- JACKSON J. BUSHNELL was born in Old Saybrook, Conn., Feb..
19, 1815. His name
- (Jackson) is explained by the victory which, a month before
his birth, secured to the country the great valley to which his
manhood was devoted. Serving as a clerk in a country store in
his youth, he was early minded to obtain a collegiate education
and be a minister of the Gospel. Securing such preparation as
he was able he entered Yale College in 1837, and though he had
the advantage of but a single year of preparation he maintained
throughout his course a place in the front rank of his class,
at the same time supporting himself by his own exertions. Such
an education laid the foundations for peculiar efficiency in
life.
- After leaving college in 1841 Mr. BUSHNELL spent a few year
in the Theological Seminary at
- Andover, Mass., and several years as instructor in Western
Reserve College, and as its financial agent. He came to Beloit
April 27, 1848, and there found the main work of his life. That
work was to build a Christian College, which had been already
planned, as a center of good for this region, and for all time.
Here he applied himself not only to instruction but to agency
for the college. As other men devote themselves to build up
private enterprises, he had an ambition to acquire resources
to use for the public good. As he identified himself with the
college, so he identified the college with the community. Whatever
would build up Beloit as a thriving place concerned the college,
and concerned him whether it were a Sabbath-school or a church
or a bank, a railroad or a hotel; and so the city is full of
the monuments of his energy and self-sacrificing public-spirit.
His public enthusiasm repeatedly led him into enterprises commended
rather as needed for the public good than as promising individual
gain, and the crisis which swept over the business of this country
fell upon him as upon others, and his sense of justice sometimes
compelled him to assume burdens and hardships which less sensitive
men would have declined. There are other knights without reproach
than those that ride on fields of battle.
- Prof. BUSHNELL was elected to the Chair of Mathematics in
the college May 23, 1848. His
- business affairs compelled him to resign in 1858. He was
re-elected in 1864 and continued in the discharge of his duties,
beloved and honored, until March 8, 1873, when an attack of pneumonia
removed him beyond our mortal sight. His wife and four children,
three sons and a daughter, survive him.
- Prof. BUSHNELL's mind was one of rare versatility and vigor.
One could hardly approach him
- upon any subject, however unfamiliar, without finding help
in his luminous intelligence. His heart, too, was ever open
and generous. With the simplicity of a child, living amid ideals
which he was sure would some day be realized, he was a man for
those in need and for great enterprises as well, to lean upon.
He was a true and self-forgetful friend; his pupils loved and
honored him. The marble monument over his grave was erected
by them to his memory; but his chiefest monument is in the hearts
of those whom he befriended and the city whose prosperity he
did so much to promote. Beloit College is a part of that more
than princely memorial. His noble and child-like worth is perpetuated
in many who came under his influence.
-
- Taken from "The Portrait and Biographical Album of
Rock County, Wis." (c)1889, p. 887.
-
- Courtesy of Carol
|