Henry Martin Tupper
Henry Martin Tupper D.D. was a Baptist minister who founded Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. Beginning with bible and literacy classes in December 1865, it was the first university established for African Americans following the end of the civil war, and the oldest historically black college and university in the Southern United States, as well as one of the oldest coeducational universities in the country. When the institute moved into a new building in 1871, it was renamed as Shaw Collegiate Institute in honor of a major donor. Tupper served as the Universitys first president from its founding until his death in 1893.
Henry Martin Tupper was born on April 11, 1831 to Earl and Permellia Norris Tupper and raised on a farm in Monson, Massachusetts. He was the eldest of nine children. His grandfather, Ezra Tupper, and greatgrandfather, William Tupper, had both fought for the colonies in the American Revolutionary War. His paternal ancestry has been linked to a family of prominent Lutheran dissenters who left Germany and settled in England during the reign of Henry VIII. He was a distant relative of Martin Farquhar Tupper, an English poet of the 19th century. Clergyman Thomas Tupper, an ancestor of Henry Martin Tupper, emigrated from England to Barbados in the early 17th century. He later helped found the town of Sandwich, Massachusetts.
Source: Wikipedia