DICTIONARY OF
AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY
/
/
DICTIONARY OF
AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY
UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE
AMERICAN COUNCIL OF LEARNED SOCIETIES
EDITED BY
DUMAS MALONE
Oglethorpe — Platner
VOLUME XIV
LONDON
HUMPHREY MILFORD • OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
NEW YORK * CHARLES SCRIBNER^S SONS
Prompted solely by a desire for public service the New York Times Company and its
President, Mr. Adolph S. Ochs, have made possible the preparation of the manuscript
of the Dictionary of American Biography through a subvention of more than ?5Q03QGQ
and with the understanding that the entire responsibility for the contents of the vol-
umes rests with the American Council of Learned Societies.
COPYRIGHT, 1934, BY
AMERICAN COUNCIL OF LEARNED SOCIETIES
IN THE UNITED STATES, GREAT BRITAIN AND CANADA
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
AT THE SCRIBNER PRESS, NEW YORK
The Dictionary of American Biography Is published under the auspices of the American
Council of Learned Societies and under the direction of a Committee of Management
which consists of J, FRANKLIN JAMESON, Chairman, JOHN H. FINLEY, DUMAS MALONE,
FREDERIC L. PAXSON, IPHXOENE OCHS SULZBEKOER, CARL VAN DOREN, CHARLES WARREN.
The editorial staff consists of DUMAS MALONE, Editor; HARRIS E. STARR, Associate Editor;
GEORGE H. GBNZMER, ELEANOR R. DOBSON, MILDRED B. PALMER,
KATHARINE ELIZABETH CRANE, Assistant Editors.
The American Council of Learned Societies consists of the following societies;
American Philosophical Society American Economic Association
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American Philological Association Bibliographical Society of America
Archaeological Institute of America American Sociological Society
Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis History of Science Society
Modern Language Association of America Linguistic Society of America
American Historical Association Mediaeval Academy of America
CONTRIBUTORS TO VOLUME XIV
CHARLES DAVID ABBOTT . . . . C.
THOMAS P. ABERNETHY . . . . T.
ADELINE ADAMS A.
JAMES TRUSLOW ADAMS '. . . . J
RAYMOND WILLIAM ADAMS . . . R.
DANIEL DULANY ADDIS ON . . . D,
NELSON F. ADKINS N.
ROBERT GREKNHALGII ALBION . R.
WILLIAM F. ALBRIGHT W.
CARROLL S. ALDEN C.
EDMUND KIMBALL ALDEN . . , E.
RICHARD ALDMCII R.
WILLIAM IT, ALLISON W,
KATHARINE II. AMEND K.
MARGUERITE APPLETON . . . . M,
RAYMOND CLARK ARCHIBALD . . R,
CHARLES F. ARROWOOD . . . . C.
PERCY M. Asm* URN P.
ASTIXY 'P. C. AsmiURST .... A.
JOSEPH CULLEN AYER J.
SAMUEL GARDINER AYRES. . . . S.
ELIZABETH M. BACON E.
CHRISTINA H. BAKER C.
HORACE B. BAKER H.
THOMAS S. BARCLAY T.
LEWELLYS F. BARKER L.
VIOLA F. BARNES V.
CLARIBEL R. BARNETT C.
DAVID P. BARROWS D.
CLARENCE BARTLETT C.
HOWARD R. BARTLETT II.
GEORGE A. BARTON G.
EDSON S, BASTIN E.
ALAN M. BATE MAN A.
ERNEST SUTHERLAND BATES . . E. S.
GEORGE GORDON BATTLE . . . G, G, B.
WILLIAM G. BEAN W. G. B— n
ROBERT P. BELLOWS R. P. B.
ORVAL BENNETT 0. B.
C. C. BENSON C. C. B.
PERCY]W. BIDWELL P. W. B,
THEODORE C. BLEGEN T. C. B.
WILLARD GROSVENOR BLEYER . . W. G. B— r.
LOUISE PEARSON BLODGET . . . L. P, B'
LANSING B. BLOOM L. B, B.
G. ADLER BLUMER G. A, B-
ERNEST LUDLOW BOGART , . . . E. L. B.
HERBERT E. BOLTON H. E, B.
ROBERT W. BOLWELL ..... R. W. B.
D. A.
P. A.
A.
T. A.
W. A,
D. A,
F. A.
G. A,
F. A.
S. A.
K. A.
A.
H. A,
PI. A.
A.
C. A.
F. A.
M. A.
P. C. A.
C. A.
G. A.
M. B— 11
II. B.
B. B.
S. B.
F. B.
F. B.
R. B.
P. B.
B— t.
R. B.
A. B-
S. B-
M. B.
-n.
•n.
s.
-t.
•r.
EDWIN M, B ORCHARD E. M. B~~cL
SARAH G. BOWERMAN S. G. B.
JULIAN P. BOYD J. P. B.
WILLIAM K. BOYD W. K. B.
ELIZABETH BRKCKENRIDGK . . . E. B,
CRANE BRINTON C. B— n.
JEAN LAMBERT BROCKWAY . . . J. L, B,
ROBERT C. BROOKS R. C. B.
L. PARMLY BROWN L. P. B— n.
PAUL E. BRYAN P. E. B.
G. MACLAREN BRYDON G. M, B.
F. LAURISTON BULLARD .... F. L. B,
EDMUND C. BURNETT E. C. B.
WILLIAM MILL BUTLER . . , . W. M. B.
HENRY J. CAD BURY H. J. C,
HUNTINGTON CAIRNS H. C.
ISABEL M. C ALDER L M. C,
WILLIAM S, CARPENTER . , . . W. S. C.
ZECHARIAH CUAFEE, JR Z. C., Jr.
WAYLAND J, CHASE W. J, p.
FRANCIS A. CHRISTIE F. A. C.
JANE CLARK J. C,
ROBERT C. CLARK R, C. C— k.
HUGH McD. CLOKIE ..... H. M. C.
FREDERICK W. COBURN .... F, W. C.
ROBERT P. TRISTRAM CGTON . . R. P. T. C.
FANNIE L. GWINNER COLE . . . F, L. G. C.
FLORENCE CONVERSE F. C,
ROBERT SPENCER COTTERILL . . R, S, C.
GEORGE S. COTTMAN G. S. C.
ROBERT C. COTTON R. C. C— n.
E. MERTON COULTER E. M. C.
THEODORE S. Cox T. S. C.
KATHARINE ELIZABETH CRANE . K. K. C.
ROBERT IRVIN CRATTY R. I. C.
EDWARD E. CURTIS E, E, C.
EDWARD E. DALE E. E. D.
CHARLES B, DAVIS C. B. D.
RALPH DAVOL R. D,
RICHARD E. DAY R. E. D.
BABETTE DEUTSCH B, D.
IRVING DILLIARD L D,
JoiiNj. DOLAN J, J. D,
HAROLD L DONNELLY H. L D.
WILLIAM HOWE DOWNES . . . W, H. D.
STELLA M. DRUMM S, M. D.
EDWARD A. DUDDY E. A. D.
RAYMOND S. DUGAN R, S. D,
ANDREW G. Du MEZ A. G. D< — M.
Vll
Contributors to Volume XIV
WALTER A. DYER
ROSAMONDE HOPKINS EARLE . .
J. HAROLD EASTERBY
EDWARD DWIGHT EATON . . . .
WALTER PRICHARD EATON . . .
EDWIN FRANCIS EDGETT . . . .
EVERETT E. EDWARDS
BARNETT A. ELZAS
AMOS A. ETTINGER
DANIEL EVANS
PAUL D. EVANS
HERMAN L. FALRCHILD
CHARLES FAIRMAN
PAUL PATTON FARIS
HALLLE FARMER
ETHEL WEBB FAULKNER . . .
HAROLD U. FAULKNER
JAMES KIP FINCH
MARY ELIZABETH FITTRO . . , .
PAUL J. FOLK
HENRY WILDER FOOTE
HAROLD N. FOWLER
DLXON RYAN Fox
L. WEBSTER Fox
JOHN H. FREDERICK
JOHN C. FRENCH
CLAUDE M. FUESS
JOSEPH V. FULLER
JOHN F. FULTON
PAUL N. GARBER
LEE GARBY
F. LYNWOOD GARRISON . . . .
GEORGE HARVEY GENZMER . . .
JOHN H. GEROULD
W. J. GHENT
WILLIAM FREDERIC GLESE . . .
LAWRENCE H. GIPSON
HARRY GEHMAN GOOD
COLLN B. GOODYKOONTZ ....
ARMISTEAD CHURCHILL GORDON,
J*
KENNETH M. GOULD
E. ALLISON GRANT
CHARLES GEAVES
ANNE KING GREGORIE
ERNEST S. GRIFFITH
RICHARD M. GUMMERE
SIDNEY GUNN
JAMES SAMUEL GUY
CHARLES W. HACKETT .
LEROY R. HAFEN
PERCIVALHALL
MARGUERITE BARTLETT HAMER
PHTLTP M. HAMER
J. G. DER. HAMILTON ....'.
TALBOT FAULKNER HAMLIN
GEORGE MCLEAN HARPER
FRED E. HAYNES ...
W. A. D.
R. H. E.
J. H. E.
E. D. E.
W. P. E.
E. F. E.
E. E. E.
B.A. E.
A. A. E.
D. E.
P. D. E.
H. L, F.
C, F.
P. P. F.
H. F.
E. W. F.
H. U. F.
J. K. F.
M. E. F.
P. J. F.
H. W. F.
H. N. F.
D.R. F.
L. W. F.
J. H. F.
J. C. F.
C. M. F.
J. V. F.
J. F. F.
P. N. G.
L. G.
F. L. G.
G. H. G.
J. H. G.
W. J. G.
W. F. G.
L. H. G.
H. G. G.
C.B. G.
A. C. G,,
K. M, G.
E. A. G,
C. G.
A. K. G.
E. S. G.
R. M. G.
S. G.
J. S. G.
C. W. H.
L. R. H.
P.H.
M, B. H.
P. M, H.
J. G. deR
T. F. H.
G. M, H.
F. E. H-
Jr.
H.
EARL L. W. HECK. K.
SAMUEL J. HEIDNER S.
H. H. HENLINE H
AMOS L, HEROLD , A.
GRANVILLE HICKS <i
JOHN DONALD HICKS J.
WILLIAM ERNKST TIorKiNc; , . , \V
JOHN HAYNES HOLMES j.
OLIVER W. HOLMKS O,
IVAN LEE HOLT L
B. SMITH HOPKINS ,,,,.. H,
WALTER HOUGH. ....... W
JOHN TASKER HOWARD . , . . J,
LELAND OSSIAN HOWAKD , * , , L,
THEODORA KIMBALL IhwwAiu> , T.
HARRY M, HUBBKLI IL
FRANCIS EDWIN II VDK , . , , , l\
ALBERT HYM A A,
ASIIEK ISAACS , , A,
EDITH J. R. ISAACS K,
JOSEPH JACKSON J*
ALFRED P. JAMES A.
WILLIS L. jK'PSOjsr , , W
RUFUS M. JONKS R,
CHARLES H. JUDD <\
Louis C. KARHNSKI L,
LOUISE PniaKs KKUXKK; * , » , L,
RAYNER W. KBLSKY R,
RUTH ANNA KETUING . , . . , R,
EDWARD L. KKYKK K,
ALMA DEXTA KING , A,
EDWARD S. KING ....... K,
Louis A. KLEIN , , L
JOHN R. KLINE , J,
GRANT C. KNIGHT U.
G. ADOLP Kocu , , « U,
MAX J. KOHT-B& . ..,,,., M
ALOIS F. KOVARIK A,
E. B. KRUMBIIAAR K.
CHARLES B. KUHLMANN .,,,(*,
ELBERT C. LANE K.
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WILLIAM CHAUNCY LANCJDON
KENNETH S, LAXOUKETTK ,
GEORGE M, LEWIS . , , t
ORIN G. LIBBY ,,,,,,
ANNA LANE LINGELMCII . »
CHARLES SUMNER LOBIN(UER
MILDRED E, LOMBARD , , .
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THATCHER T. P. LUQUER , ,
HARRY MILLER LYDENBEK.G.
THOMAS OLLIVE MABBOTT ,
THOMAS MCCRAE
ROGER, P. McCurcHEON * ,
JOSEPH MCFARLAND
REGINALD C. MCGHANB . .
KENNETH MCKENZIE . . ,
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viii
Contributors to Volume XIV
DONALD L. McMuRRY D.
KATHKRINK MCNAMARA . . . . K.
JAMES C. MALIN J.
W. C. MALLALIEU W.
II. A. MARMKR H.
FRKD:E,RIC:.K ii. MARTENS . . , . F.
WILLIAM' R. MAXON W,
ROBERT DOXJTHAT MEADE . . . R.
LEILA MECHLIN L.
LAEAYETTK B. MENDEL , . . , L.
CLARENCE W. MENDELL , . . . C.
A. HOWARD MENEELY A.
GEORGE 1\ MERRILL G.
FRANK J. MKTCAU? F.
ADOLIP MEYER A.
RAYMOND C. MILLER R.
FLORENCE MILLIGAN F.
HARVEY C. MINNICII H.
BROADUS MITCHELL B.
WILMOT B. MITCHELL W
CARL W. MITMAN C.
CONRAD HENRY MOEMLMAN . . C.
ROBERT E. MOODY R.
WARREN KING MOOREIIEAD . . W,
SAMUEL ELIOT M ORISON . . . . S.
FRANK LUTHER MOTT F.
EDMUND C. MOWER E,
JOHN HERBERT NELSON . . .
THOMAS K. NELSON T.
II. EDWARD NETTLES H.
ALLAN NEVINS A.
LYE AN C. NEWELL L.
ROY F. NICHOLS R.
J. BKNNKTT NOLAN J.
JOE L. N ORRIS J.
WALTER B. N ORRIS W.
GRACE LEE NOTE G.
FRANK M. O'BRIEN F.
FRANCIS R. PACKARD F.
LAURENCE B. PACKARD . . . . L.
VICTOR H, PALTSITS V.
SCOTT H. PARADISE S.
CHARLES W. PARKER C.
HENRY BAM FORD PARKKS , . . .11.
JAMES W. PATTON J.
CHARLES 0. PAULLIN C.
THEODORE C, PEASE T.
JAMES H. PEELING J'.
JOSIAH H, PKNNIMAN J.
HOBART S. PERRY II
CHARLES E. PERSONS C.
FREDERICK T, PERSONS .... F.
A. EVERETT PETERSON A,
JAMES M. PHALEN' J.
FRANCIS S. PHXLBKICK F.
FRANK L, PLEADWELL ..... F.
JOHN M. POOR . J.
CHARLES SHIRLEY POTTS . . . . C
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JULIUS W. PRATT J. W. P— t.
RICHARD J. PURCELL R. J. P.
BELLE RANKIN B. R.
ALBERT G. RAU A. G. R.
P. 0. RAY P. 0. R.
THOMAS T. READ T. T. R.
HERBERT S, REICHLE H. S. R.
ALFRED E. RICHARDS A. E. R.
THOMAS A. RICKARD T. A. R.
ROBERT E. RIEGEL R. E. R.
DONALD A. ROBERTS D. A. R.
GEORGE ROBERTS G. R.
BURR ARTHUR ROBINSON , . . . B. A. R.
EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON . . E. A. R.
WILLIAM A. ROBINSON W. A. R.
J. MAGNUS ROHNE J. M. R.
Lois K. M. ROSENBERRY . . . . L. K. M. R.
MARVIN B. ROSENBERRY . . . , M. B. R.
VICTOR ROSEWATER V. R,
JOSEPH SCHAFER J. S— r.
ISRAEL SCHAPIRO I. S.
LESLIE M. SCOTT L, M'. S.
HORACE WELLS SELLERS .... TL W. S.
JAMES LEE SELLERS J, L. S.
THORSTEN SELLIN T. S—n.
ROBERT FRANCIS SEYBOLT . . . R. F. S.
ROBERT SHAKER , . . R. S.
BENJAMIN F. SHAMBAUGH . . . B. F. S.
WILLIAM BRISTOL SHAW . . . . W. B. S.
GUY EMERY SHIPLER G. E. S.
LESTER B. SIHPPEK L. B. S.
KENNETH C. M. SILLS K. C. M. S.
ALEXANDER SILVERMAN . . . . A. S.
FRANCIS BUTLER SIM KINS . . . F, B. S.
THEODORE SIZES, T. S~r.
DAVID STANLEY SMITH I). S. S.
EDWARD CONRAD SMITH .... E. C. S.
HERBERT SOLOW H. S.
E. WILDER SPAXJLDING E. W. S.
OLIVER L. SBAULDINO, JR. ... 0. L. S,, Jr.
THOMAS M!. SPAULDING .... T. M'. S.
C. P. STAGEY C. P, S,
HARRIS EL WOOD STARR .... H. K, S.
HENRY P. STEARNS H. P. S,
RAYMOND P. STEARNS ..... R, P, S.
LEO F. STOCK L, F. S.
WITHER STONE W. S.
R. IL SUDDS R. H. S.
JAMES SULLIVAN J. S— n,
CHARLES S, SYDNOR ...... C. S, S.
DAVID Y. THOMAS D. Y. T,
CHARLES M, THOMPSON , . . . C. M. T,
ERNEST TMCE THOMPSON . . , , E. T. T.
HERBERT THOMS H. T.
IRVING L, THOMSON L L. T.
EDWARD S. THORPE E. S. T.
EDWARD LAROCQXJE TINKER , , E. L. T.
ELIZABETH TODD E. T.
Contributors to Volume XIV
CHARLES C. TORREY C. C. T.
HARRY A. TOULMIN, JR H. A. T., Jr.
AARON L. TREADWELL A. L. T.
ALONZO H. TUTTLE A, H. T.
GEORGE B. UTLEY G. B. U.
WILLIAM T. UTTER W. T, U.
JOHN T. VANCE J. T. V.
THOMAS C. VAN CLEVE . . . . T, C. V— C.
HENRY R. VIETS H. R. V.
HAROLD G. VILLARD H. G. V.
EUGENE M. VIOLETTE E. M. V.
JAMES J. WALSH J. J. W,
HARRY R. WARFEL H. R. W.
ALDRED S. WARTHIN A. S. W.
W. RANDALL WATERMAN . . . . W. R. W.
FRANCIS P. WEISENBURGER . . . F. P. W.
PAUL WEISS P. W.
CHARLES L. WELLS C. L. W.
F. ESXELLE WELLS F. E. W.
ELIZABETH HOWARD WEST . . . K H, W,
ALLAN WESTCOTT , A. W.
ARTHUR P. WHITAKKR A» I\ W,
JEROME K. WILCOX J. K. \V,
ESTELLB PARTHKNIA WILD , . , K. I*. W.
HERBERT U. WIUIAMS . . , , , H. U. W.
MARY WILHKLMINK WIU.IAMS . M. W, W.
STANLEY T. WIUJAMS S. T. W.
HELEN SUMNKR WocmmrRY . , H. S, W,
ROBERT M. WoomuiRV . . , , H, M, W,
MAUDE H. WOODUN , M, II. \V>
THOMAS WOODY T. \v<
WALTER L. WRIGHT, JK, , , , , \V. I,. \V., [t\
LAWRENCK C. Wuorn L, <\ W/ *
DONOVAN YKUKU, I), V,
EDWIN H. ZKYDEL . ......& H. &
DICTIONARY OF
AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY
Oglethorpe — Flatner
OGLETHORPE, JAMES EDWARD (Dec.
22, i696~June 30, 1785), soldier, philanthropist,
founder of the colony of Georgia, was born in
London, the son of two stanch Jacobites, Sir
Theophilus and Lady Eleanor (Wall) Ogle-
thorpe, who endowed him with an abiding loyalty
to the Crown, the military and parliamentary
family tradition, strong moral courage, and a
high purpose. Educated at Eton and Corpus
Christi College, Oxford, he held a succession of
army commissions until 1715, when he migrated
to Paris, whence in 1717 he took service under
Prince Eugene of Savoy against the TurkvS.
Having gained a deservedly high military repu-
tation, he later joined his family as a satellite at
the quasi-court of James III at Saint Germain,
France, and Urbino, Italy. For two years he
was wholly engulfed in the Jacobite maelstrom,
serving the cause in England, France, and Italy ;
but his return to England in 1719 marked the
definite cessation of his Jacobite interest, and he
soon succeeded his elder brother as incumbent
of the family estate of Wcstbrook in Godalming,
Surrey. Here he seems to have remained quiet-
ly until in 1722 he emerged from his rural re-
treat as a candidate for Parliament,
Succeeding his father and two elder brothers,
Oglethorpe represented Haslemere for thirty-
two years, despite virulent Whig opposition in
the elections of 1722, 1734, and 1741. He placed
himself on record as a niild High Tory, an ad-
vocate of restrictions on the use of distilled spir-
its, an opponent of both royal extravagance and
Walpole's autocratic mismanagement in domes-
tic affairs, a protagonist of national defense and
anti-continental isolation, an ardent advocate of
the spiritually oppressed, and a strong supporter
of the budding Industrial Revolution. Persist-
ently advocating naval preparedness and the ex-
pansion of imperial commerce and voicing his
colonial and commercial policy in phrases which,
presaging the principles of Burke, Franklin and
Jefferson, proclaimed at once the unity of the
empire and the equality of all its citizens, where-
ever situate, Oglethorpe favored imperial prefer-
ence, not isolated protection. His humanitarian
bent was manifested in his reports of 1729-30
concerning penal conditions, evSpecially in the
debtors' prisons, in his expose of the evils of im-
pressment in a pamphlet, The Sailor's Advocate
(1728), which went through eight editions, and
in his avowed antipathy to negro slavery,
His interest in penal reform led him to con-
ceive the idea of sending1 newly freed and un-
employed debtors to America. While his plans
matured and two sums of money came to aid
him, the position of Carolina on the southern
frontier of the English colonies, exposed to
predatory raids of Indians, Spaniards, and the
French, led the British government to seek a
sound program of simultaneous colonial expan-
sion and defense. Hence, after a long period
of many trials, Oglethorpe and nineteen asso-
ciates received a charter on June 9/20, 173^> creat-
ing them "Trustees for establishing the colony
of Georgia in America," for a period of twenty-
one years. The motives for the grant were three-
fold: to relieve domestic unemployment, to
strengthen the colonies and increase imperial
trade and navigation, and to provide a buffer
state for Carolina. Oglethorpe played a major
role in securing proper publicity and adequate
revenues for the venture. In the former en-
deavor he utilized the newspapers and produced
a prospectus, A New and Accurate Account of
the Provinces of South-Carolina and Georgia
(1732). With the help of royal approbation he
secured, among other contributions, the grant
Oglethorpe
originally intended for Bishop Berkeley's Ber-
mudan and Rhode Island projects. The death of
his mother in June 1732 left him unencumbered
by domestic ties, and he determined to accompany
the first band of emigrants.
From his landing- at Charleston on Jan. 13,
1733, until his return to England late in 1734, he
gave his attention chiefly to problems of admin-
istration. The neighboring Indians were concili-
ated at a convention where Oglethorpe secured
a grant of the site of Savannah and the promise
of the Indians to cease communication with the
French and Spaniards. Fortifications were built
and a rigorous system of military training es-
tablished. Efforts were made to attract further
immigration— a policy distinctively Oglethorpe's,
for the British government opposed it— and re-
sulted in the arrival in 1734 of the Salzburger
Lutherans, the first religious body to seek asylum
in Georgia. Lack of interest on the part of some
trustees, together with constant need of money
and certain neglect in his correspondence, led
Oglethorpe to return to England in 1734. ^The
press welcomed him and his Indian companions,
and his presence revived the interest of his fel-
low trustees. Largely at his instigation, they now
enacted important measures prohibiting the sale
of rum, prohibiting negro slavery, and providing
for the regulation of peaceful dealings with the
Indians by means of a licensing system.
Rumors of insurrection led Oglethorpe to re-
turn to Georgia in December 1735, taking with
him Charles and John Wesley to minister to the
spiritual needs of his settlers. The policy of re-
ligious toleration brought results. To the flour-
ishing congregation of Salzburger Lutherans
were now added a colony of Scotch Highlander
Presbyterians, equally valuable for military pur-
poses. Three bands of Moravians under A. G.
Spangenburg, David Nitzchmann, and Peter
Boehler [qq.vJ] came in 1735, 1736, and 1738,
respectively. The Georgian careers of the Wes-
leys, despite Oglethorpe's best endeavors, were
both brought to abortive conclusions through
lack of sympathy with pioneer conditions and
unfortunate encounters with the daughters of
Eve. Charles sailed for England in 1736; John
in 1737.
Almost immediately upon his return in 1736
Oglethorpe had founded Frederica on the Al-
tamaha as a southern outpost against the Span-
iards. To promote the military establishment he
now incurred huge debts which the trustees, in
sheer desperation, referred to the British gov-
ernment Simultaneously Carolina rose in its
wrath over the licensing of the Indian trade
which deprived that colony of a lucrative traffic.
Oglethorpe
The storm now broke over Oglcthorpc's head.
Spain's complaints of his encroachments at Fred-
erica the trustees' ire at his failure to make
regular reports, tales spread in London by re-
turned malcontents, and the embattled Caro-
linians' prompt appeal to Whitehall drew him
once more to England (1736-37). TIu'rc> wlth
honeyed words and a more equable balance sheet,
he pacified the trustees; the Carolina question
was compromised; the malcontents were si-
lenced; but the Spanish issue remained, Karly
in 1737 Oglethorpe sought a parliamentary pant
for the defense of his colony, ami when it ap-
peared that Walpole had intended to use Georgia
as a pawn in his temporissintf with Spain, the
former bluntly criticized the Prime Minuter
and, ultimately gaining his desires, returned to
Georgia in September 1738, with a regiment of
seven hundred men.
Henceforth the vital concern in the life nf
Georgia and its governor was the \var with
Spain. By virtue of its proximity to Florida antl
its status in Spanish eyes as terra itmfanttt,
Georgia was the logical point of first attack,
Opening1 with a mutiny which, quclkd by Ogk~
thorpe, made him hut the more determined to
save his colony, the war developed into a futile
attack on St. Augustine in 1740 by the GcorK'uuw-,
loyally aided by the Carolinians, and an equally
unsuccessful Spanish riposte against Frederick
in 1742, Despite the inertia of the trustees ami
the British government, Oglethorpe, by borrow-
ing on all his English property, provided an ade-
quate defense and saved Georgia to the empire.
This period was also notable for the passing of
the Moravians, who, reluctant to Ixsir arms* re-
moved to Pennsylvania; for the growth of the
Anglican, Lutheran, and Calvinist elements in
the colony; and for the missionary labors o£
George Whitcfield [#.z>.], whose orphanage
Oglethorpe particularly befriended. The calm of
domestic affairs was disturbed by the unwar-
ranted expenditures of the storekeeper, the prob-
lems of primogeniture and tail male, and the pro-
tests of malcontents against the prohibitory laws.
