Nelson, Reuben, Dd

Nelson, Reuben, D.D.

a Methodist Episcopal minister, was born at Andes, N.Y., December 13, 1818. He was converted at the age of fifteen, at seventeen was licensed to exhort, at eighteen to preach, studied the next year, and in 1840 entered the Oneida Conference. He preached one year on Otsego Circuit, and one on Westford, serving meantime as principal of the Otsego Academy, at Cooperstown. In 1844 the Oneida Conference founded the Wyoming Seminary, at Kingston, Pennsylvania, and Mr. Nelson was chosen its first principal, which office he filled for twenty-eight years, with but one year's exception, during which he was presiding elder of Wyoming District. In 1872 he was elected agent of the Methodist Book Concern, in New York city, which office he held till his death, February 20, 1879. See Minutes of Annual Conferences, 1879, page 67; Simpson, Cyclop. of Methodism, s.v.