B.M. Newcomb wrote:
Story-teller, lecturer, author; graduate of Northfield Seminary; university student; wrote “Glooscap and the Great Chief and Other Stories”, “Indian Legends for Camp Fire Girls”, and with Dr. Partridge, “Story Telling in School and Home”.
B.M. Newcomb wrote:
Mr. Newcomb was for a time in company with his father in the commission business, Boston; in 1869 removed to St. Paul, Minn. where he was president of the Union Improvement and Elevator Co.; in 1884 resided Philadelphia; in 1892 retired from business and returned to his old home in Boston, where he became a writer and lecturer on metaphysical subjects. He wrote “All’s Right With the World”, “Discovery of a Lost Trail”, “Principles of Psychic Philosophy”. His wife, Katherine H., wrote “Helps to Right Living”, “Steps Along the Path”. Both Mr. and Mrs. Newcomb engaged in the work of metaphysical healing.
B.M. Newcomb wrote:
Mr. Newcomb attended Ripon Preparatory School and graduated, A.B., from Ripon College, 1896. He was Educational Director, Blackford School of Character Analysis, New York City. In 1904 he made a world tour as correspondent for several publications; editor of “Science of Business Building,” by A.F. Sheldon, 1909-10; managing editor, “The Business Philosopher”, 1910-13; editor, “The Science of Personal Efficiency”, by Harrington Emerson, 1912-13; author of “The Questions of Socratic” series in Business Philosopher, 1909-13. Advertising writer and advisor from 1897 to 1914.
B.M. Newcomb wrote:
Mr. Newcomb received his education at Punahou College, Sandwich Islands; Poultney Academy, Vermont; and at the College of California. He mastered several branches of business to qualify himself for his later position. He was a good chemist, practical assayist, and skillful telegraph operator. For a time he devoted himself to the study of law in its several departments, and made himself practically acquainted with stock operations on the Pacific coast. He became city editor of the San Francisco Morning Call, circulation 30,000, and was one of the finest writers in his special department in the state. As a caricaturist he achieved a reputation second only to Nast. He was first president of the Bohemian Club, San Francisco, organized 1872. Residents of California who were graduates from colleges and universities formerly met annually at Oakland, organized into an alumni society with historian, poet, etc. In 1872 Mr. Newcomb was named poet.
In 1880 Mr. Newcomb was made notary or appointment clerk in the executive chamber, Albany, by Governor Cornell, a position which he held through the different administrations until that of Governor Odell in 1903, when he was transferred to the Adjutant General’s office. At the time of his death he was secretary to the Governor of New York. He was a member of the Fort Orange Club of Albany. “Thomas Newcomb was a man of ability and genius. Naturally of a keen intellect, his education developed him into a humorist of the most pleasing, refined type. His lyrics were models in composition and his prose was cleancut and of the purest diction. He was equally as clever at delineation with his pen as he was in composition and many excellent examples of his talent are cherished by those fortunate enough to possess them. His reputation as a newspaper writer was known from the Atlantic to the Pacific.”
B.M. Newcomb wrote:
Mr. Newcomb was educated at a scientific school, Cambridge; was connected with the “Press” and “Courant” of Hartford, Conn., and the “New Haven Palladium”; he contributed largely, in prose and poetry, to the “Knickerbocker”, “Atlantic”, “Harper” and “Our Young Folks”.
B.M. Newcomb write:
“Graduated at Brown University, 1837; intended, when a youth, to become a minister, ‘but soon found it impossible to be a sectarian;’ has been engaged many years in literary pursuits; served 3 months, in 1862, in 10th R.I. Inf. Vols.; now in Europe; unmarried.”
From the “Amos Bronson Alcott Network”:
Charles King Newcomb was a New England Transcendentalist poet who, at Ralph Waldo Emerson’s behest, contributed to the Dial and published “The Two Dolons.” From May 1841 until December 1845 he boarded at George Ripley’s Brook Farm at West Roxbury, Massachusetts, though he never became an official member of the commune. In 1865 he moved to Philadelphia, where he composed over 1000 erotic poems, and he spent the last two decades of his life in Europe.
