Barnabas C. Hobbs (1815-1892) was a prominent Orthodox Quaker educator and minister and the first president of Earlham College. Hobbs grew up in the Blue River Quaker community in Washington County, and graduated from Blue River Academy. Hobbs entered Cincinnati College in 1837, and he taught at Blue River and Friends Boarding School in Mount Pleasant, Ohio. He married Rebecca Tatum and moved to Richmond, Indiana, where he became superintendent of the boarding school that would become Earlham College. He then served as the college’s first president from 1867-1868 before leaving to become Indiana's Superintendent of Public Instruction. During his tenure he oversaw the implementation of the Fifteenth Amendment and the admittance of African American children into Indiana public schools. He was later appointed a trustee of Earlham College. Hobbs was also the long-time head of Bloomingdale Academy, and he died in Bloomingdale on June 22, 1892.

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