Oglethorpe gradually lost most of his great ad-
ministrative powers. An attack on St. Augustine
in 1743 failed, and an ever-deepening discontent
and dissatisfaction with his policy, together with
charges against him by a subordinate, drew him
home In September 1743. He was brought be*
fore a court martial; the charges against him
were dismissed as "frivolous „ „ « and without
foundation" ; but his colonizing days were ended
The rest of his life was perhaps an anticlimax*
Marriage on Sept. 15, 1744, to Elizabeth Wright,
heiress of Crantham Hall, Essex ; imperfect lead-
O? Gorman
ership in the campaign against the Young Pre-
tender in 1745, resulting in a court martial in
which he was acquitted ; and the sop of promotion
to lieutenant-general in 1746 and general in 1765,
led him to a ripe old age, passed in the literary
circle of Samuel Johnson, Bos well, Goldsmith,
Horace Walpole, Edmund Burke, and the
Georgian Ladies' Clubs, with Hannah More,
Mrs, Vesey, Mrs. Carter, and Mrs. Montagu.
His death on June 30, 1785, closed a career full
of promise and replete with achievement in the
expansion of the British empire beyond the
seas : the career of an imperial philanthropist.
[The chief sources for ORlethorpe's Dearly life are
the various volumes of Reports of the Historical MSS.
Commission, and the King's Collection of Stuart Pa-
pers at Windsor Castle (see Calendar of the Stuart
Papers , , . Preserved at Windsor Castle, 7 vols., 1902-
23). For his parliamentary career, see Win. Cobbett,
Cpbbctt's Parliamentary Hist, of England (1811), vols,
VIII-XV, and Journals of the House of Commons,
vols, XX-XXVI ; and for the colonization of Georgia
sec the Gentleman's Magazine, 1730-85 ; MSS. of the
Earl of Egmont: Diary of Viscount Pcrcwal After-
wards First Earl of Ilgwont (3 vols,, 1920-23) ; Tha
Colonial Records of the State of Git. (26 vols., 1904-
16), eel by A, D. Candler, esp. vols. XXI-XXV; and
Ga. Hist. Soc. Colts., vols. I-IU (1840-73), vol. VII
(3 pts., 1909-13). For the Johnsonian era see Geof-
frey Scott and F. A. Pottle, Private Papers of James
Boswell , . . in the Coll. of Lt.-CoL Ralph Hcyward
Isham (19 voK, 1028-34}, Among secondary works,
see V. W. Crane, "The Philanthropists and the Genesis
of Georgia/' Am. Hist. Rw.fQct. 1921 ; R. A. Roberts,
"The Birth of an American State : Georgia : An Effort
of Philanthropy and Protestant Propaganda," Trans.
Royal Hist, Soc., 4 scr. VI (London, 1923) ; J. R. Mc-
Cain, Georgia as a Proprietary Province: The Execu-
tion of a Trust (1917) ; A. E. Clark-Kennedy, Stephen
Hates, D.D., F.R.S. (1929) ; James Boswell, The Life
of Samuel Johnson (1791) ; Nehemiah Curnock, The
Jour, of John Wesley t vol. I (1909) ; John Telford, The
Letters of the Rev. John Wesley (1931)2 v°l. I. For
biographies of Q^lethorpe, see Robert Wright, A Mem-
oir of General James Ofllethorpe (1867) ; Austin Dob-
son, A Paladin of Philanthropy (1899) ; Henry Bruce,
Life of General Oglethorpe (1890) ; L. F. Church, Offle-
thorpe (1932). A forthcoming study, with a full Bib-
liography, will be A, A. Ettinger, "James Edward Ogle-
thorpe, Imperial Idealist/'] A. A. E.
O'GORMAN, THOMAS (May i, i&
18, 1921), Catholic educator and prelate, son of
John and Margaret (O'Keefe) O'Gorman, was
born in Boston. In 1848 his parents moved to
Chicago, and later, to St. Paul, Minn., in which
cities Thomas received his early schooling.
Bishop Joseph Cretin [g.z/.] sent Q'Gorraan ancl
John Ireland [q.v,"] to study for the priesthood
at the French seminaries of Meximieux and Mon-
thel Ordained, Nov. 5, 1865, in the St Paul
Cathedral by Bishop Thomas L. Grace, O'Gor-
man was stationed as pastor of St John's Church,
Rochester, Minn., until he joined the Congrega-
tion of St. Paul the Apostle (1878). As a Paul-
ist, he served at the Church of St, Paul the
Apostle, New York, and traveled throughout the
United States on the mission band. Returning to
O'Hara
St. Paul diocese, he was given the parish of the
Immaculate Conception in Faribault (1882).
Three years later, Bishop Ireland appointed him
first rector of St. Thomas College, St. Paul, where
he also taught dogmatic theology. In 1890 he was
called to the chair of ecclesiastical history in the
recently established Catholic University of Amer-
ica in Washington. While there he wrote A His-
tory of the Roman Catholic Church in the United
States (1895), for the American Church His-
tory Series, which was well received, although
hardly more than a good summary of J. G. Shea's
monumental work. Besides this book, a printed
lecture, How Catholics Conic To Be Misunder-
stood (n.d.), and an occasional fugitive article,
he did little writing. Of imposing appearance
and a winning personality, he is said to have been
an inspiring teacher and a good lecturer.
In 1896, through the nomination of Archbishop
Ireland, he was appointed second bishop of Sioux
Falls, S, D., and consecrated, Apr. 19, in St.
Patrick's Church, Washington, D. C, by Cardinal
SatolH, the papal delegate. In 1902 he was se-
lected by President Roosevelt to accompany
Judge Taft on his mission to Rome for the set-
tlement of the friar-land claims in the Philip-
pines, As bishop, he saw his diocese thrive for
a quarter of a century, the Catholic population
grow from 30,000 to 70,000, the number of priests
more than double; churches and missions in-
crease, and large hospitals erected at Sioux Falls,
Aberdeen, Milbank, Mitchell, Pierre, and Yank-
ton. Especially interested in education, he built
eighteen parochial schools; gave ample patron-
age to a number of academies ; and founded in
1909 Columbus College at Chamberlain, S. D.,
under the Clerics of St. Viator, which in 1921
was superseded by a new institution at Sioux
Falls, under specially trained diocesan priests.
Death came from a paralytic stroke, and the
bishop was buried from his recently dedicated
St. Joseph's Cathedral
[G. W. Kingsbttry and G. M. Smith, ffist, of Dakota
Territory, etc. (5 vols,, 1915). vol. IV; Doane Rob-
inson, South Dakota (1930), vol. I; Who's Who in
America, 1 920-3 1 ; The Am. Cath, Who's Who (1911) ;
Caih, Univ. Bull, Apr. 1896, II, 215; annual Catlx.
directories; Daily Ar$us~Leader (Sioux Falls). Sept.
19, $2, 1931 ; Sioux Falls Press, Sept, so, xpzx.j
RJ.P.
O'HARA, JAMES (i7S2-Dec 16, 1819), Revo-
lutionary soldier, manufacturer, was born in Ire-
land, the son of John O'Hara. It is said that he
was educated at the seminary of St, Sulpice in
Paris, gave up the ensign's commission given him
by his relative, Lord Tyrawley, and entered a
ship-broker's office in Liverpool to learn busi-
ness methods before sailing for America. Upon
3
O'Hara
receiving1 a legacy from a cousin he left England
and settled in Philadelphia in 1772. The follow-
ing year he entered the employ of Devereaux
Smith and Ephraim Douglas of Pittsburgh in
carrying on trade with the Indians. This work
took him to the wilderness of western Virginia.
Later he became a government agent among the
Indians. At the outbreak of the Revolution he
volunteered as a private, later equipped a com-
pany of volunteers, and was elected captain. His
company saw much service on the frontier at
Kanawha and then, as part of the forces of
George Rogers Clark, during the expedition to
Vincennes. In 1779 all but twenty-nine of his
company had been killed in action, and those
survivors were thereupon placed under Daniel
Brodhead's command. He was selected by the
general to carry an important message to Wash-
ington asking for supplies. Later he became com-
missary at the general hospital and was stationed
at Carlisle, Pa. The years 1781-83 found him
serving as the assistant-quartermaster for Gen-
eral Greene.
After the Revolution he married Mary Carson
of Philadelphia. In their home at Pittsburgh he
placed some of the first carpets brought across
the Alleghany Mountains, and it is said that the
neighbors called them coverlets and were amazed
to see them laid on the floor. The O'Haras had
six children. He entered business and filled many
large contracts for the government. In 1792
President Washington appointed him quarter-
master of the United States army, and he served
during the Whisky Rebellion and General
Wayne's expedition against the Indians He is
credited with "saving the army" by his efficient
business methods and remarkable understanding
of the Indian character and varied dialects Re-
signing in 1796, he again became a government
contractor and continued in that capacity until
1802. Sometime earlier he had formed a part-
nership with Maj Isaac Craig, with whom he
erected the first glassworks in Pittsburgh. To
William Peter Eichbaum^with Jtom^fonr
neyed from Philadelphia on foot. Their first sue"
cessful product, the result of costly experimen-
fr^sssssassE
•ael. He next turned his attention
istry. He found that salt was ear-
on pack horses from New York
therefore very expensive. He built
4
O'Hara
reserved in his contracts and, when empty, \vero
filled with salt for the return trip, lie also built
vessels to carry cotton to Liverpool nn<! was
one of the pioneers in this trade, His (;Vm*ttj/
Butler was captured by a Spanish ves.se! in 1807,
He became a director and then president of the
Pittsburgh branch of the Rank of Pennsylvania,
He was interested in iron works at U^onier in
partnership with John Henry Hopkins [t/.7f.].
Having1 invested heavily in real estate in the
rapidly growing town of Pittsburgh, lie found
himself "land poor" during the crisis of 1817 and
was saved from bankruptcy by bis friend, James
Ross. Nevertheless, by the time of his death, two
years later, he had cleared his estate of all <!rbt.
He was buried in the churchyard of the First
Presbyterian Church, but Ins remains were sub-
sequently moved to the Allegheny ( Vmetety,
["Letter-Book of Major Isaac Crate," //to, h\^t .
Notes and Queries, Sept. 1884; /w/ /»/« am/ /,rf/Jfri
from the Frontier, eomp, by M, C, Darlington ( tHyj) ;
Western Pa. Hist. Ma/;., Oct. 10^6; Hist r* '" J
County Pa. (1889) ; K. M. Knilllc, KM
Glass (copr. 1927).]
O'HARA, THEODORE (Pel,, n, ...... v>..,t
6, 1867), journalist, soldier, was born at Dan-
ville, Ky. His father, Kean O'Hara, was one of
three brothers who were implicated in Lord K<1-
ward Fitzgerald's Irish conspiracy in 1798 ami
fled with their father to the Unitwl States. He
became famous in Kentucky as a schoolmaster
married a woman of Maryland Irish lim-Hfjc and'
bestowed affectionate care on the training <>f his
son After graduating in 1839 from St. Jrnt-nh's
College Bardstown, O'Hara rend law in the of-
fice of William Owdey fo.f'.l at Frankfort, made
a lifelong friend of his follow clerk, John CalwII
Breckmndge fa,.], and was admitted to prac-
oTntm •' S°°n thercaftcr hp 'wura! a» «P-
_ ^ ^ rLasury at vvasninirton but
toF^tf016^'8,11^1111^^511'13' t{miC ht! rpt»™«t
to Frankfort and joined the staff of the Yeoman,
2^«^?dcan«>V£ar hc servcd from J««*
20, i«46, to Oct 15, 1848, as captain and assistant
quartermaster of Kentucky volunteers, was bre-
vetted major Aug. 20, l847, for gallant and
rnentonous conduct at Contreras and Churu-
busco, and participated in the battle of Chapulte.
ffiSJT±L?ft!«!? *«* « %
went back
O'Hara
was taken aboard ship, and conveyed safely to
the United States. In 1852 he became one of the
six editors, every man of them a colonel, of the
Louisville Times, a militant anti-Know-Nothing
sheet that was extinguished by its opponents'
victory in the elections of 1855. He was a captain
in the 2nd United States Cavalry from Mar. 3,
1855 to Dec. i, 1836, and an editor of the Mobile
Register from then until the oncoming of the
Civil War. With his usual enthusiasm he raised
the Mobile Light Dragoons and in January 1861,
with the assistance of kindred spirits, seized Fort
Barrancas in Pcnsacola harbor. Later he was
colonel of the I2th Alabama Infantry and a staff
officer to Albert Sidney Johnston and, after
Johnston's death at Shiloh, to his old friend
Breckinridgc. After the war he became a cotton
merchant at Columbus, Ga., but a fire destroyed
his warehouse and other property. He never mar-
ried. The story of his connection with William
Walker, the Nicaraguan filibuster (Collins, post,
X, 411), is apocryphal, and his movements dur-
ing several periods of his career have not been
traced.
O'Hara was of medium height, with black
hair, hazel eyes, and regular features, was fas-
tidious in his dress, and comported himself like
the Irish gentleman that he was. Besides the so-
cial charm and derring-do that were natural to
him, he possessed a magniloquence that his
friends amiably mistook for evidence of literary
genius. He is remembered for a single poem,
"The Bivouac of the Dead," a sonorous dirge
commemorating the re-interment at Frankfort,
July 20, 1847, of the Kentuckians slain in the
battle of Buena Vista. The poem exists in two
versions, of which the earlier and longer is also
the better. Certain lines from it have been carved
In marble or cast in bronze on soldiers' monu-
ments or over the gates of military cemeteries
throughout the country. His scanty literary re-
mains also include a short dirge for Daniel
Boone and a eulogy of William Taylor Barry,
The latter was long regarded as a masterpiece of
Southern oratory. O'Hara spent his last days
on a friend's plantation near Guerryton, Ala.,
where he died of malaria. His body was re-in-
terred in 1874 in the state military cemetery at
Frankfort, Ky.
IComrnowwealth (Frankfort), June 14, 1867; Louis-
ville Daily Democrat, June 14, 1867 ; Lewis and R. H.
Collins, Hist, of Ky., vol. I (1874;; 0, W. Ranck,
O'Hcwa and His Elegies (Baltimore, 1:875 J reviewed
in the N. Y. Nation, June 29, 1876, by C. E. Norton)
and The Bivouac of the Dead and Its Author (Cin-
cinnati, 1898) ; T, H. S> Hamersly, Complete Regular
Army Reg. . . , 1779-1879 (1880) ; War of the Rebel-
lion: Official Records (Army), i ser, II, X, XX (pt. x)»
XXXVIII (pt 4), LII (pt. 3), 9 set. Ill, 4 ser. I; D.
O'Higgins
E. O' Sullivan, "Theodore O'Hara," Southern Bivouac,
Jan. 1887; S. B. Dixon, "The Bivouac of the Dead/'
Ibid., Mar. 1887; R. B. Wilson, "Theodore O'Hara,"
Century Mag., May 1890 ; A. C. Quisenberry, Lopez's
Expeditions to Cuba, 1850-51 (Filson Ckib Pubs., no.
21, 1906); J. S. Johnston, "Sketch of Theodore
O'Hara," Reg. Ky. State Hist. Soc.f Sept. 1913; J. W.
lownsend, Ky. in Am. Letters (1913).] G.H.G,
O'HIGGINS, HARVEY JERROLD (Nov.
14, i8;6~Feb, 28, 1929), novelist, journalist, who
has been called the prose laureate of the com-
monplace man, was born in London, Ontario,
Canada, the son of Joseph P. and Isabella Stc-
phcnson O'Higgins. He received his education
in the common schools and was a member of the
class of 1897 at the University of Toronto. He
left the University without a degree to beg-in his
long career as a journalist. In July 1901 he mar-
ried Anna G. Williams of Toronto. He soon be-
gan writing for American periodicals, chiefly
Scribncr's, the Century, McClurc's, Collier's, and
Everybody's, short detective stories and, later,
articles on political and social questions. The
sentiment and the love of common types appar-
ent in the short stories appeared in his first full-
length works such as The Smoke-Eaters (1905),
Don-a-Drcams (1906), A Grand Army Man
(1908), and Old Clinkers (1909). His success
as a practical journalist led naturally to a series
of volumes on matters of contemporary political
or sociological interest. These he did in collabo-
ration with others possessed of special knowl-
edge in the fields presented. The first, The Bca<st
(1910), written with Judge Ben B. Lindsey,
deals with the social environment of city-bred
youth and presents the reform measures advo-
cated by Judge Lindsey. This volume was fol-
lowed by Under the Prophet in Utah (1911),
with Frank J. Cannon, dealing with the organi-
zation and functioning of the Mormon Church;
On the Hiring Line (1909), with Harriet Ford;
The Doughboy's Religion (1920), with Ben B.
Lindsey; and The American Mmd in Action
(1924), with Dr, Edward H. Reade, an attempt
to psychoanalyze several eminent Americans
(Morris FishbeJn, "The Typical American
Mind/' Bookman, June 1924; "The American
Mind/' Current Opinionf May 1924).
The last-mentioned volume indicates a turn-
ing point in O'Higgins' career. Serious illness
caused him to seek various methods of cure, but
the one that seemed to him most effective was
that offered by psychoanalysis. He presented
a general though spirited view of the subject in
The Secret Springs (1920) but first applied it
in a truly literary manner in Some Distinguished
Americans (1922) in which he depicted with
characteristic clarity and economy a series of
O'Higgins
characters motivated by the unconscious. His
literary use of the psychoanalytic method was
more effective than his application of it to actual
persons in The American Mind in Action. And
although he was deeply interested in his newly
found literary mode he was not carried to any
extreme by his enthusiasm. A good journalist,
and the author of many volumes designed to
popularize special information, he never became
a press agent. His true literary instinct saved
him and enabled him finally to produce his best
work in Julie Crane (1924) and Clara Barron
(1926), mature and sympathetic studies of mod-
ern American women. In these novels he was
master not alone of his sure technique but
also of his special concepts of character (Satur-
day Review of Literature, Nov. 15, 1924). In
collaboration with Harriet Ford, he wrote sev-
eral successful plays: The Argyle Case (1912),
a detective drama in which W. J. Burns assisted,
The Dummy (copyrighted in 1913 under the
title Kidnapped), a detective comedy, Polygamy
(1914), a tense drama of marriage under Mor-
monism, and Main Street (1921), which, though
not important as drama, enjoyed much popular
favor. The last was an endeayor to dramatize
the novel by Sinclair Lewis (Bookman, Decem-
ber 1921, p. 373).
Throughout his life O'Higgins gave himself
constantly and generously to every cause that
affected the well-being and dignity of his craft.
He devoted himself most assiduously to the work
of the Authors' League with which he was ac-
tively associated from its establishment until his
death. Officially through the League and unof-
ficially through innumerable personal contacts
with young authors he worked for the advance-
ment and protection of American writers with a
devotion and selflessness gratefully remembered
by his co-workers (Authors' League Bulletin,
March 1929). During the World War (1917-
18) he entered the government service under
George Creel as associate chairman of the Com-
mittee of Public Information. His special task
was to answer the propaganda designed to arouse
racial animosities within the United States. His
patience and humanity admirably fitted him for
the task while his inherent liberalism enabled
him to see more clearly and to speak more tem-
perately—though with no diminution of effect-
on highly controverted matters (Century De-
cember i9V, p. 302, January 1918, p. 405).
U Jliggins was a man of great personal charm,
and perhaps in this fact lies his truest claim to
fame. For though he wrote many pleasing short
stones and novels and was master of an authen-
tic style he produced no one volume that will
Ohlmacher
place him among1 the outstanding1 writers of
America.
Who's Who in America, 1928-2(3 ; Hey wood Brmm,
"Literary Portraits: Harvey OTHRtfins," /?«>«>frw,w,
Oct. 1921 ; Burns Mantle, Am. /'town///!/,? <»/ 7*c./,i,v
(1929); Burns Mantle and G. P, Shmvootl, 77ii» /fr.vf
Plays of 1909-19 (ie>33) ; "The Man Who Writes Irish
Stories," Current Opinion, Oct. 1014; //ar/><r'.v, Aj>r.
1929; N. Y. Times, Mar. i, 19,39, f 1). A»K.
OHLMACHER, ALBERT PHILIP (Au&
19, i86s~Nov. 9, 1916), physician, pathologist,
was born in Sandusky, Ohio, the son of Chris-
tian John and Anna (Scherer) Ohlmacher. He
attended high school at Sycamore, III,, and took
his medical training at Northwestern University,
graduating- M.D, in 1890. On June 14, iHtjo, he
was married to Grace M, Peck of Sycamore, 111.
He then launched upon a varied medical career.
From 1891 to 1894 he was professor of compara-
tive anatomy and embryology at the College of
Physicians and Surgeons, Chicago, serving also
for two years, 1892-04, at the Chicago Poly-
clinic. In the latter year, 1894, he went to the
medical department of Ohio Wesleyan Univer-
sity as professor of pathology and bacteriology
until 1897. For the next four years he was di-
rector of the pathological laboratory of the Ohio
Hospital for Epileptics at Gallipolin, He then
went to the medical department of Northwestern
University as professor of pathology, but after a
year, 1901-02, returned to the Ohio Hospital
for Epileptics as superintendent. In 1905 he lie-
came director of the biologic laboratory of Fret!*
erick Stearns & Company in Detroit, After serv-
ing in this capacity for two years he entered
private practice in Detroit and continued in it
until his death. In practice he specialised in
bacterial and vaccine therapy, and in the treat-
ment of epilepsy. He was the author of various
articles in the American Text-book of Patlwfat/y
(1902) and the Reference Handbook of the Mt*di«
cal Sciences (vol. VII, 1904). He wrote nu-
merous papers based on original investigations,
on blood-platelets, thyxnus gland, lymphatic con-
stitution, cancer parasite, microtechnique, diph-
theria antitoxin, typhoid meningitis, vaccine
therapy, epilepsy, and other subjects. He was a
fellow of the American Medical Association, and
a member of the American Association of Pathol»
ogists and Bacteriologists, the National Asso-
ciation for the Study of Epilepsy, the Society of
American Bacteriologists, and the National As-
sociation for the Study and Prevention of Tuber-
culosis.
Ohlmacher's chief contributions to science
were his studies on the pathology of epilepsy.
In cases of idiopathic (primary) epilepsy, he
noted the almost constant association of the %-
(V Kelly
mic-lymphatic constitution, as shown by per-
sistence of the thymus, general lymphadenokl
hypcrplasia, ami arterial hypoplasia. From both
morphological and physiological grounds he
suggested that a relationship exists between
genuine epilepsy and rachitis, eclampsia infan-
tilis, thyinic asthma and thymic sudden death,
tctany, and possibly exophthalmic goiter. He
called attention to the frequent occurrence of
brain tumors and cerebral developmental dis-
turbances in cases of secondary epilepsy, ad-
vancing the opinion that the presence of the
neoplasm accounted for the epileptic seizures
from which the patients suffered. While his gen-
eral conclusions have not been confirmed in all
respects by later work, Ohlmacher's studies are
of importance in that they anticipated by some
years the modern conceptions of the epileptic
and hyperthyroid constitutions.
I'JF/u>\? Ff'7i.o in Awcnc&t 1014-15 ; II, A. Kelly and
W. L. Hun-age, Am. Medic, MOMS. (1920) ; Hull.' Ohio
l!t>jtl>ital ft>r npilcptics, vol. I (i8oK) and vol. )I
(1004); Jour. Aw. A/W/V. Asso., Nov. iH, 1916; the
Detroit I* n*i* Press, Nov. n, 1916,] A, S. W.
O'KELLY, JAMES (r. 1735-Oct. 16, 1826),
was a pioneer Methodist: preacher, who seceded
from the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1/92
and founded a sect the members of which first
called themselves .'Republican Methodists and
later simply "Christians." Whether he was born
in Ireland or in America is uncertain. As a
young man he seems to have lived in Sttrry Coun-
ty, Ya,, and there, about 1760, to have married
Elizabeth Meeks; later they moved to Chatham
County, M. C. By tin* time of the Revolution,
during1 which he suffered hardships because of
his zealous devotion to the American cause, and
ksa\v* some army service, he had become a Meth-
odist and was preaching as opportunity offered
with much effect.
The first official mention of him appears in the
minutes of the < 'oufereriee held at Leesburg, Va.,
in May 1778, That year, and the year following,
he, traveled on the New Hope Circuit, N, C., and
in 1780 on the Tan River Circuit, From 1782
his appointments were in Virginia, where for a
number of years he served as presiding* elder of
districts. During1 tin's period he became one of
the most influential of the Methodist leaders. At
the "Christmas Conference" in Baltimore, 1784,
at which the Methodist Episcopal Church in the
United States was organized, he was one of those
elected and ordained elder. A contemporary is
quoted as saying of him that lie was " laborious
in the ministry, a man of xeal and usefulness, an
advocate for holiness, given to prayer and fast-
ing, an able defender of the Methodist doctrine
O'Kelly
and faith, and hard against negro slavery, in
private and from the press and pulpit' " ( W. W.
Bennett, Memorials of Methodism in Virginia,
1871, p. 315). He was independent, wilful, and
fiery, however, resentful toward any display of
authority on the part of individuals in the Church,
and, increasingly antagonistic to Asbury, as time
went on he became more and more obstreperous.
He was a member of the first Council, a body
made up of the bishops and presiding ciders ac-
cording to a plan originated by Asbury, who
was then averse to General Conferences, for the
purpose of directing the affairs of the Church.
Immediately after its session, however, he re-
turned to Virginia and began violently to oppose
the institution, and to attack Asbury. In Janu-
ary 1790 he wrote the Bishop a letter charging
him with exercise of power, and bidding him
"stop for one year/' or he would use his influ-
ence against: him. He also wrote to Bishop Coke
in England, complaining of Ashury's unwilling-
ness to accede to the demand for a General Con-
ference. Asbury at length yielded, and at the
Conference held in Baltimore, Nov. I, 1792,
O'Kelly offered an amendment to the law invest-
ing bishops with the power of fixing1 the appoint-
ments of the preachers. After a long debate it
was defeated. Subsequently, its author and some
of its supporters left the Conference. At As-
bury's suggestion the Conference voted him for-
ty pounds per annum on condition that he for-
bear to excite division. He accepted it for only
a short time. The charge that in addition to
being opposed to the government of the Church,
he had also become heretical in doctrine (see
Jesse Lee, A Short History of the Methodists in
the United States of America, 1810, p. 180) lacks
substantiation. About 1798 he published, under
the signature "Christicola," The Author's Apol-
Ogy ,for prQic$nng A gainst the Methodist Epis-
copal Government Based upon material secured
by Asbury, Rev. Nicholas Snethen issued in
1800, A Reply to an Apology. , . „ These were
followed by A Vindication of an Apology (1801)
and, on Snethen's part, by An Answer to James
Q* Kelly's Vindication of His Apology. As a re-
sult of his secession, the Methodist Episcopal
Church suffered a considerable loss in member-
ship, and O'Kelly devoted the remainder of his
life to the new organization which he and his
followers established in 1793, then called the
Republican Methodist Church, congregational
in polity and with the Scriptures as its only creed
and rule of faith and practice. A year later its
adherents began to call themselves simply "Chris-
tians/' He published pamphlets, tracts, and
books, among* them, Essay on Negro Slavery
Okey
(1784) ; Divine Oracles Consulted (1800) ; The
Christian Church (1801) ; Letters from Heaven
Consulted (1822); and Hymns and Spiritual
Songs Designed for the Use of Christians
(1816).
[In addition to works cited above see, W. E. Mac-
Clenny, The Life of Rev. James 0 'Kelly (1910), a
partisan defense of O'Kelly; John McClintock and
James Strong, Cyc. of Biblical, Theological, and Ec-
clesiastical Literature, vol. VII (1877); Jour, of Rev.
