Baynard Rush Hall

Baynard Rush Hall (1793–1863) was an American academic and Christian minister. A native of Pennsylvania, he served churches and academic institutions in the East for most of his life. However, he was a resident of Indiana for several years, during which time he served as the first faculty member of what today is Indiana University.

Biography Born in Philadelphia in 1793, Hall was educated at Union College and Princeton Theological Seminary; after completing his studies at the seminary, he was ordained to the Presbyterian ministry. While working as a printer before entering Union, Hall had learned of opportunities in what was then the Western United States, and in 1823 he moved his family to southern Indiana. After spending a year living with relatives near Gosport and preaching occasionally, he was chosen to become the first teacher at the Indiana State Seminary in Bloomington, which was founded in 1820 but had not yet begun to operate. For two years beginning in 1825, Hall taught all of the classes, which consisted largely of Greek and Latin classes. Hall was firmly a classicist, teaching that the study of classical philosophy and languages formed the basis of the best education. The choice of yet another Presbyterian as president sparked renewed charges of religious favoritism against the board of trustees, and he saw himself as the first Indiana resident in the history of the world who understood Ancient Greek. In turn, local residents looked at the Seminary and its educated population with suspicion.

Hall's house in Bloomington, built in 1835, still stands in the city's McDoel Gardens neighborhood, within which it is the oldest extant building.