APPLETON, JESSE, D. D.
Reverend Jesse Appleton was born at New Ipswich, New Hampshire, November 17, 1772. He married, in 1800, Miss Elizabeth Means. He died in Brunswick, November 12, 1819.
Reverend Mr. Appleton graduated at Dartmouth College in 1792, and subsequently entered the ministry. He was elected president of Bowdoin College in September, 1807, and was inaugurated in December following. He took an active part in the instructions of the college, and was noted for his punctuality in the discharge of duty. "Aside from the common routine of his college duties, as a gratuitous service, he composed, with great care, a course of more than fifty lectures on the most important subjects in theology. They were delivered once a week, in the chapel, to the whole college, and were always listened to with deep attention by the students. A part of them have been published in a volume with a few of his sermons, and in connection with his baccalaureate addresses, which are before the public in a separate volume, place him in the highest rank of the theological and ethical writers of our country. During his life, sermons, which he preached on several interesting and important occasions, were published. In truth,
President Appleton lived not in vain. He was a most diligent student and a laborious man. His varied attainments in philology and criticism, of which, particularly in reference to our own language, he was very fond; in mental and moral philosophy, to which his habits of mind were peculiarly adapted; and in theology, which was his favorite study, all combined with a fine taste, admirably qualified him to preside over a literary institution. When we add to these qualifications his uncommon dignity and courtesy of demeanor, and those traits of character which have already been mentioned, we cannot but regard him as one of the most able and most valuable among the presidents of our colleges."
George Augustus Wheeler and Henry Warren Wheeler, History of Brunswick, Topsham, and Harpswell, Maine, 1878, pps. 714-715.