Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Nisbet, Charles
NISBET, CHARLES (1736–1804), Scottish divine, was the son of William Nisbet, schoolmaster at Long Yester, near Haddington, East Lothian, where he was born 21 Jan. 1736. He was educated at the high school and the university of Edinburgh, and was licensed by the Edinburgh Presbytery in September 1760. He officiated for a time at Gorbals chapel-of-ease, and was called to the first charge of Montrose, Forfarshire, in 1764. In the course of the war with the American colonies he advocated the colonial cause in such a way as to make his position at home uncomfortable. In 1783 he was made D.D. of the college of New Jersey for his advocacy of the cause of the colonists. Having absented himself from his charge by a visit to America, the presbytery declared his church vacant on 5 Oct. 1785. Meanwhile he had been appointed principal of Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and this post he held till his death on 18 Jan. 1804. In 1766 he married Anne Tweedie, who died 12 May 1807. His theological lectures delivered at Dickinson College were the first of the kind in America, and, in addition, he lectured on logic, belles-lettres, and philosophy. He was an excellent classical scholar, and had such a retentive memory that at one time he could repeat the whole of the Æneid and Young's ‘Night Thoughts.’ His library was presented by his grandson to the theological seminary at Princeton. He left no important work, but some miscellaneous productions were collected and published in 1806, and a ‘Memoir,’ by Samuel Miller, appeared in 1840. An ‘Address to the Students of Dickinson College’ was published at Edinburgh in 1786.
[Miller's Memoir as above; Scott's Fasti Eccles. Scot. iii. 845; Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography; Irving's Book of Scotsmen; Anderson's Scottish Nation; Scots. Mag. vol. lxvi.; Cleland's Annals, vol. i.; Statistical Account, vol. i.; Presbytery and Synod Records.]