Author: Person, William
Biography:
PERSON, William (1793-1818: Life and Letters)
A student in his senior year at Harvard when he died, Person never knew his parents and was dependent on the generosity of his classmates for part of his maintenance at university--and for the volume published in his honour after his death. He was an illegitimate child, born in Boston, whose parents abandoned him at birth but placed him first with a foster mother in Andover and then with a tutor there. He was apprenticed to a tanner in Providence RI for thirteen years, after which he began a second apprenticeship as a weaver at a woollen factory. On a visit to Andover in 1814 he applied to Phillips Academy and was taken on as a "house scholar," receiving education in exchange for labour; he also taught school during vacations. He was admitted to Harvard in 1816 and excelled there but struggled to pay his bills: his classmates stepped in with financial support, which was eventually supplemented by a Mr. Johnson, who represented himself as a friend of Person's unknown father and who had provided financial backing before. Johnson at last revealed to Person the name of his mother, by then deceased. But Person caught cold, developed a chronic cough, and died without fulfilling his promise as a scholar. The collection of Life and Letters had a sympathetic review from the North American Review in October 1820. (Life and Letters; Allibone)