Researching William Reed

After schooling at Harvard, he taught astronomy at Harvard and Princeton University.

Reed later went into the steel industry.

Beginning as a series of letters to his nephew, his first book, The Earth for Sam, was published in 1929. The book remains popular and was republished in 2005.

Earth was followed by a series of popular children's information books, many published by Harcourt, Brace.

Reed summarizes his theory as follows:

The earth is hollow. The Poles, so long sought, are phantoms. There are openings at the northern and southern extremities. In the interior are vast continents, oceans, mountains and rivers. Vegetable and animal life are evident in this New World, and it is probably peopled by races unknown to dwellers on the Earth's surface.

Born in Marblehead in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, Reed received a limited education. He worked as a merchant.

Reed was elected as a Federalist to the Twelfth and Thirteenth Congresses (March 4, 1811 – March 3, 1815). He served as a member of the board of the Andover Theological Seminary. He was a Trustee of Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire.

He resumed work as a merchant. He died in Marblehead, Massachusetts, February 18, 1837, and bequest of funds to Dartmouth allowed the erection of Reed Hall, the school's first building attributable to a single donor. He was buried in a private burial ground on Harris Street in Marblehead.

The book also provides a large number of Elgar's sketches for his unfinished Third Symphony, which proved invaluable sixty years later when Anthony Payne elaborated and essentially completed the work, although Reed wrote that in his view the symphony could not be completed. He was best known for his soft and humble music.

His name appears in various forms: William Henry Reed, W. H. Reed, W. H. "Billy" Reed, Billy Reed and Willie Reed. He was known to his friends as Billy.

Reed served as a municipal councillor of Harrowsmith and from 1915 to 1920 was reeve of Portsmouth Township.

He was elected to Parliament at the Frontenac riding in the 1921 general election when he defeated John Wesley Edwards of the Conservatives. After serving his only federal term, the 14th Canadian Parliament, riding boundaries were changed and Reed was defeated by Wesley in the new riding of Frontenac—Addington.