Colburn, Zerah

Colburn, Zerah for several years an itinerant minister of the Methodist Church, was born at Cabot, Vermont, September 1, 1804. He was remarkably precocious, and so noted, as a child, for talent in computation that his father exhibited him in different cities in America and in Europe. Zerah spent three years in the Westminster school in London. On the death of his father in London, in 1824, he returned to the United States, and became a member of the Congregational Church in Burlington, Vermont, but not long afterwards joined the Methodists. Mr. Colburn is said to have displayed no uncommon ability as a preacher, and to have lost his peculiar mathematical power. He died at Norwich, Vermont, March 2, 1839. (J.C.S.)