Centre College is located in Danville, a pleasant town near the centre of the state, with a very intellectual and intelligent population. The college was chartered by the legislature of Kentucky in 1819. Jeremiah Chamberlain, D. D., the first president, went into office in 1823. In 1824, the board of trustees, according to an arrangement with the Presbyterian synod of Kentucky, procured an act of the legislature modifying its charter so as to secure to the synod, on its payment of twenty thousand dollars to the funds of the institution, the right of appointing the board of trustees. This condition having, in 1830, been completely fulfilled on the part of the synod, all the members of the board have since that period been appointed by the synod, as their terms of office, from time to time, have expired. One third of the board are appointed each year.

Dr. Chamberlain resigned his office in 1826, and the Rev. Gideon Blackburn, D. D., succeeded him in 1827, the office having, in the meantime, been temporarily filled by the Rev. David C. Proctor. On the resignation of Dr. Blackburn in 1830, Rev. John C. Young, D. D., was elected, serving with great success for 27 years, until his death, June 23, 1857. Rev. Lewis W, Green, D. D., the first graduate of the college, in 1824, was chosen his successor, August 6, 1837, and inducted into office January 1, 1858, serving until his death, May 26, 1863. Rev, Wm. L. Breckinridge, D. D, was the next president, October 15, 1863, during the trying times of the late civil war and which followed its close, and during the troubles as to the control of the college; he resigned October 16, 1868. Prof. Ormond Beatty, LL.D , was made president pro tem., and, June 26, 1872, inaugurated as president.

In the earlier period of its existence, the number of students ranged from 50 to 110, falling in 1830 to only 33 in both grammar school and college. The number steadily increased, in 1855 reaching 220, and in 1860, 253. In college proper, the number was 173 in 1855, 187 in 1857, 188 in 1860, 173 in 1861, falling very low during and for five years after the civil war, and in 1871 rising to 72. The number of graduates was 41 during the ten years from 1824-33, 117 in the next decade 1834-43, 238 in 1844-53, 267 in 1854-63, and 77 in the eight years from 1864-71. The largest graduating classes were 47 in 1857, 35 in 1860, 34 in 1848, and 33 in 1846; the smallest since 1837 was 4 in 1869, then 6 in 1870, 7 in 1871, and 9 in 1868. The total number of alumni to 1871 was 740—an average of a little over 15 per year. Of these 163 became ministers of the Gospel, and more than 300 lawyers. The endowment in 1871 was about $105,000. In 1859 the sum of §50,000 was raised, under direction of the Synod of Kentucky, for the erection of additional college buildings, which, in consequence of the war, was delayed. An elegant new college building, much the finest in the state, was finished and dedicated with great enthusiasm on June 26, 1872. A handsome library building was erected several years ago, by the liberality of the late David A. Sayre, of Lexington. The college library contains over 2,000, and the libraries of the two literary societies about 3,500 volumes. Since the disruption of the Presbyterian Church in 1866, the Southern Presbyterians have been ousted altogether from the board of trustees, and the exclusive control of the college is in the hands of trustees belonging to the Presbyterian Church in connection with the General Assembly in the North.

First Cabin in Boyle County
Col. James Harrod built a cabin in what is now Danville, on the very spot in the edge of the graveyard, where, for many years until recently, stood the old stone meeting-house, erected as a Presbyterian church, over fifty-three years ago, and for nearly forty years past occupied as an African church. The old fort was built upon the same spot; and afterwards a Presbyterian church, and a college, or county seminary, were built in connection upon the site of the fort, with a graveyard all around it. This house and others in the town were blown down in 1819, by a great tornado. Like the fort, it was on a bluff, or bench of rocks, beneath which the "town spring" bursted out, flush and free. This spring was the center of the town survey; and where the old man, Thomas Allin, who originally laid out the town of Harrodsburg, and who, by the by, was the first clerk of a court in Kentucky, re-surveyed it and planted the cornerstones, he set his "Jacob's-staff" in the center of the spring, under the projecting rocks, as a starting point. The venerable Dr. Christopher C, Graham, still living, Dec, 1873, in his 87th year, was present, and aided in the survey. He was assured, by his father, an early and valued associate of Boone and Harrod, that the cabin above mentioned was among the first built in the state; and that the first cabin built in the state was at Harrodsburg, by Col. James Harrod, in the fall of 1773.

