George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives

William Allen Papers, 1805-1970

0.25 linear feet.

Catalog Number: M3

Agency History / Biographical Note:
William Allen (1784-1868) was a Congregational minister, author, and college president. A graduate of Harvard (1802), he served as regent there from 1804 to 1810, when he took over his father's parish in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. In 1817 he became president of the short-lived Dartmouth University, leaving Dartmouth for Bowdoin when the University was dissolved.

Allen became Bowdoin's third president, serving, with one interruption, from 1820 to 1839. He worked to establish the Medical School of Maine and to lead the College through the formation of the new state of Maine in 1820. Information on Allen's tenure is available in the archives collection of his administrative records. He retired to Northampton, Massachusetts in 1839.

Allen married Maria Malleville in 1812; the couple had eight children. Malleville died in 1828. In 1831, Allen married Sarah Johnson.

Allen's papers are supplemented by his published writings, among them three editions of the American Biographical Dictionary, Junius Unmasked, and many sermons and theological works.

Scope and Content:
The collection contains 17 Allen letters, 1805-60, most written from Brunswick or Northampton, as well as brief biographical records, realia, and a few images of Allen. Among the correspondents are several Bowdoin colleagues, including Professor Nehemiah Cleaveland and Trustee Reuel Williams, and college presidents Henry Davis of Middlebury and Benjamin Hale (Bowdoin 1820) of Geneva (now Hobart).

Cite as: William Allen papers, George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library.
Access Restrictions: None.