author
Job Durfee
1790–1847
A Rhode Island lawyer, judge, and public servant who also wrote ambitious poetry, he is best remembered in literary history for What Cheer, or Roger Williams in Banishment. His life joined politics, law, and letters in one distinctly early American career.
1 Audiobook
What Cheer; Or, Roger Williams in Banishment: A Poem
by Job Durfee
About the author
Born in Tiverton, Rhode Island, in 1790, he graduated from Brown University in 1813, studied law, and built a career that moved between public office and the courts. He served in the Rhode Island House of Representatives, represented Rhode Island in the U.S. Congress in the 1820s, and later became chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court.
Alongside that public career, he wrote poetry and prose. His best-known literary work is What Cheer, or Roger Williams in Banishment (1832), a long poem centered on Roger Williams and Rhode Island's founding spirit. That blend of civic life and literary ambition gives his work a special place in the cultural history of Rhode Island.
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