One of the first Christian marriages ever solemnized on Kentucky soil was between Willis Green and Sarah Reed, in or near the town of Danville. Willis Green was born and reared in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and came to Kentucky, as a surveyor, to locate land warrants for various persons. He selected for himself a beautiful undulating spot adjoining that on which the fort was situated, and gave it the name of Waveland, which it still bears. He represented the county of Kentucky in the Virginia legislature. He was also clerk of court for a long term of years. His wife's father, John Reed, built, it is said, the first (but most probably the second) brick house south of Kentucky River. Although now it would be considered quite a modest structure, it was then famous under the name of John Reed's mansion, and appeared as such on the early maps of the state.

To Willis Green and his wife, twelve children were born, the most noted of whom were John and Lewis.

John Green was born in 1787; studied law under Henry Clay; was married to Sarah Fry, daughter of that large landholder and famous teacher, Joshua Fry; became noted for his intellectual vigor, high sense of honor, and inflexible justice; was chosen an elder in the Presbyterian Church; figured prominently in the establishment of Centre College, and of the Deaf and Dumb Asylum at Danville; was appointed circuit judge, and died in office, September 1838. His first wife died in 1835. His second wife was a sister of Col. Chas. A. Marshall, of Mason County; she still survives him (December 1873), in a hale old age, residing with her son, Thomas M. Green, editor of the Maysville Eagle.

Lewis Warner Green, D. D., was born in 1806; was taught first by Duncan F. Robertson, a name widely known twenty years ago; then by Joshua Fry, to whose granddaughter he was afterwards married. At the age of thirteen, he was sent to Buck Pond, in Woodford County, Kentucky, the residence of Dr. Lewis Marshall, and was under the tuition of Dr. Marshall and "Dominie" Thompson. He then spent some time at Transylvania University, Lexington, but finally graduated at Centre College, Danville; studied theology at Yale and Princeton, and at the university of Halle, in Germany; was professor in Centre College, in Hanover College, Indiana, and in the Theological Seminary at Allegheny City; was pastor of a church in Baltimore; president of Hampden Sidney College, Va.; of Transylvania University, and Kentucky Normal School, at Lexington; and died while president of his alma mater. Centre College, 1863. Dr. Green was an earnest, eloquent preacher, an accurate scholar, a superior linguist, a warm-hearted Christian, and a cultivated gentleman.

James G. Birney, the first "Liberty" candidate for president of the United States, was born in Danville, Kentucky, February 4, 1792; died at Perth Amboy, New Jersey, November 25, 1857, aged 65 years. After studying law, he settled in Alabama, was district attorney, and quite successful. Returning to Kentucky in 1833, he assisted in organizing the Kentucky Colonization Society, and was made president of it-while holding the position of professor in Centre College. His views, at first conservative, then progressive, rapidly changed to "anti-slavery" of the demonstrative kind; he advocated in a public letter, in 1834, immediate emancipation, and set the consistent example of freeing his own slaves; then removed to Cincinnati, and established a newspaper, The Philanthropist, of a type not prudent to publish in Kentucky. But there he ran so far and so obnoxiously in advance of public sentiment, that his press was thrown into the river; he revived it, however, in connection with Dr. Bailey. In 1836, he became secretary to the American anti-slavery society at New York, and continued to press the idea of a political party for "freedom." The "Liberty" party nominated him in 1840, and again-after he had become a resident of Michigan-in 1844, as its candidate for the presidency. At the latter election he drew off enough votes from Henry Clay, in Western New York (in which state he received 15,812 votes), to accomplish the defeat of Mr. Clay, and the election of James K. Polk. Out of over 2,400,000 votes cast in 1840, Mr. Birney received less than 7,000; while in 1844, his vote was increased to 62,263, out of the 2,678,121 votes cast in the United States.

