March 12, 2020 / Joanne Yeck

Buckingham County Notables: Rev. Reuben Baker Boatwright, Part IV

Three generations of Boatwrights.

Courtesy Boatwright Family Genealogy in America.

Need to catchup? Click here: Buckingham County Notables: Rev. Reuben Baker Boatwright, Part I

Rev. Boatwright’s impact on both churches and colleges was surprisingly widespread, yet author George Braxton Taylor felt his simple, local contributions would be longest remembered, writing:

Mr. Boatwright will be remembered as a country and village preacher, and his college and seminary friend, Dr. Charles H. Ryland, whose friendship ran out through sixty years, thinks that the following lines of Goldsmith well described his character and career: “Remote from towns he ran his godly race, Nor e’er had changed, nor wished to change, his place; Unpracticed he to fawn, or seek for power, By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour; Far other aims his heart had learned to prize, More bent to raise the wretched than to rise.”

No less important was the fact that Rev. Boatwright reared a son whose career continued his own dedication to higher education. Relying on an article in the Religious Herald (8 February 1906), Taylor concluded:

This article expressed the opinion that perhaps the best service he had rendered was the giving of his son, Dr. F. W. Boatwright, to Richmond College and to the world, and closed with these words: “His life has been a benediction, and I trust he may yet be spared for years to the hundreds and thousands who know and love him.” It was in the same year that Mr. Boatwright sent a brief letter to the Herald pleading for more “spiritual uplift” in its columns for the old men and women, declaring that it is “highly necessary to keep the ﬁres burning on the altars of our hearts.” Mr. Boatwright had known Mr. Sands, the ﬁrst editor of the Herald, and had paid $4 a year subscription for the paper.

For more about Dr. F. W. Boatwright (1868-1951), click here: Frederic W. Boatwright