{{short description|American minister and theologian}} thumb|Ransom Dunn Rev. '''Ransom Dunn''', D.D. (July 7, 1818 – November 9, 1900) (nickname: "the Grand Old Man of Hillsdale")<ref name="hillsdalesites.org">{{cite web|url=http://www.hillsdalesites.org/Galleries/Historical/HistoricalPhotos/HistoricalPhotos/ransomdunn.html|title=Ransom Dunn|work=hillsdalesites.org|accessdate=28 January 2011}}</ref> was an American minister and theologian, prominent in the early Free Will Baptist movement in New England. He was President of Rio Grande College in Ohio.<ref name="RioHistory" /><ref name="umich2007" /> ''A Discourse on the Freedom of the Will'' is one of his most notable works.
==Early years== Dunn was born in the town of Bakersfield, in the north corner of Vermont to John and Abigail Reed Dunn, a family of English and Scots descent.<ref name="Hillsdale1978">{{cite book|title=150 years in the hills and dales: a bicentennial history of Hillsdale County, Michigan|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zoXhAAAAMAAJ|accessdate=26 January 2011|year=1978|publisher=Hillsdale County Historical Society and the Hillsdale County Bicentennial Commission}}</ref> Three brothers, Hiram, Lewis, and Thomas, also became ministers;<ref name="Gates1901">{{cite book |language=en |last=Gates Dunn |first=Helen |title=A consecrated life: a sketch of the life and labors of Rev. Ransom Dunn, D. D., 1818–1900 |url=https://archive.org/download/aconsecratedlif01gategoog/aconsecratedlif01gategoog.pdf |location=Boston, Mass. |publisher=The Morning star publishing house |year=1901|page=9}}</ref> there were at least two older half-brothers, Joab and John.<ref>Gates (1901), p. 31</ref> He had at least one sister, Amanda Dunn Montague.<ref>Gates (1901), p. 18</ref>
Around 1840 Dunn attended the Baptist Seminary (later named Cobb Divinity School at Bates College) in New Hampton, New Hampshire.<ref name="wlhn.org">{{cite web|url=http://freewillbaptist.wlhn.org/names/dunn_rev_ransom.htm|title=Rev. Ransom Dunn, D.D.|work=Free Baptist Cyclopaedia|publisher=Wisconsin Freewill Baptist Historical Society|accessdate=29 January 2011}}</ref> In 1873 he received an honorary doctorate from Bates College in Maine, which was then affiliated with the seminary.<ref>General catalogue of Bates college and Cobb divinity school, 1863–1915 By Bates College. Lewiston, Me, Cobb Divinity School. Lewiston, Me</ref>
==Career== [[File:Hillsdale College photo.jpg|thumb|Hillsdale College photo from, ''A consecrated life, a sketch of the life and labors of Rev. Ransom Dunn, D.D., 1818–1900'']]
On the third Sabbath in August, 1837, Ransom Dunn, at the request of the Lenox church, was ordained to the gospel ministry.<ref name="Co1900">{{cite book|title=Educators of Michigan: Biographical|url=https://archive.org/details/educatorsofmichi00beer|accessdate=26 January 2011|year=1900|publisher=J. H. Beers & co.|page=[https://archive.org/details/educatorsofmichi00beer/page/54 54]}}</ref> Among his most important pastorates were in the cities of Dover, New Hampshire, Great Falls, New Hampshire, New York City, and Boston, Massachusetts.<ref name="wlhn.org" /> By 1843, he was recording secretary of the Home Mission Society. In 1849, he began preaching at the Stuyvesant Institute in New York City. He became a pastor of the Free Will Baptist Church of Boston.
He is known for his publication ''A Discourse on the Freedom of the Will'', published in 1850.<ref name="Dunn1850">{{cite book|last=Dunn|first=Ransom|title=A discourse on the freedom of the will|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cxviAAAAMAAJ|accessdate=26 January 2011|year=1850|publisher=W. Burr, Printer}}</ref> With John Jay Butler, he published ''Lectures on systematic theology: embracing the existence and attributes of God, the authority and doctrine of the scriptures, the polllinstitutions and ordinances of the gospel'' in 1892. Dunn once mused, "The real value of colleges and universities is not to be estimated by the magnitude of buildings or endowments, but by the increase of mental power and moral force."<ref name="Brackney2008">{{cite book|last=Brackney|first=William H.|title=Congregation and campus: Baptists in higher education|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wq8w4rJ4Am8C&pg=PA37|accessdate=26 January 2011|date=October 2008|publisher=Mercer University Press|isbn=978-0-88146-130-5|page=37}}</ref>
Dunn taught at Geauga Seminary (where he taught future president James Garfield and First Lady Lucretia Garfield), and he was a professor at Central Michigan College in Spring Arbor, MI, which later moved and was renamed Hillsdale College.<ref name="Patterson1883">{{cite web|url=http://www.pure-michigan.com/hillsdalecollegeII/17.php|title=History of Hillsdale College|last=Patterson|first=John C.|year=1883|work=pure-michigan.com|accessdate=29 January 2011}}</ref> He was the first President (1876–1879)<ref name="RioHistory">{{cite web|url=http://www.rio.edu/admissions/page.php?ID=history|title=Rio History|publisher=University of Rio Grande|accessdate=28 January 2011}}</ref> as well as professor of mental and moral philosophy at Rio Grande College.