William M. Daily collection, 1835-1925, bulk 1835-1859
A Guide to his Collection at the Indiana University Archives
Processed by Anne Pederson
Electronic finding aid
encoded by John Cash and Francis Lapka
Summary Information
Repository
Indiana University Archives
1320 East Tenth Street
Herman B Wells Library E460
Bloomington, IN 47405-7000
Phone: 812-855-1127
Email: archives@indiana.edu
http://www.libraries.iub.edu/archives
Creator
Daily, William M., 1812-1877
TitleWilliam M. Daily collection, 1835-1925, bulk 1835-1859
Collection No.
C227
Extent
.6 cubic feet
Language
Materials are in English.
Abstract
William Daily was a Methodist minister,
and served as president of Indiana University, 1853-1859. The collection includes
correspondence, speeches, financial records, administrative records relating to his
presidency at Indiana University; most prominent are records relating to charges brought
against Daily during his presidency.
Access Restrictions
This collection is open for research.
Advance notice is required.
Biographical Note
William Mitchell Daily was born in Coshocton, Ohio, in 1812, but was raised in Indiana.
He became a Methodist minister at the age of 19 and traveled throughout Indiana
preaching. In 1835 he came to Bloomington with his ministry and began studies at Indiana
University; he graduated the following year. Daily moved to St. Louis in 1838 and worked
as an agent for the Missouri Conference. Shortly after this move he became a professor
at St. Charles College. He returned to Indiana in 1840 to recover from a medical
condition called hemorrhage of the lungs; upon recovery, he resumed his ministerial
career. Daily married Permelia Northcraft in 1843 while he was a minister in Madison,
Indiana. Beginning in December 1844 until November 1845 Daily served as Chaplain to the
United States House of Representatives. Later he became an agent for Indiana Asbury
University (now DePauw) and a member of the Indiana General Conference in 1852.
Upon his return to Bloomington, he became a member of the Board of Trustees at Indiana
University on February 10, 1853, and attended his first meeting on July 30, 1853. On
August 3, a mere day and a half after the resignation of President Ryors, the Board
elected Daily as the third president of the university. Daily’s appointment came in the
midst of rife sectarianism on campus and in the community. From the beginnings of the
university, Presbyterians had constituted most of the school’s staff and faculty. This
caused the Bloomington community to raise questions about the diversity of the school
and about the politics involved. The Indiana Methodist Conference, established in 1832,
made it a priority to be represented at the university itself, not just on the board.
The sect met with certain opposition. Samuel Bigger, who was elected Indiana governor in
1840, declared that “there was not a Methodist in America with sufficient learning to
fill a professor’s chair if it were tendered him.” (Woodburn p.115) But in 1853 the
state had a new governor, Joseph A. Wright, who believed Daily’s status as a Methodist
and a Democrat could help the institution with its financial troubles. Daily’s lack of
credentials as an educator, however, caused many members of the IU faculty to feel he
was unqualified for such an important position.
Daily’s presidency was threatened in July 1858, when Dr. Alexander M. Murphy filed
eleven separate charges against him. These charges included incompetence, plagiarism,
and incurrence of debt. Other charges concerned incidents of sexual advances towards
young women while his wife was away, with these being particularly damning. Murphy
maintained that Daily was a “lecher and a lewd man at heart,” and that he had used his
position to seduce women.
Murphy’s statements were compounded by other incidents involving Daily at the end of
1858. Louisa J. Smith, who did not know Daily, stated that on December 29, a strange man
had accosted her in the street—the man matched Daily’s description. On New Year’s Eve,
prominent Indianapolis citizens William Wallace and Benjamin Harrison (future President
of the United States) testified that they had seen Daily intoxicated in public. These
complaints came to the Board with Murphy’s charges in January 1859. The body decided
that Murphy would need to produce a list of witnesses to sustain the accusations. The
next morning, instead of producing this list, Murphy dropped the charges altogether.
Although none of the charges against Daily were substantiated, he resigned his
presidency on January 26, 1859, “in order that the unfavorable publicity connected with
the trial might not be prejudicial to the University.” (Myers p. 328) In a separate
farewell address he delivered in February, Daily spoke of the affair as “slimy
subterranean damnable conspiracies, brought about by malignant selfish, fiendish,
devilish men who are instigated by malice.” He also called the members of the faculty “a
set of pusillanimous, narrow-minded bigots.”
