Puneet Varma (Editor)

Crozer Theological Seminary

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Area
  
1 acre (0.40 ha)

NRHP Reference #
  
73001626

Opened
  
1857

Added to NRHP
  
18 June 1973

Built
  
1857

Address
  
Chester, PA 19013, USA

Architectural style
  
Italianate architecture

Crozer Theological Seminary

Location
  
21st St. and Upland Ave., Upland, Pennsylvania

Notable alumni
  
Martin Luther King Jr, John Warren Davis, Samuel DeWitt Proctor, William Augustus Jones Jr, Edward Chiera

Similar
  
Morehouse College, Colgate Rochester Crozer Di, Boston University School of, Boston University, Widener University

The Crozer Theological Seminary was a multi-denominational religious institution located in Upland, Pennsylvania. The school succeeded a Normal School established at the site and the building's use as a hospital during the American Civil War. The seminary mostly served as an American Baptist Church school, training seminarians for the entry into the Baptist ministry.

Contents

After 1970, when the seminary merged with institutions in Rochester, New York, the Old Main building was used for Crozer Hospital (now part of Crozer-Chester Medical Center.) It is a three-story, "F"-shaped, stucco coated stone building. It has three pavilions connected by a corridor with flanking rooms. Each of the pavilions is topped by a gable roof and cupola, the largest cupola being on the central pavilion. Most recently, it is used for medical offices associated with the center.

The Old Main building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

History

The Seminary began as the Normal School of Upland, established and built by wealthy textile manufacturer John Price Crozer. Crozer allowed the Union to use the building as a hospital during the American Civil War.

After Crozer's death in 1866, his family converted the school to another purpose, endowing it as the Crozer Theological Seminary in his honor. His son recruited faculty for the new mission.

The most famous student of Crozer Seminary was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. He enrolled on September 14, 1948 and graduated on May 8, 1951 with a Bachelor of Divinity degree. He then studied and earned his doctorate at Boston University.

Another Crozer student was Dr. Monroe E. Dodd, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Shreveport, Louisiana from 1912–1950, founder of the Dodd College for Girls, and a pioneer radio minister.

In 1970 the school moved to Rochester, New York, in a merger that formed the Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School. The old seminary building was used as the former Crozer Hospital (now the Crozer-Chester Medical Center). Now the building is used for medical offices on the grounds of the Crozer-Chester Medical Center.

Notable faculty

  • John Warren Davis, taught Hebrew and Greek for three years
  • Lemuel Moss, professor of New Testament
  • James B. Pritchard, taught in the chair of Old Testament History and Exegesis
  • Henry Clay Vedder, professor of Church history
  • W. Kenneth Cauthen, John Price Crozer Griffith Emeritus Professor of Theology, taught at Crozer from 1961-1992.
  • References

    Crozer Theological Seminary Wikipedia