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Thursday, August 11, 2022

Bishop John C. Kilgo Died Early This Morning, Aug 11, 1922

Hold Funeral of Dr. Kilgo Saturday. . . Dr. Candler of Atlanta Will Officiate; Died at Early Hour This Morning

Charlotte, Aug. 11—Bishop Candler of Atlanta will officiate at the funeral services of the late Bishop John C. Kilgo, who died at his home here at 1:45 o’clock this morning. The services will be conducted at 4 o’clock tomorrow afternoon at Hawthorne Lane Methodist Church. Announcement from the home this morning said that Bishops McMurray of Louisville, Ky., and Denny of Richmond, Va., probably would assist Bishop Candler, a warm personal friend of the deceased minister. Charlotte Methodist ministers also will participate in the exercises. The pall bearers will be chosen from local citizens who were formerly students under Bishop Kilgo at Trinity College.

Bishop Kilgo’s death occurred at an early hour this morning, following a noticeable decline at 5 o’clock yesterday afternoon that continued to the end. He had been unconscious almost continuously since Saturday night of last week, when he was suddenly stricken.

Bishop John C. Kilgo was 61 years of age He had been in declining health for some time. His death was not unexpected.

Bishop Kilgo was born in Laurens, S.C., July 22, 1861, the second son of James T. and Catherine Mason Kilgo. His father was one of the best known Methodist ministers of South Carlina in his day.

He attended Wofford college at Spartanburg but was forced to leave on account of ill health. Later he returned to become agent and to receive his master’s degree. From 1889 to 1894 Dr. Kilgo was professor of philosophy at Wofford College and in 1894 was elected to the presidency of Trinity College, Durham.

It was at Trinity that his life’s work was accomplished. As president, he raised the institution from a small pauper college to the most heavily endowed denominational institution in the South and raised its curriculum to that of a standard A-grade.

When he resigned the presidency in June, 1910, to accept the office of bishop of the Methodist Episcopal church, South, the number of students at the college in that year was more than twice the number in the first year of his administration.

Since 1910 Bishop Kilgo had been one of the leading figures in the Southern Methodist church, having been actively engaged in the work of his position, in this country and at stations in Asia and other foreign countries, until his heath began to decline a few years ago, during which he suffered several attacks, many of them serious, but from which he would rally and almost regain his normal health.

Bishop Kilgo was active in his bishopric work until 1918 when his health failed. From 1910 until 1917 he was president emeritus of Trinity, resigning in the latter year.

Dr. Kilgo was ordained a minister of the Methodist Episcopal church, South, in 1882 and in the fall of the same year married Miss Fannie H. Turner of Gaffney. In addition to the widow, Bishop Kilgo is survived by two sons and two daughters.

In 1895, Wofford and Randolph-Macon Colleges conferred the degree of doctor of divinity upon Bishop Kilgo and in 1910 he received the LL.D. degree from Tulane University.

From the front page of the Salisbury Evening Post, Friday, Aug. 11, 1922. Trinity College is now Duke University.

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