James Parton was an England-born American biographer.

Biography

Parton was born in Canterbury

Canterbury

Canterbury is a historic English cathedral city, which lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a district of Kent in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....

, England in 1822. He was taken to the United States when he was five years old, studied in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 and White Plains, New York

White Plains, New York

White Plains is a city and the county seat of Westchester County, New York, United States. It is located in south-central Westchester, about east of the Hudson River and northwest of Long Island Sound...

, and was a schoolmaster in Philadelphia and then in New York. He moved to Newburyport, Massachusetts

Newburyport, Massachusetts

Newburyport is a small coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, 35 miles northeast of Boston. The population was 21,189 at the 2000 census. A historic seaport with a vibrant tourism industry, Newburyport includes part of Plum Island...

, where he died on October 17, 1891.

Parton was the most popular biographer of his day in America. His most important books are Life of Horace Greeley

Horace Greeley

Horace Greeley was an American newspaper editor, a founder of the Liberal Republican Party, a reformer, a politician, and an outspoken opponent of slavery...

(1855), Life and Times of Aaron Burr

Aaron Burr

Aaron Burr, Jr. was an important political figure in the early history of the United States of America. After serving as a Continental Army officer in the Revolutionary War, Burr became a successful lawyer and politician...

(1857), Life of Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States . Based in frontier Tennessee, Jackson was a politician and army general who defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend , and the British at the Battle of New Orleans...

(1859–1860), Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin

Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...

(1864), Life of Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...

(1874), and Life of Voltaire

Voltaire

François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...

(1881). Among his other publications are General Butler in New Orleans (1863), Famous Americans of Recent Times (1867), The Peoples Book of Biography (1868); Noted Women of Europe and America (1883), and Captains of Industry (two series, 1884 and 1891), for young people.

His first wife, Sara (1811–1872), sister of Nathaniel Parker Willis

Nathaniel Parker Willis

Nathaniel Parker Willis , also known as N. P. Willis, was an American author, poet and editor who worked with several notable American writers including Edgar Allan Poe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He became the highest-paid magazine writer of his day. For a time, he was the employer of former...

, and widow of Charles H. Eldredge (d. 1846), attained considerable popularity as a writer under the pen-name Fanny Fern

Fanny Fern

Fanny Fern, born Sara Willis , was an American writer and the first woman to have a regular newspaper column. She was also a humorist, novelist, and author of children's stories in the 1850s-1870s. Fern's great popularity has been attributed to her conversational style and sense of what mattered to...

. They were married in 1856. Her works include the novels, Ruth Hall

Ruth Hall

Ruth Hall: a Domestic Tale of the Present Time is a roman à clef by Fanny Fern , a popular 19th-century newspaper writer. Following on her meteoric rise to fame as a columnist, she signed a contract in February 1854 to write a full-length novel...

(1854), reminiscent of her own life, and Rose Clark (1857); and several volumes of sketches and stories.

In 1876 Parton married Ellen Willis Eldredge, his first wife's daughter by her first husband, Charles Eldredge. His adopted daughter, Ethel, the daughter of Grace Eldrege (Fanny Fern's daughter) and writer Mortimer Thomson

Mortimer Thomson

Mortimer Q. Thomson was an American journalist and humorist who wrote under the pseudonym Q. K. Philander Doesticks. He was born in Riga, New York and grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan...

 (also known as Philander Doesticks), was adopted by Parton in 1872, and she later adopted Parton's last name. Ethel Parton became a famous writer of children's books about 19th century life in Newburyport, MA, published in the 1930s and 1940s.

James and Ellen had two children, Hugo and Mabel. Hugo's children (James Parton's actual grandchildren) were James Parton and Niké Parton. James Parton (1912-2001) was founder and publisher of American Heritage

American Heritage (magazine)

American Heritage is a quarterly magazine dedicated to covering the history of the United States for a mainstream readership. Until 2007, the magazine was published by Forbes. Since that time, Edwin S...

 and Horizon Magazines. Niké Parton (1922-2005) was a prominent Florida artist.

External links

• http://www.answers.com/topic/parton-james