American author, born in Wiscasset, ME, on the 24th of November 1815. After graduation from Bowdoin in 1835, he engaged in teaching in Louisville, KY, and afterward studied law, and was admitted to practice in Missouri, at St. Louis, in 1837. He began his literary labors in contributions to the Louisville Journal. He was secretary of the Berlin legation in 1849 and consul at Venice in 1850–51. As head of the United States Bureau of Statistics in 1856–57, he published a series of valuable reports on cotton, tobacco and foreign commercial relations. He returned to journalism for a time, but retired from active public life in 1870. Among his writings are Venice, the City of the Sea (1853); The Far West (1838); Edmond Dantes, a novel (1849); Mary Tudor, a drama; and De Molai: A Romance of History (1888).
