John Fletcher Hurst

John Fletcher Hurst (August 17, 1834 – May 4, 1903) was an American bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church and the first Chancellor of the American University in Washington, D.C.[1] Born on August 17, 1834, in Salem, Dorchester County, Maryland.

He was ordained by Methodist Episcopal Bishop Thomas Asbury Morris in 1862.

[2] From 1866 to 1870 he filled a five-year appointment as Professor of Systematic Theology at the Martin Mission Institute in Bremen, Germany.

Through his devotion, Hurst recovered the endowment of Drew Theological Seminary, lost by the failure in 1876 of Daniel Drew, its founder; and with John McClintock and George Richard Crooks he improved the quality of Methodist scholarship.

On the campus of American University, there is an academic building named after Hurst.