Guide to the John Fairman Preston Papers

John Fairman Preston was born April 30, 1875, in Fernandina, Florida, the son of the Reverend Samuel Rhea Preston and Ida Sutphen Preston. He attended King College, Bristol, Tennessee, from 1893 to 1896, and received a B.A. from Furman University in 1898. While earning an M.A. from Princeton University, he also attended the Princeton Theological Seminary from 1899 to 1902. Preston was ordained by the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. (PCUS) Enoree Presbytery in 1903, the same year he married Annie Shannon Wiley (1879-1983) of Salisbury, North Carolina. He served on the PCUS Executive Committee of Foreign Missions from 1902 to 1903.

In 1903, Preston and his wife traveled to Korea as missionaries for the PCUS. They served at three different stations during their thirty-seven years in the mission field—Mokpo, Kwangju, and finally Soonchun—where they remained from 1913 to 1940. In 1907 John Preston also became involved in the Laymen's Missionary Movement, an effort by the PCUS to recruit new missionaries and solicit financial support for mission work. Throughout their years in Korea, the Prestons were active evangelists and teachers.

In 1940 they returned to the United States, where they toured as spokespeople for PCUS mission work. John Preston also supplied a church in Pontotoc, Mississippi, during the war years. The Prestons retired to Decatur, Georgia, in 1946.

John Preston received honorary Doctor of Divinity degrees from King College and Oglethorpe University in 1926, and Furman University in 1935. He died on June 6, 1975, survived by his wife and six children: Miriam Wiley (St. Clair); Annie Shannon (Cumming); John Fairman, Jr.; Florence (Bockhorst); William Wiley; and Rhea S. Annie S. Wiley Preston died in 1983.