Dartmouth College. Office of the President. Nathan Lord (1828-1863)

Dates

• Usage: 1828 - 1863

Biography

Nathan Lord, Congregational minister, and college president was born November 28, 1792, in Berwick Maine. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1809, went on to attend Andover Theological Seminary, and received a Doctor of Divinity from Bowdoin in 1828. That same year, he also became the 6th president of Dartmouth College. Lord was the longest serving president after John Wheelock remaining in office for a total of 35 years. Lord was an independent thinker and a strict disciplinarian.

Dartmouth, which had been suffering financially ever since the attempted takeover of the institution by the State of New Hampshire, saw considerable growth during Lord's tenure. Lord established the first alumni association and raised $50,000 to build Thornton and Wentworth Halls. He also significantly increased student enrollment.

The issue of slavery in the United States became paramount during Lord's tenure. While his initial inclination was toward the abolition of slavery, he served as a vice president of the New Hampshire Auxiliary Colonization Society, and later he briefly held the position of Vice President, representing New Hampshire, in the American Anti-Slavery Society. But, by the late 1840s he claimed no abolitionist associations. In 1854, Lord anonymously published the first of three pro-slavery pamphlets, which argued that slavery was condoned by God through the scripture. In 1862 he published a third piece "A True Picture of Abolition" in which he accused abolitionists of being responsible for the Civil War. This landed him in hot water with a group of anti-slavery ministers in New Hampshire who petitioned the Trustees to consider his removal. The Trustees declined to take this action, but instead issued a statement distancing College from Lord and his views. In response, Lord tendered his resignation, which was eventually accepted by the Board.

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