Joseph Tracy (1793–1874) was a Protestant Christian minister, newspaper editor, historian and leading figure in the American Colonization Society of the early to mid-19th century.
By his own account, he "was a farmer's boy and student alternately, or sometimes both at once," until he graduated with a Master of Arts from Dartmouth College in 1814, after election to Phi Beta Kappa society.
An admirer of educated women, he taught her Latin and began Greek, until the demands of family life cut short her studies.
During and after this time he published several books, including: The Three Last Things, 1839, an essay on resurrection, judgment and final retribution; The Great Awakening, 1842, a history of the religious revival in America in the mid to late 18th century (some scholars attribute the well-known name of that movement to Rev.
Although this is mere tradition, Tracy did have a reputation as a man with an extraordinarily extensive fund of knowledge in varied fields.
Tracy replied that it was an expression shortened from Birmingham Copper and proceeded to go into a deep explanation of the meaning of the term.
From his college days, Tracy was closely associated with the New England group who were leaders in the development of political feeling in the north, most notably Rufus Choate and Daniel Webster, both fellow Dartmouth graduates.
These Societies, which arose in several states including the South, beginning in 1817, undertook to solve, or alleviate, the slavery question by acquiring freedom for black slaves and transporting them by ship back to Africa.
His upbringing and inclination looked back to the Pilgrim fathers—he called Christmas a heathen holiday, yet never interfered with his family's celebration of it—but his education and tolerance heralded the beginnings of a more modern sensibility.