PEABODY, Oliver William Bourn, author, born in Exeter, New Hampshire, 9 July, 1799; died in Burlington, Vermont, 5 July, 1848. He was the son of Judge Oliver Peabody, and was graduated at Harvard in 1816. He afterward studied law at Cambridge, was admitted to the bar, and practised in 1819-'30 at Exeter. At the same time he edited the "Rockingham Gazette" and "Exeter News-Letter," and served in the legislature. He removed to Boston in 1830, assisted his brother-in-law, Alexander H. Everett, in editing the "North American Review," and was for several years assistant editor of the Boston "Daily Advertiser." From 1836 till 1842 he was register of probate for Suffolk county, and in the latter year he became professor of English literature in Jefferson college, Louisiana Returning to Boston in 1843, he was licensed to preach by the Unitarian association in 1845, and soon afterward was appointed pastor of a church in Burlington, Vermont He edited the works of Shakespeare (7 vols., Boston, 1844), wrote lives of General Israel Putnam and General John Sullivan in Sparks's "American Biography," and contributed to periodicals.--His twin-brother, William Bourn Oliver, clergyman, died in Springfield, Massachusetts, 28 May, 1847, was graduated at Harvard in 1842. He was an instructor in Phillips Exeter academy in 1817, studied theology at Cambridge divinity-school, and was licensed to preach in 1819. In October, 1820. he became pastor of the Unitarian church at Springfield, Massachusetts, where he remained during his lifetime. He was an accomplished scholar and poet. Mr. Peabody was one of the commissioners of the Massachusetts zoological survey, for which he prepared a "Report on the Birds of the Commonwealth" (Boston, 1839). He contributed to the "North American Review," wrote, for Sparks's "American Biography," lives of Alexander Wilson, Cotton Mather, David Brainerd, and James Oglethorpe, and edited the "Springfield Collection of Hymns for Sacred Worship" (Springfield, 1835). After his death a volume of his sermons was published by his brother Oliver (1849).--William's son, Everett, soldier, born in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1831; died near Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, 6 April, 1862, was graduated at Harvard in 1849, became a railway-engineer, was colonel of Missouri volunteers, and was killed at Shiloh. He completed the biography of his uncle Oliver, and edited the "Literary Remains" of his father (Boston, 1850).