Colonial America
1737 Boston Sermon Preached After the Funeral of the Reverend Mr. Benjamin Wadsworth, President of Harvard
1737 Boston, Imprint titled, "A Sermon Preached at the Tuesday Lecture in HARVARD COLLEGE, after the Funeral of the Reverend Mr. Benjamin Wadsworth" (President of Harvard College) by Edward Wigglesworth, D.D., Complete, Choice Very Fine.
Important 1737 Harvard College Printed Sermon fully titled, "A Sermon Preached at the Tuesday Lecture in Harvard College After the Funeral of the Reverend Mr. Benjamin Wadsworth, President of the Said College. Who departed this Life March 16th. 1736,7. By Edward Wigglesworth, D.D. And Hollistan Professor of Divinity. Boston, Printed for D Henchman. 1737". This historic Imprint is ex: Harvard College Library, deaccessioned having its blindstamp on the inside cover page. It measures 4.5 x 7 inches, and contains 18 pages plus Cover. The vivid bold black printed cover design with the wonderful "Skull" within the ornate top and is clean throughout, with just some separation at the lower spine. Wadsworth was President of Harvard College from 1725 to 1737. In fact, the second oldest building at Harvard is named after him in 1726 the "Wadsworth House," which also became known as the "President's House". He was supposedly not a very strict disciplinarian, so there was much student drinking and pranks during his tenure. Wigglesworth (1693 - 1765) was the first Divinity Professor at Harvard under the Hollis Chair, and his tenure ran from 1722 to 1745. He was the first Divinity professor to teach at any American college. A wonderful rarity and historic item that is choice in eye appeal for display. Truly a specially great find for any Harvard Alumnus' collection.
Benjamin Wadsworth, Harvard College President, Term of office: 1725-1737.
After the death of John Leverett, the Harvard Corporation offered the presidency to two ministers who declined the invitation. Finally, in June 1725, the Corporation elected Benjamin Wadsworth (1670-1737), one of their own number, who took the job more dutifully than joyfully.
With 1,000 from the Massachusetts Great and General Court, the College soon built a new President's House on the southern end of the Yard. Wadsworth began living there in November 1726, before the structure was completed in the following year. Today, Wadsworth House, which served as Harvard's executive residence until the end of the Everett administration in 1849, is Harvard's second-oldest building.
Under Wadsworth, the Harvard Governing Boards produced a new set of College laws in 1734 (the first major revision since 1692), and the curriculum was improved. Student behavior, however, did not follow suit. "Wadsworth was no disciplinarian, and the young men resented a puritan restraint that was fast becoming obsolete. The faculty records, which begin with Wadsworth's administration, are full of 'drinking frolicks,' poultry-stealing, profane cursing and swearing, card-playing, live snakes in tutors' chambers, bringing 'Rhum' into college rooms, and 'shamefull and scandalous Routs and Noises for sundry nights in the College Yard.'" (Samuel Eliot Morison)
In 1727, London merchant Thomas Hollis established the Hollis Professorship of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, Harvard's second named chair. Six years earlier, Hollis had given the College its first endowed position (in divinity).
Kindly and intelligent, Wadsworth was "faithful, devoted, and methodical," Morison reports. "He combed the records for evidence of college property, and did his best to recover lands alienated through the neglect of college officers or the enterprise of squatters." He died in office on March 27, 1737 (= March 16, 1736, in the Julian calendar then used by English colonists).
The Wadsworth House is also known as the "President's House," Wadsworth was the scene of many an imposing event. General Washington, along with General Robert E. Lee's father, "Light-Horse Harry" Lee, set up his first headquarters there, and on July 3, 1775 thence rode out to the Common to take command of the Revolutionary troops. It is said that the plans to oust King George from Boston took form in the Wadsworth parlor. And it was in the same room that President Andrew Jackson received students after taking his honorary degree, greeting each and all with "'I wish you all much happiness,' 'Gentlemen, I heartily wish you success in life,' and so on, constantly varying the phrase, which was always full of feeling." Visitors from abroad were entertained there as well: Francisco de Miranda from South America, "martyr to the cause of which Bolivar was the hero," finished his tour of Harvard in the Wadsworth dining room, the guest of President Willard whom he found "lean, austere, and of an insufferable circumspection."