Reverend Dr. Gorham Dummer Abbott

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorham_Dummer_Abbott

Gorham Dummer Abbott (September 3, 1807 – August 3, 1874) was an American clergyman, educator, and author. He was a significant figure in the movement to supply schools with textbooks, libraries, and educational journals.

Biography

He was born in Hallowell, Maine, to Jacob and Betsey Abbott. In 1826, he graduated from Bowdoin College, and later attended Andover Theological Seminary. Starting in 1831, together with his brother Jacob Abbott, conducted the Mount Vernon School for Girls in Boston, Massachusetts. He left the school in 1833, and married Rebecca S. Leach on February 11, 1834.

He was ordained a minister in the Presbyterian Church in 1837, and served as the pastor of the Presbyterian Church of New Rochelle, New York from 1837 through 1841. Beginning in 1841, he served with the literary department of the American Tract Society, a position he kept until 1843, when he went to New York City to found a new girls' school. He took 40 of the students from this school and established the Spingler Institute for Girls in New York, which received significant endowments from Americans and Europeans through 1870. He also was a significant influence on Matthew Vassar in the matter of education of women. In 1870, he retired to Natick, Massachusetts, where he died in 1874.

He was the author of several books, including:

The Family at Home: or, Familiar Illustrations of the Various Domestic Duties (1834) and Mexico and the United States, Their Mutual Relations and Common Interests (1869).

Spingler Institute for Girls

Starting in 1848: Stood for 16 years on Union Square West between 14th and 15th sts.
(The National Cyclopedia of American Biography ... V.1-, Volume 10, page 356)
• 1300 ladies were educated there during this time span
• Rev. Abbott undertook the project of having Thomas Cole's "Journey of Life" engraved after the artist's death in 1848. The originals hung in the Institute: See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Voyage_of_Life and The New York Evangelist; 29 Dec., 1855 • the Civil War and Dr. Abbots failing health contributed to the school's demise

• Vassar Scholarship of 1898
  • https://www.newspapers.com/image/468679654/?terms=%22Van%20Beuren%2... = New-York Tribune (New York, New York)18 Dec 1898, SunPage 28

Close relations

~• As Gorham had no sons, he had as a nephew Rev. Lyman Abbott, Dr. who visited him at the Spingler Instiute. At least one person confused this and suggested incorrectly that Lyman was Gorham's son.