Born in Bethel, Vermont, he attended school at the New England Seminary in Windsor. In 1845, he became principal of Jefferson School in Syracuse. In 1848 he graduated from the State Normal School in Albany. Starting in 1850, he was employed as an agent for publishers D. Appleton & Company, and in 1853 he was elected state agent of the New York State Teachers' Association. From 1861 to 1866, he was principal of the high school at Joliet, Illinois. In 1872, he was elected principal of the State Normal School at Warrensburg, Missouri, where he remained until 1875. He then served as superintendent of schools for one year in Deposit, New York, and then lived from 1876 to 1880 in Ithaca, New York. After 1880 he lived in Princeton, NJ with his son-in-law, a professor at Princeton College.