Rev. John William Yeomans, President of Lafayette College (1841-1844)

Rev. John William Yeomans

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• Rev. John William Yeomans

1841-1844: Rev. Yeomans attempted to open the College to both black and Native Americans. The former were educated for missionary work in Liberia and sponsored by the Presbyterian Church. The Choctaw Indians never arrived, possibly because the president of the Board of Trustees, James Madison Porter, who as Secretary of War designate was responsible for sending them to the campus, was not confirmed by the Senate. The College was filled to capacity. President John William Yeomans
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John William Yeomans

Yeomans was a clergyman and college administrator, born in Peru, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, 7 January, 1800; died in Danville, Montour county, Pennsylvania, 22 June, 1863. He graduated from Williams College in 1824, and, after holding the office of tutor there for a year, resigned to study theology at Andover Seminary.

In 1828 he was ordained pastor of the Presbyterian Church at North Adams, Massachusetts, where he remained until 1832, when he took charge of the 1st Congregational Church at Pittsfield, Massachusetts, whence he was called in 1834 to the 1st Presbyterian Church at Trenton, New Jersey. In 1841 he became President of Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania, but he resigned in 1845 to become pastor of the Mahoning Church at Danville, Pennsylvania, where he remained until his death.

In 1860 he was moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. As president of Lafayette, Dr. Yeomans proved himself a ripe scholar and an able teacher, he was regarded as one of the chief theologians of his denomination, and as a metaphysician probably had but few equals among his contemporaries. He received the degree of D.D. from Miami university in 1841.

Among his publications are "Election Sermon " (Boston, 1834); "Dedication Sermon" (Trenton, 1840) ; and "Address on the Author's Inauguration as President of Lafayette College" (Easton, 1841). He was also a frequent contributor to the " Princeton Review," and was co-author of a" History of the County of Berkshire, Massachusetts, in Two Parts " (Pittsfield, 1829).

--His son, Edward Dorr, clergyman, born in North Adams, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, 27 September, 1829; died in Orange, Essex County, New Jersey, 25 August, 1868, was educated chiefly by his father, and passed through the Junior year at Lafayette College before he was fifteen years old. On account of his youth he was not graduated, but he received from Princeton Universary the honorary degree of A. M. in 1849 and that of D.D. in 1864.

After studying theology at Princeton, he was licensed to preach, 21 April, 1847, when only seventeen years and a half old. After preaching" from 1847 till 1849 at New Columbia, Pennsylvania, and serving as principal of an academy at Danville, Pennsylvania, in 1847-'50, he was pastor successively of several churches, including Rochester, New York, from 1847 until his death. That event was supposed to have been hastened by his energetic work at Orange, which resulted in doubling the church membership within a year, while he was undergoing the strain of severe literary labor.

Dr. Yeomans will probably be longest remembered as a translator from the German. His English versions of Dr. Philip Schaff's " History of the Apostolic Church" (New York, 1853), of "Lectures on America" (1855), and " History of the Christian Church " (1859), have the idiomatic character of original compositions. He was engaged at the time of his death in translating the large volume of Lange's "Commentary on John."

Rev. John W. Yoemans D.D., Presbyterian minister of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, North Adams, Mass., Danville, PA., and president of Lafayette College.

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