Edmund Fiske (Green) Fiske (1842 - 1901)

Born 30 Mar 1842 in Hartford, Hartford, CT, USA

Ancestors

Husband of Abigail Morgan (Brooks) Fiske — married 6 Sep 1864 in Appleton Chapel, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

Descendants

Died 4 Jul 1901 at age 59 in Gloucester, Essex, Massachusetts, United States

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Biography

John (Green) Fiske is Notable.

John Fiske was born Edmund Fiske Green on March 30, 1842 in Hartford, Connecticut, the only child of Edmund Brewster Green of Smyrna, Delaware and Mary Fiske Stoughton of Middletown, Connecticut. His father was an editor in Hartford, New York, and Panama. His mother was the sister of John Bound, founder of Bound & Co. bankers on Wall Street, New York.

His father died in 1852, when John was 10, and in 1855 his mother remarried the Hon. Edwin Wallace Stoughton of New York, Minister to Russia from 1877-79.^[1]

In 1855, by act of Connecticut Legislature, he took the name of his maternal great-grandfather: JOHN FISKE.

He lived in Middletown until he entered Harvard, where he graduated in 1863. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1865, having been already admitted to the Suffolk bar in 1864, but never practiced law.

Marriage of John Fiske and Abigail Morgan Brooks

On September 6, 1864, at the age of 22, John Fiske of Lawrence, married Miss Abigail Morgan Brooks (1839-?) of Lawrence, age 25, in Appleton Chapel, Harvard University. The service was officiated by Minister Edmund B. Willson, Abigail's maternal uncle.^[2]

John and Abigail reared six children between 1865 and 1877: two daughters and four sons. Maud was born in Jamaica Plains, and married Grover Flint of New York, New York. The following children were all born in Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harold; Clarence, who married Margaret Gracie Higginson, Ralph, a writer who died at age 28, Ethel; and Herbert, who married Elizabeth -- and owned hotels in Petersham, Massachusetts and Redlands, Califiornia.

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His career as author began in 1861, with an article on "Mr. Buckle's Fallacies," published in the "National Quarterly Review." Since that time he has been a frequent contributor to American and British periodicals. In 1869-71 he was university lecturer on philosophy at Harvard; in 1870 instructor in history there, and in 1872-79 assistant librarian. On resigning the latter place, in 1879, he was elected a member of the board of overseers, and at the expiration of the six years' term was re-elected in 1885. Since 1881 he has lectured annually on American history at Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., and since 1884 has held a professorship of American history at that institution, but continues to make his home at Cambridge. He lectured on American history at University College, London, in 1879, and at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in 1880. Since 1871 he has given many hundred lectures, chiefly upon American history, in the principal cities of the United States and Great Britain. The largest part of his life has been devoted to the study of history; but at an early age inquiries into the nature of human progress led him to a careful study of the doctrine of evolution, and it was as an expounder of this doctrine that he first became known to the public. In 1871 he arrived at the discovery of the causes of the prolonged infancy of mankind, and the part played by it in determining human development; and the importance of this contribution to the Darwinian theory, now generally admitted, was immediately recognized by Darwin and Spencer.

His published books are:

• "Tobacco and Alcohol" (New York, 1868)
• "Myths and Myth-Makers" (Boston, 1872)
• "Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, based on the Doctrine of Evolution" (2 vols., London, 1874, republished in Boston)
• "The Unseen World" (Boston, 1876)
• "Darwinism, and Other Essays" (London, 1879; new and enlarged edition, Boston, 1885)
• "Excursions of an Evolutionist" (Boston, 1883)
• "The Destiny of Man Viewed in the Light of His Origin" (Boston, 1884)
• "The Idea of God as affected by Modern Knowledge" (Boston, 1885)
• "American Political Ideas Viewed from the Standpoint of Universal History" (New York, 1885)
• "Critical Period of American History" (1888)
• "Beginnings of New England" (1889)
• "The War of Independence, for Young People" (1889)
• "Civil Government in the United States" (1890)
• "American Revolution," 2 vols. (1891)
• "Discovery of America," 2 vols. (1892)
• "History of the United States, for Schools" (1894)

All the above published by. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Also "Edward Livingston Youman's Interpreter of Science for the People" (New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1894) ; "A Japanese Translation of The Destiny of Man" was published at Tokio in 1893.

He received degree of doctor of letters from the University of Pennsylvania, 1894; doctor of laws, Harvard University, 1894; has been a fellow of the American Academy of Sciences, member of the American Oriental Society, American FolkLore Society, British Folk-Lore Society, Massachusetts Historical Society, Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, Essex Institute, American Geographical Society, American Antiquarian Society. Historical Societies of Virginia, Missouri, California, Oneida County, N. Y. ; was president of the Boylston Club, a club of singers in Boston, from 1877 to 1882. ^[3]

Census

10 Aug 1870 US Federal Census, Cambridge, MA, John Fiske (31 b. CT) author, Abby (32 b. MA), Harold (3 b. MA), Clarence (1 b. MA), Maud (5 b. MA), James Brooks (40 b. MA) lawyer, Martha Brooks (27 b. MA)^[4]

1880 US Federal Census, Cambridge, MA, John Fisk (39, b. CT parents b. CT) lecturer, Abby M (41 b. MA parents b. MA), Maude (15 b. MA), Harold B (13 b. MA), Ralph R (9 b. MA), Ethel (7 b. MA), Herbert H (3 b. MA), Sarah A Haynes (59 b. ME), Isabella Lemont (30 b. Canada), Kate Mcmillan (28 b. Canada), Clarence S Fisk (11 b. MA)^[5]

7 Jun 1900 US Federal Census, Cambridge, MA, John Fiske (58 b. Mar 1842 CT, parents b. DE/CT) author, m. for 36 yrs., Abby M (61 b. Aug 1839 MA, parents b. MA) 6 ch/5 living, Maud F Flint (35 b. Jul 1865 MA) m. 4 yrs, 1ch., Ethel (28 b. Jul 1872 MA), Herbert H (23, b. Aug 1877 MA), Annie M Cahil (22 b. Oct 1878 Canada [Eng]) servant, imm. 1899, Sarah J Raffety (46 b. Oct 1854 Ireland) servant, imm. 1885^[6]

Sources

1. ↑ Wilson, James Grant; Fiske, John, eds. (1900). "Fiske, John (author)". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
2. ↑ "Massachusetts, Marriages, 1841-1915," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/N4MV-RZZ : accessed 01 Oct 2014), John Fiske and Abby M. Brooks, 06 Sep 1864; citing 51, Cambridge, Massachusetts, State Archives, Boston; FHL microfilm 1433021.
3. ↑ p. 300-301 Fiske and Fisk family : being the record of the descendants of Symond Fiske, lord of the manor of Stadhaugh, Suffolk County, England, from the time of Henry IV to date, including all the American members of the family (1896) https://archive.org/details/fiskefiskfamilyb00pier
4. ↑ "United States Census, 1870," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MD38-1DB : accessed 01 Oct 2014), John Fiske, Massachusetts, United States; citing p. 63, family 498, NARA microfilm publication M593, FHL microfilm 000552123.
5. ↑ "United States Census, 1880," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MHXM-GTS : accessed 01 Oct 2014), John Fisk, Cambridge, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States; citing sheet 177D, NARA microfilm publication T9.
6. ↑ "United States Census, 1900," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/M9RT-TFX : accessed 01 Oct 2014), John Fiske, Cambridge city Ward 1, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States; citing sheet 9B, family 140, NARA microfilm publication T623, FHL microfilm 1240655.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fiske_(philosopher)
• Wikidata: Item Q3140992, en:Wikipedia