Background
Gideon Blackburn was born on August 27, 1772, in Augusta County, Virginia, United States, the son of Robert Blackburn. In his boyhood his family moved to eastern Tennessee.
Gideon Blackburn was born on August 27, 1772, in Augusta County, Virginia, United States, the son of Robert Blackburn. In his boyhood his family moved to eastern Tennessee.
Gideon attended Martin Academy and studied for the ministry under Dr. Robert Henderson.
In 1792 Blackburn was licensed to preach by the Abingdon Presbytery and began his ministry by holding services for some soldiers whom he had accompanied on an expedition against the Indians. Soon he established the New Providence Church and was given charge of another ten miles distant. His most notable work was the establishment of a mission to the Cherokee Indians. When he was unable to interest his own presbytery in the subject, he took his plea to the General Assembly, which, in 1803, voted $200 for the support of the work. Blackburn collected additional funds on the outside and having secured the approval of President Adams and the Secretary of War, opened a school for the Cherokee children in 1804. A teacher was employed, and Blackburn had general supervision in addition to his regular church services. This work he continued until 1810, by which time the hardships of the frontier had so undermined his health and the demands of the mission work so strained his finances that he felt compelled to resign.
During the next twenty-three years Blackburn continued his teaching and preaching, was president of Harpeth Academy, and of Centre College, served as pastor of churches in Louisville and Versailles, Kentucky, and did much itinerant preaching. Because of his success as a money raiser he was invited, in 1833, to go to Illinois by some persons interested in education in that region, and in 1835 was given the task of raising funds for Illinois College. Later he conceived a unique plan for raising an endowment for a school at Carlinville, Illinois. The government was placing large tracts of land on the market and Blackburn offered to enter lands for friends of the cause at the rate of two dollars an acre. After paying the $1. 25 per acre to the government, twenty-five cents was to go to him for his services and fifty cents for lands for the school. In this way he raised funds to enter a little over 16, 656 acres for the institution. In the following year, 1838, he died. The institution he planned for was not opened until 1857. Beginning as a primary school, it later became Blackburn Theological Seminary and, when the theological courses were discontinued, Blackburn College.
Blackburn was a member of the American Antiquarian Society.
Blackburn was described as "the best type of backwoods eloquence, " a commanding figure, above average height, with strongly marked features and flowing black locks.
On October 3, 1793, Blackburn married Grizzel Blackburn, a distant cousin, by whom he had eleven children.
