1905-06 Volume 30 No 1–5 - Phi Delta Theta Scroll Archive

2 THE SCROLL.The Scotch-Irish Presbyterians from Kentucky and Tennesseeclimbed this steep southern doorstep of Indiana, andas early as 1809 sat down to enjoy the unparalleled view. Aspecial emigration brought large numbers when The NewPurchase" of 1815 opened the Indian lands. Bring Scotch-Irish Presbyterians together, and an educational institution isinevitable. It is a combination of racial and religious impulsesthat has always wrought for an educated manhood in the historyof our country.Indiana was at this time in the undrained condition of allmiasmic frontiers. The wind-swept hills of the Hanover settlement,however, were clean and health-giving. Here ranthe most traveled road to the west. Here lived Scotch-IrishPresbyterians. Something is going to happen. A greatrevival swept the neighboring states. There were no ministersto care for the new-born churches. The call was urgent.Princeton with Archibald Alexander was on the far horizonof this needy country. John McMillan and his log collegehave come and gone and left others to finish the work in theAUeghanies. Transylvania University in Kentucky was doinga work far more humble than its name suggests. It was adark hour in the history of education in Indiana. But themorning was breaking.In whose heart Hanover College was born we do not know.It was so hidden as to its early masters and men that it wasin the field and at work as a fine constructive agent before itsgeneration was aware of the fact that an institution ordainedfor a great career was born. It began, so far as externalappearances were concerned, in the loom-house of John FinleyCrowe in 1827. On a flyleaf of an antequated copy of Juvenaland Persius printed in London in 1728, there was discoverednot long ago the hitherto unknown names of the first sixmen to answer to the roll call of Hanover College in theloom-room of Dr. Crowe. While Dr. Crowe says that noneof the six were pious, it is a joy to learn that four becameministers and two Christian physicians.John Finley Crowe was a frontiersman who fought everyobstacle of that day in order to get an education. He rodefrom South Carolina on horseback to Danville, Ky., in orderto be under the instruction of Dr. Priestly. Remaining forawhile, he rode on to Archibald Alexander at Princeton.Then with his pioneer zeal aflame for mission work, he returnedto Shelbyville, Ky. He came to the feeble church inthe Hanover settlement in 1823. This was a providential