Baptist higher education carries on in the North, against the backdrop of war. Today, as the year draws toward a close, Franklin College president Silas Bailey, in the face of an illness, resigns as president of the Indiana Baptist school. Bailey has been a leader of Indiana Baptists, served in pastoral roles and spoken vocally in support of the Union war effort, in addition to his academic service. Expressing their gratitude to Bailey, the trustees of the college pass the following resolution.
Resolved, that in the resignation of President Bailey, Franklin College has sustained a loss that cannot be repaired. That by the self-sacrificing devotion and distinguished ability with which Dr. Bailey has discharged the difficult and complicated duties of his office during a period of ten years he has laid the denomination in the State under obligations which they can never cancel. We tender to him the assurance of our deepest sympathy in his affliction and an earnest desire for his speedy recovery.
Bailey recovers well enough that he returns to ministerial activity and visits France, where he dies in 1874. His body is returned to the United States and interred in Worcester County, Massachusetts, where Bailey from 1845-1847 had pastored the First Baptist Church of Westborough and served as an educator.
Franklin College survives the war and viably exists to this day.
Source: Resolution passed on Silas Bailey’s resignation, December 17, 1862, quoted in William T. Stott, Indiana Baptist History, 1798-1908, pp. 366-367 (link and link); Grave Marker, Rev. Silas Baily, 1809-1874 (link); Abijah Perkins Marvin, History of Worcester County, Massachusetts Volume 2, Boston: Wright and Potter, 1879, pp. 492-493 (link); Silas Baily, “The moral significance of war. A discourse delivered in the Baptist meeting house, in Franklin, Indiana, on the occasion of the national fast; September 26, 1861 (1861)” (link)
