RARE “Robert College" Cyrus Hamlin Clipped Signature Dated 1876 For Sale

Up for sale a RARE! "Robert College" Cyrus Hamlin Clipped Signature Dated 1876. 

– August 8, 1900) was an educator, the father of A. D. F. Hamlin. Hamlin

was born in Waterford, Maine and

grew up on his family's farm estate. At sixteen, he entered an apprenticeship

as a silversmith and jeweler in Portland, Maine before deciding to enter the ministry. He first attended Bridgton Academy before

heading to college. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1834 and from Bangor Theological

Seminary in 1837. The Hamlins were a which also produced

a Vice

President of the United States (Hannibal Hamlin) and at least two Civil War generals, one of

whom was also named Cyrus Hamlin. He promptly left the United States in 1838 as

a missionary under the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, arriving

in the Ottoman Empire in January 1839. Hamlin helped found Bebek Seminary in 1840 as part of his outreach to

Armenians. Hamlin established a workshop at Bebek to teach

his students marketable trades, to help alleviate their severe poverty.[6] From this workshop sprung a baking business, by

which Hamlin became the primary provider of bread to the British Army hospital

in Istanbul during the Crimean War. It was during this period that Hamlin became

acquainted with Florence Nightingale. While the workshop and bakery were

controversial to the American Board, the funds earned by Hamlin's enterprises

helped build thirteen Protestant Armenian churches in Turkey. In

1860, he began the work of establishing Robert Empire. After years of unsuccessfully lobbying the

Ottoman authorities for permission to build the school, Hamlin was eventually

granted an imperial order granting permission for the school to be built and

permitting it to be under American (United States) protection and fly the flag of the

United States of America. The school opened its doors on May 15,

1863. Hamlin served as its president until an unfortunate

conflict in 1876, which forced his return to the United States where he later

served as professor of dogmatic theology at Bangor Theological Seminary.

He was elected president of Middlebury College in Vermont in 1880. His term was short, lasting only until

1885. However, Hamlin's guidance brought the College back from the brink of

collapse and began a recovery process that would ultimately lead to

unprecedented growth in the early years of the 20th Century. Hamlin resolved

severe disciplinary issues inherited from his predecessor and personally

contracted critical upgrades to the physical plant. However, the most

significant event of Hamlin's administration—one that would prove key in

maintaining Middlebury's stability later on—was the college's decision to

accept women in 1883. Hamlin was seventy-four by 1885 when he unsurprisingly

retired.

He published Among the Turks (1878) and My Life

and Times (1893). Hamlin Hall at Boğaziçi University (formerly

part of Robert College), as well

as Hamlin Hall in Middlebury College's

Freeman International Center are named after him. For many years, he lived

in Lexington, Massachusetts.

He is buried in Lexington's Munroe Cemetery.