He was born in
Charlestown, Massachusetts, and graduated in 1856 at the Biblical Institute at
Concord, New Hampshire (later part of
Boston University), became a minister in the
Episcopal Church in 1857, and during the next three years was a rector first at
North Adams, and then at
Newton Lower Falls, Massachusetts. After serving as chaplain in the
18th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry and one other Massachusetts regiment during the first two years of the
American Civil War, he became editor (1863) of
The Christian Times in New York City, and subsequently edited
The Episcopalian and
The Magazine of American History. He was rector of the
Church of St John the Evangelist in New York City from 1881 to 1899, at which time he resigned while converting to
Roman Catholicism. He was one of the organizers and long the secretary of the Church Temperance Society, and founded and was the first president (1884–1899) of the American branch of the White Cross Society. He became a high authority on early American cartography and the history of the period of exploration. In addition to numerous monographs and valuable contributions to
Justin Winsor's
Narrative and Critical History of America, he published
The Pre-Columbian Discovery of America by the Northmen (1868);
The Northmen in Maine (1870);
The Moabite Stone (1871);
The Rector of Roxburgh (1871), a novel under the
nom de plume of William Hickling; and
Verrazano the Explorer; being a Vindication of his Letter and Voyage (1880). He died in New York City in 1904. ==See also==