Jonathan Blanchard (abolitionist)
Jonathan Blanchard (January 19, 1811 – May 14, 1892) was an American pastor, educator, social reformer, and abolitionist. Born in Vermont, Blanchard attended Middlebury College before accepting a teaching position in New York. In 1834, he left to study at Andover Theological Seminary, but departed in 1836 after the college rejected agents from the American Anti-Slavery Society. Blanchard joined the group as one of Theodore Dwight Weld's "seventy" and preached in favor of abolition in southern Pennsylvania.
For the Continental Congress delegate, see Jonathan Blanchard (statesman).
Jonathan Blanchard
January 19, 1811
May 14, 1892 (aged 81)
American
Mary Avery Bent
12, including Charles A. Blanchard
Blanchard graduated from Lane Seminary in 1838 and was soon ordained to preach at Sixth Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. There, he helped publish abolitionist newspaper The Philanthropist and represented Ohio at the 1843 World Anti-Slavery Convention. In 1845, he was named president of Knox College in Illinois, but was forced out thirteen years later. Blanchard is credited with founding Wheaton College in 1860, where he presided until 1882.
Following the Civil War, Blanchard focused on fighting secret societies through his National Christian Association. He was a leader in the resurrected Anti-Masonic Party and once campaigned for its Presidential nomination. Along with his son Charles Albert, who succeeded him as Wheaton College president, he is the namesake of the college's Blanchard Hall.
Early life[edit]
Jonathan Blanchard was born in Rockingham, Vermont on January 19, 1811. He was the eleventh of fifteen children born to Polly (Lovell) and Jonathan Blanchard, Sr.[1] When he was three years old, he heard his brother discuss the recent Battle of Plattsburgh, an engagement of the War of 1812. Blanchard later credited this encounter as an influential moment in the development of his pacifist views. As a child, Blanchard attended public schools and helped on the family farm. When he was fourteen, he took his first job teaching a school. Like his brothers, Blanchard opposed the consumption of alcohol. He published his first article advocating temperance in 1825.[2]
After preparatory studies at Chester Academy in Chester, Vermont, Blanchard matriculated at Middlebury College in 1828.[1] Upon graduation in 1831, he was named preceptor of Plattsburg Academy in Plattsburgh, New York. He taught for two years but found the work dissatisfying.[3] Blanchard first supported abolitionism in 1834, believing slavery to be inconsistent with Biblical teachings.[2] He then enrolled at the Andover Theological Seminary in Andover, Massachusetts. While there, the school denounced the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS) and demanded that students reject abolitionist views. Blanchard left the school in 1836 to join the society, which assigned him to preach in southern Pennsylvania as one of Theodore Dwight Weld's "seventy".[4] Blanchard was stoned in the streets by citizens in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1837. Nonetheless, he was considered one of the most effective agents of the AASS and is credited with converting Thaddeus Stevens to the abolitionist cause.[5]
The next year, Blanchard moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, to attend Lane Seminary, where he graduated in 1838. He assisted with the publication of abolitionist newspaper The Philanthropist until it was forced to close in the aftermath of the Cincinnati riots of 1836.[5] Blanchard was ordained in that city to preach at Sixth Presbyterian Church, a New School congregation. The church provided Blanchard with an opportunity to spread abolitionist ideals without eschewing mainstream Christianity.[4] Calvin Ellis Stowe and Lyman Beecher attended Blanchard's ordination; Blanchard's wife was a close friend of Beecher's daughter Harriet.[3]
After delivering a rousing commencement address at Oberlin College in 1839, the school offered Blanchard a professorship, but he declined. In 1841, Blanchard founded the Presbyterian of the West, later known as the Herald and Presbyter, a radical Presbyterian weekly journal.[2] He represented the Ohio State Anti-Slavery Society as a delegate to the 1843 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, England, and was elected its American vice president. In early October 1845, in Cincinnati, Ohio, Blanchard debated the morality of slavery with fellow Presbyterian minister Nathan Lewis Rice (December 29, 1807 - June 11, 1877). This debate was recorded in full, and later published as A Debate on Slavery Held in the City of Cincinnati (Cincinnati: William H. Moore & Co., 1846).[1] Blanchard's first opposition to Freemasonry came in 1845, when he condemned a Covington, Kentucky, lodge that refused aid to a widow of a long-time member. A mob of over fifty men attacked him over the article. The next Sunday, Blanchard preached against secret societies, a position that he would hold for the rest of his life.[2]
Personal life[edit]
Blanchard married Mary Avery Bent on September 17, 1838. Bent left her family home of Middlebury, Vermont in 1835 for Pennsylvania, where she became principal of the Girls' High School in Harrisburg. She met Blanchard in that city when he was with the AASS. They had twelve children: Jonathan Edwards (died an infant), Mary Avery, William Walter (died an infant), Catherine Lucretia, Charles Albert, Williston (died a child), Nora Emily, Sonora Caroline, Julia Waters, Cyrus Louis, and Geraldine Cecilia.[15] Blanchard died suddenly at his home in Wheaton on May 14, 1892. He had suffered through influenza the previous week.[16] He was buried in Wheaton Cemetery. Wheaton's most recognizable and oldest building is Blanchard Hall, a limestone tower built as the Central College Building in 1853 and, subsequently, named in honor of the college's first two presidents.