owned a copy of the autograph of Saint Augustine. He was America's foremost philographer by the time of his death. His autographs, numbering nearly 100,000, probably the largest private collection in the world at that time, were left to his son. He was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1846. He was married three times and had children. After his retirement from the Albany pulpit in 1870, he and his wife lived with his son Edward Everett Sprague, a lawyer, in Flushing, New York. He died there in 1876 and was buried in Albany Rural Cemetery in Menands, New York. Works He authored; "Letters on Practical Subjects from a Clergyman of New England to His Daughter" (Hartford, 1822) "Letters from Europe First Published in the New York Observer" (New York, 1828) "Lectures to Young People" (New York, 1830) "Lectures on the Revival of Religion" (Albany, 1832) "Hints Designed to Regulate the Intercourse of Christians" (Albany, 1834) "Lectures Illustrating the Contrast Between True Christianity and Various Other Systems" (New York, 1837) "Memoir of Rev. Edward Dorr Griffin, D.D." (Albany, 1838) "Letters to Young Men" (Albany, 1844) "Life of Timothy Dwight" (Albany, 1845) "Aids to Early Religion" (New York, 1847) "Words to a Young Man's Conscience by a Father" (Albany, 1848) "Monitory Letters to Church Members" published anonymously (Philadelphia, 1855) "Visits to European Celebrities" (Boston, 1855) "Annals of the American Pulpit" (New York, 1857–1869) (9 vols.) "Memoirs of Rev. John McDowell, D.D., and the Rev. William A. McDowell" (New York, 1864) "The Life of Jedidiah Morse" (New York, 1874) References External links Yale College alumni 1795 births 1876 deaths Princeton Theological Seminary alumni American historians American biographers American theologians Burials at Albany Rural Cemetery Members of the American Antiquarian Society