Oliver P. Temple became a trustee of East Tennessee University in 1854 and served until his death in 1907. He received the AB degree from Washington College in 1844 and studied law under Judge Robert McKinney. He was admitted to the bar in 1846 in Greeneville, Tennessee, and in 1847 he was a Whig candidate for Congress but was defeated by Andrew Johnson. He moved to Knoxville from Greeneville in 1848.
President Fillmore appointed him a commissioner to conciliate the Indian tribes of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona in 1850, and President Grant appointed him a member of the Board of Visitors of West Point. He was a leading participant in the Greeneville Convention of 1861, which voted to separate East Tennessee from the remainder of the state. Temple was a strong Unionist. He defended Unionists arraigned before Confederate courts between 1861 and 1865, and among his famous clients were the Andrews Raiders, who stole the locomotive The General. Temple served as chancellor of the Eighth Chancery District from 1866 to 1870 and of the Second District from 1870 to 1878. Temple retired from law in 1881 and served as Knoxville’s postmaster from 1881 to 1885.
In 1872 Temple and C. W. Charlton organized the East Tennessee Farmers’ Convention. Temple served as its first president and was later made honorary vice president for life. He was the first person to introduce Jersey cattle into East Tennessee. He was one of the founders of the Knoxville and Ohio Railroad (1854) and for several years a director of the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad Company. He was instrumental in obtaining land-grant status for UT and for curricular modifications to bring the institution more into accord with the spirit of the Morrill Act. In 1919, when acknowledging Mary Boyce Temple’s bequest honoring her father, President Dabney referred to Temple as the “father of Tennessee’s Agricultural College.” Temple Avenue, now Volunteer Boulevard, was named for him, as were Temple Court and Oliver P. Temple Hall. Caledonia Avenue was named for his wife.
Judge Temple’s principal writings were The Covenanter, The Cavalier, and The Puritan (1897); East Tennessee and the Civil War (1899); and Notable Men of Tennessee, from 1833 to 1875. The last work was edited by his daughter and published in 1912. Oliver P. Temple Hall, on the agricultural campus, was named for him.