The abolitionist minister who founded a town and a college — and to whom Horace Greeley reputedly said, “Go West, young man.”
Josiah Bushnell Grinnell was a Congregationalist minister and ardent abolitionist. Advised (as the story goes) by editor Horace Greeley to “Go West, young man,” he came to Iowa and in 1854 founded the town of Grinnell as a planned, temperance-minded community.
He helped establish Iowa College — later Grinnell College — and served as a U.S. Congressman during the Civil War era, using his home as a stop on the Underground Railroad.
Grinnell's twin legacies — a thriving college town and one of the country's top liberal-arts colleges — still shape central Iowa. His abolitionist convictions and Underground Railroad activity place him among Iowa's notable antislavery figures.
The city and college continue to carry his name.
The abolitionist minister who founded a town and a college — and to whom Horace Greeley reputedly said, “Go West, young man.”
Josiah Grinnell was from Grinnell, Iowa.
1821–1891.
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