112 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



obtained by him through processes which justified his challenging the 

 deliberate judgments and statements of professional scholars and histo- 

 rians. He made contributions to the North American Review and to 

 the Christian Examiner. For fifty years a pupil or a teacher in a 

 Sunday school, he was also an efficient worker in the cause of educa- 

 tion in his native place. Harvard College, of whose Library Commit- 

 tee he was a valuable member, gave him the honorary degree of A. M. 

 in 1850. Mr. Livermore was a Trustee of the State Library and of 

 the Boston Athenaeum, a member of the American Antiquarian Society 

 and of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 



Joseph Emerson Worcester died in Cambridge, after a brief 

 illness, October 21, 1865. He was born in Bedford, New Hampshire, 

 August 24, 1784, the second in a family of fifteen children. In 1794 he 

 removed to Hollis, N. H., where he resided till he became of age, assist- 

 ing his father in labor on the farm. During this period his opportunities 

 for education were limited, but he early manifested an ardent thirst for 

 knowledge ; and it is related that after the toils of the day he often sat up 

 till midnight or later in company with his elder brother, Jesse, reading 

 Rollin's Ancient History, Josephus, and similar works, by the light of 

 pitch-pine knots. At the age of twenty-one, though entirely dependent 

 on his own exertions for support, he resolved, if possible* to obtain a 

 liberal education, and began his preparation for college at Phillips 

 Academy in Andover. He afterwards pursued his studies for this pur- 

 pose at Boscawen and Salisbury, N. H., and especially at Salem, Mass., 

 where he spent two years or more in teaching. In 1809 he entered 

 the Sophomore Class in Yale College, and was graduated in 1811. 

 After leaving college, he was again employed in teaching for several 

 years in Salem, where he commenced the preparation of his first work, 

 a " Geographical Dictionary or Universal Gazetteer, Ancient and 

 Modern," which was published at Andover in 1817, in 2 vols. 8vo. 

 (A new edition, greatly enlarged and improved, appeared in 1823.) 

 This was followed by a " Gazetteer of the United States," published 

 in 1818. In 1819, for the sake of greater literary advantages, he 

 removed to Cambridge, which thenceforth became his permanent 

 residence. 



The same year he published his "Elements of Geography, An- 

 cient and Modern," a work far superior to the previous text-books 

 on the subject, and which passed through several stereotype editions. 

 This was succeeded by his " Sketches of the Earth and its Inhab- 



