Adam Empie (September 7, 1785 – November 6, 1860) was an Episcopal priest in North Carolina and Virginia, who also taught and served as President of the College of William and Mary.

Empie worked during his years as a student at Union College in Schenectady, as well as studied under Eliphalet Nott and Benjamin Allen.

Empie lived in Rhinebeck and Hempstead, New York, for the next two years where he studied for the ministry and taught in the Classical Academy of the Rev.

By this time, Empie was known for his superior thought processes, but he continued to be plagued health problems doctors diagnosed as "rheumatism."

To sweeten the deal, they vestry offered him a summer residence on breezy Wrightsville Sound, and suggested he could augment his $1200 a year salary by teaching at a local private school.

In 1814, the newly married Empies (see below) moved to West Point, NY, where the groom started a new job as professor of ethics, treasurer, and as the first chaplain of the U. S. Military Academy.

The development of a quality technical school had always been one of Empie's pet projects, but the College of William & Mary had for decades been suffering financially.

The daughter of Judge Joshua Grainger Wright, she grew up in a gracious home across the street from the church and, like Empie, spent summers on Wrightsville Sound.

Later, Empie's opposition to slavery, and service to his African-American parishioners, caused friction at Bruton Parish and the College of William & Mary.

[6] Empie appealed to Bishop William Meade (a fellow member of the American Colonization Society) as well as the Virginia State Legislature.

The William & Mary trustees selected 1820 graduate and prolific slavery apologist Thomas Roderick Dew to succeed Empie as the college's 12th president.

Empie taught at Raleigh's Episcopal High School from 1836 until 1838, as Virginia once again debated slavery's role at its Constitutional Convention.

Empie's favorite Bible verse still graces the entrance and altar of St. James's in Richmond: "Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only."

In 1853 as a widower, Empie returned to live in Wilmington, where his son Adam had married and moved his legal practice, to "seek repose in the society of his children."

His papers are at the Manuscripts and Rare Books Department, Swem Library, College of William and Mary, as well as the U. S. Military Academy, and the Lower Cape Fear Historical Society.