Researching Isaac Nelson

Nelson was born in Belfast and educated at Belfast Academical Institution. In August 1837 he was ordained minister of First Comber Presbyterian Church. In 1842 he was installed in Donegall Street Presbyterian Church, Belfast.

In 1860 he published THE YEAR OF DELUSION, which denounces the 1859 Ulster Revival as an outbreak of religious hysteria and criticises the official Presbyterian Church for treating it as miraculous while concealing its less edifying experiences. He also criticises the Irish Presbyterian Church for accepting assistance from American Presbyterian upholders of slavery.

He stood for Parliament while still minister at Donegall Street. Having been elected, he resigned his pastoral charge and served as the Irish Parliamentary Party Member of Parliament for Mayo in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 1880 to 1885.

In November 1873, at a home rule conference in Dublin, Nelson emphasised the historical nationalism of Ulster Presbyterianism and expressed his view that no candidate in the next election would succeed without embracing home rule. His views were published in The Northern Whig Newspaper and were promptly condemned by William Johnston (not the prominent Orangeman of that name), the moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. The following year, Nelson attended and addressed the fourth annual meeting of the "Home Rule Association", held in Manchester, England. In 1877, he was a founding member of the "Home Rule Confederation".

He returned to Belfast and lived there in retirement until his death in 1888.

I. D. G. Nelson was born in New York state on July 2, 1810. In 1836, he moved to Fort Wayne, arriving via steamer along the newly opened Wabash and Erie Canal. Nelson bought the Fort Wayne Sentinel from George W. Wood in 1840 and turned it from a Whig paper to an organ of the Democratic Party. In 1851 he was elected as a representative from Allen County, Indiana to the Indiana General Assembly, where he helped pass the Nelson railroad bill. In 1852, he also helped organize the Wabash Railroad Company. Nelson served in various state government roles, including an 1854 appointment as clerk of the Allen circuit court, a member of the first board of trustees of Purdue University, and in 1877, he helped oversee the construction of the Indianapolis state house under Governor James D. Williams.

Nelson also renowned as a nursery owner. His own estate, "Elm Park" was considered "the showplace of Allen County." Nelson lived in Elm Park, and had great fondness for horticulture. Nelson helped to incorporate Lindenwood Cemetery in Fort Wayne, where a monument was built to him. He was also a member of the National Pomological Society.

Nelson died March 24, 1891.