A “missionary educator”.
1801 – born in Goshen, CT, the son of Elisha and Clarissa (Judd) Baldwin.
1827 – graduated from Yale University
1829 – graduated from Yale Theological Seminary, one of the leaders of the “Illinois Association”, known as the “Yale Band.
1829, Aug 27 – ordained in Woodbury, CT with his close friend Rev. Julian M. Sturtevant
1829 – one of the founders and trustees of Illinois College.
1829 – home-missionary in Vandalia, then the capital of the state. Exerted a strong influence upon early movements for the improvement of public education in Illinois
1831 – solicited funds for Illinois College in the east for 2 years and married Caroline Wilder.
1833 – 1837 worked on behalf of the American Home Missionary Society.
1835 – instrumental in securing charter from legislature under which the three oldest colleges (Illinois, Shurtleff, McKendree) are still operating.
1838 – assisted Benjamin Godfrey in establishing Monticello Seminary at Godfrey, IL; became the first principal, helping to select its site and determining its course of study and general plan of operation.
1843 – corresponding secretary, or in reality, the executive head of the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West. As secretary of this society, with headquarters in New York City, he performed, perhaps, his most significant service for the cause of higher education in the Middle West. Many of the present strong colleges of that part of the country, such as Western Reserve, Oberlin, Illinois, Wabash, Marietta, Knox, Grinnell, and Beloit, were then in their precarious infancy, and it was due in no small measure to the energy and self-sacrificing work of Baldwin that these institutions survived the financial perils of those years. He remained secretary of the Society until his death, and its twenty-six published annual reports, which he wrote, constitute an interesting record of his labors.
1870 – died at his home in Orange, NJ.
References:
- James Strong and John McClintock, (1880) The Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature.