Oren Burbank Cheney was born in Holderness, New Hampshire, on December 10, 1816. He was the son of Moses Cheney, a member of the New Hampshire legislature, and of Abigail (Morrison) Cheney, a woman of great energy and strength of character.
Cheney's early education consisted of a few terms at private schools, a few at public schools, and a year when he was thirteen at New Hampton Institute. When he was sixteen he was sent to Parsonsfield Seminary, the first school founded and maintained by Free Baptists, where, as a student, he helped organize a temperance society, believed to be the first school society of that kind in the world. From this school he went again to the New Flampton Literary Institute. A year at Brown in 1835 was followed by a period at Dartmouth where he took his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1839, and his Master of Arts degree in 1842. He taught the Indians who camped near the college, preached at a Free Will Baptist church at Grantham, ten miles away, and taught a school during the winters at Peterboro to pay his college expenses.
In 1842 Cheney became the principal at the Farmington (Maine) Academy with Caroline Adelia Rundlett as his assistant. In 1843 he taught at Greenland, New Hampshire, walking to Northampton on Sundays to preach. Soon after he was licensed to preach. At this time he began to contribute articles to the Morning Star which appeared more or less regularly for sixty years. Called subsequently to be principal of Parsonsfield Seminary, he remained there for two years. Then, as he felt that he needed more theological preparation, he went to Whitestown, New York, to study. At the end of a year he accepted a country pastorate at West Lebanon, Maine, at a salary of $175 a year.
At Lebanon, with his customary energy, he founded an academy.
After six years here in the church and at the academy, he was called to the Augusta (Maine) Baptist pastorate. He served as a congressman in the Maine House of Representatives in 1851, through the Free Soil, Whig and Independent voter party in Augusta, Maine. In 1852 he was elected a delegate to the Maine Free Soil Convention at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which nominated John P. Hale for the presidency.
When Parsonsfield Seminary was burned in 1854, he was deeply stirred and at this time began to consider an ideal school in which students could depend on their own efforts to pay their way.
The result was the Maine State Seminary in Lewiston, Maine, which opened September 1, 1857, with Cheney as principal.
In 1863, the trustees were induced to vote to establish a course of collegiate study, the legislature was petioned for an enlarged charter, received the ensuing year, and the name was changed to Bates College in honor of its most generous patron.
Women as well as men had attended the seminary, but when the college was opened the feeling was so strong against women that all but one withdrew, the one, however, stayed and obtained her degree, and Bates as a result has remained a coeducational institution as its charter first provided. Cheney remained president of the college until 1894 and was president emeritus until his death in 1903.
Cheney achieved recognition in the 1850s through his religious leadership and academic endeavors. He was also known as a leader in the antislavery movement and played an instrumental part in the empowerment of African Americans and women in the American Civil War. While in politics he secured $2, 000 from the legislature for the Lebanon Academy and voted for the first prohibition measure introduced in the Maine legislature by Neal Dow.
At the start of his political career, Cheney was a member of the Free Soil Party. Later he switched his political affiliation to the Republican Party.
On January 30, 1840, Cheney married Caroline Adelia Rundlett. In 1847 he married Nancy S. Perkins, daughter of a Baptist clergyman. He was married a third time in 1892 to Emeline S. (Aldrich) Burlingame who had been much interested in Christian and reformatory work.
