Edmund Burke Fairfield
Edmund Burke Fairfield
Main page
2032382

Edmund Burke Fairfield

logo
Community Hub0 subscribers
What are your thoughts?
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Edmund Burke Fairfield

Edmund Burke Fairfield (August 7, 1821 – November 7, 1904) was an American minister, educator and politician from the U.S. state of Michigan. He served as the 12th lieutenant governor of Michigan and as the second Chancellor of the University of Nebraska.

Fairfield was born in Parkersburg, Virginia, now West Virginia. He moved with his family to Troy, Ohio, when he was a young boy. He received an early education at Denison University of Granville and in 1837 he attended Marietta College of Marietta. He graduated from the congregationalist-affiliated Oberlin College of Oberlin in 1842. He then worked as a tutor at the college teaching Latin and Greek.

He spent two years as a Christian minister in New Hampshire, and two in Boston as pastor of the Ruggles Street Baptist Church. Then, in 1848, he became President of the Michigan Central College, renamed Hillsdale College in 1853, and remained in this office until his resignation in 1869. In 1857, Fairfield received LL.D. degree from Madison University (now Colgate University) in New York.

Fairfield served as a Republican in the Michigan Senate (14th district) from 1857 to 1859. He was elected to serve as the 12th Lieutenant Governor of Michigan from 1859 to 1861, and made a widely published speech on the "Prohibition of Slavery in the Territories".

In 1863, Fairfield received a Doctor of Divinity degree from the Indiana University Bloomington. The following year he received an S.T.D. degree from Denison University of Ohio.

In the early 1870s, Fairfield was involved in public dispute based on a review he published in Mansfield, Ohio, regarding the Henry Ward Beecher adultery scandal. The scandal broke in 1873, and in 1874, Fairfield published "Wickedness in High Places: A Review of the Beecher Case" Robert Raikes Raymond, brother of Vassar professor John Howard Raymond, published a scathing review to this pamphlet entitled: "The Case of the Rev. E.B. Fairfield, D.D., LL.D.: Being an Examination of his 'Review of the case of Henry Ward Beecher" together with his 'Reply' and a Rejoinder"

He received a number of honors in the academic world before being elected Chancellor of the University of Nebraska in 1876. The Board of Regents dismissed him in 1882, after a disagreement over religion and its place in education.

Fairfield became the pastor of the Manistee congregational church from September 1882 to April 1889.

See all
User Avatar
No comments yet.