Background

He was born on June 25, 1786 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, the youngest of seven children of Daniel and Mary (Turner) Sargent, and brother of Henry Sargent.

His father was a merchant dealing in fishermen's supplies who had moved from Gloucester to Boston and profited so much by his industry, prudence, and popularity that he occupied what was for those days a conspicuously expensive mansion, although his character was notable for thrift and dread of ostentation.

In 1842 Harvard conferred the degree of A. M. on him, thereby recognizing his public services and condoning his undergraduate contumacy, for the violence of which he often expressed regret.

Education

Lucius Manlius attended a number of elementary and secondary schools, including Phillips Exeter Academy, from which he passed to Harvard in 1804. He did not complete his course there. He studied law after leaving college.

Career

He was admitted to the bar on Feb. 19, 1811. He turned to literature as an avocation, publishing The Culex of Virgil; with a Translation into English Verse and a collection of Latin riddles in 1807 and Hubert and Ellen, a volume of poems, in 1812.

From 1830 till the approach of the Civil War he spoke and wrote on this theme so frequently and vigorously that he became one of the most uncompromising leaders.

He wrote The Temperance Tales (2 vols. , 1848), stories of a tract-like nature bearing such titles as "My Mother's Gold Ring", "I Am Afraid There Is A God", "Groggy Harbor", "An Irish Heart, " and others to the number of twenty-one, first published in separate issues between 1833 and 1843. These were widely distributed by religious and temperance societies as well as by Sargent himself.

He also achieved prominence as an antiquary. In 1848 he began a series of weekly articles in the Boston Evening Transcript entitled "Dealings with the Dead" (published in book form in 1856), which in spite of their name did not lack light touches. Under such pseudonyms as Sigma, Amgis, Saveall, and others, he wrote for numerous other publications, and he aroused considerable interest by attacking the coolie trade of the British in India and by assailing Macaulay for statements derogatory to William Penn.

Achievements

• He wrote constantly for the newspapers and became well known for his literary interests, but he found a more popular subject in temperance reform, which he took up with characteristic assertiveness. He became one of the most uncompromising and conspicuous leaders in the crusade against liquor. His famous publications: "Three Temperance Tales", "I Am Afraid There Is A God", "Groggy Harbor", "Reminiscences of Samuel Dexter", "The Irrepressible Conflict" and others. At seventy-five he published "The Ballad of the Abolition Blunder-buss", which abuses Emerson and others for their antislavery views as violently as his Temperance Tales do the saloonkeeper.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Dealings with the Dead... Volume 2

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

  • I am afraid there is a God! : founded on fact

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • The Stage-Coach

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

  • The Blackstone Family

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

  • Temperance Tales, Volume 1...

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

Personality

He was preeminently a good hater, but he was a conspicuous man in his day.

Quotes from others about the person

• One of his obituaries refers to him as a man of "harsh prejudices".

Connections

On Apr. 3, 1816, he married Mary Binney of Philadelphia, by whom he had three children, one of whom attained the brevet rank of brigadier-general in the Civil War. After the death of his first wife in 1824, he married Sarah Cutler Dunn, July 14, 1825.

Father:

Daniel Sargent

Mother:

Mary (Turner) Sargent

Spouse:

Sarah Cutler Dunn

Spouse:

Mary Binney

son :

Horace Sargent

Brother:

Henry Sargent

Grandfather:

Epes Sargent

Cousin:

Judith Sargent Murray

Brother:

Daniel Sargent

Uncle:

Paul Dudley Sargent

younger son:

Lucius Jr. Sargent