Francis Asbury (3 vols., 1852) ; L. M. Lee, The Life
and, Times of the Rev. Jesse Lee (1848) ; Robert Paine,
Life and Times of Wm. M'Kendree (2 vols., 1869) ;
E. J. Drinkhouse, Hist, of Meth. Reform (2 vols.,
1899) ; M. T. Morrill, A Hist, of the Christian Denomi-
nation in America (1912). Authority for the date of
death is Raleigh Register and N. C. Gazette, Nov. 3,
1826, which says that O'Kelly was then in his eighty-
eighth year; MacClenny, ante, p. 229, quotes a state-
ment that he died in his ninety-second year.]
H.E.S.
OKEY, JOHN WATERMAN (Jan. 3, 1827-
July 25, 1885), judge and author, the son of
Cornelius and Hannah (Weir) Okey, was born
near Woodsfield, Monroe County, Ohio. His
father was of English and his mother of Scotch-
Irish descent He received his education in the
common-schools, under private instruction, and
at the Monroe academy. He read law in an of-
fice at Woodsfield and was admitted to the bar
in October 1849. In March of the same year he
married May Jane Bloor of St. Clairsville, Ohio.
In 1853 he was appointed and the next year
elected probate judge of Monroe County. From
1856 until his resignation in 1865 he was com-
mon-pleas judge. Removing to Cincinnati, he
practised law until 1875. With William Yates
Gholson [gw.] he published in 1867 the Digest
of the Ohio Reports, which, though long since
superseded, was considered an excellent work
at the time. A committee of the bar in his day
said of it that "it could not have been better done
and the merits of no legal publication have ever
been more universally acknowledged by the legal
profession throughout the state" (43 Ohio Re-
ports, vi) . In 1869 he joined S. A. Miller in the
publication of The Municipal Code of Ohio, and
in 1875 he was appointed by Gov. William Allen
a member of the commission to revise and con-
solidate the laws of Ohio. In 1877 he was elected
a judge of the supreme court of Ohio on the
Democratic ticket and in 1882 was reflected to
the same position. While serving this second
term he died at Columbus, survived by four chil-
dren.
Though in active practice in Cincinnati for ten
years, it is not believed that he achieved great
distinction at the bar. It is as a writer and more
particularly as a judge that he is best known
His fame as a common-pleas judge extended
far beyond his own district, and while on the
8
O'Laughlin — Olcott
supreme court bench he seems to have
looked upon by his colleagues and by the bar as
a judge of ability. The reason for the unusual
place assigned to him is not to he fount! in his
reported opinions. These are with a few excep-
tions short and, although clear, logical, and well-
written, are in no sense great opinions, IJis
reputation as a judge is to he found in the fact
that "he brought to this position a more ample
ancl more accurate knowledge of our statutory
law and the decisions of our court than was ever
possessed by any one of whom we have any
knowledge or tradition1' (ttnd,). His paternal
grandfather settled in Ohio before it became a
state and upon the organi/ation of Monroe
County was elected an associate judge ; his fa-
ther was a member of the state legislature; he,
himself, was steeped in the early history «>f < >hto.
This, coupled with his long experience as a com-
mon-pleas judge and the knowledge he gained
in editing the digest and in serving on the coin-
mission to revise the laws of Ohio, gave him a
knowledge and understanding of the laws and
decisions of Ohio possessed by no man of his
generation, lie was an omnivorous reader aw!
was familiar with the decisions of other courts
and the works of legal authors, but his peculiar
distinction as a judge lies in his grasp of the
polity of Ohio. "This polity Judge Okey knew,
and lie knew wherein it differed from all others ;
and he regarded it as better than any other"
(Ibid., viii),
[Information from his son, George 11 Okt*y; "In
Memoriam," 43 Ohio Reports, v-x ; G, I. RwJ, Htwh
and Bar of Ohio (i«07>, I, 3* ; Cincinnati Commmiul
Gazette, July 26, 1885,] ^ j| ^
O'LAUGHLIN, MICHAEL (c iJ^R
23, 1867), [See BOOTH, JOHN WILKKS.J
OLCOTT, CHANCELLOR JOHN fSec
OLCOTT, CHAUNCEY, 1860-1932].
OLCOTT, CHAUNCEY (July 3,, iBfio-
Man 18, 1932), actor, singer, whose given name
was Chancellor John, was born of Irish ancestry
in Buffalo, N. Y. His father was Mellon W, Ol-
cott. He was educated in the public schools and
made his first public appearance at the Academy
of Music in Buffalo. In the late seventies he was
appearing- with traveling companies of enter-
tainers and in 1880 he found employment with
R, M. Hooley, well-known manager of minstrel
shows. In 1882 he joined the Haverly Minstrels,
and was also with the Thatcher, Primrose, and
West Minstrels, and the Carncross Minstrels
m Philadelphia. His voice had developed into
a light tenor. While a "black face,1' he frequent-
ly sang "When the Robins Nest Again," to the
Olcott
great delight of audiences. His musical ability
led him into other fields. For a time he sang in
The Old Homestead, and also with the Duff
Opera company. In 1891 he went to England
and in London secured an Irish romantic role
in a light opera, Miss Dccima, at the Criterion
Theatre. His success in this role suggested to
him his future career, and on his return to the
United States he joined forces with August
Pitou, who both managed his tours and some-
times wrote his plays, and succeeded to the man-
tle of W. J. Scanlan as a star in Irish musical
dramas. One of his first acts on his return to the
United States was to introduce the song "Moth-
er Machree." In 1894 he appeared in The Irish
Artist, for which he wrote both the words and
music, and in 1896 in Edmund Burke, and so on
in a long list of now quite forgotten sentimental
and romantic Irish comedies, with plentiful
songs. Some of the songs he made famous were
"I Love the Name of Mary," and uMy Wild
Irish Rose"; the latter lie himself wrote. His
success continued for two decades. He did not
as a rule play in the so-called "first-class" thea-
tres, at top prices, but in the more popular houses,
at popular prices, and his audiences were to a
great extent composed of men and women —
especially women — of his own race. But they
were immensely loyal, and responded to him
year after year.
In spite of the fact that he was both a tenor
and an Irishman, Olcott had a good business
sense, so that he not only made but saved a tidy
fortune. He built a summer house at Saratoga
Springs, which was a tasteful adaptation of
colonial architecture to modern summer living,
with a charming garden, and it was widely
copied by other home builders. There was, of
course, a limit to the romantic appeal of even an
Irish tenor, and after the World War Olcott's
popularity waned. He reappeared in 1924, in a
revival of The Rivals, however, in which Mrs.
Fiske played Mrs, Malaprop, and he played Sir
Lucius, and in the course of the play he sang a
song, always followed by tumultuous and laugh-
ing applause by the audiences. In 1925 he was
taken sick and never recovered. He went to
Monte Carlo to live, where he died in March
1932 of anemia. He was married at least three
times. His last wife was Margaret O'Donovan
of San Francisco, to whom he was married on
Sept 28, 1897, and who survived him. He was
never a great actor, nor a great singer. But he
was pleasantly competent in both capacities, and
he had a charming Celtic personality, well suit-
ed to the light sentimental or romantic roles
which he assumed. His audiences were not ex-
Olcott
acting, but quickly responsive to sentiment, to a
tear and a smile. These he gave them with sin-
cerity. His plays had little relation to the real-
istic Irish drama developed by the Abbey Thea-
tre in the twentieth century, and both plays and
playing belong to an era of Irish-Americanism
which is fast vanishing.
[Who's Who in America, 1930-31 ; Who's Who on
the Stage, 1906 ; A. D. Storms, The Players Blue Book
(1901) ; E. L. Rice, Monarchy of Minstrelsy (1911) ;
August Pitou, Masters of the Show (1914); Variety
(N. Y.), Mar. 22, 1932; Boston Transcript, Mar. 18,
1932; JV. Y. Times, N. Y. Herald Tribune, Mar. 19,
1932; Robinson Locke Collection, N. Y. Pub. Lib.]
W. P. E.
OLCOTT, EBEN ERSKINE (Mar. n, 1854-
Jtine 5, 1929), mining engineer and transpor-
tation executive, was born in New York City,
the second son among four sons and four daugh-
ters of John Nathaniel Olcott and Euphcmia
Helen (Knox). His father was descended from
Thomas Olcott, who settled in Connecticut in
the seventeenth century. After attending* the
College of the City of New York, Eben entered
the School of Mines of Columbia University
and graduated there in 1874. His first position
was that of chemist for a Hunt & Douglas proc-
ess plant in North Carolina of which he later
became superintendent; next he was assistant
superintendent of the Pennsylvania Lead Com-
pany works, at Mansfield Valley, Pa. From
1876 to 1879 he was superintendent of a gold
mine in Venezuela; later he held a similar po-
sition in Colorado. After superintending' the St.
Helena Mines, Sonora, Mexico, 1881-85, he
opened an office as consulting- engineer in New
York. Partly on the basis of his professional
studies of the copper deposits at Cerro cle Pasco,
Peru, mining was initiated in that region, which
has since developed into one of the most impor-
tant copper districts of the world. Two explor-
ing expeditions in Guiana and Colombia were
less productive of permanent enterprise. In 1890-
91 Olcott similarly explored the gold and cop-
per district of eastern Peru, an undertaking of
great hardship because of the high elevation,
remoteness of the region, and difficulties of
transportation.
By his marriage in 1884 to Kate Van Sant-
voord, he became the son-in-law of "Commo-
dore" Alfred Van Santvoord, founder of the
Hudson River Day Line of steamers running
between New York and Albany. On the death
of Van Santvoord's only son, lie accepted in
1895 tne management of this important line, to
which he gave the greater part of his time for
the rest of his life. He built the company's fleet
up from two large steamships to seven and gave
Olcott
every detail of their operation his close supervi-
sion. His agreeable personal qualities gained
him the loyalty of his employees and the friend-
ship of his business associates. Shortly after as-
suming the management of the Day Line, he be-
came senior member of the firm of Olcott, Fearn
& Peele, consulting engineers. In connection
with this firm and its successors, Olcott, Corning
& Peele and Olcott £ Corning, he continued to
practise in an advisory capacity for a number of
years. He was also a trustee, officer, or director,
of several banking corporations, and a director of
the Catskill Evening Line. He belonged to nu-
merous professional societies, and in 1901-02
was president of the American Institute of Min-
ing Engineers. He was on the council of the
American Geographical Society, the Board of
Foreign Missions of the Reformed Church in
America, and the Board of Managers of the
American Bible Society; was a trustee of the
American Seaman's Friend Society, and treas-
urer and trustee of the American Indian Insti-
tute. He took an important part in the organi-
zation of the Hudson-Fulton celebration of
1909. At the time of his death, in New York
City, he was survived by his widow, three sons,
and a daughter.
[Mining and Metallurgy, July 1929; Trans. Am.
Soc. Civil Engineers, vol. XCIV (1930); Nathaniel
Goodwin and H. S. Olcott, The Descendants of Thom-
as Olcott (1874) ! Who's Who in Mining and Metal-
lurgy (1908) ; Who's Who in America, 1928-29 ; N. Y.
Times, June 6, 1929.] T. T. R
OLCOTT, HENRY STEEL (Aug. 2, 1832-
Feb. 17, 1907), president-founder of the Theo-
sophical Society, has been variously considered
a fool, a knave, and a seer, and was perhaps a
little of all three. He was born in Orange, N. J.,
the son of Henry Wyckoff and Emily (Steel)
Olcott ; was educated in the schools of New York
City, and for one year attended the University
of the City of New York ; and from 1848 to 1853
was engaged in farming in northern Ohio.
While there he became interested in spiritualism
which, however, did not yet displace agricul-
ture in his affections. In 1853 ne returned to
New York and, after taking a course in agricul-
tural chemistry, started the Westchester Farm
School at Mount Vernon, N. Y., where he at-
tempted the culture of sorghum, on which he
published a treatise, Sorgho and Imphee (1857).
He visited Europe in 1858 to study its agricul-
tural conditions and for the next two years was
associate agricultural editor of the New York
Tribune. On Apr. 26, 1860, he was married to
Mary E. Morgan of New Rochelle, N. Y., from
whom he was later divorced. At the outbreak
of the Civil War he enlisted and served as signal
Olcott
officer in Burnsicle's North Carolina campaign
until he caught fever and was invalided home.
Appointed by Secretary Slanton a special com-
missioner, with the title of colonel, to investi-
gate military arsenals and navy yards, he is
said to have uncovered a great deal of cnrrup-
tion. After the war he studied law, was admit-
ted to the bar, and practised for some years in
New York City.
In the summer o( 1874 he published in the
New York Daily Graphic a series of articles on
the alleged spiritualistic phenomena of the K<ldy
brothers at Chittenden, Yrt. These \verc later
published, with supplementary material, in hook
form as People from the Other JJVrW (iS;s).
They sufficiently convict their author of credu-
lity or chicanery or both (see 1), D. Home,
Lights and Shadows of Spiritualism, 1877, PP«
301-28). At Chittemlen Oleott made the ac-
quaintance of Helena Petrovna Halm Hlnvat*
sky [q.v."], and during the ensuing winter they
became very intimate. Under her tutelage he
plunged into a study of occultism. When tin*
Theosophical Society was formed in Sej>triuU*r
1875, he became its first president. He edited
Madame Blavatsky's imperfect Kngtish in her
Isis Unveiled (1877), and for years was her
devoted press agent, But with all his efforts,
the Society did not prosper ; so on Dec, 18, 1878,
"the Thcosophic Twins/1 as Madame Blavutsky
called them, sailed for India to carry Hindu
philosophy to the Hindus. They settled fn^t at
Bombay, later at Atlynr, a suburb of Madras,
While Madame Blavatsky spread the faith of
occultism by means of her "physic phenomena/*
Olcott attempted mesmeric healing- but had ,so
many failures that his colleague be^ed him to
desist. As a lecturer he was more successful,
particularly among the Buddhists, whose reli-
gion he formally adopted. In 1881 on a trip to
Ceylon he urged the Buddhists to establish their
own schools, and for use as a textbook compile d
A Buddhist Catechism (1881), which was trans-
lated into twenty-three languages.
When, in 1885, Madame Blavatsky was ex-
posed by the London Society for Psychical Re*
search, opinions differed as to whether Olcoft
had been her dupe or her accomplice* It now
seems probable that he began as the first and
ended as the second. He was a man of plausible
manners and dignified appearance, with a long
sage-like beard, but one eye did not focus prop-
erly; it is said that occasionally that eye "got
loose and began to stray suspiciously and knav-
ishly, and confidence [in him] vanished in a mo-
ment" (V. S. Solovyoff, A Modern Priestess of
Isis, 1895, pp. 36-37, 84), But although he can
10
Olden
hardly be vindicated from some complicity in
Madame Blavatsky's frauds, he was tempera-
mentally an organizer rather than an occultist,
and after her departure had left him in peace he
settled down to the sober work of developing
the Theosophical Society on a legitimate basis.
For its enormous growth during the next twenty
years the credit should be largely his. Tireless
in lecturing and writing on its behalf, he paid
several trips to Europe for the sake of harmo-
nizing discordant factions. He edited until his
death its official organ, the Thcosophist, and
wrote Thcosophy, Religion and Occult Lan-
guages (1885), and Old Diary Leaves, an inti-
mate history of the movement, in three volumes
(1895, I9°°» 1904). At the time of his death
the Society had over six hundred branches in
forty- two different countries.
Olcott also opened in India four free schools
for pariahs which came to have 1,700 members.
In 1889, on a lecture tour to Japan in response
to an invitation from the eight Japanese Bud-
dhist sects, he formulated fourteen points of
agreement among all Buddhists, and persuaded
the Japanese to enter into cordial relations with
the Ceyloncse Buddhists for the first time in his-
tory. He was on equally good terms with the
Brahmins and received from one of their pun-
dits, Taranath Tarka Vachaspati, the sacred
thread of the Brahmin caste and adoption into
his gotra — a unique favor to a foreigner. While
traces of the charlatan remained with him till
the end — seen in the occasional trick, learned
from Madame Blavatsky, of invoking the au-
thority of the Mahatmas for his own plans — nev-
ertheless his genial kindliness of heart and gen-
uine love of spiritual things made him, in the
long run, a friend of humanity.
[Olcott's Old Diary Leaves t covering- his life from
the time of his first meeting with Mine. Blavatsky,
must be read with due caution but is nevertheless in-
valuable ; the form in which it first appeared, in the
Theosophist, Mar. 1892-1)09, 1906, is more complete
and candid than the revision for hook publication.
The Theosophical Movement, 1^75-1925 (1925) gives
a very unfavorable view of Olcott from the pro -Blavat-
sky standpoint* Other references are : Nathaniel Good-
win and Henry Steel Olcott, The Descendants of
Thomas Olcott (1874); the Hodgson report in the
Proc. of the Soc. for Psychical Research (London),
May and June 1885 ; Emma Coulomb, Sonic Account
of My Intercourse with Mme, Blanatsky from 1872 to
1884 (London, 1885) ; Letters of It, P. Blavatsky to A.
P. Sinnett (1925); The Mahatma Letters to A. P.
Sinnett (1923); obituary by Annie Besant, Thaoso~
phist. Mar* 1907; Who's Who in America, 1906-07;
N« Y. Daily Tribune, Feb. 18, 1907.] E. S. B 9.
OLDEN, CHARLES SMITH (Feb. 19,
1799-Apr. 7, 1876), governor of New Jersey,
was a quiet, unpretentious Quaker who, after a
successful career in business, was drawn into
politics by those who respected his sagacity and
Olden
honesty. He was the son of Hart and Temper-
ance (Smith) Olden and was born on the fam-
ily farm at Stony Brook near Princeton, N. J.,
originally purchased in 1696 by his ancestor,
William Olden, who had come from England
some time earlier. This farm had been the scene
of the major action of the Revolutionary battle
of Princeton. Charles began his education in
Princeton and was continuing it at the Law-
renceville school nearby when, at fifteen, he gave
up school to assist his father in running the
little general store in Princeton. He was soon
given an opening in the larger business of Mat-
thew Ncwkirk in Philadelphia. Then, from 1826
to 1832, he engaged in business at New Orleans
so successfully that he was able to return to
Princeton, purchase part of the family farm,
erect a fine house, and settle down to the life
of a gentleman fanner. That was his chief occu-
pation for the remainder of his life, though he
became a director of the Trenton Banking Com-
pany in 1842. Upon his return to Princeton from
the South, he married Phoebe Ann Smith. They
had no children of their own but adopted a
daughter.
Modest and retiring, he clicl not seek political
office, but in 1844 he was persuaded to run for
a seat in the state Senate from Mercer County.
He won the election and held the position for
six years. In 1859 an opposition group, com-
posed of Republicans, Whigs, and National
Americans, unanimously nominated him for the
governorship, to run against the Democratic
candidate, E. R. V. Wright. He was no orator,
but he was popular with the farmers of the state
and won the election by a close margin. His in-
augural address indicated a desire to accomplish
several reforms, particularly in connection with
the state prison and the treatment of the insane.
These were overshadowed, however, by the Civil
War. Working quietly but incessantly, he tried
to inject life into the obsolete state military sys-
tem and obtain funds for the almost empty state
treasury. A strong Union man, he cooperated
in every possible way with the federal govern-
ment. Though he had no formal legal training,
he was a judge of the New Jersey court of errors
and appeals and a member of the court of par-
dons from 1868 until his resignation in 1873.
He was also a riparian commissioner from 1869
to 1875 and served as head of the New Jersey
electors in the presidential election of 1872. He
was treasurer of the College of New Jersey
(Princeton) from 1845 until 1869 and was a
trustee of Princeton from 1863 to 1875, ^e re*i-
dered the college a great service when, in 1866,
he wrote a letter outlining Princeton's needs to
II
Oldham
his old school friend, John C. Green [gw.]. He
died at Princeton and was buried in the old
Friend's burying ground not far from his home.
[Manuscript "Personal Reminiscences" of C. P.
Smith in N. J. State Lib., Trenton; J. F. Hageman,
Hist, of Princeton and Its Institutions (1879), I;
Geneal. and Personal Memorial of Mercer County,
N. J (1907), ed. by F. B. Lee, vol. II ; John MacLean,
Hist, of the Coll of N. /. (1877), vol. I ; Gen. Cat. of
Princeton (1908) ; C M. Knapp, N. J. Politics (1924) ;
Beecher's Mag., Apr. 1871.] R. G. A.
OLDHAM, JOHN (c. i6oo-July 1636), colo-
nist and trader, was born in England, probably
in Lancashire, about 1600 and emigrated to
America in 1623, arriving at Plymouth in July
by the ship Anne. He was one of the few pas-
sengers who did not intend to become members
of the general body of the Plymouth colonists
or join in their communal economic life but
came on "their perticuler," as Bradford de-
scribed it. Agreements were made with these
new-comers, establishing their peculiar status
and forbidding them to trade with the Indians
until the period of "joint trading" as practised
by the colonists should have ended. Oldham had
considerable practical ability but was heady and
self-willed and had an ungovernable temper. In
the spring- of 1624 the Rev. John Lyford arrived
from England, and he and Oldham soon united
with various malcontents in the colony to make
trouble. They dispatched complaining letters to
the party of the Adventurers at home opposed
to the interests of the Pilgrims. Bradford se-
cretly opened these letters and read them be-
fore the ship sailed which carried them. Oldham
and Lyford next set up a church of their own.
They were brought to trial and sentenced to
banishment. Oldham left the colony but his wife
and family were allowed to remain until he
could remove them comfortably. He returned in
March and exploded his wrath upon the colony's
magistrates. They "committed him until he was
tamer" and then beat him out of town with their
muskets (Bradford, post, I, p. 411 ) . He settled at
Nantasket and soon after at Cape Ann where
there was a small fishing settlement. He was an
enterprising merchant and engaged in trade be-
tween Massachusetts and Virginia, and also car-
ned on an extensive trade with the Indians In
time he made his peace with the authorities at
Plymouth.
In 1628 he returned to England, taking charge
™T - S Morton C^ of MeriT Mount
mile in England he suggested a commercial
scheme to the Massachusetts Bay Company
fen planning to settle the colony of that name
He not only failed in his negotiations but the
Company forbade him to trade with the Indians
Oldham
The next year John Gorges, "who claimed to be
heir to the Gorges grant, conveyed to Oldham
a large tract but the Massachusetts Hay Com*
pany refused to recognize his title. On Kob, 12,
1629/30 the Council for New England granted
to Oldham and Richard Vines a tract of land
lying1 on the south side of the Saco River in
Maine. Oldham, however, took no interest in
this patent. He returned to New England and
settled at Watertown, where he became a sub*
stantial citizen. He took the oath as freeman,
May 1 8, 1631, and was elected a representative
to the General Court in 1632 and wan reelectrd
in 1634. In 1633 he made an expedition to the
Connecticut River and the following yrar was
granted 500 acres by the Court lying1 neur "Mt,
fTcakes" on the Charles River (Rmmls o/ the
Court of Assistants, II, 1^04, p. 43), Tlie same
year he was made one of the overseers of pow-
der and shot for the colony, and in 1035 he was
appointed by the Court one of the committee to
consider the problem presented by KudeeoU'H
having* cut the cross out of the fla$ { AVow/,? <>/
the Governor and Company of the Jt?«mu<7w-
setts Bay I, 1853, pp. 125. 145)- In the follow-
ing July while on a trading1 expedition to Hlock
Island Oldham was murdered in his shallop by
Pequot Indians with the connivance of certain
Narrapnsctt sachems. Tin? murder wan one of
the chief episodes leading to the IVquot War*
[Wra. Bradford, //*U of Plymouth /Vtmtatimt (i
vols., 19x3), eel by W. C Ford; Alrxautlrr Ymmjr,
Chronicles of the Hrst Planters «/ tlw (Wmiy vf M
3w (1846) ; Winthrops Journal (a vo!*,, WiH),
. Morton
, cd. by C, F. Aciumf; 8. R Ha
OLDHAM, WILLIAMSON SIMPSON
(June 19, i8i3~May 8, 1868), jurist, Confc-tl-
erate senator from Texas, the son of Elm and
Mary (Bratton) Oldham, was bora in Franklin
County, Tenn, Elias was a poor farmer and
could not give his son an education, but tht* bov
studied at night by the light of a brushwood fire,
read law in Judge Nathan Green'* office, and was
admitted to the bar when twenty«thr*e years
old. '
In 1836 he moved to Fayettevllle, Ark, where
he became a successful lawyer. His marriage,
Jec. M, 1837, to Mary Vance McKissick, the
daughter rf the wealthy and influential Col,
James McKissick, and his own personality and
untirmg energy soon brought him recognition,
W *° *e Geneml Assembly
er
.
later to of afpwscntativa four Jears
later, he was one of the presidential electori in
Oldham
1844; and a few months thereafter was elected
associate justice of the supreme court of Arkan-
sas, a position he filled with distinction. Pre-
ferring a political to a judicial career, he ran
for Congress in 1846, but was defeated. In
1848 he was a candidate for the United States
Senate but was again defeated in a bitter cam-
paign. He resigned his judgeship June 30, 1848.
In the spring of 1849 he moved to Austin,
Tex. His wife died on the way, leaving him
with five children. On Dec. 26, 1850, he mar-
ried Mrs. Anne S. Kirk of Lockhart, Tex., and
after her death, on Nov. 19, 1857, married
Agnes Harper of Austin. He engaged in his
profession and took part in all the social, eco-
nomic, and political discussions of the time.
From 1854 to 1857 he was one of the editors of
the Texas State * Gazette (after June 1855, the
State Gazette), the Democratic organ in Texas.
He played an important part in the controversy
of 1855-57 between the Democratic party and
the Know-Nothings. In 1859 he was defeated
for nomination for Congress, because at this
time he was not a radical "Southern rights man"
and was opposed to the reopening of the slave
trade. In that year he published, with the aid of
George W. White, his law partner, A Digest of
the General Statute Laws of the State of Texas
(1859). As a member of the secession conven-
tion in 1 86 1, he voted for secession, and was
then sent as a delegate to the convention of the
Southern states at Montgomery, Ala. He was
a member of the Confederate Provisional Con-
gress and was appointed by President Davis a
commissioner to Arkansas in an unsuccessful
attempt to get the state to secede at that time.
Under the permanent government, he was sent
to the Confederate States Senate from Texas,
where he became the champion of state rights
on every occasion. He opposed conscription bit-
terly, because he believed that the leaders want-
ed to destroy the state governments (Oldham,
"The Last Days of the Confederate States," p.
187). He also opposed granting President Davis
power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. He
was a member of a committee which reported on
Jan. 25, 1865, that the government had enough
men and military supplies to carry on the war
indefinitely* After the downfall of the Confed-
eracy, he went back to Texas, but soon fled to
Mexico and later to Canada. He was allowed
to return to Texas but he refused to apply for
a pardon and remained an unreconstructed be-
liever in state rights until his death from typhoid
fever in Houston.
[Oldham's "History of a Journey from Richmond to
the Rio Grande from March 30 until June #6, 1865, or,
The Last Davs of the Confederate States with a Re-
Oldschool — OHn
view of the Causes That Led to Their Overthrow"
(MS, at Univ. of Tex.)» gives his opinions about meas-
ures in Congress. Jour, of the Cong, of the Confeder-
ate States of America, 1861-1865 (7 vols., 1904-05)
contains valuable information. The material for his
life in Ark is based on public documents and the files
of the Arkansas Banner (Little Rock), 1843-48, and
Arkansas State Gazette (Little Rock), 1837-42. The
file of the Texas State Gazette (Austin), 1849-65, is
valuable for the later period. See also Ark. Banner,
Dec. 25, 1844 ; J. D, Lynch, The Bench and Bar of Tex.
