William Andrew Smith

William Andrew Smith (1802–1870) was an American college president and clergyman. The preacher was selected as president of Randolph–Macon College in Ashland, Virginia in 1846, serving for two decades up to 1866. He also taught on the faculty while at the institution, and held pro-Slavery views.

Life and career

William Andrew Smith was born on November 29, 1802, in Fredericksburg, Virginia (then in Spotsylvania County, now an independent city),^[1] to William and @Mary (nee Porter) Smith.^[2] William Andrew's parents died of tragic early circumstances, his mother died of illness in 1804, when he was only two years old and his father was killed by business associates, when he was age 11 in 1813.^[2]

Smith was a preacher (elder / minister) in the former Methodist Episcopal Church (1784-1939), being admitted to the ministry on trial in 1825 at the age of 23 and becoming a full preacher / clergy in 1827. Smith was elected president of Randolph–Macon College in Ashland, Virginia in 1846, serving for two decades to 1866. He was also a professor of moral and intellectual philosophy at the college.^[1]

In 1839, while Smith was serving in Lynchburg, Virginia, he was lent a baby's cradle by influential Methodist Episcopal Church bishop John Early (1786-1873). The cradle unexplainably rocked back and forth of its own accord and was widely believed to be haunted. The cradle is now held by the Lynchburg Museum.^[3]

Smith was proslavery in his social and political views, and published a series of lectures titled "Lectures on the Philosophy and Practice of Slavery, as Exhibited in the Institution of Domestic Slavery in the United States: with the Duties of Masters to Slaves" in 1856.^[1][4] In 1866, Smith resigned from his position as president of Randolph-Macon, after two decades in office. He went on to become further west as the pastor of the Centenary Church in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1868, Smith was then selected to be the fifth president of Central College (now Central Methodist University) in Fayette, Missouri,^[1] as it resumed operations two years after the upheaval and strife of the American Civil War (1861-1865), especially in the tragically split border state of war-torn Missouri.^[5]

Smith died on March 1, 1870, in Richmond, Virginia, after only serving two years as the head of the Central Methodist College in Missouri.^[1]

References

1. "William A. Smith (William Andrew), 1802-1870". Documenting the American South. University of North Carolina. Retrieved May 12, 2020.
2. Spann, J.R. (June 1916). "William Andrew Smith, D.D." The John P. Branch Historical Papers of Randolph-Macon College. IV (4): 347–363. Retrieved June 8, 2020.
3. Pickard, Rebecca (1 October 2021). "The Early Family Rocking Cradle". Lynchburg Museum System. Archived from the original on 19 December 2024. Retrieved 19 December 2024.
4. "Lectures on the Philosophy and Practice of Slavery". Documenting the American South. University of North Carolina. Retrieved May 12, 2020.
5. "Past Presidents". Central Methodist University. Retrieved June 8, 2020.

Academic offices
Preceded by Landon Cabell Garland	President of Randolph-Macon College 1846–1866	Succeeded by Thomas Carter Johnson
Preceded by W.A. Anderson	President of Central Methodist University 1868–1870	Succeeded by F.X. Forster