Thaddeus Mason Harris

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Thaddeus Mason Harris, ca.1830
Thaddeus William Harris Autograph.png

Thaddeus Mason Harris (born July 7, 1768 in Charlestown near Boston , Province of Massachusetts Bay , † April 3, 1842 in Dorchester , Massachusetts ) was an American librarian and clergyman .

As a young boy, Harris experienced the devastation of his birthplace in the American Revolutionary War ( Battle of Bunker Hill ). He graduated from Harvard College in 1787 and initially worked as a teacher in Worcester , Massachusetts. A smallpox prevented Harris private secretary to George Washington was. In 1791 he was instead given the position of librarian at Harvard College. That same year he became a founding member of the Massachusetts Historical Society and assistant to its President, Jeremy Belknap . In Cambridge Harris attended courses in theology and was on 23 October 1793 in the Congregational First Unitarian Church of Dorchester ordained . In 1813 he received a DD ( Doctor of Divinity ).

Several of his poems, travelogues, speeches and sermons were printed, Harris also published a pamphlet on the merits of Freemasonry in 1801 , the Natural history of the Bible in 1821 , which had several editions and was translated into German, and in 1841 a highly regarded biography of James Oglethorpe . In 1839, Harris retired as a clergyman for health reasons.

In 1806 Harris was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , in 1812 to the American Antiquarian Society .

Harris' son, Thaddeus William Harris (1795-1856), was an entomologist and also a librarian at Harvard.

literature

  • Harris, Rev. Thaddeus MDD In: A. Bradford: Biographical notices of distinguished men in New England. 1842.
  • Harris, Thaddeus Mason, DD In: FS Drake: Dictionary of American Biography. 1870.
  • Harris, Thaddeus Mason. In: Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American biography. 1887/88

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Book of Members 1780 – present, Chapter H. (PDF; 1.2 MB) In: American Academy of Arts and Sciences (amacad.org). Retrieved March 18, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Member list "H". In: americanantiquarian.org. Retrieved March 18, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Harris, Thaddeus Mason
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Harris, Thaddeus M.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American librarian and minister
DATE OF BIRTH July 7, 1768
PLACE OF BIRTH Charlestown near Boston , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH April 3, 1842
Place of death Dorchester , Massachusetts