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.
Early life and family
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. Mary died unmarried. 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."
Career
Early years
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.