John Adamson Jacobs was born in Leesburg, Virginia, in 1803, but raised in Lancaster, Garrard County, Kentucky. When not quite 14, he taught a common school in Madison County; at 16, entered Centre College, but at 19, before graduating, the trustees of the state Institution for the Deaf and Dumb at Danville selected him as its principal, for which responsible position he qualified by studying at the institution at Hartford, Conn,, and by private instruction from eminent French teachers. His whole life was spent in this institution, and he died there Nov. 27, 1869, aged 63. In his annual message to the legislature. Gov. John W. Stevenson spoke of his death as a public calamity to the state, and an irreparable loss to the dumb objects of his care; and added: "Greater fidelity has rarely marked the life of any public servant. Active, benevolent, charitable, and unobtrusive, there was a simplicity in his life that won all who knew him. But he had a higher title he was a Christian, full of faith and full of humility." The legislature, by resolution, in the strongest terms, manifested its respect for his pure private character and eminent public services." America has produced no man more marked as a Christian philanthropist. The Feeble-Minded Institute at Frankfort owes its establishment mainly to his indefatigable efforts and active sympathy in behalf of that unfortunate class.

Dr. Ephraim McDowell, in his day the greatest surgeon of Kentucky, and renowned in the history of medical science as the "Father of Ovariotomy" was born in Rockbridge County, Virginia, November 11, 1771, and died at Danville, Kentucky, June 20, 1830, aged 58. He came with his father, Judge Samuel McDowell to Danville, in 1784; was liberally educated; studied medicine in the office of Dr. Humphreys, of Staunton, Virginia; went to Europe, 1793-4, and studied in the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and during a part of that time was a private pupil of the famous Dr. John Bell; returned, in 1795, and settled at Danville.

Excepting Dr. Brashear, of Bardstown (the first surgeon in the United States who successfully performed amputation at the hip-joint), early Kentucky and the West had no surgeon of distinction. The fame of Dr. McDowell's foreign tour and study drew to him a large practice; and for nearly a quarter of a century, until Dr. Benj. W. Dudley arose to eminence, he had almost undisputed possession of the surgical field of Kentucky and the Southwest. He occasionally operated in the adjoining states; and patients came to him from hundreds of miles of distance.

But his imperishable fame, that which has made him distinguished in every land, throughout the world, where medicine is cultivated as a science sprang from the fact that he was the first surgeon in the world who performed the operation for the removal of diseased ovaries. At Danville, in 1809, he successfully removed a large ovarian tumor from a Mrs. Crawford, thus inaugurating an operation for the cure of a hitherto almost inevitably fatal affection. He performed this operation 13 times, with 8 recoveries (over 62½ per cent.); this, too, long before the days of chloroform, and when Danville was a mere village. The average length of life in a woman, after an ovarian tumor is discovered, which is not removed by operation, is but two years, and those of much suffering. This wonderful operation has, within 30 years past, 1842-72, in the United States and Great Britain alone, directly contributed more than 30,000 years of active and useful life to the women thus relieved. A remarkable fact and coincidence in medical history is, that while Kentucky's earliest great surgeon originated Ovariotomy, Kentucky's most recently deceased great surgeon, Dr. Joshua T. Bradford, excelled the whole world in successfully practicing it, 90 per cent, of his cases recovering! Dr. McDowell married Sallie Shelby, daughter of Gov. Isaac Shelby; and his remains repose in the family burying-ground near Danville. The citizens of Danville would honor their town and themselves by erecting, in their court house yard, a monument of marble or statue of bronze to this great benefactor of the human family.

In the "Lives of Eminent American Physicians and Surgeons of the 19th Century," Dr. Gross says of him:
   "Had McDowell lived in France, he would have been elected a member of the Royal Academy of Surgery, received from the king the Cross of the Legion of Honor, and obtained from the government a magnificent reward, as an acknowledgment of the services he rendered his country, his profession, and his fellow-creatures."

Among the early settlers of Danville, was a young man, named Tom Johnson, possessed of a good education and some genius, and withal a poet. He became, however, an inveterate drunkard, his intemperance hurrying him to a premature grave. On one occasion, when Tom's poetical inspirations were quickened by his devotions at the shrine of Bacchus, he came into Gill's tavern to procure his dinner; but too many hearty eaters had been in advance of him at the table, and Tom found nothing but bones and crumbs. He surveyed the table for some minutes quite philosophically, and then offered up the following prayer:

"O! Thou who blest the loaves and fishes.
Look down upon these empty dishes;
And that same power that did them fill,
Bless each of us, but d—n old Gill."

