David Truman Stanley was born February 21, 1848, near Terra
Haute, Indiana. Stanley moved to Edgar County, Illinois with his parents
when he was a small boy and, in 1856, the family relocated to Lindley,
Missouri. Stanley began teaching school in 1866 at a small school in Lindley, Missouri.
In 1868, he enrolled in Kirksville Normal School in Kirksville, Missouri,
and graduated from the institution in 1870. That same year, he married
Mary Bristow, became an ordained minister in the Christian Church, and
accepted a teaching position at Princeton High School in Princeton, Missouri.
Stanley was selected as the high school’s principal in 1871, and,
in 1872 when the high school became Princeton College, he was hired as
its first president. Stanley’s tenure at Princeton College was short and, in 1872 he
made the trek to Corvallis, Oregon, to be editor of the Christian Messenger. The Christian Messenger was a publication of the Christian Church in Oregon,
and had previously been edited and published by TF
Campbell, then president of the Christian College in Monmouth. By
May of 1877, Stanley was on the mathematics faculty of the Christian College
in Monmouth.
Stanley taught at the Christian College until 1880, when he resigned
to become a railroad engineer. He worked on several projects including
locating a route for the railroad through the Cascade Mountains and building
a line from Corvallis to Newport. Stanley returned to Corvallis in 1882
after finishing his railroad projects, and purchased the printing plant
of the Christian Messenger. Stanley resumed editing and distributing the
publication, a vocation he would pursue throughout his life. Stanley was appointed as president of the Christian College in May of
1882, replacing the retiring TF Campbell. Stanley inherited an institution
with dropping enrolling and rising debt, and the new president immediately
sought to increase enrollment. Stanley, the first president to graduate
from a normal school, lobbied the state government to designate
the campus in Monmouth as a normal school. In October of 1882, the Oregon
governor signed the legislation renaming Christian College as the Oregon
State Normal School (OSNS). Stanley also oversaw construction, financed
with private donations as the school still received no state funds, of
the Bell Tower and South Wing of Campbell Hall. The Bell Tower and South
Wing, finished in 1889, were destroyed by the Columbus Day Storm of 1962
and were replaced by the Humanities and Social Sciences Building in 1965.
President Stanley retired from OSNS in 1889 but remained very active
in his “retirement.” He immediately returned to publishing
and editing his newspaper in Corvallis, renaming it the Pacific Christian and, later The Harbinger. Stanley consolidated The Harbinger with a similar
Christian Church newspaper in 1893, and moved to California to publish
the paper. Stanley sold the newspaper in 1895. He next purchased a book
publishing company in New York, New York, only to sell it a year later
to return to school. Stanley attended Drake University in Des Moines,
Iowa, and received his law degree in 1897. Afterwards, he earned a medical
degree from Barnes University in St. Louis, Missouri, and worker for several
years in the medical field. Stanley died in July 1917.
|
Payment
