Aaron Lucius Chapin was a congregational clergyman, college president and editor born in Hartford, Connecticut.

Religious Work

He graduated from Yale College in 1837 and Union Theological Seminary in New York in 1842. In 1843 he moved to Milwaukee, where he was ordained and then became pastor of the First Presbyterian Church. When he and other religious leaders realized the education needs of the upper Mississippi valley, he assembled a convention of delegates from Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa which resulted in the establishment of Beloit College. In 1850 he became first president of the new college and modeled it on New England sectarian schools. He also acted as college treasurer since many of the original endowments were in the form of land grants.

Achievements

While serving as president of the college from 1850 to 1886, he also taught civil polity, edited Francis Wayland's 'Political Economy' and Johnson's Encyclopedia and was the author of 'First Principles of Political Economy' in 1879. He was the editor of the Congregational Review and the New Englander. From 1851 to 1889 he was a member of the American Board for Foreign Missions and was also a trustee of the Chicago Theological Seminary from 1858-1891, Rockford Seminary from 1845 to 1892, the Wisconsin Institute for the Deaf and Dumb from 1865 to 1881 and a director of the American Home Missionary Society from 1850 to 1883. He was also one of the founders and presidents of the Wisconsin Academy of Science. 

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Aaron Lucius Chapin

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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]