American clergyman, born in Charlestown, MA, on the 7th of July 1768. His father, a Revolutionary patriot, died during the war, leaving his family destitute; had to make his living on a farm; attracted the attention of Dr. Morse, the owner of a private school, and was prepared there for Harvard; was graduated in 1787; had he not been attacked with smallpox, would have been accepted as Washington’s private secretary; librarian at Harvard (1781); studied theology at Worcester, and was chosen pastor of the First Unitarian Church, Dorchester, MA (1793), where he officiated for forty-six years. He wrote The Minor Encyclopædia (4 vols., 1803); Journal of a Tour in the Territory West of the Alleghany Mountains (1805); A Natural History of the Bible (1821). He died in Dorchester, MA, on the 3rd of April 1842.—His son, Thaddeus William, an American entomologist, was born in Dorchester, MA, on the 12th of November 1795; was graduated from Harvard (1815); practiced medicine at Milton Hill, MA; librarian of Harvard (1831); gave instruction in natural history and organized the Harvard Students’ Natural History Society; was made commissioner for the zoological and botanical survey of Massachusetts (1837), and published a report of the insects in the state, enumerating 2,350 species; the legislature published his Insects Injurious to Vegetation (1841; enlarged ed., 1852); was also much interested and active in antiquarian researches.—His brothers, William Thaddeus (1826–54) and Edward D., were also men of learning, much interested in genealogy and old state and town histories. The latter died in Cambridge, MA, on the 16th of January 1856. See also “The Little Orator.”
