Student mathematical textbook of James Freeman, 1774

Manuscript volume containing portions of text copied from Nicholas Saunderson’s Elements of algebra, Nicholas Hammond’s The elements of algebra, and John Ward’s The young mathematician’s guide. The volume is divided into two main parts: the first is titled Concerning the parts of Arithmetick (p. 1-98) and the second, The elements of Algebra, extracted from Hammond, Ward & Saunderson (p. 99-259).

Title supplied by cataloger

Additional papers of James Freeman are held by the Houghton Library.

James Freeman (1759-1835), American Unitarian clergyman, was born on April 22, 1759 to Constant and Lois (Cobb) Freeman in Charlestown, Massachusetts. Educated at the Boston Latin Grammar School, Freeman received his Harvard AB in 1777. In 1782, he became a reader at the Anglican King’s Chapel in Boston, becoming minister the following year. Freeman revised the Anglican Book of Common Prayer along Unitarian principles, and the congregation accepted the liturgical changes in 1785. Two years later, Freeman was ordained by the Chapel, and he remained minister there until he retired in 1826. A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a founding member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, he received an honorary AM from Brown University in 1790 and a Doctor of Divinity degree in 1811 from Harvard. Freeman died on November 14, 1835 in Newton, Massachusetts.