BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF CHARLES COFFIN JEWETT, 



(FORMERLY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, IN CHARGE OF THE LIBRARY.) 



By Eeuben a. Guild, of Bkown University.* 



Again we are called npon to mourn the loss of a distinguished man, whom 

 death has suddenly removed from earth in the prime of life and in the midst of 

 his accustomed duties. We refer to Professor Charles C. Jewett, superinten- 

 dent of the Public Library in Boston, who died at his residence, in Braintree, 

 yesterday morning, at half-past 1 o'clock, after a brief illness of ten hours. On 

 Wednesday, we are infm'med, he was at his post in the library, attending to his 

 work as usual, until 3 oVlock in the afternoon, when he was seized with a sensa- 

 tion of )unnl)ness in one hand, which proved to be paraU^sis. He remained con- 

 scious for a time, and after having had medical attendance, requested to be carried 

 to his home. On the Avay he became insensible, and thus he continued until his 

 death. 



Mr. Jcwett was born in Lebanon, "iMaine, on the 12th of August, 1816. His 

 father, the Rev. Paul Jewctt, was a Congregationalist clergyman of Salem, 

 Massachusetts, who graduated at Brown University in 1802, in the same class 

 with the late Hon. Henry Wheaton, LL. D., author of ' ^' Elements ol' Interna- 

 tional Law." He was a tutor in this institution from 1806 to 1809, and was 

 afterwards offered a professorship, which he declined, preferring the labors and 

 responsibilities of the Christian ministry" to those of any other calling or pi\)fes- 

 sion. He was a man of talents, of accm'ate learning, of cultivated taste, and of 

 very retiring habits. In the education of his children he took unwearied pains. 

 His eldest son was, until recenth", a well-known and enterprising publisher and 

 bookseller in Boston; the second is the one whose loss we to-day deplore, .and a 

 third was for several years a professor in Amherst College. 



Mr, Jewett passed his early life in Salem, graduating at the Latin School in 

 that place. He entered Dartmouth College in 1831, but transferred his connec- 

 tion, in his sophomore year, to Brown University, where he graduated in the 

 famous class of 1835. He spent two years or more in teaching at the Uxbridgo 

 Academy, and subsequently studied at the Theological Seminary in Andover. 

 Here he devoted himself chiefly to Philology, and especially to the oriental lan- 

 guages and eastern antiquities, in which departments of knowledge he attained 

 great proficiency. Indeed, according to the testimonies of the late Professors 

 Stuart and Edwards, few students, if au}^, had in these departments excelled him. 

 His commencement address at Andover attracted universal attention, and was 

 greatly admired on account of the elegant style in which it was written, and the 

 thorough acquaintance with oriental subjects which it evinced on the part of the 

 author. 



During his residence at Andover, Mr. Jewett w-as for a year and upwards the 

 librarian of the seminary, and he assisted Mr. Taylor in the preparation of a 

 catalogue of the books. At this time he was intending to spend several years, 

 and perha})s his life, in the East as a missionary, and he had, accordingly, at the 

 close of his theological course, marked out for himself an extensive course of 

 study and research. He had been offered facilities for the accomplishment of his 

 wishes such as few scholars, in this country at least, had ever enjoyed. When 

 ready to embark, so slight a circumstance as the misdirecting of a letter to inform 

 him when the vessel in which he had taken passage was to sail, changed his 



* From the Providence Evening Press, Friday, January 10, 1868. 



