SKETCH OF PROFESSOR JOHN WINTHROP. 841 



When the transit of June 3, 1769, was approaching he delivered 

 two lectures on the coming phenomenon, which were published. 

 Dr. Maskelyne, then astronomer royal of England, desired that 

 Prof. Winthrop should go to the neighborhood of Lake Superior, 

 where the whole of this transit would be visible, but his health 

 would not admit of this. Accordingly, he saw only the beginning 

 of the passage, as at Cambridge the sun set before it was finished. 

 Prof. Winthrop observed the transit of Mercury January 20, 1763, 

 and prepared an account of it for the Memoirs of the American 

 Academy of Sciences (vol. i, p. 57), of which society he was one of 

 the founders. 



As a mathematician and astronomer Prof. Winthrop had no 

 equal in the American colonies, and his fellowship of the Royal 

 Society, together with the degree of LL. D. which he received 

 from the University of Edinburgh in 1771, attests his reputation 

 in the mother-country. Prof. Lovering states that his views of 

 the nature of heat were greatly in advance of the science of his 

 day. His scholarship, moreover, was not limited to his specialty. 

 He wrote Latin with purity and elegance, studied the Scriptures 

 critically in their original languages, and was well versed in the 

 tongues of modern Europe. " He is, perhaps," says Quincy, " bet- 

 ter entitled to the character of a universal scholar than any indi- 

 vidual of his time in this country." Rev. Charles Chauncy, D. D., 

 in A Sketch of Eminent Men in New England, written in 1768, 

 says : " Mr. Winthrop, Hollisian professor, I have been very free 

 and intimate with. He is by far the greatest man at the college 

 in Cambridge. Had he been of a pushing genius and a disposi- 

 tion to make a figure in the world, he might have done it to his 

 own honour, as well as the honour of the college." * 



The office of a professor in Harvard College during the last 

 century was not a lucrative one. The salaries obtained were fluct- 

 uating and always small. From about the middle of the century 

 the Professor of Mathematics and Physics received 80 a year. In 

 reply to inquiries made by a committee of the Provincial Legisla- 

 ture, Winthrop wrote a letter in which he stated that his salary 

 had been far from adequate, and that he had run in debt for the 

 support of his family. 



Prof. Winthrop married, August 22, 1746, Rebecca, daughter 

 of James Townsend, of Boston, and by this marriage had five sons. 

 His wife died after seven years, and he married again in 1756. His 

 second wife was Hannah, daughter of Thomas Fayerweather, and 

 widow of Farr Tolman, of Boston. She was the well-known cor- 

 respondent of Mrs. John Adams. 



The first vacancy in the presidency of Harvard College that 



* Massachusetts Historical Society's Collections, Series I, vol. x, p. 159. 



