William Emmons

(Born: February 27, 1792 - Died: July 28, 1875)

American biographer and orator. He was born in Boston, but lived for some years in Kentucky, eventually returning to Boston, where he seems to have remained for the rest of his life. He married Mary Cushing, of Weymouth. He was a particularly avid orator, publishing his own speeches as pamphlets and selling them to his audience. Loring comments that “It is a singular fact in relation to Emmons, that he has delivered an oration on nearly every battle-field of the Revolution.” At some point, he may have become an inmate at the hospital for the insane at Worcester. Mabbott notes that William’s brother, Richard “Pop” Emmons was mentioned by Poe in his review of Flaccus and in “The Literary Life of Thingum Bob.” However, Hershel Parker (in Herman Melville: A Biography, 1:45) notes that it was William Emmons who was actually “Pop” Emmons, a nickname earned from selling “egg pop,” a beverage which was something like egg nog. Emmons is briefly mentioned by Herman Melville in an 1850 essay on Hawthorne (“Hawthorne and His Mosses”). Parker notes that Melville confused William with his brother Richard. (Melville mentions “Fredoniad,” which was actually written by Richard. Park Benjamin, in his magazine the New World, makes the same error.) Parker further comments that “When the occasion was right Emmons would climb up and deliver an oration from the stand.” The date of death is taken from an obituary from a Boston newspaper that seems to be the same William Emmons, although his age is given as 85.