CHAPTER XIII.
CHARACTER OF PRESIDENT BROWN.—TRIBUTES BY PROFESSOR HADDOCK AND RUFUS CHOATE.
In Sprague's "Annals of the American Pulpit," we find, in substance, the following notice of President Brown:
Francis Brown was the son of Benjamin and Prudence (Kelley) Brown, and was born at Chester, Rockingham County, N. H., January 11, 1784. His father was a merchant, and had a highly respectable standing in society. His mother was a person of superior intellect and heart, and, though she died when he had only reached his tenth year, she had impressed upon him some of the most striking of her own characteristics; particularly her uncommon love of order and propriety, even in the most minute concerns, and her uncompromising adherence to her own convictions of truth and right. In his early boyhood he evinced the utmost eagerness in the pursuit of knowledge, and never suffered any opportunity for intellectual improvement to escape him. At the age of fourteen, he ventured to ask his father to furnish him with the means of a collegiate education; but, in consideration of his somewhat straitened circumstances, he felt constrained to deny the request. By a subsequent marriage, however, his circumstances were improved; and the new mother of young Brown, with most commendable generosity, assumed the pecuniary responsibility of his going to college. He always cherished the most grateful recollection of her kindness; and, but a few days before his death, he said to her with the deepest filial sensibility, "My dear mother, whatever good I have done in the world, and whatever honor I have received, I owe it all to you."
In his sixteenth year he became a member of Atkinson Academy, then under the care of the Hon. John Vose, and among the most respectable institutions of the kind in New England. His instructor has rendered the following testimony concerning him at that period: "Though he made no pretensions to piety during his residence at the academy, he was exceedingly amiable in his affections and moral in his deportment. It is very rare we find an individual in whom so many excellencies centre. To a sweet disposition was united a strong mind; to an accuracy which examined the minutiæ of everything a depth of investigation which penetrated the most profound. I recollect that when I wrote recommending him to college, I informed Dr. Wheelock I had sent him an Addison."
Of the formation of his religious character little more is known than that it was of silent, yet steady growth. It was not till the year that he became a tutor in college that he made a public profession of his faith, by connecting himself with the church in his native place.
In the spring of 1802 he joined the Freshman class of Dartmouth College, and, during the whole period of his collegiate course, was a model of persevering diligence, of gentle and winning manners, and pure and elevated morality. From college he carried with him the respect and love of both teachers and students. Having spent the year succeeding his graduation as a private tutor in the family of the venerable Judge Paine, of Williamstown, Vt., he was appointed to a tutorship in the college at which he had graduated. This office he accepted, and for three years discharged its duties with great ability and fidelity, while, at the same time, he was pursuing theological studies with reference to his future profession.
Having received license to preach from the Grafton Association, he resigned his tutorship at the Commencement in 1809, with a view to give himself solely to the work of the ministry. After declining several flattering applications for his services, he accepted an invitation from the Congregational Church in North Yarmouth, Me., to become their pastor; and he was accordingly ordained there on his birthday, January 11, 1810. Within a few months from this time, he was chosen Professor of Languages at Dartmouth College; but this appointment he was pleased, greatly to the joy of his parishioners, to decline. For the succeeding five years he labored with great zeal and success among his people, while his influence was sensibly felt in sustaining and advancing the interests of learning and religion throughout the State. He was the intimate friend of the lamented President Appleton; and no one, perhaps, coöperated with the president more vigrously than he, in increasing the resources and extending the influence of Bowdoin College.
He was inaugurated President of Dartmouth College, on the 27th of September, 1815.