William Capers Bass

Background

He was born on January 13, 1831, in Augusta.

Education

William was sent to the Cokesbury School in South Carolina, and later to Emory College in Georgia, both Methodist institutions. He abandoned his plans to become a lawyer in order to enter the ministry, but as he had borrowed money to maintain himself in school, he determined to teach until he could accumulate enough to pay his debt.

Career

His first position was in Greensboro, Georgia. After one year, Smith left Greensboro to teach at the Methodist Wesleyan Female College in Macon, but Bass continued at Greensboro for two years longer before he became professor of natural science at the Female College in Madison, Ga. A year later he was invited to teach the same subject at Wesleyan, but loyalty to the Madisonians made him decline. The invitation was renewed in 1859, and he accepted. For virtually the remainder of his life he was at Wesleyan - till 1874, as professor of natural science, and afterward as president until his resignation in April 1894.

He was not officially connected with the Methodist Conference till 1867, but upon the license of that body he had preached with fair regularity from the beginning of his residence in Greensboro. When his connection at last did become official, his practical activities were not affected--he was merely "appointed" year after year to carry on the work he was already doing. His term of office as executive at Wesleyan covered years of the heaviest financial depression, but he was under the responsibility not only of providing funds for the conduct of the college, but of teaching mental and moral philosophy and of preaching before the young ladies once and sometimes twice every Sunday. He personally attended even to such small matters as purchasing groceries and keeping books for 250 people.

And in addition he preached once a month at each of three country churches in the vicinity of his home. He once had as many as sixty students in a senior class, and during the twenty years of his presidency the college graduated far more than half the number of persons it had graduated in the fifty-five years of its existence.

Achievements

• From a practical standpoint, the greatest event of his administration was the bestowal upon the college of $125, 000 by the philanthropist, George I. Seney.

Personality

For all his capability in business, he was devout, generous, and affectionate.

Connections

He married Octavia Nickelson, daughter of James Blake and Ann Maria (Willy) Nickelson.

Father:

Henry Bass

Mother:

Amelia (Love) Bass

Wife:

Octavia Nickelson

References

• Biographical Souvenir of the States of Georgia and Florida; Containing Biographical Sketches of the Representative Public, and Many Early Settled Families in These States