History of Cambridgeport, (Middlesex County) Massachusetts United States of America

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Biographies:

Alvan Graham Clark, lens maker, was born in Fall River, Mass., July 10, 1832; son of Alvan and Maria (Pease) Clark, and descended from Barnabas Clark, one of the earliest settlers of Plymouth colony. He was educated at the public schools of Cambridgeport, learned the trade of a machinist and worked with his brother, George Bassett, in making lenses, becoming a member of the firm of Alvan Clark & Sons in 1852. He was a successful observer of astronomical phenomena and discovered fourteen intricate double stars, among them the companion to Sirius, receiving in 1862 the Lalande gold medal of the French imperial academy of sciences. He visited Europe several times and was sent by the United States government to observe the eclipse of the sun with Winlock at Shelbyville, Ky., in 1869, and the transit of Venus at Jarez, Spain, in 1870, and with Harkness, the solar eclipse in Wyoming Territory in 1878. In 1882 he completed a 30-inch object glass for the government of Russia. He was made a fellow of the American academy of arts and sciences, of the American association for the advancement of science, and a member of the Cambridge and Union clubs. He received a gold medal from the Russian government for excellence of telescopic objectives. Among his larger telescopes are the Yerkes refractor, 41 1/2-inch aperture; Lick observatory, California, 36-inch; Pulkova observatory, Russia, 30-inch; Washington naval observatory, 26-inch; McCormick, University of Virginia, 26-inch; and those of lesser power at Princeton, Denver, Rochester, Evanston, Madison, and Vienna, ranging from 12 to 24 inches. In May, 1897, he delivered to the Yerkes observatory, Lake Geneva, Wis., the lenses for the most powerful telescope in America, which cost the labor of three years with two assistants, conveying them from Cambridgeport to Chicago in a special drawing-room car. He was the last survivor of the famous family of Clarks, lens makers, and died at Cambridgeport, Mass., June 9, 1897.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

Sarah Margaret Fuller Ossoli, author, was born at Cambridgeport, Mass., May 3, 1810; daughter of Timothy and Margaret (Crane) Fuller. Her younger sister, Ellen, married the poet, Ellery Channing of Concord, Mass. Margaret was educated at home and at the age of fifteen was proficient in Latin, Greek, French and Italian. She removed to Groton, Mass., in 1833 and upon the death of her father in 1835, taught school in Boston, Mass., and Providence, R.I., in order to support the younger children of the family. She removed to Jamaica Plain, Mass., in 1839; was a frequent visitor at Brook Farm and there met the famous patrons of that celebrated colony, being recognized as the inspiration of Hawthorne's "Zenobia" in his "Blithedale Romance." She formed a club of the brightest and most distinguished women in Boston and edited the Dila, a philosophical journal. In December, 1844, she removed to New York city and assumed the position of literary critic and philanthropic and artistic reporter on the Tribune, and became a member of the household of Horace Greely. In August, 1846, she sailed for Europe and after an extended tour in which she met the foremost leaders in philanthropic, literary and reform movements, settled in Rome, Italy, in 1847. While there she was married in December, 1847, to Giovanni Angelo, Marquis Ossoli. During the siege of Rome, at the request of Mazzini, she was in charge of the Hospital of the Trinity to the Pilgrims and contributed much to the care of the wounded; but upon the possession of the city by the French in June, 1849, she took refuge with her husband in Rieti, Italy, where her child had been placed for safety. After a few months the family returned to Florence and set sail from Leghorn, on the merchant ship Elizabeth bound for America. While off Fire Island, N.Y., the vessel was wrecked during a severe storm and the three were drowned. The body of the child, the only one recovered, was taken to Boston and buried at Mt. Auburn cemetery by the New England relatives. A memorial to Margaret Fuller, consisting of a pavilion on the dunes overlooking the sea at Point o' Woods, opposite the site of the wreck, was unveiled on July 19, 1901, the 51st anniversary of the disaster. The idea of its erection originated with Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake and the necessary money was raised by subscription. The interior of the pavilion contains a bronze tablet giving the name of Margaret Fuller and those of her husband and child, together with the facts of the shipwreck, and bearing an inscription by Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. Margaret Fuller is the author of: Summer on the Lakes (1843); Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1844); Papers on Literature and Art (1846), of which a new edition was prepared by her brother, the Rev. Arthur B. Fuller (1855). The MS. of her proposed History of the Roman Republic was lost in the shipwreck. Her life was written jointly by William Henry Channing, R.W. Emerson and James Freeman Clarke in 1852; Julia Ward Howe wrote a memoir in Eminent Women series (1883), and Thomas Wentworth Higginson in American Men of Letters (1884). See also correspondence of Emerson and Carlyle, and Life of Mazzini. She died at sea off Fire Island, Long Island, N,Y., July 19, 1850.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

Mary Tyler (Peabody) Mann, author, was born in Cambridgeport, Mass., Nov. 16, 1806; daughter of Dr. Nathaniel Peabody. She was educated in the schools at or near Boston, Mass., was married, in May, 1843, to Horace Mann, went with him to Europe, and greatly assisted him in his studies of foreign educational reform and in his benevolent and educational work. She is the joint author with her sister, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, of several books on the kindergarten system, chief among which is Culture in Infancy (1863). She also wrote Flower People (1838); Christianity in the Kitchen, a Physiological Cook Book (1857); Life of Horace Mann (1865); and Junita, a Romance of Real Life in Cuba, published posthumously. She died in Jamaica Plain, Mass., Feb. 11, 1887.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

Arthur Buckminster Fuller, clergyman, was born in Cambridgeport, Mass., Aug. 10, 1822; son of the Hon. Timothy and Margaret (Crane) Fuller, and brother of Sarah Margaret Fuller Ossoli, author. He was prepared for college at Leicester academy and by his sister Margaret, and was graduated at Harvard college in 1843, and at the divinity school in 1847. He was a missionary and teacher in Illinois while pursuing his divinity course, and was pastor of the Unitarian church, Manchester, N.H., 1848-53; of the New North church, Boston, Mass., 1853-59, and of the church in Watertown, Mass., 1859-61. He was chaplain of the Massachusetts house of representatives in 1854 and of the senate in 1860, In August, 1861, he went to the front as chaplain of the 16th Massachusetts volunteers. He was discharged by reason of continued ill health. Dec. 10, 1863, but being present with the army before Fredericksburg, Va., the next day he joined a volunteer storming party, and with it crossed the river and fell while attempting to drive out the Confederate sharpshooters. He was married Sept. 18, 1850, to Elizabeth G., daughter of Joseph G. Davenport of Andover, Mass. She died in 1856, and he was married in 1859 to Emma Lucilla Reeves. Besides editing his sister's works he published: Sabbath School Manual of Christian Doctrine and Institutions (1850); Historical Discourse Delivered in the New North Church, Boston, Oct. 1, 1854; and one on Liberty versus Romanism (1859). His brother, Richard Frederick Fuller, 1821-1869, a graduate of Harvard, 1844, published his Life (1863); and Thomas W. Higginson wrote his biography for Harvard Memorial Biographies (Vol. I.). Arthur died before Fredericksburg, Va., Dec. 11, 1862.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor