Dictionary.net

An American historian; born in Willington, Conn., May 10, 1789; died in Cambridge, Mass., March 14, 1866. From 1849 to 1853 he was president of Harvard College. He is best known as the editor of the library of American Biography (10 vols., 1834-38), containing twenty-six "Lives" to which a second series of thirty-four was added later (15 vols., 1844-47); and as the author of several of the biographies, - namely, Ethan Allen, Benedict Arnold, Father Marquette, La Salle, Count Pulaski, Jean Ribault, Charles Lee, and John Ledyard.