Presidents of Georgetown College
Benjamin Franklin Farnsworth 1836-1837
(Photo submitted:
Special Collections and Archives, University of Louisville)
When Benjamin Franklin Farnsworth came to Georgetown College in 1836, the
college was on the brink of disintegrating.
He came to Georgetown from Rhode Island, where he had organized and
administered a boys high school.
Born in 1793 in New England, Farnsworth graduated from Dartmouth College
in 1813 and went on to study theology. After
being ordained as a Baptist minister in 1818, he pastored a church in Edenton,
North Carolina. But he had to
resign two years later because of his wife’s health.
They returned to Massachusetts, where he became head of the Middleborough
Academy. After the death of his
wife, Farnsworth remarried. In
1823, he accepted the position of principal of the Bridgewater Academy in
Massachusetts. Later he opened a
female high school in Worcester, and edited the Boston Christian Watchman
until May 1826. Between 1826 and
1833, he headed the New Hampton Academical and Theological Institution in New
Hampshire. It was in 1833 that he
organized a boys high school in Providence, Rhode Island.
The presidency had been vacant for four years when Farnsworth came.
The trustees of the Kentucky Baptist Education Society were in the throes
of a struggle that threatened the existence of Georgetown College.
Two groups were attempting take control of it.
Alexander Campbell and his “Disciples,” or Campbellites, had split
from the Baptists and were attempting to take control of the college, as were
members of the Western Educational Society, which had formed in Cincinnati to
establish a theological seminary. Dr.
Silas M. Noel, a founder of Georgetown College, was a vice president.
The society petitioned the Kentucky legislature to transfer proceeds in
the Pawling Fund to it. But the
measure failed to pass.
The trustees hired Farnsworth in order to regain control from the
Campbellites. The year that
Farnsworth assumed the presidency, a rival college started operating a few
blocks away. Thornton Johnson, a
Campbellite and a Georgetown faculty member, resigned when Farnsworth was chosen
as president and founded Bacon College. Johnson
siphoned most of Georgetown’s students, leaving only twenty for Georgetown
when the academic year began. Farnsworth
vigorously opposed the chartering of Bacon College by the Kentucky legislature,
but failed to block it. He had laid
plans to enlarge the campus, construct two buildings, and raise $50,000 in new
endowment, but with no end of the controversy in sight and seeing his
effectiveness as president waning, Farnsworth resigned in 1837.
Farnsworth accepted the position as principal of the Collegiate Institute
of Louisville, which was the forerunner of the present day University of
Louisville. The city of Louisville
created the Collegiate Institute for public education.
Farnsworth, however, remained only a year, citing failing health.
He retired and moved to Lexington to live with his daughter.
Farnsworth died in June 1851 in Scott County, Kentucky.
Please direct inquiries to Dr. Glen Taul