. Religious activity increased. A revival
took place in College, and fifteen out of the sixty-six
enrolled were converted. A college weekly prayer meeting
and a Sabbath evening preaching service were established.

The New Professor's Scholarship. The standards
of scholarship upheld by the new professor were high.
He had not been studying at Maryville and in New York
and teaching in the West to no effect. Accurate and ver-
satile, he entered upon his new duties with enthusiasm
and painstaking devotion. The faculty of three — Craig,
Lamar, and Robinson — commanded public favor as much
as did any Maryville faculty of the first college century.
They revised the curriculum and planned an advance in
college standards. Whether it was Greek or Geography
that Professor Lamar taught, it was well taught. Pre-
paratory, college, and theological courses were all thor-

The; Teacher and His Teaching 43

oughly conducted by him. In the first post-bellum year,
he taught almost all the curriculum ! For a few years in
the Sixties he was also County Superintendent of Public
Instruction for Blount county, and won the strong endorse-
ment of State Superintendent John Eaton, afterwards the
United States Commissioner of Education.

Patience in Class-Room Drill. Of indefatigable per-
severance, he was especially effective in the painstaking
drill that he gave his students in the Greek verbs and
particles, and in all else that he taught. Of long-suffer-
ing endurance, he trained his students in the mastery of
details. Quiet but persuasive, his influence was every-
where strong, and nowhere stronger than in the class
room. It was the stolidity of the student rather than
lack of persistence on the part of the pedagogue that
accounted for any failure on the part of his pupil.

Kindliness in Discipline. Where he felt it was pos-
sible to save a student to better things, he was very patient
and forbearing; but when the moral welfare of the entire
school was involved, he could be very firm, and, when
occasion required it, very stern. But, in it all, his kindli-
ness of heart and genuine desire for the student's well-
being revealed itself in all cases of discipline. Said one
frequent offender: "He was kind to me, as if he wanted
to do me good." With this kindliness, hovv^ever, there
went along a shrewd insight that read with remarkable
accuracy the true inwardness of the student arraigned
before him. He was not often deceived, even when the
student flattered himself that he had succeeded in an
attempted deception.

44 Thomas jEifFE;RSON Lamar

Sympathetic Heart. He did not "carry his heart on
his sleeve," and so some may have fancied him cold and
indifferent, but they were entirely mistaken. Under his
quiet reserve, there beat a heart of sympathy and loving-
kindness. One of his students of the early days said of
him : "No one ever went to him for help and came away
empty." The fact that the students knew him to be
thus in kindliest sympathy with them established between
them and their teacher a very close and cordial relation-
ship. And thus his heart taught his students even more
effectively than did his intellect.

Fruitful Pedagogy. And so this able and conse-
crated teacher rendered a service to his students that
won their gratitude and elicited their enthusiastic praise.
Some of his students he made scholars, and Greek schol-
ars, too; some he helped to a choice of a life vocation;
some who had gone astray he won back to repentance and
a new life ; many he aided in the greatest of all decisions —
that of choosing the Christian life purpose. And so this
teacher's influence flowed beyond the class room into the
lives of his students. And for thirty years did this Chris-
tian pedagogue render this gracious and helpful service
to the students of Maryville College.

' CHAPTER VI

A Christian Statesman

The Teacher also a Statesman. There are teachers
that are teachers and little else. Their orbit is a limited
though worthy one. Of Professor Lamar, however, all
who knew his work were constrained to say that he was
not only a teacher and a Christian teacher, but also a
Christian statesman. He had clear views and ideals of
policy and of the best ways of realizing that policy. The
daily routine of a treadmill existence was transformed into
the delights of achievement as his vision pierced beyond
the immediate present to the greater and more influential
and serviceable future which should grow out of the
prosaic present, and which was vitally connected with it.
The treadmill work of today was connected in his broad
vision with the useful triumphs of tomorrow, or of some
other tomorrow. He was not content to be a mere school-
room pedagogue. He was ambitious to help realize a
better school-room and much beyond the school-room.
He was a constructive educational statesman.

Higher Christian Education. He recognized the fact
that one of the most vital needs of the world is the need
of higher Christian education. The result of his study
of history and society was this tenet of his experimental
philosophy : "The world is lost without trained Christian
leaders." And since this is indisputably a fact, he decided
to tie up his own life to this necessary and beneficent
business of higher Christian education.

Extension of Maryville's Contribution to It. From

46 Thomas Je:pfi^rson Lamar

1857, when he entered the Maryville faculty, till 1887,
when his life work terminated, he was ever ambitious
and resolved that Maryville College should in the amplest
possible way realize Dr. Anderson's expressed desire, that
it should "do good on the largest possible scale." His
heart was burdened with a sense of duty to inaugurate
ways and means by which Maryville could grow in facili-
ties for doing more widely the good thing it had, during
all its days, been doing, namely, the making of well-
trained and far-visioned Christian leaders. To this great
end, he dreamed, he resolved, he attempted, he achieved,
and, finally, he gave his life.

Its Clientage Increased. In this endeavor he joined
his colleagues immediately in an earnest effort to increase
the number of students in attendance. So successful was
the attempt, even in those days of small population and
no public schools and comparative poverty, that the en-
rollment at Maryville was nearly doubled in those four
troubled years before the outbreak of the Civil War.
A new popular favor came to the institution, and there
was fair promise of a much larger and more enthusiastic
clientage. The United Synod, at Huntsville, Alabama, in
i860, bore testimony: "The College of the United Synod
at Maryville is now commanding public attention and
attracting the regard of our denominational body in a
higher degree than perhaps at any former period."

The "South Hills" Expansion Planned. In con-
junction with President Robinson, Professor Lamar had
his share in planning the removal of the College from
the half -acre campus on Main street to the spacious and
quiet "South Hills," where, in the earliest days of the

A Christian Statesman 47

Seminary, the seminary farm had been located. He and
President Robinson gave their personal note for $2,000, by
which they secured option on fifty acres of that attractive
site. Had the War not arisen, the probability is that their
plan might have been realized, and the school have been
removed to the South Hills. After the War, however, it
was the East Hills, adjoining the South Hills, that Pro-
fessor Lamar succeeded in securing, thus realizing the
essential features of his ante-bellum dream.

But War Engulfs Everything, While the little fac-
ulty at Maryville was planning expansion, the cruel out-
burst of civil war threatened extinction. The sectional
quarrel had been of such long-standing duration, that
many men had got into the habit of expecting that it
would end in words, not blows; but they were now sadly
undeceived. The fury of the struggle had in it the accu-
mulated momentum of the long-dammed-up tide of bitter-
ness. And the heart-broken professor, upon his return
from presbytery on April 23, 1861, found that, the day
before, the College had been closed, and that now teachers
and students were scattering wherever their sense of duty
and the force of circumstances were sweeping them. It
was as if, an eye-witness from the shore, he had seen a
gallant ship with which his fortunes and his interests
were all identified, go suddenly down in the vortex of a
raging whirlpool, leaving nothing behind but wreckage
and the memory of its former beauty and utility.

Everything ! Everything ! As he gazed, all that had
been familiar and dear to him in connection with his own
college days and then with his four happy years as teacher
disappeared from sight. Engulfed in the maelstrom of

4S Thomas JeF'Person Lamaii

the War, there vanished the men who sat in the chairs of
instruction and those who were enrolled in their classes
as students. Down, too, went the modest endowment, the
library, the buildings — one altogether and others practi-
cally so — and, finally, even those ruins that remained.
And amid these national and college disasters, the pro-
fessor suffered the added griefs that come from domestic
sorrow. He had lost in the summer before the outbreak
of the War his wife and their infant child. But there
remained with him his other child, little Katie, a beloved
care that moved his heart with constant sympathy. And
so within his borrowed home was this daily care, and
without were the desolations of war.

Yet Unwavering in Purpose, But throughout those
dreary years Professor Lamar fainted not, nor swerved
from his designs of good for the old College, and, through
it, for the church and mankind. As he sat at the fire-
place in the home of the Duncans, where he resided after
the death of his wife, he would talk over his plans for
reopening the College when the War should end; and
then, before going to his room, he would conduct family
worship, and never fail to pray for the College that then
was not, but that should yet be again, if God should
please. Dr. Alexander said of this period of Professor
Lamar's life, "The professor, however, saw in the wide-
spread desolation no ground for despondency, but rather
an opportunity for work." Meanwhile he watched the
progress of events with an eager eye and with confidence
in the overruling providence of God.

Only Awaiting an Opportunity. Tied down by the
death of his wife to the care of his helpless child, he was

A Christian Statesman 49

not drawn into the war and war work. And so, provi-
dentially, he was able to stay at his post, watching the
interests of what had been and yet should be the insti-
tution of higher Christian education to which he had
devoted his life. Men may not turn aside the devastating
currents of war, but they may wait until those currents
have run their course and ebbed away ; and then they may
take up again interrupted work and follow again the path-
way from which they had been driven. This was another
instance illustrating the truth of Milton's words : "They
also serve who only stand and wait."

