Ignatius Alphonso Few

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Ignatius Alphonso Few was an American attorney, farmer, and preacher who helped start what would become Emory University. He led a small early school based on manual labor, which failed, and later the program for sub-freshmen at Emory College. He is remembered as the first president of Emory.

Few was born on April 11, 1789, in Columbia County, Georgia, to Captain Ignatius Few and Mary Candler. He spent much of his youth in New Jersey, where he studied at Princeton University and in New York City, then returned to Georgia to study law in Augusta. In 1811 he married Salina Carr.

He became an unsuccessful farmer and returned to the practice of law in 1823. He then fell seriously ill with a form of lung fever, perhaps tuberculosis. During this illness he experienced a spiritual conversion and joined the Methodist Episcopal Church.

In 1828 Few felt called to ministry and was admitted to the MEC as a minister. He was a charter member of the Georgia Conference of the MEC in 1831. Because of his poor health, he left active ministry before 1835.

In 1838 he received a Doctor of Law degree from Wesleyan University in Connecticut. In 1834 the Georgia Conference founded a school for manual labor near Covington, about 30 miles from what would become Atlanta. Few was chosen to lead this school. Students were expected to work three hours a day, while also studying reading, writing, and arithmetic to prepare for further education.

The manual labor concept was well meant but difficult to sustain. The school accumulated debt, and Few remained committed to finding a better path. He helped shift the plan toward a traditional college focused on academics. The Georgia Conference asked for a charter to establish a college, and in 1840 the Manual Labor School closed and was replaced by a program for “sub-freshmen” at Emory College. By the end of that first year at Emory, Few’s health was failing, and he stayed there until July 1841.

In 1844 he wrote a report describing the split of the MEC into the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. He died probably from tuberculosis on November 21, 1845, in Athens, Georgia, and was buried in Oxford, Georgia. He is remembered as the founder of Emory College and as the first citizen of Oxford.