Colver, Nathaniel, Dd

Colver, Nathaniel, D.D.

a Baptist minister, was born at Orwell, Vermont, May 10, 1794. He had limited facilities for obtaining an early education, but his natural endowments were such that he took an honorable position among the ministers of his denomination. He served as a soldier in the war. of 1812, and for some time followed the business of tanning. After he was settled in life, his thoughts were turned towards the ministry. For several years he preached in Vermont and New York, until, in 1836, he was called to the pastoral charge at Union Village, N.Y., where he remained seven years. During this period he made for himself a high reputation, both as a preacher and an eloquent pleader for temperance and anti-slavery. In 1843 he was invited as pastor to Tremont Temple, Boston. For thirteen years he prosecuted his work with eminent success, adding constantly to his reputation as a pulpit orator and a platform speaker. Leaving Boston, he went to the West, spending a year in Detroit, then a year or two in Cincinnati, and finally taking up his residence in Chicago, where with the exception of a short time when he had charge of the "Colver Institute," an institution at Richmond, Virginia, where he devoted himself to the work of preparing colored students for the ministry — he spent the remainder of his life. He died at Chicago, December 25, 1870. More than sixteen hundred converts were baptized by him. (J.C.S.)