Joseph Tracy was a Congregational minister who was born at Hartford, Vermont, in 1793 and died at Beverly, Massachusetts, in 1874. He obtained an MA from Dartmouth College in 1814, and a DD from the University of Vermont in 1859. He was admitted to the ministry of the Congregational Churches in June, 1821 and from 1821 to 1828 he held the pastorates of two churches in villages near Thetford, Vermont.
He then concentrated on literary work, taking on various editorships, and published several books, including The Great Awakening (1842, reprinted by the Trust, 1976). In addition to his pastoral and literary work he was Secretary of the Massachusetts Colonization Society from 1842 and Director of the American Colonization Society from 1858. Tracy married Eleanor Washburn in 1819, and Sarah Prince in 1842 after his first wife’s death.