A man in the neighborhood, bearing the christian name of John, had become largely indebted to the merchants and others of Danville, and like many of the present day, left for parts unknown. Tom consoled the sufferers by the following impromptu effusion:

"John ran so long and ran so fast,
No wonder he ran out at last;
He ran in debt, and then to pay,
He distane'd all, and ran away."

Walker Daniel, a young lawyer from Virginia, came to Boyle, then Lincoln, in 1781, and entered upon the practice of his profession. His only competitor at that period, was Christopher Greenup, afterwards governor of the State. Mr. Daniel was the original proprietor of the town of Danville, and succeeded in laying the foundation of an extensive fortune. He was killed by the Indians in August, 1784, after the short residence of three years. From an old pioneer of Mercer, we learn that Mr. Daniel was a young gentleman of rare talents, and gave promise of great distinction.

John Boyle, for more than sixteen years chief justice of Kentucky, was born of humble parentage, October 28, 1774, in Virginia, at a place called "Castle Woods," on Clinch River, in the then County of Bottetourt, near Russell or Tazewell. His father emigrated, in the year 1779, to Whitley's station in Kentucky, whence he afterwards moved to a small estate in the county of Garrard, where he spent the remainder of his days.

Young Boyle's early education, notwithstanding the limited means of obtaining scholastic instruction, was good, and his knowledge of what he learned thorough. In the rudiments of the Greek and Latin languages, and of the most useful of the sciences, the Rev. Samuel Finley, a pious Presbyterian minister of Madison County, was his instructor. Energetic and ambitious, Mr. Boyle readily settled upon the law as the calling most congenial to his feelings, and most certain and gratifying in its rewards. He studied under the direction of Thomas Davis, of Mercer County, then a member of congress, and whom he succeeded as the representative of the district.

In the year 1797, just after he had entered upon his professional career, he married Elizabeth Tilford, the daughter of a plain, pious, and frugal farmer, and moved to the town of Lancaster. In the following year, upon an out-lot of the town, which he had purchased, he built a small log house, with only two rooms, in which not only himself, but three other gentlemen, who successively followed him as a national representative, and one of whom succeeded him in the chief justiceship, and another served a constitutional term in the gubernatorial chair of Kentucky, began the sober business of conjugal life. Here the duties of his profession engrossed his attention until 1802, when he was elected, without opposition, to the house of representatives of the United States.

As a member of congress, Mr. Boyle was vigilant, dignified, and useful, commanding at once the respect and confidence of the Jeffersonian, the then dominant party, with which he acted, and the hearty approbation of a liberal constituency. He was twice re-elected without competition, and refused a fourth canvass, because a political life was less congenial to his taste, than the practice of his profession amid the sweets of his early home. The same feeling compelled him to decline more than one federal appointment, tendered him by President Jefferson. President Madison, among his earliest official acts, appointed him the first governor of Illinois, a position doubly alluring, and which Mr. Boyle conditionally accepted. On his return to Kentucky, he was tendered a circuit judgeship, and afterwards a seat upon the bench of the court of appeals. The latter he accepted, and entered upon its onerous and responsible duties on the 4th of April, 1809. Ninian Edwards, then chief justice of the court, solicited and obtained the relinquished governorship.

On the 3rd of April, 1810, Judge Boyle was promoted to the chief justiceship, which he continued to hold until the 8th of November, 1826. The decisions of the court, while he was upon the bench, are comprised in fifteen volumes of the State Reports, from 1st Bibb to 3rd Monroe, and are marked with firmness and purity.

