Benj. N. (Benjamin Nicholas) Martin

Born in Mount Holly, New Jersey, in 1816, Benjamin Nicholas Martin studied at Yale, where he graduated in 1837 and then continued into theological training at New Haven. He became a Congregational minister and later built a reputation as an educator and lecturer, with work that connected religion, philosophy, and the sciences.

Martin spent part of his career in New York, where he served as a professor of philosophy at the University of the State of New York. He also took part in public and learned societies, including the New York Academy of Sciences, and received advanced honorary degrees during his lifetime.

Readers are most likely to know him through books such as Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader, an anthology that gathered major American writers for students and general readers. That mix of scholarship, teaching, and broad intellectual curiosity runs through his work, which reflects the educational ideals of the late 19th century.