Planning and Praying. "When the cruel war is
over," was the refrain that ran through the thinking of
Americans of both sections in those sad years of strife.
Professor Lamar planned what should be with God's help
in those blessed days to come; and then he prayed to
God for his grace and favor to bring to pass the reali-
zation of those plans. Tested and tried during those
years and before those years, he believed most unre-
servedly in the plans and providences of his heavenly
Father, and sought with confidence to tie up all his own
plans and purposes with the will of God. And God
hears and heeds such knocking and seeking and asking
as Professor Lamar brought to the place of prayer.

Peace and Work Again. And when peace at last
dawned again on a war-w"orn country, immediately this
quiet, silent statesman began to set influences in operation
to bring about the reopening and rebuilding of Maryville
College in order that it might contribute its quota to the
gigantic task then committed to the Christian colleges of
the land in the preparation of a proper and adequate

4

50 Thomas Jefferson Lamar

educated leadership for the reunited country and the New
America that was to be. For two great causes he toiled
day and night ; they were never off his thoughts, namely,
the church and the College. And within six months after
the close of the war, largely through his leadership, the
Synod of Tennessee was reorganized and had held an
epochal meeting at New Market, on October 12-14, 1865,
and had appointed him a director of the College and had
ordered him to reopen the institution. Within twelve
months more, he was able to carry this order into effect.
And thus the statesman's dreams had been justified and
had begun to be realized. But this story belongs to the
next chapter.

CHAPTER VII

A College Builder

Facing a Scrap Heap. Surely no more unpromis-
ing outlook for a college builder could have existed than
was that before Professor Lamar as, at the close of the
war, he looked out upon Maryville College to take stock
of its resources. Those resources, at the best, before the
war were limited enough, but now were almost non-exist-
ent. The original seminary building had entirely disap-
peared, while the main building was a mere skeleton, with
no doors or window frames or even window casings. The
library and, indeed, the wreck of the main building and
the land it stood on, and all else, had been sold at sherifif's
sale in 1864 to satisfy a judgment against the Directors.
The endowment of $15,739 h^d been reduced to a face
value of $7,182 and an actual value of $5,539. Add to
this the cash value of real estate and other property, and
the entire assets of the College did not amount to more
than $6,036. Maryville College was, indeed, a scrap heap.

What Synod Did. At the meeting of the Synod of
Tennessee in its reorganization in 1865, Professor Lamar
made a frank and, therefore, profoundly discouraging
report of the condition of the finances, the plant, and the
prospects of the College. A free discussion was had as
to what should be done regarding the future of the
Synodical College. Some felt that its case was clearly
hopeless. It had been practically annihilated, and its
friends were so impoverished that the problem of their
own future was alone as serious a problem as they could

52 Thomas Jei^^ERSON Lamar

deal with. In the midst of the depression that prevailed,
Hon. Horace Maynard, a delegate from the Second
Church of Knoxville, rose and made an earnest speech in
favor of the reopening and rehabilitation of the College,
on the ground that otherwise the needed ministry for the
churches of the Synod could not be secured. Professor
Lamar and his friends agreed with Mr. Maynard's po-
sition, and the Synod, as was stated in a former chapter,
voted to revive the institution ; and to that end elected a
full board of directors, and a treasurer, and empowered
Professor Lamar to reopen the College in the fall of
1865, if practicable, and at the same time appointed him
as financial agent of the school.

A Winter of Torture. It was entirely impracticable
to reopen the school in the fall of 1865. There was no
money available and the building was uninhabitable. But
something had to be done or the dead could never be
restored to life. Professor Lamar nerved himself to a
heart-breaking task, and, in December, 1865, he com-
mitted Katie, his little charge, to the kind care of Mrs.
Duncan, and went North, and labored for four months,
or until April, 1866, in a desperate endeavor to interest
people in Maryville College, and to secure money for its
rehabilitation. He was of a most retiring and diffident
disposition, and so the work of seeking funds for the
College was one that inflicted upon him untold torture
and even agony. People at home were reduced to bitter
poverty, while people in the North were not then in the
habit of contributing largely to the cause of education
even at home, and surely not to a far-off school in a sec-
tion with which they had just been engaged in bloody

A ColI/Ege; Builder 53

strife. It would be hard to exaggerate the nerve-racking
wretchedness that Professor Lamar endured for the king-
dom of heaven's sake during those dreadful four months
of his first financial agency for his alma mater. He was
so economical that his expenses amounted to only $190;
but his best endeavors were able to secure only $125 in
contributions. Hon. William E. Dodge contributed $100
of this sum. At last the four months came to a dismal
end, and he returned to Maryville worn out and penni-
less. Nothing was to be expected from a distance at that
time of national disturbance and readjustment.

Year One of the New College. So he returned to
the Duncan fireside, and took to his heart again little
Katie and his college problems. And he decided, as Dr.
Anderson had decided in a similar predicament forty-
seven years before, that, if others would not help, he
would start the work without man's help. So on July 4,
1866, fit day for so heroic and patriotic an announce-
ment, he had issued over the signature of his future
father-in-law. Rev. Ralph Erskine Tedford, Recorder of
the Directors of the College, a one-page announcement
that the reopening of the College would take place on
Wednesday, September 5, 1866. By September, 1866,
Treasurer John P. Hooke, "by prompt and energetic
action," as Professor Lamar said, had succeeded in se-
curing at a cost of $587, through attorneys, the few bonds
of any value that had escaped destruction during the Civil
War. They were Knox county bonds. He also had
collected by that date in interest on the bonds and out-
standing notes the sum of $1,039. ^^^"^^ so in Septem-
ber, 1866, the boarding house, a dilapidated little frame

54 Thomas Jeffeirson Lamar

building on the present site of the Second Presbyterian
Church, was redeemed at the cost of $217, and the main
college building, for $59.25. And the sum of $97.60 was
paid for glass and putty with which to repair the win-
dows of those rooms of the college building that were
to be occupied by the classes. And so Maryville College
began its first year of the new era, on the first Wednes-
day of September, 1866. The window glass had not yet
been put in, and there was not a decent room in the
tumble-down building. The cattle, wandering about the
village, stared in wonder through the window openings
at Professor Lamar and the lucky thirteen men who had
answered the call of the old college bell on that historic
day.

The Salutatory. James Andrew Goddard, one of
the thirteen, has a very distinct recollection of Professor
Lamar's talk made to them at that unpromising opening.
The professor congratulated them upon the desire for an
education that their presence there indicated. He spoke
of the power of an educated man ; and of his own fixed
purpose, for the sake of country and church, to push
forward the long-intermitted work of Maryville College.
He urged the young men to exercise patience until their
surroundings could be made more presentable, and coun-
seled them to fidelity and industry. He told them not to
be discouraged because the war had interfered with their
education. If they worked hard, they could make up what
was lost. The thirteen who listened to this reassuring
talk and joined in that first chapel service of the new
day were Francis Miller Allen, George Eagleton Bick-
nell, Gideon Stebbins White Crawford, Calvin Alexander

A College Builder '55

Duncan, James Andrew Goddard, Benjamin Houston
Lea, Isaac Anderson Martin, William Henderson Porter,
Edward W. Sanderson, Hugh Walker Sawyer, Joseph
Patton Tedford, Charles Erskine Tedford, and Edward
Weeks Tedford. Four were returned soldiers. Six later
on entered the gospel ministry. Mr. Crawford was for
sixteen years Professor of Mathematics in Maryville
College. Beside the thirteen students present, William
Edmond Parham, then a little child of six years, was a
very interested spectator. Professor Lamar holding the
little fellow between his knees as he talked with the
students.

A Good Beginning. In spite of the "horrible and
disgusting" building, as one of the thirteen described it,
the school grew by additions until the modest four-page
catalogue published at the end of the year contained the
names of forty-seven students — two in the college de-
partment and forty-five in the preparatory department.
Among these students were men who became leading citi-
zens of the county and some who attained distinction
elsewhere. Besides the immortal thirteen there were
enrolled : John Casper Branner, now ex-president of
Leland Stanford University; James E. Alexander, and
J. Albert Wallace, who afterward became ministers;
James H. Alexander, James M. Brown, M.D., Moses
Carson, James P., Richard, and W. G. Chandler, T. P.
and S. A. Cowan, James Culton, W. F. Dowell, Capt.
J. Perry Edmondson, B. F., I. W., J. L., and S. Hous-
ton George, James A. and N. H. Greer, J. H. Harmon,
W. W. Hedrick, John F. Henry, Z. Taylor McGill, Major
William Anderson McTeer, R. P. McReynolds, C. A. H.

56 Thomas Jefferson Lamar

Palmer, Robert Porter, J. G. Reed, M. C. Tipton, G. R.
and W. A. Walker, James S. Warren, and D. M. Wilson.
Several of these men were afterward directors of the
institution, among whom were Major William Anderson
McTeer, who has served thus far ( 1920) for forty-eight
years (sixteen years as Treasurer), and Rev. Calvin Alex-
ander Duncan, D.D., for forty-four years. The faculty
that memorable first year consisted of Rev. Thomas Jef-
ferson Lamar, Acting President, Professor of Languages,
and Professor of Mathematics. Besides these depart-
ments he conducted what else was taught, excepting those
classes that were conducted by Isaac A. Martin, Tutor,
sole member of the Junior Class.