Local Methodists were disappointed by Daily, who was the first major Methodist faculty
member at the University. In October 1859, the Indiana Methodist Conference met in
Bloomington to decide upon Daily’s fate in the association. It was a closed meeting;
there were no witnesses presented and no minutes recorded, except for the decision:
William Daily was expelled from connection with the conference. Regardless of the
university’s decision, the Conference felt that Daily should have been free of all
suspicion in his position.
During the last years of his life Daily continued his ministry. Anxious to move South,
he accepted the appointment of President Lincoln to become hospital chaplain in 1862. He
served with the Louisiana Conference beginning in 1869. Daily was in the midst of this
new career in the North New Orleans district when he became ill and died a few days
later on February 5, 1877. He is buried in Madison, Indiana.
Arrangement
Organized into five series: Correspondence, Financial records, Administrative files,
Speeches, and Testimony.
Scope and Content Note
The collection has been organized into five series: Correspondence; Financial records;
Speeches; Testimony; and Administrative files. All files are arranged chronologically
within their series. Because the Archives holds so little from Daily and his tenure as
president of IU, this collection holds both his administrative records and a small
amount of personal papers.
The collection begins with a Correspondence series and includes both university and
personal correspondence. Prominent are letters written by Daily to his brother, "D.O."
in Huntington, Ind., as well as letters written to Theophilus Wylie regarding his
appointment at IU.
This is followed by a small series of Financial records, which has two receipts from
Samuel Buskirk to the university.
The next series, Speeches, consists of formal addresses from Daily’s presidency. Of note
is a report on his fiery farewell address in February 1859. This latter item was not
written by Daily; it appears to be in T.A. Wylie's hand.
The Testimony series chronicles the charges made against Daily in 1858 and 1859.
Included are the initial charges brought by A.M. Murphy in August 1858 and testimony
collected by Reverand F.A. Hester on behalf of the Methodist Church on Daily's
immorality charges. Witnesses include several prominent Indianpolis citizens, including
Benjamin Harrison, then an Indianapolis attorney, who went on to become the 23rd
President of the United States. Also found here are responses of the faculty, written by
T.A. Wylie.
Within the Administrative files, researchers will find additional records relating to
Daily's dismissal, but also a subscription book of donations given to the
university after the 1854 destroyed the First College Building, tuition announcements, and a resolution regarding standard
text book adoption for the state.
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Indexing Terms
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The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in
IUCAT, the IU Libraries' online
catalog. Materials about related topics, persons or places can be found by searching the
catalog using these terms.
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Names
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Indiana University
--History --19th century --Sources.
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Indiana University
--Administration --History --19th century --Sources.
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Daily, William M.
(William Mitchell), 1812-1877 --Correspondence.
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Daily, William M.
(William Mitchell), 1812-1877 --Archives.
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Wylie, Theophilus
Adam, 1810-1895 --Correspondence.
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Daily, D. O.
--Correspondence.
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Wylie, Theophilus Adam,
1810-1895. Correspondence. Selections.
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Daily, D. O. Correspondence.
Selections.
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Administrative Information
Acquisition InformationAccessions 1135 and 7031
Some materials in this collection were transferred from the University Archives’
reference file.
Usage RestrictionsThis collection contains materials both in copyright and in the public domain.
The donor(s) of this collection have not transferred their copyrights for the materials to the Trustees of Indiana University.
For more information, please contact the Indiana University Archives staff.
The Indiana University Archives respects the intellectual property rights of others and does not claim any copyrights for
non-university records, materials in the public domain, or materials for which we do not hold a Deed of Gift. Responsibility
for the determination of the copyright status of these materials rests with those persons wishing to reuse the materials.
Researchers are responsible for securing permission from copyright owners and any other rights holders for any reuse of these
materials that extends beyond fair use or other statutory limitations.
Digital reproductions of archival materials from the Indiana University Archives are made available for noncommercial educational
and research purposes only. If you are the copyright holder for any of the digitized materials and have questions about its
inclusion on our site, please contact the Indiana University Archivist.
Preferred Citation
[Item], William M. Daily collection, Collection C227, Indiana University Archives, Bloomington.
Processing InformationProcessed by Anne Pederson, 2004.
Revised in 2011 by Dina M. Kellams.
