Background
Andrew Oliver was born on November 13, 1731, in Boston. He was the son of Andrew Oliver, secretary and lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts, and his wife Mary, daughter of the Hon. Thomas Fitch.
(Excerpt from An Essay on Comets, in Two Parts: Part I. Co...)
Excerpt from An Essay on Comets, in Two Parts: Part I. Containing an Attempt to Explain the Phænomena of the Tails of Comets, and to Account for Their Perpetual Opposition to the Sun, Upon Philosophical Principles; Part II. Pointing Out Some Important Ends for Which These Tails Were Probably Designed Containing an Attempt to explain the Phenomena ofthe T A I LS of C ome T S', and to account for their perpetual Oppofit1on to the S U N, upon philofophical Principles. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Andrew Oliver was born on November 13, 1731, in Boston. He was the son of Andrew Oliver, secretary and lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts, and his wife Mary, daughter of the Hon. Thomas Fitch.
Andrew Oliver graduated from Harvard in 1749.
A few months prior to his marriage Andrew Oliver had moved to Salem, where his wife's family lived. Salem became his permanent home and with its interests he was closely identified. On November 19, 1761, he was appointed judge of the inferior court of common pleas for Essex County, a position which he continued to occupy until the outbreak of the Revolution. In 1762, when one of the Salem representatives in the General Court was elected to the governor's council, Oliver was chosen at a special election, held June 9, to take his place. He continued to represent Salem in the provincial legislature until 1767, refusing to accept any compensation for his services. At a town meeting, October 21, 1765, it was voted to request him to use his efforts to effect a repeal of the Stamp Act and at the same time to prevent "lawless violence and outrage. " On August 9, 1774, he was appointed one of the mandamus councilors but refused to serve.
During the troublous years that followed, when all the other members of his family because of Loyalist sympathies went into exile, he stayed quietly at Salem. Law and politics were by no means the whole of life to him. While proficient in mathematics and fond of music and history, his deepest interest, especially in later years, lay in scientific studies. He was a founder of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the American Philosophical Society, to which he was elected on January 15, 1773. Several papers composed by him were read at meetings of the society, and two were published in the second volume of the Transactions (1786). One of these, entitled "A Theory of Lightening and Thunder Storms, " attempted to show that the electric charges in thunderclouds "reside, not in the cloud or vapors of which it consists, but in the air which sustains them. " The other, entitled "Theory of Water Spouts, " sought to explain these phenomena by analogy to the suction of liquid through a quill.
Oliver’s most significant contribution to colonial science was An Essay on Comets, in Two Parts, published in 1772 and reprinted in 1811, wherein he strove to account for the tails of comets "upon philosophical Principles" and to show that "in Consequence of these curious Appendages, Comets may be inhabited Worlds. " This venture into the field of astronomy was dedicated to John Winthrop, Hollis professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at Harvard, to whose inspiring instruction Oliver confessed that his interest in science was due. The work was translated into French and drew favorable comment from scholars at home and abroad. From science he is said to have turned occasionally to poetry. He appears to have been the author of an "Elegy on the late Professor Winthrop, " first published in the Independent Chronicle of June 9, 1779.
A man of considerable means, he was not harried by the necessity of earning a livelihood. To those less fortunate than himself, he gave generously. Studious tastes and defective health induced him to lead a life of some seclusion. Afflicted for thirty years with a distressing chronic disease, he bore it with exemplary cheerfulness. He died at Salem, with an enviable reputation for learning and benevolence.
(Excerpt from An Essay on Comets, in Two Parts: Part I. Co...)
Andrew Oliver was founder of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the American Philosophical Society.
On May 28, 1752, Andrew Oliver married Mary, daughter of Chief Justice Benjamin Lynde.