Son of John P. and Louisa Ann (Brown) Bigelow:
Mayors of Boston:
an illustrated epitome of who the mayors have been and what they have done
By State Street Trust Company (Boston, Mass.), Walton Advertising and
Printing Company (Boston, Mass.)
p.21
John
Prescott Bigelow was the son of Timothy Bigelow, who for eleven years
was speaker of the House of
Representatives and was a
grandson of Colonel Timothy Bigelow, the Revolutionary War hero of Worcester.
His birthplace was Groton,
Massachusetts, where he was born August 25, 1797. He entered Harvard
and
graduated in 1815.
He was admitted to the bar in 1818.
In 1824 he went abroad, where he spent some years. His wife died in
1847, and his son also was
taken from him, and he turned to politics, in which he had early taken an
interest.
He became a member of the Common Council
for Ward 9, where he was one of those who worked the hardest to stay the
cholera scourge which afflicted Boston.
In 1828 the Whigs elected him to the House of Representatives of Massachusetts,
to which he was re-elected with the exception of one year, until 1836.
He was prominent in the movement
to reduce the number of membership (which was then over 700); was active
on many committees, and took a leading part in railroad legislation.
From 1836 to 1843 he served as Secretary
of State with marked ability, and then became a member of the
Executive Council under Governor
Briggs, serving four years. He was elected Mayor of Boston in 1848.
During his tenure of office
the jail at Charles and Cambridge Streets was completed at a cost of $450,000.
In the summer of 1849, Asiatic
cholera caused the death of no less than 5,080 people out of a population
of 130,000. An event that
was fraught with much trouble for Mayor Bigelow was a meeting in 1850
at
Faneuil Hall to congratulate
George Thompson, the abolitionist, upon his arrival in this country.
Cheers for
Daniel Webster, Jenny Lind,
and the Union, which the police, acting under the instructions of Mayor
Bigelow,
did nothing to stop, broke
up the meeting. The next year the Board of Aldermen declined to allow the
use of
Faneuil Hall for a reception
to Daniel Webster, because of the fear of a disturbance. Webster and his
friends
were furious, and when the
Common Council with the concurrence of the Mayor, later sent a committee
to
wait upon Webster at the Revere
House and "tender him in the name of the City Council an invitation to
meet
and address his fellow-citizens
in Faneuil Hall," Webster curtly replied it was not convenient for him to
accept.
At the next election the Mayor and Council were all retired to private
life.
In 1851, the last term of Bigelow,
every section of Boston was supplied with pure water at a cost of
$4,321,000, the new almhouse
was built on Deer Island, a system of telegraphic fire alarms invented
by
Dr. William F. Channing was
installed and the great pageant was held to celebrate the completion of
the
railroads between Boston and
Canada and the Great Lakes.
On Mayor Bigelow's retirement a number
of friends wished to show him their appreciation by presenting
him with a silver vase. He
asked that the money be given to the Public Library, and this was the first
gift
the library received.
Mr. Bigelow became one of its Board of Trustees. He died July 4, 1872.
Transcribed by Janice Farnsworth
Subject: John Prescott Bigelow
Source Prescott Memorial
John Prescott/Mary Platts Line - Lancaster, Mass.
p.110
John Prescott Bigelow b. 1797 son of the Hon. Timothy
Bigelow & his wife Lucy Prescott (dau of Dr. Oliver Prescott, Sen'r
& wife, Lydia Baldwin - p.77 Prescott
Memorial) (see Lucy Prescott p.78, below)
John Prescott Bigelow m. 1824, Louisa Brown, an
English lady, who died in 1847.
He graduated Harvard College in 1815; studied law. He was president
of the Common
Council of the City of Boston; for several years he was Secretary of
State for Mass.,
and subsequently the Mayor of Boston and member of the Executive Council.
Mr.
Bigelow laid the foundation of the Boston Public Library, which he has
the satisfaction
of seeing grow to the gigantic proportions of some 150,000 volumes and
has been one of the
Trustees from its foundation until feeble health compelled him to resign
on the 11th of January , 1869.
Mayor
Shurtleff, in presenting his resignation, said of him that
"he had ever been an ardent friend of the Library and that he gave the
first money that
was received towards it foundation." He expressed "great regret
that his present feeble health demands the severance of the tie which had
for so long a time connected him with this and other branches of the City
Goverment." It was Mr. Bigelow's delight to do good and be useful,
and he was entirely void of that selfishness and exclusiveness which is
but too common among many in higher
walks of life. (record ends.)
p.78
Lucy Prescott b. Mar 13, 1771 m. Sept. 30, 1791,
Hon. Timothy Bigelow, son of
Col. Timothy Bigelow of Worcester (who commanded one of the Mass. regiments
in the Revolutionary War.) Hon. Timothy Bigelow was b. April 30, 1767;
grad. Harvard
Coll. 1786; read law with Hon. Levi Lincoln, Sen'r and opened an office
at Groton, Mass.
in 1789.
