Encyclopedia Trinitiana

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{{tag>people presidents}}
====== John Barrett Kerfoot ======

John Barrett Kerfoot was the 7th [[presidents|president]] of Trinity College, from 1864 to November 1865.
[{{ :kerfoot_john_barrett.jpg?350|John Barrett Kerfoot, ca. 1864. Photo credit: [[https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.34926807|Trinity College Archives]]}}]

Born in Dublin, Ireland on March 1, 1816, Kerfoot was the first president of Trinity born outside of the United States. Emigrating to Pennsylvania in 1819, the Scotch-Irish Kerfoot was schooled in Lancaster by the Reverend William Augustus Muhlenberg, whom Kerfoot followed to attend the Flushing Institute (later St. John's College) in Flushing, New York. After his confirmation in the [[episcopal|Episcopal]] Church in 1832, Kerfoot studied to become a deacon, which he accomplished five years later. In 1841, he became Rector of St. James College in Hagerstown, Maryland, which he helped establish. A part of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, St. James attracted nearly 175 students, including many from the southern states, on the eve of the [[civil_war|Civil War]].

After three years made difficult by war, Kerfoot was open to taking the presidency of Trinity College because of the large drop in the student population at St. James, the several Confederate raids on the campus, and the generous offer by his friend Dr. George C. Shattuck, the founder of St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. Even after agreeing to his election as Trinity's president in July 1864, however, Kerfoot was captured by Confederate raiders under Jubal Early, though he was quickly paroled and released.

At Trinity, President Kerfoot began to revitalize the student body, in part by bringing with him eight or ten students from St. James. Some of these transfers rejuvenated the [[fraternities|Phi Kappa fraternity]] at Trinity. Still, Kerfoot faced the unruliness of students who were largely unsupervised and who had the freedom to roam the rapidly urbanizing city of [[hartford|Hartford]]. During his official inauguration as Trinity's president on June 28, 1865, Kerfoot delivered an address on The Christian College, indicating that he was prepared to regard the discipline of students as a question of Christian morality. He may have secretly pined for the well-behaved boys of St. James, as he convened each Sunday with the St. James' transfer students to sing St. James' songs while his wife played the melodeon. He introduced choral singing to the College.

Yet, Kerfoot's term seems to have been all for naught, as he was elected Bishop of the newly created Diocese of Pittsburgh in October 1865. Though former president and Bishop [[williams_john|John Williams]], along with some 120 clergymen in Connecticut, urged him to turn down the new position, Kerfoot formally resigned in late November 1865. Six years later, he was elected to the Trinity [[board_of_visitors|Board of Visitors]].

===== Preceded By =====

[[eliot_samuel|Samuel Eliot H'57]]

===== Succeeded By =====

[[jackson_abner|Abner Jackson '37]]


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===== Sources =====
[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Barrett_Kerfoot|Wikipedia: John Barrett Kerfoot]]

[[https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/w_books/4/|The History of Trinity College]] (1967) by Glenn Weaver, pp. 137-142.



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