This is a reprint from the Centre County Historical Society Encyclopedia.
By William Blair
John Hamilton was one of the most influential leaders in the early history of Penn State and State College. He served Penn State as superintendent of farms, director of cadets, professor of agriculture, business manager, and treasurer. He promoted road building while serving on the State College borough council, built a home that started the Highlands Historic District, and helped establish the State College Presbyterian Church.
At the state level, he spread agricultural knowledge as deputy and then secretary of agriculture for Pennsylvania. He created farmers’ institutes in the state and later was hired by the United States Department of Agriculture in Washington to replicate those institutes across the country.
Hamilton was born in Mifflin County on February 19, 1843. When he was 13, his father enrolled him in the Tuscarora Academy in Juniata County. There he was the youngest enrollee, studying English and math along with Latin and Greek, courses typical then for entrance to college. He spent limited time at the school, enrolling next in an academy at Port Royal until it closed in 1859.
The Civil War put a hold on Hamilton’s pursuit of education. In the summer of 1860, he joined a local militia unit that became Company A, 1st Pennsylvania Cavalry when the war began. He fought in twenty-eight battles and thirty skirmishes in the war’s Virginia Theater. In 1864 he mustered out of the service as a sergeant major.
Although he had sampled a classical education in his teens, Hamilton wanted something different. He thought of becoming a civil engineer to repair railroads in the war-ravaged South and wanted to learn mathematics, chemistry, botany, and other sciences. The new Farmers’ High School of Pennsylvania in Centre County answered these goals.
His leadership skills quickly caught the eye of superiors, and by the late autumn of 1865 they asked him to take charge of the college farm and supervise student labor. For a time, these responsibilities kept him from taking courses. In late 1868, now aiming for an academic career, he resigned as business manager and resumed his studies. He graduated in 1871 and became the first professor of agriculture at the college after Evan Pugh.
Hamilton and others faced challenges in placing the future Penn State on sound financial footing. An enrollment of roughly 140 in the early 1860s had dwindled to 36. Through periodic stints as business manager and, beginning in 1875 as treasurer, he supervised the school’s financial solvency. At various times he had to ask for loans from friends across the state.
On October 27, 1875, he married Elizabeth McFarlane Thompson. “Libbie” was a daughter of Mary and Moses Thompson, who owned Centre Furnace. The professor and his wife set up housekeeping on the first two floors of the west wing in Old Main.
In 1890, the Hamiltons began building an impressive home on what is now Locust Lane. They called it the “Highlands” because it offered a view overlooking the college. They later pioneered what became the Highlands Historic District. The Hamilton home is now occupied by Delta Upsilon fraternity, and the Hamilton barn has become Acacia fraternity.
Hamilton hoped to spread appreciation for scientific farming beyond Penn State. While still running the financial side of the college, he fashioned a career that advanced his cause. In the 1870s he represented Centre County as a member of the state board of agriculture, creating networks with farmers. In 1892 he lost a bid for state representative, but he gained visibility in political circles.
In 1895, Governor Daniel Hastings of Bellefonte appointed Hamilton as the first deputy secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture. As deputy secretary he nurtured farmers’ institutes, providing a template for lectures and conducting demonstrations of scientific techniques throughout the state.
When a new administration in the governor’s office made his replacement as agriculture secretary only a matter of time, Hamilton applied for a position in the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Hamilton as a “farmers’ institute specialist,” an assignment that kept him traveling the country for a decade.
As Hamilton began to wind down from work, he retired as treasurer of the college in 1912 and from the USDA in 1914. For years he had lived in two places, keeping his State College home while also maintaining households first in Harrisburg and then in Washington. Now he shifted his focus to community development and local politics.
Hamilton was a leader in the construction of the new State College Presbyterian Church, where he and Libbie donated the stained-glass windows that are still in the sanctuary. Elected to the State College Borough Council, he chaired the street committee for four years and improved dirt roads and wooden walkways with crushed stone and brick.
He also became a real estate developer, carving up his Highlands farm into residential plots. The tract occupied an area framed roughly by today’s College and McCormick avenues, and Garner and Pugh streets. Starting in 1908, as the owner of the Hamilton Subdivision, he petitioned the state to allow the creation of a sewer system on his acreage even before State College had such a facility.
On July 5, 1921, John Hamilton died at the age of 78. He was preceded in death by Libbie in 1915.
Sources
Betty Bechtel, “John Hamilton, Part I: Chronicler of the 19th Century,” Town and Gown Magazine (August 1981): 48-56; “John Hamilton Part II: Soldier and Scholar,” Town and Gown Magazine (September 1981): 14-26; “John Hamilton, Pat III: Beyond His Time,” Town and Gown Magazine (October 1981): 18-30.
Elizabeth T. Hamilton Diary, 1899, Box N001, Centre County Historical Society Archives.
John Hamilton, “The Life of John Hamilton,” unpublished manuscript, n.d., Centre County Historical Society Archives.
John Hamilton, “Many Streets Are Improved: Report of Committee,” Centre Daily Times, January 5, 1917.
Obituaries: “The Passing Away of Hon. John Hamilton,” The (State College) Times, July 16, 1921; “Prof. John Hamilton Dies at State College,” The Centre Reporter, July 14, 1921.
Emily Rupp, “The Thompson Family of Centre County,” Penn State University Libraries, https://libraries.psu.edu/about/collections/unearthing-past-student-research-pennsylvania-history/thompson-family-centre (Accessed May 5, 2025).