LIBRARIANS OF HARVARD COLLEGE.
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(1753-56) he was the representative from Salem to the General Court, and for a time he acted as clerk of the House. He was appointed, 25 January, 1754, a justice of the court of common pleas for Essex County. He died, of the measles, 17 February, 1759.
Mr. Gibbs married, first, 31 January, 1739, Margaret, daughter of Jabez Fitch; second, 28 May, 1747, Katherine, daughter of Josiah Willard (Librarian, 1702-1703). He had three sons and two daughters. Secretary Willard, his father-in-law, wrote of him : " He is a man of so universal good education, that I am persuaded that Katy will be very happy with him."
AUTHORITIES : Felt, Annals of Salem. 2d ed. 1849, ii. 565. Gibbs, Family notices, pp. 2-3. Savage, General. dictionary. Willard, Willard memoir, 1858, p. 402.
1734-1735.
Samuel Coolidge, the son of Lieutenant Richard Coolidge and his second wife, Susanna , was born at Watertown, 16 August, 1703. He graduated from College with the class of 1724, and took his A.M. in 1727. Immediately after graduating he had been tjie schoolmaster in Watertown. He was Librarian for the year 1734-35. In 1738 we find him serving as chap- lain at Castle William in Boston harbor. He is said to have been a man of brilliant parts, but very eccentric. One of his many peculiarities was his habit of talking in Latin. During the latter part of his life he became intemperate and was probably insane. He never married. He died a pauper at the age of 63, a.nd was buried at the expense of the town of Watertown, 13 January, 1767.
His only publication was a sermon with the following title : A sermon preached at his Majesty's Castle William, March 26, 1738. Upon the much lamented death of her late most excellent majesty Caroline, queen-consort of the most puissant George the second, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, king, defender of the faith, &c. Whom God bless and preserve with long life, health and honour and all worldly happiness. By Samuel Coollidge, A.M. chaplain of the Castle. * * * Boston : N E. printed and sold by S. Kneeland & T. Green, in Queen-street. 1738. 12. pp. (4), 26.
AUTHORITIES: Bond, Genealogies of Watertown, I860, pp. 168, 748. Savage, Geneal. Dictionary.
1735-1737.
James Diman was born 29 November, 1707, in East Hampton, L. I., the eldest son of Thomas Diman and Hannah Finney. In 1730 he gradu- ated from Harvard, and three years later received the degree of A.M. He was appointed Librarian in 1735 and served until the spring of 1737. During his term a new code of laws for the administration of the Library was adopted by the Corporation.* In February of that year lie was called to the pastorate of the Second, or East, church in Salem. At his ordination there, 11 May, 1737, the sermon was preached by Ed- ward Holyoke (Librarian, 1709-1712), then the pastor of the church in Marblehead. Mr. Di- man, it is recorded, was to have a salary of " 150 ounces of silver, at 6/8 an oz., and a free contribution." By his marriage with Mary Orne, 6 December, 1743, he had seven children.
His ministry in Salem of over fifty years was in the main prosperous and peaceful. He was, how- ever, an old-school Calvinist, and at the end of his pastorate his parishioners were growing away from his rigid orthodoxy. This increasing difference of views culminated in the calling as colleague to the aged pastor a young Unitarian minister, Rev. William Bentley (H. U. 1777). After this the senior pastor withdrew more and more from the parish work, until his death, 8 October, 1788, at the age of 81.
James Diman is described as a man of "grave aspect, invested with imposing dignity rather stern and awe-inspiring peculiar to the ministry of the age of huge wigs, which were the symbol of the clerical authority and the orthodox theology of the day."
His only publication was : A sermon, preached at Salem, January 16, 1772. Being the day on which Bryan Sheehan was executed, for committing a rape, on the body of Abial Hollowell, the wife of Benjamin Hollowell, of Marblehead. By James Diman, A.M., Pastor of the Second Church in Salem. Salem : printed by Samuel and Ebe- nezer Hall, near the Exchange. MDCCLXXII. 8. pp. 24.
He delivered the charge or gave the right hand of fellowship at the ordinations of Rev. Enos Hitchcock at Beverly in 1771, of Rev. Thomas Barnard, Jr., in 1773, of Rev. John Prince, 1779, and of his colleague, Rev. William Bentley, 1783, and these were printed with the ordination sermons on those occasions.
AUTHORITIES: Dimond, Geneal. of the Dimond or Dimon /am., 1891, pp. 114-5. Felt, Annals of Salem, 2d ed. t 1849, ii. 597, 602, 619, 626. Ilurd, Hist, of Essex co., 1888, p. 42. Osgood and Batchelder, Hist, sketch of Salem, 1879, p. 86.
1737-1741
Thomas Marsh, son of Thomas Marsh and Mary Burr of Hingham, was born 20 January, 1711. He graduated at Harvard in 1731. On
- See Appendix II.
