Thomas Albert Smith Adams (February 5, 1839 – December 21, 1888), also known as "TAS", was a southern American Methodist clergyman and poet.
Background
The great-grandparents of T. A. S. Adams, as he was generally called, were Welsh-Irish Presbyterians, who emigrated from Ireland to
South Carolina in 1766. Abram Adams, his father, moved with his wife and five children, in 1834, to
Noxubee County, Mississippi, and bought a tract of land from the Indians. Ten out of the fourteen children in this thrifty, intelligent, religious family lived to the age of twenty-one. Among them was T. A, S. Adams, born February 5, 1839, and named for a general under whom his father served in the
War of 1812. From the neighborhood school he entered, with marked literary aptitude, the
University of Mississippi and completed the Junior year, graduating with honors at
Emory and Henry College,
Virginia, in 1860. The same year he married, and entered the
Methodist ministry. He was chaplain of the
11th Mississippi Infantry Regiment
The 11th Mississippi Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment that served in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. under General
Joseph R. Davis
Major-General Joseph Robert Davis (January 12, 1825September 15, 1896) was an American politician and lawyer who served as the commanding general of the Mississippi National Guard from 1888 to 1895. During the American Civil War, he served as ...
in the
Confederate Army
The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fighting ...
. Transferring in 1871 from the Mobile Conference, which he had joined, to the North Mississippi Conference, formed that year, he soon ranked among the leaders in the Conference, filling important stations and at intervals appointed to the presidency of several church schools. He was among the first, and earnest, advocates of a Mississippi Methodist College. His epic poem, ''Enscotidion; or, Shadow of Death'', was published in 1876. ''Aunt Peggy and Other Poems'' appeared in 1882, in which year he was a delegate from his Conference to the General Conference of the
Southern Methodist Church
The Southern Methodist Church is a conservative Protestant Christian denomination with churches located in the southern part of the United States. The church maintains headquarters in Orangeburg, South Carolina.
The church was formed in 1940 by ...
. The degree of
Doctor of Divinity
A Doctor of Divinity (D.D. or DDiv; la, Doctor Divinitatis) is the holder of an advanced academic degree in divinity.
In the United Kingdom, it is considered an advanced doctoral degree. At the University of Oxford, doctors of divinity are ran ...
was conferred on him by his ''alma mater'' in 1884. In 1886, he became president of
Centenary College of Louisiana
Centenary College of Louisiana is a private liberal arts college in Shreveport, Louisiana. The college is affiliated with the United Methodist Church. Founded in 1825, it is the oldest chartered liberal arts college west of the Mississippi Rive ...
(Jackson), but resigned the next year and moved to
Jackson, Mississippi, where he established a school with the design of having it become the "State Methodist College". But his plans miscarried, and he reentered the itinerant ministry in the North Mississippi Conference. He died suddenly, from a stroke of
apoplexy, December 21, 1888, in the railway station at Jackson, Mississippi, while preparing to leave for his new appointment at
Oxford, Mississippi.
References
*Unless otherwise noted, the text of this article is by
External links
''Enscotidion; or, Shadow of Death'' Nashville, Tenn., Southern Methodist Publishing House, 1876.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Adams, Thomas Albert Smith
1839 births
1888 deaths
University of Mississippi alumni
Emory and Henry College alumni
19th-century Methodist ministers
American Methodist clergy
19th-century American clergy