John Mason Peck
Posted by: 
BruceS
N 38° 54.235 W 090° 08.647
15S E 747651 N 4309992
Historical marker on the campus of the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Dental School located in Alton, IL
Waymark Code: WM9NF
Location: Illinois, United States
Date Posted: 03/31/2006
Views: 74
On this site in 1831, John
Mason Peck (1789-1858), pioneer Baptist preacher, author, and educator,
established the school which became
Shurtleff College. In 1817, Peck had left his home in New England with a vision
"To bring the lamp of learning and light of the Gospel" into the undeveloped
west. He, his wife Sally, and three children endured an arduous four month trip
in a small one-horse wagon, settling in Rock Springs, near O'Fallon, Illinois.
There in 1827, Peck founded Rock
Springs Seminary, the first institution of it kind in the state of Illinois. In
1831, the Seminary was moved to the growing city of Alton, where in 1836, the
name was changed to Shurtleff College, recognizing the gift of $10,000 from Dr.
Benjamin Shurtleff of Boston.
John Mason Peck is well described as
a missionary and a teacher, an author, and an editor, a geographer and a
cartographer, and a promoter of churches, schools, and western settlement. For
thirty years, he was undoubtedly one of the strongest advocates of education and
righteousness in the entire Mississippi valley. He traveled hundreds of miles by
horseback or wagon, often under most difficult circumstances, while his wife and
children bore his long absences with fortitude.
Peck was one of the foremost ministerial opponents of slavery in Illinois and
provide great support to Governor Edward Coles' successful anti-slavery effort
in 1824. In 1851, he was honored with a doctor of divinity degree from Harvard
University. He died on March 16, 1858, and is buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery
in St. Louis.
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