Author: Linn, John Blair
Biography:
Linn, John Blair (1777-1804: WBIS)
Linn's father William was a Presbyterian minister and college president; his mother Rebecca (Blair) was the daughter of a professor of theology. In 1786 the family moved from Big Spring PA (now Newville), where John Blair had been born, to New York, where he entered Columbia College in 1791. As an undergraduate, he began contributing to the New York Magazine--material that he collected and published anonymously in 1795. After graduating, and while pursuing literary interests with a play and a volume of verse, he turned to theology. He graduated from Union College, was ordained in 1799, and took up a post as co-pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. In May of the same year he married Hester Bailey; they had three children. He proved to be a fine preacher. Some of his discourses and a pamphlet correspondence with Joseph Priestley led to his receiving an honorary DD from the University of Pennsylvania. He was at work on an epic poem about the rise of Christianity when he died of tuberculosis. The poem, Valerian, was edited for posthumous publication with a biographical memoir by his friend Charles Brockden Brown, who married Linn's sister Elizabeth. (ANBO 16 Nov. 2019; Appleton)