Background
He was born on November 21, 1802 in Newcastle, Maine, United States, son of Jacob and Olive (Dinsdale) Sleeper.
He was born on November 21, 1802 in Newcastle, Maine, United States, son of Jacob and Olive (Dinsdale) Sleeper.
He received his early education in the common schools and at Lincoln Academy. In Boston he received the business training.
When he was fourteen, his parents died and he was placed in the care of his uncle in Belfast, where he worked in the latter's store and subsequently in a store of his own.
In 1825 he went to Boston, where he was a bookkeeper for True & Brodhead, dealers in naval supplies. Here he received the business training which in 1835 led him to form a partnership with Andrew Carney, a clothier. Carney's contracts for furnishing clothing to the navy, made before the panic of 1837, proved especially profitable in a period of falling prices and the firm prospered steadily.
When Sleeper withdrew from business in 1850, his fortune was estimated to be $250, 000, a sum which investments in real estate increased considerably. After his retirement he became interested for a brief time in politics.
He was a member of the state House of Representatives in 1851 and 1852; of the Governor's Council from 1859 to 1861 inclusive; and an alderman of Boston in 1852 and 1853. As candidate for mayor in the latter year on the Young Men's League ticket, he was defeated.
His greatest interest, however, was the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which he became a member at the age of twenty-one. He was frequently serving as the president of Boston Wesleyan Association, and was a liberal supporter of the New England Methodist Historical Society, of which, also, he was president.
As a trustee of Wesleyan University from 1844 to 1878, and as an overseer of Harvard from 1856 to 1868, he became greatly interested in education, and devoted much time to the study of it, both in the United States and in England. This interest led to his becoming, in 1869, one of the three founders of Boston University, the other two being Lee Claflin and Isaac Rich. He was its treasurer, 1869-73, and vice-president of its corporation, 1875-89.
Among his other educational interests were Wilbraham Academy, Wilbraham, Massachussets, the New England Female Medical College, which in 1873 united with the Boston University School of Medicine, and the New England Conservatory of Music. His private philanthropies were innumerable, his practice being to give away yearly the bulk of his income.
His death occurred in Boston.
Quotations: He himself followed the advice he proffered a friend, "Do as much good as you can, and don't make a fuss about it. "
He was an original member of the Boston Wesleyan Association.
He was seeking medical relief from a lameness which troubled him all through life, though it did not noticeably affect him.
He was married twice: first, May 7, 1827, to Eliza Davis; and second, April 7, 1835, to her sister Maria. He had three daughters and a son.