Finding Colleagues. In the circular catalogue for
1866-67, Professor Lamar wrote what was more than a
wish; it was part of his statesmanlike purpose. "The
friends of the institution," said he, "at the earliest practi-
cable period, wish to provide a full and efficient faculty,
and all the facilities for a thorough education." His own
salary was not adequately provided for ; what could he
offer to others? And yet he began to gather about him
colleagues who were to bear their share of the responsi-
bilities and ambitions of the College. In Union Theo-
logical Seminary he had known and esteemed P. Mason
Bartlett, a member of the class following his own. He
had hoped to secure this friend of his at the very opening
of the College in 1866, and did print his name in the July
circular as the professor to be in charge of the Depart-
ment of Mathematics. But Dr. Bartlett did not join him
at Maryville until in March, 1869, when he came to enter
upon his duties as the third president of the College, to

A College; Buii,de;r 57

which position he had been elected on September 26, i<
upon the recommendation of Professor Lamar. In the
fall of 1867, Professor Lamar secured as Professor of
the Latin Language and Literature, Rev. Alexander Bart-
lett, the brother of Dr. Bartlett. These three professors
made up the faculty until 1875. They were aided by
tutors and assistant teachers. In 1875, Rev. Gideon Steb-
bins White Crawford, of the class of 1871, a graduate of
Lane Theological Seminary in 1874, became Professor of
Mathematics. Rev. Solomon Zook Sharp was a professor
from 1875-78; William A Cate, from 1879-92; in 1884,
two other former students of Professor Lamar's, Rev.
Edgar Alonzo Elmore, '74, and Rev. Samuel Tyndale
Wilson, '78, were added to the faculty. Six members
of this faculty rendered a total of one hundred and
twenty-nine years' service to the institution.

The Motives He Urged. To illustrate the motives
that Professor Lamar held before those whom he sought
to bring into the Maryville faculty, the writer ventures to
quote a few lines from a letter he received upon reaching
Tennessee after his health had broken down in Mexico:
"I have now and then had it in my mind to write to you
about accepting a professorship in the College, but ques-
tioning both the propriety and possibility of persuading
you to abandon your very hopeful and interesting mis-
sionary work, I have not had the courage to do so. The
only reason at all plausible I could think of was that, by
stirring up and advancing a missionary spirit in the Col-
lege,, you might multiply yourself many times in Mexico.
* * * In view of the condition of your health and
your probable exclusion from Mexico, and in view of a

58 Thomas Jefi'Erson Lamar

constitution that will have constant need of a healthful
climate, and in view of the hopeful and promising field
here presented for training and sending forth laborers
into the field both home and foreign, will you not weigh
prayerfully and carefully the reasons pro and con for
making Maryville College the theatre of your life work?"'

Winning Friends and Donors. In a few lines may
be recorded what it took years of toil to bring about —
the interesting of generous donors in this little East
Tennessee college. With the help of such agents as Rev.
Samuel Sawyer, and the efforts of President Bartlett, and
the mediation of influential friends who were leaders of
the Presbyterian Church, Professor Lamar had the satis-
faction of seeing a small but interested clientage built up,
and money begin to be contributed to Maryville College.

Jehovah-jireh ! A Nev^^ Campus ! Real estate was
low, and Professor Lamar looked longingly at the East
Hills and the undulating and picturesque campus it might
come to be. Could not the dreams of other days now
come to pass? On October 14, 1867, a check for $1,000,
the largest gift ever received by Maryville up to that
time, was received from William Thaw of Pittsburgh,
a donor whose name was so connected with Maryville
thereafter that, had its owner consented, the name of the
institution might have been Thaw College. Two days
later, this check together with a note for $691.50 was
paid to Julius C. Fagg for the sixty-five acres that still
form the front of the campus. And now, at last, after
forty-eight years, the College owned a beautiful, ample,
and appropriate site ! For the forethought that secured
this sightly campus and extended it till it is one of the

A College Builder 59

largest and best in the possession of an American college,
those of the present generation often bless the sagacity
and statesmanship of Professor Lamar. The property
has increased a hundredfold in money value, but it has
also, throughout the era of expansion, allowed the build-
ings a choice of sites, and made possible such immunity
from fire risk as few colleges enjoy.

And Four New Buildings! Mr. John C. Baldwin
was interested by an article that Professor Lamar wrote
for the New York Evangelist, and by visits from Dr.
Bartlett and Mr. Sawyer; and within two years contrib-
uted the splendid sum of $25,400 to the College. Mr.
Thaw, Mr. Dodge, and others made liberal contributions,
and the Directors were able to erect in 1869-70 a main
building, almost a replica of the old college in town but
much better built. It was named for Dr. Anderson,
Anderson Hall. Memorial and Baldwin Halls, with ac-
commodations for one hundred and thirty students and
a boarding hall, were erected in 1870-71. The first build-
ing erected, however, was a residence for Professor
Alexander Bartlett, which also was made possible by a
contribution by Mr. Thaw. Professor Lamar moved into
the two north rooms on the second floor of Memorial
Hall in the autumn of 1871, when the hall was first occu-
pied by students. His rooms were very comfortable and
attractive, very different from any that Maryville had
ever been able to provide up to that time. The professor
had charge of the young men who occupied the building.
He remained thus in charge until his marriage in 1874.
The three main buildings were well built after plans by
Architect Fanstock, under the immediate and efficient

6o Thomas JFvI^ferson Lamar

supervision of President Bartlett, who, himself, in his
youthful days, had had experience as a builder.

But Unremitting Toil and Cares. The building of
a college amid the hard conditions of those early after-
war years called for heroic persistence in labors and heroic
defiance of nerve-racking cares. Those were the days of
divided counsels in national and State and local matters.
Naturally there were serious differences of opinion as to
college policies. And among other burdens borne at that
time of testing and tension was that of litigation regard-
ing the property of the College, which was instituted
after the new buildings had been erected; it extended
over eight weary years. The fact that the College was
"in Chancery" of course prevented possible donors from
contributing to an endowment; and all that the college
people could do, was, in the expressive phrase of the
English in the latest war, "to carry on." And with it all
was an excessive amount of work in the class room and
out of it, in a school that was prospering in the attendance
registered but not in the means of paying the teachers.
Countless harassing difficulties, burning heartaches, and
cruel sacrifices are not recorded in this booklet, nor even
in the knowledge of men ; but they are all recorded in
God's book of remembrance.

For Fourteen Long Years. And this toil and
trouble simmered and bubbled in the caldron from 1866
till 1880, with little intermission. There was a grievous
wearing away of nerves and endurance during those
trying years. Had it not been for the loyal support and
inspiring sympathy of William Thaw and William E.
Dodge throughout those weary years, the burden could

A College Builder 6i

not have been carried. These generous friends of Chris-
tian education contributed Hberally every year toward the
current expenses of the College, their benefactions thus
taking the place of an endowment until the endowment
could be sought and secured. The panic of 1873 inter-
rupted these annual gifts ; and then, had it not been that
Professor Lamar and President Bartlett were willing to
teach when their salaries were in arrearages, the school
would have had to be closed. ]\Taryville College lives
because overworked and underpaid professors anrl teach-
ers have stayed by the stuff for the kingdom of heaven's
sake.

Success! Two Hundred Students! By 1880 the
enrollment of students had arisen to two hundred, twice
the high water mark of the ante-bellum College. And
that signified the success of Maryville's lifelong struggle
to do good on a larger scale. And the clientage was
becoming a wider and more representative one, and the
enrollment in the college department had risen to thirty-
two. There were now four buildings, a spacious campus,
a nucleus of $13,000 in endowment, and, best of all, what
seemed a little army of students, at this loyal West Point
of Christian education.

But Anxiety, Deficit, and Debt. The builder had
built, but at cost to himself, even to the shortening of
his life. But not yet had he made his supreme sacrifice
for the College. The lack of adequate income to pay the
teachers' salaries and to meet the increase in the expenses
of the institution as the number of students increased,
taken in conjunction with the coming of hard times to the
country, made it inevitable that a deficit and, consequently,

62 Thomas Jei^fe;rson Lamar

a debt should be incurred. There was but one safe and
prudent way to provide against any debt and deficit, and
that was to secure an endowment that should bring in
a regular income that could be applied to financing the
necessary budget of the institution. This had long been
recognized to be imperatively the next advance that must
be made by the College; and now that the lawsuit was
disposed of, the way was open for an attempt to make the
advance.

CHAPTER VIII

An Endowment Founder

Endowment or Collapse! Maryville College had
now grown to such proportions, and was so steadily en-
larging its proportions, that it was increasingly and con-
vincingly evident that it could not go on trusting to annual
contributions to provide for its growing budget. The
panic of 1873 had for several years cut ofif or diminished
the annual gifts of William Thaw and William E. Dodge,
and the occasional gifts of others, until, in spite of bitter
retrenchment, the debt amounted in 1878 to more than
ten thousand dollars. Most of this debt was due to Pro-
fessor Lamar, who for years had not drawn his full salary,
and had even advanced money for the necessary expenses
of the College. The faculty, the directors, the Synod, and
Professor Lamar all realized that there must be a sub-
stantial amount of endowment raised, or a collapse must
ensue. And when, in 1880, the paralyzing litigation came
to an end, all felt that the crisis must be faced and a
desperate attempt to secure endowment must be made.
Fourteen years after the College had been reopened, there
was an endowment fund of only thirteen thousand dol-
lars. And yet the necessary expenditures were mounting
higher every year.

