Jared Sparks

Jared Sparks
Seventeenth (17th) President of Harvard College (now Harvard University)
Term	1849 – 1853
Predecessor	Edward Everett
Successor	James Walker
Born	(1789-05-10)May 10, 1789 Willington, Connecticut
Died	March 14, 1866(1866-03-14) (aged 76) Cambridge, Massachusetts
Alma mater	Phillips Exeter Academy, Harvard College, (now Harvard University)
Profession	Historian, Educator, and Minister
Religion	Unitarian
Spouse	1832, Frances Ann Allen, d. 1835. 1839, Mary Crowninshield Silsbee.

Jared Sparks (May 10, 1789 – March 14, 1866) was an American historian, educator, and Unitarian minister. He served as President of Harvard College (now Harvard University) from 1849 to 1853.

Biography

Born in Willington, Connecticut, Sparks studied in the common schools, worked for a time at the carpenter's trade, and then became a schoolteacher. In 1809–1811, he attended the Phillips Exeter Academy where he met John G. Palfrey, a lifelong friend. He graduated from Harvard University, (now Harvard University), with a (A.B. in 1815, and a A.M. in 1818); in 1812, served as a tutor to the children of a family in Havre de Grace, Maryland, taught in a private school at Lancaster, Massachusetts during 1815–1817; and studied theology and was college tutor in mathematics and natural philosophy at Harvard College in 1817–1819. In 1817–1818 he was acting editor of the "North American Review".

Jared Sparks, Thomas Sully, 1831

He was the first pastor of the newly organized (1817), "First Independent Church of Baltimore" (in a prominent landmark structure at West Franklin Street at North Charles Street - which later became the "First Unitarian Church of Baltimore (Unitarian and Universalist)" after a 1935 merger with the Second Universalist Church at Guilford Avenue and East Lanvale Street) in Baltimore, Maryland, from 1819 to 1823, Dr. William Ellery Channing, (1780-1842), of the Federal Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts, delivering at his ordination, his famous discourse on Unitarian Christianity later known as "The Baltimore Sermon", which set out the tenets and some principles for the developing theology and philosophy of "Unitarianism". By 1825, these principles led to the founding of the religious denomination of the American Unitarian Association, and later by 1961 into the merger which created the modern Unitarian Universalist Association of America. During this period, Sparks founded the "Unitarian Miscellany" and "Christian Monitor" (1821), a monthly, and edited its first three volumes. He was also chaplain of the United States House of Representatives in the U.S. Congress at the Capitol, in Washington, D.C. from 1821 to 1823;^[1] and he contributed to the "National Intelligencer" and other periodicals.^[2]

In 1823, his health failed and he withdrew from the ministry. Removing to Boston, he bought and edited in 1824–1830 the "North American Review", contributing to it about fifty articles. He founded and edited in 1830, the "American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge", which was continued by others and long remained a popular annual.^[2]

After extensive researches at home and (1828–1829) in London and Paris, he published the "Life and Writings of George Washington" (12 volumes, 1834–1837; redated 1842), his most important work; and in 1839 he published separately the "Life of George Washington" (abridged, 2 volumes, 1842). The work was for the most part favorably received, but Sparks was severely criticized by Lord Mahon (in the sixth volume of his "History of England") and others for altering the text of some of Washington's writings. Sparks defended his methods in "A Reply to the Strictures of Lord Mahon and Others" (1852). The charges were not wholly justifiable, and later Lord Mahon (Stanhope) modified them. While continuing his studies abroad in 1840–1841, Sparks discovered in the French archives the red-line map, which, in 1842, came into international prominence in connection with the dispute over the north-eastern U.S.-Canadian boundary and the "Aroostook War" between the State of Maine in the United States and the Province of New Brunswick in Canada.^[2]

Professorship

Five Harvard College/University Presidents sitting in order of when they served. Left-to-Right: Josiah Quincy III, Edward Everett, Jared Sparks, James Walker and Cornelius Conway Felton.

Sparks was one of the American intellectuals who received French author and traveler Alexis de Tocqueville during his 1831–1832 visit to the United States. Sparks's extensive conversations and subsequent correspondence informed de Tocqueville's best-known work, "Democracy in America".

