clergyman educator missionary secretary
Jonathan Going was born on March 7, 1786, in Reading, Windsor County, Vermont. He was the son of Capt. Jonathan and Sarah (Kendall) Going, and a descendant of Robert Gowinge, who, having emigrated from Edinburgh, is listed in 1644 among the freemen of Dedham, Massachusets. The home in which Jonathan grew up was respectable though not distinctly religious.
Jonathan's early education was in the public schools, but he prepared for college in the academy at New Salem, Massachusets, entering Brown University in 1805.
Converted in his freshman year, he was baptized by Rev. Stephen Gano. After his graduation in 1809, he pursued theological studies for a while under President Messer of the University.
When Jonathan was ordained at Cavendish, May 9, 1811, there was no other college-educated Baptist minister in Vermont.
After a little more than four years as a pastor in Cavendish, he was called to Worcester, where he served for sixteen years with marked ability.
In 1826, Rev. John M. Peck spent a night at Going’s home in Worcester and for the next five years, they were in frequent correspondence. During the summer of 1831 the two traveled hundreds of miles in Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, and Indiana. Before they separated, they had “agreed on the plan of the American Baptist Home Mission Society”.
At a meeting of the Baptist Missionary Society held in Boston, the plan was endorsed and Going was advised to devote himself to the new enterprise.
Resigning his pastorate, he threw all his great ability into the task. In April 1832, he was elected corresponding secretary and for the next five and a half years did great constructive work.
Besides much traveling and extensive correspondence, he edited a weekly periodical in the interest of the home mission cause, the American Baptist and Home Missionary Record.
In 1837, Going was elected president of the college at Granville, Ohio, later called Denison University. Here he spent his last seven years, devoting himself to the educational problems that clustered about a frontier college and to the denominational interests of the state.
Going's health had been somewhat impaired by overwork, but he had the prestige of a stalwart body, a well-founded reputation for homely humor, and a recognized administrative ability, perhaps seen at its best in the institutional organization.
In August 1812, Jonathan married Lucy Thorndike of Dunstable, Middlesex County, Massachusets.
