Ignatius Alphonso Few was an attorney,

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer m ...

, and

preacher A preacher is a person who delivers sermons or homilies on religious topics to an assembly of people. Less common are preachers who preach on the street, or those whose message is not necessarily religious, but who preach components such as ...

who was selected to lead "a school for manual labor", which subsequently failed and was replaced by a program for “sub-freshmen” at the newly established Emory College. Few became the first president of what is now

Emory University Emory University is a private research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1836 as "Emory College" by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory, Emory is the second-oldest private institution of ...

Biography

Ignatius Alphonso Few was born on April 11, 1789 the son of Captain Ignatius Few and Mary Candler in Columbia County Georgia. A historical oddity exists in the life of

in that Emory's founder (I. A. Few), was

Asa Candler Asa Griggs Candler (December 30, 1851 – March 12, 1929) was an American business tycoon and politician who in 1888 purchased the Coca-Cola recipe for $238.98 from chemist John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta, Georgia. Candler founded The Coca-C ...

's cousin (who later became Emory’s greatest benefactor). Few spent large portions of his early life in New Jersey, where he studied at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

, and in New York City before returning to Georgia to study Law in Augusta. In 1811 he married Salina Carr and became an unsuccessful farmer. He returned to law in 1823 before becoming seriously ill with a form of ‘lung fever’ which was perhaps tuberculosis. At this juncture in his life he experienced a spiritual conversion and joined the

Methodist Episcopal Church The Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) was the oldest and largest Methodist denomination in the United States from its founding in 1784 until 1939. It was also the first religious denomination in the US to organize itself on a national basis. In ...

. In 1828, Few felt the call to ministry and was admitted to the MEC as a minister. He was a charter member of the Georgia Conference of the MEC in 1831. However, because of his poor health, he left the active ministry shortly before 1835. In 1838, Few received a Doctor of Law degree from

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a private liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church and with the support of prominent residents of Middletown, the col ...

in Middletown, Connecticut.Few Genealogy - Biographies and Obituaries
/ref> In 1834, the Georgia Conference of the MEC founded a school for manual labor 30 miles outside of what would become

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

, just north of the town of Covington. Few was selected to lead. As this was a manual labor school, the students were expected to work 3 hours a day in the field performing farming chores. Classroom time consisted of reading, writing and arithmetic and was meant to prepare the students for further education. However well-meaning this concept was, it was rather idealistic for the time. The founders did not have enough experience to take on this project with any success – remember Few’s own failed attempt at farming – and before long the school was overrun with debt. Yet Few persisted and saw a different future for these adolescent students: a traditional college focused on academics. The Georgia Conference, after considerable debate, asked the Georgia legislature for a charter to establish a college. In 1840, the Manual Labor School closed for good and was replaced by a program for “sub-freshmen” at Emory College. Before the end of the first year at Emory, Few realized that his health, poor to begin with, was failing. He remained at Emory until July 1841. In 1844, he was responsible for writing a report describing the split of the MEC into the

and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. He died, probably as a result of his tuberculosis on November 21, 1845 in Athens, Georgia and was buried in the Oxford City Cemetery in Oxford, Georgia. He is commemorated as both the founder of Emory College and the first citizen of Oxford, Georgia.

Biography

See also

References

Further reading