conductor told him to 'hurry up.' Thinking he would be left if he did
not make haste, Mr. J. went quickly forward through the car, and was
just in the act of stepping across to the forward car when the cars
separated, and he fell on the track, and before he could recover himself
he was struck by the rear car and fatally injured. His right leg was
crushed in two places and his back broken. As soon as possible he was
taken from under the car. His first words were, 'My friends, my name is
Thomas C. Johnson, of Boydton, Va.; take your pencil and write it down.'
A stretcher was then procured, and he was brought to my house. We did
all we could for him. Doctors were at hand from the moment he was hurt
until he died. The injured leg was amputated; and on further examination
it was found that his back was broken. He was then told that he was
fatally injured and could live but a short time, and that any directions
he had to give must be given quickly. He then gave directions as to the
disposal of his body, requesting it to be sent to his friends in
Virginia. He was emphatic in saying that his death was caused by the
mismanagement of the railroad officials. Before his death, at his
request, a notary public was sent for, and his testimony as to the cause
of his death was legally taken. He was sensible to the last moment, and
spoke with deep feeling of the overwhelming effect the tidings of his
terrible and sudden death would have upon his family. I sat by his side
and heard every word he uttered. The general opinion of the public here
is that the railroad company is responsible for Mr. Johnson's death."
[Illustration: JUDGE W. J. KILBY, Trustee of College.]
[Illustration: PROF. MANSFIELD T. PEED, A. M., 1877. _Prof. Emory
College, Ga._]
Such was the end of a most useful and devoted Christian. In the midst of
strangers, mangled, and bleeding, he died. By the grace of God he was
sustained and comforted. Calmly he surrendered his life into the hands
of his Creator. How wonderful are the ways of Providence! The workmen
die, but the work goes on. Is the doctrine of premonition true? We often
incline to the belief that it is. In many cases there appears to be a
conviction that the work of life is finished, and the soul feels itself
nearing the portals of eternity. Speaking of Colonel Johnson's
experience, one who knew him well says, "I can but think that the last
six months of his life was a period of preparation for eternity. I was
deeply impressed with his growth in grace, the fervor and earnestness of
his piety, and his forbearance and patience under severe trials."
The close of life was in happy accord with his previous religious
experience. A letter from Mattoon says: "He died in perfect peace. I
never saw a more peaceful expression than rested on his face after
death." He leaves to his family the priceless legacy of a pure and noble
Christian life. May they move on to the meeting and reunion in the house
of our Father in heaven.--W. W. BENNETT, in _Richmond Advocate_.
The committee of nine appointed to elect professors and a president (in
case of Dr. Garland's declination to accept) met August 7, 1868. Dr.
Garland having declined to accept the presidency, the committee, all
being present, elected Rev. James A. Duncan, of the Virginia Conference,
and an alumnus of the College (class of 1849), president, at a salary of
$2,500 per annum, and use of residence. Subsequently, on the first day
of September, the committee, all being present except Bishop Doggett, in
conjunction with the President-elect, Duncan, who had accepted the
presidency, proceeded to fill the chairs of instruction. Thomas R.
Price, M. A., was elected Professor of Ancient Languages; Harry Estill,
A. M., Professor of Mathematics; Richard M. Smith, Professor of Natural
Sciences. Their salaries were fixed at $2,000 per annum with houses of
residence.
[Illustration: PROF. THOMAS R. PRICE, M.A., LL. D., _Founder of the
School of English._]
[Illustration: REV. JAMES A. DUNCAN, D. D., _President Randolph-Macon
College, 1868-1877._]
Subsequently, at a meeting of the Board October 1, 1868, the chair of
Modern Languages was filled by the election of W. W. Valentine, of
Richmond.
The sudden and lamented death of the late President Johnson was
announced to the Board, and appropriate resolutions in regard to him
were adopted.
At a meeting of the Board, held November 20, 1868, Rev. Wm. B. Rowzie
was appointed Agent of the College in the bounds of the Virginia, and
Dr. Nelson Head Agent (till the succeeding Baltimore Conference), in the
latter Conference.
[Illustration: PROF. HARRY ESTILL, A. M., _Professor of Mathematics,
1868-1878._]
The College opened at Ashland, October 1, 1868.
