Henry Dunster

Henry Dunster (baptized Nov. 26, 1609, Bury, Lancashire, Eng.—died Feb. 27, 1659, Scituate, Massachusetts Bay Colony [now in Massachusetts, U.S.]) was an American clergyman and the first president of Harvard College.

Dunster was educated at the University of Cambridge (B.A., 1631; M.A., 1634) and then taught school and served as curate of Bury. He had a reputation as a learned man, and three weeks after his arrival in Massachusetts he was installed as president of Harvard (Aug. 27, 1640) in the town of Cambridge. The college was all but extinct, instruction having been given for one disastrous year (1638) and then suspended, so Dunster had to make a fresh beginning without students, faculty, buildings, income, curriculum, statutes, or charter. He proved to be an able teacher, administrator, and money raiser and gave to the college a form and character that was modeled on the English universities and that persisted at Harvard in all essential features until the 19th century.

In 1653 he scandalized the Massachusetts colony by adopting Baptist views and refusing to have his child baptized. In 1654 he was ejected from the presidency, brought to trial, sentenced to be publicly admonished, and put under bond to keep the peace. Although he had contributed generously out of his own limited means to the support of the college, there was delay in paying his back salary, and in the end he received only partial recompense. Removing to the more liberal atmosphere of Scituate, Mass., he continued to preach until his death.