Joseph Denison (pastor) (original) (raw)

Joseph J. Denison (October 1, 1815 – February 19, 1900) was a Methodist pastor; the first President of Kansas State University; and a founder of Manhattan, Kansas, having volunteered to go to Kansas Territory with the New England Emigrant Aid Company in 1855 to fight against the extension of slavery. Denison was born in Bernardston, Massachusetts and raised in Colrain, Massachusetts. He graduated from Wesleyan University in 1840, and then served as a Methodist pastor in Massachusetts until 1855.