With great labor and many embarrassments the College furniture,
laboratories and libraries had been transferred from Boydton to Ashland,
under the special superintendence of Rev. T. S. Campbell. The buildings
on the campus had been remodeled and repaired, and were in fair
condition for occupancy, and for the work and use to which they had been
converted. They had in former years been used for a summer resort, to
which many visitors annually repaired for health and dissipation. The
largest building was the hotel, which had several buildings attached. In
the centre of the grounds was the ball-room, flanked by dressing-rooms.
This building was converted into a chapel and society halls, while the
hotel became the main dormitory building. The bowling-alley and other
buildings also became dormitories. Three buildings were fitted up for
professor's houses. The rooms on the lower floors of the hotel were made
lecture-rooms. Though the buildings were extemporised, the whole
arrangement was comparatively convenient and comfortable. What was
defective and might have been complained of was more than compensated
by the superb Faculty of instruction provided for the students in
attendance. First and foremost was the President, Rev. James A. Duncan,
D. D. Of him we will let others who were associated with him speak. His
colleagues were Professor Thomas R. Price, M. A., Professor Harry
Estill, A. M., Professor Richard M. Smith, Professor W. W. Valentine.
[Illustration: PROF. RICHARD M. SMITH.]
[Illustration: MAIN COLLEGE BUILDING, ASHLAND, 1868-1875.]
Rarely has such a combination of teaching ability been found in any
college, or one which met the needs of the time more fully.
The name of the President had drawn from his far-away Southern home one
of the most original characters the College ever had among its
matriculates, John Hannon, of Montgomery, Ala.
JOHN HANNON'S SKETCH OF DR. DUNCAN.
"In the autumn of 1868 upon the train I first met Dr. James A. Duncan,
as I was going to Ashland. Full-orbed, approaching his zenith, this
pulpit star thus came into my sky. Though he has years since set behind
the grassy hills of Hollywood, the light of his great character still
lingers in the valleys and on the high places of my being.
"It is impossible in a sketch like this to give the full spectrum of a
character so rich as that of Dr. Duncan. There were X-rays, delicate
gleamings of light from his presence, that could be felt, but do not
photograph themselves upon the plates of a biography. He was not a man
easy to forget.
"There is a sense in which every man is a word of God, or a syllable of
the word. But in some the divine articulation is not so distinct.
Regarding humanity as a written word, such characters are what scholars
would call a 'disputed text.' Not so with James A. Duncan. Looking upon
him no man could doubt the authorship. The divine autograph was there in
capital letters. A look at him shook our faith in man as an evolution.
We felt that _that_ man was a creation.
"Would I had a presence,' said one of our brainiest men to me. A lady of
my congregation asked a friend in a Boston dining parlor who a certain
man was, remarking that she knew he must be a distinguished person, for
she said, 'He has a presence.' The man was Phillips Brooks.
"Dr. Duncan had a _presence_. Who will ever forget that Napoleonic
build? That physique, the very motion of which was silent music.
[Illustration: REV. J. W. COMPTON, R. M. C. 1867-'68--1868-'69. _Removed
with College from Boydton to Ashland. Pioneer preacher Pacific Coast for
twenty-three years._]
[Illustration: REV. W. WADSWORTH, D. D., _Author and Minister
North-Georgia Conference._]
"Tremendous was to be the draft on this superb physique during the ten
years that followed the day I first looked on it. The College with its
endowment had gone down amid the ruins of the Confederacy. The outlook
was gloomy; but it was resolved to remove the tree to Ashland. Here the
railway system of the South would renew its roots and make it bud and
bloom again. Jefferson Davis was thought of for the presidency, but in a
happy hour Dr. Duncan was chosen to lead the forlorn hope in its
rebuilding. Without funds, without laboratory, without proper buildings,
he addressed himself to the task. Providence came to his rescue. By one
of those flashes of common sense, which not always light up church
enterprises, a Faculty pre-eminently adapted to the work had been
chosen. Professor Thomas R. Price, a name synonymous now with
scholarship, was in the chair of Ancient Languages. Harry Estill filled
the chair of Mathematics. Professor Richard M. Smith brought the ripe
wisdom and experience of his distinguished life to the chair of Natural
Sciences. W. W. Valentine held the keys of the Modern Languages.
