Evan Pugh
| Evan Pugh | |
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1st President of the Pennsylvania State University |
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In office 1859–1864 |
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| Preceded by | Inaugural |
| Succeeded by | William Henry Allen |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
February 29, 1828 Oxford, Pennsylvania |
| Died | April 29, 1864 (aged 36) State College, Pennsylvania |
| Spouse(s) | Rebecca Valentine Pugh |
| Alma mater | University of Göttingen |
| Profession | Professor, President of Farmers' High School (Pennsylvania Agricultural College of Pennsylvania), 1859-1864 |
Evan Pugh (February 29, 1828 – April 29, 1864) was the first president of the Pennsylvania State University, serving from 1859 until his death in 1864. An agricultural chemist, he was responsible for securing Penn State's designation in 1863 as a land-grant institution under the Morrill Land Grant Act. He was buried in Union Cemetery in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, along with his wife, Rebecca Valentine Pugh.
Evan Pugh was born to Lewis and Mary (née Hutton) Pugh on February 29, 1828 near Oxford in Chester County, PA. He was the fourth of six children: Rebecca, who died soon after birth (1823), Susan (1824-1913), Elizabeth (1826-1847), Enoch (1830-1854), and John (1832-1834). The family traced their lineage back to Ellis Pugh, a Quaker Welsh settler in William Penn's colony.
They lived on 56 acres of land, given to Lewis by his father Jesse, on family property in a stone farmhouse with a barn and blacksmith/wheelwright shop. Shortly after Evan's birth, Lewis was blinded and burned in an accident at the forge. He died in 1840, and his widow sent Evan and Elizabeth to live with their grandfather and three aunts on a neighboring farm.
Pugh was tutored by his aunts in algebra, geometry, geography, history, Latin, and stenography. From 1844 to 1846 he served as a blacksmith's apprentice, but his extensive tutoring and his dislike of his "master" convinced him to pursue higher education. His family agreed and he enrolled at Whitestown Seminary, a manual labor school near Utica, New York. After attending the seminary for a year he returned home to help with the farm and opened the Jordan Bank Academy. Pugh taught classes, including botany, analytical chemistry, geology and mineralogy, on the second floor of the blacksmith shop, and in his personal time conducted chemistry experiments and contributed to farm journals and county newspapers.
After his mother remarried and his brother, Enoch, left for work in Ohio, Pugh decided to sell the family farm to an uncle and use the money earned ($2800) and his savings to travel to Europe. Pugh "determined that he could participate in the field of education if he could advance his own studies," and German universities at the time were leaders in the development of chemistry, particularly in the agricultural fields. He enrolled at the University of Leipzig and studied under Otto Erdmann with a concentration on the chemistry of plant nutrition in 1853. In 1855, he enrolled at Goettingen University for the spring term and studied advanced analytical, organic, and agricultural chemistry under the tutelage of Fiedrich Wöhler. He passed his Ph.D. examinations in 1856 and wrote his dissertation Miscellaneous Chemical Analyses on particular meteoric ores found in Mexico.
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