Association

TUSCULUM COLLEGE 2004-2005
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE
The roots of Tusculum College are buried deep in early American
frontier history.
In 1794, George Washington was president of a young country and
the state of Tennessee was still two years away from becoming a reality.
In what is now East Tennessee, Hezekiah Balch and Samuel Doak,
Presbyterian ministers educated at the College of New Jersey (now
Princeton University), were ministering to the pioneers of what was
the southwestern frontier of the United States. They also desired to
meet the educational needs of
these Scots-lrish settlers. Doak
and Balch, although they did
not always see eye-to-eye, were
visionaries ultimately seeking
the same goals through the rival
colleges they established:
they wanted to educate settlers
of the American frontier so that
they would become better Presbyterians,
and therefore, in their
vision, better citizens.
Tusculum College as it now
exists descends from two
schools. The first, Greeneville
College, was chartered in September
1794 by the General Assembly
of the Territory of the
United States South of the Ohio
River, and established by
Hezekiah Balch. The second
was founded as Tusculum
Samuel Witherspoon Doak
— co-founder of Tusculum College
Academy in 1818 by Samuel Doak and his son Samuel Witherspoon
Doak.
Tusculum Academy operated in a log cabin adjacent to the present
site of Tusculum College. When the academy became Tusculum College
in 1844, Andrew Johnson, who was to become 17th President of
the United States, was one of its trustees. Johnson often walked the
five miles to and from Greeneville to participate in the debating activities
at Tusculum.
A merger in 1868 formed Greeneville and Tusculum College. In 1908,
Greeneville and Tusculum College merged with Washington College,
creating Washington and Tusculum College. This union dissolved in
1912, and thus evolved modern-day Tusculum College. The College
received formal accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges
9