| The
Southern Presbyterian Review |
| Digitization
Project: Author Biography |
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Charles Allen Stillman
(March 14, 1819 - January 23, 1895)
by Barry Waugh, Ph.D.
©PCA
Historical Center, 12330 Conway Road, St. Louis, MO, 2003. All Rights
Reserved.
Charles was born in Charleston, South Carolina
to James S. and Mary Stillman on March 14, 1819. He attended Oglethorpe
University in Georgia and received his degree in 1841. He then received
his divinity degree from Columbia Theological Seminary in 1844 and
proceeded to be licensed by Charleston Presbytery later that year.
The Second Presbyterian Church of Charleston provided the opportunity
for Charles to exercise his ministerial gifts until 1845. In 1845
he was ordained by Tuscaloosa Presbytery to receive a call to the
Presbyterian Church in Eutaw, Alabama where he served until 1853.
Remaining in Alabama, Rev. Stillman received a call to be the pastor
of the Gainesville church where he ministered until 1870. It was
in 1863, while he was at Gainesville, that Charles received the
Doctor of Divinity degree from the
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| University of Alabama. Dr. Stillman's next
call was to the Presbyterian Church at Tuscaloosa where he began his
longest ministry in 1870 and continued there until his death on January
23, 1895. |
| Dr. Stillman's non-pastoral ministerial
efforts were many. He was the Chairman of Tuscaloosa Presbytery's
Home Missions Committee. From 1847 until 1884 he served as the Stated
Clerk of Tuscaloosa Presbytery. One of his most significant achievements
was when a group of Tuscaloosa Presbyterians, headed by Dr. Stillman,
presented an overture to the 1875 General Assembly of the Presbyterian
Church in the United States concerning a training school for Black
ministers. The 1876 General Assembly followed the recommendation of
its specially appointed committee and authorized establishing the
Institute for Training Colored Ministers at Tuscaloosa. In the fall
of 1876 Charles Stillman taught its first classes. The Institute came
to be named the Stillman Institute in honor of its devoted founder
who served as its superintendent from its founding until his death.
The curriculum and nature of its educational program has changed over
the years and it is known today as Stillman College. |
| Charles Stillman was married three
times. He married his first wife, Martha Hammond of Milledgeville,
Georgia, on October 15, 1846. His second marriage was to the widow
Fannie Collins of Shubuta, Mississippi, whom he married on April 17,
1866. Elfreda Walker of Clarksville, Tennessee was his third wife
and they were married on April 17, 1872. At least two of Dr. Stillman's
descendants continued to serve the Presbyterian Church--his daughter,
Anna M. Stillman, was a secretary for Rev. T. P. Mordecai at the First
Presbyterian Church, in Birmingham, Alabama, and his grandson, Rev.
Charles Sholl, was the pastor of the Avondale Presbyterian Church,
another of the Presbyterian churches in Birmingham. |
[Sources: The above information was taken from: White, Henry
Alexander, Southern Presbyterian Leaders, 1683-1911, (1911,
reprint, Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2000); Marshall, James W., as
ed. by Robert Strong, The Presbyterian Church in Alabama, (Montgomery:
The Presbyterian Historical Society of Alabama, 1977); Scott, E. C.,
Ministerial Directory of the Presbyterian Church, U.S., 1861-1941,
Published by Order of the General Assembly, 1942; Nevin, Alfred, ed.,
Presbyterian Encyclopedia, 1884; Minutes of the General
Assembly of the P.C.U.S. for 1875 and 1876; various library web-sites,
and the Stillman College web-site.] |
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Papers of C.A. Stillman:
At this moment, we have not been able to locate where the Papers
of Charles Allen Stillman may have been preserved. Some Stillman
correspondence is to be found among various collections housed at
the Presbyterian Historical Society's Montreat, NC office. Specifically,
the Papers of Abner Addison Porter [1817-1872]
Bibliography:
Articles appearing in the Southern Presbyterian Review:
4Giving, an Essential
Part of True Piety, 21.4 (October, 1870) 505-519.
4Success
in the Ministry, 9.1 (July 1855) 72-84.
4The Benefits of Infant Baptism,
17.2 (September 1866) 149-162.
Articles appearing in The Presbyterian Quarterly:
4The Birmingham Conference,
8.2 (April 1894) 272-276.
Other Publications:
4Discourse on "The
Pulpit and the Pastorate," in Memorial Volume of the Semi-Centennial
of the Theological Seminary at Columbia, South Carolina. (Columbia,
SC: Presbyterian Publishing House, 1884), pages 84-95. [numerous
libraries]
4"Sprinkling and Pouring,
Spiritual Modes of Baptism: A Sermon Preached by Order of the Presbytery
of Tuskaloosa, and Published by their Request" (Montgomery:
Barret & Wimbish, 1859), 16pp.
[ALM; NDD; SBT; IXA]
4"The Dead of the Synod of
Alabama. Presbyterian Church U. S. from 1862 to 1890. A Memorial
Sermon." (Birmingham, Ala.: Roberts & Sons, 1891), 16pp. [VYN]
4"The Death of the Righteous.
A sermon preached in the Presbyterian Church at Gainesville, Alabama,
on Sunday, December 23, 1855, on Occasion of the Death of Dr. Anson
Brackett." (New York: R. Craighead, 1856), 16pp. [PRE]
4The Pulpit and the Pastorate,
in Memorial Volume of the Semi-Centennial of the Theological
Seminary at Columbia, South Carolina, (Columbia, SC: Printed
at the Presbyterian Publishing House, 1884) pp. 84-95.
[HC]
4Biographical Sketch
of William Curdy Emerson, in Memorial Volume of the Semi-Centennial
of the Theological Seminary at Columbia, South Carolina, (Columbia,
SC: Printed at the Presbyterian Publishing House, 1884), pg. 268.
[HC]
4Biographical Sketch
of William Inge Hogan, in Memorial Volume of the
Semi-Centennial of the Theological Seminary at Columbia, South Carolina,
(Columbia, SC: Printed at the Presbyterian Publishing House, 1884),
pp. 290-291. [HC]
4"A Discourse Delivered
in the Baptist Church, Carlowville, Alabama, by Rev. Charles A.
Stillman, Pastor of the Presbyterian Church, Eutaw, Alabama." (Cahawba,
Ala.: Printed by Charles E. Haynes, 1848), 12pp.
[KTS; SBT; also available in microform,
1 microfilm reel; 35 mm., (SOLINET/ASERL Cooperative Microfilming
Project (NEH PA-23510-00); SOL NM09066.18 SBT)]
4Annual reports of the executive
committee of the Institute for the Training of Colored Ministers,
at Tuskaloosa, Alabama, to the general assembly of the Presbyterian
Church in the United States, as contained in the Minutes of the
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States,
starting in 1877. Reports specifically signed by Dr. Stillman include
the years 1877, pages 451-453; 1881, pages 417-418; 1886, pages
86-88,
Reports were unsigned in 1880, [pages 248-249]; 1882, [pages 592-594];
1883, [pages 80-81, unsigned]; 1890, [pages 88-89]; 1891, [pages
277-279]. The report for 1887, [pages 276-278] was signed by a Stillman
co-worker, the Rev. James Searcy. The reports for the years 1878,
1879, 1884, 1885, 1888, 1889, 1892, 1893, 1894 have not yet been
individually inspected. Please check back later.
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