"It has been said that what a university needs is not so much an
endowment as a _man_. Randolph-Macon had men, and Dr. Duncan, a _man_
among _men_. The Faculty itself was an endowment. Good material gathered
around them as students. '_Facile princeps_' among these were Wm. W.
Smith, now LL. D., and President of the Randolph-Macon System of
Colleges and Schools; Charles Carroll, now a brilliant lawyer of the
Crescent city; Rhodes, since a judge in Baltimore; J. F. Twitty, of
blessed memory, and a number of others.
"Dr. Duncan, while not technically trained as a teacher, yet showed
himself a great teacher. What an inspiration he imparted to the band
that gathered around him! How he lit up every dreary field of text!
Blessed, yea, thrice blessed, was that school of young prophets. While
himself the finest of models, nothing was farther from his thought than
to make little 'Duncans' of every student. Bring up a boy in the way he
should go, according to his bent, this was his idea. He would never have
been guilty of putting the toga of Cicero upon Charles Spurgeon. With
him good 'pork and beans' was not to be made into bad 'quail on toast.'
'Sing your own song,' only let that song be the best possible to you.
Broad, Catholic-hearted Duncan!
"Making a great teacher did not spoil a great preacher in Duncan's case.
On a 'star-map' of the pulpits of that day, the pulpit in the old
ball-room chapel at Ashland would shine as a star of 'the first
magnitude.' His sermons were not like Robertson's eruptions of internal
volcanic fires lifting up new heights of thought; they were not Munsey's
great, gorgeous cathedrals of polished words; neither were they Keener's
cyclones filling the air with boulders of logic, cutting a pathway
through forests of prejudice as old as our being. His eloquence was not
the glacial magnificence of Wilson's great icebergs floating in polar
seas with grassy shores; it was not Galloway's mountain torrent with
'optimism,' that music of heaven in its splash and the swiftness of
redeeming love in its rush to the low places of earth. Very different
was it from Sam Jones' wild tanglewood of tropic forest of mingled fruit
and flowers and thorns. His sermons were the expression of what Carlyle
would style a healthy nature. There was nothing wild or abnormal. They
were like landscapes in a civilized land--great, like the movement of
the seasons, like the coming of the tides--as the processes of nature
are great; great as a summer day is great. The introduction was
morning!--sunrise! not striking, not surprising. The thoughts not larks
soaring heavenward, were rather sparrows on the sward. But we could see
great stretches of thought before us. Now the morning changes into high
noon. It is the sermon proper. We are now in the midst of vast
grain-fields of ripe thought. Divisions barely visible above the heads
of the choicest of the wheat waving now in the zephyrs of pathos. Shouts
at times among the listeners, as like reapers they garner ripe sheaves
into their bosoms; orchards now growing with ripe fruit.
"The peroration comes naturally, as evening follows noon. We hardly know
when it comes. A splendid sunset, often tears like the dewdrops in the
flowers of new resolves, now springing in the soul; solemn impressions,
like shadows, growing larger; a deep hush upon everything. The sermon
closes. It is night. But stars of hope are shining in the sky of the
soul.
"At Haslup's Grove, in the seventies, in a great sermon, the rush to the
altar was so great that the enclosure had to be torn down. It was
pentecostal.
"I heard him on two great occasions. In 1876, along with Dr. Landon C.
Garland and Lovick Pierce, he was fraternal delegate from our church to
our sister Methodism at the General Conference in Baltimore. After years
of estrangement the two Methodisms were meeting again. It was an
occasion. You could feel it. The great building was thronged. When the
time came for Duncan to speak he threw his soul into the 'God speed
you!' of seven hundred thousand Southern Methodists. The audience for
awhile it seemed would go wild. The day was a great triumph.
"During that same Conference the princely 'Jeff. Magruder' organized a
great mass-meeting of the Sunday-schools of the Southern Methodist
churches in Baltimore. Bishop Vincent, Secretary of the Sunday-School
Board of the Methodist Episcopal Church, then in the prime of his
powers, General Clinton B. Fiske, and Dr. Duncan were to speak. The
speeches of Vincent and Fiske had been so superb that a gifted minister
remarked to me, 'I am sorry for Duncan.' I responded, 'I am sorry for
any man who has to follow two such speeches.' But I found that I did not
yet know him. He pulled out new organ stops in his great soul that
afternoon. His speech was a brilliant improvisation. The audience was
captured. Southern Methodists who gloried in the flesh were radiant.