<ref name="Raccoon1882">{{cite web|url=http://www.ohiogenealogyexpress.com/gallia/galliaco_history_raccoon.htm|title=Raccoon Township|year=1882|work=History of Gallia County|publisher=H. H. Hardesty & Co., Publishers|accessdate=28 January 2011|location=Chicago & Toledo|archive-date=23 December 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111223045448/http://ohiogenealogyexpress.com/gallia/galliaco_history_raccoon.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> He was later the president of Hillsdale College, Michigan,<ref name="umich2007" /> its dean, Burr professor of Christian Theology,<ref name="wlhn.org" /> and professor emeritus of moral theology.<ref name="MeetingWiley1892">{{cite book|last1=Wiley|first1=Frederick Levi|title=Centennial souvenir of the New Hampshire Yearly Meeting of Free Baptists: 1792–1892|url=https://archive.org/details/centennialsouve00meetgoog|accessdate=26 January 2011|year=1892|publisher=Pub. by the Board of Directors}}</ref> Dunn secured the school's original financial support by riding on horseback for thousands of miles through the frontier lands of Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin in the early 1850s, gathering donations.<ref name="Gilbert2007">{{cite web|url=http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/archive/issue.asp?year=2007&month=06|title=06/2007|last=Gilbert|first=Arlan K.|date=June 2007|work=Imprimis|publisher=Hillsdale College|accessdate=27 January 2011}}</ref> In Minneapolis in 1882, at the 25th General Conference of the Free-will Baptist Church, Dunn was chosen to be the moderator.<ref name="Appleton1883">{{cite book|title=Appletons' Annual Cyclopaedia and Register of important events of the year 1882... New series, vol. VII. Whole series, vol. XXII|url=https://archive.org/stream/nsappletonsannua08newyuoft/nsappletonsannua08newyuoft_djvu.txt|year=1883|publisher=D. Appleton|location=New York|page=53}}</ref>
==Personal life== In 1838, he met a relative of Ethan Allen, Mary Eliza Allen, and they married in Ohio soon thereafter.<ref>Gates (1901), pp. 62–3</ref> They had three children. Sons Newell Ransom Dunn (1841–1863) and Francis Wayland Dunn (Wayne, Ohio 1843–1874)<ref name="Hillsdale1978" /> both served in the Civil War.<ref name="umich2007">{{cite web|url=https://bentley.umich.edu/research/guides/civilwar/civilwar_search.php?id=112|title=Michigan in the Civil War|date=August 5, 2007|publisher=University of Michigan|accessdate=27 January 2011}}</ref> The youngest was a daughter, Cedelia Dunn (1845–1858).
In September 1849, he married Cyrena A. Emery in Dover, New Hampshire;<ref>Gates (1901), p. 90</ref> and they lived in Boston. They had at least three children, daughters, S. Abbie Dunn Slayton, Helen ("Nellie") Dunn Gates, and Nettie Dunn.<ref name="BurgessWard1889">{{cite book|last1=Burgess|first1=Gideon Albert|last2=Ward|first2=John T.|title=Free Baptist cyclopaedia: historical and biographical : the rise of the Freewill Baptist Connection and of those general and open communion Baptists which, merging together, form one people, their doctrines, polity, publications, schools and missions, with brief biographies of ministers and others identified with the growth and strength of the denomination / by Rev. G.A. Burgess, Rev. J.T. Ward|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3GXiAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA173|accessdate=28 January 2011|year=1889|publisher=Free Baptist Cyclopaedia Co.|pages=173–75}}</ref> Daughter Helen was the author of ''A consecrated life, a sketch of the life and labors of Rev. Ransom Dunn, D. D., 1818–1900''.<ref name="Gates1901"/> Dunn died in 1900 in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
==Partial works== * (1850), [https://books.google.com/books?id=cxviAAAAMAAJ&q=%22ransom+dunn%22+baptist ''A Discourse on the Freedom of the Will''] * (1892), [https://books.google.com/books?id=yRfiAAAAMAAJ ''Lectures on systematic theology: embracing the existence and attributes of God, the authority and doctrine of the scriptures, the institutions and ordinances of the gospel'']
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Bibliography== * ''The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans''; John Howard Brown, 1904
==External links== * [https://archive.org/details/aconsecratedlif00gategoog <!-- quote="ransom dunn" helen. --> ''A consecrated life: a sketch of the life and labors of Rev. Ransom Dunn, D.D., 1818–1900'']
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dunn, Ransom}} Category:1818 births Category:1900 deaths Category:19th-century Baptist ministers from the United States Category:19th-century American male writers Category:19th-century American non-fiction writers Category:American male non-fiction writers Category:Arminian ministers Category:Arminian theologians Category:Baptist theologians Category:Baptist writers Category:Cobb Divinity School alumni Category:Free Will Baptists Category:Hillsdale College faculty Category:People from Bakersfield, Vermont Category:People from Dover, New Hampshire Category:People from Somersworth, New Hampshire Category:University of Rio Grande people Category:Writers from Michigan Category:Writers from Ohio Category:Writers from Vermont