(1885); E. Fontaine, "Hon. Williamson S. QlcUiam,"
in Do Bow's Mo, Rev., Oct. 1869 ; Houston Daily Tele-
graph, May 9, 1868 ; A. D. King, "The Political Career
of Williamson Simpson Oldham" (thesis, Univ. of
Tex., 1929) ; Oldham family records.] A.D.IC
OLDSCHOOL, OLIVER [See SARGENT,
NATHAN, 1794-1875].
OLIN, STEPHEN (Mar. 2, i;97«Aug. 16,
1851), Methodist Episcopal clergyman, educa-
tor, son of Henry and Lois (Richardson) Olin,
was born in Leicester, Vt. His father was a
lawyer and a prominent political figure in that
state. As a student in Middlebury College, Olin
won high scholastic honors and was valedic-
torian of the class of 1820. He secured these
honors, however, at the expense of his health.
Close application to his studies and lack of phys-
ical exercise so undermined his constitution that
the rest of his life was a continual struggle with
disease. He had intended to enter the legal pro-
fession but in 1820, hoping to benefit by the cli-
mate, he went to South Carolina, where he be-
came an instructor in Tabernacle Academy.
While there he joined the Methodist Episcopal
Church and in 1824 was admitted on trial to the
South Carolina Conference. From January to
July 1824 he served as junior preacher in
Charleston, S. C, but the rigorous life of the
early Methodist itinerancy proved too strenuous
for him, and he was soon forced to retire from the
active ministry. In 1826, while recuperating at
Madison Springs, Ga,, he was elected professor of
ethics and belles-lettres in Franklin College, Ath-
ens, Ga., which position he held from 1827 to
1833. On Nov. 20, 1828, he was ordained elder
by Bishop William. McKendree [g.^.].
In March 1834 he became president of Ran-
dolph-Macon College, then located in Mecklen-
burg County, Va., but by 1837 his health was
again depleted, and he spent the next three years
recuperating in Europe and the Holy Land. Re-
turning to America in 1840, his health partially
restored, he accepted in 1842 the presidency of
Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn. This
office he held until his death in 1851. As presi-
dent of two pioneer Methodist colleges, he did
much to arouse his denomination to its educa-
tional task. By his official visits to the annual
Conferences and by his articles in the Christicm
Olia
Advocate and Journal he did much to enlist the
support of both clergy and laity to the early edu-
cational program of Methodism. He was one
of the few Methodists prior to 1850 who cham-
pioned the cause of theological education.
As a delegate to the General Conference of
1844 from the New York Conference, which op-
posed slavery, Olin found himself in a peculiar
position, for during his stay in the South he had
owned slaves. He endeavored to prevent the
schism in the Church and was a member of the
committee appointed to find a basis of agreement
for the pro-slavery and anti-slavery groups.
Buckley states that "the only speech delivered in
the General Conference of 1844 which exhibited
a full comprehension and just estimate of all
sides of the subject was that of Stephen Olin
who was as familiar with the North as with the
South" (J. M. Buckley, post, II, 119). Although
Olin voted for the Finley resolution which re-
quested Bishop Andrew to desist from episcopal
duties until he had freed himself from all con-
nection with slavery, yet, immediately after the
adjournment of the Conference, he became the
leader in the movement for securing fraternal
relations between the two branches of Episcopal
Methodism, He was vitally interested, also, in
fostering a closer friendship among the vari-
ous Protestant denominations, and was instru-
mental in organizing the Evangelical Alliance.
In 1846 he represented the New York and New
England conferences of the Methodist Episcopal
Church at the meeting of the Alliance in Lon-
don.
In addition to his many contributions to Meth-
odist periodicals, he published in 1843, Travels
in Egypt, Arabia Petraea, and the Holy Land
(2 vols.). After his death two volumes of his
manuscript sermons and addresses were pub-
lished under the title, The Works of Stephen
Olin (1852). In 1853 The Life and Letters of
Stephen Olin appeared. Other posthumous pub-
lications of his include: Youthful Piety (1853) J
Greece and the Golden Horn (1854) ; College
Life; Its Theory and Practice (1867). Olin
was married twice : first, Apr. 10, 1827, to Mary
Ann Eliza Bostick of Milledgeville, Ga., who
died in Naples, Italy, May 7, 1839; second, at
Rhinebeck, N. Y., Oct. 18, 1843, to Julia M.
Lynch. A son born to them in 1847 died In
youth.
T B^TT SimPson> °yc' of Methodism (1881))
J. M. Buckley, A Hist, of Methodism in the V S (2
n«L £7h J- M>C2intock> "Stephen Olin/' in Meth.
Ma£n Rr™n J£n ' I,854; R' Irby' Hist' °f Randolph.
Macon Loll., Va, (copr. 1898) ; Meth. Quart. Rev
P.N.G.
Oliver
OLIVER, ANDREW (Mar. -A irn(> Mar, ^
1774), lieutenant-governor of Ma>su'hnsctts,
was born in Boston of a wealthy ant! distin-
guished colonial family, llo \\.is thr sou of
Daniel Oliver, a innuber of the 1'iovinnal Coun-
cil, and Elizabeth Belcher, aiul the brother of
Chief-Justice Peter Oliver | ,/,r. |. Hi;; groat -
granclfather, Thomas Oliver, oniij;ratod from
England in 1632, In Andrew's boyhood the po-
litical and social connections of the family were
of the host, and the hoy pas%cd through 1 iarvard,
graduating at eighteen in i;v4. Four yrar, later,
on Juno 20, 1/28, he was married to Mary, daugh-
ter of the Hon. Thomas Fitriu by whom lie had
three children before her death on Nov. jf», t;\u.
Andrew Oliver If/,?1.] \vn.s a son hv this mar-
riage. On Dec, TO, 1734, he wnsnmrned to Maty,
daughter of William Sanford, by \\how he had
fourteen children. His second wife \va-« the sis-
ter of the wife of (Jov, Thomas Hufehin .un, and
thus during most of his active life Oliver was in
close family relations, as well as political sym-
pathy, with Ilutchinson and his party,
For some years Oliver represent*1*! Boston In
the General Court and in 17,18 served its a coin*
missioncr, with Ilutehinson, at tin* meeting in
Albany for the purpose of wgufiatmtf with the
Six Nations. Meanwhile he had been elected to
the Provincial Council In 1746 and continued to
be elected annually to and including 17(15, In
December 1756 Josiah Willard, who hat! .sorvnl
as secretary of the province fur more than a gi*n-
eration, died, and on the tjth Acting Owrrnor
Phips appointed Oliver to the vacant jnut until
the King's pleasure might be known, Oliver
continued in the office until Mar. n, 1771, !«*»«#
twice commissioned by the King, Mar, 2, 1758,
and Apr, 10, 1761 (Colonial Society of Musvi*
chusclts, Publications, vol. II, 1913, vol. XVH,
After the passage of the Stamp Act, Oliver
accepted an appointment as stnmp«afticcr. Thin
proved to be an extremely unpopular ami even
dangerous step. In 1765 he wa* reflected to the
Council, for the last time, hy a majority of only
three or four votes (Hutehimon, /wf, III, p.
1x7). ^ On Aug. 14 he was hanged in effigy on
the Liberty Tree. In the evening the* mob ru^d
a building said to have been intended for the
stamp office and then attacked Oliver*** house.
The marauders broke windows* smashed clown
the doors, destroyed much of the fine furnishing,
and greatly terrified the family, On the next
day Oliver resigned his post hut the mob was not
satisfied and attacked the houses of Oliver's
brother, the chief«justke, and of Ilutchinson,
After some months an unfounded rumor was
Oliver
spread abroad that Oliver intended after all to
act as stamp officer. He received two threaten-
ing- anonymous letters, and having already suf-
fered enough from the mob, he agreed to appear
again on Dec. 17 at the Liberty Tree and make
oath before a justice of the peace that he would
never act in that capacity. On Oct. 19, 1770, he
was commissioned by the King as lieutenant-
governor and sworn into office Mar. 14, 1771,
serving until his death. He had always retained
his interest in Harvard and in 1772 he fostered
medical instruction there by gifts of anatomical
preparations imported from London (Colonial
Society of Massachusetts, Publications, vol.
XIX, 1918, p. 284).
In 1773 he was again a storm center of popu-
lar rage. In the late sixties he, as well as Ber-
nard, Hutchinson, and others, had written to
England certain letters describing the unsettled
conditions in the colonies and advising remedies.
Benjamin Franklin, while in England, obtained
these private letters and forwarded copies to the
popular party in Boston. They were made pub-
lic in 1773 and, although the incident reflects
little credit upon Franklin and his Boston cor-
respondents, the popular rage broke over Oliver.
Tn addition, Arthur Lee, in England, concealing
his identity under a pseudonym, accused Oliver
of perjury in the public press. "Scarce any man,"
as Hutchinson wrote, "ever had a more scrupu-
lous and sacred regard to truth" (Hutchinson,
post, p. 456), and after an examination of evi-
dence Oliver was completely exonerated, but his
unpopularity and the threatenings of the mob
had accented certain physical disorders and his
health gave way. He sank slowly and died on
Mar. 3, 1774. The petty vindictiveness of the
popular party followed him to his grave. As lieu-
tenant-governor, according to the custom of the
clay, he was accorded a public funeral but as a
result of a childish dispute over a trifling matter
of precedence between members of the two
houses of the legislature, the lower house re-
fused to attend. In addition, John Hancock, as
commander of the "Cadets," insisted that they
should form part of the procession as an honor
due the office of lieutenant-governor if not the
man. Samuel Adams made furious opposition.
The feeling was so violent that Chief- Justice
Oliver was afraid to attend his brother's burial.
Indecent attacks were made upon the cortege,
and in the presence of the family the Sons of Lib-
erty cheered as the coffin was lowered into the
grave.
[Thos. Hutchinson, The Hist, of th& Province of
Mass. Bay, vol. II! (18:28) ; J, H. Stark, The Loyalists
of Mass, (1910) ; Copy of Letters Sent to Great Brit-
ain, by His Excellency Thos, Hutchinsonf the Hon.
Oliver
Andrew Oliver, and Several Other Persons (1773) ;
J. K. Hosmer, The Life of Thos. Hutchinson (1896) ;
Ncw-Eng. Hist, and Gcncal. JRcg., Apr, 1865; Colonial
Soc. Mass. Piibs., vol. XXVI (1927).] J.T.A.
OLIVER, ANDREW (Nov. 13 i73i~Dec. 6,
I799), jurist, scientist, was born in Boston. He
was the son of Andrew Oliver [#.#.], secretary
and lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts, and
his wife Mary, daughter of the Hon. Thomas
Fitch. He graduated from Harvard in 1749.
On May 28, 1752, he married Mary, daughter
of Chief Justice Benjamin Lyndc [fl.v.]. A few
months prior to this he had moved to Salem,
where his wife's family lived. Salem became his
permanent home and with its interests he was
closely identified. On Nov. 19, 1761, he was ap-
pointed judge of the inferior court of common
pleas for Essex County, a position which he con-
tinued to occupy until the outbreak of the Revo-
lution. In 1762, when one of the Salem repre-
sentatives in the General Court was elected to
the governor's council, Oliver was chosen at a
special election, held June 9, to take his place.
He continued to represent Salem in the provin-
cial legislature until 1767, refusing to accept any
compensation for his services. At a town meet-
ing, Oct. 21, 1765, it was voted to request him
to use his efforts to effect a repeal of the Stamp
Act and at the same time to prevent "lawless
violence and outrage." On Aug. 9, 1774, he was
appointed one of the mandamus councilors but
refused to serve. During the troublous years
that followed, when all the other members of his
family because of Loyalist sympathies went into
exile, he stayed quietly at Salem.
Law and politics were by no means the whole
of life to him. While proficient in mathematics
and fond of music and history, his deepest inter-
est, especially in later years, lay in scientific
studies. He was a founder of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member
of the American Philosophical Society, to which
he was elected on Jan. 15, 1773. Several papers
composed by him were read at meetings of the
society, and two were published in the second
volume of the Transactions (1786). One of
these, entitled "A Theory of Lightening and
Thunder Storms," attempted to show that the
electric charges in thunderclouds "reside, not in
the cloud or vapors of which it consists, but in
the air which sustains them." The other, enti-
tled 'Theory of Water Spouts/' sought to ex-
plain these phenomena by analogy to the suction
of liquid through a quill. His most significant
contribution to colonial science was An Essay
on Comets., in Two Parts f published in 1772 and
reprinted in 1811, wherein he strove to account
for the tails of comets "upon philosophical Prin-
Oliver
ciples" and to show that "in Consequence of these
curious Appendages, Comets may be inhabited
Worlds/' This venture into the field of astron-
omy was dedicated to John Winthrop [q.v.'],
Hollis professor of mathematics and natural
philosophy at Harvard, to whose inspiring- in-
struction Oliver confessed that his interest in
science was due. The work was translated into
French and drew favorable comment from schol-
ars at home and abroad. From science he is said
to have turned occasionally to poetry. He ap-
pears to have been the author of an "Elegy on
the late Professor Winthrop," first published in
the Independent Chronicle of June 9, 1779.
A man of considerable means, he was not har-
ried by the necessity of earning a livelihood. To
those less fortunate than himself, he gave gener-
ously. Studious tastes and defective health in-
duced him to lead a life of some seclusion. Af-
flicted for thirty years with a distressing chronic
disease, he bore it with exemplary cheerfulness.
He died at Salem, with an enviable reputation
for learning and benevolence.
[John Winthrop and Andrew Oliver, Two Lectures
on Comets . . . (1811), contains an excellent appreci-
ation, and the elegy on Winthrop. See also four, and
Letters of the Late Samuel Curwcn (1842), ed. by G.
A. Ward ; J. B. Felt, Annals of Salem (and ed., z vols.,
1845-49) ; The Diaries of Benj. Lynde and of Bcnj.
Lynde, Jr. (1880) ; Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc.t 2 ser. Ill
(1888) and vol. LXI (1928) ; W. T. Davis, Bench and
Bar of the Commonwealth of Mass. (1895), II, 394.]
E. E. C
OLIVER, CHARLES AUGUSTUS (Dec.
*4, i853-Apr. 8, 1911), ophthalmologist, was
born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of George
Powell Oliver, M.D., and Maria Louisa Oliver.
His great-grandfather, Nicholas B. Oliver, was
born in Kent, England, in 1740, educated at Ox-
ford University, and emigrated to Philadelphia
before the Revolutionary War in which he served
as infantryman. His father served in the Union
Army during the Civil War and settled in Phila-
delphia during the boyhood of Charles Augustus,
He attained prominence as a surgeon in that city
and became the founder and first president of
the Medico-Chirurgical College of Philadelphia,
later merged with the graduate school of medi-
cine of the University of Pennsylvania. The son
received his preliminary education in the public
schools of Philadelphia and at the Central High
School and was graduated M.D. from the medi-
cal department of the University of Pennsyl-
vania in 1876. His^ thesis was entitled "Opium
on June 6,
A U
A son and a
w f
were born of this
Oliver
sylvanla, Oliver server! as interne in the Phila*
delphia Hospital (Bloekley) fuun ,1-muaiv iS/?
to May 1878 and in iSaj he became ophthalmic
surgeon to the institution. In itf;'X }tc Ureame
affiliated with the Wills Iio>pit,d in Philadelphia
through his appointment as elinic.t! eleik in the
service of William Fisher Karris |*/,r, ). His
association with Morris was in.truwental in
shaping" his subsequent career which \va<« de-
voted entirely to ophthalmology, His a'vneutinn
with Wills Hospital was continent', iumi the
time of his first appointment unlit his death, In
1890 he was elected attending Mniteun to tins
institution and served as secretary nt the M.df
during the whole period of hi*» av-iu'Ltfittn \vith
the hospital as surgeon. The eye elinie<. at St,
Mary's, St. Acnes', and the rieshvtrn.m hos-
pitals owe their establishment fu hi', rntripti-.t',
and upon his retirement front active \nvice in
them he was made consulting ophiluhnie sui^eon
to each, lie was made a*.a.»>eiatr clinical pro-
fessor of ophthalmology in the Woman's Medi-
cal College of Pennsylvania in tS*j;' and heeame
full clinical professor of the s'nne Mihjert in
1906. He was also consulting <*j(hthal»u*lntfi*'t
to the Friends* Asylum for tin* In am* in Phila-
delphia, and to the State 1 lonpital f< »r the ( Immic
Insane of Pennsylvania at Nnrri'.tmvn, l*a»
In the literature of ophthalmology Oliver
found the greatest field for his ende; tvw s, **/ V V.vf-
book of Ophthalnwhnjy, written in iHtj^ in col-
laboration with Ins teacher and eullea^uc* Mor-
ris was one of his outstanding accomplishments.
This was translated into Chinese and W;H :ntoj»t-
ed as a textbook in the medical schools of I Ittiu.
With the same associate* hi* puMb-hcd System &f
Diseases of the Eye (iKp;r~it)f>t>} which appeared
in four volumes and represented thr work of
more than sixty contributors of rwinenee, lie
also published Ocular Ww/v«/iV,v jw l$hy*
sicians and Students CiBnt}), trau>lau*d from the
German of F, W, M. Ohlcmunn; /w/iiwjr ^# lite
Eye in their Mcdico-Lcgol dsfort (I«KKJ)I n
revised edition of A. J, Osterheimcr'* translation
of the work of S. Baudry ; An R&wy on the Nt*~
ture and the Consequences of Anmn&lws of J?*'«
fractions (1899), a revised edition of the wwk
of F. C. Bonders, and contributed to WocKl'g
System of Ophthalmic Operations (a vok, xgu ) ,
Among his numerous monographs, that entitled
A Description of Some of the Important Mtth*
ods Employed in the Recognition of Peripheral
and Central Nerve Diseases (1897) was trans-
over one hundred and twenty-five monographs
16
Oliver
cal Sciences over a period of several years in
collaboration with Dr. Thompson Wescott, later
with Dr. William Zentniayer, and still later with
Dr. William Campbell Posey, and also to func-
tion in an editorial capacity in connection with
the Annals of Ophthalmology, Ammlcs de
Oftahiwlogia, Ophthalmoscope, and Annales
d'Ocnlistique. He was a member of many scien-
tific societies in America and abroad.
[Trans. Coll of Physicians of PMla., 3 ser. XXXV
(1913) ; Who's Who in America, 1910-11 ; Who's Who
in Pa., 1908; Gen. Alumni Cat. of the Univ. of Pa.
(1917) ; Annals of QphtkahnoL, July 1911 ; H. A. Kelly
and W. L. Burrage, Am. Medic. Biogs. (1920) ; J. W.
Croskey, Hist, of Blocklcy ( 1 929) ; Pub. Ledger ( Pliila. ) ,
Apr. 10, 1911; personal communications with Oliver's
contemporaries. ] j^ W. F.
OLIVER, FITCH EDWARD (Nov. 25,
l8i9~Dec. 8, 1892), physician and historian,
was born in Cambridge, Mass., the son of Daniel
and Mary Robinson (Pulling) Oliver. He was
descended from Thomas Oliver, a physician, who
emigrated to America in 1632, and was the
great-grandson of Andrew Oliver, 1731-1799
[,q.vJ\. Daniel Oliver (1787-1842), his father,
was professor of intellectual philosophy at Dart-
mouth College (1823-37) and also taught chem-
istry and matcria mcdica in the medical school
(1820-38). Oliver entered Dartmouth College
when fifteen years of age, taught in rural schools
during the long winter vacations, and was grad-
uated in 1839* After a few months devoted to
the study of law, he entered the Harvard Medi-
cal School and received the degree of M,D. in
1843, part of his medical education having been
obtained at Dartmouth College, the Medical Col-
lege of Ohio in Cincinnati, where his father had
gone as a teacher, and by private instruction un-
der Oliver Wendell Holmes [q.v.'], a distant rel-
ative. After receiving his degree, he spent a year
in Europe, particularly in Paris and Italy, re-
turning to Boston to practise in 1844.
At first Oliver took an interest in general med-
icine. He became one of the district physicians
of the Boston Dispensary, served on the staff of
the Boston City Hospital, and was an instructor
in materia medica in the Harvard Medical School
(1860-70). From 1860 to 1864 he edited, with
Calvin Ellis [#.v,], the Boston Medical and
Surgical Journal. He was a member of the im-
portant local medical societies and his chief
medical publications were a translation, with
W, W. Morlancl, of A. F. Chomel's Elements of
General Pathology (1848), an important paper,
"The Use and Abuse of Opium" (Third Annual
Report of the State Board of Health of Massa-
chusetts, 1872), a much discussed subject at the
time, and "The Health of Boston, 1875" (Seventh
Oliver
Annual Report . . , Board of Health of Massa-
chusetts, 1876). His real interest, however,
was in the history of Massachusetts, in which
his direct as well as collateral family lines had
borne an important and conspicuous part. His
first historical publication was The Diaries of
Benjamin Lynde and of Benjamin Lynde, Jr.
(1880). A few years later he gave assistance to
P. O. Hutchinson, who edited The Diary and
Letters of His Excellency Thomas Hutchinson,
Esq. (London, 2 vols., 1883-86; Boston, 2 vols.,
1884-86) and, in 1878, he issued a completed
edition of William Hubbard's History of New
England, which had been published, in part, by
the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1815.
There followed, in 1890, The Diary of William
Pynchon of Salem, whose daughter had married
his grandfather. Besides these volumes Oliver
wrote a number of papers which appeared in the
Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical So-
ciety. He joined the Society in 1876 and was ap-
pointed cabinet keeper in 1880, a position which
he held, with distinction, until his death. He left
to the Society a large and valuable collection of
Olivcrana, comprising all the publications he
could find of those bearing his name.
For many years he was an active member of
the Church of the Advent, Boston, and he wrote,
for use in his church and elsewhere, A Selection
of Ancient Psalm Melodies, Adapted to the Can-
tides of the Church in the United States of Amer-
ica (1852, 2nd ed., enlarged, 1858), in which is
found an excellent arrangement of ffDe Pro-
fundisf A Sketch of the History of the Parish
of the Advent in the City of Boston, 1844-94
(1894) was largely written by him. As a phy-
sician, Oliver is said to have "brought to his
duties fresh and abundant learning, conscien-
tiousness, unsparing devotion, and the most scru-
pulous care" (Slafter, post, p. 478). As a histo-
rian he had "the instincts and habits of a scholar.
. . , When he entered upon a therne of study he
was not content till he had patiently surveyed the
whole field, and gathered in all that was neces-
sary to know" (Ibid., 485). His writings and
annotations are models of their kind, clear, con-
cise, and in pure, faultless English. In social
life he is said to have been somewhat reticent
but modest, courteous, and dignified. On July
17, 1866, he married Susan Lawrence Mason, a
descendant of a distinguished family of Boston.
His wife and six children survived him.
[E, F. Slafter's memoir in the Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc.t
2 ser, VIII (1894), is the best account of Oliver. See
also: Boston Evening Transcript, Dec. 9, 1892; and
the Boston Medic, and Surgic. Jour., Dec. 15, 22, 1892.]
H.R.V.
Oliver
OLIVER, GEORGE TENER (Jan. 26, 1848-
Jan 22, 1919), steel manufacturer, lawyer, news-
•, and United States senator from
at Donaghmore, near
Oliver
ventions at which Roosevelt and Hughes were
nominated. But his larger field of activity was
in the United States Senate, Although he re-
fused to fill the unexpired term of Senator Quay
Dungannon, County Tyrone, Ireland, while his in 1904, he consen ed tu step mto the place made
parents, Henry William and Margaret (Brown) vacant »n IQOQ when 1 resident 1 ait appointed
01 S, were on a visit to the latter's old home. Philander C Knox to the cahme . After com;
The father had been a merchant in Ireland and pletmg two years he was elected tor the full
active in the Liberal party of that day; his emi- term, 1911-17, thus serving dunn* tho trying
-ration to America in 1842 followed the defeat days of American neutrality. His ehiet activity
of his party. George was educated in the public :" ^ *'»"*» "'«« *'"' «'"""»•* »f "»"
schools of Allegheny (now the Northside of
Pittsburgh) and in Pleasant Hill Academy at
West Middletown, Pa. He then attended Beth-
any College in West Virginia, graduating in
1868. For a short time thereafter he taught
school in Peebles Township (now Hazelwood)
but soon began the study of law in Pittsburgh in
the office of Hill Burgwin. In 1871 he was ad-
mitted to the bar and on Dec. 19 of that year
married Mary D. Kountze of Omaha, Nebr. Dur-
ing the ten years which followed Oliver built
up a successful law practice in association with
William B. Rogers. Against the advice of the
latter he gave up this practice to become vice-
president and later president of the Oliver Wire
Company, organized by his brother Henry Wil-
liam Oliver [g.v.]. During his presidency he
exhibited a regard for his employees rarely
shown in those days. It was his practice to keep
the plants running even though operating with-
out profit in order to give employment to his
men. In 1899 the company sold its plants. Be-
tween 1889 and 1897 Oliver was also president
of the Hainsworth Steel Company. In the last-
named year when this company merged with
Oliver & Snyder Steel Company, he remained
as president of the new company and served un-
til 1901.
At the age of fifty-two Oliver disposed of his
manufacturing interests and embarked upon a
career, covering the remaining nineteen years
of his life, as a newspaper publisher. In June
1900 he purchased the oldest newspaper west of
the Allegheny Mountains, the Pittsburgh Ga-
zette, a morning paper. Next he became owner
rt?eD^ .eve~
nmg paper In 1906 he bought the Pittsburg
which he consolidated with the Gazette
in the Senate was the support of the protective
tariff in general and the iron and steel tariff in
particular. He declined a second term and re-
tired to private life on the death of hi*; wife who
was his constant companion, lie survived her
by less than two years. He was buried in Alle-
gheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh,
[The sketch of Oliver in J. W, Jnrtlm.(/*wr,vr, »»/ f<i,
Bioy,t vol, XI (IQ»O), is i'fi»j!intnl in <», T, i'Vmiiw,
ed, Hist, of Pittsburgh am/ ttnrirvHf ( to^j), vol, III.
See also lhe(/M>0, /*iV. .-tin, (*<»»**;, (to.'Si; ami the
Pittsburgh Dispatch ami Pittsburgh Ptnttt Jut*. =4j, wv, J
A, I.
OLIVER, HENRY KEMBLE (Nov. .'4,
i8oo-Aug. 12, 1885), teacher, treasurer and
commissioner of labor of Massachusetts, superin-
tendent of cotton-mills in Lawrence, musician,
was born in Beverly and died in Salem* Mass,
He traced his ancestry from Thomas Oliver, who
emigrated to America in i(\\2 ami settled in
Boston not far from the present Old South
Church on Washington Street. The Rrv. Daniel
Oliver, a graduate of Dartmouth in 1785, was
his father, and Elizabeth KemWe of Boston his
mother. His name, Thomas Henry Oliver, he*
changed to Henry Kemblc Oliver in i8ao to
preserve that of his mother. From the ttoston
Latin School he went to Phillips Academy at
Andover, divided his college course hetwmj
Harvard and Dartmouth, and graduated in 1818
from the latter. Harvard granted him the de-
grees of A,B. and A.M. in 186^, placing !m nmne
with the class of 1818, He hegan hi* teaching-
career in Salem as usher of the Latin Grammar
School and in 1827 he became the first matter
of its English High School Owing to his in-
terest in mathematics, he had his senior da*8cn
compute the times of all the total eclipses visible
in the United States for the last seventy yearn
of the century. In 1830 he erected on Federal
presidential elector ~rm th* 'Ri<Mr,T~r "" ,-T " Vu ^ve years to school work in that
18
Oliver
tion Association, and in 1858-59 he was agent
for the state board of education.
