William Allen and the Webster-Worcester Dictionary Wars

William Allen and the Webster-Worcester Dictionary Wars1 Edwin A. Miles Wfilliam Allen, president of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, wrote Joseph E. Worcester in 1837 that he felt "a deeper interest , than is commonly felt, in Philological Inquiries." For many years, long before Noah Webster's An American Dictionary ofthe English Language (ADEL) had been published in 1828, he had been "collecting new words in my reading, not from dictionaries,— . . . from Coleridge , Southey, Wordsworth, Scott, &c. English,—& from Dwight, Everett, Story, Mrs. Farrar, &c. &c. American." He hoped someday "to give the catalog to the public."2 Allen was a man of many accomplishments and varied interests . Born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in 1784, he was the son of a prominent Congregationalist minister. Following in the footsteps of his father, he graduated from Harvard College in 1802, studied theology , and became a licensed minister. From 1805 to 1810 he was assistant librarian at Harvard. In this capacity he found time to write An American Biographical and Historical Dictionary (1809), which subsequently underwent two revised editions. In 1810 he became the Congregationalist minister in Pittsfield as the successor to his father. Then, in 1817, he became president of the newly created Dartmouth University, following the New Hampshire legislature's alteration of the charter of Dartmouth College. He held this position only two years, for the United States Supreme Court invalidated the state's action in 1819, and Dartmouth University ceased to exist. In May 1820 he was chosen president of Bowdoin College. Under Allen's leadership, Bowdoin experienced a period of considerable growth, but his tenure was marred by his unpopularity with the trustees, with many state legislators, and also with the students , one of whom later described him as "impassive, inflexible, . . . precise, stately, stiff; butjust and kind and faithful; . . . more learned Edwin Miles than apt to teach; a good ruler for all but the unruly."3 The Maine legislature passed an act designed to remove him from office and he was deprived of his presidency from 1831 to 1833, when the United States Circuit Court, ironically citing the Dartmouth case, invalidated the legislature's action. But Allen's presidency continued to be handicapped by his lack ofsupport from the trustees and the student body; and in 1838 he resigned his position. The following year he moved to Northampton, Massachusetts, where he engaged in various literary pursuits until his death in 1868 at the age of 84.4 In the meantime Allen had already taken steps which he hoped would make his catalog ofnew words available to the public. When he learned of plans to issue an English edition of Webster's dictionary in the early 1830's, he offered "for a pecuniary consideration 14[00] or 1500 words," but E. H. Barker, the English editor, "had no space for additions." "Still," Barker wrote Webster, "it may be worth your while to communicate with Mr. Allen."5 There were indeed communications between Webster and Allen in 1840, when the aged lexicographer with the aid of his son, William G. Webster, was seeing through the press a new edition of the ADEL (1841), the so-called "first edition in octavo." When Allen offered his catalog, he doubtlessly hoped for a "pecuniary consideration ," but Webster, heavily in debt to defray publication costs, offered none.6 Allen nevertheless sent his compilation, which now contained 6,274 words arranged in alphabetical order, with the name of at least one authority attached to most of them. But "not a few words," he explained later, were "naked—being either suggested by myself or the authorities being lost."7 When Allen's collection of words reached Webster, almost all of the copy for the first volume had been sent to the printer; thus all of his contributions through the letter were placed in an addendum . For the letter in the first volume and the entire second volume , words supplied by Allen appeared in both the main text and an addendum.8 The evidence supports Allen's later contention that he furnished Webster with "all the words in his appendix, having authorities annexed, excepting those from Knowles' dictionary and 8 or 10 other words." In addition, Webster inserted hundreds of Allen's words...