Sanborn, Franklin B., journalist and author, was born at Hampton, N. H., Dec. 15, 1831, a son of Aaron and Lydia (Leavitt) Sanborn. He graduated at Harvard in 1855 and the next year became secretary of the Massachusetts State Kansas Committee; was very active in the free-state cause; was chairman of the board of state charities in Massachusetts from 1874 to 1876, and inspector of charities from 1879 to 1889. He was a lecturer at Cornell, Smith and Wellesley Colleges and at the Concord, Mass., School of Philosophy; was one of the founders of the American Social Science Association, National Prison Association, National conference of charities, Clarke School for the Deaf, Massachusetts infant asylum, and the Concord School of Philosophy, and was secretary or president of most of these. Between the years 1876 and 1897 he was editor of the Boston Commonwealth, Springfield Republican, Journal of Social Science, and issued about 40 volumes of reports of societies between 1865 and 1888; is the author of the biographies of Emerson, Thoreau, Alcott, Dr. S. G. Howe and Dr. Earle, Life and Letters of John Brown, Personality of Emerson, Personality of Thoreau and a History of New Hampshire. Mr. Sanborn visited Kansas early in the 20th century and his bust is in the rooms of the Kansas Historical Society.