Presidents of Georgetown College

William Staughton  1829-1829

            The first president of Georgetown College never lived to set foot on the campus of the infant institution.  William Staughton, a pioneer American Baptist preacher and educator, died while on his way to begin his new duties.

            Born on January 4, 1770, to Sutton and Keziah Staughton, in Coventry, England, Staughton demonstrated a talent in the literary arts.  At age twelve, he published poems in Goldsmith’s Animated Nature, which was published.  He became interested in the ministry in 1787 after being baptized by Rev. Samuel Pearce, of Birmingham, and soon attended Bristol Baptist College, where he graduated about 1792.  While a student, he went to organizational meetings of the Particular Baptist Society for Propagating the Gospel amongst the Heathen.  He contributed what he could afford, but signed the society’s declaration of purpose as “A Friend” rather than his name.  For a brief time he was pastor of a church in Northampton, but left for America in 1793.  At the request of Richard Furman, founder of Furman University, he became pastor of the Baptist church in Georgetown, South Carolina.  Staughton remained there for eighteen months, and then went to New Jersey, where he established seminaries and served as pastor of churches in Bordentown and Burlington.  He was ordained as a minister in Bordentown on June 17, 1797, and received a D.D. degree from Princeton College in 1798.  From 1805 to 1823, he served as pastor of First Baptist and Sansom Street Baptist churches in Philadelphia.  While preaching in Philadelphia, he was constantly engaged in teaching, serving as principal of a Baptist theological institution, teaching botany at area schools, and founding the Philadelphia Bible Society, the first female Bible society in the world.  It was also during this time that he served as corresponding secretary of the American Baptist Board of Foreign Missions.

           In 1823, he left preaching to become the first president of Columbian College in Washington, D.C.  Columbian later evolved into George Washington University. He resigned in 1829 and returned to Philadelphia.  In August, Staughton accepted the offer to become president of Georgetown College.  He had already sent his books ahead in preparation for the move.  But he became ill when he reached Washington, D.C., and died December 12, 1829.

            Staughton’s scholarly pursuits had included The Baptist Mission in India (1811), and a translation of Edward Wettenhall's Graece grammaticae institutio compendiaria, A Compendious System of Greek Grammar (1813), and two editions of The Works of Virgil (1812; 1813).

             Staughton was married twice.  Mary Hanson, his first wife, died in 1823.  They had four children.  He married his second wife, Anna Claypoole Peale, shortly before his death.  Anna lived until 1878.

Please direct inquiries to Dr. Glen Taul