Theophilus Parsons

Theophilus Parsons (1797-1882) was Dane Professor of Law at Harvard from 1848 to 1870. Parsons is remembered chiefly as the author of a series of useful legal treatises and some books in support of Swedenborgian doctrines. He wrote a life of his father, an American jurist, who was also named Theophilus Parsons (1749-1813). It was published in Boston in 1859. He also edited and published the Civil War letters of his daughter, Emily Elizabeth Parsons, a nurse and administrator of Benton Barracks military hospital in St. Louis, Mo. He graduated from Harvard College in 1815.