In 1842, Sparks delivered twelve lectures on American history before the Lowell Institute in Boston. In 1839–1849, he was "McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History at Harvard.^[2] His appointment to this position, says his biographer, was the first academic encouragement of American history, and of original historical research in the American field. In 1849, he succeeded the famed Edward Everett (the featured speaker/orator at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery in November 1863, after the Battle of Gettysburg, before the "few prepared remarks" - "Gettysburg Address" of President Abraham Lincoln), as President of Harvard College and moved into a home on campus now called Treadwell-Sparks House. He retired in 1853 on account of failing health, and devoted the rest of his life to his private studies. For several years he was a member of the Massachusetts Commonwealth Board of Education.

Death

Grave of Jared Sparks at Mount Auburn Cemetery

Jared Sparks died on March 14, 1866, in Cambridge, Massachusetts and was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery. His valuable collection of manuscripts and papers went to Harvard University; and his private library and his maps were bought by Cornell University. He was a pioneer in collecting, on a large scale, documentary material on American history, and in this and in other ways rendered valuable services to historical scholarship in the United States.

Works

Other works by Sparks include:

• "Memoirs of the Life and Travels of John Ledyard" (1828);
• "The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution" (12 volumes, 1829–1830; redated 1854);
• "Life of Gouverneur Morris, with Selections from his Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers" (3 volumes, 1832);
• "A Collection of the Familiar Letters and Miscellaneous Papers of Benjamin Franklin" (1833);
• "The Works of Benjamin Franklin; with Notes and a Life of the Author" (10 vols, 1836–1840; redated 1850), a work second in scope and importance to his Washington;
• "Correspondence of the American Revolution; being Letters of Eminent Men to George Washington, from the Time of his taking Command of the Army to the End of his Presidency" (4 volumes, 1853);

He also edited the "Library of American Biography", in two series (10 and 15 volumes, respectively, 1834–1838, 1844–1847), - - to which he contributed articles on the lives of Gen. "Mad" Anthony Wayne, Henry Vane the Younger, Ethan Allen, spy, Gen. Benedict Arnold, explorer Jacques Marquette, explorer René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, Kazimierz Pulaski ("Count Pulaski"), Jean Ribault, Gen. Charles Lee and John Ledyard, the last a reprint of his earlier work.

In addition, he aided Henry D. Gilpin in preparing an edition of the "Papers of James Madison" (1840), and brought out an American edition of William Smyth's "Lectures on Modern History" (2 volumes, 1841), which did much to stimulate historical study in the United States.

Memorials

Famous historian Francis Parkman's "The Conspiracy of Pontiac" (1851), was dedicated to Sparks.

Memorial plaques and historical displays with portraits of Channing, Sparks and others in the historical exhibit area of the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore (Unitarian and Universalist). The congregation also observes and commemorates the annual anniversary of "The Baltimore Sermon" of May 5, 1819, on the first Sunday in May with a "Union Sunday", with a featured sermon/homily/address by a noted invited speaker and attended by the ministers and members of the Unitarian churches in Maryland along with other visiting ecumenical members of other local Christian churches and those interested in the religious history of America and the city/state. P

Bibliography

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jared Sparks.

• Herbert B. Adams, "The Life and Writings of Jared Sparks" (2 volumes, Boston, 1893).
• Brantz Mayer, "Memoir of Jared Sparks" (1867), prepared for the Maryland Historical Society.
• George E. Ellis, "Memoir of Jared Sparks" (1869), reprinted from the "Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society" for May 1868.

Notes

Attribution

•  Corbin, William Lee (1911). "Sparks, Jared". In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press 

External links

• Jared Sparks Papers Houghton Library, Harvard University.
• Tocqueville in Cambridge segment from C-SPAN's Alexis de Tocqueville Tour - Features Peter Gomes discussing Sparks and his meeting with Tocqueville.
• - website for the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore (Unitarian and Universalist), West Franklin Street and North Charles Street; Baltimore, Maryland 21201.