Zuinglius Calvin Graves

Background

Zuinglius Calvin Graves was born on April 15, 1816, in Chester, Vermont. He was the eldest of the three children of Zuinglius Calvin and Lois (Schnell) Graves.

Education

Frail, as a child, he spent most of the time between his fifth and sixteenth years on a farm belonging to his uncle, and it was during this time that, he forsook the traditional Congregationalism of his mother and joined the Baptists.

Returning to Chester, he pursued his schooling at Ludlow. He supported himself meantime by teaching district school, and licensed to preach though never ordained by serving as supply pastor at the Ludlow Baptist Church.

Soon after completing his high-school course, he went to Ashtabula, Ohio, where he successfully conducted an academy for four years before succeeding his younger brother, James Robinson Graves, as principal of an academy in Kingsville, Ohio.

Career

In December 1850, Graves removed to Winchester, Tennessee, to become first president of the Mary Sharp College, an institution for the higher education of women lately organized there largely through the efforts of his brother.

Shaping the courses of the new college after those of Brown and the University of Virginia, he maintained a degree of scholastic integrity almost unique at that time among women’s schools in the United States, and by 1861 it was admitting yearly more than three hundred young women, representing twelve different states.

The Civil War closed the college for about two years, but Graves opened it again soon after the war, working for a while without a salary, and adapting himself and his educational aims to the demands of the new era.

From 1891 to 1893, he was president of Soule College in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and during 1893, he taught at Boscobel College, a Baptist institution for women, situated in Nashville.

Toward the latter part of 1893 there were high prospects for the reorganization of Mary Sharp College, and the old president went down to Winchester to take charge, the Boscobel seniors following him in a body so that they might receive their diplomas at his hands.

The financial stringency of the times succeeded, by June 1896, in starving Mary Sharp College quite out of existence. Forlorn and detached, constantly becoming deafer, he lived out his remaining days in retirement.

Achievements

• Graves was the president of Soule College in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Connections

In July 1841, Graves was married to Adelia C. Spencer, sister of Platt Spencer, author of the Spencerian system of writing. His wife died in 1894.

Father:

Zuinglius Calvin Graves

Mother:

Lois (Schnell) Graves

Wife:

Adelia C. Spencer