William Ticknor  William Davis Ticknor I (August 6, 1810 – April 10, 1864) was an American publisher in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, and a founder of the publishing house Ticknor and Fields. William Davis Ticknor was born on August 6, 1810, on the outskirts of Lebanon, New Hampshire, the oldest boy of nine brothers and sisters. His parents, William and Betsey (Ellis) Ticknor, were prosperous farmers. His cousin was the famous writer and historian George Ticknor. As a boy, Ticknor worked on the family farm during the summers and attended the district school during the winters. In 1827 at age seventeen he left home and went to Boston. He was first employed in the brokerage house of his uncle Benjamin. When his uncle died a few years later he was offered a position at the Columbian Bank, a position he held for a year or two. In 1832 he went into partnership with John Allen forming the publishing house of Allen and Ticknor which operated out of the Old Corner Bookstore. The following year Allen withdrew and Ticknor carried on the house under the name William D. Ticknor and Company, which would remain the legal name of the firm until his death. In 1837 he published the national monthly "American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge". On December 25, 1832 he had married Emeline Staniford Holt. They had seven children together; only five survived into adulthood. Their three sons Howard Malcom, Benjamin Holt and Thomas Baldwin Ticknor all graduated from Harvard and entered into their father's firm. During the Civil War, Benjamin Holt Ticknor enlisted in the Forty-Fifth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers and was commissioned as second lieutenant of Company G until May 1863. He was commissioned as second lieutenant in the Second Massachusetts Heavy Artillery. He was later commissioned at captain of Company E and was in command of the recruiting camp at Readville, Massachusetts. He resigned from service shortly after his father's death. In 1845 the imprint of the firm was changed to Ticknor, Reed and Fields, after John Reed and James Thomas Fields were admitted as partners. It continued under this imprint until 1854 when John Reed withdrew and the name was changed to the well-known Ticknor and Fields. With the widely varying but well matched talents of the two partners, Ticknor and Fields grew to become one of the leading publishing houses in the 19th century. Ticknor was the first American publisher to pay foreign authors for the rights to their works, beginning with a check to Alfred Tennyson in 1842.