Ebenezer Pemberton (1746 – June 25, 1835) was an American educator and 2nd Principal of Phillips Academy Andover from 1786 to 1793. Refusing to follow his uncle's wishes to become a clergyman, Pemberton pursued a teaching career that would become his life's work. After graduating from Princeton University, he served terms as principal of a number of schools for early education including Plainfield Academy in Plainfield, Connecticut, Phillips Academy, and his own Pemberton Academy in Billerica, Massachusetts. He founded another school in 1810 in Boston, serving as principal there until poor health forced him to retire.
Pemberton was born in Newport, Rhode Island, sometime in 1746 to Samuel Pemberton and Mary Frye Leach, daughter of Thomas Leach and Sarah Frye, and had three siblings:
Patrick Grant served in the Revolutionary War with the Connecticut Militia out of Preston, Connecticut. He was a private in Captain John William's company and Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Gallup's regiment and was stationed at Fort Griswold in 1779.
Joanna married Captain John Cady July 8, 1779, in Plainfield, Connecticut. Originally living together in Plainfield, they moved to Norwich, Connecticut, for greater convenience for Capt. Cady's work as a ship captain. After his death Joanna returned to Plainfield for her two children's education and once they matured, she moved to New London, Connecticut, where she would spend the remainder of her life.
After Samuel Pemberton died, Mary Leach married Judge Lightfoot and had no children. From the age of seven, Pemberton grew up with his uncle, Rev. Ebenezer Pemberton, of Boston, pastor of Boston's New Brick Church and a founder of Princeton University and the Log College. His grandfather, also named Rev. Ebenezer Pemberton, was a minister of the Old South Church in Boston, which at the time resided in the Old South Meeting House. Consequently, due to his uncle's connections with the school, Pemberton attended Princeton University, then called the College of New Jersey, and graduated in 1765, valedictorian of his class. One Philadelphia newspaper reports Pemberton delivered an "elegant valedictory Oration on Patriotism."
After graduating from Princeton, Pemberton, from 1766 to 1769, taught at a Latin grammar school in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, and then for about a year returned to Princeton as a tutor, among his students Aaron Burr and James Madison. He then began studying theology under Rev. Samuel Hopkins in Newport. In 1771 while studying with Rev. Hopkins, he was "invited to keep the school", or in other words, invited to become a faculty member of Columbia University. He taught along with Jabez Denison, Ezra Stiles, and Charles Chauncy. Chauncy disliked Pemberton, describing him in a letter to Stiles:
"[Pemberton] is as thorow a fatalist, and bigot to the whole scheme connected wth it, as Mṛ Hopkins. Dṛ Witherspoon has a sad time of it; as the New Jersey College is the foundation of their [theological] corruption."
Unlike Chauncy, Stiles favored Pemberton. He sent students from the charity school including his son Isaac to the Latin grammar school in Elizabethtown Pemberton now ran. Pemberton finished his studies with Rev. Hopkins with a license to preach in 1778. He decided not to become a clergyman or preach however, despite his uncle's wishes and as a result was forced to "rely on his own resources." Pemberton is described "from his physical sensibility and religious scruples could never be persuaded to preach."
Pemberton also supposedly tried his hand at law, admitted to the Bar of Rhode Island in 1777, but equally disliked the practice as he did the clergy. This is unlikely, however, as Newport's economy was crippled and the population dispersed due to its occupation by the British in 1776.
In 1778, Pemberton moved to Plainfield, Connecticut, where his mother lived and became principal of Plainfield Academy in Plainfield, Connecticut, a secondary school founded in 1770. He was successful in Plainfield and continued to tutor in Newport. He quit however, soon into his administration, to teach at a school in Windham, Connecticut. His success in Plainfield caught the attention of Judge Samuel Phillips, founder of Phillips Academy.
Phillips offered Pemberton a permanent role at Phillips Academy, but initially refused due to his relatively poor health. Once he was allowed the option to resign, he accepted, receiving a salary of £140, succeeding Eliphalet Pearson as the second Principal in 1786. Pemberton showed continuous success in Andover. He "maintained strict discipline" and ran the day's schedule "with perfect smoothness" while only using force as a last resort. One resolution voted by the Trustees on July 7, 1786, reads the following:
"Voted, that if any member of the Academy shall be guilty of profanity or any other scandalous immorality; for the first offense it shall be the duty of the principal to administer a serious reproof. In case of a second offense notice thereof is to be given by the principal to the parent or guardian of such youth; and upon the third offense notice thereof shall be given to the Trustees."
Caleb Strong, then Governor of Massachusetts, reported back to Judge Phillips: "My son's manners are much improved. He is a good deal mended of the trick of moving his feet and fingers." Pemberton also improved the curriculum, introducing courses in geography, higher levels of math, and public speaking. In 1786, former student Josiah Quincy III and current student John Thornton Kirkland, both future Presidents of Harvard University, orated the lines of Brutus and Cassius from Julius Caesar at an exhibition. The student body was healthy during Pemberton's administration. A total of 77 students in eight classes graduated to college, mostly to Harvard. Religious instruction was also of great importance to Pemberton and the school's Trustees. Students, as was regular at the time, often read passages from the Bible during class, engaged in related exercises Monday afternoons, and attended mass at the South Church down the street on Sundays. Judge Phillips was pleased with Pemberton's work, as he writes in a letter dated July 26, 1790, to John Phillips:
"This Academy is in a more flourishing state than it has been for some time — its numbers before the vacation about 54 — twelve in the Sen'r class well fitted for college tho' but 7 have yet been offered for admission — the morals and deportment of the youths regular. The satisfaction to the Trustees, upon their examination, better than in some years past."
John Phillips, though primary founder of Phillips Exeter Academy, contributed to Phillips Academy in Andover over the years. One of his gifts included a sum of more than $20,000 in October 1789 in order to increase access of the school to students of poor families. In John Phillips' words, "for and in consideration of further promoting the virtuous and pious education of youth (poor children of genius, and of serious disposition especially)"
One of the most notable moments of Pemberton's administration was President George Washington's visit to Phillips Academy on November 5, 1789, during his tour of the Eastern States. He had spent the previous night in Deacon Isaac Abbot's Abbot Tavern on Elm Street and after breakfast at the tavern, was escorted by Judge Phillips and others to Central Street, past the South Church, up School Street, and south on Main Street where he was entertained at the Mansion House, Judge Phillips' residence, by him and his wife Phoebe Foxcroft Phillips. Phillips was already acquainted with Washington from the time Boston was under siege in 1775. That afternoon the President held an informal reception on what was then the training field, now the site of the Memorial Bell Tower.
In 1793, Pemberton began citing issues with his health that would compromise his ability as principal. He wrote a letter of resignation on October 9, 1793, which was delayed by the Trustees to December 24 with the hope his health might improve. They were reluctant to let go of Pemberton too soon, as he had only been principal for seven years and had been praised for his "ability, attention, and fidelity" as quoted from the Trustees themselves. Claude Fuess, 10th Headmaster of Phillips Academy, describes Pemberton in his history of the school in 1917 with the following lines from William Wordsworth's The Excursion: