Thomas Jefferson Lamar (1826 - 1887), a farmer’s son, was raised in Jefferson County, TN. He attended Holston Academy and Maryville College (1844 – 1848), studied theology with Dr. Isaac Anderson for two years, matriculated to Union Theological Seminary (1850 – 1852), and was licensed by the Presbytery of Brooklyn. For five years, he served as a minister and teacher in Missouri. While there, he was ordained. In 1856, he received a call from the Synod of Tennessee to accept the professorship of Sacred Literature at Maryville College. He began teaching in 1857, three and a half years before the College closed for the War (April 23, 1861). Then, in 1865, the Synod asked Lamar to reopen the College. On September 5, 1866, he met with a class of thirteen students in a war-damaged building. For the next twenty-one years, he served his college and community well: as an able minister, a Clerk of the Synod (1865-1887), and a beloved Professor. He purchased property (the College Woods) and deeded it to the College for a $1 in 1880 and secured an endowment of $100,000 on December 31, 1883. Notes of interest: in 1868, Lamar opened the College to women; he and his second wife (Martha Tedford) lived in a home (Maplecroft) on College Hill where Gibson/Lloyd Halls stand today; after his death, the Lamar Memorial Library (now the CCM) was built by friends and family; in 1910, Martha Lamar provided the funds for a hospital (now the International House) in memory of the Lamars’ son, Ralph Max, who died in 1880.

[Biographical note written by Martha Hess]

1848