Enlistment for the Forlorn Hope. At a meeting
of the friends of the institution to consider the matter,
by a process of elimination one and another were shown
not to be available to conduct this forlorn hope campaign ;
and then some one turned to Professor Lamar and said,

64 Thomas Je^fferson Lamar

"Professor, you see that you are the one that must go."
The professor turned ashy pale, but seemed to recognize
the apparent necessity, and, ere the conference closed,
had "enlisted for the duration of the war." He was no
coward, or he would not have consented to go; his soul
shrank from the dread ordeal, but, like his Master, for
the sake of others he would go into the darkness of the
Garden or even to his Golgotha.

The Task an Impossible One. One hundred thou-
sand dollars — no less — must be the goal, for no less than
six thousand dollars a year must be added to the college
income in order to meet the expense account. But how
hopeless to seek to find donors for this vast sum, for it
was indeed vast then, when large gifts to education were
very rare. With a local clientage able to help but little,
how could it be believed that strangers of another section,
who had never seen Maryville, should contribute to it this
preposterously large endowment? How could a modest
school-teacher of Maryville, Blount county, Tennessee,
challenge the attention and gain the liberality of enough
men on a large enough scale to secure for this little and
unknown school in the Southern mountains the sum of
one hundred thousand dollars? The task was palpably
and unquestionably an utterly impossible one. That is, it
was impossible with men.

The Means, a Modest Man. The timidity, the self-
effacement, and yet the resolution of this endowment-
builder are revealed in the following extract from a letter
written in behalf of the College: *Tf I have been over-
anxious," he wrote, "and have crossed the limits of deli-
cacy and propriety in urging the matter, I am sure your

An Endowment Founder 65

generous nature and broad Christian spirit will readily
overlook and forgive. It has been my lot in life to work
at foundations beneath the surface. I shall never expect
to rise above the surface. But, then, there is, in the
church and world, need of men to work below the sur-
face, where they are obscure and unknown. And if they
do well their work, they will not be forgotten. In my
time I shall hardly look for Maryville College to rise much
above the surface, but if we can lay deep, broad, and solid
foundations, others, no doubt, will rear suitable super-
structures thereon." Dr. Carson W. Adams said of him:
"He had what I call the force of modesty, combined with
faith and quiet persistence, that led him to success."

The Dynamics, Faith in God. In his shrinking self-
depreciation, he said that he did not have the qualities
needed by a financial agent of a college. He certainly did
not have self-assurance and dash and egotism and callous-
ness to rebufif, and similar traits, if such qualities are
requisite to make an ideal endowment-founder; but he
did have a quality, which, joined with Christian fidelity,
God can use to work miracles with, and that supreme and
vital quality — faith in God — he had in large degree. In
confident trust, he was accustomed to submit without a
murmur to God's providences, and also to follow God's
guidance, and, in it all, to commit his way unto the Lord,
and trust also in him, assured that he would bring it to
pass. And this faith, we may well believe, may, after
all, be the best possible dynamics even in securing college
foundations !

A Three Years' Struggle. At last all preparations
were completed, and the professor started, on Novem-
0

66 Thomas Jkfferson Lamar

ber 17, 1880, upon his forlorn hope. Less than a month
later he was summoned home by the fatal illness of his
only child. Ralph Max, the pride of his heart, died on
December 15, a few days after the heart-broken father
had reached home. Surely now he would give up his
unwelcome task as financial representative of the College.
No! a month later, on January 19, 1881, he set out again,
this time accompanied by his wife. The first year he
was in the field for seven months, and secured pledges
for $65,000 — $25,000 from Mr. Dodge, $20,000 from
Mr. Thaw, and $20,000 from Mr. Smith — on condition
that $100,000 be secured by the end of the year. Little
more was secured during the year, but the time limit was
extended by the subscribers. The second year, 1882, Mr.
Lamar spent two and a half months in the field, but only
small subscriptions were secured. The third year wit-
nessed the death of William E. Dodge, true friend of
the College in a critical time in its history. His family
assumed the subscription of $25,000 made by Mr. Dodge
and renewed in his will, and still further extended the
time limit.

The Cost of the Campaign. The financial cost of
the campaign as conducted with extreme economy by Pro-
fessor Lamar was almost incredibly low — only $702 ; but
the cost in other respects was excessive. The cost in com-
fort was very heavy. For one of so retiring a nature as
was Professor Lamar's, it was a crucifixion to have to
approach strangers for financial help. And this pain was
suffered not merely while he was in the field, but also
so long as the necessity to seek out such possible donors
rested over him as a gloomy pall. For three long years

An Endowment Founder 67

he was in inquisitorial torments. The cost in courage was
very great. Day after day he was forced to approach
men who were strangers to him and to his cause ; and the
loss of nerve power expended day after day, in screwing
his courage to the sticking point, told seriously against
him when, ere long, the break-down came. No soldier
on the battlefield ever exhibited a higher type of valor
than he showed in this battle for Maryville and the Chris-
tian education of his people. No one but God and him-
self knew how painful were the experiences of those three
years. However, he flinched not, because he was a good
soldier of Jesus Christ, and he had received his orders
from his Lord and Master.

Nothing Impossible with God. One November night
in 1881, he wrote home from New York, telling a col-
league of his experiences. After recounting some griev-
ous disappointments, he added: "I am out every day
calling on men, but as yet finding no response. All is
darkness and uncertainty. I can not walk by sight. But
I am here, and I know no better way than to keep try-
ing and do my duty as best I can, and trust God for the
issue. But let us not despair ; let us hope and work on.
According to our resources, we are doing as much good,
I candidly believe, as any institution in our country ; and
we have a right to believe that God will help us, and make
perfect his power in our weakness. I do not think that
in anything I have ever before undertaken, have I had
such a felt need as now of divine guidance, support, and
help. I sometimes feel that for this special work I am
without wisdom, strength, tact, or fitness. What has been
done, and what may be done, is, and must be, of God

68 Thomas Jej^f^Eeson Lamar

only. May we all feel how absolutely dependent we are
on him, and take hope and courage from the fact that
with God nothing shall be impossible!"

His Helpers. In the terribly depressing loneliness
that came to him as he was among strangers, it seemed
sometimes as if no one took his part, and that all forsook
him ; but, like Paul, he could say : "But the Lord stood
by me, and strengthened me." And he found to his com-
fort that there were those who proved themselves true
and tried brethren indeed. Among them were the four
chief subscribers to the endowment, and Drs. Henry
Kendall, Henry A. Nelson, Thomas S. Hastings, and
Edward D. Morris. They carried his burdens on their
own hearts, and their sympathy and help greatly encour-
aged him in his gigantic task. The many letters inter-
changed by these Christian men during this period were
full of loyal interest and brotherly love. These friends
highly esteemed the modest and devoted champion of
Christian education for the youth of East Tennessee, and
they did what they could for him and his cause.

The Donors. There were, however, no persons more
interested in the success of the endowment campaign than
were the four men who subscribed the largest amounts
to the fund. Mr. Baldwin had died before the fund was
begun. Mr. Thaw, Mr. Dodge, and Mr. Smith all exhib-
ited the keenest personal interest in the progress of the
campaign and the liveliest desire for its success. In this
attitude they were joined by Dr. Sylvester Willard, of
Auburn, New York, who also subscribed liberally to the
fund. Personal regard for the brave but modest leader
from East Tennessee was united with warm sympathy

fLLIAM TMAW/

Wlt.l.lAM e.OOD&E

^jfX^iK

%*««!• IB

PRESERVED SMITH

JOHN C. 8AL0WIN

Rebuilders of Marvville College.

An Endowment Founder 69

for the young people of that section. And they gave, and
prayed, and used their influence that success might crown
Professor Lamar's faithful efforts. The interest that
Mr. Thaw felt in Maryville may be inferred from the fact
that up to January, 1882, his gifts to the College for cur-
rent expenses, made since he began giving to it in 1867,
amounted to $22,500, nearly as much as his subscription
of $25,000 to the permanent endowment fund. And sev-
eral donors of smaller amounts also greatly strengthened
Professor Lamar's hands in his efforts to complete his
appointed task.

The Day of Victory. Even three such years as were
those dreary years of struggle come to an end if only one
lives on and fights on. xA.nd, at last, the last day of the
year of our Lord, 1883, had come, and Professor Lamar,
the last interview over, the last letter written, but not the
last prayer offered, was sitting in Dr. Kendall's office at
23 Centre street, New York, his endowment fund yet
lacking ten thousand dollars to complete it. The time
limit of the subscriptions was to be midnight of that day.
Man's extremity, as usual, was God's opportunity. While
the professor was sitting there in great anxiety, a tele-
gram was handed him from Mr. Thaw adding $5,000 to
his former subscription. And then, as another crowning
providence, a telegram from Dr. Willard, adding $5,000
to his previous gift of $5,000, brought to the heavy-laden
professor such a release from his anxious tension that he
was almost overcome. Praise and thanksgiving rose to
God, the giver of the victory, and the news of the victory
was telegraphed to the waiting friends at Maryville. The
greatest day in the history of Maryville had come, and

70 Thomas Jei^ferson Lamar

the school had waited sixty-four years for it to come!
God's providence had made possible a greater Maryville.
The $100,000 meant as much then as many times that
amount would mean now.

