# Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Tuckerman, Joseph

Edition of 1905.
​TUCKERMAN, Joseph, clergyman, b. in Boston, Mass., 18 Jan., 1778; d. in Havana, Cuba, 20 April, 1840. His father, Edward Tuckerman, a citizen of Boston, was one of the founders of the first fire insurance company in New England. The son was graduated at Harvard in 1798, where he was the classmate of William Ellery Channing, and room-mate of Joseph Story. He entered the Unitarian ministry in 1801, and first settled in Chelsea. ​In 1826 he was appointed by the American Unitarian association minister at large in Boston. The remainder of his life was devoted to a scientific study of pauperism and the administration of charity. The philanthropy and practical wisdom that he brought to the work revolutionized the methods of dealing with the poor, and gained for him a great reputation. “To the system inaugurated by him,” says Rev. Edward E. Hale, “Boston owes it that in every revulsion of business, or in any great calamity, her ordinary institutions of charitable relief have proved sufficient for whatever exigency.” Justice Story declared that his work “entitles him to a prominent rank among the benefactors of mankind.” In France his principles were adopted by the celebrated Baron Degerando. In England they resulted in the Tuckerman institute of Liverpool, and other associations that still survive. He visited England in 1833 and formed friendships with Lady Byron, Joanna Baillie, and others, with whom he maintained a constant correspondence. Harvard gave him the degree of D. D. in 1824. He published numerous discourses, tracts, and reports, chiefly in furtherance of the work in which he was engaged. His principal writings, under the title of “Elevation of the Poor,” have been collected (Boston, 1874). See memoirs of Dr. Tuckerman, by William E. Channing, D. D. (Boston, 1841), and by Mary Carpenter (London, 1849).—His nephew,
Henry Theodore, author, b. in Boston, Mass., 20 April, 1813; d. in New York city, 17 Dec., 1871, was prepared to enter college, but the condition of his health compelled a cessation of study, and in 1833 he went to Europe, where he remained nearly a year, passing most of the time in Italy. “The Italian Sketch-Book” (Philadelphia, 1835) was the fruit of his sojourn abroad. His academical studies were resumed on his return, but were again relinquished, and he made a second voyage to Europe in 1837, remaining abroad until the summer of 1839. This journey embraced a tour of Sicily and lengthened residences in Palermo and Florence. The literary outcome of this second trip was “Isabel, or Sicily: a Pilgrimage” (1839). With greatly improved health, he now devoted himself to letters, and was for years a regular and frequent contributor to periodicals. These writings were in due course collected and published at intervals. Scholarly taste, wide reading, and varied learning are displayed in these numerous compositions. The criticisms are well tempered and sympathetic; the sentiments are wholesome; the style, if perhaps lacking in vigor, is graceful, melodious, and refined. In the works that relate especially to art and artist life a command of knowledge and just appreciation are clearly exhibited. Mr. Tuckerman's prose writings are a valuable contribution to polite literature. The two volumes of poetry are not remarkable, though “Love and Fame,” “Mary,” and “The Apollo Belvidere” are still admired. He was much beloved socially, in virtue of grace of manners and irreproachable personal worth. He spent many summers at Newport, where a pleasant memorial of him, presented by his sister, may be seen in the “Redwood Library,” consisting of a complete set of Mr. Tuckerman's writings in a beautiful ebony case. His works, besides those mentioned above, include “Rambles and Reveries” (1841); “Thoughts on the Poets,” principally English (1846; German translation by Dr. Emile Müller, Marburg, 1856); “Artist Life, or Sketches of American Painters” (New York, 1847); “Characteristics of Literature” (Philadelphia, 1849; 2d series, 1851); “The Optimist,” a volume of miscellaneous essays (New York, 1850); “Life of Commodore Silas Talbot” (1851); “Poems” (Boston, 1851); “A Month in England” (1853); “Memorial of Horatio Greenough” (New York, 1853); “Leaves from the Diary of a Dreamer” (1853); “Mental Portraits, or Studies of Character” (London, 1853: revised and enlarged as “Essays, Biographical and Critical, or Studies of Character,” Boston, 1857); “Essay on Washington, with a Paper on the Portraits of Washington” (New York, 1859); “America and Her Commentators” (1864); “A Sheaf of Verse” (1864); “The Criterion, or the Test of Talk about Familiar Things” (1866); “Maga Papers about Paris” (1867); “Book of the Artists,” a study of the rise and progress of art in America (1867); and “Life of John Pendleton Kennedy” (1871). See addresses by Henry W. Bellows and Evert A. Duyckinck (New York, 1872).