Benjamin Franklin Tefft Papers

Collection

Identifier: SpC MS 0883-sc

Staff Only

Scope and Content Note

The papers of a Methodist clergyman, teacher, and diplomat. Included are letters received by Dr. Tefft relating to education, Republican Party matters, and religious and diplomatic subjects relating chiefly to Sweden. Correspondents include Joshua Chamberlain, Hannibal Hamlin, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Lot Morrill, Enoch Pond, Israel Washburn, Jr., and F. W. Seward.

Dates

1836-1882

Creator

Tefft, B. F. (Benjamin Franklin), 1813-1885 (Person)

Language of Materials

English

Access Restrictions

No restrictions on access.

Use Restrictions

Information on literary rights available in the repository.

Biographical Note

Benjamin Franklin Tefft was born in Floyd, New York, 20 August, 1813 and died in Brewer, Maine, 16 September, 1885. He was graduated at Wesleyan University in 1835, taught four years in Maine Wesleyan Seminary, and then, entering the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was pastor at Bangor, Maine, in 1839-1841. He then taught in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, and in 1842 accepted a charge in Boston, but his health failed in 1843, and after travelling in the south and west he was for three years professor of Greek and Hebrew in Indiana Asbury (now De Pauw) University. In 1846 he became editor of the books and magazines of the Methodist book concern in Cincinnati, where he conducted the "Ladies' Repository" in 1846-1852, and in 1851-1854 he was president of Oenesee College, Lima, New York, also editing in 1852-1854 the "Northern New Yorker," published at Canandaigua. He was pastor of different churches in Bangor, Maine, from 1858 till 1861, when he was made United States consul at Stockholm and acting minister to Sweden, and in 1864 he was commissioner of immigration from the north of Europe for the state of Maine. In 1861 he was appointed Chaplain of the First Calvary Maine Volunteers. In 1866 he became pastor of a church in Portland, and from 1873 till 1878 he edited "The Northern Border," published at Bangor, Maine. During the last two years of his life he was in feeble health. Besides pamphlets, lectures, addresses, and contributions to current literature, Dr. Tefft was the author of several books.