Erastus Milo Cravath

Erastus Milo Cravath (1833–1900) was a field secretary with the American Missionary Association (AMA) after the American Civil War, when he helped found Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, and numerous other historically black colleges in Georgia and Tennessee for the education of freedmen. In addition, he served as president of Fisk University for more than 20 years.

Erastus Milo Cravath was born July 1, 1833 in Homer, New York to Orin Cravath, of French Huguenot ancestry. The senior Cravath was one of three men to form an abolition party in Homer, and he also used his home as a station on the Underground Railroad. As a boy, Erastus grew up in a household devoted to the abolitionist cause and aiding escaping slaves. It was a time and place of progressive causes.

Cravath first studied at the local common school, then Homer Academy. He went on to study at Oberlin College, graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1857, and earning a master's in divinity in 1860. After devoting much of his adult life to religion and education, in 1886 Cravath earned a Doctor in Divinity degree at Grinnell College.

In September 1860 Cravath married Ruth Anna Jackson, who was from a long family of Quakers in Pennsylvania and England.

Cravath became a pastor in the Congregational Church of Berlin Heights, Ohio, in what later became part of the United Church of Christ. He was an abolitionist. He entered the Union Army in December 1863, serving until the end of the war, including campaigns in Franklin and Nashville, Tennessee.

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