William Allen (January 2, 1784 – July 16, 1868) was an American biographer, scholar and academic. He served as president of both

Dartmouth University Dartmouth University is a defunct institution in New Hampshire which existed from 1817 to 1819. It was the result of a thwarted attempt by the state legislature to make Dartmouth College, a private college, into a public university. The United ...

and Bowdoin College.

Biography

William Allen was born at

Pittsfield, Massachusetts Pittsfield is the largest city and the county seat of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the principal city of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Berkshire County. Pittsfield� ...

in 1784. He graduated from

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

in 1802 and after a few years of work became assistant librarian at Harvard. He became Pastor of Pittsfield 1810; President of

, 1817; and President of Bowdoin College 1820-1839. He was largely responsible for establishing the Medical School of Maine at Bowdoin College in 1820. He resigned in 1839, and died at Northampton in 1868. He prepared his ''American Biographical and Historical Dictionary'' (1809), the first work of general biography published in the United States. In 1810 he succeeded his father as pastor of the Church in Pittsfield. Allen was elected a member of the

American Antiquarian Society The American Antiquarian Society (AAS), located in Worcester, Massachusetts, is both a learned society and a national research library of pre-twentieth-century American history and culture. Founded in 1812, it is the oldest historical society i ...

in 1814.American Antiquarian Society Members Directory
/ref> He was chosen president of Dartmouth University in 1818 and remained until the

Dartmouth College Case ''Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward'', 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 518 (1819), was a landmark decision in United States corporate law from the United States Supreme Court dealing with the application of the Contracts Clause of the United States Co ...

extinguished the institution in 1819. In 1820 he went to Bowdoin College, over which institution he presided until 1839, when he resigned and devoted himself to literary studies. He was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

in 1823. He collected 10,000 words not contained in standard dictionaries, and published them as a supplement to Webster's ''Dictionary''. He wrote ''Junius Unmasked'', in which he sought to prove that Lord Sackville was the author of the Junius letters (Boston, 1828); ''Psalms and Hymns'' (1835); ''Memoirs of Dr.

Eleazar Wheelock Eleazar Wheelock (April 22, 1711 – April 24, 1779) was an American Congregational minister, orator, and educator in Lebanon, Connecticut, for 35 years before founding Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. He had tutored Samson Occom, a Mohe ...

and of Dr. John Codman'' (1853); ''A Discourse at the Close of the Second Century of the Settlement at Northampton, Massachusetts'' (1854); ''Wunnissoo, or the Vale of Housatonnuck'', a poem (Boston, 1856); a Dudleian lecture at Cambridge; a book of ''Christian Sonnets'' (Northampton, 1860); ''Poems of Nazareth and the Cross'' (1866); ''Sacred Songs'' (1867); and numerous pamphlets, and contributed biographical articles to Sprague's ''Annals of the American Pulpit''. See his ''Life, with Selections from his Correspondence'' (Philadelphia, 1847).

References

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External links

1898 bio
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Allen, William American biographers American male biographers Presidents of Bowdoin College Harvard College alumni 1784 births 1868 deaths Congregationalism Writers from Pittsfield, Massachusetts Presidents of Dartmouth College Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of the American Antiquarian Society