Colony, Horatio, 1900-

Horatio Colony (1900-1977) was an American poet and novelist. Born in Keene, New Hampshire, into a family of mill-owners (and grandson of Keene's first mayor), he attended Philips Exeter Academy and Harvard College. He wrote his first play, William Penn's Peace Treaty with the Indians, in seventh grade and his first novel, Free Forester, was published in 1935. He also kept a diary for most of his life, beginning about 1913. His first published poetry volumes, A Brook of Leaves and Birth and Burial, were collections of lyrics, whereas his next three are in the style which might best be described as lyrical narrative. Over his career he published eleven volumes of verse as well as a two-volume set of collected writings.

His house in the town of Keene is today a historical site, the Horatio Colony Museum, and the nearby Horatio Colony Nature Preserve is a direct result of Colony's desire to preserve family land as a wildlife sanctuary.