Preston Hollow; a scenic valley dedicated to John S. Preston
Item
- Legacies Classification
- Memorial Type
- Memorial Context
- Memorialized Subject
- Title
- Background and Context
- Physical Description
- Historical Period
- Location: Institution, City, State
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Memorial Place
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Space on Campus
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Preston, John S.
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Preston Hollow; a scenic valley dedicated to John S. Preston
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The first Board of Trustees of the University of the South named this scenic recess in the South Cumberland Plateau to honor John S. Preston (1809-1881), the principal speaker at the laying of the University of the South’s cornerstone in October 1860. The exact date of the naming is unknown, but probably 1859-1860.
Preston had sold his Louisiana plantation and his labor force of 548 enslaved persons for the history-making sum of $1 million in 1858. Preston acquired the means to this fortune by marrying the daughter of Wade Hampton II of South Carolina, who together with his sons held vast investments in land and enslaved person in the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. According to one historian’s estimate, the father and sons enslaved more than 3,000 people.
Preston was also a devoted churchman, whom Episcopal Bishop Leonidas Polk closely consulted on the plans for the University. He expected Preston, flush with money from the sale, to be a generous patron. (There is no evidence as yet that he pledged a donation.) Bishop James Hervey Otey of Tennessee introduced him at the October ceremony as “a gentleman who has always shown himself zealous and liberal in promoting the interests of all institutions designed for the honor of our country and the welfare of mankind.”
Preston’s cornerstone speech, lasting more than two hours, defined the mission and purpose of the University of the South to be the production of enlightened masters of Christian households, who would lead the “gravest mission ever entrusted to man, that of redeeming to Christianity, through the portals of slavery, an inferior, subject, dependent and necessary race, on which his whole order of civilization is based.”
Less than a month later, after Lincoln’s election to the presidency, Preston assumed an important role in South Carolina’s secession and served as his state’s commissioner to Virginia’s secession convention. Preston gained the rank of Brigadier General in the Confederate Army in 1864 and fled to England after the surrender.
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A valley in the South Cumberland Plateau on the southwestern edge of the campus of the University of the South.
Position: 1345 (55 views)