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Author: Low, Samuel

Biography:

Low, Samuel (b 1765: ancestry.com)

He was born in New York City to Susanna (Bordeth) and John Low, and was baptised in the Dutch Reformed Church. He became a Mason, a member of the Holland Lodge for which he composed occasional poems. He married Margaret Kip (1769-96), of the same church, in 1785; they appear to have had at least one child. A comedy, The Politician Outwitted, was rejected by the theatres but Low had it published himself (1789). From 1795 to 1803 he worked as a book-keeper in the Bank of New York. His name disappears from New York directories after 1803 and it has been assumed that he died about then, but the year and place of his death have not been determined. There is a Samuel Low born in the same year recorded as having died in an almshouse in Ulster County NY in 1850--but there are also others of the same name with earlier dates. (Lewis Leary, "Samuel Low: New York's First Poet," Bulletin of the New York Public Library 74 [1970]: 468-80; ancestry.com 25 Nov. 2019)

 

Books written (2):

New York: printed by T. and J. Swords, 1800