Thaddeus Mason Harris was born on July 7, 1768, in Charlestown, Massachusetts, United States, a descendant of Thomas Harris who came to Boston from Devonshire about 1675 and the son of William and Rebekah (Mason) Harris. His father was a schoolmaster; after the battle of Lexington he fled with his family to Sterling, became a captain in the colonial army, and died in 1778 of a fever.
Thaddeus entered the household of Dr. Morse of Boylston, who prepared him for college, Harris meanwhile earning his keep by carpentry. In 1782 he visited his mother at Malden; she persuaded him to abandon the idea of going to Harvard and become a maker of saddle-trees; an injury to his wrist put an end to this occupation, however, and he entered the office of his maternal grandfather, who was clerk of the courts for Middlesex County. In his spare time Thaddeus attended Samuel Kendal’s school in Cambridge; and by putting out subscription papers Kendal enabled him in July 1783 to enter Harvard. He graduated in 1787. He returned to Harvard to study theology, took his A. M. and delivered the valedictory oration in 1790.
After graduation Thaddeus Harris taught school at Worcester for a year; he was then invited to become Washington’s secretary, but an attack of smallpox caused him to miss the opportunity. He was licensed to preach in 1789 and was librarian of the Harvard university from 1791 to 1793. He was then ordained pastor of the first church in Dorchester.
In 1795 and 1796 Harrison edited the Massachusetts Magasine. In 1802 he caught yellow fever, and to renew his strength made a four-month western tour with Seth Adams and John Dix; in 1803 he published a four-volume Minor Encyclopedia; in 1805 he published a Journal of a Tour into the Territory Northwest of the Alleghany Mountains. From August 1810 to May 1811 he was in England on business connected with his father-in-law’s estate.
In 1820 appeared his Natural History of the Bible, a much shorter edition of which had been published by him in 1893; this was pirated in England, where it sold widely. In December 1833, after a long illness, he spent five months in Georgia; and gathered materials for his Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe (1841). He resigned his pastorate in 1836. From 1837 until his death he was librarian of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
In addition to the works already mentioned, Harris published forty-eight sermons and addresses and twelve other works, including several in verse; he also assisted Jared Sparks in his edition of the writings of Washington. Leonard Withington, Writing under the name of John Oldbug, satirized him in The Puritan as Doctor Snivelwell.
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Harris worked his way through college, being for two years a waiter in the commons hall; but was often miserably poor. On one occasion, when in need of money, he found a ring, for which a goldsmith gave him six dollars; this indication that Providence watched over him caused Harris in 1786 to become a church member. Dorchester church called itself Unitarian, but Harris refused to accept the title and disliked all denominational distinctions. Though he considered the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity to be contradictory, he nevertheless believed in the atonement and in supernatural grace.
Harris often spoke and wrote in defense of Masonry, and was subjected to much abuse during the AntiMasonic movement in the late eighteen-twenties. In 1792 Harrison published Constitutions of the Ancient and Honorable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons.
Harris was a founding member of the American Antiquarian Society. He was for many years chaplain to the grand lodge of Freemasons in Massachusetts. He was also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Harris was of medium height, and in later life was “indescribably bent. ” He described himself as “naturally feeble and timid. ” He was tender, affectionate, and sensitive, and during his sermons would frequently burst into tears. He was a man of wide learning; but his style was precious and pedantic.
Harris married Catherine Holbrook in 1824. Their son Thaddeus William Harris also served as librarian of Harvard and was one of the first American economic entomologists.
