Kinsmen and Kinswomen

William Hickling Prescott and George Ticknor (1791-1871) were close friends, and as they were both historians, colleagues as well. When Prescott died, Ticknor decided to pay both personal and professional tribute to him by writing his biography.

In the Appendices of the resulting book, Ticknor included a “brief-ish” summary of the Prescott family in America, including both stories of the colonel and stories of the judge.

Here is Appendix A of Ticknor’s Life of William H. Prescott, 1863.

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THE Prescott family belong to the original Puritan stock and blood of New England. They came from Lancashire, and about 1640, twenty years only after the first settlement at Plymouth and ten years after that of Boston, were established in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, where not a few of the honored race still remain.

Like most of the earlier emigrants, who left their native homes from conscientious motives, they were men of strongly marked characters, but of small estates, and devoted to mechanical and agricultural pursuits, — circumstances which fitted them as nothing else could so well have done for the trials and labors incident to their settlement in this Western wilderness. But, even among men like these, the Prescotts were distinguished from the first. They enjoyed, to an uncommon degree, the respect of the community which they helped to found, and became at once more or less concerned in the management of the entire Colony of Massachusetts, when those who took part in its affairs bore heavy burdens and led anxious lives.

John, the first emigrant, was a large, able-bodied man, who, after living some time in Watertown, established himself in Lancaster, then on the frontiers of civilization. There he acquired a good estate and defended it bravely from the incursions of the Indians, to whom he made himself formidable by occasionally appearing before them in a helmet and cuirass, which he had brought with him from England, where he was said to have served under Cromwell. His death is placed in 1683.

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The following biographical sketch appeared in The 1911 Encyclopedia, based on a century-old version of Encyclopedia Brittanica. The original URL is now broken.

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PRESCOTT, WILLIAM HICKLING (1796 – 1859)

American historian, was born in Salem, Massachusetts, on the 4th of May 1796. His grandfather was Colonel William Prescott (1726 -1795), who commanded at the battle of Bunker Hill; and his father was a well-known lawyer. He received his earlier education in his native city, until the removal of his family in 1808 to Boston. He entered Harvard College in the autumn of 1811, but almost at the outset his career was interrupted by an accident which affected the subsequent course of his life. A hard piece of bread, flung at random in the Commons Hall, struck his left eye and destroyed the sight. After graduating honorably in 1814 he entered his fathers office as a student of law; but in January 1815 the uninjured eye showed dangerous symptoms of inflammation. When at last in the autumn he was in condition to travel, it was determined that he should pass the winter at St Michaels and in the spring obtain medical advice in Europe. His visit to the Azores, which was constantly broken by confinement to a darkened room, is chiefly noteworthy from the fact that he there began the mental discipline which enabled him to compose and retain in memory long passages for subsequent dictation; and, apart from the gain in culture, his journey to England, France, and Italy (April 1816 to July 1817) was scarcely satisfactory. The verdict of the physicians was that the injured eye was hopelessly paralysed, and that the preservation of the sight of the other depended upon the maintenance of his general health. His further pursuit of the legal profession seemed to be out of the question, and on his return to Boston he remained quietly at home. On 4th May 1820 he was married to Miss Susan Amory. Prior to his marriage he had made a few experiments in composition, but he now finally decided to devote his life to literature. A review of Byron’s Letters on Pope in 1821 constituted his first contribution to the North American Review, to which he continued for many years to send the results of his slighter researches. He next turned to French literature, and to the early English drama and ballad literature. Of the direction and quality of his thought at this time he has left indications in his papers on Essay-Writing (1822) and on French and English Tragedy (1823). In pursuance of his method of successive studies he began in 1823 the study of Italian literature, passing over German as demanding more labor than he could afford. In the following year he made his first acquaintance with the literature of Spain under the influence of his friend and biographer, Ticknor; and, while its attractiveness proved greater than he had at the outset anticipated, the comparative novelty of the subject as a fie]d for research served as an additional stimulus.

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The grandson of Col. William Prescott, like his father – also William – but now with a middle initial H, for Hickling after his maternal grandfather Thomas Hickling. [See my posts here, here, and here.] He was subsequently known simply as “William Prescott, the historian.”

The Massachusetts Historical Society has a very good, very concise, biographical overview of William H. Prescott. They based it on the massive work by Prescott’s friend, George Tichnor, Prescott’s Life, 1864.

William Hickling Prescott

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The son of Col. William Prescott, also William, was known during his life, which was devoted to the law, as Hon. William Prescott. Here is a brief biography.

Hon. William Prescott, painted by Gilbert Stuart

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from the Prescott Memorial, pp.75-76.

Hon. William b. at Pepperell, Aug. 19, 1762. In 1776, at the age of fourteen, he was placed under the instruction of “Master Moody,” the then celebrated teacher of Dummer Academy in Newbury, Essex Co., Mass. Here he remained three years, when he entered Harvard College, where he graduated in 1783, with high honors. His father, partaking largely of that liberality so common among the officers of the Revolutionary army, had accumulated hut a small estate, and young Mr. Prescott found it necessary to be earning something to help him finish his professional education, upon which he was about to enter; accordingly he took charge of an academy at Beverly, where he continued two years, and where he studied his procession, (that of law,) with the Hon. Nathan Dane, an able and learned jurist and statesman. While here he received an invitation to become a member of Gen. Washington’s household, to act as a private teacher while he was prosecuting his legal studies, but. previous engagements compelled him to decline the proffered boon, and his classmate in college, Mr. Tobias Lear, obtained it.

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