Cyrus Hamlin

Cyrus Hamlin (January 5, 1811 – August 8, 1900) was an American Congregational missionary and educator, the father of A. D. F. Hamlin.

Hamlin was born in Waterford, Maine and attended Bridgton Academy before heading to college. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1834 and from Bangor Theological Seminary in 1837. The Hamlins were a prominent nineteenth-century Maine family which also produced a Vice President of the United States (Hannibal Hamlin) and at least two Civil War generals, one of whom was also named Cyrus Hamlin.

He promptly left the United States in 1838 as a missionary under the American Board, arriving in Turkey in January 1839. In 1860, he began the work of establishing Robert College in Istanbul, Ottoman Empire. He served as its president until an unfortunate conflict in 1876, which forced his return to the United States where he served as professor of dogmatic theology at Bangor Theological Seminary.

He was elected president of Middlebury College in Vermont in 1880. His term was short, lasting only until 1885. However, Hamlin's guidance brought the College back from the brink of collapse and began a recovery process that would ultimately lead to unprecedented growth in the early years of the 20th Century. Hamlin resolved severe disciplinary issues inherited from his predecessor and personally contracted critical upgrades to the physical plant. However, the most significant event of Hamlin's administration—one that would prove key in maintaining Middlebury's stability later on—was the college's decision to accept women in 1883. Hamlin was seventy-four by 1885 when he unsurprisingly retired.

He published Among the Turks (1878) and My Life and Times in Turkey (1893). Hamlin Hall at Boğaziçi University, (formerly part of Robert College), as well as Hamlin Hall in Middlebury College's Freeman International Center are named after him.

For many years, he lived in Lexington, Massachusetts. He is buried in Lexington's Munroe Cemetery.