Jared Sparks
| Jared Sparks | |
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| 17th President of Harvard College (now Harvard University) | |
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In office 1849–1853 |
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| Preceded by | Edward Everett |
| Succeeded by | James Walker |
| 1st McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History Harvard College |
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In office 1838–1849 |
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| 16th Chaplain of the United States House of Representatives | |
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In office December 10, 1821 – December 5, 1822 |
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| Preceded by | John Nicholson Campbell |
| Succeeded by | John Brackenridge, D.D. |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
May 10, 1789 Willington, Connecticut |
| Died | March 14, 1866 (aged 76) Cambridge, Massachusetts |
| Spouse(s) | 1832, Frances Ann Allen, d. 1835. 1839, Mary Crowninshield Silsbee. |
| Alma mater | Phillips Exeter Academy, Harvard College, (now Harvard University) |
| Profession | Historian, Educator, and Minister |
| Religion | Unitarian |
Jared Sparks (May 10, 1789 – March 14, 1866) was an American historian, educator, and Unitarian minister. He served as President of Harvard College (now Harvard University) from 1849 to 1853.
Born in Willington, Connecticut, Sparks studied in the common schools, worked for a time at the carpenter's trade, and then became a schoolteacher. In 1809–1811, he attended the Phillips Exeter Academy where he met John G. Palfrey, a lifelong friend. He graduated from Harvard College, (now Harvard University), with a (A.B. in 1815, and a A.M. in 1818). While an undergraduate, he was a member of the Hasty Pudding. In fact, he granted the Hasty Pudding their first club rooms at Harvard in Stoughton Hall 29 and 31. In 1812, he served as a tutor to the children of a family in Havre de Grace, Maryland. A few years later he taught in a private school at Lancaster, Massachusetts during 1815–1817. Sparks also studied theology and was college tutor in mathematics and natural philosophy at Harvard College in 1817–1819. In 1817–1818 he was acting editor of the North American Review.
He was the first pastor of the newly organized (1817), "First Independent Church of Baltimore" (in a prominent landmark structure at West Franklin Street at North Charles Street - which later became the "First Unitarian Church of Baltimore (Unitarian and Universalist)" after a 1935 merger with the Second Universalist Church at Guilford Avenue and East Lanvale Street) in Baltimore, Maryland, from 1819 to 1823, Dr. William Ellery Channing, (1780-1842), of the Federal Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts, delivering at his ordination, his famous discourse on Unitarian Christianity later known as "The Baltimore Sermon", which set out the tenets and some principles for the developing theology and philosophy of "Unitarianism". By 1825, these principles led to the founding of the religious denomination of the American Unitarian Association, and later by 1961 into the merger which created the modern Unitarian Universalist Association of America. During this period, Sparks founded the Unitarian Miscellany and Christian Monitor (1821), a monthly, and edited its first three volumes. He was also chaplain of the United States House of Representatives in the U.S. Congress at the Capitol, in Washington, D.C. from 1821 to 1823; and he contributed to the National Intelligencer and other periodicals.
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