Thomas William Humes (April 22, 1815 – January 16, 1892) was an American clergyman and educator, active in
Knoxville, Tennessee
Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County, Tennessee, Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Di ...
, during the latter half of the 19th century. Elected rector of
St. John's Episcopal Church in 1846, Humes led the church until the outbreak of the
Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
, when he was forced to resign due to his
Union
Union commonly refers to:
* Trade union, an organization of workers
* Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets
Union may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Music
* Union (band), an American rock group
** ''Un ...
sentiments. He was named president of East Tennessee University in 1865, and during his tenure, he led the school's expansion and transition into the
University of Tennessee
The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state, ...
. Humes later served as the first librarian of the
Lawson McGhee Library
The Lawson McGhee Library is the main library of Knox County Public Library in Knoxville, Tennessee
Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's po ...
, and published a book about East Tennessee's Unionists entitled, ''The Loyal Mountaineers of Tennessee''.
[East Tennessee Historical Society, Mary Rothrock (ed.), ''The French Broad-Holston Country: A History of Knox County, Tennessee'' (Knoxville, Tenn.: The Society, 1972), pp. 244, 293-295, 309, 315, 431-432.]
Early life
Humes was born in Knoxville in 1815, the son of Thomas Humes (1767–1816) and Margaret Russell Cowan Humes (1777–1854), both of
Scots-Irish descent.
Humes's father, a native of
Armagh
Armagh ( ; ga, Ard Mhacha, , "Macha's height") is the county town of County Armagh and a city in Northern Ireland, as well as a civil parish. It is the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland – the seat of the Archbishops of Armagh, the Pri ...
, Ireland,
began building the
Lamar House Hotel in 1816, but died later that same year. Humes's mother oversaw the hotel's completion, however, and under her direction, it grew to become Knoxville's premier hotel. The younger Humes was a half-brother of James Cowan (1801–1871), a co-founder of the wholesaling firm,
Cowan, McClung and Company, and a stepbrother of historian
J. G. M. Ramsey
James Gettys McGready Ramsey (March 25, 1797 – April 11, 1884) was an American historian, physician, planter, slave owner, and businessman, active primarily in East Tennessee during the nineteenth century. Ramsey is perhaps best known for h ...
(1797–1884).
Humes graduated from East Tennessee College (the forerunner of the University of Tennessee) in 1831, and obtained his master's degree from the school two years later.
He then entered the
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton Theological Seminary (PTSem), officially The Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church, is a private school of theology in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1812 under the auspices of Archibald Alexander, the General Assembly of ...
intending to become a
Presbyterian
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
minister but left after deciding he could not take the
Westminster Confession of Faith
The Westminster Confession of Faith is a Reformed confession of faith. Drawn up by the 1646 Westminster Assembly as part of the Westminster Standards to be a confession of the Church of England, it became and remains the " subordinate standard" ...
.
After returning to Knoxville, Humes briefly worked for his half-brother's business before embarking on a career in journalism. During the late 1830s and early 1840s, he worked variously as editor of the ''Knoxville Times'', the ''
Knoxville Register
The ''Knoxville Register'' was an American newspaper published primarily in Knoxville, Tennessee, during the 19th century. Founded in 1816, the paper was East Tennessee's dominant newspaper until 1863, when its pro-secession editor, Jacob Austin Sp ...
'', and a
Whig Party paper, ''The Watch Tower''.
In the mid-1840s, Humes began studying under the authority of Tennessee's Episcopal Bishop
James Otey
James Hervey Otey (January 27, 1800 – April 23, 1863), Christian educator, author, and the first Episcopal Bishop of Tennessee, having established the Anglican church in the state, including its first parish churches and what became the Unive ...
(1800–1863). He initially served as Sunday
lay reader
In Anglicanism, a licensed lay minister (LLM) or lay reader (in some jurisdictions simply reader) is a person authorised by a bishop to lead certain services of worship (or parts of the service), to preach and to carry out pastoral and teaching f ...
for Knoxville's St. John's Episcopal Church congregation, and after being ordained a deacon in March 1845, he served as assistant to the church's rector. In July 1845, Humes was ordained a priest by Bishop Otey, and in September 1846, the congregation elected him rector.
Civil War
Although he was a slave owner, Humes helped several slaves in Knoxville purchase their freedom during the late 1840s and 1850s.
[Robert McKenzie, ''Lincolnites and Rebels: A Divided Town in the American Civil War'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 141-143.] He also opened a school for Knoxville's free blacks and freed slaves.
During the secession crisis of 1860 and 1861, Humes remained fervently loyal to the Union, even though many of his relatives and most of his congregation supported secession. After he refused to acknowledge Confederate president
Jefferson Davis
Jefferson F. Davis (June 3, 1808December 6, 1889) was an American politician who served as the president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives as a ...
's National Day of Prayer in mid-1861, he was finally forced to resign.
After Tennessee seceded in June 1861, Humes wanted to move to the North, but a broken leg prevented him from doing so.
Humes dubbed the Confederate occupation of Knoxville a "reign of terror,"
but remained in the city throughout the war, protected in part by his blood and marriage ties to many of the city's Confederate leaders. In June 1863, Humes prayed with dying Confederate Pleasant McClung, who had been mortally wounded in an attempted raid on the city by General
William P. Sanders.
When General
Ambrose Burnside
Ambrose Everett Burnside (May 23, 1824 – September 13, 1881) was an American army officer and politician who became a senior Union general in the Civil War and three times Governor of Rhode Island, as well as being a successful inventor ...
