Stephen Olin

Who was Stephen Olin?

Stephen Olin was an American educator and minister. He graduated Middlebury College in 1820 and was ordained into the Methodist Episcopal Church while teaching at the Tabernacle Academy in South Carolina and served a pastorate in Charleston. He became professor of belle-lettres at the University of Georgia in 1827. He was the first President of Randolph Macon College and later was president of Wesleyan University.

In 1844, at the general conference of the Methodists, Olin called on his friend, Bishop James Andrew, to resign his office, on the grounds the latter owned slaves. Olin himself was criticized because his first wife had owned slaves.