John Blackford Van Meter was an American clergyman and educator.
Background
Van Meter was born on September 6, 1842, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father was Thomas Hurley Van Meter, of Dutch descent, and his mother, Johnetta (Blackford) Van Meter, whose ancestors were English and French.
When the boy was about four years old, his father died, and some years later the family removed to Baltimore, Maryland.
Education
Van Meter was graduated in 1859, from the Male Central High School (later Baltimore City College). In recognition of his scholarly and other achievements, several institutions later granted him honorary degrees.
Career
For several years, Van Meter taught in the public schools of Baltimore, and during 1868-69, was principal of the Male Academic and Female Collegiate Institute at Westminster, a Methodist institution. He began preaching in the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1864, and was ordained deacon in 1866 and elder in 1868. He had charge of circuits in Maryland and Pennsylvania (1864 - 68), and later held pastorates in Washington, D. C. , Plainfield, New Jersey, and Baltimore.
For ten years (1872 - 81), he was a chaplain in the United States Navy, being for a time stationed at the naval academy at Annapolis. He resigned the position to take charge of the Huntington Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church in Baltimore. There he was closely associated with John Franklin Goucher, pastor of the First Methodist Church, in the founding of the Woman's College of Baltimore (later Goucher College). Though the institution came into existence under the auspices of the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the success of the undertaking was largely due to the efforts of these two men.
From 1882 to 1885, Van Meter was a member of the publishing committee of the Baltimore Methodist, through which was carried on the campaign for funds for the college. He was a member of all important committees of the Conference connected with its founding and of the board of trustees (1885-88, 1914 - 30). In 1888, when the college was opened, he was appointed a professor of psychology, ethics, and the Bible, the first member of the faculty to be named. In 1914, he was retired with the rank of professor emeritus.
He was dean of the college from 1892 to 1910 and acting president from 1911 to 1913. But, as President Goucher was frequently absent for long periods, Van Meter was the real administrator of the institution during much of his connection with it. Van Meter largely shaped and maintained the educational policy of the college, a pioneer in the modern educational movement for women in the South, and who placed it among the best colleges of the country. It is a tribute to his zeal and ability that, though the college was practically bankrupt in 1911 when he became acting head, its high scholastic standards were intact.
Van Meter died in Baltimore in 1930.
Achievements
Personality
On the intellectual and spiritual ideals of its students, Van Meter also exerted much influence. He was kindly, delightfully humorous, and so broadly tolerant as to be subjected to criticism for religious heresy.
Connections
On December 19, 1866, Van Meter married Lucinda Cassell of Westminster, Maryland, by whom he had two daughters.