Bacon, Rev. Joel Smith
From GWUEncyc
President
Third President of George Washington University
1843-1854
Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy
Joel Smith Bacon (1802-1869) was born in Cayuga Co., New York, Sept. 3, 1802, and died Nov. 9, 1869 at Richmond, Virginia. He studied at Homer Academy and Hamilton College, graduating from the latter in 1826, with the highest honors. He taught in Virginia for a year, and was in charge of a classical school at Princeton for a year, and in 1829 entered the Theological Seminary at Newton, Massachusetts. In 1830 he was elected president of Georgetown College in Kentucky, but held the office only until 1833 when he became Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Hamilton College, New York. At his request, shortly after entering upon his duties, he was transferred to the chair of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy which was erected especially for him. The necessity of settling the estate of his father-in-law who died in 1837, compelled him to resign and move to Salem, Massachusetts, and while living there he was for two years pastor of the church at Lynn. In 1843 he became President of the Columbian College, and held the office until 1854. From 1855 to 1866 he was engaged in female education in the South, and in 1866 he accepted an appointment from the American and. Foreign Bible Society to distribute Bibles among African-Americans, work he enjoyed with his whole heart, and continued this labor until his death. "He was a true man of pure and lofty sentiments, with broad and generous sympathies, with kindly affections, and singularly free from all partisan prejudices and bitter jealousies."
Bacon oversaw the transition of the College's Department of Medicine, as it moved to the old jail in Judiciary Square and became the National Medical College, one of the nation's first teaching hospitals. Other innovations included a program in natural science leading to the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy, the establishment of the college's first alumni association, and the awarding of the first Doctor of Laws degree.
Document Information
Images: 1
Photographic Credit: Georgetown College[1]
Author or Source: Adapted from the Historical catalogue of the Officers and Graduates of the Columbian University, Washington, D.C., 1821-1891; Bricks Without Straw, University Archives subject and personnel files
Document Location: University Archives
Date Added to Encyclopedia: January 19, 2007
Prepared by: G. David Anderson, University Archivist and Historian; Lyle Slovick, Assistant University Archivist
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