Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Colver, Nathaniel

COLVER, Nathaniel, clergyman, b. in Orwell, Vt., 10 May, 1794; d. in Chicago, 25 Dec., 1870. His father, a Baptist minister, removed, while Nathaniel was a child, to Champlain, in northern New York, and thence to West Stockbridge, Mass., where the son was converted and decided to enter the Baptist ministry. Though he had but slender opportunities of early education, he made himself a respectable scholar. After brief pastorates in various places he was called in 1839 to Boston, where he co-operated in organizing the church since famous as Tremont Temple. His ministry here was remarkable for its bold, uncompromising, and effective warfare upon slavery and intemperance, as well as for its directly spiritual results. On leaving Boston in 1852, Mr. Colver was pastor at South Abingdon, Mass., at Detroit, at Cincinnati, and finally, in 1861, at Chicago. While in Cincinnati he received from Denison university the degree of D. D. In Chicago he was invited to take the professorship of doctrinal theology in the theological seminary in process of organization in that city. In 1867-'70 he was president of the Freedman's institute in Richmond, Va. Dr. Colver bore a conspicuous part in the anti-masonic, anti-slavery, and temperance movements of his day. He published, besides occasional addresses, three lectures on Odd-fellowship (1844). See “Memoir of Nathaniel Colver,” by Justin A. Smith, D. D. (Chicago, 1873).