Who was the founder of Virginia? :: History of Virginia

Who was the founder of Virginia?

June 30, 2017
History of Virginia

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Virginia Union University, a historically black institution based in Richmond, Virginia, traces its roots back into the Wayland Seminary, launched in 1865 by the American Baptist Residence Missionary Society (ABHMS). The establishment, but may be the outcome of the merger of four institutions: Wayland Seminary, Richmond Theological Seminary, Hartshorn Memorial College, and Storer university.

Following the surrender for the Confederacy in 1865, limbs of this nationwide Theological Institute in Washington, D.C. and Richmond, Virginia chose to establish split schools in Richmond to educate ex-slaves. The Washington business received a $1, 500 grant from Freedmen's Bureau and founded Wayland Seminary, known as after Dr. Francis Wayland, previous president of Brown University and a leader when you look at the anti-slavery fight. Among Wayland's many prominent alumni tend to be Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. and Booker T. Washington.

The Richmond Theological Seminary was initially created in 1867 at Lumpkin's Jail, an old holding location for runaway slaves by Reverend Nathaniel Colver, an abolitionist. Colver protected a lease at Lumpkin's Jail during summer of 1867 and started teaching classes within the autumn of the year. In 1868 he handed the institution up to Dr. Charles Henry Corey, an old chaplain in Union Army, as a result of their decreasing wellness. The ABHMS Board honored Colver by naming the college the Colver Institute. The Institute became 1st when you look at the South to use African US training assistants and professors plus in 1876 started supplying curricula which included preparatory, educational, and theological. The school was also integrated because of the Virginia General Assembly in 1876 under the title the Richmond Institute. It later became the Richmond Theological Seminary.

In 1883, the ABHMS established Hartshorn Memorial university, among the first organizations produced solely for education of African United states women. By the 1890s the ABHMS forced plans to merge Wayland Seminary and Richmond Theological Seminary. In 1899 they truly became Virginia Union University.

The first classes at Virginia Union came across on October 1, 1899. Dr. Malcolm MacVicar, a native of Scotland, had been called 1st institution president. In 1932, the institution became a co-ed establishment aided by the merger of Hartshorn Memorial College. In 1941, Dr. John Malcus Ellison, a graduate of Virginia Union, became the college's 4th president therefore the very first African US president. In 1964, Storer College, founded in 1867 by complimentary will likely Baptists, and previously at Harpers Ferry, western Virginia, also combined with Virginia Union, getting the fourth part of the institution.

Virginia Union University today enrolls roughly 1, 500 students including 330 within graduate amount. The college offers programs in several procedures including company, knowledge, Law, and Theology. Its most well-known alumni feature Samuel Lee Gravely, 1st African American Admiral within the Navy, Randall Robinson, founder of TransAfrica, and Douglas Wilder, the initial black governor of Virginia.

Resources:
Virginia Union University record, (formal web site); Adolph H. Grundman, "Northern Baptist and the Founding of Virginia Union University: The Perils of Paternalism, " The Journal of Negro background, 63:1 (January 1978).

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