American author, born in New York City in 1806. When he was eleven years old his leg was crushed and had to be amputated above the knee. After studying law at Columbia College he was admitted to the bar in 1827. In 1833 he was the chief editor of the Knickerbocker Magazine. After a trip through the West, he wrote A Winter in the West (1835); and Wild Scenes in the Forest and the Prairie (1837); and a novel, Greyslaer (1840). He also wrote poetry. The first volume is called The Vigil of Faith (1842); and the second, Borrowed Notes for Home Circulation (1844). He was the author of The Administration of Jacob Leisler, in Sparks’s American Biography Series (1848); and The Pioneers of New York (1848). A mental disorder which attacked him in 1849 closed his literary career. He died in Harrisburg, PA, on the 7th of June 1884. See also “Sparkling and Bright.”
