American poet; christened Thomas but in 1801 took the name of his father and of an elder brother who died without issue in 1794; a poet of some repute, but his verses have long been forgotten. His best-known productions are Adams and Liberty, a once-popular song written in 1798, The Invention of Letters (1795), and The Ruling Passion, the Harvard Phi Beta Kappa poem of 1797.
His Works in Verse and Prose (Boston, 1812) contains a biographical sketch.
