"_Resolved_, That, as the Board of Trustees of Randolph-Macon College, we have the deepest sorrow in our hearts in announcing to our church and people the great loss we have sustained in the death of Rev. James A. Duncan, D. D., our late President. His devoted life as a Christian minister and his constant and arduous labors for the past nine years in behalf of Randolph-Macon College, and the high position to which he and his co-laborers in the Faculty have brought the institution, demand that our people should give some expression of their appreciation of this work, which, in its widening influence, we trust shall abide for generations to come. And in the judgment of this Board nothing can more adequately express our conviction of the value of his life and work for the College and the cause of Christian education than that the church should determine to raise a 'memorial fund' of $100,000 for the accomplishment of an earnest and often-expressed wish of our deceased President, the permanent endowment of the College and the enlargement of its sphere of usefulness." The presidency of the Board having been made vacant by the death of President Duncan, Rev. W. W. Bennett was elected to it. To fill the presidency of the College, Rev. W. W. Duncan, brother of the late President, was elected. At an adjourned meeting, held in Lynchburg, Va., November 16, 1877, Secretary Rev. Paul Whitehead presented a letter from the Rev. W. W. Duncan, Professor in Wofford College, South Carolina, declining the presidency, to which he had been elected in July last. This declination and the financial embarrassment of the College elicited the hearty interest of the Virginia Conference, then in session. A large committee from that body was appointed to confer with the Board to concert measures which would meet the serious condition of the affairs of the College. The joint conference was held for several days. After the joint conference was concluded, on the 19th of November, the Board proceeded to elect a President of the College. The result of the first ballot was: For R. N. Sledd, 6 votes; for W. W. Bennett, 6 votes. Necessary to a choice, 7. The second ballot resulted in the same vote. The third ballot, other members having come in, resulted as follows: W. W. Bennett, 9 votes; R. N. Sledd, 5 votes. Necessary to a choice, 8 votes. So Rev. W. W. Bennett, D. D., was declared elected. [Illustration: BISHOP W. W. DUNCAN. _Elected President 1877.--Declined to accept._] [Illustration: REV. W. W. BENNETT, D. D., _President of the Board of Trustees, 1877; President of the College. 1877-1886._] Resolutions respecting the death of William Willis, Jr., late treasurer of the Board, who had died since the last meeting of the Board, were adopted. At this meeting Rev. Thomas A. Ware resigned his place as Agent.