Nathan Cook Brackett abolitionist founder of Storer College and Bluefield State College in West Virginia

Nathan Cook Brackett (1836–1910) was an

abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...

Free Will Baptist Free Will Baptists are a group of General Baptist denominations of Christianity that teach free grace, free salvation and free will. The movement can be traced back to the 1600s with the development of General Baptism in England. Its formal est ...

pastor, first president of

Storer College Storer College was a historically black college in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, that operated from 1867 to 1955. A national icon for Black Americans, in the town where the 'end of American slavery began', as Frederick Douglass famously put i ...

, and chairman and co-founder of

Bluefield State College Bluefield State University (Bluefield State) is a university in Bluefield, West Virginia that is an historically black university. It is a part of West Virginia's public education system and converted to a university in the summer of 2022. It ad ...

. Nathan Brackett was born in

Phillips, Maine Phillips is a New England town, town in Franklin County, Maine, Franklin County, Maine, United States. The population was 898 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. It is home to the Sandy River and Rangeley Lakes Railroad, a heritage rail ...

in 1836 and starting in 1857 attended

Bates College Bates College () is a private liberal arts college in Lewiston, Maine. Anchored by the Historic Quad, the campus of Bates totals with a small urban campus which includes 33 Victorian Houses as some of the dormitories. It maintains of nature p ...

(then called the Maine State Seminary) and then

Colby College Colby College is a private liberal arts college in Waterville, Maine. It was founded in 1813 as the Maine Literary and Theological Institution, then renamed Waterville College after the city where it resides. The donations of Christian philanthr ...

(then called Waterville College) and finally

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

for his senior year. After graduating from Dartmouth in 1864 and becoming ordained as a Free Will Baptist pastor, Brackett joined the U.S. Christian Commission in the

Shenandoah Valley The Shenandoah Valley () is a geographic valley and cultural region of western Virginia and the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. The valley is bounded to the east by the Blue Ridge Mountains, to the west by the eastern front of the Ridge- ...

assisting soldiers and freed slaves. In 1865 the

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

's Freewill Baptist Home Mission Society sponsored Brackett in establishing a primary school for former slaves and in supervising several dozen northern women from the North who were teaching in Free Will Baptist schools throughout the Shenandoah Valley. Also in 1865 Brackett married Louise Wood of Lewiston, Maine, who was also an 1860 alumna of Bates (Maine State Seminary), and later a vice-principal and teacher for twenty five years at Storer College, teaching drawing, painting, Latin and Greek. Again with the backing of

Oren Cheney Oren Burbank Cheney (December 10, 1816 – December 22, 1903) was an American politician, minister, and statesman who was a key figure in the abolitionist movement in the United States during the later 19th century. Along with textile tycoon Be ...

, founder and president of the Free Will Baptist Church in

Ocean Park, Maine Ocean Park is a village in the town of Old Orchard Beach in York County, Maine, United States. A historic family style summer community affiliated with the Free Will Baptists, the community is located in southern Old Orchard Beach on Saco Bay. Oc ...

, Brackett founded

in October 1867. Brackett served as president of Storer until 1897 and treasurer until his death in 1910. He also was on the Harpers Ferry Town Council and superintendent of free schools there, and a co-founder and regent of the Bluefield Colored Institute (now

) and as president of the board.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brackett, Nathan Cook Bates College alumni Colby College alumni Dartmouth College alumni Free Will Baptists 1836 births 1910 deaths Storer College people Storer College faculty People from Harpers Ferry, West Virginia