Charles Nisbet

Dr. Charles Nisbet D.D. was born on January 21, 1736 to William and Alison Nisbet. William was a schoolteacher at Long Yester near Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland. By 1754, Charles Nisbet completed studies at both the high school of the university in Edinburgh and had entered Divinity Hall to prepare for the ministry. He was licensed by the Presbytery of Edinburgh on September 24, 1760. On May 17, 1764, he was ordained in the Presbytery of Brechin and assigned to a church in Montrose. In 1766, he married Anne Tweedie. The Nisbets had four children: Thomas, Mary, Alison (1773) and Alexander (1777).^[1]

The reputation of Charles Nisbet as a scholar and divine had crossed the Atlantic and in 1783, at the Commencement of Princeton College, the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon him by the trustees of that institution. His old friend and brother Dr. Witherspoon, had been for several years the head of that institution, and coöperated in bestowing this testimonial on him. This caused the Trustees of Dickinson College to turn their attention to him as the most competent person to form and guide their infant institution in Carlisle, PA.

After much deliberation accompanied by the vigorous petitioning of Benjamin Rush and John Dickinson, Nisbet finally accepted the position and sailed from Greenock with his family on April 23, 1785. The family arrived in Philadelphia on June 9, and in Carlisle on July 4, where the town greeted them enthusiastically. In the height of a humid Pennsylvania summer, the Nisbets did not adjust well to their new home and the entire family fell very ill with a fever. Due to Carlisle's muddy frontier appearance and weather, Nisbet seriously considered returning to Scotland, but was persuaded to remain.^[2]

Nisbet was unanimously re-elected as principal on May 9, 1786. For the following eighteen years, his efforts to build the new institution were untiring. On New Year's Day, 1804 he contracted a cold, which progressed to pneumonia. Charles Nisbet died two and a half weeks later on January 18, 1804, three days before his 68th birthday. The departure of the venerable president caused the whole town and college to go into mourning. The funeral was attended by multitudes. The trustees, faculty, and students of the college attended, showing their deep sense of loss. A sermon was preached and a Latin ode to his memory was given. A monument was erected to his memory by his only surviving son, Hon. Alexander Nisbet, Judge of City Court of Baltimore.^[3]

His son Judge Alexander Nisbet born 1777 was a founding member of the St Andrews Society of Baltimore in 1806.

References

1. ^ Rev. Charles Nisbet, First President of Dickinson College, by Rev. Charles Collins 1853
2. ^ Dickinson College, The History of 150 Years 1783-1933, by James H. Morgan 1933
3. ^ The American quarterly register, Volume 14, American Education Society, page 332