Author: Fessenden, Thomas Green
Biography:
Fessenden, Thomas Green (1771-1837: WBIS)
pseudonym Christopher Caustic
He was born in Walpole NH where his parents, Thomas and Elizabeth (Kendall) Fessenden, had a farm; his father was also a minister. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1796 and went on to study law and to practise in Rutland VT. He began to publish poetry in broadsides and periodicals. In 1801, he travelled to England to secure a patent for a hydraulic pump made by a local inventor, but it turned out to be a fraud. Despite this early deception, Fessenden continued to invest in novelties that interested him, and wrote an essay on the law of patents for new inventions (1810). He also began to devote more time to journalism and editing, in Vermont and later in Boston MA. In 1813, he married Lydia Tuttle; they had no children. His greatest success came with an agricultural journal, The New England Farmer, which he founded in Boston in 1822 and carried on--with spinoffs including a seed store and books on gardening--to the end of his life. (ANBO 3 Dec. 2018; WorldCat)
Other Names:
- Thomas G. Fessenden