Career
Doak taught at Hampden-Sydney College in the spring of 1776. There he studied theology under Samuel Stanhope Smith, president, and completed his theological training in 1777 at Liberty Hall. He assumed his first pastorate in Abingdon, Virginia, and also began to "ride circuit" in eastern Tennessee. In 1778 he settled in Tennessee in Sullivan County and was ordained a minister. In 1780 he moved to Washington County, where he formed Salem Church and a school, which was chartered as St. Martin's Academy in 1783, the first chartered school in the region. In 1795 it became Washington College. Moving to the Holston valley in Tennessee, Doak established the New Bethel Presbyterian Church. He later moved to Limestone, Tennessee, where he founded Salem Presbyterian Church. He also established an academy which grew into Washington College, of which he was president from 1790 to 1818.
Doak served as president of Washington College (1795-1818) before turning it over to his oldest son, John Whitfield Doak. Esther Doak had died in 1807, and in 1818 he moved with his second wife, Margaretta Houston McEwen, to Tusculum Academy (later Tusculum College) and taught there with his son Samuel W. Doak until his death on December 12, 1830. He is buried at Salem Church. In 1780, Doak preached to settlers at the Big Spring in Greeneville, Tennessee. Regular services began around the spring, and in 1783, Mt. Bethel Presbyterian Church (now First Presbyterian Church) was formed, Hezekiah Balch being the first settled minister.
He was awarded a Doctor of Divinity degree for his tireless efforts at promoting Presbyterianism and education. He was generally known as "the Presbyterian Bishop."
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