Nathaniel Bouton

Nathaniel Bouton (June 20, 1799 – June 6, 1878) was an American Congregationalist minister and historian from New England. He pastored the "Old North" church in New Hampshire for 42 years from 1825 to 1867 and was a trustee of Dartmouth College from 1840 to 1877. He was passionate about abolitionism, temperance, education, and history; and authored a number of writings on the history of New Hampshire as part of the New Hampshire Historical Society and as State Historian.

Biography Bouton, the youngest of fourteen children of William and Sarah Bouton, was born in Norwalk, Connecticut, June 20, 1799. His father was a farmer who had served during the American Revolutionary War. At the age of 14 he was bound out as an apprentice in a printing office in Bridgeport, Connecticut. In addition to preaching there on Sundays, Bouton held open Monday evening meetings, instituted four Bible classes, traveled on horseback to different districts to give weekly lectures in schoolhouses, pray with the sick and elderly, and visit each family in his parish at least once a year.

In 1834, Bouton helped found the New Hampshire branch of the American Anti-Slavery Society along with Reverend George Storrs. Based in Concord, it was one of the first abolitionist societies in the area, the first being formed two years earlier in Plymouth. In 1845, Bouton's Old North church hosted a famous debate between Franklin Pierce and John P. Hale on slavery and abolitionism. Bouton was outspoken with his views on issues such as his support of the abolition and temperance movements; however, he prided himself on never airing his personal or political views as part of his sermons.

Bouton was involved in various other societies and served in positions such as trustee and president of both the New Hampshire Missionary Society and the Ministers' and Widows' Charitable Fund; co-founder and vice president of the American Home Missionary Society; director of both the New Hampshire Bible Society and the New Hampshire Educational Society; and member of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, New England Historical and Genealogical Society, and Historical Societies in New Hampshire, Maine, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.

Family Bouton married Harriet Sherman on September 11, 1825, daughter of Rev. John Sherman and the great-granddaughter of founding father Roger Sherman, but she died in Concord, May 21, 1828, at the age of 21. He married his second wife, Mary Ann Bell, daughter of John Bell, of Chester, New Hampshire, on June 8, 1829, but she died ten years later in Concord, February 15, 1839, at the age of 34. On February 18, 1840 he married his third wife, Elizabeth Ann Cilley, daughter of Horatio G. Cilley, of Deerfield, New Hampshire. He had thirteen children in total, two children by the first marriage, five by the second, and six by the third.