A Happy New Year

At the beginning of 1854, a year in which Bostonians would see both the opening of the Boston Public Library’s reading room in a repurposed schoolhouse and the tumult over the rendition of freedom seeker Anthony Burns, Thomas Power of Boston sent his friends heartfelt wishes for “blessings unnumbered” and “pleasures refined” in the New Year. In the nineteenth century, public new year’s greetings were common in the form of addresses of newspaper carriers and other service workers to their patrons. Although publications like these were issued at least in part as a plea for gratuities, Power seems to have been motivated by the spirit of friendship and as a product of his active creative life.

Who was Thomas Power?

Thomas Power was born in Boston on 8 October 1786, the son of Thomas and Hannah (Lincoln) Power. He graduated from Brown University in 1808 where he delivered “A Poem on Music” at that year’s commencement. He studied law with Judge Charles Jackson and was admitted to the Bar in 1811. He spent a few years in Northfield, Massachusetts, where he was a founder of the Northfield Social Library, but returned to Boston in 1816. He was appointed Clerk of the Boston Police Court in 1822, serving in that position for almost four decades. Power served on the Boston School Committee, delivered Boston’s Fourth of July oration in 1840, and was involved in Freemasonry and Boston’s Handel & Haydn Society.

In his book on Boston orators, James Loring Spear described Power as a “fervid national poet,” having “a highly poetical vein, besides great capacity in the legal profession.” In addition to poetry, Power published Masonic Melodies Adapted to the Ceremonies and Festivals of the Fraternity in 1844 and was a music critic for the Boston Atlas. In 1860, he retired from the Police Court due to ill health and moved to Framingham, Mass. He and his wife of more than fifty years, Betsey Sampson, had three children. Thomas Power died in Framingham in 1868 and is buried at the Mayflower Cemetery in Duxbury alongside his wife and daughter Elizabeth, who died at age 5.