GIVEN_NAMES: Also shown as Richard Lord
GIVEN_NAMES: Also shown as Mauricia Durante
GIVEN_NAMES: Also shown as Richard Lord
Dr. Richard Rust SUTTON A.M.,D.D.,LL.D.
He was born in Ipswich, Mass., Sept. 12, 1815. His mother, from whom he inherited many of his traits of character, was a woman of deep piety and superior attainments, the daughter of Richard Sutton, distinguished among his townsmen for integrity, independence and intelligence. He was left an orphan, his father dying when he was eight years old and his mother when he was ten, leaving him no patrimony but a parentage spotless and revered. One of his uncles gave him a year's schooling, where he first formed a taste for study which never forsook him. Another uncle gave him a home till he was fourteen, during which time he was compelled to work hard upon a farm, with only three month's schooling each winter. He was then apprenticed to learn a cabinet-maker's trade, and at the end of three years, yearning for school and more congenial pursuits, purchased his contract so he could attend school.
"Richard S. Rust, a minister with a mission
In 1866, only a year after the cannons of the Civil War had been silenced, a small group of dedicated Methodist missionaries traveled from Cincinnati to Holly Springs, Miss. Their goal was to educate former slaves and their children. Members of the Freedmen's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, they started a school in Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church in Holly Springs.
The new little school accepted adults as well as children for instruction in elementary subjects. In 1867, it moved from the church to its present-day campus, and in 1870 was chartered by the state of Mississippi. Twelve years later, the college was named in honor of the Rev. Richard S. Rust of the Freedmen's Aid Society.
Located in Holly Springs, a town with a population of 7,261, Rust College is now an accredited four-year, co-educational liberal arts college, the oldest of 11 historically black United Methodist-related colleges and universities.
Rust was the founder of the Freedmen's Aid Society and its sole administrator during the organization's early years. He selected the sites and secured the lands for a number of African-American colleges and seminaries in the South. He and his fellow Methodist missionaries put their lives in danger by teaching former slaves how to read and write.
But just what do we know about this Methodist minister for whom Rust College is named?
Research indicates three major interests in Richard Rust's life: education, helping African Americans and preaching. Born in 1815 in Ipswich, Mass., he was a descendant of English settlers who had come to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635. At age 9, he was orphaned and went to live on an uncle's farm. After a few years, he left the farm to take an apprenticeship in cabinetmaking. In those days, apprenticeships were generally for seven years, and any unused portion could be bought from the master craftsman if desired. Eager for an education, young Richard saved his earnings and purchased the unused portion of his contract so he could attend school.
He enrolled in Phillips Academy, a non-denominational school in Andover, Mass. His active interest in anti-slavery can be traced to his academy days. It was there he attended a lecture given by George Thompson, an anti-slavery leader from England. In 1834, Thompson conducted a lecture tour in the northern states, where he is credited with the formation of more than 150 anti-slavery societies. Following Thompson's visit to Andover, Rust took part in forming an anti-slavery group on campus. The students' activities so upset the faculty that a call was issued for the group to disband. Refusing to do so, Rust and two other students were expelled in 1834.
Rust then journeyed to Canaan, N.H., to enroll in Noyes Academy, a new school open to African Americans as well as white students. Local abolitionists, who sponsored the school, believed all youth should be educated with no regard to race. But there was growing fear among many Canaan residents that the presence of African Americans would lead to interracial dating and that African huts would soon be built along the main street of the community.
Although the school did open, opposition grew. In August 1835, a committee of local citizens, encouraged by outside agitators, closed the school. With a large number of oxen, an angry mob pulled the school building off its foundation and carried it down to the town common. The building was then burned. Rust and the other students were fortunate to have escaped with their lives.
Still determined to receive an education at an institution sympathetic to his anti-slavery views, he went south along the Connecticut River to Wilbraham, Mass., to enroll in Wesleyan Academy. The school, operated by the New England Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was home to a number of faculty and students opposed to slavery. Some years later, the campus became a station on the Underground Railroad for fugitive slaves on their way to Canada. At the academy, Rust became an active Methodist.
Upon completing his studies at the academy, he traveled south to Middletown, Conn., to enroll in Wesleyan University, the first Methodist institution of higher education to begin classroom work. While a student, Rust earned money giving anti-slavery lectures. And in his junior year, he compiled a book entitled "Freedom's Gift or Sentiments of the Free," which contained verse and prose by William Lloyd Garrison and other anti-slavery writers.
