Samuel Doak


Samuel Doak was an American Presbyterian clergyman, Calvinist educator, and a former slave owner in the early movement in the United States for the abolition of slavery.

Early life

Samuel Doak was born August 1, 1749, in Augusta County, Virginia, to Scotch-Irish immigrants Samuel and Jane Doak. He grew up on a frontier farm and began his education with Robert Alexander, who later founded the Academy of Liberty Hall. After attending an academy in Maryland, he entered the College of New Jersey, from which he graduated two years later in 1775. Doak married Esther Houston Montgomery of Augusta County in October 1775.

Career

Doak taught at Hampden-Sydney College in the spring of 1776. There he studied theology under president Samuel Stanhope Smith, and completed his theological training in 1777 at Liberty Hall. He assumed his first pastorate in Abingdon, Virginia, and also began to "ride circuit" in eastern Tennessee.
In 1778 Doak settled in Tennessee in Sullivan County and was ordained a Presbyterian minister. Moving to the Holston valley in Tennessee, Doak assumed the Presbytery's charge to serve the congregation of the Fork Church, now known as New Bethel Presbyterian Church.
In 1780, Doak relocated from Sullivan County and to the western section Washington County near present-day Limestone, Tennessee, where he formed where he founded Salem Presbyterian Church, built a home, and constructed a school.
Doak, during this same time in 1780, regularly preached to settlers at the Big Spring at Greeneville, Tennessee in present-day Greene County. Later in 1783, Mt. Bethel Presbyterian Church was formed with Hezekiah Balch being the first settled minister.
The school that Doak had constructed at his Salem Presbyterian Church during 1780 was later chartered as St. Martin's Academy in 1783. St. Martin's Academy expanded in 1795 as Washington College.
Doak served as president of Washington College before turning it over to his oldest son, John Whitfield Doak. Esther Doak had died in 1807, and in 1818 he moved with his second wife, Margaretta Houston McEwen, to Tusculum Academy and taught there with his son Samuel W. Doak until his death on December 12, 1830. He is buried at Salem Church.
Doak was awarded a Doctor of Divinity degree for his tireless efforts at promoting Presbyterianism and education. He was generally known as "the Presbyterian Bishop."
After becoming convinced of the of slavery, he freed his own slaves in 1818. Afterwards, for the rest of his life, Doak advocated immediate abolition. He was referred to as being "the apostle of learning and religion in the West."

1780 prayer at Sycamore Shoals

Doak is attributed with delivering the following lengthy sermon and prayer at Sycamore Shoals, September 26, 1780 to the mustering of the Patriot Overmountain Men prior to the Battle of Kings Mountain:
The assembled Overmountain Men then later departed Sycamore Shoals (located in present-day Elizabethton, Tennessee and headed southeast over Roan Mountain and afterwards meeting up other Patriot frontiersmen to battle against Loyalist troops commanded by British Maj. Patrick Ferguson at the Battle of Kings Mountain in South Carolina.

Legacy

Three schools in Greene County are named for Samuel Doak:
The Doak House Museum is a non-profit, educational institution, established as a museum in 1975.