Charles Burt Sumner | |
---|---|
Financial Agent with Supervisory Authority of Pomona College | |
In office 1888–1890 | |
Preceded by | Office established |
Succeeded by | Cyrus G. Baldwin (as president of Pomona College) |
Personal details | |
Born | Southbridge, Massachusetts, United States | August 17, 1837
Died | July 11, 1927 Claremont, California, United States | (aged 89)
Spouses | |
Children | 2 |
Alma mater | Yale University |
Profession | Academic |
Charles Burt Sumner (August 17, 1837 – July 11, 1927) was a minister in the Congregational church and a founding trustee of Pomona College who served as its de facto first president.[3][4][5]
Sumner was born on August 17, 1837, in Southbridge, Massachusetts, to George and Julia Sumner.[6] He went to Southbridge Academy and Williston Seminary, and then attended Yale University, graduating in 1862.[6]
During the Civil War, he fought for the Union for nine months as a sergeant in the 45th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment.[7][2]
He later graduated from the Andover Theological Seminary, and held pastorates in Monson, Massachusetts (at Monson Academy), West Somerville, Massachusetts, Tucson, Arizona, Pomona, California, and Claremont, California.[8]
In 1888, he left the Pilgrim Congregational Church in Pomona to become Pomona College's "financial agent with supervisory authority", a position in which he assumed the duties of a college president.[3] During his tenure, the college began teaching its first classes in Ayer Cottage and acquired 120 acres (49 ha) of land in Piedmont Mesa north of Pomona for a planned permanent campus.[3] In October 1888, the college acquired an unfinished hotel in Claremont (today's Sumner Hall) and moved there in the following months.[3] In 1890, he helped recruit Pomona's first official president, Cyrus G. Baldwin.[3]
Sumner remained a Pomona College trustee until his retirement in 1924. He also taught biblical literature at the college between 1888 and 1899.[2] In 1892, he opposed the college's decision to make Claremont its permanent home, but he later relocated his house to Claremont in 1901, living in it during the six-week move.[9] In 1910, Pomona gave him the college's first honorary doctorate, a Legum Doctor degree.[10][2] In 1914, he published a comprehensive history of the college.[10]
Sumner was also involved in the development of citrus fruit marketing cooperatives,[7] and served as the president of the Indian Hill Citrus Association and San Dimas Orange Association, and the director of the San Dimas Lemon Association.[2]
Sumner's daughter, Helen, and son, George, both graduated from Pomona's first class of students in 1894.[8] George later taught economics at Pomona and became its controller in 1923.[9] His grandson, George Charles Sumner Benson, became the founding president of Claremont McKenna College.[11]
Sumner's house was occupied by his son and grandson, and later rented to faculty and used as a dormitory for vegetarian students. It has served as the college's guest house since 1992.[9][12]
Pomona's first building, Sumner Hall, was named for his wife, Mary Louisa Stedman Sumner, in 1893.[13] It serves as the college's office of admissions today.