From 1844 to 1848 Oliver was adjutant-gen-
eral of the Massachusetts militia. His prepara-
tion for this office began in 1821 when he entered
the Salem Light Infantry. Twelve years later
he was lieutenant-colonel of the 6th Massachu-
setts Infantry and was soon promoted to its
colonelcy. In the Ancient and Honorable Ar-
tillery of Boston he gained a captaincy by 1846.
It was during the period of his state service that
the Mexican War occurred, and it fell to him
to raise the only volunteer regiment to go to
Mexico from New England, known as the ist
Massachusetts Volunteers. During this time he
was also a member of the board of visitors for
West Point. For ten years, 1848-58, he served
as superintendent of the Atlantic Cotton Mills
in Lawrence. To provide for the better educa-
tion of his employees he proposed a library for
their use. He offered one hundred volumes and
a loan of fifty dollars for new purchases and in a
short time the number of volumes reached 3,500.
He added bathing rooms to the mills and pro-
vided free lectures and concerts for its employees.
From 1860 to 1865, during the years o£ the
Civil War, he was treasurer of the state. Dur-
ing that time he handled almost eighty thousand
dollars of the state's money at an annual salary
of $2,300.
While still a young boy Oliver sang in a Bos-
ton church, and at the age of twenty-three he
began his long career as an organist, serving
two years at St. Peter's Church in Salem, two
in the Barton Square Church, twenty in the
North Church, and twelve in the Unitarian
Church in Lawrence. He organized the Salem
Mozart Association, serving as its president,
organist, and director ; was a member of the Bos-
ton Handel and Haydn Society, the Salem Ora-
torio Society, and the Salem Glee Club ; and an
honorary member of the Portland Haydn So-
ciety. He wrote church music and in 1848, with
two others, joined in publishing The National
Lyre, which contained many of his own compo-
sitions. In 1860 he published Oliver's Collection
of Hymn and Psalm Tunes, followed in 1875 by
Original Hymn Times, dedicated to the Salem
Oratorio Society. "Federal Street" is his best-
known tune. The climax of his musical career
may be said to have occurred at the Peace Jubi-
lee in Boston on June 25, 1872, when he was
called from his place among the basses of the
Salem Choral Society group to conduct the sing-
ing of his "Federal Street/' set to his own words,
"Hail gentle peace," and rendered by 20,000
voices. During the centennial year he was given
Oliver
a place at the exposition in Philadelphia as a
judge of instruments of precision and of music.
The crowning work of Oliver's life was the
organization and development of the Massachu-
setts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, a pioneer in-
stitution of its kind. It was authorized by a re-
solve of the legislature, approved June 23, 1869,
and on the July 31 following he was appointed
its first chief. His first report, covering the
seven months to March 1870, dealt largely with
wages and hours of labor. Subsequent reports
showed cost of living, habits and education of
families, and factory conditions. Oliver made
four reports as chief of this bureau and in 1873
retired to spend the later years of his life at his
home in Salem. He was mayor of that city from
1877 to 1880. He had married, on Aug. 30, 1825,
Sarah Cook, daughter of Samuel Cook and Sarah
Chever of Salem. They had seven children. He
was a member of the North Street Unitarian
Church in Salem and from its altar his public
funeral was conducted. His writings consist
chiefly of addresses on educational subjects and
reports of tbe Bureau of Labor. He also pub-
lished in 1830 a work on the construction and
use of mathematical instruments, and in 1868
Genealogy of Descendants of Thomas Oliver of
Bristol, England, and of Boston, New England.
[The best slcetch of Oliver is that by J. H. Jones in
Seventeenth Ann, Report of the (Mass.) Bureau of
Statistics of Labor (1886). See also: the Musical
Herald, Jan., Mar., Apr. 1885; F. J. Metcalf, Am.
Writers and Compilers of Sacred Music (1925) ; C. S.
Osgood and H. M. Batch elder, Hist. Sketch of Salem
(1879) ; Essex Inst, Hist. Colls. , vol. XLIX (1913) J
Fifty-Seventh Ann. Meeting of the Am, Inst, of Instruc-
tion, 1886; Salem Gazette, Aug. 14, 1885.] F.J. M.
OLIVER, HENRY WILLIAM (Feb. 25,
i840-Feb. 8, 1904), ironmaster, was born at
Dungannon, County Tyrone, Ireland, one of six
children of Henry William Oliver, a Scotch-
Irish harness-maker, and Margaret (Brown)
Oliver. George T. Oliver [#.#.] was his young-
er brother. The family emigrated to Pittsburgh
in 1842, where Henry attended the public schools
and Newell's Academy until the age of thirteen.
He then became a messenger boy for the National
Telegraph Company, along with Andrew Car-
negie. For eight years he was employed by
Clark and Thaw, forwarding agents, and by
Graff, Bennett & Company, iron manufacturers.
At Lincoln's first call for troops in 1861 he en-
listed in the I2tlr Pennsylvania Volunteers and
served a three months' term. When Lee invaded
Pennsylvania in 1863 he again enlisted and
fought in the battle of Gettysburg.
In 1863 he organized the firm of Lewis, Oliver
& Phillips for the manufacture of nuts and bolts
on a small scale and in 1866 his brothers David
Oliver
Oliver
retirement of W. J. Lewis in 1880 the company
adopted the name Oliver Brothers & Phillips.
Still later (1888) it was incorporated as the
Oliver Iron & Steel Company, with Henry W.
Oliver as chairman of the board. In the twenty
years following the Civil War the business grew
to gigantic proportions. Oliver was identified
with a great variety of ferrous industries, such
as sheet and tin plate, steel wire, and pressed
steel cars. He was also a builder of railroads,
which he saw were essential to the industrial
future of Pittsburgh. He was one of the original
owners of the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad,
was president of the Pittsburgh & Western Rail-
way Company from 1890 to 1893, and promoted
the Akron & Chicago Junction Railroad (now
part of the Baltimore & Ohio) to secure better
freight facilities with the West, As a railroad
man he introduced important improvements, in-
cluding the use of steel cars for safety.
With his practical knowledge of iron and steel,
Oliver foresaw the necessity of large mineral
reserves, and his chief distinction is as a pioneer
in opening the vast iron-ore region of Minne-
sota. Hearing in 1892 of the discovery by the
Merritt brothers of the great Mesabi range north
of Duluth, he hastened to inspect the diggings.
When Leonidas Merritt showed Oliver speci-
mens of high-grade ore lying practically on the
surface, which could be loaded with one scoop
of a steam- shovel at a labor cost of five cents a
ton, Oliver needed little argument. He leased
an enormous annual tonnage, organized the
Oliver Iron Mining Company, built a railroad
to Lake Superior, and began the great ore traffic
from the lake ports to the Pittsburgh mills, An-
drew Carnegie was sceptical of the value of "ore
prospecting" and considered Oliver a hare-
brained enthusiast, but Oliver's logic impressed
Henry Clay Frick, then the active head of the
Carnegie Steel Company, who, against Car-
negie's orders, joined forces with Oliver to ex-
ploit the Minnesota treasures. Eight years later
the ^ Oliver iron-ore interests, originally or-
ganized on a cash investment of some $600,000,
were bought by the newly formed United States
Steel Corporation for $17,000,000. The "Oliver
luck" became a Pittsburgh legend, but it was
based more upon sound knowledge and driving
energy than upon chance. Oliver invested heavily
in Pittsburgh real estate and business structures
and also became an organizer and the largest
stockholder of the Pittsburgh Coal Company, In
the far West he held extensive interests in Ari-
zona copper mines.
as president of th
burgh, was a delegate to four Republican Na-
tional conventions (187-2, 1870, 1888, iHq^)
and a presidential elector-nt-largo in 1880. fn
1881 he was nominated by caucus for United
States senator but was defeated on account of
factional divisions in the party. He was highly
influential in both state and federal policies,
however, and in 1882 was appointed hy President
Arthur as representative of the iron and steel
interests on a commission to draw up the metal
schedules of the new tar iff, lie died in i<)o.j. lie
had married in 1862 Kdith A. ("a.^idy of Pitts-
burgh by whom he had one daughter, His es-
tate built as a memorial the Henry \V. Oliver
Building1, long1 the largest oilice buildim: in Pitts-
burgh. Oliver himself was instrumental in the
widening of a downtown street later renamed
Oliver Avenue.
[J. N. Boucher, A Century <iw/ a //<*// o/ /V//,i/»«r0
d Her People (looSK vol. Ill ; |, W. ,ft«r*Un, /•'««>*,
Pa, Bio().t vol. IX (u)i8) ; (\, I, Kml, nt, < V»»funf
yc. of Hist, and }iit*n. of /'<», I fw**j)t vnl, U ; ij, 'I,
[J. N. Boucher, A Century tindjt Jhlf -
and -
of*
Cyc
Fleming1* ed., Ilist. of 'rittuhurtfk <iw/ /'Hrm*»f ( i
vol. IV; Paul DoKruif, &'wu tr&n Mwt (uj.ii,>) ; j'itt,\*
burgh Dispatch f yittxbitruh {iVitfi'M', i'Vh, H, 1*404* prr-
sonal information from inewhtTH <if Urn family, |
K.M.O,
OLIVER, JAMES (Atitf. 28, iR^Muf, 2,
1908), inventor, manufacturer, was horn in the
parish of Lidclesdale, Roxburghshire, Scotland,
the son of George and KH/.aheth { frvintf) Oliver,
His father was a shepherd, and in tin* hope of
bettering his circumstances he emigrated with
his family to America in 1835, \vhere, several of
his older children had preceded him, and titled
on a farm near Geneva, N, Y. James had had a
little schooling1 in Scotland, hut when he ar-
rived in the United States, although only twelve
years old, he immediately went to work as a
farm hand in the. neighborhood of his home. In
the spring of 1836 the Olivers moved to a leased
farm near Alloway, N. Y,, and in the following
fall they migrated to Indiana and obtained a farm
site at Mishawaka, four miles from South Bend,
During the succeeding- nineteen years Oliver en-
gaged in a variety of occupations. In 1838 he
was apprenticed to a builder of the Fox thresh-
ing machine; later, he obtained employment in
a foundry owned by the South Bend Iron Works
in Mishawaka; when this company discontinued
business in 1840, he became a cooper's appren-
tice and after completing his apprenticeship fol-
lowed his trade successfully in Mishawaka for
a number of years, He was more Interested in
foundry work, however, and late in 1845 ob-
20
Oliver
In 1855, while on a visit to South Bend, he
met a young- fotmdryman and purchased a one-
fourth interest in his business there. He en-
tered upon his new work most energetically and
in 1857 purchased the entire establishment. Two
years later the plant was destroyed by fire but
he immediately rebuilt it, and to help defray the
expense he took in two business friends as part
owners. He continued in general foundry work
with fair success until 1864, when his plant was
again burned. Following" its immediate recon-
struction, he determined to go into the manu-
facture of plows in addition to regular foundry
stock. Soon he was experimenting with chilled
iron in an effort to make hard-faced plows, as
many foundrymen and others had done before
him. After four years of labor, he had proceeded
with the problem sufficiently to obtain patents
for a "mould board for plows" (No. 7^52)
and "casting mould boards" (No. 76,939) on
Apr. 14 and 21, 1868, respectively. Some time
later he made his first important discovery in
the matter of successful chilling; namely, that
by circulating hot water through the "chills" he
could prevent the castings from cooling too
rapidly or unevenly. For this discovery he re-
ceived patent No. 86,579 on Feb. 2, 1869, the
patent being entitled "chill for casting mould
boards." Confident that he was proceeding in
the proper direction, he next worked on the im-
provement of moulding patterns. This under-
taking resulted in a second important discovery
— a method of ventilating the chills by curves
along the face of the mould which allowed the
escape of the gases that form within the flasks
when molten iron is poured in. The use of this
method permitted the liquid metal to come into
direct contact with the face of the chill, remov-
ing all of the soft spots in the mould boards and
leaving the surface smooth and perfect For this
improvement he received a number of patents
between 1871 and 1876. His last great discovery
was a process of annealing the plow castings so
that the soft portions became pliable enough to
work out their strains from shrinkage in cooling
without affecting the hardness of the chilled
faces. Even before the incorporation into his
plow of this last discovery, Oliver's product was
much in demand, for it was low in price, adapt-
able to any kind of soil, cut a very smooth fur-
row, and procured a lighter draft than any other
metal plow then in use. In 1878, in order to in-
crease his output, he bought thirty-two acres of
land in the southwestern part of South Bend,
and the following year began the erection of a
new plant. Building followed building as the
business increased, and at his death, the Oliver
Oliver
Chilled Plow Works covered sixty-two acres,
employed 2,000 men, and produced annually up-
wards of 200,000 plows. Oliver, as president,
conducted the affairs of this great business tip
to the time of his death, continuing also his in-
ventive work.
He was very much interested in the civic bet-
terment of South Bend. He built the Oliver
Hotel, and erected a large opera house and the
city hall. On May 30, 1840, he married Susan
Doty of Mishawaka and at the time of his death
in South Bend was survived by two children.
[Who's Who in America, 1908-09 ; Waldemar
JCaempflTert, A Popular 11-ist. of Am, Invention (1924),
vol. 1L; R. L. Ardrey, Am. Agricultural Implements
(copr. 1894) ; Anderson and Coolcy, South Bend and
the Men Who have Made It (1901) ; Farm Implement
News, Mar. 5, 1908 ; Indianapolis Ncwst Mar. 2, 1908 ;
Patent Office records.] C.W.M n.
OLIVER, PAUL AMBROSE (July 18, 1830-
May 17, 1912), soldier, inventor, manufacturer,
the youngest of five children of Capt. Paul Am-
brose Oliver and Mary Van Dusen, was born in
the English Channel on board the Louisiana, a
vessel built by his grandfather, Matthew Van
Dusen, shipbuilder of Kensington, Pa., and
owned and commanded by his father. Shortly
after the birth of his youngest child, Captain
Oliver settled with his family at Altona, Ger-
many, and remained there ten years. During
this time Paul Ambrose imbibed a knowledge of
German military science at the local gymnasium
which he later made of practical use. In 1849
he came to the United States, settled in New
Orleans, and engaged in the cotton export trade.
Later he settled at Fort Hamilton, N. Y, where
he was also engaged in the shipping business. In
1856 he organized and was made president of
the Fort Hamilton Relief Society, an association
instrumental in preventing an epidemic of yellow
fever in New York City.
He joined the army and on Oct. 29, 1861, was
commissioned second lieutenant in the famous
I2th New York Volunteers. His promotion was
rapid, owing largely to the fact that he perfected
in his own company a German bayonet drill
which was widely approved by his superiors. He
rose to the captaincy, was successively offered
commissions as major, lieutenant-colonel, and
colonel of the 5th New York Volunteers, all of
which he declined, and served as aide on the
staffs of Generals Butter field, Meade, Hooker,
and Warren. He was a principal witness at an
investigation of the conduct of Gen. Carl Schurz,
during which Schurz criticized Oliver for pre-
suming to give as his own orders which really
came from Hooker (War of the Rebettion: Of-
ficial Records, Army, i ser. XXXI, pt I, p. 187).
21
Oliver
Oliver
mies of the United States, January 1865. As
provost-marshal, he assisted in paroling the Con-
federate army at Appomattox, a service which
General Sharpe called "invaluable and highly
meritorious" (Ibid., XLVI, pt 3, p. 853)- Oliver
left the service on May 6, 1865 ; two days later he
was brevetted brigadier-general of volunteers.
He had taken part in twenty-five battles and was
favorably mentioned in the official reports of
Hooker, Butterfield, and others for the coolness,
bravery, and intelligence he displayed in action
(Official Records, I ser. XI, XII, XXXI and
XLVI). At Resaca, Ga., on May 15, 1864, Oliver
"assisted in preventing a disaster caused by
Union troops firing into each other" (General
Butterfield to the Secretary of War, May 26,
1892). The brigade being fired into was led by
Col. Benjamin Harrison. Appropriately enough,
when Harrison became president, Oliver was dec-
orated with the Congressional Medal of Honor.
After the war Oliver engaged in the anthracite
coal trade but soon gave that up to experiment
in the manufacture of explosives. Between 1868
and 1889 he secured several patents for formulas
for explosives and for machines for their manu-
facture. His machines were designed to mix the
ingredients in small quantities with an excess of
moisture so as to prevent violent explosions;
his powders were especially adapted for blasting
in coal mining. He is generally credited with
the invention of dynamite and black powder ; but
his discoveries in this field were contemporane-
ous with, and probably independent of, the simi-
lar inventions of Nobel in France, Schultze in
Germany, and Von Lenck in Austria (J. B.
Bernadou, Smokeless Powder, 1901 ; J. P. Cun-
dill, A Dictionary of Explosives} .
Oliver settled in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., in 1868,
and set up a small powder mill. As he was in
close touch with the coal operators in the anthra-
cite region, his business "grew to a large im-
portance" (Coal Trade Journal, May 22, 1912,
p. 478) . His mill experienced several disastrous
fires and explosions, but by 1873 be was regu-
larly employing 100 men and producing 900 kegs
of powder per day, His mills were purchased
in 1903 by E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Com-
pany, and are still in operation ; the principles of
manufacture evolved by him have continued in
use with some modifications. The enormous ex-
pansion of the anthracite coal trade following
the Civil War and the increasing industrial uses
of explosives meant a corresponding expansion
in his business, and Oliver was enabled to retire
after amassing a considerable fortune. Among
virgin timber in the udjntvnt mountains. ^
Oliver was a communicant of thr KpiM'upal
Church. lie nevor married, denial in nutmrr,
of distinguished presence, he nuule \\\ . how at
Fern Lodge, overlooking the historic Wyoming
Valley, typical of the resplendent ln>'-pit.tlity ami
luxury of the new industrial order which he had
done much to advance.
[Sources include: It, K. Haydnn "Oliver Knnih,"
N. Y. Ctcncal. and fluty, AVivn/, Jtilv, <M t?-?^. Jan,
1889; H. C Bradsby, Hist. «'/ /«;v»m' f »Mi«fv, l\it
(1893); Circular No. #, w*r. n)\,\. *'^ < imwui)t!r»v(
Mil. 'Order of the Loyal Lt'Kttm : /!»»«. AY/vfi .^ the
Commissioner of Patents, iH;*K tSHo ; A, IV V.m <ir-Mrr
and Hugo Schlattcr, Hist. <»/ tht* I \itl\\it^,\ ln,!n\ttv
in America (1027) ; War of the AV/v//it'» ' ( W*» »**/ A'»v
on/,9 Mwv), i scr, XI, Xli, XXV, XXYU, XXNI,
xxxn, xxxvm, xi-ii, xrvi ; \r\\i ^ /*,!»»,• AV
ord, May 18, Kjfj; ami rrrnrds nM^ !. <fn I'MIS <Jr
Nemours & Company, Wilkcs Harrr tiH»i-r ,\ \Mjmur
of newspaper cliwmiKS in tht* iM»sM".'.ii*» r»i Mr<< A*lr-
Jc'iide Bonndl, luiwthrth, N, J,, indu»H ,\ n«j»y H! ilir
letter from On, ButtrHtchi i»i' M.ty ^» iHuJ, irtrtt^l
to above,] j, |»( |*t
OLIVER, PETER (Mar, xht *7U Hefnhrr
1791), Loj'alist, was horn in Boston, Ma-.s,, ihr
son of Daniel and ICHxahelh {Helehrr) Oliver
and the brother of TJeutenant»Umvriinr Autlrew
Oliver [^.7'.). The family was dcsees*dffl fr*tiu
Thomas Oliver who came to Mussadw.Ht'. fiunt
England in 1632 and at the time of the Urvolti-
tion its members occupied distinguished .social
and political positions. Peter ^nuhtated iu rf\\n
from Harvard where he hat! raukrtt hi^h in
scholarship but had been disciplined for strut w>?
a turkey and a goose. On July 5, *r,U» ^}r was
married to Mary, daughter of William ats*l Han*
nah (Applcton) Clarke, by whom he had six
children, They lived in Bosttm twtil 1774 when
Oliver t)oup;ht land and settled at Middirhurt^
Plymouth County, about thirty milrs front flic*
capital. He established iron works there and
built one of the finest residences in New Kng*
land, called "Oliver Hal!/* celebrated for it*
size and elegance and the beauty of it>
He lived there until his exite; later, about
the place was burned by the Americans,
On Dec, 12, 1747, Oliver was appointed judge
of the inferior court of common pleas of Plymouth
County and served for nine years. He was then
made judge of the superior court. Sept, 14, 1756,
aad in 1771 became chief justice, The most
famous case in which he sat, as an associate jus-
tice, was the trial of the British soldiers in 1770*
"A Loyalist by birth, education and instinct, a
man of courage, firmness, learning and charac-
ter," he became a marked man as the troubles
with England came to a crisis. The judges of
22
Oliver
the superior court received niggardly pay from
the General Court, £120 a year for the associate
justices and £150 for the chief justice. The Brit-
ish government determined to augment the sala-
ries by annual grants, which immediately in-
flamed patriotic sentiment in the colony. In view
of the threatening attitude of the people, four of
the judges, after having decided to accept the
grants, recanted, but Chief Justice Oliver held
firm. He claimed that he had expended about
£2,000 as justice since his appointment and of-
fered to settle the question by resigning if the
General Court would reimburse him to the ex-
tent of one-half his expenditures. The only an-
swer was a categorical inquiry as to whether or
not he would accept the Crown grant and he re-
plied affirmatively. The legislature then pro-
ceeded to draw up articles of impeachment but
Governor Hutchinson, whose daughter had mar-
ried Oliver's son, refused to countenance the im-
peachment proceedings. Matters came to a head
at Worcester, Apr. 19, 1774, when the grand
jury in writing refused to serve under him. The
grand jurors of Suffolk County similarly re-
fused to serve under him in August.
Oliver had already been a member of the Coun-
cil and in 1774 was appointed one of the "Man-
damus Councillors." On Oct. 14, 1775, he was
one of the signers of the Address to General
Gage, and, with his niece, was among those who
left for Halifax with the British forces when
they evacuated Boston in March 1776. He con-
tinued to England where he was hospitably re-
ceived by the King and was given the degree of
D.C.L. by Oxford University. He resided at
Birmingham until his death, the government hav-
ing granted him a pension. At his death he left
a manuscript entitled "The Origin and Progress
of the American War to 1776" the interest of
which is mainly personal as the bias is so strong
as to invalidate the value of the account as his-
tory. He was greatly interested in history and
wrote both in verse and prose, among the items
printed being A Speech . . . After the Death of
Isaac Lothrop (Boston, 1750) ; A Poem Sacred
to the Memory of the Honorable Josiah Willard
(1757), and The Scripture Lexicon (1787),
which was used as a text at Oxford and several
times reprinted.
[Sources include: Thos. Western, "Peter Oliver,"
Ncw-Eng. Hist, and Gcncal. Reg., July-Get 1886, and
genealogy. Ibid., Apr. 1865 j J. H, Stark, The Loyalists
of Mass. (igio); Colonial Soc, of Mass, Pubs., vol. V
(1902) and vol. XXV (1924) ; Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc,,
vol. XIV (1876) ; P. O. Hutchinson, The Diary and
Letters of His Excellency Thos. HutcUnson (2 vols.,
1883-86) ; and Thos, Hutchinson, The Hist, of the
Province of Mass. Bay} vol. HI (1828). The Alumni
Oxoniensas and the Gentleman's Maff.t Oct. 1791, Rive
Oct. 12, 1791, for date of death; the New-Eng. Hist*
Olmstead — Olmsted
and m Gcncal. Reg., Apr. 1865, gives Oct. 13. Oliver's
''Origin and Progress of the American War to 1776"
is with the Egcrton MSS. in the British Museum;
there is a transcript of the document in the Lib. of
Cong., Manuscript Division.] J T A.
OLMSTEAD, GIDEON [See OLMSTED,
GIDEON, 1749-1845].
OLMSTED, DENISON (June 18,
*3> 1859), scientist and teacher, was the young-
est and fourth child of Nathaniel Olmsted, a
farmer living near East Hartford, Conn. His
mother (his father's second wife) was Eunice
Kingsbury of Hebron, Conn. ITc was the grand-
son of Nathaniel and Sarah (Pitkin) Olmsted
of Hartford, and a direct descendant of James
Olmsted who emigrated from Fairsted, Essex,
England, to Connecticut in 1632. After his fa-
ther's death, his mother married again and moved
to Farming! on, Conn., where Denison received
his early education in the district school and
privately from Gov. John Trenxlwell, who in-
structed him in arithmetic (not taught then in
public schools) and in whose home Olmsted did
"such offices as a boy could do for his hoard"
(Woolsey, post, p. 577). Later, he was a clerk
in the store of Governor TreadwclFs son. At
sixteen he decided to study further in order to
enter Yale College, and after teaching a district
school for one season he entered the school of
James Morris at Litchfield South Farms. Rev.
Noah Porter [#.?'.], the parish minister at Farm-
ington, was also Ins instructor. In 1809 he en-
tered Yale and there received the degree of A.B.
in 1813. Having nearly exhausted his patri-
mony, he taught at the Union School, New Lon-
don (1813-15), before continuing further study,
In 1815 he was appointed a tutor at Yale, where
he also studied theology under President Tim-
othy Dwight [#.#.]. His M.A. oration in 1816
was on "The State of Education in Connecticut,"
and contained ideas relating to a seminary for
school-masters (normal school), plans for the
establishment of which he hoped to carry out at
the end of his tutorship.
Somewhat reluctantly, therefore, in 1817, he
accepted a call to the professorship of chemistry
at the University of North Carolina. He was
granted a year for preparatory study under Ben-
jamin Silliman [q.z>.] at Yale, and in 1818
married Eliza Allyn of New London. At the
University of North Carolina he successfully ad-
vocated in 1821 a state geological survey, legally
established in 1822. He was appointed state
geologist and mineralogist and made the first
survey of and reports on the state's natural re-
sources. In 1825 he was called to Yale to fill the
chair of mathematics and natural philosophy,
Olmsted
Eleven years later he prevailed on the college
authorities to establish a separate chair of mathe-
matics, and after that time he filled the chair of
natural philosophy and astronomy until his death,
His wife died in 1829 and in 1831 he married
Julia Mason of Rensselaer County, N. Y. He
had five sons and two daughters. A teacher by
nature, he assisted the friends of common-schools
by writing, lecturing, and appearing before legis-
lative bodies. While he was unable to carry out
the normal-school idea himself, he nevertheless
wrote much on the necessity of such a project.
As an instructor of scientific subjects, he in-
troduced experiments into his lectures and in-
augurated laboratory work for the students. He
advocated an astronomical observatory for the
use of students, and another for scientific re-
search. A lamentable lack of textbooks led him
to prepare such aids, not only for the colleges,
but for academies and the general reader. His
Introduction to Natural Philosophy (2 vols.,
1831-32) was used for many years after his death
in the edition revised by E. S. Snell of Amhcrst
It was followed by Compendium of Natural
Philosophy (1833), which went through more
than a hundred editions; Introduction to As-
tronomy (1839) J ^ Compendium of Astronomy
(1839), for schools; Letters on Astronomy, Ad-
dressed to a Lady (1840), prepared for school
libraries by request of the Massachusetts Board
of Education ; and Rudiments of Natural Philos-
ophy and Astronomy (1844), which also ap-
peared in raised letters for the use of the blind.
