Reverand Jeremiah Bell Jeter
(1802-1880)
President of the Executive Board, Virginia Baptist Education Society, 1835-1842
President of the Board of Managers, Virginia Baptist Seminary, 1835-1842
President of the Board of Trustees, Richmond College, 1868-1872, 1873-1880
Jeremiah Jeter, born in Bedford County, Va., was educated in its “old field” schools. He was offered a college education but declined the offer on the advice of older ministers because his services were needed immediately. Jeter and Daniel Witt were the first missionaries of the Baptist General Association of Virginia. Jeremiah Jeter was ordained as a minister in 1924.
In 1830, Mr. Jeter was a founder of the Virginia Baptist Education Society, the institution that established the Virginia Baptist Seminary two years later. The Seminary became Richmond College in 1840 by charter of Virginia’s General Assembly. Jeter was a dedicated president of the Seminary’s Board of Managers and of the College’s Board of Trustees. In 1889, Mrs. Mary C. Dabbs Jeter established in Richmond College the Jeremiah Bell Jeter Scholarship in memory of her husband. Jeter Hall, a residence hall for men, was built in 1914 at Richmond College as a memorial to Jeremiah Bell Jeter.
Mr. Jeter was pastor of First Baptist Church in Richmond from 1836–1849 and of Grace Street Baptist Church, also in Richmond, from 1852–1870. Present at the formation of the Baptist General Association of Virginia in 1823, Jeter was its president from 1854–1857. He was a leader in forming the Southern Baptist Convention and served as the first president of its Foreign Mission Board. Jeter also served as president of the boards of trustees of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Richmond College and the Richmond Female Institute.
In November 1865, Mr. Jeter helped revive the Religious Herald, where he was a co-owner and co-editor. Jeter wrote most of the Herald’s editorials. In addition to his editorial work, he was the author of several books. Among his published works are a Life of Mrs. Henrietta Shuck, the first American Female Missionary to China; Memoir of the Reverend Andrew Broaddus (1850); Campbellism Examined (1854); The Seal of Heaven (1871); and Recollections of a Long Life.