Strangers to Us All
Lawyers and Poetry

Samuel Francis Batchelder

(1870-1927)
Massachusetts

"Samuel Francis Batchelder was born in Cambridge in 1870; his parents were Samuel Batchelder (Harvard College, 1851) and Marianne Giles Washburn. His grandfather, William B. Washburn, was a Massachusetts governor and later the dean of Harvard Law School. At age 14 Samuel entered the Classical Department of the Cambridge High School, but due to ill-health he was sent to St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, where he finished high school. He attended Harvard College from 1889 to 1893, and from Harvard Law School he received his LL.B in 1898. From 1898 to 1900 he worked for the Boston law firm of Myers and Warner, and in 1900 he opened his own practice. Batchelder was Secretary of the Cambridge Historical Society and was also a well-known local historian. He died June 10, 1927." [Samuel Francis Batchelder Papers, Cambridge Historical Society, Cambridge, Massachusetts]

"Samuel Francis Batchelder was born in Cambridge, Mass., on 10 Mar. 1870, son of Samuel Batchelder and Marianne Giles Washburn. From about 1870 to 1878, the family resided in the Vassall House, on the corner of Brattle St. and Ash. His education was supervised by Mrs. Arthur Fuller, and later the Misses Howe on North Ave. At the age of nine, he moved with his family to Andover, Mass., and attended public school. Eighteen months later, the family returned to Cambridge, where Batchelder began his education again under Emma F. Harris; at age fourteen, he entered the Classical Department of the Cambridge High School (the Latin School). Ill-health compelled his parents to send him, in the fall of 1887, to St. Paul's School in Concord, N.H. There he was editor of the school paper (the 'Horae'), and received a number of academic prizes for his poetry. He attended Harvard College (1889-1893); taught for one year at St. Paul's School (Garden City, Long Island, N.Y.); enrolled in Harvard Law School and received his LL.B. (1898); subsequently traveled throughout Europe; was a lawyer in Boston and from 1898 to 1900 was with the office of Myers and Warner; in 1900 he opened his own firm in the Tremont Building; also he was secretary of the Cambridge Historical Society and a member of Christ Church Cambridge." [Bio/History, Samuel Francis Batchelder Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.]

Poem

"February"

Writings

Samuel Francis Batchelder, Bits of Harvard History (Cambridge, Harvard University press, 1924)