14 Facts About Landon Garland

Landon Garland was an apologist for slavery in the United States before the Civil War, but afterward became a vociferous spokesperson against slavery.

Landon Garland was born March 21,1810, in Nelson County, Virginia.

Landon Garland's older brother, Hugh A Garland, who was one of the lawyers involved in the Dred Scott case and author of a biography of John Randolph of Roanoke, was a Hampden-Sydney graduate.

Landon Garland taught chemistry and natural philosophy at Washington College in Lexington, Virginia, from 1829 to 1830.

Landon Garland taught chemistry and natural history at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia, from 1833 to 1834, eventually being elected chair of the department.

Landon Garland moved to the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in 1847, where he taught English literature, rhetoric, and history.

Landon Garland served as its third president from 1857 to 1867.

Only a single student enrolled for classes in 1866; Landon Garland resigned and accepted the chair of philosophy and astronomy at the University of Mississippi in 1867.

Landon Garland had definite ideas about the rules that would govern the university's place in this world.

Two years later, in 1891, Landon Garland tendered his resignation to the board of trustees, but they kept it in abeyance until 1893 when the board named James Hampton Kirkland as chancellor.

Landon Garland enslaved "up to 60" people before the Civil War; the first few were given to his bride and him by their parents as marriage gifts.

Landon Garland believed that ending slavery would result in "midnight Conflagrations of our houses and the butchery of our wives and children," a classic white supremacist fantasy.

Landon Garland was buried alongside Bishops McTyeire, Joshua Soule, and William McKendree in a fenced grave in the Vanderbilt University Divinity Cemetery.

Also, Landon Cabell Garland Hall on the University of Alabama campus is named after him, as is a dorm at Randolph-Macon College.