Alva Woods

Background

His father was a Baptist clergyman, a half-brother of Leonard Woods, 1774-1854 [q. v. ].

Abel Woods's father was one of the early settlers of Princeton, Massachussets, and taught the first public school in that town.

Education

Woods, Alva, , Vermont 1794 1887 Male Clergyman Baptist College President college president and Baptist minister, was born in Shoreham, Vt. , and was the eldest of six children of Abel and Mary (Smith) Woods.

Alva Woods received his early education in the public schools of Shoreham and at Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachussets, where he was fitted for college.

He entered Harvard College in the fall of 1813 and was graduated with honors four years later.

He followed this with a course in the Andover Theological Seminary (1817 - 21).

Ordained a minister of the Baptist Church on Oct. 28, 1821, he accepted a position as professor of mathematics, natural philosophy, and ecclesiastical history at Columbian College (later George Washington University), Washington, D. C. , but before beginning his teaching duties he was sent as an agent to the Atlantic states and Great Britain to collect funds, books, and apparatus for the college.

While abroad he spent some time attending lectures at Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, and Glasgow, returning to his college duties in November 1823.

He remained in this position until March 1831, and there is some indication that his tenure was not altogether comfortable either to himself or to the trustees of the university (Letters of Rebecca Gratz, 1929, p. 215, ed.

Career

After a year's teaching at Columbian College he was chosen professor of mathematics and natural philosophy in Brown University.

by David Philipson).

He moved his family to Tuscaloosa in March 1831 and on Apr. 12, 1831, was inaugurated as president (T. M. Owens, History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography, 1921, vol.

II, p. 1358).

William Russell Smith [q. v. ], fourth president of the university, says in his Reminiscences of a Long Life (1889) that Woods was not a success as president and that his life in that position was a life of storms.

Refusing the presidency of three western colleges and a professorship in a theological institution, Woods removed to Providence, R. I, where he gave his attention to preparing his son for Brown University.

In 1868 his Literary and Theological Addresses was printed in Providence in an edition of fifty copies.

sketch in Woods's Literary and Theological Addresses (1868), of which there are copies in the libraries of Transylvania Coll.

and the Univ. of Ala.

See also Harvard Univ. , Quinquennial Cat.

(1925); F. E. Blake, Hist.

of the Town of Princeton .

Massachussets (1915), vol.

II; Biog.

Cat.

.

Phillips Acad. , Andover (1903); Gen. Cat.

Theological Seminary, Andover, Massachussets, 1808-1908 (n. d. ); Robert and Johanna Peter, Transylvania Univ. (1896), being Filson Club Pub. , no. 11; A. F. Lewis, Hist.

of Higher Educ.

in Ky. (1899); obituary in Providence Daily Jour. , Sept. 7, 1887.

Information has been supplied by Mrs. C. F. Norton, librarian of Transylvania Coll. , and by Alice S. Wyman, librarian of the Univ. of Ala. ]

Religion

He was financially independent, and gave his services gratuitously for a number of years as chaplain for the prisoners in the various state institutions.

Connections

married:

Almira

Woods was married, Dec. 10, 1823, to Almira Marshall (d. 1863), eldest daughter of Josiah and Priscilla Marshall of Boston, Massachussets He had two children, of whom the elder survived him.

Daughter:

Almira

Woods was married, Dec. 10, 1823, to Almira Marshall (d. 1863), eldest daughter of Josiah and Priscilla Marshall of Boston, Massachussets He had two children, of whom the elder survived him.

children:

Almira

Woods was married, Dec. 10, 1823, to Almira Marshall (d. 1863), eldest daughter of Josiah and Priscilla Marshall of Boston, Massachussets He had two children, of whom the elder survived him.

children:

,