When Evan Pugh became the first president of Pennsylvania’s Farmers’ High School—later to be known as The Pennsylvania State University—the small campus was in disrepair and in dire need of leadership. Pugh was young, barely into his 30s, but he was energetic, educated, and visionary. During his tenure as president he molded the school into a model institution of its kind: America’s first scientifically based agricultural college. In this volume, Roger Williams gives Pugh his first book-length biographical treatment. Williams recounts Pugh’s short life and impressive career, from his early days studying science in the United States and Europe to his fellowship in the London Chemical Society, during which he laid the foundations of the modern ammonium nitrate fertilizer industry, and back to Pennsylvania, where he set about developing “upon the soil of Pennsylvania the best agricultural college in the world” and worked to build an American academic system mirroring Germany’s state-sponsored agricultural colleges. This last goal came to fruition with the passage of the Morrill Act in 1862, just two years prior to Pugh’s death. Drawing on the scientist-academic administrator’s own writings and taking a wide focus on the history of higher education during his lifetime, Evan Pugh’s Penn State tells the compelling story of Pugh’s advocacy and success on behalf of both Penn State and land-grant colleges nationwide. Despite his short life and career, Evan Pugh’s vision for Penn State made him a leader in higher education. This engaging biography restores Pugh to his rightful place in the history of scientific agriculture and education in the United States.

Baptist Churches of South Carolina and list of Baptists.

Frederick Watts came to prominence during the nineteenth century as a lawyer and a railroad company president, but his true interests lay in agricultural improvement and in raising the economic, social, and political standing of Pennsylvania’s farmers. After being elected founding president of The Pennsylvania State Agricultural Society in 1851, he used his position to advocate vigorously for the establishment of an agricultural college that would employ science to improve farming practices. He went on to secure the charter for the Farmers’ High School of Pennsylvania, which would eventually become the Pennsylvania State University. This biography explores Watts’s role in founding and leading Penn State through its formative years. Watts adroitly directed the school as it was sited, built, and financed, opening for students in 1859. He hired the brilliant Evan Pugh as founding president, who, with Watts, quickly made it the first successful agricultural college in America. But for all his success in launching the institution, Watts nearly brought it to the brink of closure through a series of ruinous presidential appointments that led to an abandonment of the land-grant focus on agriculture and engineering. Watts’s influence in the agricultural modernization movement and his impact on land-grant education in the United States—both in his role with Penn State and later as US commissioner of agriculture—made him a leader in the history of agricultural and higher education. Roger L. Williams’s compelling biography of Watts reestablishes him in this legacy, providing a balanced analysis of his missteps and accomplishments.

"With tables of the cases and principal matters" (varies).

Joseph of Arimathea brings together modern research, ancient legends, and unique storytelling to trace the journey of Joseph of Arimathea from England to Palestine as he performs an annual pilgrimage there. During this particular trip to Palestine, Joseph's world is turned upside down by the political crucifixion of Jesus at the hands of his enemies. Joseph, with his friend Nicodemus, buries Jesus's body according to Jewish ritual. For this, Joseph is himself arrested, but he is delivered from imprisonment by the risen Jesus. As an ardent believer in and follower of God's chosen one, Joseph plays a vital role in establishing the early church and its subsequent missionary movement. After fourteen years in Palestine, Joseph returns to England as a missionary. He is sent there as the first bishop to England and Wales, where he later builds a church at Glastonbury. Joseph carries to England the silver chalice and silver plate used during the Last Supper, along with a staff fashioned from the crown of thorns placed on Jesus's head. Including a detailed appendix includes some of the surviving descendant lines of the two children of Joseph of Arimathea and his wife, Anna, Joseph's story provides a fascinating account of some of the most precious historic Christian artifacts.