Eleazar Lord

Eleazar Lord (September 9, 1788 – June 3, 1871) was an American author, educator, deacon of the First Protestant Dutch Church and first president of the Erie Railroad.

Lord was engaged in banking; founded the Manhattan insurance company, and served as its president 1821–34; was the first president of the Erie Railroad company; was a prominent friend of the New York university, and assisted in founding theological seminaries at East Windsor, Connecticut, and Auburn, New York.

His principal works are Principles of currency; Geological Cosmogony: and an edition of Lempriere's Biographical Dictionary, with numerous additions.

Youth

Eleazar Lord was born September 9, 1788, at Franklin, Connecticut. His early boyhood was spent among the quiet scenes of that predictable countryside, where his elementary education was obtained in the district schools. At the age of sixteen, in 1804, he left home and began life as a clerk in a store at Norwich.

In 1808 he returned home to prepare himself for college, under the direction of the Rev. Dr. Lee, of Lisbon, of whose church (Presbyterian) he became a member in 1809. After two years of preparatory study at Phillips Academy, Andover, he entered Andover Theological Seminary, and remained there three and a half years. While there he time deeply interested in the subject of Foreign Missions, an interest that remained active with him all his life.

He wrote the first pretentious work in the literature of that department of the church ever published in this country: "A History of the Principal Protestant Missions to the Heathen." It was published in 1813 at Boston.