All his books show excellent arrangement of
material, and thoroughness and clearness of pres-
entation.
His contributions in physics and astronomy
were mainly on meteors, hailstorms, aurora, and
zodiacal light. The papers dealing with the
famous meteoric showers of Nov. 13, 1833
(American Journal of Science and Arts, Janu-
ary-April 1834, January 1836), brought him sci-
entific fame. In these he collected and arranged
in logical and orderly manner all the available
data on the subject. The cause of such showers,
he concluded, is due to particles of cosmic origin
(suggesting comets) passing through the earth's
atmosphere and proceeding from a definite radi-
ant (r-Leonis), and, recalling similar observa-
tions of other times, he assumed a probable pe-
riodicity of occurrence of the phenomenon. Al-
though he refers to the November showers of
I799> it was left for later generations to con-
nect meteoric showers with a definite comet.
His study of hailstorms led him to show the elec-
trical theory then held (especially in France) to
be incorrect and to give substantially the ex-
Olmsted
planation, accepted today, based on dynamics
and thermodynamics of the atmosphere (Ibid,,
April 1830). His work on geological subjects
was mainly concerned with the mineral resources
and their utilization, lie invented a process for
"gas light from cotton seed/' patented July 21,
1827, a useful stove, patented Nov. 5, 1834, and
a lubricant of lard and rosin for machinery. He
wrote many articles on religious subjects and
also a number of biographical sketches.
[F. B. Dexter, #10,7, Sketches Grads, Yak O»//., vol.
VI (1912) contains full bibling- Sec also T. 1), Wool-
sey, in the New /?«///<JW/*T, Atitf, iH.sot 0, S, Lvnmn,
in Am. Jour, of Science and slrtx, July iH$t): 11, K,
Olmsted and G. K. Ward, GeneuL of the Ohnxteil /Airm'/v
in America (1912) ; K. P. Hattle, flttt, r>/ the f'wv, *•/
N. C, (2 vols., 1907-13) ; Aloxnnilrr von Htinitntldt,
Cosmos (London, 1850, trans, hy K<i\v;inl Sahin) ; < V
limibian Weekly RCQ, (New Haven, t'onu,}, M.iy jj
I85*] A.K.K,
OLMSTED, FREDERICK LAW (Apr, 26,
i822-Aug. 28, 1003), landscape architect; \vas
born in Hartford, Conn. His paternal for-
bears had been numbered unwn# the intelligent
townsmen and farmers of the region since its
settlement in 1636, when James Olmsted, an
emigrant of 1632 from Essex Cwmty, Kngland,
came thither from Boston, His father, John
Olmsted, a prosperous merchant, took a lively
interest in nature, people, and places, which was
inherited by both Frederick Law and his young-
er brother, John Hull, His mother, Charlotte
Law (Hull) Olmsted, died when he was scarcely
four years old, to be succeeded in 1827 by a con-
genial step-mother, Mary Ann Bull, who shared
her husband's strong- love of nature ami had
perhaps a more cultivated taste,
Frederick was sent to be educated, first to
dame schools and then to u .succession of rural
parsons, but his lessons were broken by solitary
country rambles from the home of one friend or
relation to another. Moreover, holidays took
the form of long* tours mostly by carriage, in
which his father and step-mother* accompanied
by the two boys, took great pleasure, When
Frederick was sixteen he had thus made four
journeys, each over a thousand miles, in New
England, New York State, and Canada, during
which he observed populous towns as well aa
various types of rural scenery, and was encour-
aged to discuss what he saw, When he was al-
most ready to enter Yale in 1837, sumach poison-
ing- weakened his eyes and, giving- up college
plans, he spent two and a half years studying
engineering with Frederick A, Barton, first at
Andover, Mass., and later at Collinsville, Conn,
In August 1840, he went to work for Benkard
& Button, French dry-goods importers in New
York, remaining until March 1842, but finding
Olmsted
mercantile employment uncongenial after the out-
door life he loved. For the next year, he at-
tended lectures in a desultory way at Yale, leav-
ing1 in April 1843, before the mast in the bark
Ronaldson for China in search of adventure;
during a year-long voyage his eyes were open
for strange people and scenes.
On his return, he determined to take up farm-
ing as a career, and spent some months at his
Uncle Brooks's farm in Cheshire, Conn., fol-
lowed by a summer (1845) on Joseph Welton's
farm at Waterbury, Conn., and a winter attend-
ing scientific lectures at New Haven, more en-
joyable socially because of his brother John's
presence at Yale. Frederick's Yale affiliations
later caused him to be made an honorary member
of his brother's class, that of 1847, and the circle
of his brother's friends, there and in New York,
numbering among them Charles Lor ing Brace
[#.£>.], brought him in touch with the great so-
ciological problems of the period. From April
to October 1846, he pursued his agricultural ap-
prenticeship on the prize farm of George Geddes,
"Fail-mount," near Owego, N. Y., and in 1847
he felt himself ready to begin independent farm-
ing, first on a small place at Guilford, Conn.,
and from January 1848, on the more adequate
Ackerly farm, "South Side," Staten Island, N.
Y., purchased for him by his father, and op-
erated with enthusiasm for several years until
literary activities came to overshadow agricul-
tural interests. He himself in later life con-
sidered this practical experience in agriculture,
combined with his attempts at home landscaping
and his modest nursery business, and also his
active participation in local county affairs, an
important part of his preparation for his career.
In 1850 he began the scries of travels which
were to draw forth his literary ability, and
sailed with his brother and Charles Brace for
Europe — following1 four weeks on the Continent
by a walking tour of rural Britain, recorded in
Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in
England (1852). While farming and writing,
he had made the acquaintance of Andrew Jack-
son Downing [q.v.], who, in consequence of
Olmsted's earlier contributions to the Horticul-
turist, sent him letters of introduction. He vis-
ited Downing at Newburgh, and they must have
compared impressions of foreign parks and gar-
dens. Late in 1852, impelled by a stirring dis-
cussion with William Lloyd Garrison, who was
visiting the farm with Charles Brace, Olmsted
started on his first Southern journey, commis-
sioned by Henry J. Raymond, editor of the New
York Times, to write his unbiased impressions
of slavery and of actual economic and social con-
Olmsted
ditions in the South. The success of his letters,
later published as A Journey in the Seaboard
Slave States (1856), suggested a second tour,
also largely on horseback, which took Frederick
with his brother John into Texas, followed by a
solitary return journey from New Orleans to
Richmond, described respectively in A Journey
Through Texas (1857) and A Journey in the
Back Country (1860). Acclaimed as the most
accurate picture of conditions in the South prior
to the Civil War, the three books were con-
densed and published in America as The Cotton
Kingdom (2 vols., 1861), and in England as
Journeys and Explorations in the Cotton King-
dom (2 vols., 1861). His service in his South-
ern books, however, was not limited merely to
a fair record of what he saw. "Olmsted did what
he could to save the pot from boiling over. . . .
For passion he sought to substitute thoughtful-
ness, for raving rationality, and for invective a
calm examination of facts and their histor-
ical antecedents that should induce tolerance"
(Mitchell, post, p. xi).
Meanwhile, brief sojourns on the somewhat
neglected Staten Island farm, shortly to be sold,
editorial work for Putnam's Monthly Maga-
zine, and, in company with George William Cur-
tis [#.?'.], a financially disastrous dabbling in the
publishing business of Dix & Edwards, led up to
further travels in Europe (1856), partly on pub-
lishing matters. A pleasure visit to Italy with
his sister yielded much in landscape inspiration.
In 1857, somewhat at loose ends, he was still try-
ing to wind up the publishing business, when
chance gave him the opportunity for which his
variety of experience had given him extraordi-
nary preparation. The City of New York, in-
spired by the appeals of William Cullen Bryant
and Andrew Jackson Downing, had embarked
on the novel undertaking of providing a great
public pleasure ground comparable with those of
Europe.
Indorsed by such notables as Asa Gray,
Washington Irving, and Peter Cooper, on Sept.
II, 1857, he was appointed superintendent of
the new Central Park in New York, then under
construction from the design of Captain Egbert
L. Viele; and there Olmsted, at thirty-five,
learned to engage in the bitterly fought but gen-
erally victorious battles between art and poli-
tics which were to tax his energies throughout
the rest of his professional career. Associating
himself with Calvcrt Vaux [#.?>.], a young
English architect whom he had previously met
as Downing's pupil, he entered the competition
for a new design for the park, which the two
young men won under the name of "Greens-
Olmsted
ward." On May 17, 1858, Olmsted was appoint-
ed architect in chief of the Central Park, and,
with Vaux, strove in the face of almost insuper-
able political difficulties, to make the first Amer-
ican park not only a work of art but also a suc-
cessful municipal enterprise. (The full story of
this great undertaking, told partly in OlrnstecT s
own reports, may be found in Olmsted and Kim-
ball, post, vol. II.)
On June 13, 1859, Olmsted married the widow
of his brother John (who had died in 1857),
Mary Cleveland (Perkins) Olmsted, thus be-
coming step-father to her three children, among
them John Charles Olmsted [g.z>.] ; and to this
family, first living in the Central Park, and then
mainly in New York, were added two children
that survived infancy, a daughter and a son,
Frederick Law, Jr. In the fall of 1859, Olmsted
paid an official visit to the parks and gardens of
Europe to procure information of advantage for
the development of Central Park, which, by 1860,
to a large degree took the form intended by its
designers and acquired a gratifying measure of
public use and popularity. In that year, Olm-
sted and Vaux were appointed 'landscape archi-
tects and designers to the Commissioners North
of 1 55th Street," and thus began certain signifi-
cant phases of city planning.
Shortly after the outbreak of the Civil War,
Olmsted secured leave of absence from the Park
to go to Washington, at the invitation of Henry
W. Bellows [#.-z>.], to become general secretary
of the United States Sanitary Commission, the
parent of the American Red Cross ; in some re-
spects this was his most important single public
service (F. L. Olmsted, Jr., post). Worn out
by his arduous labors behind the battle-lines, the
more difficult because of lameness caused by an
accident during the Park's construction, Olm-
sted in 1863 was obliged to resign from the San-
itary Commission, but not before its work was
thoroughly established and its ideals perpetuated
in the newly formed Union League Club, of
which he was a founder. To regain his health,
Olmsted, having with Vaux resigned from the
Park work largely for political reasons, accepted
(August 1863) the superintendency of the Fre-
mont Mariposa mining estates in
where he was joined by his fa;
spring of 1864. The primitive life in
ley, exploratory camping trips in the
and the High Sierras, and landscape
in the region of San Francisco Bay, 4WuWreu
Sll!,!h°*. * h» — » ^scape
n
Olmsted
serving1 as first president of the commission, and
the design of the grounds and residential village
for the new University of California at Berke-
ley.
In the summer of 1865, Olmsted and Yaux
having been reappointed landscape architects tu
the commissioners of Central Park, and also
designers of the new park for Brooklyn, O!m»
steel decided to return to New York, brim; Jug
his landscape work for the San Francisco park,
the Oakland Cemetery, and the University of
California to bo completed by the firm of Olm-
sted, Vaux & Company, From tS(>'; dativ. thr
steady development of his national j>r,ictic<« of
the new art of landscape architecture, t'«»r seven
years in close combination with Van?;, who sup-
plied the architectural background which Olm-
sted himself lacked, and ultimately, after Iwirr
arrangements with Yaux ;md Jacob \\Yiden-
numn, with John Charles OhuMetl and his own
son Frederick Law, Jr., and other pupil',, Dur-
ing this New York period to 18;^ \vhnu after
tips and downs, political machinations finally
removed him from Central Park, the mtv.t iw*.
portant other enterprises of Olmsted aud Vaux
were the laying out of tipper New York, includ-
ing Riverside Park, Prospect Park in Brooklyn,
the suburban village at Riverside near Chicago,
a park for Buffalo, the Chicago Smith Park,
Staten Island improvement, and land Milwlivi-
sions at Tarrytown and frvin&fon, N. Y» In
1874, Olmsted was commissioned to tlc",i#ti the
grounds of the United States Capitol at Wash-
ington, and in 1875 betfan his ctwmvtmn with
what was to become the Boston park system,
Early in 1878, accompanied by his Mojtsnn J<*lw,
Olmsted sought relief from political prr.<.t*n»ti<M
by a four months' holiday in Kuropc during
which the two men studied parks nnd wtwry
with keen enjoyment. After Olmstctl'* return,
he made the vicinity of Boston his principal
headquarters, devoting himself to thtt filnnn «f
the Arnold Arboretum with Professors Asa
Gray and Charles Spraguc Sargent (wnl, the
Boston parks, and the campaign for the protec-
tion of Niagara Falls in association with hi*
friend Charles Eliot Norton f//,r.]f winch rr-
thc general approval of Olnwtctl'K
A A« /' ' tn thlH pcrkxi-
v 5 "f ^ permancnt oln»»t«l home c«m-
°^ f Wf rr0C" Street- BrnoUtae'
ha? "ntil ***' from *«**
26
Olmsted
son), Belle Isle Park in Detroit, the Boston
parks in which John became especially interest-
ed, the improvement of station grounds along
the Boston & Albany Railroad near Boston, and
numerous land subdivisions, grounds of educa-
tional and other institutions, and private estates,
small and large, all over the country. (An ex-
tensive list of public and private clients of the
Olmsted firm, which was constantly developing
as a working organization, may be found in Olm-
sted and Kimball, post, vol. I.) In the later
i88o's, the selection of site and development
plans for Governor Lelancl Stanford's new uni-
versity in Palo Alto, Cal., the publication of the
improvement plan for the whole Niagara Reser-
vation by Olmsted and Vaux, and OlmstetPs par-
ticipation with Charles Sprague Sargent in the
founding of the journal Garden and Forest,
were combined with work on the parks of Roch-
ester, N. Y., and a large number of land subdi-
visions .East and West, and advice to the City
of New York, with Vaux, on Morningside Park
and other matters.
The outstanding works which particularly
filled Olm steel's mind during the last six years
of active professional life were the "Biltmore"
estate for George VV. Vanderbilt at Asheville,
N. C, other Vanderbilt and Rockefeller estates,
the Boston and Hartford parks, parks for sev-
eral Southern cities, especially Louisville, Ky.,
and above all the World's Fair at Chicago, to
which, with "Biltmore," he personally gave the
greater part of his time, although still traveling
about the country to visit other works of the
firm then in progress. When Henry Sargent
Codnian, who had been a member of the Olm-
stecl firm since 1889, died suddenly, early in 1893
before the completion of the World's Fair
grounds, Olmsted, refreshed by a rest and study
tour abroad in 1892, was able to take charge
and bring the landscape development to a suc-
cessful outcome. At the famous dinner of Mar.
25, 1893, in New York, marking the collabora-
tion of artists in creating the White City, Olm-
stecl's life was summed up by Charles Eliot Nor-
ton: "Of all American artists, Frederick Law
Olmsted, who gave the design for the laying-
out of the grounds of the World's Fair, stands
first in the production of great works which an-
swer the needs and give expression to the life
of our immense and miscellaneous democracy"
(Charles Moore, Daniel H. Burnhavt, 1921, vol.
L 79), To this appreciation, Burnham added his
own, "Each of you knows the name and genius
of him who stands first in the heart and confi-
dence of American artists. ... he paints with
lakes and wooded slopes ; with lawns and banks
Olmsted
and forest-covered hills ; with mountainsides
and ocean views. He should stand where I do
to-night, not for his deeds of later years alone,
but for what his brain has wrought and his pen
has taught for half a century" (Ibid., I, 74).
Two more years of professional work were
vouchsafed Olmsted, who leaned more and more
on John and on young Charles Eliot [#.?/.], a
partner since 1893. The last year was spent,
with his son as apprentice, largely at "Biltmore,"
and there in the spring his portrait was painted
outdoors Uy John Singer Sargent On his last
tour abroad in 1895-96 he had "Biltmore" much
at heart, although he had definitely retired from
practice in the fall of 1895. Subsequently his
mind failed after nearly forty years of profes-
sional activity in landscape architecture. He
died at Waverly, Mass, In 1898 his firm had
become Olmsted Brothers, having successively
been called F. L. & J. C. Olmsted (1884-89) ;
F. L. Olmsted & Company (to include Henry S.
Coclman) ; Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot (1893-
1897), and K L. & J. C. Olmsted (for the re-
mainder of 1897), until F. L. Olmsted, Jr., be-
came a full participant.
It is difficult to choose the most significant of
the many great works through which Olmsted,
with his various partners, shaped the art of
landscape architecture in America. Aside from
the World's Fair, which gave the first impulse
to the cooperation of designers and which pro-
foundly influenced the art and science of city
planning, and Central Park, which set a new
ideal of municipal amenity and constructive de-
velopment, perhaps the Prospect Park at Brook-
lyn, and Franklin Park in Boston together with
its related parks and parkways, are the living
examples in which the beholder may catch the
spirit of repose and relief from urban distrac-
tions which Olmsted sought.
He was the more able to advocate his ideals
because of his literary ability, applied not only
to his earlier books, but freely to the reports and
documents which explained his professional
landscape problems. Among such very numer-
ous writings, perhaps the most interest attaches
to reports on Central Park written in 1873
(Olmsted and Kimball, II, p. 569) when a fa-
vorable turn of political events enabled him to
control its policies for a short period, and to the
retrospective pamphlet, The Spoils of the Park
(1882), written in a lighter vein after the bit-
terness of his overthrow had subsided, but lay-
ing bare the political filth which had constantly
retarded his efforts to do justice to the public
interest. His article "Park" in Appleton's New
American Cyclopaedia (vol. XII, 1863) wa$ the
Olmsted
Olmstcd
possession of tho family, as writ ;K of the ihrrr bwi
on lhc Sout1.1- A hnVf skrli'h hy K [" ( *!m -1'''1' h •• '*'
Journey hi the >SV<j/»<wj,/ Shirs .SVu.VA { n>
xi-xxvi. M. (I- Van KrnvM'l.ier, ,i t'lirtM, jmH
on llu; basis til' a Inn;*, inimiru, "KtnlrnrK I ,uv
sled" in the (cjitioy [t!tt,\tni'sJ M^i'fhfv 1/»;.*.
j8(j,^, SLV also a jvri.il .u'firlc hv i
erk'k Law O3ms!c<l ami lli<; \VorK /'
Feb.-July if)oo, \vi(h tlie ;uvrptn!
trait of his later yoars ; H. K. t
Ward, Gcncdltw.v <>f tlw OlmstsJ
(1915); ;V. y. Thnt\\\ Autf. jtj, ii}(
MCITT?^ rmT^iu- , r i
LMSTED, GIDEON (l-cb, u\ tj^o I-V
, «oa captain an<l pnv,it*vr;.n»,»n, u,i t
™st;
aud
ant
Janios
r(1^ t onn., the M»M <»J
( M-akins ) < )ItnstiM and a
first on the subject in any *««• — - _.,_-_
paedia; and his two addresses, before the Amer-
ican Social Science Association, published as
Public Parks and the Enlargement of Towns
(1871) and A Consideration of the Justify ing
Value of a Public Park (iSSi), were milestones
in the development of American civic conscious-
ness. His interest in Garden and Forest, largely
editorial, promoted increased public apprecia-
tion of the landscape art, and a late report on
Central Park (1889) prepared with J. B. Har-
rison, "Observations on the Treatment of Pub-
lic Plantations," represented his long- experi-
ence in park planting- as it reached approximate
maturity. Among the reports for specific de-
signs, in addition to the original "Greensward" to Jjoston »» */M-'- i" yntiffi IH
document, that for Franklin Park, Boston, is per- sels <'"KW<I in the West Intli
haps the most illuminating of all in expressing
his considered ideals for park scenery. By his
writings he gave definition to the terminology
of landscape art, establishing, with Vaux, the
term landscape architect as applied to the pro-
fessional designer and the term park as connot-
ing scenery to be preserved and defended from
urban encroachment.
Olmsted found landscape art in America at a
low ebb. Even Downing reflected the horticul-
tural taste which pervaded public as well as pri-
vate landscape work, and, except for H. W. S.
Cleveland [q.v.~\ and a very few others, "land-
scape gardeners" were usually ill-trained and
interested rather in specimen plants than in pic-
turesque compositions. Downing, however, had
the ideal of public parks, which, deprived of his
advocacy by his sudden death in 1852, descended
to Olmsted who transmuted it into a living force.
In him was the rare combination of philosopher
in »f^»nV
T.K.II,
muthan
n
1 775~/6 wrved with Cnwuriinit wiliti,
Boston. Buck at sra later in t;';*o, !u<
master of the slotip *SV</y/(*;iv; ' l»ut J
from Guadeloupe wa.s t'aptuiv*! Apr, f»,
the British privalm- /IV/V, V\\\\i\ hk WlVWai
Cape .Francois ho took cimmuiui 01 thr Kirnri)
privateer 7W/V ti6«tni:.). < W jatiuirann fnJy
8 the Polly eu^ai'vd 1 1. M, s. (>.\ttii h i ff> ^un-/}
and had fairly beaten hrr when tlu* fliitish
Lowcstoff^s Prize (10 K'»J'O rntrrnl the ae«
tion and after three iuunV hard ti)thtin^ Jnrml
the Polly to surretuler, with a li»,s trf ilih-llve
of her 102 men. While .still a prkmjer t MmstrtJ
was sent from Jamaica to New Vtuk H* Mu-om!
mate in the British ,sloop Actlr^ with thNv othrr
Americans in his watch, Aliwtf nuilui^ht on
Sept 6, off Long Island, lie ami his wafeh tv»».
xmecl the remaining nine t)fl«vrs an*! mm heluw
overcame resistance (in which
steel suffered a pistol wound) fiy nmm a
xu aiuu wcu> uie rare comomation 01 pnnosopner nu^u ^luicreo a pistol wound) l»y iin'n^ a Jntir-
and fighter, -his conceptions, ardently expressed, pounder into the cahin, antl steered* fur the
could be comprehended by many who were orig- Delaware. They were escorted in liv ttu* I Vnn
inally hostile to them and thus be transformed on '""" "" -.--..- ?
iy
sylvania state britf ("(»«n*w//uw which M»
qucntly laid unjustified claim to tiw *t<-irv
the ground into great instruments of public serv- w *<-rv >w
ice. He was slightly built and never physically prize. In the litigation over .ship ami ruw the
strong, yet his inborn vision, his qualities of lead- totter alone worth $98,800, the
ership, and his penetrating sincerity, enabled him Admiralty court granted OJmstetl
incomparably to direct urban life towards outdoor Part> but with the support of Gen, Jknieilicl Ar,
recreation and to leave in dozens of American nold he secured in December 1778 *t whtillv f-i"
cities continuing memorials to his foresight and 7orable decision in the court of amtrnl
en lishd
genms' s^d ft Congrow. Bccnuw of the
[The most extensive source, consisting chiefly of ^5*1 between state and union, no imiiircliitte
i\™ JWrttTis
I "Early Years and fje«! c^ns ^ eta,: Rl«enhof£ 3S Stakeholder. Ohnstw!^ prOHC-
28
Olmsted
on the Rittenliouse heirs, despite a guard of
Pennsylvania militia.
Olmsted returned to Connecticut in June 1779
and commanded successively the privateers
Gamecock (August 17/9), Hawk (spring of
1780), Raven (September I78o-Junc 178.1), and
General Green (spring1 of 1782), cruising chiefly
off Long Island and taking numerous prizes,
The General Green was captured in May 1782
by the much larger enemy privateer Virginia,
and Olmsted probably remained prisoner in
New York till the peace. Thereafter he com-
manded vessels in the Caribbean and European
trade. His last privateering adventure began at
Charleston in June 1793, when he converted his
schooner Hector into a French privateer, taking
out French citizenship papers and narrowly es-
caping prosecution when he entered Wilming-
ton, N. C, in July with a British prize. Evi-
dence suggests that he continued in this activity
until 1795. He was married in 1777 to Mabel,
daughter of Capt. Eliphalet Roberts of Hart-
ford, but had no children. Until about 1809 he
resided in Philadelphia, and later at East Hart-
ford, where he was buried.
[For Olmstcd's career sec L. F. Middlcbrook,
Gideon Qlmslcd, Conn. Private crsw an (1933), with
detailed references to MSS, and printed sources; L. F.
Mtddlebrook, Hist, of Maritime Conn, during the Am.
Revolution (2 vols., ,1925) ; H. K. Olmsted, Gcncal. of
the Ohnstcd Family in America (1012). Among many
sources on the Olmsted claim see U. $. vs. Judge Pe-
ters, 5 C ranch, 115; The Whole Proceedings in the
Case of Olmsted and Others vs. Rittenhouse's Rxccu-
trices (1809) ; Sundry Docs. Rel. to the Claim of Gid-
eon- Olmsted Af/awtst the Commonwealth of Pa. (1808) ;
Jours, of the Continental Cong,, 1779.] A.W.
OLMSTED, JOHN CHARLES (Sept. 14,
i852-Peb. 24, 1920), landscape architect, was
born in Geneva, Switzerland. He was the eld-
est of the three children of John Hull Olmsted,
who, after studying at Yale, in 1851 married
Mary Cleveland (Perkins), received the M.D,
degree from the College of Physicians and Sur-
geons in 1852, and then went abroad. After in-
terludes in America, in 1857 John Hull died at
Nice, leaving his wife and young family in
charge of his brother Frederick Law Olmsted
fc/.-z;.], who married the widow in 1859. There
was a strong bond of common interest between
Frederick Law and the young John Charles,
who, even at the age of twelve, demonstrated his
enjoyment of the outdoor world during the fam-
ily's residence in California, and especially dur-
ing an exploring trip made in 1864 eastward
through the High Sierras- Late in 1865 the fam-
ily returned to New York, which remained its
actual headquarters until 1881. Largely on ac-
count of the travels of his parents, John Charles
Olmsted
received his early education from private teach-
ing. He graduated from the Sheffield Scientific
Sotj^Qpl at Yale in 1875 with the degree of Ph.B.
FnSnY 1859 when, before their western trip,
the Olmsted family resided for a time in the
Central Park in New York, then developing un-
der his step-father's charge, John Charles lived
in the midst of the designing and construction
of works of landscape architecture, and came to
apprehend the social and political phases through
which esthetic success in public works had to
be achieved, After graduation from Yale, he en-
tered the landscape office oE his step-father (then
at 209 West 46th St., New York), and in 1878
was given a financial interest in the practice.
Although he always emphasized the professional
character of landscape architecture, he early
showed marked business ability and the power
to keep a large number of projects- — for public
and private clients — moving steadily along. In
this, he was an invaluable aid to his step-father,
whose genius could be in some measure released
for expression of the philosophical and esthetic
phases of the art as these appeared in the ever-
widening and diversified practice of the office.
The calm, stable, practical abilities of John
Charles Olmsted established the professional
practice of the firm on such a sound basis that it
not only advanced the profession in the eyes of
the world but also influenced the organization
of the offices of many later firms of landscape
architects in the United States.
