Though John Gorham Palfrey was not the most influential person of his age, his life and works intersected frequently with many of those who were. As a minister, scholar, editor, abolitionist, and congressman, Palfrey developed friendships with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Sumner, William Lloyd Garrison, and many other important writers, theologians, politicians, and reformers. In his nearly eighty-five years Palfrey became well known among his contemporaries in Boston.

Born on 2 May 1796 into a struggling Boston merchant family, John Gorham Palfrey did not have bright prospects, and were it not for the beneficence of family friends and his own determination, the young man might never have received an education at Harvard. Palfrey's mother, Mary Sturgis (Gorham) Palfrey, died when the boy was only six. His father, John Palfrey, was the son of William Palfrey, a merchant and secretary of the Sons of Liberty. John Palfrey remained a distant figure...