Thomas Cox Teasdale, D. D. was born in the township of Wantage, Sussex Co., N. J., Dec. 2, 1808. He is the second son of the late Hon. Thomas Teasdale. His grandfather, Rev. Thos. Teasdale, was an earnest Baptist minister, who emigrated from England to this country when his oldest son, Thomas, the father of Dr. Teasdale, was fourteen years old. Not long after his arrival Elder Teasdale settled in the northern part of Sussex Co., N. J., and took charge of a church which is known as the Hamburg church. In the autumn of 1826 it pleased God to impress young Teasdale most deeply with a sense of his need of salvation. He felt it to be his duty to identify himself with the people of God, and accordingly related the exercises of his mind to the church, and on a bleak November Sabbath in 1826 was baptized by Elder Leonard Fletcher.For a time after his baptism his mind was greatly exercised in regard to the work of the ministry. He finally decided to obey the call, and in the spring of 1828 he was licensed to preach by his church. May of the same year he entered the theological seminary at Hamilton, N. Y. In the autumn of 1830 he accepted a call to the pastorate of a church in East Bennington, Vt., and was ordained on the 16th day of December, 1830.
In the spring of 1832 he removed to the city of Philadelphia, Pa. He spent four years in Philadelphia and vicinity, devoting most of his time to evangelical labors, which were eminently successful. In the spring of 1836 he was invited to take charge of the high school in Newton, N. J. The First and Second Baptist churches of Newton - one located in the village of Lafayette and the other in the town of Newton - also requested his services as their pastor. He removed to this field, and remained in it four years, and his efforts in awakening a deeper interest in education and religion were highly gratifying.
Mr. Teasdale served as pastor, after this, the First Baptist church of New Haven, Conn. He was next pastor of the Grant Street church, Pittsburgh, Pa., after this, of the First Baptist church of Springfield, Ill., then, of the E Street church, Washington, D. C. It was during his pastorate in Washington, in 1852, that he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity from Union College, Schenectady, N. Y.
In 1858, Dr. Teasdale removed to Columbus, Miss., and took charge of the church at that place. He had held a protracted meeting there six months previous to this removal, which resulted in the conversion of some four hundred persons.
In 1863 he resigned the care of the church in Columbus, and preached to the Confederate soldiers until the close of the war. Dr. Teasdale was for a time corresponding secretary of the Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, which flourished during his term of service.
In 1873, Dr. Teasdale was elected to the chair of Rhetoric and Elocution in the University of Tennessee, at Knoxville, where he now resides. His life has been one of great activity and usefulness.
He has baptized over 3000 persons; witnessed the profession of some 15,000 persons under his ministry; published several pamphlets and books, the principal of the latter of which is a volume of his "Revival Discourses;" contributed materially in building up institutions of learning; assisted in establishing the 'Orphans' Home,' in Mississippi. His work on "Baptism and Communion" is of rare merit, and so are his "Revival Discourses."
========= [From The Baptist Encyclopedia, 1881, reprint 1988, p. 1138. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall.]An essay: Character of the Baptists by Thomas C. Teasdale.
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