Ormond Beatty

Ormond Beatty (August 13, 1815 – June 24, 1890) was an American educator and academic administrator. He was the seventh president of Centre College in Danville, Kentucky.

An 1835 graduate of Centre, Beatty became a professor the following year and taught chemistry, natural philosophy, mathematics, metaphysics, biblical history, and church history over the course of his career. He was selected to fill the position of president following the resignation of William L. Breckinridge in 1868 and was unanimously elected president by the board of trustees in 1870. He was Centre's first president who was not a Christian minister, and he led the school until his resignation in 1888, at which point he taught for two additional years before his death in 1890. Beatty also involved himself in religious affairs, serving as a ruling elder in the First and Second Presbyterian Churches in Danville, as a commissioner to three Presbyterian Church General Assemblies, and as a trustee of the Danville Theological Seminary.

Early life and education Beatty was born on August 13, 1815, in Mason County, Kentucky, the fourth of five sons of Sarah and Adam Beatty. His father was a circuit court judge and a member of the Kentucky General Assembly for the Whig Party; he ran for election to the House of Representatives, unsuccessfully, in 1838. Before he graduated, he was offered a teaching position by President John C. Young, a position Beatty accepted but did not begin for another year. In that intervening year, he pursued further studies at Yale University under the chemist Benjamin Silliman. He spent five years in this post before resuming teaching his original two subjects in 1852, which he did for another twelve years. and the Battle of Perryville, in October 1862. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln appointed him to be a visitor to the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York. In 1866, he was awarded an honorary Legum Doctor degree from Princeton University.

Beatty taught until the resignation of President William L. Breckinridge in 1868. To fill the vacancy, Beatty was appointed president . After he served in the interim role for two years, the board of trustees unanimously elected him president of the college and professor of metaphysics and political science on September 1, 1870. In March 1873, the Falls City Tobacco Bank in Louisville was robbed of $300,000 ; the result was the loss of nearly $100,000 in uninsured bonds belonging to the college, leaving Centre's endowment at only $33,000 . A portion of the bonds, worth about $40,000 , was recovered relatively quickly, and Beatty led an effort to replace the rest of the stolen money which succeeded in raising over $58,000 from the community, church, and other nearby residents.

The Ormond Beatty Prize was created by students and alumni in his honor in 1886, the fiftieth anniversary of his first year teaching at Centre. Former Congressman John Finis Philips gave the address at the presentation. Beatty attempted on multiple occasions to resign from the presidency, submitting resignations on June 15 and November 30, 1886; the latter was accepted, but did not go into effect until a successor had been secured. Although the process was protracted, William C. Young, son of former President John C. Young, was elected on June 19, 1888, to fill the role. In total, Beatty was the college's president for 18 years before leaving the office. In an effort to retain him as part of the faculty and prevent him from retiring from the college altogether, the trustees elected him to be professor of metaphysics.

Beatty joined the Danville Presbyterian Church in 1835 and was elected a ruling elder of the church in 1844; he held this position until the opening of the Second Presbyterian Church in 1852, at which point he took the same position there. He was also on the Board of Trustees of Caldwell College, later the Kentucky College for Women, which was located in Danville. Beatty's second marriage was to Mildred Ann Bell in 1848, and his second child, Pattie, was born of this marriage. Mildred died in 1867 and is buried with Beatty. He was married for a third and final time in 1879, to Elizabeth Boyle, widow of Jeremiah Boyle; they did not have children and Elizabeth died in 1886. Beatty was a slaveowner, and the 1860 census lists him as having owned one slave.

Beatty died in his sleep at 4:10 p.m. on June 24, 1890, at the age of 74, in Danville. He had experienced severe pain for much of that morning. He was still a member of the Centre faculty at the time, having taught for two years after his resignation as president. He had been receiving medical treatment for several years before, though he downplayed the severity and effect of his malady and did not give up teaching at any point. His funeral was held on June 26 at the Second Presbyterian Church in Danville and was presided over by Rev. C. B. H. Martin, who was its pastor at the time. He was buried in Danville's Bellevue Cemetery; The Kentucky Advocate later said that the funeral procession to the cemetery was "the largest... that ever went within the portals of the Danville cemetery". His obituary in The Kentucky Advocate termed him "Kentucky's greatest educator".