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Jared Sparks (10 May 1789 - 14 March 1866) was an American historian, educator, and Unitarian minister. He served as President of Harvard University from 1849 to 1853. Born in Willington, Connecticut, he studied in the common schools, worked for a time at the carpenter's trade, and then became a schoolteacher. In 1809-1811 he attended Phillips Exeter Academy where he met John G. Palfrey and George Bancroft, two schoolmates who became his lifelong friends. He graduated from Harvard University (A.B., 1815 and A.M., 1818); taught in a private school at Lancaster, Massachusetts, in 1815-1817; and studied theology and was college tutor in mathematics and natural philosophy at Harvard in 1817-1819. In 1817-1818 he was acting editor of the North American Review . He was pastor of the First Independent Church (Unitarian) of Baltimore, Maryland, in 1819-1823, Dr William Ellery Channing delivering at his ordination his famous discourse on Unitarian Christianity. During this period Sparks founded the Unitarian Miscellany and Christian Monitor (1821), a monthly, and edited its first three volumes; he was chaplain of the United States House of Representatives in 1821-1823; and he contributed to the National Intelligencer and other periodicals. In 1823 his health failed and he withdrew from the ministry. Removing to Boston, he bought and edited in 1824-1830 the North American Review, contributing to it about fifty articles. He founded and edited, in 1830 the American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge, which was continued by others and long remained a popular annual.
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