Background
Nathaniel F. Moore was born on December 25, 1782, in Newton, Illinois, the son of William Moore, a distinguished New York physician, and Jane, daughter of Nathaniel Fish.
Nathaniel F. Moore was born on December 25, 1782, in Newton, Illinois, the son of William Moore, a distinguished New York physician, and Jane, daughter of Nathaniel Fish.
Moore graduated from Columbia during the presidency of his uncle, Bishop Benjamin Moore, in 1802. At Commencement he delivered the Latin salutatory, De Astronomiae Laudibus.
Choosing the profession of law, he studied under Beverly Robinson and was admitted to the bar in 1805.
His practice was never extensive, and in 1817 he accepted the more congenial occupation of adjunct professor of Greek and Latin at Columbia, succeeding Peter Wilson, as professor in 1820.
In 1835 he resigned his professorship and traveled for about two years in Europe. Upon his return he sold his library, a choice collection of about a thousand titles in the classics, philology, and theology of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, to the college for $10, 000.
In January 1838 he was appointed librarian of the college. He was the first incumbent to devote his entire time to the office, and he classified and arranged the books and made with his own pen a huge catalogue in book form which continued to be used for thirty years.
In 1839 he resigned and went abroad again, visiting Egypt, Greece, and Palestine, as well as Germany and England.
On August 1, 1842, Moore was elected president of Columbia, succeeding William Alexander Duer. His duties included instruction in the classics to the seniors. During his presidency, the college was situated in one of the quiet, residential sections of the city; the enrollment was slightly over one hundred, the annual income and expenditures were about $23, 000, and there was a debt of some $60, 000. The duties of the presidency were not particularly congenial to Moore, whose previous life had been spent in scholarly seclusion and reflection among his books, and little more can be said than that the college held its own during his seven-year term.
He relinquished his duties in October 1849, to be succeeded by the more worldly and active Charles King.
While on a visit to London in 1851, Moore was greatly impressed with the specimens of the new art of photography on paper exhibited at Crystal Palace, and on his return he devoted himself assiduously to photography as a hobby. Some of his work is preserved at Columbia. The last sixteen years of his life were spent in retirement, and he died on April 27, 1872, at his brother's home in the Highlands of the Hudson.
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Nathaniel F. Moore never married.