Samuel Bartlett Parris (1806-1827), physician, author, and poet, was admitted to Brown University at the age of ten, graduated in 1821 and began practicing medicine in 1825 in Attleboro, Mass. He wrote several scholarly essays and many poems on various subjects, which were published posthumously, in 1829.
Parris' journal for 1817, written at the age of eleven in Kingston, Mass., is one of a series begun when he was six years old for the purpose of recording "everything material that happens near me and also my faults that by looking on this I may remember them and do so no more." The journal recounts family activities and comments on several boarders, especially Mary Harlow, family plans to move to Marshfield, Mass. (with descriptions of the town) where his father was to be minister, and all of Samuel's studies, his ballplaying with friends, and his interest in the sea. The journal also contains references to an entertaining "electerizing machine" invented by Ezekiel Holmes (1801-1865), and to many fires which broke out in the neighborhood around harvest time. Included are several verses written by Parris on the latter subject.