Page:The librarians of Harvard College 1667-1877.djvu/45

 LIBRARIANS OF HARVARD COLLEGE. 39 eminently his characteristics." He also published an "Oration delivered at Salem, 4th of July, 1812." He married, 11 December, 1803, Lydia R. Nichols. His son Benjamin (H. U. 1829) was a distinguished mathematician, and for many years Perkins professor of astronomy and mathematics. One of his three other children Charles Henry (H. U. 1833) was a physician in Salem and Cambridge.

AUTHORITIES: Peabody, Harvard reminiscences, 1888, p. 68. Peirce, B., Hint, of Harvard, (preface}. Peirce, F. C., Peirce genealogy, 1880, pp. 52, 74. Quincy, History of Harvard, 1840, ii. 390.

1831-1856.

Thaddeus William Harris, the eldest son of Thaddeus Mason Harris (Librarian, 1791- 1793), was born in Dorchester, 12 November, 1795. He graduated from the College in 1815 and from the Medical School five years later. He began the practice of his profession in Milton with Dr. Amos Holbrook, whose daughter, Catherine, he married in 1824. Soon after the birth of the first of his twelve children, he moved to Dorchester Village, where he continued to practise medicine for a few years. Interested more in science than in medicine, Harris welcomed the opportunity of being made Librarian at Harvard as likely to relieve him of the exacting duties of a country physician and give him more time for his favorite scientific pursuits. As early as 1826, he was con- sidered as a candidate for the position, but it was not until after the death of Peirce in 1831 that he was elected. In a measure his hopes of gaining more leisure were not realized. The Library in those days was rapidly growing and the care of it demanded more and more of his time. During the twenty-five years it was in his charge, it increased from about 30,000 to 65,000 volumes; new funds and subscriptions for immediate use were received ; and a new building, Gore Hall, was erected in 1840 at a cost of $73.500. In 1834, the " First Supplement " to the Catalogue was issued ; it was a volume of 260 pages and bore the imprint of " Charles Folsom, printer to the University." While he seems to have considered the increasing duties of this office a burden and a serious drag on his scientific work, he conscientiously and energeti- cally fulfilled them. " To the office of Libra- rian," writes one of his biographers, " Dr. Harris brought habits of precision and method, a disci- plined and scholarly mind, and a wide range of general and scientific information. To those who visited the Library for purposes of study and re- search he was always accessible, and his advice, suggestions, and assistance were freely given them. He was admirably adapted by taste and education to the position in which he now found himself." A student of history, an antiquarian, and a painstaking genealogist, it was as a scientist that he won fame. His special subject, entomology, was an almost unoccupied field in this country at that time. By his collections, his numerous writings, and his correspondence with other scholars, he reached a position of prominence as an authority. Agassiz declared that he had few equals as an entomologist. For several years (1837-1842) he gave lectures on natural history in the College, but he never attained the longed-for professorship in this subject. A hard and constant worker, he was scarcely absent from the Library a day during his long term. He died, after a sickness of two months, 16 January, 1856. The list of Dr. Harris's publications is a long one; Mr. Scudder enumerated 114 titles. The greater part of these consists of articles on ento- mology published in some thirty different periodi- cals ; but there are a number on botany and a few on miscellaneous subjects. His most important separate work was a Report on the insects of Massachusetts injurious to vegetation published in 1841 by the Zoological survey, and re-issued in 1842, 1852, and 1862. This long remained a standard work, as did his list of insects contributed to Hitchcock's Report on the geology, mineralogy, botany, and zoology of Massachusetts (1833). Some years after his death the Boston Society of Natural History published his Scientific corres- pondence, edited by Samuel H. Scudder (1869). This was accompanied by a portrait and by a memoir by Colonel T. W. Higginson. Dr. Harris was a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the American Academy, and the Boston Society of Natural History, and a corresponding member of the Entomological Society of London. AUTHORITIES : Harris, E. D., Memoir, in Mass. hist. soc. Proceedings, 1882, xix. 313-322. Higginson, Memoir, 1869. pp. [1] xi. xlvii. Palmer, Necrology, 1864, pp. 86-87. Pea- body, Harvard reminiscences, 1880, p. 105.

1856-1877.

John Langdon Sibley, the eldest child of Dr. Jonathan and Persis (Morse) Sibley, was born in Union, Maine, 29 December, 1804. After studying for two years at Phillips Exeter Academy, he entered Harvard in 1821. He attained a high rank as a scholar and was given parts at the exhibitions in his junior and senior years and at his graduation in 1825. During his college course he mainly supported himself, by acting as President's Freshman, by giving music lessons, and by working in the Library in his vacations. On graduating, he was appointed Assistant Librarian at a