Joseph Stockton

Esther Clark

(m. 1800)

Joseph A. Stockton (1779–1832) was a prominent Presbyterian minister in Western Pennsylvania. He founded Meadville Academy, which later became Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania.^[1] He was also President of University of Pittsburgh.^[1]

Biography

Joseph Stockton was born near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania on February 25, 1779.^[1]^[2]

He attended Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania and was tutored by John McMillan.^[1] He was an early member of the Philo Literary Society.^[3]

He married Esther Clark on May 8, 1800.^[1]

He worked for a time as an assistant tutor at Jefferson College.^[4]

He also taught grammar and mathematics at Allegheny Academy in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, now Pittsburgh's North Side, with Mr. Caldwell teaching elocution and John Kelly of Dublin, Ireland as disciplinarian; Kelly later continued the school after Stockton's death. Stockton authored the Western Calculator and Western Spelling Book, used at the Academy as textbooks.^[5] His most famous student at the Academy was Stephen Foster, later America's first professional composer, and Foster's brother Morrison described Stockton as: "a perfect tutor. He was learned, he was firm, he was amiable, and he was thorough and practical."^[6]

Stockton died from cholera in Baltimore on October 29, 1832.^[2]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Parke, John E. (1886). "Rev. Joseph Stockton, A.M.". Recollections of seventy years and historical gleanings of Allegheny, Pennsylvania. Rand, Avery & Company. pp. 258–262.
^ ^a ^b Sprague, William B. (1858). Annals of the American Pulpit; or, Commemorative Notices of Distinguished American Clergymen of Various Denominations. Vol. IV. New York: Robert Carter & Brothers. p. 243. Retrieved January 28, 2024 – via Internet Archive.
^ Smith, Joseph (1857). History of Jefferson College: Including an Account of the Early Log Cabin Schools, and the Canonsburg Academy. Pittsburgh: J.T. Shryock. pp. 40.
^ Smith, Joseph (1857). History of Jefferson College: Including an Account of the Early Log Cabin Schools, and the Canonsburg Academy. Pittsburgh: J.T. Shryock. pp. 38.
^ "Stockton Family Papers". Digital Pitt. Retrieved December 5, 2019.
^ O'Connell, JoAnne (2016). The Life and Songs of Stephen Foster. New York: Rowman and Littlefield. pp. 55–56. ISBN 9781442253865. Retrieved January 28, 2024 – via Internet Archive.