Alexander Nisbet

Who was Alexander Nisbet?

Judge Alexander Nisbet was the youngest son of the Dr. Charles Nisbet D.D. and Anne Tweedie. He came to the US in 1785 with his parents and settled in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where his father was appointed the first President of Dickinson College. He graduated from Dickinson College in 1794 and studied law in Carlisle before being appointed Judge of the Baltimore Criminal Court in 1806.

In 1806, Nisbet and several leading men formed the St. Andrew's Society of Baltimore. Nisbet served at that Society's 3rd President from 1830 to 1857. At the time of his death in 1857, he was the only surviving original member. In November 1857, when 80-year-old Judge Nisbet died in a fall from his bedroom window, the St. Andrew's Society chartered a railroad car from Calvert Station to attend the funeral, according to a report in The Baltimore Sun. Alexander Nisbet served as the President of the Baltimore and Susquehanna Railroad from 1833-1835.

He married Mary C. Owings of Maryland, had several children, but only the daughters survived to adulthood. Their home was known at the Montrose Estate, a northern plantation located north of Baltimore.