biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1757–1826)
|
| biography:
| Lawyer, judge, and playwright, born in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. After reading law, he served in the American Revolution and then began practising law, first in Portland, ME (1780–5) and then in Boston (1785–91). He volunteered for service in the force that quelled Shays Rebellion in 1787, the very year that his comedy, The Contrast, became the first professionally produced play (in New York City) by an American. It included a character, Jonathan, the first of many similar no-nonsense Yankees who would appear on stage. His comic opera, May Day in Town, was also produced in New York in 1787, and he wrote several other plays, some of them now lost. In 1791 he moved to Vermont, where he eventually served as the state's chief justice (1807–13), and he was also a professor of jurisprudence at the University of Vermont (1811–14). Meanwhile, he continued his literary career, and under the pen name of Spondee, he collaborated with Joseph Dennie to write satirical prose and verse for several publications. He also published one novel, The Algerine Captive (1797). |
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