—Another nephew, Edward, lichenologist, b. in Boston, Mass., 7 Dec., 1817; d. in Amherst, Mass., 15 March, 1886, was graduated at Union in 1837, and at the Harvard law-school in 1839, after which for two years he continued at Cambridge, pursuing studies in law, and taking a special course at the divinity-school. In 1841 he went to Europe for further study, and in Upsala met Elias Fries, who confirmed his fondness for botany. On his return in 1842, he made with Asa Gray a botanical excursion in the White mountains, and contributed to the “American Journal of Science” a paper descriptive of the plants that he had collected. He had previously published several papers on the New England lichens, giving the results of his individual experiences. In 1847 he took the A. B. degree at Harvard, having entered the senior class a year previous. He completed the course of study at the Harvard divinity-school in 1852. In 1854 he was appointed lecturer on history in Amherst, and until 1873 he continued to give instruction in that branch, during a part of the time filling the chair of oriental history. He was appointed professor of botany in 1858, which chair he then held until the end of his life, although during his later years he was relieved from class instruction. His botanical studies were various, but he made a specialty of lichenology, in which branch he had no superior in the United States. Prof. Tuckerman's papers on this subject number nearly fifty, and are devoted to descriptions of the lichens not only of New England, but of other parts of North America. Specimens collected by the U. S. exploring expedition, the Pacific railroad surveys, and later by the U. S. geological surveys, were referred to him for examination and classification. Early in life Thomas Nuttall dedicated to him the genus Tuckermania, one of the finest of California Compositæ, and several species have been named in his honor. Tuckerman's ravine, on Mount Washington, also bears his name. The degree of LL. D. was given him by Amherst in 1865, and he was a member of various scientific societies, among which were the American academy of arts ​and sciences after 1865. and the National academy of sciences after 1868. Prof. Tuckerman contributed to the New York “Churchman,” between 1834 and 1841, numerous articles, under the titles of “Notitia Literaria” and “Adversaria,” on subjects in history, biography, and theology. He also contributed short articles on antiquarian topics to the “Mercantile Journal” in 1832, and in 1832-'3 he aided Samuel G. Drake in the preparation of his “Book of the Indians” and “Indian Wars.” Besides his paper on botany, he edited “New England's Rarities Discovered,” by John Josselyn (1860), and published “Genera Lichenum: An Arrangement of North American Lichens” (Amherst, 1872); “A Catalogue of Plants growing without Cultivation within Thirty Miles of Amherst College” (1882); and “A Synopsis of the North American Lichens” (part i., Boston, 1882). The second part of the last-named work, left by Prof. Tuckerman, has been issued, with an appendix, by Henry Willey (New Bedford, 1888). See “Memoir of Edward Tuckerman” (Washington, 1887), by William G. Farlow.—Edward's brother, Frederick Goddard, author, b. in Boston, Mass., 10 Aug., 1821; d. there, 14 May, 1877, entered Harvard in the class of 1841, and, leaving before he had passed through the entire course, went to the law-school, where he was graduated in 1842. He was admitted to the Suffolk bar in 1845. Mr. Tuckerman published a volume of “Poems” (Boston, 1860; London, 1863), and was a contributor to the “Atlantic Monthly.”—Henry Theodore's brother, Charles Keating, author, b. in Boston, Mass., 11 March, 1821, was U. S. minister to Greece in 1868-'72, and since his retirement from that post has resided in Europe. He has edited A. R. Rangabe's “Greece: Her Progress and Present Position” (New York, 1867), and is the author of “The Greeks of To-day” (1873); and “Poems” (London, 1885).—His son, Arthur Lyman, architect, b. in New York, 14 Sept., 1861, was prepared for his profession in Europe, and was appointed superintendent of the Metropolitan museum art-schools in 1888. Mr. Tuckerman has published a “History of Architecture” (New York, 1887).—Another cousin, Bayard, author, b. in New York, 2 July, 1855, studied in Europe, was graduated at Harvard in 1878, and has become a writer on historical and literary subjects. He is the author of “History of English Prose Fiction” (New York, 1882), and has in course of publication a “Life of General Lafayette.”—Henry Theodore's cousin, Stephen Salisbury, artist, b. in Boston, Mass., 8 Dec., 1830, at first engaged in business, but subsequently studied drawing in Birmingham, England, and on his return to Boston became principal of the New England school of design. He went abroad again in 1860, and studied in Paris for a year. After this he taught drawing in Boston until 1864, when he devoted himself entirely to painting. Since 1872 he has worked chiefly abroad, and he has exhibited in London, Paris, and in Holland, as well as in his native country. He is noted especially for his marine views, among which are “Beach at Hastings”; “U. S. Frigate ‘Constitution’ escaping from the British Fleet in 1812,” which is in the Boston museum of fine arts; and “Dutch Fishing-Boats Beaching in a Gale.”—Stephen Salisbury's cousin, Samuel Parkman, musician, b. in Boston, Mass., 11 Feb., 1819, had his first instruction in music from Charles Zeuner, and was then for several years organist at St. Paul's church, Boston. During this time he published “The Episcopal Harp” (1844) and “The National Lyre” (1848), the latter with Silas A. Bancroft and Henry K. Oliver. He went to England in 1849, and the degree of Mus. Doc. was conferred on him by the archbishop of Canterbury in 1853. In the preceding year he had received a diploma from the Academy of St. Cecilia in Rome. After returning to the United States he lectured on sacred music, and gave performances of church music of the period from the 4th to the 19th centuries. He went again to England in 1856, and a third time in 1868, returning in 1879. As a composer he has given his attention chiefly to sacred music, and he has compiled “Cathedral Chants” (London, 1852) and “Trinity Collection of Church Music” (1864).