Series:
Correspondence, 1854-1933
Box 1
Buskirk, S. to Unknown, undated
re: Support of Daily for the Presidency
View item(s)
Wylie, T. A.,
9 January
1854
View item(s)
re: Wylie as potential professor
17 June
1854
re: Reverand Elias H. Sabin’s honorary degree
View item(s)
Lane, Joseph,
Typescripts; origin unknown
8 February 1855,
re: appointment of Loyd Glazebrook
View item(s)
8 February 1855,
re: criticism of the state legislature
View item(s)
to T.A. Wylie,
24 March
1855
re: Wylie’s acceptance of position at IU
View item(s)
7 April
1855
re: Unanimous election of Wylie as professor of philosophy and chemistry
View item(s)
Woodburn, J. to Whom it May Concern, 8 August 1856
re: Sarah McCalla’s teaching certification
View item(s)
Wylie, T.A., 3 March 1857
re: Daily’s delay in Indianapolis
View item(s)
Rogers, J. to President and Board of Trustees, 3 June 1857
re: construction costs
View item(s)
Wylie, T.A.,
20 July
1858
re: Request for Wylie to be present in August
View item(s)
10 January
1859
re: Wylie as surrogate president while Daily is out of town
View item(s)
29 January
1859
re: Daily’s transfer of university register, seal
View item(s)
to W.H. English,
Photostats. Originals held by the
Indiana Historical Society.
22 November
1859
re: supplication for employment
16 December
1859
re: English’s influence with the administration
Cravens, J.A. to W.H. English, 25 November 1860
re: thanks for a favor
Photostats. Originals held by the
Indiana Historical Society.
to D.O. Daily,
22 November
1864
re: William’s decision to stay in Indiana
View item(s)
23 July
1865
re: William’s life in the “Benton Barracks”
View item(s)
2 October
1865
re: Lizzie’s aborted trip to see D.O. Daily
View item(s)
3 October
1865
re: William’s commission to Special Agent of the Post Office
View item(s)
10 October
1865
re: William’s trip to New Orleans
View item(s)
23 March
1866
re: William’s new life in New Orleans
View item(s)
11 April
1866
re: Lizzie’s stay with D.O. Daily’s family
View item(s)
5 May
1866
re: D.O. Daily’s possible application as Attorney General
View item(s)
Lawton, Lizzie E. (Daily's daughter) to Miss Louise Maxwell,
1 February
1898
re: memorabilia Lizzie found about her parents
View item(s)
11 July
1898
re: contact information for Lizzie and her mother
View item(s)
Daily, Thomas to John Cravens, 1 April 1925
re: information about burial site of William M. Daily
View item(s)
Series:
Financial records, 1857
Box 1
Receipt for IU signed by Samuel Buskirk,
Series:
Speeches, 1851-1859,
undated
Box 1
"Funeral of a Minister, or A Righteous Public Man," 1851
View item(s)
Sermon delivered at funeral of first Indiana University President Andrew
Wylie
Transcript of William Daily’s inaugural address, 2 August 1853
View item(s)
"Our Banner." A Baccalaureate to the Graduating Class of the Indiana University, at the Commencement of MDCCCLVI. 3 August 1856
View item(s)
"Dedication of a New House, Indiana University," 30 November 1856
View item(s)
Second College Building dedication
Baccalaureate to the Law Class of 1857, February 1857
View item(s)
President Daily’s Farewell Address, 20 February 1859
View item(s)
(This was not written by Daily; looks to have been written by T.A. Wylie)
Series:
Testimony, 1858-1859,
undated
Testimony,
"Mrs. Murphy's Testimony reported by T.A. Wylie,"
17 August
1858
View item(s)
Rev. F.A. Hester’s charge to collect witness testimony for the Daily
Trial by S.L. Gillet, 12 January 1859
View item(s)
Statements, 1859
against William Daily by Indianapolis law partners William Wallace
and (future U.S. President) Benjamin Harrison, 11 January 1859
View item(s)
Faculty response to charges against
them, 1859
View item(s)
Written by T.A. Wylie
Faculty response as to why Daily was denied use of College Chapel for
his farewell address, 1859
View item(s)
Written by T.A. Wylie
"An Address to the Faculty as is Present Constituted," by James P.
Applegate, undated
View item(s)
Letter to faculty from the sophomore regarding faculty actions against
Daily
Series:
Administrative files, 1853-1859,
undated
Tuition and Boarding fees information, 16
April 1853
View item(s)
Resolution re: uniform text books for state schools, 3 April 1854
View item(s)
Seminary Square - subscription/donors for rebuilding after the 1854
fire
View item(s)
Letters written to parents of students requesting dismissal after
resignation of Pres. Daily, February 1859
View item(s)
Report on activities surrounding Daily’s departure to the Board of
Trustees, undated
View item(s)