Willbur Fisk - Early Life

Early Life

Wilbur Fisk was raised in Lyndon, and at age 16 he was admitted to the Peacham Academy in Vermont where he completed a course of instruction in two years. After leaving the Academy, he began attending Burlington College in Vermont in 1812 (now the University of Vermont). The outbreak of the War of 1812, however, caused classes to be suspended. He then transferred to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island in 1814 and graduated in 1815.

While at Brown he determined to pursue a career in law, and upon graduation returned to Lyndon where he began working at the law office of the Hon. Isaac Fletcher. Fisk was not known as a particularly devoted student while in college, but after a year or so decided that a career in law was at odds with his Christian character. He left the legal profession behind and moved to Baltimore where he was engaged as a tutor.

Fisk was plagued by respiratory problems throughout his life, and ill health in Baltimore caused him to move back home to Lyndon to recuperate. While in Lyndon, he came in contact with the great religious revival sweeping the state of Vermont. His mother, Hannah, had forsaken her New England Calvinist roots to become a Methodist, and her home was a center of Methodist activity in northern Vermont. After much contemplation, Fisk decided to become a Methodist minister and was appointed an itinerant minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1818. He only served as a minister for three years in Vermont and Massachusetts before becoming interested in furthering educational opportunities in New England. In about 1820 he suffered a relapse in his health and did not resume his preaching until about 1822.