Author: Frisbie, Levi
Biography:
FRISBIE, Levi (1783-1822: DAB)
Son of Levi and Mehitable (Hale) Frisbie, he was born in Ipswich MA where his father was pastor of the Congregational church. He attended Andover and graduated from Harvard in 1802. Though he taught school in Concord for a year and began to study law, he was afflicted by partial blindness and eventually could not read for himself. Nevertheless he became Latin tutor at Harvard in 1805 and was promoted to Professor of Latin in 1811. Some of his discourses express an influential sympathy with Unitarian views. In 1817 he was made the first Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity: Ralph Waldo Emerson was one of his grateful students. In 1815 he married Catherine Saltonstall Mellen; there is no record of children. He died of tuberculosis. There are some biographical notices in the posthumously published volume of his Miscellaneous Writings, and his papers are in the Harvard Archives. (DAB; ancestry.com 13 Dec. 2018; John R. Shook, ed., Dictionary of Early American Philosophers [2012]) HJ
Other Names:
- Professor Frisbie