1752-1832 Jeffersonian Editor And Poet

Patriot.

Philip Freneau was well prepared for a career as one of the most prominent literary figures in the early United States. He was born on 2 January 1752 to a wealthy New York family at the center of the cultural life of that colonial city. Freneau entered the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) at age fifteen, and there made contacts among the emerging political and cultural leaders of America, including a future president, James Madison. He also read English poetry and began to desire a career as a poet. He had his first literary success in 1771 when he coauthored with his friend Hugh Henry Brackenridge a poem titled "The Rising Glory of America," capturing the spirit of a nation on the verge of independence. During the revolutionary years Freneau lived for a time in the West Indies and served aboard...