Rev. Henry Dunster, First President of Harvard

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_Harvard_University

Henry Dunster

• Baptized: 26 November 1609 - Bolholt, Bury, Lancashire
• Parents:  Henry Dunster (abt 1580–1646) and Henry's first wife, who is not named in any records.
• Wives:  1) Elizabeth Harris, widow of Rev. Joseph Glover; 2) Elizabeth (unknown)
• Died: 27 February  1659 - of  Scituate, Plymouth, Massachusetts
• Buried: Old Burying Yard, Cambridge, Middlesex, Massachusetts 

"His character is one of the most beautiful, as his history is one of the most touching, to be found in the early annals of New England."

Henry Dunster (November 26, 1609 (baptized) – February 27, 1658/1659) was an Anglo-American Puritan clergyman. A former Headmaster of Bury Grammar School, Henry Dunster became in the summer of 1640, the first President of Harvard College.

He was forced to resign, and the next year tried, convicted, and publicly admonished for opposing the church ordinance of infant baptism.

From http://www.bolholt.co.uk/henry-dunster.html

Henry Dunster

An American clergyman and first president of Harvard College, Dunster was educated at the University of Cambridge (B.A., M.A., 1634) and then taught and served as a curate of Bury. He had a reputation as a learned man.

Henry Dunster was appointed as the founding president in 1649 at Harvard the oldest American college and that he 'resigned' in 1654 after expressing differences with the Puritan belief of infant baptism. Not much more was written on him.

His character is one of the most beautiful, as his history is one of the most touching, to be found in the early annals of New England. It is not generally known today, but conditions within America's first college were atrocious, unacceptable even to Puritan standards. The students were being whipped, and the school master, Nathaniel Eaton was "fitter to have been an officer in the inquisition or master of a house of correction, than an instructor of Christian youth." Mrs. Eaton fed the students sparse and unfit meals. Charges were made that the Eaton children put goat dung in the hasty pudding. Eaton was fired and school was suspended. Then in August 1640, three weeks after Henry Dunster arrived in America, he was visited by a committee of 26 men and asked if he would be the first president of Harvard University. It was not an easy job. He had to attract students back to a school that now had a smeared reputation, he had to arrange the curriculum and prod workers on a new building for the school, and he had to raise funds to operate the college. Because of the colony's poverty, he had to accept "donations in kind"--livestock, produce, etc. Through his 14 years of service, he never received full pay. During this same year, Henry Dunster married the widow Elizabeth Glover, who owned the first printing press in America. Operating a printing press helped stabilize Dunster financially, and he was able to draw on his own assets when the school was not able to provide. Dunster made it clear that what education was about was teaching the priceless gift of character to the young men. He wrote the "Rules and Precepts" for the college, setting the standards for the university for centuries to come. "Let every student be plainly instructed," he wrote, "and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life," he wrote. After losing his job and along with it his home, as Mr Henry Dunster stood by his beliefs which contradicted others at the time, he moved some 30 miles away southeast over the boundary to Scituate with his wife and children, where he died a few years later at the age of 49.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Dunster

Brackney says Dunster was "an important precursor" of the Baptist denomination in America, especially regarding infant baptism, soul freedom, religious liberty, congregational governance, and a radical biblicism." 

Dunster married twice; both his wives were named Elizabeth. His first wife was Elizabeth (Harris) Glover, the widow of Joseph Glover. They married on June 21, 1641. She died in 1643, leaving Dunster with land and property, including the first printing press in the colony, and leaving him shared responsibility for her estate and her five children by her first marriage. Dunster married Elizabeth Atkinson (1627–1690) in 1644.

Henry and Elizabeth’s children:

1. David Dunster, (1645 – ).
2. Dorothy Dunster, (1648 – 1649).
3. Henry Dunster, (1650 – 1659).
4. Jonathan Dunster, (1653 – 1725).
5. Elizabeth Dunster, (1656 – 1721).

From http://www.henrydunster.org/

Henry Dunster was born in 1609 somewhere in or near the the present-day city of Bury, Lancashire, UK. His precise birthplace is not known. He was baptized on November 26, 1609.

Henry Dunster's gravesite in the Old Burying Yard (or Old Burying Ground, "God's Acre") is just a stone's throw from the main entrance to Harvard University. After his voluntary exile to Scituate, Plymouth Colony, in 1655, it was Dunster's express wish in his will that, after his death, he be buried close to the College that he loved. He ensured that provision was made for his body to be transported from Scituate to Cambridge, there to be interred "by my loveing wife and other relaccons [relations]." Dunster was buried there in 1659. 

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bury_Grammar_School

The Henry Dunster Society, an organization inaugurated at Harvard University in September 2008, is intended to bring together from time to time the alumni/ae of the Bury Grammar Schools and to help them support new initiatives for the Schools. The connection with Harvard College, in addition to the two being very august institutions, highly respected in the North of their particular countries, started with Henry Dunster.

Dunster was born near Bury and attended Bury Grammar School. He went up to Magdalene College, Cambridge, and after graduation became the Curate of Bury Parish Church, a living in the patronage of the Earl of Derby. Returning to Bury, Dunster became the third Headmaster of the School.

