James Hadley

Biography

Hadley was born in Fairfield, New York, where his father was professor of chemistry at Fairfield Medical College. At the age of nine, a knee injury left him crippled for life. Hadley received his early instruction at the Fairfield Academy, and also acquired some scientific knowledge from his father. He became assistant at the academy, and later graduated from Yale College in 1842, having entered the junior class in 1840. Hadley was then a resident graduate at Yale for a year, after which he entered Yale's theological seminary, where he spent two years.

From April to September 1845, Hadley was a tutor at Middlebury College. He was a tutor at Yale in 1845–1848, an assistant professor of Greek in 1848–1851, and a professor of Greek, succeeding President Woolsey, from 1851 until his death in New Haven, Connecticut.

As an undergraduate, Hadley had proven an able mathematician, but the influence of Edward Elbridge Salisbury, under whom Hadley and William Dwight Whitney studied Sanskrit together, turned his attention toward the study of language. He knew Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Hebrew, Arabic, Armenian, several Celtic languages, and the languages of modern Europe; but he published little, and his scholarship found scant outlet in the college classroom.

Hadley was well versed in civil law. His course of lectures on civil law was included in the curriculum of the Yale Law School, and was likewise delivered at Harvard. Hadley was a member of the American Committee for the revision of the New Testament, and was president of the American Oriental Society (1871–1872).