Warren Colburn

Warren Colburn (born in Dedham, Massachusetts, March 1, 1793; died in Lowell, Massachusetts, September 13, 1833), was a Massachusetts businessman, mathematician, and educator. His parents were poor, and when he was a boy, he worked in factories in different villages where they moved. He studied the profession of a machinist, but early showed a taste for mathematics and entered Harvard in 1816, where he graduated from 1820. He then opened a school in Boston. In April 1823, he became manager of the Boston Manufacturing Company in Waltham, Massachusetts, and in August 1824, the Merrimack Manufacturing Company in Lowell. In this capacity, he invented important improvements in technology. In the fall of 1825 he gave a course of lectures on the natural history of animals, illustrated by a magic lantern. In subsequent years, he followed popular lectures on light, the eye, the seasons, electricity, hydraulics, astronomy, commerce, etc. These lectures continued for many years. He was also the head of the Lowell schools, was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1827 and for several years was an examiner in mathematics at Harvard.