John Rose Greene Hassard

Background

John Hassard was born on September 4, 1836, in Houston Street in New York City, New York, United States, the son of Thomas Hassard, a civil engineer, and Augusta (Greene) Hassard.

Education

Graduated at the head of his class from St. John’s College, Fordham, New York, in 1855, John acquired the master’s degree two years later. He then entered the diocesan seminary to prepare for the priesthood, but because of ill health abandoned his plan for a religious life.

Career

For a time John Hassard was secretary to Archbishop Hughes, and during the same period he compiled articles for the New American Cyclopaedia and assisted its editor, George Ripley, under whom he served an inspiring literary apprenticeship. He also gained some journalistic experience as a reporter on the New York Tribune. In 1863 he published Reflections and Meditations Selected from the Writings of Fénelon, and within two years of the death of Archbishop Hughes he undertook the preparation of a Life of the Most Reverend John Hughes, D. D. , First Archbishop of New York (1866), making full use of the prelate’s correspondence. Written with reasonable courage and a shrewd understanding of the redoubtable bishop, his problems, conflicts, and services, it remains an authoritative biography.

In 1865 Hassard became editor of the newly established Catholic World, from which he was enticed by Charles A. Dana who was undertaking the editorship of the ill-starred Chicago Republican. On the failure of this journal (1866), Hassard returned to the New York Tribune, with which paper his life was thereafter identified. After Greeley’s death, he acted temporarily as managing editor. In 1875 he had illustrated his versatility by the publication of a pamphlet entitled The Wonders of the Press, and a short, popular Life of Pope Pius IX An ardent supporter of honest government, he lent a ready pen to political reform, relentlessly attacking municipal and national corruption. He was largely responsible for the solution of the mystery of the Tilden cipher dispatches. He defended local Catholic charitable institutions from attack by assigning accountants to make lull investigations and publishing their reports.

Believing in the necessity of civic education, he compiled A History of the United States of America (1878) which in abridged form was long used as a textbook in Catholic schools. At all times he could be depended upon by the editors of the Catholic World and the American Catholic Quarterly Review for reviews or clever essays on subjects of current interest As New York correspondent of the London Daily News, he sympathetically interpreted America to English audiences until impaired health forced him to restrict his activities.

Never complaining and constantly occupied, Hassard spent several years in quest of health, always writing letters to the Tribune, whether from the shores of the Mediterranean or from Saranac Lake, from Southern California, France, or the Bahamas. Well-read in English, French, and German literature, he enjoyed his winter excursions especially when he could follow the trails of Thackeray and Pickwick and wnte of the various phases and extremes of Foglish life. In his fifty-second year he succumbed to tuberculosis. His funeral from St. Ann’s Church, New York, was attended by churchmen, coreligionists with whom he was associated in charitable societies and in the Xavier Union, and coworkers with whom he was intimate at the editorial desk or at the Author’s and Century clubs.

Achievements

• John Hassard made his most distinctive contribution to literature as an essayist and as music critic. Special representative of the Tribune at Bayreuth, he did much to make Wagner known in America through his criticisms, published first as letters in the Tribune and later as Richard Wagner at Bayreuth: The Ring of the Niebelungs; a Description of its First Performance in August 1876 (1877).

Works

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  • A History of the United States of America

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • An Abridged History of the United States, for the Use of Schools

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • The New York Tribune's History of the United States, from the Discovery of America Until the Present Time, with a Pocket Atlas of the World, ... with Statistics Showing Products And...

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • The Life of Pope Pius IX

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • A Pickwickian Pilgrimage

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

  • The Ring Of The Nibelungs: A Description Of Its First Performance In August 1876...

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

  • Life of the Most Reverend John Hughes, D.D.: First Archbishop of New York

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

Religion

John's parents were Episcopalians and he was reared accordingly, but in 1851 he became a Catholic, and completed his education under Jesuit auspices.

Connections

In 1872 Hassard was married to Isabella Hargous.

Father:

Thomas Hassard

Mother:

Augusta (Greene) Hassard

Spouse:

Isabella (Hargous) Hassard

References

• NOTE AND ANECDOTES OF MANY YEARS
• The Greenes of Rhode Island, with historical records of English ancestry, 1534-1902