Vernon Stauffer

An American historian, theologian, and educator, Vernon Stauffer lived from 1875 to 1925. He taught at Hiram College, where he was identified as dean and professor of New Testament and church history, and later became the first dean of California Christian College in Los Angeles, the institution that would eventually become Chapman University.

His best-known book is New England and the Bavarian Illuminati, published in 1918 and originally submitted as a doctoral dissertation at Columbia University. In it, he examined the panic over the Illuminati and traced how those fears entered religious and political life in early New England.

Although not a household name today, Stauffer left a clear mark as both a teacher and a serious researcher. The fact that Chapman later had a Vernon Stauffer Memorial Library suggests the esteem in which he was held after his death.