(
This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
James Henry Wiggin was a Unitarian minister and editor.
Background
James Henry Wiggin, the son of James Simon Wiggin and Sarah Elizabeth (Robinson) Wiggin, belonged to an old New England family descended from Thomas Wiggin who came to Massachusetts in 1631. James Henry was born on May 14, 1836 in Boston, where the elder James in partnership with his father-in-law, Simon W. Robinson, conducted a prosperous shipping business.
Education
The boy attended various schools and in 1850 went on a year's voyage to Malacca Straits and Java in a sailing vessel belonging to his father's firm. After studying for a time in Tufts College at Medford, Massachussets, at the age of twenty-one he entered the Meadville Theological School. He was graduated in 1861 and was ordained to the Unitarian ministry in the following year.
Career
He held various Unitarian pastorates in Massachusetts: at Montague, 1861-63; at Lawrence, 1864-65; at Marblehead, 1865-67; at Medfield, 1867-73; at Marlboro, 1873-75. In the latter year he moved to New York City to become editor of a weekly, the Liberal Christian, but he never felt entirely comfortable outside the radius of Boston and in 1876 returned to that city, where for a short period he edited the Dorchester Beacon, a suburban newspaper. Until 1881 he occasionally supplied vacant pulpits, but by that date he had become so definitely an agnostic that he felt it his duty to sever all connection with the ministry. Henceforth he devoted his energy mainly to musical and dramatic criticism, the preparing of indexes, and the revising of books for the press. He translated two volumes in the Little, Brown & Company series of Dumas' works, and he was connected for some years with the Harvard University Press. In 1885 he was asked by Mary Baker Eddy to assist in the preparation of the sixteenth edition of Science and Health, in the course of which task he revised the entire book, much simplifying Mrs. Eddy's impassioned but obscure style. One chapter wholly written by him, entitled "Wayside Hints, " was included in a number of subsequent editions, though ultimately deleted. The great popularity of Science and Health dated from his revision. He was also employed by Mrs. Eddy to answer, under the nom de plume "Phare Pleigh, " a hostile criticism by the Rev. H. B. Heacock of California. From 1887 to 1889 he was an unofficial editor of the Christian Science Journal. In 1890 he assisted in the preparation of a new revised edition of Science and Health, and in 1891 he revised the first draft of Mrs. Eddy's Retrospection and Introspection. His relations with her, however, gradually became more difficult, once the novelty of their strange partnership had worn off, and eventually, during 1891, she accused him of falling under the influence of "Malicious Animal Magnetism, " after which they separated. His own account of their relationship was published posthumously in the New York World, November 4 and 5, 1906.
(
This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
Personality
A man of great bulk and much geniality, sybaritic, skeptical, and witty, he was a delightful figure on the streets of Boston in the last days of its cultural glory. Sol Smith Russell is reported to have said that he could as soon think of Boston without the Common as without James Henry Wiggin.
Interests
He was a devoted theatre-goer and had many friends among the actors, including Sol Smith Russell, Horace Lewis, William Warren, Mrs. John Drew, and Adelaide Phillips.
Connections
On November 21, 1864, he married Laura Emma Newman of Brattleboro, Vt.