The Biographical Dictionary of America/Bacon, Samuel

BACON, Samuel, clergyman, was born in Sturbridge, Mass., July 22, 1781. In 1808 he was graduated at Harvard college and studied law, which profession he followed in Pennsylvania. He next essayed journalism, being editor of the Worcester, Mass., Ægis, and afterwards editor of the Lancaster, Pa., Hive. He was ordained to the priesthood of the Protestant Episcopal church, and in 1819 sailed for Sierra Leone, Africa, in charge of a company of negroes, whom it was his appointed mission to settle as a colony, he being one of a committee of three sent by the United States government, under the auspices of the American colonization society, for that purpose. The settlement was effected at Campelar, on the Sherboro river, where two of the agents died. Mr. Bacon, whose health had become seriously impaired, was carried to Kent, on Cape Shilling, where he died May 3, 1820.