Jeremiah Chaplin

Jeremiah Chaplin
Founder and President of
Colby College
In office
1822–1833
Succeeded by Rev. Rufus Babcock
Personal details
Born (1776-01-02)January 2, 1776
Rowley, Massachusetts (now Georgetown, Massachusetts
Died May 7, 1841(1841-05-07) (aged 65)
Hamilton, New York
Alma mater Brown University

Jeremiah Chaplin (January 2, 1776 May 7, 1841) was a Reformed Baptist theologian who served as the first president of Colby College (then called the Waterville College) in Maine.[1]

Chaplin was born in Rowley, Massachusetts (now Georgetown, Massachusetts) in 1776. He worked on the family farm, and in 1799 he graduated from Brown University, a school with an historical Baptist affiliation. Chaplin spent a year at Brown as a tutor and then studied theology eventually becoming pastor of a Baptist church in Danvers, Massachusetts. He left this pastorate in 1817 to become president of the new Waterville College (later Colby College) at which he served until 1833. Chaplin first met Gardner Colby during this period while Colby was still a child, and Chaplin assisted Colby's family after Colby's father died.

During the remainder of his life, Chaplin preached in Rowley, Massachusetts and Willington, Connecticut, and then moved to Hamilton, New York where he died in 1841. Chaplin held to a Calvinist Baptist theology throughout his life.[2]

A Liberty ship constructed in 1943, the SS Jeremiah L. Chaplin was named in his honor.[3][4]

Published Works

References

  1. http://www.mainememory.net/bin/Detail?ln=12580 Portrait of Chaplin
  2. Eulogy of Jeremiah Chaplin (1843)
  3. Mayflower Hill, A History of Colby College, Earl H. Smith, University Press of New England, 2006, p. 57 n32
  4. Liberty: The Ships That Won the War, Peter Elphick, Naval Institute Press, 2006, p 131.
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