John Russell Bartlett

John Russell Bartlett (October 23, 1805 – May 28, 1886) was an American historian and linguist.

Early life Bartlett was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on October 23, 1805, the son of Smith Bartlett and Nancy (Russell) Bartlett. In 1819 he was a student at the Lowville Academy in Lowville, New York, which he attended for two years. From 1807 to 1824 he lived in Kingston, Canada. From 1824 to 1836 he lived in Providence where he worked first as a clerk in his uncle's dry goods store (1824–1828), then as a bookkeeper and acting teller at the Bank of North America (1828–1831), and finally as the first cashier of the Globe Bank (1831–1836).

Intellectual life, business In 1831, he was one of the founders of the Providence Athenaeum, and was elected its first treasurer. That year he was also elected to membership in the Rhode Island Historical Society. The following year he was ordering books for the newly founded Providence Franklin Society, an early lyceum. Over the course of his life he became involved with a number of other organizations including the New England Historic Genealogical Society,

Bartlett moved to New York City in 1836, where he became a partner in the dry goods commission house of Jesup, Swift and Company. In 1840 he and his friend Charles Welford started the bookselling and publishing firm of Bartlett and Welford which was located in the Astor House hotel on the west side of Broadway between Vesey and Barclay streets. The firm, which was known for its large stock of foreign books, issued five catalogs between 1840 and 1848.

Bartlett is known in the field of lexicography for his Dictionary of Americanisms (1848), a pioneering work that, although supplanted by later dialect studies, is still of value to students of language and remains a valuable contribution to the subject. Later editions were published in 1859, 1860, and 1877. The first edition was translated into Dutch and published in 1854. The third edition of 1860 was translated into German and published in 1866.

United States Boundary Commissioner, travels through the American Southwest Bartlett returned to Providence in 1850. He then traveled to Washington D.C., intending to request the position of ambassador to Denmark. Instead he was offered the position of United States Boundary Commissioner responsible for surveying the boundary between the United States and Mexico. This required him to form a group to travel throughout the Southwest. He did resist some inappropriate requests, daring to reject the recommendation of one Thomas W. Jones by Henry Clay and nine other US Senators, pointing out that Jones was "a hanger-on in Washington and all wanted him out of the way".

Some group members were more useful; in addition to the professional surveyors, there were four botanists and four zoologists who made significant contributions. Some were at least decorative; the painter Henry Cheever Pratt contributed thirty plates to Bartlett's A Personal Narrative of Explorations and Incidents in Texas, New Mexico, California, Sonora and Chihuahua He died in Providence on May 28, 1886.

Marriages and children

Bartlett married Eliza Allen Rhodes of Pawtuxet, Rhode Island on May 15, 1831. They had seven children, including four daughters: Elizabeth Dorrance (1833–1840), Anna Russell (1835–1885), Leila (1846–1850), and Fanny Osgood (1850–1882). The last daughter was named for the poet Frances Sargent Osgood, a friend of the family. Their three sons were Marine Corps major Henry Anthony (1838–1901), George Francis (1840–1842), captain, and later rear admiral on the Retired List, John R. Bartlett, USN, who served in the Civil War and Spanish–American War and who was also a noted oceanographer. Eliza died in 1853. On November 12, 1863, Bartlett married his second wife, Ellen Eddy, of Providence.

Selected works

Bartlett, John Russell (1854). Personal Narrative of Explorations and Incidents in Texas, New Mexico, California, Sonora, and Chihuahua: Connected with the United States and Mexican Boundary Commission, During the Years 1850, '51, '52, and '53 (Vol. I) and (Vol. II) New York: D. Appleton & Company.

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