Background

David Lee Child was born on July 08, 1794 in West Boylston, Massachusetts, United States. He was the son of Zachariah and Lydia (Bigelow) Child.

Education

David graduated from Harvard College in 1817. He studied the law with his uncle, Tyler Bigelow, in Watertown, Massachusetts and was admitted to the Suffolk County bar in 1828.

Career

In 1818 Child became sub-master of the Boston Latin School. In 1820 he served as secretary of legation at Lisbon, Portugal. Later in Spain he engaged in the war against the French, saying that he felt it was always his duty to help secure and defend liberty. From then on he engaged in many struggles for freedom of various sorts.

In 1828 he became a member of the Massachusetts state legislature and edited the Massachusetts Journal, a leading Adams paper. Child was himself an early member of the anti-slavery society and in 1832 addressed a series of letters on the subject to Edward S. Abdy, an English philanthropist. He was a trustee of Noyes Academy at Canaan, New Hampshire, in 1834.

In 1836 he went to Belgium to study the beet-sugar industry. He returned and erected in Northampton, Massachusetts, the first beet-sugar factory in this country. The factory failed financially and was closed in 1844. But Child had proved the value of the commodity. He published a pamphlet in 1840 called Culture of the Beet, and Manufacture of Beet-sugar. About 1843-1844, he for a time assisted his wife in editing the National Anti-Slavery Standard in New York. The remainder of his life was spent in bettering conditions among the freed people and in writing on various subjects having to do with freedom.

Achievements

• David Lee Child devoted a lifetime of service to the antislavery cause as a lawyer, activist, and author. He was instrumental in opening the institution to colored youths at that time. The best examples of his writing and of his political interests were the two pamphlets, The Texan Revolution (1843) and The Taking of Naboth’s Vineyard (1845). He also received a silver medal for the first manufacture of the sugar in the United States.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Taking of Naboth's vineyard, or History of the Texas conspiracy, and an examination of the reasons given by the Hon. J.C. Calhoun, Hon. R.J. ... and robbery of the Republic of Mexico

    (This volume is produced from digital images from the Corn...)

  • The Culture of the Beet, and Manufacture of Beet Sugar

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

  • An Appeal From David L. Childs, Editor of the Anti-Slavery Standard, to the Abolitionists (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from An Appeal From David L. Childs, Editor of th...)

Connections

In October Child married Lydia Maria Francis, an author who later became prominent in the anti-slavery movement.

Father:

Zachariah Child

Mother:

Lydia (Bigelow) Child

Spouse:

Lydia Maria Francis Child

Uncle:

Tyler Bigelow

References

• Encyclopedia of Emancipation and Abolition in the Transatlantic World