William Allen (1820–1839)

William Allen (1784-1868) was a Congregational minister, author, and college president. A graduate of Harvard (1802), he served as regent there from 1804 to 1810, when he took over his father's parish in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. In 1817 he became president of the short-lived Dartmouth University, leaving Dartmouth for Bowdoin when the University was dissolved.

Allen became Bowdoin's third president, serving, with one interruption, from 1820 to 1839. He worked to establish the Medical School of Maine and to lead the College through the formation of the new state of Maine in 1820. Information on Allen's tenure is available in the William Allen Administrative Records. He retired to Northampton, Massachusetts in 1839. 

Allen married Maria Malleville in 1812; the couple had eight children. Malleville died in 1828. In 1831, Allen married Sarah Johnson. 

Allen's papers are supplemented by his published writings, among them three editions of the American Biographical Dictionary, Junius Unmasked, and many sermons and theological works.

Painting credit: Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine Gift of the Children of William Allen, Class of 1871