Francis Wayland family papers (AMS.1C.4)

Biographical note

Francis Wayland was born in New York City on March 11, 1796. He graduated from Union College in 1813. He began studying medicine but abandoned it to study for the ministry and enrolled at Andover Theological Seminary in 1816. He was a tutor at Union College from 1817 to 1821, and in 1821 Wayland was called as minister of the First Baptist Church in Boston, where he gained recognition for several of his sermons. Brown awarded him an honorary D.D. degree in 1822 and elected him a Fellow of the Corporation in 1825. Wayland married Lucy Lane Lincoln in 1825. He returned to Union College as professor of mathematics and natural philosophy in 1826. He was elected president of Brown University in February 1827. He retired in 1855, and moved to a new home at the corner of Governor and Angell Streets. He died on September 30, 1865.