The book also included a lecture by Rust to a Connecticut anti-slavery group, which he urged, "When the history of the anti-slavery reform is written, I ardently desire that there may be, as in the New Testament, a large book of Acts. Let the abolitionists of Connecticut see to it that they are well represented there."
After graduation in 1841, he obtained a trial ordination in the New England Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church and served Massachusetts pastorates in Springfield and Worcester. During this time, he gained a reputation as a powerful preacher. He also founded and edited an annual publication, "The American Pulpit," which published sermons by Christian ministers.
Drawn by his love of education, Rust moved in 1846 to Northfield, N.H., to become principal of the New Hampshire Conference Seminary of the Methodist Episcopal Church. (Known today as Tilton School, the seminary moved in 1864 from Northfield across the Winnepesaukee River to the town of Tilton.) According to school records, Rust was remembered by alumni as having seen to it that all his students became abolitionists.
While serving as principal of the seminary, he was appointed by the state of New Hampshire as commissioner of common schools. In 1847, he was credited with the passage of a state law requiring all towns to pay the tuition of students who had to attend school in another community in order to receive an education.
Also at this time, Rust met a young woman who was destined to become one of the most famous women of the day. She was Mary Baker Glover, who became Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist. She was living with her family in nearby Sanbornton Bridge. Her husband had died in North Carolina, and she had returned to her parent's home without financial resources.
Soon after Rust, his wife and two sons moved to the area, they became friends of the Baker family. Mary's father, Mark Baker, was a staunch Congregationalist. Although he and Rust differed greatly on religious principles, Baker extended the hand of Christian fellowship to the new principal and his family.
Rust asked Mary Glover to substitute for one of his teachers. He was so pleased with her teaching abilities that he encouraged her to start a school for infants, an early version of today's pre-schools. Rust complimented her for "the high moral and religious instruction" that she gave his son, Richard, who attended the little school. That son later followed in his father's footsteps as a minister and a leader in the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Years later, in 1875, Eddy sent Rust a copy of her newly published book, "Science and Health" that explained the teachings of Christian Science. She received a friendly reply from Rust. She also met with him in 1902 at her home, Pleasant View, in Concord, N.H. The meeting was warm and friendly, ending with them singing together a number of old gospel hymns, including "He Leadeth Me" and "I Love to Tell the Story."
During this time, he became friends with a Christian Scientist in Cincinnati, Mrs. Rachel Marshall, who recalled what he said about the meeting with Eddy: "She was so dignified, yet so gracious. She seated herself beside me and I saw it was the same dear Mary whom I had known in former years. I tried to impress the thought that having so much influence in the world, she ought in some way to state definitely in her writings that she was still clinging to the good old faith of her forefathers and the Bible. And she answered me in the kindest tones, 'Why, that is exactly what I am doing!' I feel so lifted up since I saw her and rejoiced in the comfort we were receiving through Christian Science."
As a Methodist, Rust most likely felt comfortable with Eddy's interest in spiritual healing, given John Wesley's frequent mention in his writings of the spiritual roots of sickness.
After Rust completed his term as principal of the seminary, he returned to the pastoral ministry serving churches in New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts. But his concern for African Americans eventually won out over his preaching assignments.
He asked to be transferred to the Church’s Cincinnati Conference in1858 and soon played a major role in founding Wilberforce University, an institution whose purpose was to educate former slaves. The university, named after the 18th century English statesman and abolitionist William Wilberforce, was jointly sponsored by the Methodist Episcopal Church and African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church. Before becoming its first president, Rust served as chairman of the new university's board of trustees.
In what was to become his approach of inclusiveness as he helped former slaves and their children, Rust worked closely with African-American leaders including Bishop Daniel A. Payne of the A.M.E. Church and Ashland Keith of the Negro Baptist denomination. Rust stepped down as president in 1863 when the A.M.E. Church bought the university. Wilberforce continues today as the nation's oldest private African-American university. It is also interesting to note that Rust's two sons attended the school from 1859 to 1860.
Rust devoted his life to helping former slaves in the South. In establishing Rust College, he worked closely with the African-American minister there, the Rev. Moses Adams. And believing that schoolteachers should evangelize as well as educate, he took a leadership role in establishing as many as 14 colleges for teachers throughout the South. In 1882, it was estimated that three-quarters of a million African-American children had been or were being taught by teachers sent out by these schools.