Alonzo Church memoir


Descriptive Summary
Title: Alonzo Church memoir
Creator: Coulter, E. Merton (Ellis Merton), 1890-1981
Creator: Mitchell, William L. (William Letcher), 1805-1882
Inclusive Dates: 1865, 1976
Language(s): English
Extent: 1 folder(s)
Collection Number: ms1051
Repository: University of Georgia Archives

Collection Description

Historical Note

Alonzo S. Church was born April 9, 1793 and died May 18, 1862. Alonzo Church joined the faculty at the University of Georgia as a professor of Mathematics while a Presbyterian minister. He later became president of the University of Georgia from 1829-1859. A stern disciplinarian, Church's puritanical ethos clashed with the student body, resulting in periods of campus unrest in each decade of his tenure. Additionally, he clashed with Joseph and John LeConte who refused to serve as disciplinarians of the student body. This series of confrontations led to an erosion of attendance. As a result of the crisis, a commission was formed which produced the Mitchell Report of November 1855. They advocated the creation of a school of science, law, teacher education, and agriculture, as well as the addition of a professor of modern languages to the faculty.

William Letcher Mitchell was a professor of law at the University of Georgia School of Law.

Scope and Content

The collection consists of a memoir of Alonzo Church, D. D. (1793-1862) minister and former president of the University of Georgia, was written by William L. Mitchell for Reverend John S. Wilson and the Presbyterian Synod of Georgia on 20 September 1865, as part of the Synod's project "to prepare a memorial record of each one of the ministerial members who have departed this life since the erection of the Synod." Included in this collection is a Xerox of an early typescript of the original, a recent typescript, copy of a cover letter to Dr. E. M. Coulter, and note from Dr. Coulter pertaining to the memoir. This memoir, although somewhat fragmentary, is an important record of the life of Alonzo Church, his university policies and administration, and, by inference, Athens during the antebellum period.