Jeremiah Chamberlain was born in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in 1795. He received a B.A. degree from Dickinson College at Carlisle and graduated from Princeton Seminary in 1817. He was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of New Brunswick and accepted a commission from the General Assembly's Board of Domestic Missions in 1817. Early in 1818, he proceeded to Mobile, Alabama, but returned to Pennsylvania in the summer, where he conducted an academy and pastored a church in Bedford. In 1822 he was elected president of the Center College, Danville, Kentucky. In December 1826, he assumed the presidency of the College of Louisiana, Jackson, Louisiana, but resigned in 1829 after a dispute over his ministerial functions. Chamberlain proposed to the Presbytery of Mississippi (which included the states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas) the establishment of a seminary in the Southwest. The Presbytery received the proposed seminary under its care, adopted a constitution, appointed a board of trustees and Chamberlain as president, and located the college within three miles of Bethel Church, Claiborne County. The school opened on May 14, 1830, under the name of Oakland College. On September 5, 1851, after an argument with a local resident who accused Chamberlain of being an abolitionist and of harboring abolitionist sentiment at Oakland College, Chamberlain was stabbed to death by the resident. A letter of advice written by Chamberlain to his son, setting forth rules of good conduct for the righteous life, written two months before Chamberlain's death.

Series: 1. Correspondence. 1851. 1 item.