Fr. John Early, S.J., served as Georgetown's 26th and 28th president from 1858-1866 and from 1870-1873. Fr. Early led Georgetown through the Civil War, which led to decreased enrollment and the stationing of Union soldiers on campus.
Early Academic Career
Fr. Early joined the Society of Jesus and entered the novitiate in Frederick in 1834. In 1836, Fr. Early came to Georgetown to study philosophy where he served intermittently as Prefect including the position of Head Prefect during the 1843-44 school year. Following his ordination in 1845, he taught philosophy for two years at Georgetown. He then served at St. Joseph’s Church in Philadelphia before his appointment as President of Holy Cross College from 1848-51. Fr. Early then served as President of the newly opened University of Loyola in Baltimore for its first six years, from 1852-58. In 1858, Fr. Early succeeded Fr. Maguire as President of Georgetown.1
Early Presidency
One of Fr. Early’s first acts as President was the donation of 100 volumes to William and Mary College which had recently lost its library in a fire. 2However, Fr. Early’s presidency was soon overshadowed by the strain of secession and talks of civil war. On December 18, 1859 the Philodemic Society’s debate on whether the South should secede descended into a chaotic brawl. The fight ended only after Fr. Early turned out the lights in the Philodemic room, and he proceeded to ban any further meetings of the Philodemic Society for the remainder of the academic year.3
Civil War
In the Spring of 1861, in an effort to avoid potential riots during the assembly of Congress that summer, Fr. Early rescheduled commencement.4 However, in the days following the April 12 attack on Fort Sumter, more than 100 students were called home. Fr. Early remained resolved to keep Georgetown open, but he could not bar Georgetown’s student or faculty involvement in the war.
On May 4, 1861, the federal government ordered Fr. Early to prepare campus for living quarters for an estimated 1,400 members of the 69th New York National Guard. The regiment stayed in Maguire Hall, then known as the Preparatory Building, and Old South until May 24. Less than two weeks later, Georgetown was again ordered to prepare quarters on June 3 for the 79th New York National Guard. While only numbering 1000, the soldiers quarreled frequently, and the fifty scholars on campus were eager for the regiment’s departure in July. Georgetown proceeded with a commencement that summer, but honors were distributed without fanfare, and the ceremony concluded in twenty minutes.5
Fr. Early refused to close the college for the 1861-62 school year, but only seventeen students arrived for the first day of term in September. By October, the student body had risen to sixty. Georgetown was able to maintain regular classes and the Dramatic Association continued to provide entertainment. That July, Georgetown hosted a commencement with the usual fanfare.6
At the Second Battle of Bull Run that August, General Pope and the Union troops he commanded were driven back to Washington, D.C. On August 29, Fr. Early was notified that Georgetown’s buildings would need to serve as a hospital for the sick and wounded. With the Battle of Antietam on September 17, the number of patients at Georgetown rose as high as 500 at times, and the school struggled to save space for students and faculty. As rooms were vacated, they were gradually disinfected, repaired, and returned to student use.7
Enrollment began to rise slowly over the next two years. In April 1865, after news of the assassination of President Lincoln, Georgetown draped the gates and the doors of Old North and Old South with black cloth. At the start of term in 1865, there were more than 100 boarders and day students, including students from the South, among them, seven from Louisiana.8
Fr. Early was succeeded in June of 1866 by his former predecessor, Fr. Maguire. He spent the next four years serving another term as President of the University of Loyola in Baltimore, before returning again to succeed Fr. Maguire and serve a second term as Georgetown’s President in 1870.
Second Presidency (1870-1873)
That fall, the law school’s inaugural class numbered only twenty-five, but the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia made graduation from the law school a license to admission to the bar. At the 1871 commencement ceremony, General William Tecumseh Sherman distributed the premiums and medals. In the aftermath of the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, Georgetown students raised $150 which, added to $200 from the administration, Fr. Early donated to relief efforts in Chicago. In December 1872, the first edition of the Georgetown College Journal was printed at a length of eight pages and an annual subscription cost of $1.9
During this time, Georgetown, including the President, became swept up in baseball. To the dismay of then Prefect Fr. Patrick Healy, Fr. Early often permitted extra holidays so students could go and watch the local semi-professional club, the Washington Olympics. Georgetown would organize it's own baseball team during this time and played the first intercollegiate game in 1866 against Columbian College (now The George Washington University).10
Death
In early 1873, Fr. Early’s health began to fail, and his deteriorating eyesight made it difficult for him to read or write. On May 23, 1873, after a sudden bout of paralysis, Fr. Early passed away. 11More than forty priests participated in his Requiem Mass, and the crowd of mourners, numbering close to 5,000, stretched from the doors of Dahlgren Chapel, down the stairs and out to the gates. Fr. Early was laid to rest in Georgetown’s Jesuit Community Cemetery, and Fr. Patrick Healy assumed the presidency.12
- 1“Death of Rev. John Early, S.J.” College Journal – Supplement. June 1873.
- 2Georgetown University (Washington, DC), Ye Domesday Booke, 1939, p. 34.
- 3Peter Brigham, “War on the Potomac.” The Hoya. 15 Nov. 2012.
- 4Emmett Curran, Robert. “The Bicentennial History of Georgetown University: From Academy to University, 1789–1889.” 1993, p.220-30.
- 5Gilmary Shea, John. “Memorial of the First Century of Georgetown College, D.C.” 1891, pp.205-08.
- 6Id.
- 7Id.
- 8Id. at p.212.
- 9Id. at pp.240-47.
- 10Emmett Curran, Robert. “The Bicentennial History of Georgetown University: From Academy to University, 1789–1889.” 1993, pp.220-30
- 11“Death of Rev. John Early, S.J.” College Journal – Supplement. June 1873.
- 12“Father John Early, Died at Georgetown, May 23, 1873.” Woodstock Letters, Vol. XIX, No. 1, 1890, pp.112-13.
