Joel Barlow

Author Code: AJBL

Educated at Dartmouth and Yale Universities, Barlow was an army chaplain for three years during the American Revolution. In 1784, he founded the American Mercury, a weekly Hartford, Connecticut newspaper. He was admitted to the bar in 1786. He became a member of the Hartford Wits, a group of young writers that included John Trumbull, with whom he would later collaborate on The Anarchiad. In 1787, he published Vision of Columbus, which was immensely popular. He went to France in 1788 as an agent for the Scioto Land Company and while there became acquainted with Thomas Paine. He subsequently assisted Paine in publishing The Age of Reason, when Paine was imprisoned. He also spent two years in London, and in 1792 published Advice to the Privileged Orders. The outcry against this work forced him to return to France where he became a French citizen. From 1795 to 1797, he was in Algeria helping to secure the release of American prisoners and negotiating a treaty. He returned to the US in 1805 and lived near Washington D.C. until 1811, when he was appointed US plenipotentiary to France. He went to Wilna in Poland at Napoleon's request, but was caught up in the forced retreat from Moscow and he died of exposure near Cracow in Poland. Barlow's other works include The Hasty Pudding (1796) and The Columbiad (1807).