EV. WILLIAM H. DOHERTY was a member of the New York Central Conference. He removed to Ohio and was received as an Elder in the Miami Christian Conference. He was a professor of Belles Lettres in Antioch College. And in 1859, he was elected president of Graham College, North Carolina.

      The following is the Certificate from the clerk of the Miami Conference to the North Carolina and Virginia Conference held at Union in Alamance county, in 1859:

"State of Ohio, Cincinnati, September 20, 1859.

      "I do hereby certify that Prof. W. H. Doherty was received into full membership as an ordained minister of the Gospel by the Miami Christian Conference, at its annual meeting in 1853, on letters of dismissal and recommendation from the New York Central Christian Conference. That he was president of said Miami Conference in 1858, the time of his removal to North Carolina, and that in the same year he received public thanks by vote of said body for his eminent services as president of the Missionary Board."

Signed, "L. D. Robinson,               Clerk Miami Christian Conference."

      Besides having been elected president of Graham College, he had been elected president of the Executive Board of the Trustees. A new impetus was given to the institution. He was at this Conference appointed on a special committee of seven to consider the report of the Conference committee, and certain documents referred to the Conference. He served on the ordaining presbytery with Revs. T. J. Fowler and S. Apple, which ordained Revs. J. N. Manning, P. W. Allen, and Henry Gant.

      He attended the Eastern Virginia Conference in the interest of the College, and delivered a "learned and [330] able" address on the subject of Education, "which was listened to with marked attention by a large audience." He also preached on Sunday, November 6th, at Providence chapel, the place where the Conference was held.

      At the Conference at Pleasant Hill in Chatham county, in 1860, he was appointed chairman of each of the committees on ordination and education. The report on education submitted by the chairman of the committee was very commendatory of the institution located at Graham, North Carolina. He also served as a member of the ordaining presbytery at this Conference. By 1862 the College had suspended and Prof. Doherty was no longer an attendant upon the Conferences. At the Conference at Antioch in Chatham county, in 1864, the special committee of all the Elders in their report recommended that he be suspended "from the exercise of all ministerial functions until a regular investigation of all the charges" against him could be had. In 1865, the matter was referred to the Conference Executive committee, and in 1866, at O'Kelly's chapel, he was finally expelled from this Conference. While he was a brilliant man, his intemperate habits undermined his character and led finally to his downfall.

      From this state he aroused himself, having been almost totally wrecked in character, all but an outcast,--a sad commentary on his genius,--and he located in Washington, D. C. Here he lived a number of years, with an intelligent family, till the year 1890, He died March 3, 1890, at the advanced age of eighty years.

[LCM 330-331]