Hallelujah! The almost ecstatic joy in the victory
was well expressed in a letter written on New Year's
Day, 1884, to Professor Lamar by Dr. Henry A. Nelson.
He said: "I trust Kendall slept last night. I lay awake
a good deal with thankful joy. I think of the thankful
joy that has filled so many dear, patient souls in Ten-
nessee, and my heart runs over with the fullness of con-
tent ! Hallelujah ! God bless Thaw and Willard. By the
way, Thaw got the 'Key-stone' after all, did not he? I
know, dear Lamar, that you are supremely happy. God
give you yet many years of fruitful work in your dear
College." And happy Dr. Willard wrote as follows :
"When Dr. Kendall informed me by telegraph that in
a few hours ninety-five thousand dollars of conditioned
contributions would be lost for lack of five thousand dol-
lars to bind the contract, I thought it a good business
transaction to gain ninety-five thousand dollars by paying
five thousand dollars. I trust that no one will charge
me with taking usury by such unwonted per cent ! In
blessing others may you be fully blest!" Dr. Carson W.
Adams added his congratulations in hearty form : "Well,
patience, perseverance, and faith do accomplish great
things! I had almost begun to despair. The new year
must have begun very brightly with you at Maryville.
Your work in life has been one which ought to give you
great satisfaction. Within the past twenty years you were
all there was of Maryville College. You are the second

An Endowment Founder 71

father of the College. Your name must in all the future
be coupled with that of Dr. Anderson. You not only
began the work of the College anew ; but now have com-
pleted so much of an endowment as to insure its success
in the future ; and the amount of money now secured will
attract other funds to your institution. What a witness
to the power of quiet, persistent energy over fuss and
feathers your success is!"

The Supreme Sacrifice. The first month of the cam-
paign for the endowment was saddened by the death of
little Ralph Max Lamar; the last month, by the sudden
death of Professor Alexander Bartlett, after sixteen years
of faithful service as a professor at Maryville. The
campaign was to be followed ere long by the death of
the devoted man, who, under Providence, had carried it
through to a victorious issue. Professor Lamar returned
from New York and resumed his position in the class
room, but his vital forces, never very vigorous, had under-
gone a terrific strain from which they were unable to
recover. He found much to do in collecting the subscrip-
tions and in helping reorganize the College on the new
basis that was made possible by the endowment. This
with the class-room work he greatly enjoyed, but his
strength began to ebb away. He kept at his work from
his return in January, 1884, until commencement in 1886,
but his decline in health became so pronounced that he
was compelled, in the summer of 1886, to give up his
work and he became a prisoner in the sick room. During
that summer arid fall and winter his decline continued,
until, on Sabbath morning, March 20, 1887, his tired
heart ceased its beating.

72 Thomas Jefferson Lamar

Post-Mortem Endowment Building. Professor La-
mar, being dead, yet buildeth. During his ten months'
imprisonment, his thoughts often dwelt on the need of
further endowment. With the faith and vision of a
prophet, he said to those with whom he conversed regard-
ing the matter, that, while $100,000 would take care of
the beginnings of the work at Maryville, the sum of
$500,000 would soon be needed to take care of what
Maryville would develop to be. And with heroic courage,
he said that, if he recovered, he would attempt the task
of securing that immense sum. Although God kindly
gave him rest from such distressing labors, those who
took up his work had the satisfaction of seeing this dream
of his realized. Under the providence of God his labors
were carried forward by his boys and by those who came
to their aid ; and in a very real sense he helped his suc-
cessors gather these post-mortem endowments. He built
more widely, as well as more wisely, than he dreamed;
indeed, he is yet building for Maryville.

CHAPTER IX

A HoME^-LoviNG Man

His College Home. Professor Lamar was preemi-
nently a home-loving man. As a boy he had loved his
Jefferson county home ; and, indeed, he never lost his
love for it. But naturally his college home at Maryville
became his real life-home and the one that was dearest to
him. As student, alumnus, professor, and rebuilder of
Maryville College he loved his "dear college home"; and
wherever he went, his heart, untraveled, fondly turned to
ft, and "dragged at each remove a lengthening chain." It
was here, that, in the providence of God, he spent most
of his life.

His Missouri Home. It was in Missouri, however,
near the homes of his parents and brothers and sisters,
that he established his first home after completing his
education. From the theological seminary in New York,
as we have seen, he made his way westward to Weston,
Missouri, the home of the family. Here, amid his rel-
atives, he made his own home during the next three
years, in which he served as a minister in and around
Weston. And very pleasant were these years of reunion
with his kindred, from whom he had been separated for
so long a period. But it was time, now that he was
engaged in his life-work, that he should have, in its truest
sense, a home of his own.

His Savannah Providence. It has already been
stated that, at the intercession of his old Maryville Col-
lege friend, Rev. Elijah A. Carson, of Savannah, Andrew

74 'Thomas Jefferson Lamar

county, Missouri, Mr. Lamar removed to Savannah in
1855, and took charge of the academy at that place, and
took part in the work of the ministry in the surrounding
country. It was while here that he met, at the home of
Mr. Carson, a lady whose charms and virtues ere long
won his regard and affection. This "elegant and accom-
plished lady," as one described her, was the young widow
of Simon McDonald, M.D., a physician of Savannah.
Mrs. Martha Elizabeth McDonald — her maiden name
was Arnold— was born on November 16, 1830, and so
was then only twenty-four years old. She was a very
attractive and lovable young woman. It was not strange
that these young people should be drawn together by their
common interests and by the worthy character each saw
in the other to admire ; and that they should decide to
establish together a home, to be theirs until they should
be separated by death.

A Home of His Own. The childhood home of Mrs.
McDonald had been near Liberty, the county seat of Clay
county, in a rich farming region, located about five miles
from the Missouri river and about ten miles distant from
Kansas City. It was at Liberty that, on October 23, 1855,
Rev. Elijah A. Carson, the old friend of both contracting
parties, performed the service that united Rev. Thomas
Jefferson Lamar in marriage with Mrs. Martha Elizabeth
McDonald. And now an ideal home was established at
Savannah — a home in which mutual love was safeguarded
and sanctified by the love of God. For nearly two years
this happy home continued, and then was closed only to
be reopened at Maryville, where Mr. Lamar was then
called to labor.

A Home-Loving Man 75

Little Katie. On February 3, 1857, there was born
into the new home at Savannah a Httle one whom they
named Mary Kate. Little Katie was an invalid child and
was a charge, at first to both parents, and three years
later, when her mother died, to her father, who devoted
much of his time to taking care of her. "She found a
warm place in his heart." "He had for her a very pecu-
liar and tender affection," an affection that was at once
paternal and maternal, for he had to make up to her the
loss of her mother. Little Katie was only a few months
old when Mr. Lamar brought her and her mother from
Missouri to Tennessee, when he came to enter upon the
professorship at Maryville to which he had been ap-
pointed ; and the little girl lived until 1870, when she died
of measles, at the age of almost thirteen years. After
the death of his wife, Professor Lamar found an ideal
home for his child and himself about a mile from Mary-
ville in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Rankin Duncan, the
parents of Dr. Calvin A. Duncan, John P. EHuican, and
Mrs. Jennie Duncan Crawford. Here during the dark
days of the Civil War and the dismal days that followed,
the widowed father cared tenderly for the little girl who
had been left in his charge.

The Home Broken Up. In the summer of 1857, the
Lamar home was set up in Maryville in the house at the
corner of High and College streets that is now the manse
belonging to New Providence Church. For nearly three
years Mrs. Lamar shared, at Maryville, with her husband
the cares of their child and of the home, and sympathized
and cooperated with him in his college work. Into this
home there was born, on February 16, i860, a daughter.

y6 Thomas Je^fferson Lamar

whom Professor Lamar named Martha Elizabeth, in
honor of her mother. But both mother and child soon
went into a decline, and before the summer was well
advanced, they were both laid away in the New Provi-
dence cemetery, the babe dying on June ii, and the
mother on June 12. Thus, at only twenty-nine years of
age, was the young mother taken from the home which
she had made happy by her presence and love. Nearly
ten years later, on January 10, 1870, at the Duncan home,
Katie, the other member of the little family, was taken
from her father. His grief was poignant. When the
last struggle was over, the professor took a loving and
agonized look at the little form and walked sadly out of
the room, a lonelier man than ever.

A Loving Nature. Professor Lamar was so quiet a
man in his make-up that those that did not know him
well sometimes made the mistake of judging him cold and
unresponsive. Ihe fact is, as has been said before, he
had a peculiarly loving and sympathetic nature, as all dis-
covered who had at all intimate relations with him. He
reached the Duncan home, on his return from a trip to
visit his Missouri relatives, on April 25, 1864, the day
that Rankin Duncan passed away. And his sympathy
was that of a kinsman. For a year or more he had with
him at his home at Mrs. Duncan's two young kinsmen,
Gazaway B. Lamar and John Basil Lamar, brothers, from
Georgia. He took as much interest in the lads as if they
had been his own sons, and when one of them sickened
and died, his heart was sorely grieved. Only those near-
est to him in the life of the home realized what depths
of tenderness there were hidden in his nature.

Mrs. Martha A. Lamar.