"When going to New Orleans, in 1877, I met him going to Washington City
to preach the first sermon to the President-elect, R. B. Hayes. It was
not long before wires flashed to me the startling news of his death.
Duncan, Marvin, A. T. Bledsoe, Doggett, in a single year. Heaven was
drawing heavily upon our beloved church. Duncan's old pupil, President
Smith, took up the work he and the sainted Bennett laid down.
"The Randolph-Macon System of Schools and Colleges is a worthy monument
to the memory of our dead Duncan. May the graduates of these schools be
living stones in the living shaft, ever rising higher and higher to the
memory of Olin, Garland, Smith, and their successors, who spent their
best days for the advancement of Christian education at our alma mater."
The number of students matriculated the first session was 67. Under all
the embarrassments and difficulties of the situation, this number was as
great as could have been expected. The income from such a small number
was insufficient to meet the expenses, and here ensued the old trouble,
which had been such a clog in the past, that is, straitened finances.
The condition of the country was anything but favorable to any effort to
raise funds for the College. Various plans were proposed, some of which
were adopted, but none of them brought speedy relief, and the
embarrassment became very onerous and trying. By the efforts of the
Agent, Rev. W. B. Rowzie, and the securing of a loan by D'Arcy Paul,
Esq., the College was carried through the first session.
The first annual report of the President was made June 21, 1869. The
following synopsis is given:
Congratulates the Board on the increase of patronage; the zeal and
efficiency of the Faculty; the diligence and good order of the students;
the general healthfulness and pleasant harmony of all connected with the
institution, and the increased confidence of the public in the
permanency and success of Randolph-Macon College; expresses the
conviction that the only condition prerequisite to complete success,
under the providence of God, is a _determined_ and energetic purpose to
succeed; affirms that the demand for such an institution to secure
important interests of Methodism is imperative;.... refers to his visit
to the Baltimore and North Carolina Conferences and the cordial
reception given by these Conferences; recommends a fiscal secretary or
director, whose duty it shall be to take entire control of the financial
interests of the College, except as to matters in the hands of the
Proctor, and to do all he can by travelling and speaking for the
College.
The following degrees were conferred, on the recommendation of the
Faculty, viz.: LL. D., on Professor Francis H. Smith, of the University
of Virginia; D. D., on Rev. James L. Pierce, of the Georgia Conference,
Rev. William G. Connor, of the Texas Conference, and Rev. John C.
Granbery, of the Virginia Conference. The commencement in June was well
attended, especially by visiting Trustees and others from the Baltimore
Conference.
An excellent dwelling for the President had been erected by the liberal
aid of a friend in Richmond. At an adjourned meeting of the Board, held
in Richmond, Va., next November, there were several causes for
encouragement. The Agent reported subscriptions amounting to over
$13,000. Of this Samuel O. Moon, Esq., of Albemarle, gave $5,000 in
Virginia bonds; the Society of Alumni, $1,200; Major W. T. Sutherlin, of
Danville, $1,500 ($300 per annum for five years to meet current
expenses). But the most important action taken was on the suggestion of
Rev. W. H. Christian, an alumnus of the College (class of 1851.) In
response to this suggestion, the following resolutions were adopted:
"_Resolved_, That we request the Virginia Conference to order that the
deficiency in the yearly revenues of the College (which shall be
reported by the Board to each annual session of the Conference) shall be
divided among all the districts of the Conference, and sub-divided among
all the stations and circuits by the district stewards, as in case of
the Conference collection, and shall be raised by collections in every
congregation, and embraced in the annual report of the recording steward
of every charge to the Financial Board of the Conference.
"_Resolved_, That when the Virginia Conference shall have adopted the
plan proposed, all its ministers shall be entitled to send their sons of
proper age and acquirements to College without payment of tuition fees;
that the Baltimore Conference, by adopting the same plan, shall be
entitled to the same privilege, and that $2,500 be fixed as the amount
to be raised by each of these Conferences for the next year."
