Charles Burt Sumner

Sumner was born on August 17, 1837, in Southbridge, Massachusetts, to George and Julia Sumner.[6] He went to Southbridge Academy and Williston Seminary, and then attended Yale University, graduating in 1862.[6]

During the Civil War, he fought for the Union for nine months as a sergeant in the 45th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment.[7][2]

He later graduated from the Andover Theological Seminary, and held pastorates in Monson, Massachusetts (at Monson Academy), West Somerville, Massachusetts, Tucson, Arizona, Pomona, California, and Claremont, California.[8]

In 1888, he left the Pilgrim Congregational Church in Pomona to become Pomona College's "financial agent with supervisory authority", a position in which he assumed the duties of a college president.[3] During his tenure, the college began teaching its first classes in Ayer Cottage and acquired 120 acres (49 ha) of land in Piedmont Mesa north of Pomona for a planned permanent campus.[3] In October 1888, the college acquired an unfinished hotel in Claremont (today's Sumner Hall) and moved there in the following months.[3] In 1890, he helped recruit Pomona's first official president, Cyrus G. Baldwin.[3]

Sumner remained a Pomona College trustee until his retirement in 1924. He also taught biblical literature at the college between 1888 and 1899.[2] In 1892, he opposed the college's decision to make Claremont its permanent home, but he later relocated his house to Claremont in 1901, living in it during the six-week move.[9] In 1910, Pomona gave him the college's first honorary doctorate, a Legum Doctor degree.[10][2] In 1914, he published a comprehensive history of the college.[10]

Sumner was also involved in the development of citrus fruit marketing cooperatives,[7] and served as the president of the Indian Hill Citrus Association and San Dimas Orange Association, and the director of the San Dimas Lemon Association.[2]

He died on July 11, 1927, of pneumonia.[8]

Sumner's daughter, Helen, and son, George, both graduated from Pomona's first class of students in 1894.[8] George later taught economics at Pomona and became its controller in 1923.[9] His grandson, George Charles Sumner Benson, became the founding president of Claremont McKenna College.[11]

Sumner's house was occupied by his son and grandson, and later rented to faculty and used as a dormitory for vegetarian students. It has served as the college's guest house since 1992.[9][12]

Pomona's first building, Sumner Hall, was named for his wife, Mary Louisa Stedman Sumner, in 1893.[13] It serves as the college's office of admissions today.

• The Story of Pomona College. Pilgrim Press. 1914.