\

•8 ••# V

Ralph Max Lamar.

A Home-Loving Man 'j'j

"Uncle Tommie." Mr. James Gillespie, who gradu-
ated the year after Mr. Lamar did, says in his reminis-
cences that even in those days Mr. Lamar was called
"Uncle Tom" by his fellow-students. The writer also
recalls that while the professor's nieces, Georgia and
Lizzie Tommie Brady, daughters of his sister EHza, of
Weston, Missouri, were students at Maryville, in 1874-75,
they were accustomed to call the professor "Uncle Tom."
The students lovingly took up the appellation, and trom
that time onward the different generations of students
claimed their personal relationship with the professor by
also calling him "Uncle Tommie." And he enjoyed the
title, and retaliated by treating the boys and girls more
like sons and daughters than like nephews and nieces.

A Home Again. Fourteen years had passed after
the death of his first wife, before he reestablished his
home. On June i, 1874, he was united in marriage with
Miss Martha Ann Ted ford, the ceremony being per-
formed by Rev. Alexander Bartlett, pastor of the bride,
at her father's home on College Hill. Professor Lamar
once said that the only women he had loved were both
named Martha, and that he had married them both ! And
a happy home he found in -his new relationship.

Mrs. Lamar's Father. Rev. Ralph Erskine Ted-
ford, the father of Mrs. Lamar, received his college and
seminary education at Maryville under Dr. Isaac Ander-
son. He was licensed to preach the gospel by the Presby-
tery of Union on October 3, 1832, and was ordained by
the same presbytery on April 3, 1834. He spent his min-
istry principally in Bradley county, Tennessee. Several
churches, including the one at Cleveland, owed their

78 Thomas Jefferson Lamar

organization to his labors. At times he had the very great
pleasure of having with him at his camp-meeting services
his beloved teacher, Dr. Anderson, who said to him :
"Nothing pleases me more than the opportunity to visit
and assist my young brethren in the ministry." Mr. Ted-
ford spent the last years of his life at Maryville, where
he died, on /August 23, 1878, at the home of his daughter
on College Hill. His father and mother, Joseph Tedford
and Mary McNutt, were among the pioneers who emi-
grated from Rockbridge county, Virginia, to the wilds
of eastern Tennessee. Dr. Anderson's home was also in
Rockbridge county; and the Tedfords, McNutts, and
Andersons attended the same church. It was a remark-
able coincidence that Mrs. Mary McNutt Tedford heard
both the first sermon and the last sermon preached by
Dr. Anderson. The Anderson family came to East Ten-
nessee some time later. Soon after the arrival of the
Tedford and McNutt families in what is now Blount
county, they were compelled, on account of the hostility
of the Indians, to take refuge in a fort which stood
where Mrs. George's residence on Washington Avenue
now stands, just above the bold, crystal spring that is
the pride of Maryville In this fort, Joseph Tedford and
Mary McNutt were married by Rev. William Cummings.
After hostilities ceased, the newly married pair located
two miles south of Maryville, on a farm extending up to
the Niles Ferry Road ana beyond it, and now adorned
with a number of beautiful homes ; and there they built
their "cottage in the wilderness." Ten children came to
this home, six sons and four daughters, Ralph Erskine
being the eighth child. This was a godly home, the Bible
being its rule and guide.

A HoMK-LoviNG Man 79

Mrs. Lamar's Mother. Mr. Tedford's wife's maiden
name was Malinda Gillespie Houston, one of the twelve
daughters of Major James Houston, six of whom mar-
ried Presbyterian ministers. As we have seen, theology
was taught in Maryville College in those early days, and
the six young theologues whose names are here given
wooed and won six of Major Houston's fair daughters:
James Gallaher, the noted evangelist, William Woods,
John Sawyer Craig, long a professor in Maryville College,
Haywood Bennett, Hillary Patrick, and Ralph Erskine
Tedford. Mr. Gallaher was the only one of this number
not educated at Maryville. Mrs. Lamar's mother was
first cousin of the hero of San Jacinto, General Sam
Houston. Mrs. Lamar's maternal grandfather. Major
Houston, was very active in the Indian wars in East Ten-
nessee in those pioneer days. With a little garrison of
frontiersmen he resisted an attack of hostile Indians at a
point a few miles south of Maryville. In honor of his
bravery, the fort there established was called ''the Hous-
ton Fort." Major Houston held offices of trust in his
home county, and at one time served as Secretary of State
for Tennessee.

Mrs. Lamar's Brothers. Mrs. Lamar's brother, Jo-
seph Patton Tedford, was one of the original thirteen
students at the opening of the College after the Civil
War. Dr. Calvin A. Dimcan, who was one of his class-
mates, and is still active in his work of the gospel minis-
try, speaks of "Joe" as a very promising boy, a good
writer, a logical debater, and a diligent student. Joe's
last work in College was an oration on "The Ravages of
Time," delivered in the Animi Cultus Hall on June 15,

8o Thomas Jefferson Lamar

1868. Little did his dear ones who were present at that
commencement exercise think that he would 30 soon fall
victim to the ravages of time. His last effort was on the
following Fourth of July, when he was one of the speak-
ers on the old Everett Hill in northeast Maryville, where
hundreds of East Tennessee's loyal sons and daughters
were gathered to celebrate the day. Mrs. Lamar's oldest
brother, James Wisner, was also a student of the College,
and was a classmate of the late Charles T. Cates, Senior.
In 1852, when in his fourteenth year, he was taken away
by death. He had been a member of the Beth-Hacma
Literary Society, and the society adopted resolutions
appreciative of his life and character.

The Wedding Tour. Mrs. Lamar gives the follow-
ing account, from notes by the way, of the wedding tour:
"Following the wedding, we started on a tour to the
East. We visited Washington City, where we spent four
days; Baltimore, a week with relatives; Philadelphia, with
its Girard College and Independence Hall ; New York
City, for nearly two weeks ; then up the historic Hudson,
with its shores rich in legends, to Albany; then the cele-
brated Vick flower gardens; from there to Niagara Falls
for two days, and then across the suspension bridge into
good Queen Victoria's dominion, and an all night's jour-
ney in Canada, arriving at Detroit for breakfast on the
morning of the Fourth of July ; thence to Chicago ; and
thence to St. Louis, where Miss Badgley, a teacher in
the College who was at our wedding, guided us through
Shaw's Botanical Gardens. And now, after two months
of intensely interesting travel and sight-seeing, we started
westward to visit the brothers and sisters of Mr. Lamar,

Maplecroft — Mrs. Lamar's Residence.

A Home-Loving Man 8i

twelve of whom were living on or near the old paternal
homestead in Platte county, Missouri; and right royally
did they welcome us. After a visit and reunion of a
month's duration, we packed our trunks and turned our
faces homeward to dear old Maryville, East Tennessee.
On the afternoon of August 23, we reached our home on
College Hill, after an absence of nearly three months.
Here Mr. Lamar took up again his college work. He was
so happy to have a home againV and he said : 'Ours is,
indeed, an ideal home ;' but those nearest to him said that
it was he who made it so by his tender thought fulness
and kindly ministrations."

The Advent of Little Ralph Max. Into this happy
home came, by the blessing of God, a little son, Ralph
Max, born to the rejoicing parents, on November 7, 1878.
They called him Ralph for his maternal grandfather and
Max for Max Mueller, the eminent orientalist and philol-
ogist, whose works in his library Professor Lamar greatly
prized. And so the home was illumined with the joys of
parenthood and its happiness was complete.

The Stay of Ralph Max. And the little lad devel-
oped and became a stout and sturdy boy. And his bright
and responsive nature called forth all the love of his
parents' hearts. He was naturally the center of the little
home. His father playfully tried to teach him the Greek
alphabet and his mother drilled him with the words of
love treasured in his mother tongue; and his childish
prattle and boyhood glee filled the house with music.
And the parents had day-dreams of his future and of
the time when he should carry forward his share of the
world's work in his father's stead. And prayers were
6

8a Thomas Jefferson Lamar

offered to God, in his behalf, and praise was rendered to
God for the giving of him. And the child grew to be
two years of age, and the future was before him.

The Departure of Ralph Max. But the tragic, in-
exorable, and inexplicable day came when Ralph Max
was not, for God had taken him. On November 17, 1880,
his father had torn himself away from home joys and
home comforts to go to New York to begin the campaign
for the endowment of the College. On December 7, just
a month after Ralph's second birthday. President Bartlett
telegraphed him, "Ralph is sick. Doctor hopeful. Your
wife says. Come home." It was meningitis that was the
cruel death messenger. The heart-broken father reached
home in time to be with his child a few days before his
death. On December 15, 1880, the little one was taken
home by the heavenly Father. It required nothing less
than the sustaining power of God and unyielding faith
in his holy providence that ruleth over all to enable the
prostrated father and mother to sustain the crushing
blow. But by God's prevalent grace, each was enabled to
say, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him."

Partnership in Sorrow. The sorrowing parents laid
away their dead, and then together journeyed to New
York to carry forward the life-work that must go on,
no matter how many heart-strings are broken. And they
sought to comfort one another, and to bear one another's
burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. And as they
passed through what was to them a Gethsemane, they met
their Lord amid its deepest shadows. Thus companion-
ship in grief proved also to lead to companionship in con-
solation. And in their home, though, for the time, it

A Home-Loving Man 83

was removed to a New York boarding house, they found
together the strength to continue on their pilgrim way
submissive and resohite and hopeful.

