Archibald Home (12)

Archibald Home (1705?–April 1744) was a poet and public official and a member of the American Philosophical Society, elected in 1744. Born the son of a baronet in Berwick, Scotland, he was educated privately and spent time in Glasgow before immigrating to New York in 1733. In America, he soon earned a reputation as a prominent tavern wit. Hoping to gain a government appointment, Home wrote pieces supporting Governor William Cosby and criticizing Cosby opponents like Lewis Morris and his fellow contributors to the New York Weekly Journal, printed by John Peter Zenger. So effective were Home’s satires that his erstwhile enemy Morris took him on as his protégé. When Morris became Governor of New Jersey in 1737, he made Home the colony’s deputy secretary. Morris later appointed Home clerk of the Provincial Council, member of the royal council, and secretary of the province. A prolific poet adept in a variety of genres—from romantic odes, classical imitations, and dialect elegies to fables, riddles, epigrams, and bawdy songs—Home was at the center of a mixed sex literary circle in Trenton, New Jersey, that included his patron’s son (and fellow APS member) Robert Hunter Morris. Following Home’s early death, members of his circle prepared manuscript copies of “Poems on Several Occasions by Archibald Home. Esqr. Late Secretary, and One of His Majestie’s Council for the Province of New Jersey: North America,” which circulated on both sides of the Atlantic. (PI, ANB)