Sumner Chilton Powell (October 2, 1924 in

Northampton, Massachusetts The city of Northampton is the county seat of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of Northampton (including its outer villages, Florence and Leeds) was 29,571. Northampton is known as an a ...

– July 8, 1993 in Colora, Maryland) was an American historian and history teacher at the Choate School, a college-prep boarding school in

Wallingford, Connecticut Wallingford is a town in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States, centrally located between New Haven and Hartford, and Boston and New York City. The population was 44,396 at the 2020 census. The community was named after Wallingford, in E ...

. He attended The Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut, earned a bachelor's degree from Amherst College in 1946, and from 1947 to 1952 was an active US Naval Officer attaining the rank of Lieutenant (jg), but remained a Naval Reserve Officer until 1961. He earned a doctorate in history from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

in 1956. In 1957 he published ''From Mythical to Medieval Man''. He won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for History for '' Puritan Village: The Formation of a New England Town'' (1963), based on records on

Sudbury, Massachusetts Sudbury is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. At the 2020 census, it had a population of 18,934. The town, located in Greater Boston's MetroWest region, has a rich colonial history. History Incorporated in 1639, the bou ...

from 1638–1660, tracing every settler back to England.

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* 1924 births 1993 deaths Historians of New England Pulitzer Prize for History winners Taft School alumni Amherst College alumni Harvard University alumni 20th-century American historians 20th-century American male writers American male non-fiction writers {{US-historian-stub