From Early Letters of G.W. Curtis:
While at Brook Farm, Curtis was on intimate terms with most of the persons there. He greatly admired Mr. and Mrs. Ripley, and he frequently wrote to Mrs. Ripley and made of her a sort of mother-confessor. He also highly appreciated the scholarly qualities of Charles Dana, and his capacity as a leader. In his letters he frequently mentions “the two Charleses,” who were Charles Dana and Charles Newcomb. The latter has been described by Dr. Codman as “the mysterious and profound, with his long, dark, straight locks of hair, one of which was continually being brushed away from his forehead as it continually fell; with his gold-bowed eye-glass, his large nose and peculiar blue eyes, his spasmodic expressions of nervous horror, and his cachinnatious laugh.” Newcomb was for many years a resident of Providence, afterwards finding a home in England and in Paris. He was early a member of Brook Farm–a solitary, self-involved person, preferring to associate with children rather than with older persons. He read much in the literature of the mystics, and was laughingly said to prefer paganism to Christianity. He had a feminine temperament, was full of sensibility, and of an indolent turn of mind. Emerson was attracted to him, and at one time had great expectations concerning his genius. His paper, published in The Dial, under the title of “The Two Dolons,” was much admired by some of the Transcendentalists when it was printed there; and it is referred to by Hawthorne in his “Hall of Phantasy.” In June, 1842, Emerson wrote to Margaret Fuller: “I wish you to know that I have ‘Dolon’ in black and white, and that I account Charles N. a true genius; his writing fills me with joy, so simple, so subtle, and so strong is it. There are sentences in ‘Dolon’ worth the printing of The Dial that they may go forth.” This paper was given him for publication at Emerson’s urgent request, and it is not known that Newcomb has published anything else. In 1850 Emerson said he had come to doubt Newcomb’s genius, having found that he did not care for an audience.
He designed the Frank Pierce Carpenter House at 1800 Elm St, Manchester NH, which is on the National Register of Historical Places, Building #94000168. He and his father designed the Portland Savings Bank at 88-89 Exchange St., Portland OR.
B.M. Nedwcomb wrote:
He traveled extensively and was for several years a member of the “Artists’ Colony” in Paris where he studied the works of both old and new masters of the art of designing. Among his most important architectural works were: The Carpenter Memorial Library, Manchester NH, First Baptist Church, Haverhill, Mass., the high altar in Albany Cathedral, Albany NY, besides a number of buildings in Honolulu. In addition to his architectural ability, Mr. Newcomb was a writer of some note, having written a number of poems which were set to music, and an opera, “The Maid of Marblehead”, which was staged with success.
Mr. Newcomb was the author of six books, two of which become best sellers; “Abandon Ship!” in 1958 and also 2001, and “Iwo Jima” in 1965. He served in the U.S. Navy during WW II, and received a Purple Heart.
His books are of interest to collectors, and some have been reprinted in recent years. Copies of the originals can sometimes be found online or in used book stores, and range in price from $15 – $1000 depending on title and condition.
B.M. Newcomb wrote:
Mr. Newcomb moved to Alfred NY in 181; he taught school for eight years. He learned the printing business; owned, edited and published the Western Star at Westfield NY 1826-28; edited the Buffalo Patrio, an anti-Masonic paper 1828-30; Pittsburgh Christian Herald 1830-31; and the next ten years wrote Sabbath-school books, a part of his voluminous authorship.
Some of Mr. Newcomb’s works have had a large circulation. According to a calculation made several years before his decease, there had been circulated of all of his works nearly sixty-five million pages. He wrote 178 volumes, mostly for children, among them fourteen volumes of church history. In 1849 he was assistant editor, Boston Treveller; 1850-51, of the New York Observer; a regular contributor to the Boston Recorder, 1837-42, and to the Youth’s Companion for a much longer period; also contributed to the Puritan Recorder and New York Evangelist. In 1853 appeared his “Young Ladies’ Guide”; in 1842, “Four Pillars, or the Truth of Christianity Demonstrated”, later, “Manners and Customs of the north American Indians” in two volumes and “Pastor’s Life”. His largest work was “Newcomb’s Cyclopedia of Missions” in 1855.
In 1836 he moved to Massachusetts and resided near Boston. In 1840 he was licensed to preach; in 1844 in charge of West Roxbury, Mass., Congregational Church; afterward in charge at Needham and Grantville, Mass. He preached some time at Park Street Mission Church, Brooklyn NY, where he established many mission schools. In 1859 he took charge of the church at Hancock PA, seeking in the quiet of the country to regain is failing health. With difficulty he preached for two or three years, then returned to Brooklyn, where he died after a year and a half of suffering. he left an interesting autobiography.
From <i>Biographies of Notable Americans</i>:
NEWCOMB, Harvey, editor and author, was born in Thetford, Vt., Sept. 2, 1803. His parents removed in 1818 to western New York, where he worked on the farm and taught school in winter. In 1826 he entered journalism, and in 1831 was editing the Christian Herald, Pittsburg, Pa. He wrote and edited over 150 books for the American Sunday School Union, 1831-40. He was licensed to preach in 1840, and held pastorates in West Roxbury, Mass., and elsewhere in New England. He was an editor of the Traveler, Boston, 1849, and assistant editor of the Observer, New York city, 1850-51. In 1850 he took charge of the Park Street mission church, Brooklyn, N.Y. He is the author of: Manners and Customs of North American Indians (2 vols., 1835); Young Lady’s Guide (1839); How to be a Man (1846); How to be a Lady (1847); Cyclopedia of Missions (1854). He died in Brooklyn, N.Y., Aug. 30, 1863.