American clergyman and author, born in St. John’s, NB, on the 4th of May 1802. After serving as an apothecary’s apprentice and working on a farm, he went to Harvard, where he graduated in 1821, and from the Divinity School in 1824; was then confirmed as assistant to John Prince, pastor of the First Church in Salem, where he remained until 1844, when ill health compelled his retirement; was editor of the Christian Register for a couple of years; and then traveled and lectured as the agent of the Massachusetts State Board of Education; in 1849 was elected mayor of Salem, and in 1849 a member of the legislature, and then successively state senator, national Congressman, state senator and finally, in 1859, Representative again. Among his works are Letters on Logos (1828); Prophecy as an Evidence of Christianity (1835); Lectures on Witchcraft Comprising a History of the Salem Delusion of 1692 (1831); Life, Letters, and Public Services of John Charles Frémont (1856); and a Memoir of Timothy Pickering (1867–72). He died at Salem on the 15th of June 1875. See also “The Victims of Salem.”