Dunster left his posts in Bury in 1640 when, like many other Puritans dissatisfied with developments in both church and state and probably in anticipation of a Civil War, he emigrated to Massachusetts. Soon after his arrival, Dunster was asked and agreed to become the first President of Harvard College, now Harvard University.

Although few documents survive to explain how Dunster thought of himself, he did use a phrase in one letter, ego enim Lancastrensis sum, suggesting that he was a modest, hard-working, Lancashire lad, proud of his northern English origins and of his noted Lancashire accent. The Henry Dunster Society website is at http://www.henrihiggins.com/hds/

From DIGGING UP DUNSTER: THE VITAL LINK BETWEEN BURY GRAMMAR SCHOOL, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, AND HIGHER EDUCATION IN AMERICA by Geoffrey Wandesforde-Smith

Other more personal factors made life difficult for Dunster, too, including his first marriage to the widow of the man who had died en route to Massachusetts with New England’s first printing press. The first Mrs. Dunster, to use a modern argot, was a piece of work, inclined to live in the manner to which she would like to become accustomed. MORISON, supra note 3, at 256. After Dunster re-married, it was a while before the complicated arrangements in his household involving his step-children and his own children and now and then some others took on a settled air. Id. at 342-343. Astonishingly, through all of this, Dunster took but a meager salary, ran the college on a shoestring without regular appropriations from the General Court, and had to contend with what we would today regard as bizarre financial transactions, which sometimes involved money but were as like to take the form of wampum, the “College corn,” and the Charlestown ferry rents. Id. at 292-324.

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From Savage, Genealogical Dictionary of New England Settlers, V2 page 83

Dunster,  Henry,Cambridge, first Presid. of Harv. Coll. a Lancashire man, s. of Henry of Balehoult, a seat in Bury of that Co. came in 1640, and resid. a short time in Boston, was of ar. co. 1640, but not of our ch. so that we may be sure he ws of ano. town prob. Cambridge bef. adm. as freem. 2 June 1641; was bred at Magdalen Coll. in the Univ. of Cambridge, had his degrees 1630, and 1634. Soon after com. he was made presid. 27 Aug. 1640, compell. to resign 24 Oct. 1654, on acco. of his opinion on inf. bapt. He was desir. to come to Ireland by the deputy Henry Cromwell and his coune. and £50 advance. for his passage, but he was wise eno. to avoid that evil, and d. at Scituate 18 or 27 Feb. 1659, where he preach. all his latter days; but his heart's desire was to be bur. at Cambridge, where, in his will, he says lay the remains of some of his babes. 

He names, as liv. two s. David, and Jonathan, d. Eliz. sis. Hills, w. of Joseph of Malden, and her childr. sis. Willard of Concord, and her childr. an cous. Faith D. 

His first w. Eliz. m. June 1641, d. 23 Aug. 1643; and next yr. he m. Eliz. wid. of Rev. Josse Glover, had David, b. 16 May 1645; Dorothy, 29 Jan. 1648; Henry, 1650; Jonathan, 28 Sept. or ano. acco. says, 26 Oct.

From Pope, THE PIONEERS OF MASSACHUSETTS, DUNSTER,

Rev. Henry, Cambridge, propr., frm. June 2, 1641. He was president of Harvard College, 1640-1654. He leased Mr. Humphrey's mill at Lynn to Francis Ingalls in 1647. [Es. Files VIII, 75-8.] "An able proficient in Hebrew, Greek and Latin languages, an Orthodox Preacher of the truths of Christ." [J.] Became an Anabaptist. Rem. to Scituate. Was one of the revisers of the Bay Psalm Book. [C. M.] His wife Elizabeth d. 23 (6) 1643. He m. 2, Elizabeth, widow of Mr. Jose Glover. Ch. David b. 16 (3) 1645, Dorothy b. 29 (11) 1647.

He d. about 1659. Will dated 18 Feb. 1658, prob. June 21, 1659, beq. to wife; to sons David and Jonathan; to dau. Elizabeth, who is to be brought up by "my sister Mrs. Hills of Mauldon," or "my sister Williard of Concord," in case of her mother's death; to Mr. Chauncey, Mr. Mitchell, elder Frost; to cousin Bowers with her ch.; to cousin Faith Dunster; to sister Hills and to all her ch. born in this country; to sister Willard and all her ch.; to maid, Mary Russell.

Sources

1. Henry Dunster and His Descendants (1876) by Samuel Dunster. E.L. Freeman & Co.
2. Life of Henry Dunster: First President of Harvard College (Google eBook) Jeremiah Chaplin, Samuel Dunster, Edward Swift Dunster. J.R. Osgood, 1872 - 315 pages
3. Dunster, Henry, 1609-1659? Papers of Henry Dunster and the Dunster and Glover families : an inventory
4. Papers of Henry Dunster and the Dunster and Glover families : finding aid

•  http://www.our-genealogy.com/waite/ancestry-dunster/henry-dunster2....
•  http://www.henrydunster.org/
• http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/m/o/r/Steven-Morrow-Ma/W...

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