He was eminently successful
in the practice of his profession; a sound
lawyer and distinguished advocate. In 1802 he was rep. to the General
Court and was
chosen from that body as one of the Executive Council, in which office
he served two
years. In 1806 he removed from Groton, Mass., to Medford, Mass.,
and opened an
office for practice in Boston. He represented the town of Medford
in the General Court
nearly if not quite all the years from the time of his removal there
to the time of his death.
He was a Senator for Middlesex County, from 1797
to 1801, inclusive, and
Councillor again in 1821.
His
executive abilities were of the first order,and he had a
fine opportunity to exhibit them while presiding as Speaker of the House
of Rep's for
eleven years, beside presiding in various literary and charitable societies
of which he
was a member. He was a close student and a great reader.
Books in all the liberal
arts and sciences were his familiar acquaintances. He died May
18, 1821, aged 54
years and 19 days. Mrs. Bigelow died in the consolation of a religious
faith, Dec 17,
1852 aged 81 years and 9 mos. The newspapers of the day that recorded
her death,
stated that she was a worthy consort of a good and eminant man. She was
well known
for her moral loveliness and beauty, the elevation
of her character, the gentle-
ness of her nature, and calm self-possession. It is said that a
prominent trait in her
endowments was a concern for the welfare of others and a resignation
and Christian
patience and fortitude under trials and losses of her children.
p.110
Hon. Timothy Bigelow and wife, Lucy Prescott.
Children:
1. Katherine Bigelow b. 1793 m. June 28, 1819, Hon.
Abbott Lawrence of Boston,
b. Dec 16, 1792. Was repeatedly elected a Rep. to the General Court,
a Representative
to Congress, and for several years was resident
minister of the United
States at the Court of St. James. He founded and endowed at Harvard Univ.,
a School of Science, applied to the arts, and gave
liberally to other institutions.
He died Aug 18, 1855. See a Memoir of him
in the Historical & Genealogical Register, Vol. X.
p.297, October 1856. See also Lawrence Genealogy.
2. Rev. Andrew Bigelow, b. at Groton, Mass., May
7, 1795; m. Jan 26, 1824, Amelia
Sargent Stanwood, b. at Gloucester, Mass., Sept. 12, 1806; she was the
dau. of
Theodore & Sarah (Rogers) Stanwood. Graduated at Harvard College,
1814. Studied
Theology, and settled first at Medford then in Taunton. Resided in Boston,
1865 to 1869. Two children:
1. Timothy Bigelow b.
at Medford Mar 15, 1825; now (1869) of Boston.
2. Theodore Stanwood
Bigelow b. in do., Aug 1, 1826; now (1869) also of
Boston.
3. John Prescott Bigelow (see above)
4. Edward Bigelow b. and died in Medford June 1838,
unmarried.
5. Helen Bigelow.
6. Francis Rufus Bigelow b. ___; he was a merchant
of Boston.
7. Elizabeth Prescott Bigelow who m. Henry Stevens,
a merchant in New York City.
Transcribed by Janice Farnsworth
Subject:
Founder of the Boston Public
Library controversy
Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 11:45:35 EDT
From: Farns10th@aol.com
Subject: John Prescott Bigelow, Founder of the Boston Public Library.
Source: The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. p.205
The New England Historic, Genealogical Society held a special meeting to
commemorate the event,
which President Wilder opened by a brief speech, and at which Messrs. William
W. Wheildon, Thomas
C. Amory and Nathaniel F. Safford read excellent papers on topics suggested
by the occasion. The
pamphlet before us contains the proceedings with the president's speech,
the papers of Messrs.
Wheildon, Amory and Safford in full, and some extracts from the Massachusetts
records furnished
by Mr. David Pulsifer, showing the transition from a provincial to a state
government. It also
contains the doings by the state and city in honor of the day, includinjg
Governor Long's pro-
clamation and speech, and Dr. Hopkin's prayer. Besides this, there are other
matters, particu-
larly an elaborate article by Mr. Wheildon, which appeared in the Sunday
Herald, Oct. 3, 1880,
calling attention to the event.
Reply to Francis Brimley on the Claims of Honorable John P. Bigelow as Founder
of the Boston
Public Library. By Timothy Bigelow. Read before the Boston Antiquarian Club,
May 11, 1880.
Boston: Tolman & White, Printers, 383 Washington Street. 1880 (8vopp.50).
This is a caustic reply to a communication from the Honorable Francis Brinley,
of Newport, R.I.,
read at a previous meeting of the Boston Antiquarian Club, in which the claims
of the friends of
the Honorable John Prescott Bigelow that he was the founder of the Boston
Public Library were
controverted. The author, who is a nephew of Mr. Bigelow, and familiar with
the incidents in his
life, has been indefatigable in collecting new facts bearing upon the point
at issue. We think
that the evidence here presented shows that the idea of giving the Bigelow
Fund to the city for
a public library originated with Mayor Bigelow himself, and that if this
is considered the origin
of the Public Library, of which however we have serious doubts, the claims
of his friends are well
founded.
End.
Transcribed by Janice Farnsworth
http://books.google.com/books?id=hcCJeNtX9PQC&pg=PA205&dq=John+Prescott,+founder&ie=ISO-8859-1
Rod
Bigelow
rodbigelow@netzero.net 
