Guide to the Nathan Dole Papers, 1831-1841
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Nathan Dole Papers, George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library, Brunswick, Maine.
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Nathan Dole (Bowdoin Class of 1836) was born in Bloomfield [now Skowhegan], Maine, May 8, 1811, a son of Wigglesworth and Elizabeth Haskell Dole. In 1842, Dole married Caroline Fletcher, a poet (b. July 22, 1817, Norridgewock, Maine). They had three children, Charles F. Dole (1845), a Unitarian minister and writer who received an honorary degree from Bowdoin in 1906; Nathan Haskell Dole (1852-1935), author and poet; and Sarah Are Dole (1847-1849). After being graduated from Bangor Theological Seminary (1841), Dole was ordained as minister of the first Congregational Church in Brewer, Maine, where he served from 1842 to 1850. He then moved to Boston, where he was editor of two publications of the American Board of Missionaries (The Journal of Missions, and Youth's Dayspring [1850-1854]) until ill health forced him to retire back to Brewer, where he died of tuberculosis on June 16, 1855.
Nathan was the brother of Daniel Dole (1808-1878), Bowdoin Class of 1836. Daniel Dole was the father of Sanford Ballard Dole, president of the Hawaiian Republic; and Isaiah Dole (1819-1892), Bowdoin Class of 1840. Their cousin, James Dole, made the family fortune in pineapples in Hawaii. Nathan was a close friend of James Drummond (Bowdoin 1836), whose daughter, Frances, married Nathan's son Charles F.
Letterbooks (1830-1835); diaries (1831-1840); sermon notes (undated); addresses (1833-1836 and undated): a poem written for the anniversary of the Missionary Society of Bowdoin College; notes and notebooks (1834-1841); and ephemera, including one page of biographical information written by Nathan.
Addresses, 1833-1836
Addresses, n.d.
Correspondence (letterbooks), 1830-1835
Diary, 1831-1834
Diary, 1835-1837
Diary, 1837 and 1840
Miscellaneous
Notes and Notebooks, 1834-1841
Notes for Sermons, n.d.
Poem, 1835