Author: Conwell, Columbus C.
Biography:
CONWELL, Columbus C. (1807-32: ancestry.com)
His name appears originally to have been Christopher Columbus Conwell. He was born in Donegal, Ireland, and emigrated to Philadelphia in 1820 along with his uncle Henry Conwell, a Roman Catholic bishop newly appointed to the diocese. Conwell graduated as MD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1829 with a thesis on "phytochemia" which was then published as A Dissertation on Vegetable Chemistry. With James Swain, he wrote a History of the French Revolution (1830). According to a report in the Boston Traveller, the real author of The Religion of the Sun (1826), which purported to be by Thomas Paine, was in fact "Columbus C. Conwell, of Philadelphia, a gentleman of brilliant talents and very fond of practical jokes." He died in Philadelphia on 11 Aug. 1832 "of the prevailing epidemic," cholera. (ancestry.com 17 Aug. 2025; Bulletin of the Library Company of Philadelphia, Vols. 14-29, accessed online 7 May 2018; Daily Chronicle [Philadelphia] 13 Aug. 1832) HJ