Jared Sparks (1789–1866), historian, documentary editor, and author, was born in Willington, Connecticut. Though limited family resources initially restricted his opportunities for formal schooling, he showed an early aptitude for learning and received a scholarship to Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire in 1809. Sparks entered Harvard University two years later, graduating in 1815. He worked as a science tutor at Harvard, 1817–19, and from 1817–18 he also edited the North American Review. In 1819 Sparks was ordained as a Unitarian minister and accepted the pulpit of a church in Baltimore, where he remained until 1823. He visited Monticello in 1820 and served as chaplain of the United States House of Representatives for one session beginning in 1821. Returning to Boston in 1823, Sparks bought the North American Review, enhanced its reputation as the leading American literary journal, and sold it at a profit in 1830. He eventually researched and published numerous works on American history, including The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, 12 vols. (1829–30); The Life of Gouverneur Morris, 3 vols. (1832); The Works of Benjamin Franklin, 10 vols. (1836–40); and The Writings of George Washington, 12 vols. (1834–37). For these editions Sparks obtained unprecedented access to original papers and pioneered the field of documentary editing, though he was criticized even in his lifetime for his liberal corrections and silent omissions. Sparks was the first McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History at Harvard, 1838–49, and served as president of the university, 1849–53. After his retirement in the latter year, he collected material for a history of the American Revolution that he never completed. Sparks died in Cambridge, Massachusetts (ANB description begins John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography, 1999, 24 vols. description ends ; DAB description begins Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography, 1928–36, 20 vols. description ends ; Herbert B. Adams, The Life and Writings of Jared Sparks, 2 vols. [1893]; MH: Sparks Papers; General Catalogue of the Officers and Students of the Phillips Exeter Academy. 1783–1903 [1903], 20; Harvard Catalogue description begins Harvard University Quinquennial Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates, 1636–1925, 1925 description ends , 7, 25, 117, 192; Sparks’s Account of a Visit to Monticello, [20 Aug. 1820]; Boston Daily Advertiser, 15 Mar. 1866).

For his short notice of John Ledyard, see TJ to Paul Allen, 18 Aug. 1813, document 1 in a group of documents on TJ’s Biography of Meriwether Lewis printed at that date. Ledyard’s small book was A Journal of Captain Cook’s last Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, and in quest of a North-West Passage, between Asia & America (Hartford, 1783; Sowerby, description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, 1952–59, 5 vols. description ends no. 3940). Ledyard traveled to Egypt in 1788 under the sponsorship of the Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa, a British organization that printed extracts of his communications in its Proceedings 1 (1810): 23–46. A native of Groton, Connecticut, Ledyard attended Dartmouth College, 1772–73 (ANB description begins John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography, 1999, 24 vols. description ends ; Sparks, The Life of John Ledyard, the American Traveller [1828], 1–19).

After TJ’s death Sparks renewed his requests to see TJ’s correspondence with Ledyard and received copies in November 1827 (Joseph Coolidge to Thomas Jefferson Randolph, 18 Dec. 1826 [ViU: ER]; Coolidge to Nicholas P. Trist, 5 Jan., 18 Apr., 16 Oct., 5, 26 Nov. 1827 [DLC: NPT]).