Chief Justice Boyle was the head of the "Old Court" of appeals, during the intensely exciting contest of three years duration, between the "Relief" or "New Court," and the "Anti-Relief" or "Old Court" parties. The notes of "The Bank of the Commonwealth," issued upon a deficient capital, were necessarily quite fluctuating in value, at one time depreciating more than fifty per cent. A serious revulsion in the monetary interests of the State, opened the way for a system of popular legislation, designed to satisfy temporarily the cry for relief. The two years replevin law, prolonging from three months to two years the right of replevying judgments and decrees on contracts, unless the creditor would accept Commonwealth bank money at par, was the crowning project of the system. The court of appeals unanimously decided the statute unconstitutional, so far as it was designed to be retroactive, a step that brought upon them the full torrent of popular abuse and indignation. The relief party carried the day at the election soon after, (1833), and on the meeting of the legislature, an address was voted, by less than two-thirds, as the constitution required, to remove by address, calling upon the governor to remove the appellate judges, and setting forth their decision as un-authorised, ruinous and absurd. This bold effort at intimidation failing in its end, at the succeeding session the majority, grown more determined as the echo of the popular will became louder, "re-organized" the court of appeals, or abolished the court established by the constitution, and instituted a new court, for which purpose commissions were issued to other persons. Matters now reached a crisis, and Kentucky was required either to take her stand by the broad fundamental law which had so powerfully contributed to her progress, or to yield to the inconstant, unreasonable and selfish clamor that rang hoarsely through the State. The struggle was, as it were, for the life of the State, involving the stability of a constitutional government, and the efficiency and independence of an enlightened judiciary. In August, 1826, the appeal to the ballot box decided the contest. The "Old Court" party triumphed, and confidence was gradually restored in the ability, integrity and purity of Chief Justice Boyle and his associates.

In the November following, the earliest day at which it could be done consistently with his determination to ride out the judicial storm the memorable decision of the court had brewed, Boyle resigned the chief justiceship of Kentucky. But his services upon the bench were too highly appreciated to be dispensed with. The federal government, anticipating his resignation, tendered him the office of district judge of Kentucky, which he accepted, and was induced to hold, although his better judgment prompted him to give it up, until his death, which occurred on the 28th day of January, 1835. His estimable lady preceded him a year and a half, having fallen a victim to that scourge of the nations, the cholera, in 1833. The appointment of associate justice of the supreme court of the United States was twice within his reach; but he loved retirement, and distrusted his qualifications for a position so responsible. Upon the death of Judge Todd, he refused to be recommended as his successor; and, subsequently, expressed the same unwillingness upon the demise of Judge Trimble, of the same court.

For one year, in the latter part of his life, he was sole professor in the Transylvania law school. Numbers of young men followed him to the quiet of his home, where his pleasures were divided between teaching law, miscellaneous reading, and the cares of his family and farm.

The McDowell Family, in its various brandies and connections, is one of the most distinguished in Virginia and Kentucky. When John McDowell of Rockbridge County, Virginia, was killed, he left three children. Of these, Samuel the eldest, with his wife Mary McClung, leaving in Virginia their eldest daughters, twins and married, immigrated to Danville, Kentucky, in 1784, with seven sons and two daughters. Of these, the sixth son, Dr. Ephraim McDowell and two of his brother John's children, married two daughters and a son of Gov. Isaac Shelby; Polly married Alex. K. Marshall, a distinguished lawyer of Mason County, and reporter of the court of appeals; William married Margaretta Madison, and of their daughters, Polly married Col. Geo. C. Thompson, of Mercer, and Agatha president of the United States in 1840, and also in 1844, when he drew off in the state of New York alone enough Whig votes to cause the defeat of Henry Clay; also, grandparents of Gen. Humphrey Marshall, distinguished as a lawyer, as U. S. minister to China, etc.); James' daughter Isabella married Rev. John P. Campbell, M.D., an able Presbyterian divine; Samuel's son Abram was the father of Maj. Gen. Irvine McDowell, of the U. S. Army; while others, children or grandchildren, intermarried with the well-known families of Boyle, Allen, Anderson, Bell, Brashear, Buford, Bush, Caldwell, Chrisman, Duke, Hall, Harvey, Hawkins, Hickman, Irvine, Keene, Lyle, McAfee, McPheeters, Paxton; Pickett, Pogue, Rochester, Starling, Wallace, and Woodson, of Kentucky, and Sullivants, of Columbus, Ohio.

Mary McClung's brother John was the father of Judge Wm. McClung, who married Susan, sister of John Marshall, chief justice of the U. S.; Rev. John A. McClung, D.D., and Col. Alex. K. McClung were their children. Judge Samuel McDowell, above-named, was one of the judges of the first Kentucky court, in 1783, and president of the nine conventions which met at Danville between December 27, 1784, and July 26, 1790; and also of the convention which framed the first constitution of Kentucky.


Source: History of Kentucky, Volume II, by Lewis Collins, Published by Collins & Company,
Covington, Kentucky, 1874