Hon. John Phillips

Founder, Phillips Exeter Academy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._John_Phillips

John Phillips (1719–1795) was an early American educator and patron of schools. He graduated from Harvard College in 1735. Among many other activities, he was a trustee of Dartmouth College from 1773 to 1793 and endowed the Phillips Professorship of Theology there. Dartmouth awarded him an LLD in 1777.

He and his wife, Elizabeth (Dennet) Phillips, founded Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1781.

His nephew, Samuel Phillips, Jr., had, with help from John Phillips, founded the nearby Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1778. These two schools, longtime rivals, are among the oldest and most prestigious preparatory schools in the United States.

His first wife, Sarah (Emery) Gilman was a wealthy widow, and he left one third of his large estate to Phillips Andover and two-thirds to Phillips Exeter. He left no children.

"Goodness without knowledge... is weak and feeble, yet knowledge without goodness is dangerous.... Both united form the noblest character and lay the surest foundation of usefulness to mankind. Many men went a walking and many crippled men, did not." -- John Phillips

Born in Andover, December 7, 1719, he was a precocious child, so fond of learning that he entered Harvard College before he was twelve, and graduated with distinction in 1735. For a brief period he taught school in Andover, while pursuing intermittently studies in medicine and. theology. Although he had a slight weakness of the lungs, he had a desire to become a clergyman, and it is reported that he did actually preach on occasions in Exeter and several surrounding towns; but after hearing the duties of a minister described by the eloquent evangelist, George Whitefield, he so distrusted his own ability that he renounced all hope of continuing as a preacher. We know that he was taxed in Exeter in 1740; and it is said that in 1741 he opened there a "private classical school." It is certain that, on August 4, 1743, he married Mrs. Sarah (Emery) Gilman, who had inherited from her recently deceased husband, "Gentleman Nat," a fortune of something over eight thousand pounds. The fact that Phillips had first proposed to the daughter, Tabitha, but, on being refused, found solace with the mother, is interesting gossip; however, although his bride was forty-one when he was only twenty-three, this discrepancy in age did not apparently make the marriage an unhappy one. Aided by this addition to his resources, Phillips then became a merchant, and, through the industry and frugality so characteristic of his family, succeeded in accumulating a large fortune. After the death of Mrs. Phillips on October 9, 1765, he married again on November 3, 1767, his second wife being Mrs. Elizabeth (Dennet) Hale, widow of Dr. Eliphalet Hale, of Exeter. He had no children.