Background

Nathaniel Deering was born on June 25, 1791 in Portland, Maine, United States; . He was the son of James Deering, and the grandson of Nathaniel Deering, an influential merchant, shipbuilder, landowner, and man of affairs during the formative days of Portland, Maine.

He was a descendant in the eighth generation from George Deering, who emigrated from England to Maine in the early part of the seventeenth century.

His mother was Almira, daughter of Enoch Ilsley, at one time a selectman and town treasurer of Portland.

Education

After studying first at a private school in Portland, and following a course at Phillips Academy in Exeter, N. II, Deering went to Harvard College, from which he was graduated in 1810, the fourteenth in a class of sixty-three.

Upon his graduation he entered a counting-house in Portland with the intention of becoming a merchant, but after a short experience in business, and in compliance with the wish of his father, he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1815.

Career

For a time Deering practised his profession in Skowhegan.

Returning to Portland, where his beginnings in authorship and journalism were made as a member of a literary club and as editor of a manuscript paper, he gradually turned his professional interests toward books and writing, eventually becoming editor of the Independent Statesman, a political paper which supported the candidacy of Henry Clay for the presidency. At one time he was in popular demand as a Fourth of July orator.

Attracting the attention of William Cullen Bryant, he was offered a position on the staff of the New York Evening Post, but declined it.

He wrote several plays, among them, Carabasset, or the Last of the Norridgewocks, a tragedy in five acts dealing with the incidents of the massacre of the Rasle and the Norridge-wock Indians by the British in 1720; The Clairvoyant, a comedy which was acted in Boston and Portland; and Bossaris, another tragedy, which was published in 1851.

He had a little musical talent; wrote ballads and political songs, and composed some church music.

Achievements

• During the greater part of his life Deering was an assiduous contributor of prose and verse, usually unsigned, to newspapers and other publications in Portland and elsewhere.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Bozzaris: A Tragedy, in Five Acts (Classic Reprint)

    (Or rather, when he drew his brush athwart Thy visage, he ...)

  • Portland; some account thereof: Addressed to the patrons of the Independent Statesman
  • Hymn, for the triennial celebration of the Maine C. Mechanic Association

Connections

In October 1824 Deering married Anna Margaret Holwell, a daughter of Major John Z. Holwell of the British Army. They had nine children, four sons and five daughters.

Father:

James Deering

Mother:

Almira (Ilsley) Deering

Wife:

Anna Margaret Holwell