This action has been considered, and rightly so, to have been for the
time and under the embarrassments of the surroundings the most important
and efficient ever taken by the Board. With a small assessment of about
five cents on each member of the church in the two Conferences, the
annual income was in a short time increased by the sum of $4,000, which
was equal to the dividends on an endowment of about $70,000. The
Conferences adopted the plan, and have annually raised a large
percentage of the assessment, the Virginia Conference having in 1882
increased its assessment to $3,500.
[Illustration: REV. W. H. CHRISTIAN, D. D., _Virginia Conference._]
In looking back on the period since, nearly thirty years, it really
looks as if, without this action, the College could not have continued
its work. Certainly this work would have been greatly narrowed and
restricted. Great honor, therefore, should be bestowed on the name of
William H. Christian as the mover of this plan, and the friends of
Christian education in the State should render to the Conferences
grateful thanks for having, under the promptings of the good Spirit,
acted so promptly on the suggestion and carried it out for so many
years.
[Illustration: JOHN HOWARD, A. M.]
The year 1869 was otherwise a notable year. In the latter part of the
year the first general election for State officers and a Legislature was
held since the close of the war. With the inauguration of the Governor
elected at this election and resumption of the legislative functions
by the General Assembly, the State resumed its normal condition, and
military rule ceased to exist.
At the meeting of this first Legislature, a committee, which had been
charged with that duty, appeared before the body and asked and obtained
the change of the charter, and the sanction to the removal of the
College from its original site to Ashland. The amended charter reads as
follows:
"[Section] I. That the removal of the aforesaid College is hereby
ratified and confirmed, and that there be, and is hereby, established at
Ashland, in the county of Hanover, in this Commonwealth, a seminary of
learning for the instruction of youth in the various branches of science
and literature, the useful arts, agriculture, and the learned and
foreign languages."
The suit which was instituted to enjoin the removal of the College never
came to an issue. It was ably defended on the part of the majority of
the Board by John Howard, Esq., of Richmond (class of 1844), and the
argument was printed. It is worthy of reprinting here, but space will
not permit.
The second session of the College had a larger attendance than the first
by fifty, of which number twenty-five were ministerial students.
About the close of the first term of the second session (1869-'70) one
of the professors was taken from the College by death--Richard M. Smith,
Professor of Natural Science. He was the oldest man of the Faculty.
The following preamble and resolutions, drafted by Professor Price and
adopted by the Faculty, was endorsed and adopted by the Trustees at an
adjourned meeting held in Richmond, February 23, 1870:
"Upon us as friends who loved and honored him, upon the College whose
faithful officer he was, upon the classes he taught with
self-sacrificing zeal, upon the community and the church in which his
virtues made him eminent, an overwhelming sorrow has, under God's will,
fallen in the death of our late colleague, Professor Richard M. Smith.
Even those who had not the pleasure of knowing, from intimate
association, the beauties of his private character, may from the
knowledge of his career form some conception of the vigor of his mind
and the unspotted virtue of his life. For us, who had in him the closer
and tenderer interests of a common work and an undisturbed friendship,
his sweet temper, his wise conversation and lofty unselfishness, will
ever be a source of blended sorrow and consolation; be it, therefore,
"_Resolved_, 1. That we tender, as a body, to the widow and family of
our dearly beloved colleague, our respectful sympathy in their
bereavement.
"2. That we request our President to publish this expression of our
heart-felt sorrow for the friend whom we have lost."
Professor Smith had been a prominent man in his native State, first as
an educator, then as editor of the _Alexandria Sentinel_, afterwards of
the _Richmond Enquirer_. He was the first Professor to die at his post.
[Illustration: PROF. WM. A. SHEPARD, A. M., _Class 1857; Major
Confederate States Army._]
The Board, after paying tribute to his memory, proceeded to supply the
vacant chair.
On the first ballot Professor William Arthur Shepard, of the Southern
Female College of Petersburg, was elected to the place. He was no
stranger to the College, having served as Professor prior to the war,
and having resigned his place to go into the service. Though a Northern
man by birth, he threw his heart and energies into the Southern cause,
and was so true and faithful that, after having been disabled for field
service by wounds, he was promoted to be Major and Assistant Commissary.
It would be safe to say that the College never had a warmer friend or a
truer man in its service than he proved himself to be for over thirty
years. He entered at once on the duties of his chair.