The Last Home-Coming, January i, 1884, was a
day of great rejoicing over the success of the endow-
ment campaign, but the letting up of the strain revealed
the greatness of the cost of the victory. The time was
approaching when this home-loving man was to be called
to his heavenly home. His constitution had been broken
by the many years of intense care and anxiety, with their
climax in the dread three years of the endowment cam-
paign. When he laid aside his text-books after the exami-
nations in May, 1886, he laid them aside forever. Kor
ten months thereafter the decline was constant. During
the last ten days of his life it was evident that the end
was approaching. He wished to live for the sake of his
three loves — his companion, his church, and his college;
and he hoped up to the very last that he might be per-
mitted to do so; but he was completely resigned to the
will of God, whatever that might be. On Sabbath morn-
ing, March 20, 1887, he was told that he was dying. At
10:40 a. m. he tranquilly breathed his last, and passed
into his heavenly home and into the Sabbath-keeping that
remaineth for the people of God.

His Wife's Devotion. It was beautifully fitting that
so home-loving a man as was Professor Lamar should
have had so devoted and successful a home-maker as his
companion during the last and most strenuous period of
his life. For nearly thirteen years Mrs. Lamar sought in
his days of health and in those of his illness to surround
him with the gracious influences of home life. She found

84 Thomas Jeffe;rson Lamar

her joy in identifying herself with his interests in order
to help share his burdens and win his successes. She was
faithful unto his death, and had the happiness of hearing-
his appreciation of her faithfulness expressed in almost
his last words. Said he: "I have the best nurse in the
world." And, as he saw her struggle with her emotions,
he said : "Weep, it will relieve you." Over his grave in
the tranquil college woodland she erected an appropriate
monument with this inscription : "In loving remembrance
of Rev. Thomas J. Lamar. Born, Nov. 21, 1826. Died,
March 20, 1887. For thirty years a Professor in Mary-
ville College, his most enduring monument." In honor of
Ralph Max she also erected, in 191 o, the beautiful and,
since then, indispensable "Ralph Max Lamar Memorial
Hospital," which is a benediction indeed to the many
students who every year have a share in the advantages
afforded by it. And now, thirty-three years after his
demise, his widow is publishing this biographical sketch,
lest the later generations of Maryville College people
should forget the manner of man it was who rebuilt for
them the College which they now see in its strength and
helpfulness.

CHAPTER X

A Typical MaryviIvLE Man

We have passed in review the Hfe and services of a
good man. Before we conchide our sketch, it is fitting
that there should be a brief summing up of the more
saHent quahties that made him a man who will be remem-
bered among us so long as Maryville College shall endure.
And this is especially fitting since he is revealed by his
Hfe and labors to have been a typical Maryville College
man. His life is at once a norm and an ideal to those
who continue his labors, whether as directors, teachers,
or students of the old College.

A Builder of Maryville Men. He devoted half his
lifetime to the building of character in the students that
were under his influence at Maryville College. It was
Christian character that above all else he sought to make
dominant in the life of every student. He wrought tire-
lessly to build each one up in substantial and worthy
scholarship ; but his chief endeavor was to fashion him
into a temple for the holy uses of his God. This kind of
work was, in his view, the high calling of God in Christ
Jesus that had come to the members of the faculty of the
College. And his students all bore testimony to his faith-
fulness in this work, and were prompt to give him credit
for much good that had entered their hearts during those
character-forming days that they spent at the College. A
letter from a member of Maryville's Class of 1873 tells
how an interview that Professor Lamar had with him
when yet a preparatory student bore fruit six years later

86 Thomas Jefferson Lamar

in leading him into the Christian ministry. Scores of
others could tell a similar story.

An Embodiment of the Maryville Spirit. The ex-
planation of Professor Lamar's eminent success in the
making of Maryville men was to be found in the fact that
he was himself a living embodiment of the qualities that
constitute the Maryville spirit. Under the tutelage of
pastors who had been educated under Dr. Isaac Ander-
son, and then, under the tutelage of Dr. Anderson him-
self and the doctor's colleagues, during his college course
and part of his theological course, his disposition — itself
unselfish and benevolent — responded heartily to the train-
ing received, and he went out into life to exemplify the
spirit of his alma mater. And his students could readily
understand his teachings since their feasibility and attract-
iveness were visibly and tangibly illustrated before them
in the daily life of their teacher. By their fruits ye shall
know both men and ideals.

In "Breadth of Human Interest." A striking char-
acteristic of the spirit of Maryville has ever been a re-
markable breadth of human interest. This was the spirit
of Terence who said that since he was a man everything
human concerned him ; but preeminently was it the spirit
of the great Teacher of Maryville men who said: "In-
asmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these
my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Mr. Lamar esti-
mated man by the ransom that had been paid by Heaven
for him, and he sought the welfare of every brother man
as of a brother redeemed by the same Lord. By his mar-
riage in 1855 h^ became the owner of a slave, but then
and throughout his life he exhibited the utmost interest

A Typical Maryvilli; Man 87

in the welfare of the colored people. His spirit, even in
the trying days of war and turmoil, was one "with malice
towards none, with charity for all." He began his own
ministry on what was then home missionary territory, and
his joy ever was to help contribute Christian workers
for destitute fields throughout the Southwest and West,
and, indeed, throughout our entire country. A foreign
missionary in spirit, he rejoiced to see a strong tide of
Maryville men and women set toward the foreign mission
fields. Between the years of 1877 and 1887, the last ten
years of his service at Maryville, fourteen of his students
became missionaries and represented him in China, Japan,
India, Korea, Persia, Syria, Africa, and Mexico. It was
one of these missionaries. Rev. Thomas Theron Alex-
ander, D.D., who, while home on a furlough, in 1888,
delivered the address — a biographical sketch and appre-
ciation of Professor Lamar — at the dedication of the
Lamar Memorial Library. And, of course, the pro-
fessor's heart was devoted to the development of Chris-
tian education and the provision of church privileges in
the Southern Appalachian region, for whose service the
College had been founded in 1819 by Dr. Anderson. He
had a large share in the extraordinary development of
church academies in county seats throughout the Southern
mountains during the years following 1881. The work of
these academies was epoch-making ; the church had never
done a more statesmanlike piece of work or one that
rendered a greater patriotic and religious service to the
mountaineers. These church academies had much to do
with the revival of interest in education that has led the
States to take up ajid carry forward the high school work
in the counties. Professor Lamar's breadth of human

88 Thomas Jei'^i^rson Lamar

interest led him as early as 1867 to throw open the
College for the entrance of young women on the same
conditions as were enjoyed by the young men.

In "Thorough Scholarship." Mr. Lamar was looked
upon by some as being the best educated of Maryville's
graduates before the Civil War. His scholarship was
very accurate and thorough. His insight into his studies
was keen and quick. In spite of his limited resources
he succeeded in collecting what was for the day a valu-
able library, in which he greatly enjoyed delving. His
students never caught him unprepared, and they had
confidence that his class-room decisions were based on
research and sound scholarship. During his long connec-
tion with the College, the exigencies of the case required
him to teach at different times almost every study in the
curriculum, and he did so with striking ability and versa-
tility ; but, when it became possible to do so, he confined
his work to the chair of the Greek Language and Liter-
ature, in which department his scholarship was especially
strong. However, his scholarship was also strong in the
use of his mother tongue. He composed rapidly and with
clearness and force, seldom having occasion to alter the
phraseology first chosen. Indeed, he was thorough in
everything. He practiced his own advice to his students :
"You are students. Strive to go to the bottom of every
subject. Never tolerate in yourselves superficial study
and partial investigation."

In "Manly Religion." This story of this life should,
indeed, have been written in vain should not the impres-
sion have already been strongly made that the man whose
story is here recounted was one whose life was permeated

A Typical Maryville; Man 89

through and through with the principles of a valorous
and manly religion. There was in him nothing soft or
invertebrate ; his religion made a stalwart hero of him ;
and manly men saw and admired his manliness and heroic
courage. Said one who met him often during his endow-
ment campaign: "You know with what self-abnegation
he went back to the impoverished College after the war,
and with what heroic patience he stood by it, like a pilot
at the wheel of the ship while it was slowly moving
through fog and among icebergs. I know of no finer
example of Christ-like unselfishness or of Christian wis-
dom and manliness among all my acquaintance than was
Professor Lamar." He learned from the Man of Galilee
those heroic qualities that made him the Galilean's worthy
disciple in such days of stress as tried men's souls.

And in "Unselfish Service." He had learned lessons
of unselfishness from the saintly Anderson ; the College
practiced that grace in caring for its students ; and the
very genius loci seemed to be that same beautiful Chris-
tian grace of unselfishness. And an embodiment of it
was he as he also went about doing good, at the expense
of great self-denials. His personal preferences, wishes,
comforts, and happiness he relentlessly pushed aside in
order to take up the duty of service to the College and
thus to the church and the country. "Let him take up
his cross and follow me," was to him no meaningless
phrasing, but it was Christ's challenge to altruistic serv-
ice ; and so he took up his cross and followed him. In
counseling the Class of 1877 at their graduation he said :
"God calls you to devote yourselves to his cause; to give
yourselves to a life of usefulness ; to labor to advance the

■ I \'' '

^ >r.

