Hamlin, Cyrus (1811-1900)

Founder and first president of Robert College in Constantinople

Cyrus Hamlin Hamlin was born in Waterford, Maine, son of Hannibal and Susanna Faulkner Hamlin. He graduated from Bridgeton Academy (1830), Bowdoin College (1834), and Bangor Theological Seminary (1837). He was appointed in 1837 by the American Board of Commissioner for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) to serve in the Near East. In September 1838 he married Henrietta Jackson, and the couple sailed for Constantinople in December of that year.

cyrus_hamlin3 Hamlin directed Bebek Seminary, a mission school in Constantinople, from 1840 to 1860. He resigned from the mission in 1860 over disputes with fellow missionaries and the leadership of the ABCFM concerning his philosophy of education and highly successful “secular labors” to raise money for student support. With financial backing from American philanthropist Christopher Robert, he founded the college on the Bosphorus that bore Robert’s name. Hamlin served as its president from 1863 to 1873. He then returned to the United States, where he attempted for two years with limited success to secure endowment funds for Robert College.

Prevented by colleagues from returning to his work in Constantinople, Hamlin taught for three years at Bangor Seminary. In 1880 he became president of Middlebury College in Vermont, a position he held with distinction until he retired to Lexington, Massachusetts, in 1885.

Norman A. Horner, “Hamlin, Cyrus,” in Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, ed. Gerald H. Anderson (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 1998), 277.

This article is reprinted from Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, Macmillan Reference USA, copyright © 1998 Gerald H. Anderson, by permission of Macmillan Reference USA, New York, NY. All rights reserved.

Bibliography

Digital Texts

Bliss, Edwin M. Assisted by Cyrus Hamlin. With an Introduction by Frances E. Willard. Turkey and the Armenian Atrocities: A Graphic and Thrilling History of Turkey–the Armenians, and the Events that have Led up to the Terrible Massacres that have Occurred in Armenia, with a Full Account of the Same. M. J. Coghlan, 1896.

Hamlin, A. D. F. In Memoriam: Rev. Cyrus Hamlin, D.D., L.L.D. Boston: Published Privately, 1903.

Hamlin, Cyrus. The American College and its Economics: President Hamlin’s Baccalaureate Address at the Eighty-Fifth Commencement of Middlebury College. Middlebury: Register Company, Printers, 1885.

Hamlin, Cyrus. Among the Turks. New York: R. Carter & Brothers, 1878.

Hamlin, Cyrus. My Life and Times. 2d ed. Boston: Congregational Sunday-School and Publ. Society, 1893.

Secondary

Stevens, Marcia and Malcolm Stevens. Against the Devil’s Current: The Life and Times of Cyrus Hamlin. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1988.

Washburn, George. Fifty Years in Constantinople. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1909.

Portrait