Religious Leader, Author. He will be best remembered for his poems, "Hymn Of Nature," "Monadnock," "Death," "The Autumn Evening," and "The Winter Night." He was born one of two children as William Bourne Oliver Peabody in Exeter, New Hampshire, to Judge Oliver Peabody and his wife Frances Bourn Peabody on July 9, 1799. He was educated locally and later attended the prestigious Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He also taught as an assistant at Phillips Exeter Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, from 1817 to 1818, and at Cambridge Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He became a Unitarian minister and began preaching at a church in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1819. He continued to serve the Unitarian church and write until his death. Besides, his poems, "Hymn of Nature," "Monadnock," "Death," "The Autumn Evening," and "The Winter Night," his many other works include, "Poetical Catechism For The Young" (1823), and "The Springfield Collection Of Hymns For Sacred Worship" (1835). He also wrote numerous sermons, poems, prose pieces, contributed 48 articles to the North American Review, a literary magazine, and Sparks's Library of American Biography, namely, those of Presbyterian minister and missionary David Brainerd (1718-1747), Puritan clergyman and a prolific writer Cotton Mather (1663-1728), soldier, politician, and philanthropist, James Oglethorpe (1696-1785), and poet, ornithologist, naturalist, and illustrator, Alexander Wilson (1766-1813). He also wrote the lyrics for such hymns as, "As Once The Savior Rose On High," "Behold The Western Evening Light," "Black The Heaven Is Overcast," "The Dying Year," "Father, I Thank Thee For Thy Care," "For Us, God's Only Son," "The God In Whom I Ever Trust," "God Of The Earth's Extended Plains," "God Of The Fair And Open Sky," "God Of The Rolling Orbs Above," "He Made The Sun, And Gave Him Light," "High In The Heavens God Dwells Alone," "How Beautiful, On All The Hills," "How Fast The Rapid Hours Retire," "I Sin, Whenever I Pursue," "The Midnight Winds Are Sounding Loud," "The Moon Is Up: How Calm and Slow," "My God, By Thy Directing Power," "My God, By Thy Tecting Power," "O When The Hours Of Life Are Past," "O Who That Has Gazed In The Stillness Of Even," "See The Streaks Of Daylight Swim," "The Son Of God Came Down From Heaven," "When Brighter Suns And Milder Skies," and "Who Is Thy Neighbor?" He passed away in Springfield, Missouri, on May 28, 1847, at the age of 47, and he was buried in Springfield Cemetery in Springfield, Massachusetts. His twin brother Oliver William Bourne Peabody (1799-1847), who was born the same year and who also died the same year was also a Unitarian minister in Burlington, Vermont. He never married nor had any children.