90 Thomas Jijfferson Lamar

great principles of truth and righteousness; to be the
patrons and friends of whatever will elevate the race; to
give back to him in his service the result, the fruit of the
talent, learning, and influence he has conferred upon you.
Wherever he may send you, to whatever task he may
assign you, stand at the post of duty, and let neither feaf
nor favor drive you therefrom. All the gifts God has
given you, devote honestly and faithfully to the great
ends for which they were given."

Thus in his breadth of human interest, thorough
scholarship, manly religion, and unselfish service did Pro-
fessor Lamar, throughout his career, manifest and com-
mend the Maryville spirit that has now for more than a
century been the chief glory of our College. And thus
he blended precept and example according to the best
pedagogical principles.

A Gentle Man. Few men were more gentle by na-
ture than was Professor Lamar. Retiring and modest
and timid, he avoided prominence and disliked notoriety.
These traits made him somewhat uncommunicative with
regard to his feelings and his inner life. But coupled
with this retiring disposition was the utmost kindliness
and gentleness in his relations with others. It took a
great deal of provocation to arouse his spirit. In debates
in presbytery and synod it was frequently his pleasure
to pour oil on troubled waters. However, gentleness is
often coupled with great power, and it was so in his case,
though the stranger sometimes did not recognize such a
combination in him. The writer recalls distinctly that
when he was in Lane Seminary at Cincinnati, Mr. Lamar
visited tW institution, in October, 1881, and that some of

A Typical MaryvillE Man 91

the students were surprised when the Maryville boys told
them that in that quiet man dwelt the Nestor of East
Tennessee Presbyterianism and the rebuilder of Mary-
ville College. As was to be expected, this gentle man was
also in every respect a gentleman. Of course, he was a
man of unimpeachable probity, spotless record, and irre-
proachable life; but, also, more positively, he always
carried with him those "high erected thoughts seated in
a heart of courtesy," that marked him, wherever he was,
as a member of the worthy brotherhood of Christian
gentleman.

A Man of God, There is a peculiar dignity and sig-
nificance in the phrase, "a man of God." It carries us
back to Bible times and to such Bible characters as Moses,
Elijah, and Elisha, and Paul's young ministerial friend,
Timothy. But it also seems to be markedly appropriate
and applicable to such a man as the one whose life we
have been reviewing. "He was a good man, and full of
the Holy Ghost and of faith." A godly man and God's
man — his life proved him both ; and with unwavering con-
fidence in God's wisdom and love and power, he sought
to conform his will to God's will. He counseled an old
student : "The ways and rulings of our heavenly Father
are strange and inexplicable. We are often left in the
dark, and can do nothing more than await and suffer his
will. Work and duty are ours. Much else belongs to
God exclusively." He was ever a humble and obedient
man of God.

A Friend of Men. Every student of his found in his
teacher a sincere and personal friend. To him he carried
with perfect freedom his troubles, and he always went

92 Thomas Jei^fe^rson Lamar

back to his room helped in some way. Countless hours
did the professor spend in fatherly and intimate conver-
sation with his students regarding their immediate prob-
lems and often regarding the use they should make of
their life. His most efifective work, perhaps, was done
in such friendly interviews. Dr. Alexander quotes one
former student as saying in recognition of many such
personal interviews: "I should rather do something to
perpetuate the memory of Professor Lamar than any-
thing else in the world. He was a tender, loving father
to me when I was in school. He knew more about me
than did any one else. Many were the kind counsels he
gave me in his room. He did more to establish religious
principles in me than did any other one." "Many a poor
student received substantial aid from him." The first
post-bellum graduate of the College paid him this tribute
in an address before the Alumni Association: "Of these
four (teachers). Professor Lamar seemed closest to me.
Not that he was a better instructor, for he was not;
but he was so gentle, so patient, so liberal in dealing
with my wild, wayward nature, that I instinctively loved
him. May the sod under which he sleeps rest lightly on
his remains !" And the friendliness that he manifested
toward his students, his heart felt also for others. For
example, he even found time to intercede with those that
were able to give, to lend assistance to those who, in the
academies of the mountains, were seeking an education ;
and thus he was able by proxy to help many young
people, even beyond Maryville's own student body.

Honored of Men. From the time of the reorgani-
zation of the Synod in 1865 and the reopening of Mary-

The Lamar Memorials — Hospital and Library.

A Typical Maryvii^i^e Man 93

ville College in 1866, Mr. Lamar was generally recognized
at home and abroad as the leader of his denomination
in East Tennessee. He was made Stated Clerk of the
Synod. His study was, indeed, a council-chamber for his
brethren throughout the section, and no narrow councils
prevailed there. The personal regard in which he was
held was manifested, besides in other ways, by the naming
of scores of children for him. Even as late as 1900, the
writer of this sketch named his youngest son, "Lamar."
Wooster University, in 1884, conferred upon Professor
Lamar the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity; and
all except himself called it a well-deserved honor ; he in
his modesty declined it as "not worthy of it." He was
honored while living, and his memory has been honored
since his death.

The year following his decease the beautiful and very
useful Lamar Memorial Library was erected on the
campus by Mr. Thaw, Mrs. William E. Dodge, and Mrs.
Sylvester Willard. Mr. Thaw, whose affection for Pro-
fessor Lamar was very sincere, led in planning and
providing for this appropriate memorial. Mrs. Lamar
contributed the private library that the professor had left ;
while the brothers and sisters of the professor provided
a rare and artistic memorial window in which, after
Diirer's picture, the Resurrection is beautifully depicted.
This attractive building honored the memory of Professor
Lamar in the way that would have been most grateful
to him — by rendering a large and daily service to the
students of the institution.

At the funeral of Professor Lamar on Tuesday fore-
noon, March 22, 1887, the old chapel was filled to its
fullest capacity with sorrowing friends, who had gathered

94 Thomas Jei^ferson Lamar

from all over Blount county and even over East Ten-
nessee. The business houses of Maryville were closed
during the service. Addresses were delivered by Rev.
Donald McDonald, pastor of New Providence Church,
and the members of the faculty. At the close of the
service, a procession reaching across the campus accom-
panied the remains to the peaceful college cemetery,
where they were to find their resting place until the resur-
rection. Beautiful and appropriate exercises were held at
the grave. A profound sense of the fact that a prince in
Israel was being laid to rest pervaded all the obsequies.
No such funeral had been held in Maryville since 1857,
when Dr. Anderson's body was interred in the old church
cemetery on Main Street. Parishioners from several
country churches which the professor had served during
his thirty years at Maryville added their tearful tribute to
the beloved pastor who had married hundreds of them,
baptized their children, received them into the church, and
buried their dead. His college colleagues spoke of the
history their senior professor had written with tears that
others might read it with joy. The untold difficulties,
unrecorded heartaches, and undreamed-of sacrifices that
he had endured, they knew, were written in God's book
of remembrance.

The students in their resolutions regarding his death
emphasized especially "his eminently useful and exem-
plary life — a life that was a prominent factor in making
the institution what it is, and in giving it character
abroad." The faculty resolutions are full of appreciation
and sorrow, as the following brief excerpt indicates :
"From the time when, at the call of his alma mater, he
returned from the West to teach in her halls, he devoted

A Typicai, Maryvii^le; Man 95

his soul and body and his time and talents to the welfare
of College and students. When the institution reopened
after the war, he was its entire faculty ; and ever since
has, very naturally, been regarded as the center of all the
activities of the College, and to him faculty and students
have turned as to a father. His inestimable services in
the resuscitation and equipment of the institution, and his
herculean labors in providing its endowment are at once
our cherished pride and, as they remind us of our loss,
our sad heritage." The directors reviewed the thrilling
story of his services to the College, culminating in the
securing of the endowment fund ; and they closed their
tribute with the words: "By his death the College lost its
greatest friend, the Board its wisest counselor, and the
entire community one of the best and most influential
citizens."

Honored of Heaven. Before his death Professor
Lamar had the deep satisfaction of witnessing the ap-
proval and benediction of God rest richly upon his labors
for the causes he loved. He saw the College rise out of
its ruins and enter a new home on the Eastern hills, and
go on developing until it had a teaching force of eleven,
a student body of two hundred and fifty, and an endow-
ment of $113,000. Only the approval of God upon his
efiforts could have wrought such a miracle. And in
another way that gave him even greater satisfaction could
he recognize the evidences of God's approval, and that
was in the manifest blessing of God that was granted his
efforts to lead the young people into the service of the
church of Christ throughout the world. From his home
on College Hill he could look abroad over his beloved

96 Thomas Jefferson Lamar

East Tennessee, and over the entire nation, and even
beyond to the ends of the earth, and everywhere see his
proxies — his former students — sent out after long train-
ing and earnest prayer, laboring for the establishment of
happiness, character, and usefulness among the children
of men. Compared with such transcendent honors con-
ferred by heaven's Immortal King, how insignificant are
the insignia of honor and the decorations of rank con-
ferred by human governments ! In Thomas Jefferson
Lamar was richly verified the promise of God, "Them
that honor me, I will honor."

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Thomas Jefferson Lamar

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Thomas Jefferson Lamar

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