Lyon, James Adair, Dd

Lyon, James Adair, D.D.

a Presbyterian minister, was born near Jonesborough, Tennessee, April 19, 1814. He graduated from Washington College in 1832, and afterwards from Princeton Theological Seminary; was ordained as an evangelist by the Holston Presbytery, and after serving, for five years, as a stated supply, the churches of Rogersville and New Providence, became pastor of the Columbus Church, Miss., where he remained six years. He then spent a year in foreign travel, and after his return was installed pastor of the Westminster Church, St. Louis, Missouri. In 1850 he established a select high-school for young ladies there, which he taught three years, and returned to his old charge at Columbus. In 1870 he was elected professor of mental and moral science in the University of Mississippi, at Oxford, which position he held for ten years, when failing health compelled him to resign. As a writer, he contributed largely to the Southern Quarterly Review. He was moderator of the General Assembly, and repeatedly elected to important positions in connection with literary and theological institutions, among them to the presidency of Washington College, and the chair of didactic theology in Danville Seminary, Kentucky. He died at Holly Springs, Mississippi, May 15, 1882. See Necrol. Report of Princeton Theol. Ser. 1883, page 31. (W.P.S.)