The Debilitated Dropout
George Washington Lane was born in 1802 at New Gloucester, Maine. He grew up there, in close proximity to several other members of the Class of 1825. Before college, Lane studied at Gorham Academy alongside James Ware Bradbury, Nathaniel Dunn, and Seward Wyman. When Lane was 19, he matriculated at Bowdoin and started boarding at Jacob Abbott’s Brunswick home. His housemates there were John S.C. Abbot, Joseph Jenkins Eveleth, John Odlin Page, and William Aurelius Stone.
Sophomore year, Lane boarded at the Honorable B. Orr’s with Stone and nine other classmates. Junior year, Lane moved into Winthrop Hall with Charles Jeffrey Abbott. Lane may have also been close with Samuel Page Benson. At Bowdoin, Lane was involved with the Peucinian Society. He was also a frequent guest in the annals of the Executive Government. Bowdoin officers cited and fined him 11 times between 1822 and 1824, for habitually neglecting his schoolwork and worship obligations. Lane’s most serious offence was exiting the bounds of campus after he had been expressly denied permission to leave.
Like many other troublemakers in the Class of 1825, Lane did not graduate from Bowdoin. However, his reasons for leaving campus were more tragic than many of his peers. In the Spring of 1824, the scholar’s health began to fail and he was forced to drop out. He moved to Louisiana to recuperate and became a tutor in the Louisiana College. Here, Lane experienced a religious awakening and joined the Presbyterian Church. After a couple years of convalesce, Lane felt well enough to travel back to the Northeast. He began to study at the Princeton Theological Seminary in the hopes of becoming a minister. Lane remained in New Jersey for eighteen months, but his illness returned before he could graduate from the seminary. In another attempt to recover his health, he moved to Prince Edwards, Virginia, and tried to finish his studies from there. However, Lane’s illness only worsened and he died at Prince Edwards in 1829, at the young age of 27.