In 1884, following removal of the office to
Brooklinc, Mass., John Charles became a full
partner in F. L. and J. C. Olmsted. After his
step-father's retirement in 1895 he became sen-
ior partner in the firm, which after 1898 was
called Olmsted Brothers, and shared responsi-
bilities with his half-brother Frederick Law, Jr.,
and other later partners until his death in Brook-
line in 1920. Although he traveled extensively
in the course of his more than forty years of pro-
fessional practice, he kept in the closest touch
with the office organization. During the period
when lie was senior partner, approximately 3,500
jobs came to the firm; and the proportion of
these with which he made himself familiar was
very large. He was concerned alone or with
his partners in the design of hundreds of pri-
vate estates, large and small, in all parts of the
country, and the grounds of many institutions,
including Smith College, ML Holyoke College,
and Ohio State University, of industrial plants
(notably the National Cash Register Company
of Dayton, Ohio), public buildings, state capitols,
and exposition grounds, including the Chicago
World's Fair in 1893, the Lewis and Clark Ex-
Olmsted
position at Portland, Ore., 1906, the Seattle Ex-
position of 1909, the San Diego Exposition of
1915, and the Canadian Industrial Exposition
at Winnipeg. Of the many parks in the design
of which he participated, the Hartford (Conn.)
parks, the Boston municipal parks and park-
ways, the Essex County (N. J.) park system,
and the Chicago Southside Playgrounds which
set a new standard in community playgrounds,
engaged his special interest; and the parks of
Bridgeport, Conn., Trenton, N, J,, Buffalo and
Rochester, N. Y., Dayton, Ohio, Detroit, Mich.,
Milwaukee, Wis., Seattle and Spokane, Wash.,
Portland, Ore., Louisville, Ky., Atlanta, Ga.,
and New Orleans, La., are evidences of his far-
reaching influence for the public benefit, exer-
cised in conjunction with Frederick Law Olm-
sted, Sr., or other partners. He kept in close
touch with the operation of parks through his
active membership in the American Association
of Park Superintendents. He made an early
contribution, also, to the still inchoate science
of city planning- in his solutions of difficulties in
connection with park system design and in his
interpretations to civic leaders. He served as
the first president of the American Society of
Landscape Architects (founded 1899) and for
many years on the executive board. He was also
active in the formation of the Boston Society of
Landscape Architects.
Unlike his partners, F. L. Olmsted, Sr., and
Jr., J. C. Olmsted has only a very brief list of
writings to his credit. Many of his letters con-
taining valuable statements of the principles of
park system design were incorporated into re-
ports by the firm without differentiation as to
authorship. As an example of his writing on
parks, an extract from the Report of Olmsted
Brothers on a Proposed Parkway System for
scape problems by the French writer he Due"
d'Harcourt. e ' the Duc
Olmsted was short of stature but cosset «f
quiet dignhy. retiring but abound ^±0°
gentie and kindly but firm and alway! poss s?ed
of the courage of his conviction, « his in-
Olmsted
dustrious methods of mastering a problem, and
his wide knowledge of practical community af-
fairs, he inspired confidence in citi/ons charged
with responsibility for larjjo undertaking within
the field of landscape architecture, and \vas thus
able to sec realized to a very considerable extent
the projects to which his "independence of
thought, great fertility of resource, a pains-tak-
ing1 care for the details of his schemes" nnd his
thorough knowledge of materials t;ave potency
(Pray, post, p, 105),
On Jan. 18, r8g<j, in Brooldine, be married
Sophia Buekland White; they bad two daugh-
ters.
.[J. S. Pray, "John Charlrs Oluistnl, A Miwilr im
His Life awl Service/1 with jwtnut, m /V<**n, ,-fW(
Soc. of Lamhcapf Art'hitcct$t /yov KVJ t I«KV), wlm-h
has been interpreted by thr writer <-f thi;« '.Irtrh in thr
light of her editorial work on thr Ohn'.f'-ii jMfirr-. 4ml
her personal aequaintaner with j, r, nhnMol; \;' 7,
Mischc, "In Memorial)!, jnlw Oj.ulr. U!nr,tnl(" wsih
another portrait, in (V/,-,v <im/ AVr»v»f/i,'»j( April t«^«r
Yah University, Obit. AVw</ *•/ <»V,n/,v, /V* >uw»/ «/»r '
vng the Year Jtnitint) Jutv t, wo < n^n - /fowim /••<"
ninffTranMrifit, Keh. 4, n^o ; H, K. ult^M t«,,|'(;
K, Ward, bcwtttoity of tit*' Olm.stc*! l^ttnity w lwtn*
(191^ ' T.K.H.
OLMSTED, MARL1N EDGAR (May jt
i847-J«ly K>, i<;i3), lawyer, eunKivsMiun, ^nl
of Henry Jason and Kvalcna Tberc-.a ( t unhing )
Olmsted, was seventh in descent t'nnn Richard
Olmsted who came to America with !iU uncle,
James, in 1632 and eventually settled at Norwolk,
Conn, Born in Ulysses Township. Jitter ("mm-*
ty, Pa., Marlin Edjrar was edncatrd in public
schools and at Gnulerspurt Acadt*myf entered
politics, and was elected auditor of the Imnju&h
of Comlcrsport at the age trf twenty -tw*». Ho
had already been appointed assistant corporation
clerk of the state in charge of rorpuratfcuMax
collection. Continued in this1 '
,. TT,^.+ „ Detnocrntic victt>ry
at the polls resulted in Ins removal from office
m 1875, he turned at once to the .study of law
reading in the office of a local jiufoe. Admitted
ata imp°rtant pnlCtke' »e was
att"nej .for ™W corporations an<! his pleas
„ j" • '•" S°™e rf the most ««>P«tant Ameri-
™ ""** ««w (SeC espt-
'
3°
Olmsted
wealth vs. Westinghoitsc Electric & Manufac-
turing Co., 151 Pa., 265; Western Union Tele-
graph Co. vs. Pennsylvania, 128 U. S., 39).
While thus engaged in extensive legal prac-
tice, he again entered politics, serving in the
select council of Harrisburg. Elected to Con-
gress in 1896 by a heavy majority, he was con-
tinuously returned until his voluntary retirement
from public life in the elections of 1912. In Con-
gress he rapidly rose to distinction. He was
earnest in defense of the Republican party and
its policies. Tariff protection and the gold stand-
ard, the dominant Republican measures, re-
ceived his immediate and lasting support. Ap-
pointed at once on Committee on Elections No.
2, he rendered able service and is credited with
having done much during the next decade to
establish the committee as a judicial rather than
a political tribunal. Placed, in his second term,
on the Committee for the Revision of Laws, he
was influential in framing and securing the
adoption in 1900 of the governmental code of
Alaska. By reason of his mastery of parliamen-
tary procedure, he was often chairman of the
Committee of the Whole and at times speaker
pro teniporc. After his death, it was stated in
a eulogy in Congress that he was slated as the
Republican successor of Speaker Cannon, a plan
which was ruined by the Democratic control of
the House after the congressional elections of
1910.
Late in his congressional career, Olmsted
served on the important Committee on Appro-
priations, but his name is best known in connec-
tion with his work on the Committee on Insular
Affairs, of which he became chairman in the
Sixty-first Congress. Here he was actively con-
nected with legislation for Puerto Rico, the
Philippines, and other insular possessions of the
United States. When in 1909 the Puerto Rican
legislature adjourned without having made new
governmental appropriations, Olmsted, in the
face of strong opposition, secured, by an amend-
ment of the Foraker Act of 1900, the passage of
a bill extending to Puerto Rico legislation already
adopted in regard to the Philippines and Hawaii,
by which old appropriations should run until new
appropriations should be made. Probably more
significant was the civil government program
for Puerto Rico which he presented in 1910, but
which was held up in the Senate and put into
operation in modified form only after his death.
When he retired to private life in 1913, his
health was badly shattered, A brief vacation did
him little good and on July 19, 1913, he died sud-
denly in New York City, following" an operation.
He was survived by his wife, Gertrude (How-
Olney
ard) Olmsted, daughter of Maj. Con way R,
Howard, of Richmond, Va., whom he had mar-
ried at Lynchburg on Oct. 26, 1899, and by live
children. Olmsted was a man of distinguished
appearance and by arduous study, clear analysis,
and acute logic, established a high reputation as
a lawyer and legislator.
[A Biog. Album of Prominent Pcnnsylvanians, 2
fier. (1889) ; Year Book of the Pa. Soc.t 1914; L. R.
Kelker, Hist, of Dauphin County, Pa. (1907), vol. Ill ;
Biog. Dir. Am, Cong, (1928) ; Who's Who in America,
191-2-1:3 ; H. K. Olmsted and G. K. Ward, Gcncal. of
the Olmsted Family in America (1912) ; Patriot (Ilar-
rislmrg, Pa,), July 21, 1913; N. Y. Times, July 20,
1913.] A.PJ.
OLNEY, JESSE (Oct. 12, 1798-July 30,
1872), author of textbooks, was born at Union,
Conn,, the eighth of the ten children of Ezekiel
Olney and his second wife, Lydia Brown. His
ancestor, Thomas Olney, emigrated to Salem,
Massachusetts, in 1635 and later aided Roger
Williams in the founding of Providence. His
grandfather, Jeremiah, and his father, as well as
many other relatives, were officers in the Revo-
lutionary army. His mother's family was of
English stock long resident in America. The boy
obtained most of his education at Whitesboro,
N. Y. He was a precocious student with a spe-
cial bent for the classics and geography. For a
few years he taught in New York state; then
moved to Hartford, Conn., where for twelve
years, beginning in 1821, he was principal of the
Stone School. He was a born teacher ; effective
pedagogical methods were instinctive with him.
Dissatisfied with the classroom manuals in use,
he sought to replace them with better ones and
shortly proved himself a. most successful text-
book maker. His first venture was A Practical
System of Modern Geography (1828), fallowed
the next year by A New and Improved School
Atlas (1829). It was immediately successful.
The study of geography had but recently been
introduced into American elementary education
and was still a tail to the cosmographical kite.
Its texts were dull and uninteresting, quite be-
yond the comprehension of elementary students.
Olney's book was suited to his pupils. Beginning
with the simple and known facts of their immedi-
ate surroundings, it carried them forward to a
knowledge of distant lands and complex phe-
nomena. Rudimental as the method seems now,
it was new at the time. The book passed through
nearly a hundred editions and millions of copies
were sold. There were few American school
children of that generation whose ideas of the
outer world, both true and false, were not formed
by it. If our grandfathers believed that "Italians
are affable and polite . , . but they are effeminate,
31
Olney
superstitious, slavish, and revengeful," Olney
no doubt must be held accountable.
Three years after the book's appearance he
abandoned teaching to devote the rest of his hie
to textbook writing- and to politics. Among his
publications of the next twenty years were vari-
ous readers, the most popular of which was 7 he
National Preceptor; or Selections in Prose and
Poetry (2nd ed., 1829) ; a common-school arith-
metic; a history of the United Slates; and sev-
eral new books of geography. Being a firm be-
liever in visual education, he prepared outline
maps with accompanying exercises. The success
of his textbooks gave him both financial inde-
pendence and a reputation. When he stood for
a seat in the Connecticut legislature in 1835, he
was easily elected. For eight terms he represent-
ed Southington, where he lived from 1833 to
1854. For two years (1867-68) he was state
comptroller of public accounts. Throughout his
political career his interest lay primarily in edu-
cation. He was a strong supporter of the move-
ment which culminated in the organization of a
state board of commissioners of public schools
(1838) and a vigorous advocate of generous ap-
propriations for the support of elementary edu-
cation. In religion, as in other things, he was a
liberal, and in middle life he joined a Unitarian
church. He married Elizabeth Barnes of Hart-
ford in 1829; of their six children one, Ellen
Warner (Olney) Kirk, gained some reputation
as a writer of fiction. In 1854 Olney moved to
Stratford, Conn., where he died in 1872.
[J. H. Olney, A Geneal of the Descendants of
Thomas Olney (1889) j The Am, Ann. Cyc. for 1872
(1873) ; Charles Hammond and H. M. Lawson, The
Hist, of Union, Conn. (1893) ; H. R. Timlow, Ecclesi-
astical and Other Sketches of Southfaffton, Conn.
(1875) ; Am. Hist. Record, Sept 1872 ; Hartford Daily
Courant, Aug. i, 1872.] P.D.E.
OLNEY, RICHARD (Sept. 15, iSsS-Apr. 8,
1917), lawyer, attorney-general, secretary of
state, was born at Oxford, Mass. His father,
Wilson Olney, was a descendant of Thomas
Olney, a follower of Roger Williams ; his mother,
Eliza L. (Butler), was connected with the Sig-
ourney family, Huguenot settlers of Oxford. At
Leicester Academy, Brown University (A.M.,
1856), and the Harvard Law School (LL.B.,
1858), he successively won distinction. He was
admitted to the bar in 1859 and entered the Bos-
ton office of Benjamin F. Thomas, whose daugh-
ter, Agnes, he married, Mar. 6, 1861, and to
whose practice he succeeded, Confining himself
to testamentary and corporation cases, which he
conducted personally, he attained a respected po-
sition in professional and business circles but
did not appear in the courts or in public. Square-
Olney
hewn and forbidding of litfnre ami face, with
drooping mustache and Mevn dark e\e"N he at-
tracted and sought no social iutimane ,. 1 hn ad-
herence to the Democratic party ai'tovdni him
little chance for a political carer, t !e \V;K elected
to the slate legislature in iS^, Imt, alter suc-
cessive defeats for reelection and fur two other
offices, he gave up politics, lie wax therefore,
hardly known to the people even of hi:. < w n .state
in 1803, w'u'u hc was *'Ieet<'tl Kv ^'^ajid as
attorney-general to represent New Km:land in
the cabinet.
Besides the concern of his department with
the test case of the Sherman Auti Tnr4 1 aw
brought by his |>redeees',or ar.aiuM thr '-war
refiners, which was iliswisMMl by the Snpivme
Court in January tSq$ ( l\ S. vs. /;, ('. Knitjht
Co,, 156 It. S. /\Y/n>;tv, D. he jvive nweh atten-
tion in his first year to outside- ari'.iir ;, !!!•< in-
sistence that; any action toward undniwi the ef-
fects of the recent tvw/1 f/V/t;/ in llaw.ui Miould
be predicated on an amnesty to the leadn , pie-
vented a restoration of Owen LilwoKaUtu, al-
though the treaty of annexation nrj*t»iiated t»y
the provisional government xv,v. dropped, !?.y
making a preliminary draft he materially a-. .1 .tr<!
President Cleveland in preparing; hi-, we-, w t*>
Congress asking repeal of the silver fmrelm:,e
clauses of the Act of 1800.
The economic unrest xvluclt found overt ex-
pression in the. spring of iKt>4 in the march of
Coxey's Army on Washington was prevented
from assuming more serious proportion'* l»y the
prompt action taken under Olney's onlei ^ to pro-*
tcct the trains on the Western railroads iVnw
seizure by additional contingents of unemployed
demons! rants. When, later that summer, the
American Railway Union, in suppoit of the
striking employees of the Pullman Company,
paralyzed several roads by strikes ^rovung nut
of the refusal to bandit4 Pullman ears, tin* At!*
ministration made a straight ease a^aiuht the
Union on the ground of obstruction of the mails,
Olney directed the protection of mail traiiH by
deputy marshals and obtained from I'Ytlerul
judges in Chicago an injunction rest ruining the
activities of Eugene V. Debs, president cif the,
Union, and other leaders* Federal troop* were
moved into Chicago, Debs [^n] and his lieu-
tenants were arrested, awl the strike cnHajwt'tl
Olney directed the argument in the Supreme
Court, in March 1895, against their unsuccess-
ful appeal from a sentence for contempt c>f wurt
(In re Debs, Petitioner, 158 U. S, Reports, 564)*
While he had shown throughout no concern with
the underlying- issues of the case, handling1 it
opened his eyes to their gravity, He afterwards
Olney
upheld the rights of organized labor and sup-
ported the movement which brought about the
arbitration act of 1898. His last important task
as attorney-general was the defense before the
Supreme Court of the income tax provisions of
the Wilson-Gorman tariff act Despite his force-
ful arguments, the Court ruled against the Gov-
ernment, May 20, 1895, by a vote of five to four
(Pollock vs. Fanners' Loan and Trust Co., 158
U.S. Reports, 601).
Upon the death of Walter Q. Gresham [g.^.]
Olney, who had become a pillar of the adminis-
tration and whose harsh personality had been
mellowed by the social life of the capital, was
chosen by Cleveland to fill his place as secretary
of state. He was commissioned in his new office,
June 8, 1895. Undertaking to push to a con-
clusion the repeatedly frustrated efforts of his
predecessors toward inducing the British gov-
ernment to arbitrate the boundary dispute be-
tween Venezuela and British Guiana, he dis-
patched to Thomas F. Bayard, the ambassador
at London, on July 20, 1895, with Cleveland's
enthusiastic approval, the spirited declaration
that, by withholding from arbitration a part of
the disputed territory, the British were construc-
tively extending their colonization in America
in opposition to the "established policy" of the
United States defined by President Monroe. His
statement that, owing to its Isolation and re-
sources, "the United States is practically sover-
eign on this continent, and its fiat is law upon
the subjects to which It confines its Interpo-
sition/' was not put to the test of an immediate
comparison between the forces of the United
States and those of Great Britain, because Great
Britain, concerned with new and threatening In-
ternational problems in Europe and South Africa,
could not meet the challenge with a free hand.
President Cleveland's seriousness of purpose In
backing Olney was demonstrated by his appoint-
ment, under authority asked of Congress, of a
commission to fix a line beyond which any ex-
tension of British authority would be resisted by
the United States. After complicated negoti-
ations, Olney secured Lord Salisbury's agree-
ment to an arbitration safeguarding British set-
tlements of fifty years' standing, under which
the award of 1899 gave Venezuela the smaller
portion of the territory that Great Britain had
demanded.
The Venezuelan controversy was the occasion
for the renewal of discussion of the project of
an Anglo-American general treaty of arbitration,
already under consideration for some years.
When suggested by Salisbury In January 1896,
Olney took up the subject earnestly. He en-
Olney
deavorcd in the correspondence which followed
to secure the greatest possible extension of
arbitrable subjects and assurance of the binding
force of awards. A treaty largely satisfying his
desires through a combination of Ingenious
formulae was signed in January 1897, but was
not acted on by the Senate until after his retire-
ment, when consent to ratification was denied.
Throughout his secretaryship Olney was vexed
by problems connected with a new revolt in
Cuba, which demanded constant activity : on the
one hand, in preventing filibustering and, on the
other, in pressing claims for the redress of in-
juries to nationals of the United States. Like
Secretary Hamilton Fish under similar circum-
stances, he resisted the pressure for recognition
of the belligerency of rebel forces which had no
responsible organization capable of constituting
a government. He likewise strove to persuade
Spain to adopt a constructive program of re-
forms ; but a note to this effect sent to the Span-
ish minister on Apr. 4, 1896, met with a dilatory
response. The subsequent political weakness of
the Cleveland administration prevented it from
going forward with any strong policy.
In the disorders prevailing in China and
Turkey, Olney insisted as vigorously and firmly
as in the case of Cuba on the protection of Amer-
ican lives and property and on reparation for
Injuries. When the situation was reversed and
Italians were lynched in Colorado and Louisiana,
he readily admitted, subject to determination of
the facts and to the reserved rights of the states,
the obligation of the federal government to in-
demnify the families of the victims.
After his retirement, on Mar. 5, 1897, he re-
turned to his law practice and did not again en-
ter political life; but he served on the boards of
many foundations, wrote and spoke on public
questions, and remained a prominent figure In
the Democratic party. He declined offers from
President Wilson of the posts of ambassador to
Great Britain and governor of the Federal He-
serve Board, but supported all the policies of the
Wilson administration in its foreign relations,
including those with Germany. He died from
a cancer two days after the declaration of war
in 1917. His wife and two daughters survived
him.
[Henry James, Richard Olney and His Public Serv-
ice (1923), based on Qlney's papers, with list of his
published articles and addresses; Grover Cleveland,
Presidential Problems (1904); A, L. P. Dennis, Ad-
ventures in American Diplomacy (1928) ; Papers Re-
lating to the Foreign Relations of the U. S.f 1895-97;
sketch by Montgoinery Schuyler in S. F. Bemis, ed.,
The Am. Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy,
vol. VIII (1928) ; Boston Daily Globe, Apr. 10, 1917.]
J.V.F.
33
Olyphant
OLYPHANT, DAVID WASHINGTON
CINCINNATUS (Mar. 7, i;89-June 10,
1851), merchant and philanthropist, was born at
Newport, R. L, the son of David (1720-1805)
and Ann (Vernon) Olyphant. His father, a
nephew of Lord Olyphant, was educated as a
physician, in his youth supported the Stuarts,
and after the eclipse of the Jacobite cause in the
battle of Culloden emigrated to South Carolina.
In the Revolution he served the colonies in sev-
eral capacities, among them as director of South-
ern hospitals. After the Revolution, he was a
member of the General Assembly of South Caro-
lina. He was also a member of the Society of
the Cincinnati. In 1785 he moved to Rhode
Island, apparently because of failing health, and
there married.
In 1806, shortly after the death of his aged fa-
ther, young David went to New York to seek
his fortune. Here he entered the counting-room
of his cousin, Samuel King, senior partner of
King & Talbot, a firm engaged in the then
flourishing trade with China. In 1812 he re-
moved to Baltimore, forming1 a business connec-
tion with a Mr. Bucklin of that city. The stormy
years during and after the War of 1812 worked
the ruin of that venture, and in 1817 Olyphant,
in debt, returned to New York. Here he was
associated with George W. Talbot, formerly of
King & Talbot, and succeeded in paying his
obligations. In 1818 he entered the employ of
Thomas H. Smith, a picturesque figure with a
somewhat meteoric career, who for a time was
one of the most notable merchants in the China
trade. From 1820 to about 1823 Olyphant was
in Canton as Smith's agent, then returned to
America for a few years, after which period he
again held the Canton agency of the Smith firm
— from 1826 until the spectacular failure of his
employer (1827 or 1828). Thereupon, he formed
in Canton, with C. N. Talbot, the son of his
early friend, the firm of Olyphant & Company,
and, returning to the United States, organized
in New York a house under the name of Talbot,
Olyphant & Company. In these business con-
nections he continued until his death. Twice
again he was in China— from 1834 to 1837 and
from 1850 to 1851. It was while returning from
the last trip that he died in Cairo.
Olyphant is remembered even more for his
religious and philanthropic activities than for
his business career. While in Baltimore, in 1814,
he formally announced himself a Christian, and,
as was natural for one with his Scotch heritage,
he became active in the Presbyterian Church. It
was in part as a result of his interest that the
first American Protestant missionary to China,
Olyphant
Elijah C. Bridgnian [</,?'. |, went to Canton,
Bridgnum and David Abed |</.r. |— the latter
an agent of the American Seaman's Friend So
ciety, in which Olyphant was also interested-—
arrived in Canton in 1830, having been &iven
free passage by Olyphunt's company on one of
its ships. Olyphunl un<! his partners provided
quarters for the mission free of rent for thirteen
years. Olyphant also underwrote the famous
publication of tins early American mission, the
Chinese Repository. lie and his partners pro-
vided free passage to Oiina for manv mission-
aries, including the distinguished S, \\VIls Wil-
liams [V/.?1. 1 Iln(l *'10 tn'st Prntr-itant medical
missionary in China, Peter Parker | '/•'*• I* In
1836 his firm purchased a vessel, the flinntleh,
for the purpose of aiding in the distribution of
Christian literature alontf the coast of China, and
it was the ftfonwn, another of the company's
ships, which in 1837 made a voyage- to Japan in
a memorable attempt to open that country to in-
tercourse with Americans while restoring1 seven
shipwrecked Japanese sailors to thetr homes,
Olyphant was a member of the American Board
of Commissioners for Foreign Mission*; and of
the executive committee of the Presbyterian
Board of Foreign Missions, and it was largely
in the interest of missions that he matte the trip
to China which cost him his life, It was, more-
over, from deep moral conviction that he and his
firm refused to participate in the profitable opium
traffic which bulked so larj^e in the foreign im-
ports to China in his day, He was married to
Mrs. Ann Archer in May 1815, and his sons, one
of whom was Robert Morrison Olyphant lf/.f/j,
continued his business,
CJ, N. Arnold, Vital Record of ft. /„ M.*<* ^ i/f.fo, vwK
IV (1893), pt. 2> pp, sjs, 107, XIV ( wsh J>. uK< XX
(i9ii),I>. -si(> ; Harrimw KUery, **Tht Vrrww Family,"
New-tiny. Uijft. and 6Yflt*#/, AV#,, July iH;t>; Thutczwr
Thayer, A Sketch of ths Li fit <tf />, W* C. OtyfihtMt,
Who Died at Cairo * Jam* /<>, J#5/» with a Tnl*ut? to
fits Memory (1853); Chinese AV£«w'<0i% July *H$t j
W* C, Hunter, Thff Pan /Ctew1 a* Canton Iwf&rt Treaty
Days, t8j$»x$44 (Shanghai, 1884) ; K, S, 2,atmirctie.
"The Hist, of Early Relation* IMwwi thr U, S, ami
China, r 784-1 #44," Trans, of th® Conn, AemL of Arts
and Sciences, vol. XXII (19*7) ; K, W, Wiliiami, The
Life and Letters of Samuel Wills William*, /,/„#.
(1889).] K.S.J*
OLYPHANT, ROBERT MORRISON
(Sept 9, i8«4-May 3, 1918), merchant, railroad
president, was born in New York City* He wan
the youngest son of David W. C, Olyphant Iq&J]
and his wife, Ann, His father was a member of
Talbot, Olyphant & Company, merchants in the
China trade, whose record of cooperation with
missionaries and refusal to engage in the opium
trade gained for their office in China the nick-
name of "Zion's Corners." As a child, Robert
34
Olyphant
attended private schools in Troy, N. Y., Middle-
town, Conn., and New York City. He entered
Columbia College with the class of 1843, at tliQ
age of fifteen, and graduated in three years
(1842). On Oct. 13, 1846, he married Sophia,
daughter of William Vernon of Middletown, R.
I., and after her death, 1855, he married her sis-
ter Anna, Aug. 13, 1857.
After his graduation from Columbia, he en-
tered the employ of his father's firm and in 1844
visited China, returning a year later. He was
rapidly advanced and soon became a partner.
Shortly before 1858 he reorganized his father's
old firm, Olyphant & Company, Canton, China,
and engaged in a general importing, shipping,
commission, and mercantile business with the
Orient, being careful to maintain the high stand-
ards which had characterized the concern under
his father's direction. He resided in China four
years and 'upon his return directed the business
from New York until he retired from foreign
trade in 1873.
During the later years of this period he turned
his attention to the Delaware & Hudson Canal
Company (later Delaware & Hudson Company),
in which members of his family had been inter-
ested since 1852. This company was principally
engaged in operating railroads and anthracite
coal mines, though it also operated a canal, a
gravity road, and steamboat lines on Lake Cham-
plain and Lake George. He served as a member
of its board of managers, 1867-68, 1873-74, and
1883-1918 ; was elected assistant president, 1876 ;
vice-president, 1882; acting president, 1884;
and president, Oct. 24, 1884. In this last capac-
ity he served until his seventy-ninth year, retir-
ing from active management, May 13, 1903. He
was then made chairman of the executive com-
mittee, an honorary position. Olyphant's presi-
dency was a quiet period in which the company
reaped the advantages of previous construction
and consolidation of its railroad properties. His
policy was improvement rather than enlarge-
ment. He maintained the property at a high de-
gree of efficiency and substantially increased the
assets of the company in spite of sacrifices in-
volved in the abandonment of the canal and
gravity road during his administration. He
dealt firmly with employees during strikes at the
company's mines, and he regarded the award of
the anthracite strike commission which followed
the strike of 1902 as a concession to humanity
and not to the strikers.
