Mr. President and Members of the Hamilton Library Association:—
I desire to say, in the first place, that I esteem it an honor to have been invited to prepare a paper for this occasion. Having listened to some of the papers here presented I fully understood that the preparation of a paper to be read here involved serious labor and that a random talk would not be acceptable.
Dickinson College has had two presidents that stood out with special prominences in its history—one at its beginning, at its generation, so to speak, and another at its regeneration; that is, when, after having ceased operations for several years, it was reopened under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal church. When I was invited to write this paper, the suggestion was made that I write on Dr. Nesbit, the first President. of the college, but a lady of our town, Mrs. Parkinson, recently published a very brief but interesting sketch of hint, so that there seemed no present necessity for saying anything more on that subject. For this reason, chiefly, I have undertaken to write about Dr. Durbin; not primarily because he was one of the greatest pulpit orators this country has ever produced, nor because he successfully reorganized Dickinson College and directed its affairs for about eleven years, but, as the title of my paper as printed on the program indicates, because he was during these years an influential citizen of Carlisle, and to this part of my subject I propose to pay more attention than would be proper if I were simply writing a sketch of the life of this remarkable man.
John Price Durbin was born near Paris, Ky., October 10, 1800. I may here make a slight digression to remark, in the first place, that Kentucky's first settlers were located near the geographical center of the state. In most of our states the first settlements were on the eastern borders because the trend of population was westward from the Atlantic seaboard, but the whole of eastern Kentucky is rugged and often moun-tainous, on which account the first immigrants pressed on till they came to what is now known as the blue grass region. It may also be said that while this region is famous for its fine horses and mules, it has also produced many great men. In fact, it would be impossible to find anywhere else in the United States an equal space of territory that had produced as many statesmen as did the central part of Kentucky during the early part of the last century. The region about Boston is famous for its scholars and literary men, but for statesmen we must look to Kentucky. In the first place there was Henry Clay, who, although not born in Kentucky, went there in his youth and during his whole active life was identified with that state. Then came Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, John C. Breckenridge, John J. Crittenden, Cassius M. Clay, and others of less note, and even now the breed hasn't entirely run out, since James B. McCreary, the senior senator from that state, who comes from this same region, is one of the ablest and most influential members of the senate. In fact, with our modern means of travel. it would not be impossible in a single day to start at the home of John C. Breckenride, Lincoln's Chief opponent in the memorable presidential contest of 1860, visit Lincoln’s birthplace, then that of Jefferson Davis, Lincoln's opponent during four years of bloody strife, and then by passing across the boundary into Tennessee, visit the home of John Bell, who also contested with Lincoln the election of 1860.
Not only was Doctor Durbin a native of Kentucky, but both his father and mother were natives of that state, being among the first white children born in that region. His father's father had moved in there from Havre-de-Grace, Md., and his mother's father from Georgia. The parents were likewise both Methodists, and were among the first adherents of the faith in that region. When the boy was thirteen years old his father died and at the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker and he learned the trade. At the age of eighteen he was licensed to preach, having at that time almost no education except such as almost any bright boy would pick up in spite of all obstacles, as is well illustrated in the case of Abraham Lincoln, who, as I have already remarked, was a product of this same region.
In the spring of 1819 he was sent to a circuit in Northwestern Ohio, and the journal which he kept during that time gives some interesting details concerning the mode of living of the people among whom he labored. Their houses often had only one room and that not over twenty feet square. Here they were born and here they died, and here were also performed all those intervening acts of their lives that would ordinarily take place indoors. He read a great deal, mostly in borrowed books. The next year he was sent to a circuit in Indiana, and in 1821 his appointments were near the seat of the newly established Miami University, and he began the study of Latin and Greek, as well as of some other subjects, in the university, spending part of each week at the school and the rest on his circuit. Two years later he was stationed in Cincinnati and from the university there he received the degrees of A. B. and A. M. at the same time—an unusual occurrence, but showing the esteem in which he was held by the authorities of the school. Even at this time he was already famous as a preacher.
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