's Union forces occupied Knoxville in September 1863, the general asked Humes to resume his position as rector of St. John's Episcopal Church, which Humes accepted. Confederate diarist Ellen Renshaw House, a member of the St. John's congregation, boycotted Humes's opening sermon, calling Humes "the grandest old rascal that ever was."
In November 1863, Humes performed a funerary sermon for General Sanders, who had been mortally wounded by advancing Confederate forces in West Knoxville.
Later life
Humes was named president of East Tennessee University in 1865, and almost immediately managed to secure an $18,500 federal grant to help restore the school's deteriorated campus, which had been occupied by both Union and Confederate armies during the war.
[Milton Klein]
University of Tennessee
''Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture'', 2009. Retrieved: 10 August 2011. In 1869, Tennessee's state government designated the school the recipient of the state's
Morrill Act
The Morrill Land-Grant Acts are United States statutes that allowed for the creation of land-grant colleges in U.S. states using the proceeds from sales of federally-owned land, often obtained from indigenous tribes through treaty, cession, or se ...
(land-grant) funds. This amounted to $400,000, which generated for the school $24,000 in annual interest.
As required by the Morrill Act, the school established colleges of agriculture, engineering, and military science.
East Tennessee University changed its name to the University of Tennessee in 1879 in hopes of obtaining more state funding.
Humes resigned as president in 1883, and was succeeded by Charles Dabney.
Throughout his later years, Humes used his influence to raise money for educational and economic development in East Tennessee. In 1864, he was elected chairman of the East Tennessee Relief Association, which raised money to help East Tennessee Unionists impoverished by the Civil War.
During the late 1860s, he helped Knoxville obtain Peabody funding, which the city used to establish a public school system. In 1873, Humes co-founded the St. John's Orphanage, which operated in Knoxville into the 20th century.
In 1886, Humes was named the first librarian of the Lawson McGhee Library, which had been established the previous year.
In 1888, Humes published ''Loyal Mountaineers of Tennessee'', an account of the Civil War in East Tennessee. While Humes attempted to provide a dispassionate view of the war, he also hoped to justify the largely pro-Union sentiments of East Tennessee. He considered these sentiments a manifestation of the region's Revolutionary War patriotism, linking them to the penchant for independence the region had shown during the
Watauga Watauga can refer to:
;Places
*Watauga, Kentucky
* Watauga County, North Carolina
* Watauga, South Dakota
* Watauga, Tennessee
* Watauga, Texas
;Bodies of Water
* Watauga Lake in Tennessee
* The Watauga River in North Carolina and Tennessee
;Shi ...
and
State of Franklin
The State of Franklin (also the Free Republic of Franklin or the State of Frankland)Landrum, refers to the proposed state as "the proposed republic of Franklin; while Wheeler has it as ''Frankland''." In ''That's Not in My American History Boo ...
periods. He criticized the actions of Confederate military leaders as tyrannical, while praising the actions of Union leaders such as Ambrose Burnside as just.
[Noel Fisher, "Definitions of Loyalty: Unionist Histories of the Civil War in East Tennessee," ''Journal of East Tennessee History'', Vol. 67 (1995), pp. 69-77.] The book includes Humes' eyewitness accounts of key wartime events in Knoxville, including the Battle of Fort Sanders and the aftermath of the
East Tennessee bridge burnings.
Death and legacy
Humes died on January 16, 1892, shortly after collapsing while working in the Lawson McGhee Library. His funeral was held at the Second Presbyterian Church, and his funeral procession was accompanied by University of Tennessee faculty and students.
He is buried in Knoxville's
Old Gray Cemetery
Old Gray Cemetery is the second-oldest cemetery in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. Established in 1850, the cemetery contains the graves of some of Knoxville's most influential citizens, ranging from politicians and soldiers, to artists an ...
.
Humes Hall, a residence hall on the campus of the University of Tennessee, is named for Humes. In 1983, Humes'
Federal-style
Federal-style architecture is the name for the classicizing architecture built in the newly founded United States between 1780 and 1830, and particularly from 1785 to 1815, which was heavily based on the works of Andrea Palladio with several inn ...
house in Knoxville, which had stood behind St. John's Episcopal Church for nearly 140 years, was torn down. Many of the house's fixtures were salvaged by preservationists, however, and the local group, Knox Heritage, has considered building a reproduced version of the house.
[John Shearer,]
Salvaging a Dream: Humes House May Be Restored
" ''Knoxville News Sentinel'', 30 March 2011. Retrieved: 21 January 2013.
See also
*
James C. Luttrell
*
Oliver Perry Temple
Oliver Perry Temple (January 27, 1820 – November 2, 1907) was an American attorney, author, judge, and economic promoter active primarily in East Tennessee in the latter half of the 19th century.Mary Rothrock, ''The French Broad-Holston Country ...
*
Samuel Cole Williams
Samuel Cole Williams (January 15, 1864 – December 14, 1947) was an American jurist, historian, educator, and businessman. He was born and raised in the state of Tennessee, where he primarily had his career in Johnson City in East Tennessee.
...
References
External links
*
The Loyal Mountaineers of Tennessee' — Google Books
{{DEFAULTSORT:Humes, Thomas William
1815 births
1892 deaths
People from Knoxville, Tennessee
University of Tennessee alumni
Leaders of the University of Tennessee Knoxville
American Episcopal priests
American people of Scotch-Irish descent
Southern Unionists in the American Civil War
Tennessee Whigs
19th-century American politicians
Tennessee Republicans
Anglican lay readers
19th-century American Episcopalians
19th-century American clergy