David Lee Child

**David Lee Child** (1794-1874)


David Lee Child was a journalist.

Child was born 8 July 1794 in West Boylston, Worcester County, Massachusetts, USA.

He graduated from Harvard in 1817 (studied astronomy, along with Stephen
Salisbury II), and was for some time sub-master of the Boston Latin School. He was secretary of legation in Lisbon 1820, and subsequently fought in Spain, *"defending the cause of freedom against her French invaders"*.

Returning to the United States in 1824, he began in 1825 to study law with his uncle, Tyler Bigelow, in Watertown, Massachusetts, and was admitted to the bar. He went to Belgium in 1836 to study the beet sugar industry, afterward receiving a silver medal for the first manufacture of the sugar in the U.S.

He edited the *Massachusetts Journal*, 1833, and while a member of the legislature denounced the annexation of Texas, afterward publishing a pamphlet on the subject, entitled *"Naboth's Vineyard"*. He was an early member of the anti-slaverv society, and in 1832 addressed a series of letters on slavery and the slave trade to Edward S. Abdy, an English philanthropist. He also published ten articles on the same subject (Philadelphia, 1836). During a visit to Paris in 1837 he addressed an elaborate memoir to the *Societe pour l'abolition desclavage*, and sent a paper on the same subject to the editor of the *"Eclectic Review"* in London. John Quincy Adams was much indebted
to Child's facts and arguments in the speeches that he delivered in congress on the Texan question. With his wife, novelist Lydia Maria Child (married 9 Oct 1828 in Medford, Middlesex Co., MA, daughter of Conyers Francis and Susannah Rand. She was born 11 Feb 1802 in Medford, Middlesex Co., MA, and died 7 Jul 1880 in Wayland Middlesex Co., MA.), he edited the *"Anti-Slavery Standard"* in New York in 1843-1844. He was distinguished for the boldness with which he denounced social wrongs and abuses.

In 22 Sep 1874, William Lloyd Garrison (in a letter to a friend), reports the death of David Lee Child at Waymouth MA. on 18 of that month:-

> *"...Friday morning last... age eighty-five... having shown signs of failing health for some time (from his niece Mrs Parsons) though his faculties were clear and strong... he had no aptitude in the business world;*

Garrison did not attend the funeral, as he tried in vain to ascertain when the services was to be held. Garrison said about David L. Child

> *"...this stalwart champion of the came of the enslaved—services rendered from the commencement of the struggle, and at a period when most pressingly needed. Though he had no aptitude in the business world he had a fertile and rigorous brain, a mind stored with varied knowledge, and a heart that abhorred all cant and duplicity, and overflowed with generous emotions"*.

**Works**

- An enquiry into the conduct of General Putnum... (1819)
- An oration pronounced before the Republicans of Boston... (1826)