John Pym Carter
John Pym Carter (1811–January 6, 1892) was an American Presbyterian minister and educator who became the second president of the Ashmun Institute in Oxford, Pennsylvania, which later became Lincoln University. He served from October 8, 1856, to 1861 and was the school’s only faculty member for much of that time, teaching a wide range of subjects and preparing students for Presbyterian ordination and missionary work. Carter was born in Plymouth, England, and moved to the United States with his family at age five, settling in Washington, D.C. He attended Georgetown University, married Martha Webb of Baltimore, and was ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1838 after converting in 1834.
The Ashmun Institute opened on January 1, 1857 with only four students after receiving its charter in 1854. Carter’s salary was $700 a year, with a house and a farm on campus provided by founder John Miller Dickey. During his tenure the school educated twenty African American men; its first three graduates—Armisted Miller, James R. Amos, and Thomas H. Amos—went to Liberia as missionaries. In 1860, John Wynne Martin joined as a second faculty member. Carter left the presidency in spring 1861, and Martin succeeded him.
After leaving Ashmun Institute, Carter taught briefly at New London Academy, then founded the Maryland Collegiate Institute in Baltimore, which he ran until 1869. He later served as chief clerk of the Baltimore Custom House for 18 years and as Stated Clerk of the Baltimore Presbytery from 1866 until his death, and of the Synod from 1870 until his death. He delivered the theological commencement address at Lincoln University in 1889 and died in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 1892, at age 81.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 13:16 (CET).