Correspondence from James Winthrop, 1783-1815

James Winthrop (1752-1821), son of Harvard Professor John Winthrop, served as Butler and Librarian of Harvard College, as the Register of Probate for Middlesex County, as a Justice of the Peace, and as a judge in the Court of Common Pleas. Although once described as "among the most learned, useful, and patriotick citizens of Massachusetts," by the end of his life he felt sufficiently alienated from Harvard and Massachusetts that he bequeathed much of his own and his father's libraries to the newly founded Allegheny College in Pennsylvania.

James Winthrop was born on March 28, 1752 in Cambridge, Mass. He received an AB from Harvard in 1769 and an AM in 1772. He was appointed as "substitute librarian" of the Harvard College Library in December of 1769, the same time he was appointed College Butler. Winthrop was appointed College Librarian in 1772. When his father became Judge of Probate for Middlesex County in September 1775, he appointed James as his Register, and James continued in that position until 1817.

When Professor Winthrop died in 1779, James hoped to succeed him as Harvard's Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, but Samuel Williams was chosen instead. After Williams' resignation in 1788, Winthrop again hoped to be appointed to the professorship, but Samuel Webber was chosen instead. William Bentley noted in his diary entry for July 16, 1789 that, "Mr. Winthrop lost the professorship by a majority against him of 32 to 14…Mr Webber a worthy man is chosen." It has been speculated that Winthrop's intemperance and eccentric personality were the primary reasons he was overlooked. Winthrop was widely known for making malicious comments about others, and as a result he appears to have been unpopular among his colleagues at Harvard. In 1787 he was removed from the librarianship as the result of a newly instituted rule preventing faculty members from holding civil or judicial office. This rule is believed to have been instituted for the sole purpose of removing Winthrop from the staff.

Winthrop was appointed Justice of the Peace for Middlesex County in 1783 and served in that role until 1790, when he was promoted to the Quorum of the Court of General Sessions and made a special justice of the Court of Common Pleas. In 1791 he was appointed to the bench of the Court of Common Pleas by Massachusetts Governor John Hancock, a longtime friend and ally. He served until 1805, when he was replaced by a trained lawyer (Winthrop had no formal legal training), and his dismissal appears to have been a great disappointment and source of shame for him. In the last decades of his life, Winthrop felt increasingly alienated, and much of his time and attention was focused on a series of books he published on esoteric Biblical topics.

In addition to his own large library, James had also inherited his father's books and pamphlets. This combined collection totaled more than 3,300 volumes, with tremendous financial as well as educational value. Disgruntled with his treatment in Massachusetts generally, and with Harvard in particular, he decided to bequeath almost all of the books in his possession to Allegheny College, whose first president, Timothy Alden, was a longtime friend. Winthrop also served as a charter trustee at Allegheny. James Winthrop died, following several years of illness, on September 26, 1821.