Zuinglius Calvin Graves (April 5, 1816 – May 18, 1902) was an American Baptist preacher and educator. He is most noted as the first President of the
Mary Sharp College
Mary Sharp College (1851–1896), first known as the Tennessee and Alabama Female Institute, was a Women's Colleges in the Southern United States, women's college, located in Winchester, Tennessee. It was named after the Abolitionism in the United ...
(1851–1896), located at
Winchester, Tennessee
Winchester is a city in and the county seat of Franklin County, Tennessee, Franklin County, Tennessee, United States. It is part of the Tullahoma, Tennessee Tullahoma micropolitan area, Micropolitan Statistical Area. The population of Winchester as ...
. It was the first women's college in the United States to offer degrees equivalent to the degrees offered at men's colleges – preceding Vassar College by ten years.
Personal life and family
Z. C. Graves, Jr. was born in Chester, Windsor County, Vermont, the son of Zuinglius Calvin Graves and Lois Snell. He was the older brother of influential 19th-century Baptist preacher
James Robinson Graves
James Robinson Graves (April 10, 1820 – June 26, 1893) was an American Baptist preacher, publisher, evangelist, debater, author, and editor. He is most noted as the original founder of what is now the Southwestern family of companies. Graves was ...
. About 1838 he removed to
Ashtabula County, Ohio
Ashtabula County ( ) is the northeasternmost county in the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 census, the population was 97,574. The county seat is Jefferson. The county was created in 1808 and later organized in 1811. The name Ashtabula deriv ...
, where he taught at the
Kingsville Academy Kingsville Academy was a school which was chartered in Kingsville, Ohio in 1834. Its building was constructed in 1836. In its 37-year history, the institution educated about 5,000 students. With the rise of the public high school, enrollment dwindle ...
twelve years. There in Ashtabula, he met and married
Adelia Cleopatra Spencer in 1841. She was the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Daniel Spencer, and a niece of the noted calligrapher and penman
Platt Rogers Spencer
Platt Rogers Spencer (also Platt R. Spencer) (November 7, 1800 – May 16, 1864) was the originator of Spencerian penmanship, a popular system of cursive handwriting. He was a teacher and active in the business school movement.
Early life
Sp ...
. Z. C. and Adelia Graves had four known children: James R., Florence M., Zuinglius Dickinson, and Hubert A. He died on May 18, 1902. His remains are interred in the Winchester City Cemetery in
Winchester
Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...
,
Franklin County, Tennessee.
Work
After the Mary Sharp College was chartered in 1848 (as the Tennessee Female Institute), trustees hired Z. C. Graves to lead the new effort. The school opened January 1, 1851, with Graves as the President and his wife Adelia as the Matron. “The Mary Sharp College under Dr. Graves’ presidency acquired a national reputation, and he avers that its success was owing quite as much to her wise counsels and management as to his own efforts.”
According to the ''
Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture
''Tennessee Encyclopedia'' is a reference book on the U.S. state of Tennessee that was published in book form in 1998 and has also been available online since 2002. Contents include history, geography, culture, and biography.
The original print e ...
'' “Graves...patterned the classical curriculum at Mary Sharp College after those offered at
Amherst College
Amherst College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher educatio ...
,
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
, and
the University of Virginia
The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective adm ...
. He emphasized religious and moral training and required every student to attend chapel. Students at
Mary Sharp, unlike those at other female colleges and academies, studied algebra, geometry, and trigonometry; Latin and Greek; English literature, grammar, and composition; ancient, English, and American history; philosophy and rhetoric; geography and geology; and botany, chemistry, astronomy, and physiology.”
In addition to leading Mary Sharp College, Z. C. Graves also served at Soule College in
Murfreesboro, Tennessee
Murfreesboro is a city in and county seat of Rutherford County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 152,769 according to the 2020 census, up from 108,755 residents certified in 2010. Murfreesboro is located in the Nashville metropol ...
– going there in 1889 when the Baptists bought it. When Nashville Baptists opened Nashville Baptist Female College (aka Boscobel), the interest in Soule was sold, and several faculty members, including Graves, joined the school at Nashville.
With thirty-nine other messengers, Z. C. Graves participated in the organization of the
Tennessee Baptist Convention
The Tennessee Baptist Mission Board (formerly Executive Board of the Tennessee Baptist Convention) is the Tennessee mission board that serves the statewide network of churches that comprise the Tennessee Baptist Convention. It maintains offices in ...
at
Murfreesboro, Tennessee
Murfreesboro is a city in and county seat of Rutherford County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 152,769 according to the 2020 census, up from 108,755 residents certified in 2010. Murfreesboro is located in the Nashville metropol ...
in 1874.
[Wardin, Albert W., Jr. (1999) ''Tennessee Baptists: a Comprehensive History, 1779-1999''. Brentwood, TN: Tennessee Baptist Convention, p. 230]
Bibliography
* Livermore, Mary Ashton, Frances Elizabeth Willard, editors (1893). ''A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life''. Buffalo, NY: Charles Wells Moulton.
* Mielnik, Tara Mitchell. “Mary Sharp College.” (2018) ''Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture''.
* Wardin, Albert W., Jr. (1999) ''Tennessee Baptists: a Comprehensive History, 1779-1999''. Brentwood, TN: Tennessee Baptist Convention,
* Wilson, James Grant and John Fiske, eds. (1888) ''Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume II, Crane-Grimshaw''. New York, NY: D. Appleton & Co.
Further reading
Scholarship to Memorialize Dr. Graves" ''The Truth and Herald.'' April 22, 1926.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Graves, Zuinglius
1816 births
1902 deaths
People from Chester, Vermont
Baptist ministers from the United States
Heads of universities and colleges in the United States