Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Henson, Poindexter Smith

HENSON, Poindexter Smith, clergyman, b. in Fluvanna county, Va., 7 Dec., 1831. He was graduated at Richmond college in 1848, and at the University of Virginia in 1851. He taught in Milton, N. C., for two years, at the same time studying law and editing a weekly paper, and was professor of natural science in the Chowan female college at Murfreesborough, N. C., for two years. After beginning the practice of the law in his native county, he was ordained as minister of the Baptist church in Fluvanna in February, 1856. He also conducted a female seminary while he was there. On 27 Dec., 1867, he became pastor of the Broad street church in Philadelphia, which he left in 1867, to organize the Memorial church, where he gathered the largest Protestant congregation in that city. Dr. Henson is also editor of the “Baptist Teacher.” In 1878 he declined the presidency of Lewisburg university.