Monday, January 17, 2022

Samuel Webber

TL;DR -- Samuel Webber was a student at Harvard during the time of the Revolution. His term as President was in the period right after the split was accomplished and before the War of 1812. Those crucial times, 250 years ago, will be getting more scrutiny using new methods allowed by computing. That is, history can be made more relevant through personalization. 

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Continuing the look at the History of Harvard (ours) through the Heads of Harvard (Wikipedia), we next consider Samuel Webber (Harvard, Wikipedia, WikiTree: Webber-762) who distinguished himself as a Mathematics Professor at Harvard prior to his short time as President. During his time, the secular spirit was rising and changing the character of Harvard. That topic has always had our interest which we will follow more closely now, given that we can identify family names to go with the discussions. One of Samuel's specialties was surveying which we have an interest in, for several reasons, such as Gardner surveying (early 1600s) and the carving of the west of the U.S. But, we want, as well, to get into changes with respect to mathematics during those times of turmoil, albeit more brainy than brawny. 

Born in Essex County, MA, Samuel moved with his family to New Hampshire. He attended Harvard as class of 1784. So his time matches up with the events of 250 years ago. There will be lots to look at. For instance, the Wikipedia bio does not agree with that of Harvard and WikiTree. Too, Webber is in our large extended family. Samuel was on of the Presidents of Harvard with little genealogical information available. 

His son married the daughter of a Loyalist. Great. So was Count Rumford whose money came in later. 

Remarks: Modified: 02/18/2022

01/17/2022 --

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