Thomas Green Fessenden

Born in Walpole, New Hampshire, Thomas Green Fessenden (1771-1837) graduated from Dartmouth College and studied law in Vermont with Nathaniel Chipman while writing humorous poems for the Farmer's Weekly Museum of Walpole. In London he ruined himself financially with a hydraulic machine and a patent mill on the River Thames, but in 1803 he had better luck with "Terrible Tractoration", a poem satirising physicians opposed to using instruments (yes, there were some). Back in the United States, he...See more

Born in Walpole, New Hampshire, Thomas Green Fessenden (1771-1837) graduated from Dartmouth College and studied law in Vermont with Nathaniel Chipman while writing humorous poems for the Farmer's Weekly Museum of Walpole. In London he ruined himself financially with a hydraulic machine and a patent mill on the River Thames, but in 1803 he had better luck with "Terrible Tractoration", a poem satirising physicians opposed to using instruments (yes, there were some). Back in the United States, he edited a concatenation of periodicals, including the Weekly Inspector (NY), the Reporter, the Intelligencer (VT), New England Farmer, The Horticultural Register, and The Silk Manual (MA). His final work was The Complete Farmer and Rural Economist (1834), which enjoyed revisions, improvements, and enlargements over its ten editions. See less