Joseph McKeen

Infobox University President


width = 150px
name =Joseph McKeen


caption =
order =1st
university =President of Bowdoin College
term_start =1802
term_end =1807
birth_date =1757
birth_place =Londonderry, New Hampshire
death_date =1807
death_place =Brunswick, Maine
predecessor =N/A
successor =Jesse Appleton
alumnus =Dartmouth College
residence =
profession =
website =http://library.bowdoin.edu/arch/mss/emsg.shtml
footnotes =|

Joseph McKeen (1757-1807) was the first president of Bowdoin College.

Life and career

McKeen was born in Londonderry, New Hampshire, a town that his father and grandfather, John and James, who had come from the north of Ireland in 1718 to escape religious and political oppression, had helped settle. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1774 when he was just seventeen years old. Except for a brief period of time when he fought under General John Sullivan in the American Revolution, he taught school in Londonderry until he became the congressional minister of Beverly, Massachusetts in 1785.

He remained in that position as minister until 1802 when he became president of Bowdoin. At the time, Massachusetts Hall was the only building available for officers and pupils on campus. In his inaugural address, he famously said that "Literary institutions are founded and endowed for the common good, and not for the private advantage of those who resort to them for education." Bowdoin's annual Common Good Day for community service refers to this statement. He stayed president until his death in 1807.

He received a doctorate degree of divinity from Dartmouth in 1803. Most of Dr. McKeen's publications consist of papers in the "Transactions of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences" and some occasional sermons.

External links

*http://library.bowdoin.edu/arch/mss/emsg.shtml
*http://library.bowdoin.edu/arch/archives/jmg.shtml