Robert Alfred McFarland was born on a farm near Oxford, North Carolina, on January 31, 1876. He attended Granville County public schools; three years at Bethel Hill Institute, North Carolina; four years at Richmond College-received a B.S. in 1902; received a Th.B. degree from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary at Louisville in 1908 and an honorary D.D. from the University of Richmond in 1921.
McFarland made the motion to found Sigma Phi Epsilon; and he was chairman of the Committee on the Constitution.
McFarland held important pastorates in three states. In North Carolina, he was a member of the Baptist State Board, a trustee of the Baptist Orphanage and Wake Forest College, and was vice president of the Baptist State Convention. In Virginia, he served as a member of the Baptist State Board, a trustee of the Baptist Hospital, the Fork Union Military Academy, and the Southern Baptist State Convention.
McFarland was once written up in a London
journal as a "representative" minister of the United States. He died
on March 14, 1960.