Oren Root
Oren Root | |
|---|---|
.jpg) | |
| Born | May 18, 1838 |
| Died | August 27, 1907 (aged 69) Utica, New York, US |
| Occupation(s) | Academic and minister |
| Relatives | Elihu Root (brother) |
| Academic background | |
| Education | Hamilton College, 1856 Rutgers College, D.D. 1891 |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Mathematics and English |
| Institutions | University of Missouri Hamilton College |
Oren Root Jr. (May 18, 1838 – August 27, 1907) was an American college president, professor, and minister. He was president of Pritchett College and professor at Hamilton College and the University of Missouri. He was a founder of the Mystic Order of Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm, often called "The Grotto", an appendant body in Freemasonry.
Early life
[edit]Root was born in Syracuse, New York, on May 18, 1838.[1][2][3] His father was Oren Root, a professor of mathematics at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York.[4] He studied first at the Clinton Grammar School.[3]
He graduated from Hamilton College in 1856.[1][2] He studied law under Theodore W. Dwight and was admitted to the Wisconsin Bar Association in June 1858.[3][4] He then attended Rutgers College, graduating with a Doctor of Divinity in 1891.[1][4] He received a Doctor of Human Letters from Union College in 1895.[1][4]
Career
[edit]Root briefly practiced law before becoming principal of a high school in Monroe, Michigan in 1859.[4] From 1860 to 1862, he was a math tutor at Hamilton College.[4] Next, he was the principal of the Rome Academy in Rome, New York for four years.[4]
In 1866, Root became and professor and the chair of English Department at the University of Missouri in Columbia, staying there for five years.[1][2][3] On November 7, 1870, he helped seven students form the Zeta Phi Society, a social and secret society that is now the Zeta Phi chapter of Beta Theta Pi.[5] Root was also co-editor of the The Columbian Speaker.[1]
Root became the superintendent of the of schools in Carrollton, Missouri in 1871.[3] He was president of Pritchett College in Glasgow, Missouri from 1873 to 1876.[2] He became a Presbyterian minister in 1874, preaching in Glasgow and Salisbury on Sundays.[2][3] However, he converted to the Dutch Reformed Church when he became pastor of a congregation in Utica, New York in 1890.[1][4]
He returned to Hamilton College in 1880 to assist his father in the mathematics department.[3] In 1881, he succeeded his father as chair of mathematics.[4][3] He also served as the college's registrar.[3] He resigned from Hamilton College in June 1907.[3]
Personal life
[edit]Root was married three times[4] and had two daughters and three sons.[2][1] He married Anna J. Higgins of Waterford, New York in 1862; she died in 1863.[4] Next, he married Ida C. Gordon of Columbia, Missouri, who died in 1896.[4] In 1901, he married Anna Ray Quisenberry of Carrollton, Missouri.[4]
Root was a high degree Freemason and was one of the founders of the Mystic Order of Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm, an appendant body in Freemasonry.[6][1] He was grand high priest of the Royal Arch Masons of Missouri in 1868, grand commander of the Knights Templar of Missouri in 1871, and chaplain of the Grand Lodge F&AM of New York State from 1891 to 1892, and in 1905.[4]
Root lived in a house on College Hill in Utica, New York, next door to the summer home of his brother,[2] Elihu Root, who was United States Secretary of State.[1][2] He died from cirrhosis of the liver at his home on August 27, 1907.[1][2] He had been sick for a year.[2]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "Prof. Oren Root Was Educator and High Degree Mason". The New York Times. August 27, 1907. Retrieved 2011-02-02.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Professor Oren Root is Dead". Warsaw Daily Union. August 27, 1907. Retrieved 2011-02-02 – via Google News.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Forty years of Clinton history; a review of the principal events in the life of the village as recorded in the Clinton Courier from May 1875 to May 1915. Clinton, New York: Clinton Historical Society. 2003. p. 30. Retrieved July 18, 2025 – via Hathi Trust.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n "Prof. Oren Root Dead. Brother of Secretary of State Expires at Clinton, N.Y." New-York Tribune. 1907-08-27. p. 7. Retrieved 2025-07-19 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "About | Beta Theta Pi". Zeta Phi Chapter of Beta Theta Pi. Retrieved 2025-07-19.
- ^ Stevens, Albert Clark (1899). The cyclopædia of fraternities; a compilation of existing authentic information and the results of original investigation as to more than six hundred secret societies in the United States. New York City: Hamilton Printing and Publishing Company. p. 97. Retrieved 1 May 2024 – via Internet Archive.