Rev. Alden was unanimously elected the eighth president of Jefferson College on January 7, 1847. He was a graduate of Union College and of Princeton Theological Seminary and had been most recently a professor at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. He began his tenure during a period of great prosperity for the College, during which enrollment increased and endowments grew generously. Although enrollment increased from 58 graduates in his first year to 75 in his second, the coming conflict between the states had a negative impact on enrollment as students from Southern states did not return and enrollment steadily declined.
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Photograph courtesy of Observer Publishing Company.
