Author: Flanders, John, Jr.
Biography:
FLANDERS, John Jr. (fl 1834-8)
The volume published in 1834, dated from Newburyport MA, is described by the author as containing poems written "during the early part of my life" and printed for his friends: one assumes that he was a grown man by then. But "John Flanders, Jr." was also "a member of the junior class" (meaning, one year away from graduation) at the Oneida Institute in Whitesboro NY when he published a poem and essay under the title Truth the Soul of Eloquence in 1838. Perhaps he was a mature student at the Presbyterian institute, which was primarily a manual labour college but also offered instruction in traditional humanities subjects. The alumni records of Auburn Theological Seminary include a John Flanders, Jr., from Newburyport who had graduated from the Oneida Institute; he was "said to have been a poet, and to have preached for a time in Northern N. Y." (General Catalogue of the Auburn Theological Seminary [1883] 65; WorldCat) HJ