Samuel Low, New York poet and playwright, achieved a good deal of youthful success only to fall into eventual obscurity. Born on 12 December 1765, in New York City, Low was the fourth child of John and Susannah Burdet Low and a relative of the prominent merchant brothers Isaac and Nicholas Low. With few opportunities in the nation for an aspiring writer. Low followed his relatives' examples. He worked as a clerk in the Treasury Office until 1794 and as a bookkeeper in the Bank of New York from 1795 to 1803. In 1785 he married Margaret Kip, who bore four children before her death in 1795. Two years later he married Ann Cregier, who bore him a son in 1798. Outside of scattered autobiographical statements in his poetry, little else is known of Low's life.

His slim literary output expresses a definite interest in the new nation's success. His first known publication was Winter Display'd...