He liked to consider himself an old-fashioned
business man. In his investments he preferred
safety to large returns. He rarely took a vaca-
tion, and when he left the city he kept up a con-
O'Mahony
stant supervision over his business concerns. He
had, also, numerous interests in art, science, and
philanthropy, and he formed a noteworthy col-
lection of American works of art. As a fellow of
the National Academy of Design he assisted in
raising funds for the erection of its first build-
ing. He gave liberally toward missionary work in
China and was a patron of the Canton Christian
Church. His death occurred in New York City
in his ninety-fourth year ; he had ten children.
[.Reg. of Saint Andrew's Soc. of the State of N. F.,
2 vSer., pt. II (1922?) ; MS. notes and clippings in the
library of the N. Y. Hist. Soc. ; A Century of Progress:
Hist, of the Del. and Hudson Co., 1823—1923 (1925) ;
printed and MS. material from the records of the com-
pany ; World (N. Y.), May 17, 1903 ; "The Oldest Liv-
ing Graduate," Columbia Alumni ffcwSj Apr. 5, 1912;
N. K. Times, May 4, 1918.] ECS
O'MAHONY, JOHN (i8i6~Feb. 6, 1877),
Fenian leader, was born near Mitchelstown,
County Cork, Ireland, not far from Kilbeheny
in Limerick, where his father, Daniel O'Mahony,
held some lands. The family was popular on ac-
count of its nationalist feeling and its opposition
in the past to the Earls of Kingston, whose es-
tates were near by. Both O'Mahony's father
and an uncle are said to have been concerned in
the rebellion of 1798. Like his elder brother,
Thomas Daniel, John attended Hamblin's School
at Middleton in Cork and went thence to Trinity
College, Dublin, where he was admitted as a
"pensioner" on July i, 1833, ^ut never took a
degree. Apparently the death of his father and
brother left him in possession of their property,
and he settled down to the life of a gentleman
farmer. When the enthusiasts of the "Young
Ireland" party broke away from O'Connell in
disgust with his caution, O'Mahony adhered to
them. He was then living on "a small paternal
property" near Carrick-on-Suir, and he or-
ganized in the district one of the clubs which the
"confederates" hoped to utilize in a revolt. In
1848, he shared the fortunes of Smith O'Brien
and others in their brief and abortive insurrec-
tion, but escaped arrest, and remained in hiding
until September, when he and John Savage for
some days carried on a guerrilla campaign in the
valley of the Suir, and had several conflicts with
the police. On Sept. 26 Dublin Castle offered a
reward of £100 for O'Mahony's apprehension;
nevertheless, after a whole series of hairbreadth
escapes, he got safely away to France. There he
lived in poverty until, apparently, late in 1853,
when he went to New York. The next year he
helped organize a military body called the Emmet
Monument Association, designed to turn Brit-
ain's difficulties in the Crimean War to Irish
advantage. This organization disbanded when
35
O'Mahony
the war ended, but was the foundation of the
later Fenian movement. About this time O'Ma-
hony had a fit of insanity and was temporarily
confined in an asylum; but his friend John
O'Leary (post) affirms his belief that he was
quite sane during the rest of his life.
In 1857 O'Mahony published a translation of
Geoffrey Keating's seventeenth-century Gaelic
History of Ireland (Foras fcasa ar Eirinn . . .
The History of Irelmd) which, though hastily
executed and taken from bad texts, seems to have
commanded respect from scholars. This work
gave much attention (e.g., pp. 343 ff.) to the
Fenians (Fiann), the legendary defenders of
Ireland in the time of Finn, and here probably
O'Mahony got the idea of a name for a new mili-
tant organization, Towards the end of 1857 he
and other Irishmen in New York suggested to
James Stephens (see Dictionary of National
Biography, 2nd Supp.), an 1848 rebel still in
Ireland, that he should organize a revolutionary
society there. On being promised financial sup-
port, Stephens inaugurated his secret movement
in Dublin on Mar. 17, 1858. In Ireland the so-
ciety, known later as the Irish Republican or
Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, was headed
by Stephens; the American branch, called the
Fenian Brotherhood, was directed by O'Mahony
as "Head Centre." The movement spread in
America — slowly at first — and modest sums were
transmitted to Stephens. In 1860-61 O'Mahony
visited Ireland and had a violent interview with
Stephens, who accused him of affording him too
little support ; complete confidence was never re-
stored between the two men afterwards. During
the Civil War, O'Mahony worked to obtain Irish
recruits for the Union army. Early in 1864 he
raised the 99th Regiment, New York National
Guard; became its colonel; and did duty with it
at the Elmira prison camp.
At the end of the war the Brotherhood was
prosperous, and O'Mahony sent drillmasters and
large financial aid to Stephens. Disputes now
arose between O'Mahony and hostile elements in
his organization, growing worse after the Brit-
ish government nipped gtephens's conspiracy
in the bud in September 1865. In October a
Fenian congress in Philadelphia adopted a new
constitution styling O'Mahony president and
providing a senate to check his powers. In De-
cember an open quarrel occurred over the sale
of Fenian bonds, O'Mahony desiring to proceed
with it at once to aid those still conspiring in
Ireland, while the senate enjoined dday. The or-
ganization split in two, each faction claiming' to
be the Fenian Brotherhood. The senate party
elected W. R. Roberts ft.-,.] as president and
O'Malley
made plans to invade Canada, In January 1866,
a congress of O'Mahony *s adherents votrd con-
fidence in him and restored the old constitution,
In April, however, he gave a roluetant consent
to a hostile demonstration a^ninst (*anipohello
Island (part of the province of New Hrunswiek),
which proved a fiasco and was fatal to liU popu-
lar reputation. Soon afterwards* Stephens, who
had escaped from prison, arrived in New York*
and on May u accepted (VMahony's resignation.
In 1872 O'Mahony was called out of retirement
to resume the leaden-hip of the Hrothcrhtxu!,
then only a shadow of the formidable orftani/a-
tion of 1865; he now bore the title of executive
secretary* but in 1875 again took that of "Heat!
Centre," and held it until immediately before his
death. His Inxly was sent from New York to
Ireland, and on both sides of the Atlantic there
were impressive memorial demonstrations. He
was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, on
Mar* 4, 1877.
O'Mahony never married, O'Leary spoke of
him as physically "perhaps the manliest and
handsomest man" he ever saw, and f relieved Jam
to be "the soul of truth and honour/* Whatever
may be said of his methods, the sincerity of hi*
Irish patriotism is undoubted. With Stephen* he
shares, for better or worse, the* credit of fount!*
ing1 the formidable Fenian awitty. He was in-
different to money, and although he handled large
sums of Fenian funds he died in poverty. His
judgment was faulty and his behavior autocratic ;
but he remains one of the most attractive figures
in the history of Irish nationalism*
[John O'Leary, Recollection* af /
anism (a vols,, 1806), ami article in /JiVf, /V*«#,
(leas valuable) ; John Sitvnar, ft*n/tm //rrw* md
Martyrs (1868) j Jowph Dcnieffe. A /Vriww/ M»rra<
tiw of iha truth Ktwalutwn&ry Bwthtrhwd (tot»6);
C. G, Duffy, FwrYwsof /ml* //i'j/»ry <i*Hji)s
Michael Doheny, Th9 Felon* t TVw* (iH**)* j*ihn
Rutherford, The Secret Hist, of th* Ionian Constim*
(a vpl«., 1877) ; Frederick PhUtewr.M F, in tfa Ww
of the RtMhon doia), vnl« I; yf/Mmwl /)Mi»&nMC$
), fd. b/ G, a Burtchatil ami T, U, Sudltlr;
of the Tmff (London), frith Amniean (N, Y,),
obltuiry
r vV B £' ***™** *«»• 7* 1877, tn<t Irish \
i. Y,)» Feb. 17, 1877, and sueeetdiBg bitm]
CP.S.
O'MALLEY, PRANK WARD (Nov. 30,
( Ward) ' O'Malley. His academic education was
limited to the Wilkes-Barre, Pa,, high school, but
his ambition to be either an architect or an artist
led him to spend ten years 5n purtuinr special
courses at the Art Students League, Washing-
ton, D. C. (1894-95), the University of Notre
Dame (1896-98), and the Pennsylvania Acad-
emy of the Fine Arts in Phfladttphia (1899-
O'Malley
1902). The time devoted to art was not justified
by the results. O'Malley, in a facetious auto-
biographical sketch^ once said that while in
Washington he spent too much time in, the Sen-
ate gallery ; in Notre Dame, too much time with
the football team ; and in Philadelphia, too much
time in a burlesque theatre.
When he arrived in New York in 1902 he
found no place for artistic expression except as
a commercial illustrator. Seeing that his casual
light verse and humorous articles found a fair
market in newspapers, he became a special writer
on the Morning Telegraph, a daily devoted to
racing, the theatre, and the night life of Broad-
way. His articles attracted the attention of the
Sunf which engaged him as a reporter in 1906.
His success was instant, not only on account of
his humorous treatment of trivial happenings,
but also because of his accurate and dramatic
relation of serious events. Read today, most of
these articles lack the flavor of their time and
the color of their setting. A few — notably O'Mal-
ley's interview with the mother of a young police-
man who was killed on duty (Sun, Oct. 23, 1907)
— have been used as models by teachers of jour-
nalism. The account of the Triangle shirt-waist
factory fire, In which 150 persons lost their lives
(Ibid., Mar. 26, 19*1), is a good example of his
ability to write "straight news." Much of O'Mal-
ley's product concerned the people and events of
the "white light district" of New York in pre-
prohibition days. Himself of fine moral char-
acter, he regarded the Tenderloin as a sort of
fairyland. He wrote of himself that lie was "a
reporter on the Sim for fourteen years, thirteen
of which were spent in Jack's restaurant" (New
York Times, Oct. 20, 1932, p. 21). The Bo-
hemian life which centered about Jack's saw lit-
tle of him after his marriage in 1917. He re-
signed from the Sun in 1920 with the intention
of writing something less ephemeral than news-
paper articles. From 1920 to 1932 he wrote for
the Saturday Evening Post twenty-eight ar-
ticles, humorous or satirical, touching on life
both in the United States and in Europe. Two of
his articles, published in the American Mercury
(May, September 1929), dealt with the virtues
and weaknesses of the Irish in the United States.
He wrote two books, The War-Whirl in Wash-
ington (1918) and The Swiss Pcwnily O'Malley
(1928), and in collaboration with E. W. Town-
send, two plays, The Head of the House (1909)
and A Certain Party ( 1910) ; the plays had little
success. His greatest days were those in which
he was regarded as one of the best reporters of
his generation.
O'Malley's lack of valuable productivity in his
OSate
later years may be laid to the fact that he was
more interested in life itself than in the portrayal
of it. He was a delightful companion, ever
eager to discuss any subject, and much sought
for his candor, graciousness, and wit. His only
bitterness was directed at prohibition, which he
denounced publicly and privately with vehemence
and to which he attributed his long stays in Eu-
rope. This hatred was not lessened when dia-
betes prevented him from using spirits. He died
in Tours, France. On Sept. i, 1917, he was mar-
ried to Grace Eclsall Dalryniple who, with a son
and a daughter, survived him.
ISun (N. Y.), Oct. 19, 1932; N. V. Times, Oct. 20,
1932; F. M, O'Brien, The Story of the Sun (1918) ;
Who's Who in America, 1930-31; personal acquaint-
ance-3 F.M.O.
OftATE, JUAN de (c. 1549-*. 1624), fron-
tiersman of New Spain (Mexico) and colonizer
of New Mexico, was born of illustrious parentage
in New Spain, but when and where it is uncer-
tain. His father, Cristobal de Orlate, became
governor of Nueva Galicia in 1538, and during
the next ten years, through the discovery of
mines in Zacatecas, became one of the richest
men in America. Juan's mother, Doila Catha-
lina de Salazar, was the daughter of the royal
factor, Gonzalo cle Salazar, who was the bitter
enemy of Cortes. Little is known of Juan's
youth. On the northern frontier, where he early
became active for his king, his general services
covered "bloody encounters with the Chichimecs,
and the discovery of the rich mines of Zichtt,
Charcas, and San Luis Potosi, which he peopled
with Spaniards" (quoted by Cornish, post, p.
459). He married Isabel Tolosa, a descenclant
of both Cortes and Montezuma. Of this union
two children were born.
His chief claim to fame rests upon his services
as founder of New Mexico. A revival of inter-
est in that region after 1583 resulted in a spirited
competition for the right to conquer it. Royal
authorization for the appointment of a suitable
person for this purpose was received by the
viceroy of New Spain in 1583. Delays ensued,
but on Sept 21, 1595, the coveted contract, call-
ing for the "exploration, pacification, and con-
quest of New Mexico," was awarded to Onate.
Disappointments awaited him. A new viceroy
modified his contract, but, despite attendant de-
lays, by September 1596 Onate's large and well-
equipped expedition was at the Nazas River, in
the present Durango, prepared to enter the more
than six hundred miles of unoccupied territory
between there and the upper Rio Grande Valley.
Meanwhile, in Spain, the Council of the Indies
had shown interest in the New Mexico venture
37
Onate
being entrusted to Pedro Ponce de Leon of
Spain, and in July 1596, Viceroy Monterey had
received instructions to cancel Onate's contract.
To this, Onate offered vigorous protest—at the
same time endeavoring- to keep his expedition in-
tact, pending an appeal— for he "'had spent ioor
ooo ducats in equipping the expedition, while
the captains and soldiers who were to accompany
him had spent an additional 200,000 ducats"
(Hackett, post, I, 203). Confidence in De Leon
being shaken, Onate finally was authorized to
proceed, and in August 1597 the expedition,
somewhat depleted in men and supplies, advanced
northward. On Apr. 30, 1598, a few miles south
of the present El Paso, Tex., Onate took formal
possession "of all the kingdoms and provinces of
New Mexico." By early autumn the upper Rio
Grande pueblos had been reached, a capital had
been founded at San Juan, missionary work had
been begun, and the submission of the Indians
received. This submission, save for the rebellion
of Acoma, which was suppressed with great
cruelty early in 1599, was definitive for nearly a
hundred years.,
Onate's contract— partly because of the king's
interest in anticipating other European nations
in the discovery of the supposed northwest pas-
sage— called for exploration, and in September
1598 the first of a series of expensive exploring
expeditions was dispatched from San Juan.
Others followed in rapid succession, notably one
to Kansas in 1601, and one to the Gulf of Cali-
fornia in 1605. In protest against these ex-
peditions, which sapped the energy and resources
of the colony, some of the settlers fled to Santa
Barbara but they were arrested and returned,
Meanwhile Onate had been obliged to ask for
reinforcements. Royal interest in New Mexico
was still high and in 1605 twenty-four additional
soldiers and two missionaries were sent. This
aid proved insufficient, and for the next three
years New Mexico's fate hung in the balance.
Apparently for the purpose of bluffing the viceroy
into sending reinforcements, Onate resigned in
August 1607, and notified the viceroy that if re-
inforcements were not forthcoming by June 1608
the province would be abandoned. The viceroy
called Onate's bluff and accepted his resignation,
but instructed him to remain in the province*
Soon thereafter the cabildo at the new capital,
San Gabriel, elected him governor ad interim,
and upon his refusal to serve, chose his son,
Cristobal, Since Cristobal was an unsatisfactory
choice, the viceroy in Mexico sent Don Pedro
Peralta [q.v.] as governor, with sixteen soldiers,
and orders were given for Onate to return with-
in three months.
Onderdonk
Onate went back to Mexico, and was trird on
charges of misrepresenting the value of New
Mexico, mistreatment i»f his soldiers and the In-
dians, and disobedience to viee-reK.il order?.. 1 Ic
was found guilty on some of tin* charges in 1614
and sentenced to perpetual banishment from New
Mexico, and front Mexico city for four years,
and fined 6,000 ducats* In tfu*s he appealed
against the judgment, hut though he had the .sup-
port of the Council of the Indies, lw failed to
obtain the pardon of the king. 1 le way have hecn
successful later, for in i6zj he was in Spain try-
ing1 to obtain a position in Mexico, ( itiad.dajara,
or the Philippines, His endeavor was nut .suc-
cessful, but he was entrusted with the violation
of mines in Spain. His death, therefore, must
have occurred in or after that year,
[Printed smirccH fur thr wwk of Oiirtfr nrr Cuke*
nient'o*. / .* ™LV*-!Vo, vol. XVI \ iH;*Y). ami m'<*, W,
. » .
Hftckdt, Hist.
vul I (IO-H). Kiik'lH1 trumlahom
are in Huckctt* «/>, nV,, and itt H,
A
,
»\Vf<<
<»ritfi»*tl •
H»<w»n, A
vntwn . . . i^* *». MM,
written by a nitrmiier of the rxpfdituw, i<* i*»i».j»»tr f'rrr/
<le VillutfrA, ///jf/r»Ha (/*? /a NJI*T«* JU*-u<f* «/*4l (Si^i/tiu
Caspar Jr Villaym (t(»m), reprint with itutt*
1900), S^e nl«<t Uwttric* Q, (*Mnti^h» " U*r
*'
find Family of Juan tie Ch'wl*,*' in H,t M, ,Sfr|»iiri*» MM!
H, E, Uolton, 7Vn* Pru'i/tV Otviaw MI //i'il, (lot?! » H, Id
Helton, 77ie $fi<mijth Hwttt'rfatttlx (tout) ; U, P, limit*
immtl, "Don Juan de Oi'mt* ami the f'tmmliiitf nf Krw
Mexico," in /list, »SV, #/ /V, A/**.r, /*«/*,!» t« Mist t v«t,
II (Get, IQJ^), nl««» in /v, 4ff,t', //IJT/, AV»» , jiin, lurf**-
Apr, 1947; (i, P, Humntond, "Thr t'ttnvit'titut «f t>*m
Juan clc Ohnte, New Mrxifu^ Virnt Uuvermir." in AV%»
Spain and the* dftttlfr>Aittt'rifan MViil, //ill, (V*M/ri^(i*
h'/>M.« Presented to Uwhtrt MHUWW l$&tt&& (io,|j)» i§
CWJL
ONDERDONK* BENJAMIN TRED-
WELL (July 15, I7<;i-Apr, jo, iKen), Innhop
of the Protestant Kpiscopal ("Injreii, wan tmrn
and died in New York City, lie wa.H the Mm <*f
Dr. John and Deborah (Ustiek) Onclrrdonk,
and a descendant of AndricH Onclcntonk, a »«•
tive of New Castle, Del, who died in 168; ; Hi»h-
op Henry Ustick Onderdonk |^r,J was Benja-
min's brother* He was grachiateci at Coluntlim
College in 1809, studied theology, and was or-
dained deacon at St. Paul's Chapel, New York,
Aug. 2, 1812, and priest, in Trinity Church,
Newark, N. J., July 26, 1815, by Uinhop John
Henry Hobart In 1813 he married Eliza Mas*
crop. That same year he was appointed asahtant
minister of Trinity Church, New York, which
position he held until his elevation to the episco-
pate, gaining a reputation as an excellent preach-
er and an energetic worker* From about 1821
he served as professor of ecclesiastical history
at the General Theological Seminary, New York,
and also as professor of the nature, ministry.
and polity of the Church ; from z8t6 to 1830 he
was secretary of the New York diocesan eon*
Onderdonk
vention. On Nov. 26, 1830, he was consecrated
bishop of New York, in St. John's Chapel, by
Bishops William White, Thomas Church Brown-
ell, and Henry Ustick Onderdonk.
In November 1844 he was presented for trial
upon the charges of "immorality and impurity"
by Bishops William Meade of Virginia, James
Hervey Otey of Tennessee, and Stephen Elliott,
Jr., of Georgia. On Jan. 3, 1845, after a trial by
the court of bishops provided for by the canons
of his Church, he was suspended "from the office
of a Bishop in the Church of God, and from all
the functions of the sacred ministry." It was the
first trial of a bishop ever held under the canons
of the Episcopal Church (since the suspension
of his brother the previous year had been effect-
ed without a trial) and was the most sensational
episode in the history of the Church up to that
time. The canon which gave the right of pre-
sentment to any three bishops, as well as to the
bishop's own diocese, had been passed only three
months previous to the trial. The Churchman,
at that time representing the High Church party,
charged that the presentment and condemnation
of Bishop Onderdonk were the result of a Low
Church conspiracy. The trustees of the General
Theological Seminary refused to remove him
from his professorship in that institution. It is
recorded that "the proceedings of the court were
almost universally reprobated/' In 1859 a reso-
lution was offered in the New York diocesan
convention requesting "the House of Bishops to
remit and terminate the Judicial Sentence of
Suspension, under which the Bishop of the Dio-
cese of New York is now suffering disability."
In presenting the resolution, Dr. Francis Vin-
ton argued that the canon under which Onder-
donk was tried was responsible for the indefinite
character of the sentence, since it provided only
for "admonition, suspension or degradation";
that its injustice had been officially recognized,
since the next General Convention (1847) had
revised the canon to provide remission or modi-
fication, and had adopted another specifying that
under no circumstances should any similar in-
definite sentence be passed on any one in the
future. He pleaded that the convention should
ask to have done in Onderdonk's case what the
later canon provided — a time limit set for such
suspension. In 1850, furthermore, a canon had
been passed establishing procedure for the res-
ignation of a suspended bishop, thereby demon-
strating that Onderdonk still retained his juris-
diction. In the same year another canon provided
for a provisional incumbent to serve during the
suspension of a bishop, thus indicating that the
Church intended to make possible a suspended
Onderdonk
bishop's restoration. A memorial to the Gen-
eral Convention from Bishop Onderdonk was
read, in which he begged "the mercy of the re-
moval of my sentence," and stated that he could
not acknowledge all the crimes imputed to him,
adding, "I cannot but believe parts of my con-
duct to have betrayed indiscretion." The reso-
lution was passed in the diocesan convention by
vote of 147 to 19 (clerical) and 75 to 46 (lay).
The General Convention of 1859 did n°t act
on the petition, and before the next General
Convention, Onderdonk had died. His conduct
during his years of suspension was a matter for
high commendation on all sides. He was a
stanch and vigorous High Churchman, an ag-
gressive, able administrator and opponent His
only written works were episcopal addresses,
charges, and pastorals.
[Elmer Onderdonk. Gencal, of the Onderdonk Fam-
ily in America (IQIO) ; W. S. Perry, The Bishops of
the Am. Church (1897) ; H. G» Batterson, A Sketch--
Book of the Am. Episcopate (1878) ; Proc, <pf the
Court . . , for the Trial of the Rt, Rev. Benjamin T.
Onderdonk , D,D. (1845) ; Bishop Ondcrdonk's State-
ment: A Statement of Pacts and Circumstances Con-
nected with the Recant Trial of the Bishop of AT, F.
(1845) ; Appeal from the Sentence of the Bishop of
7v. F. in Behalf of His Diocese (1845), and other
pamphlets on the controversy ; Jour, of . . . the Seventy-
sixth Convention of the Prot. Episc. Ch* in the Dio-
cese of N. F. (1859); Churchman, 1844-45, 1861;
Church Jour, t 1844-45, 1861.] G, E. S*
ONDERDONK, HENRY (June n, 1804-
June 22, 1886), teacher, local historian, was
born at Manhasset, in North Hempstead, N. Y.,
the son of Joseph Onderdonck (sic) and Dorothy
Monfoort, his wife, and the seventh child in a
family of ten. He was descended from two old
Long Island families, being fourth in descent
from Andries Onderdonk, who purchased land
in Flatbush, L. I., in 1672. In 1827 Henry was
graduated at Columbia. On Nov. 28, 1828, he
was married to his cousin, Maria Hegeman On-
derdonk. At an early period he devoted himself
to teaching, becoming principal of Union Hall
Academy, at Jamaica, an institution opened in
1792. To the duties of principal he added in-
struction in the classics, then the leading course
in preparatory schools; but equally congenial
was that which he made his recreation, the study
of Long Island antiquities. He also as occasion
arose delivered lectures on temperance. After
following the teaching profession for thirty-
three years, he retired and engaged wholly in the
work for which he had been preparing by his in-
vestigations in history and genealogy.
In the preface to Revolutionary Incidents of
Suffolk and Kings Counties, Onderdonk declares :
"The present volume completes a plan the com-
piler had some years since conceived, of collect-
39
Onderdonk
ing and arranging in chronological order, the
scattered and fragmentary notices of the events
that occurred on Long Island, during our Revo-
lutionary struggle" (p. 5). In respect for orig-
inal documents as the source o£ knowledge and
the basis of opinion, Onderdonk may rightly be
pronounced a forerunner of a later school, whose
claims are pronounced with much more empha-
sis than he ever employed. Official and mili-
tary papers, diaries, old newspapers, and the
conversations of aged people contributed mate-
rial, and sometimes by their simplicity and bare
reality they create an impression beyond the
power of any literary presentation. Onderdonk
understood the historic value of church records,
which embody constant and unobtrusive influ-
ences in the life of communities, as important
as the forces which give dramatic interest to po-
litical and military history. His work repre-
sents the painstaking collection and compilation
of such materials as yield no great reputations
but bring honor in the end to those who lay
these foundations for prouder structures. In-
cluded in his published writings are: Antiqui-
ties of the Parish Church, Jamaica (including
Newtown and Flushing) (1880) ; The Annals of
Hempstead, N. Y., 1643 to 1832, also the Rise
and Growth of the Society of Friends on Long
Island and in New York *1657 to 1826 (1878) ;
Antiquities of the Parish Church, Hempstead,
including Oysterbay and the Churches of Suf-
folk County (1880) ; The Bibliography of Long
Island (1866) ; Documents and Letters Intend-
ed to Illustrate the Revolutionary Incidents of
Queens County (1846); History of the First
Reformed Dutch Church of Jamaica, L. L
(1884) ; Queens County in Olden Times (1865) J
Revolutionary Incidents of Suffolk and Kings
Comties (1849),
[See the Hist, of Queens County, JV. F. (1882) :
Onderdonk s Revolutionary Incidents of Suffolk and
Kings Counties (1849) ; Elmer Onderdonk, Geneal of
the Onderdonk Family in America (1010) : N. F Dailv
Tribune, June 24, 1886.] ' ' RE. D
ONDERDONK, HENRY USTICK (Mar.
i6,^789-Dec. 6, 1858), bishop of the Protestant
Episcopal Church, was born in New York City,
the son of Dr. John and Deborah (Ustick) On-
derdonk; Benjamin T, Onderdonk [q.v.] was a
younger brother. His ancestry is traced back
to one Andries Onderdonk of New Castle Del
who married Maria Van der Vliet, and died in
1687. Henry was graduated from Columbia
College in 1805 and then studied medicine in
c^ and Edir*ur£h, receiving the degree
of M.D. from the University of Edinburgh Re-
turning to New York City, he became a prac-
Onderdonk
tising physician, and from 1814 to 1815 was as-
sociate editor of the AVw Yvrk Medical Maga-
zine. On Apr. 15, t8n, lie married Kli/.a Carter,
Dissatisfied with his profession, lu* Ntudicd for
orders under the oversight of Bishop John I Ivnry
Hobart I* </•?'•"!» wh° ordained him dearon in St.
Paul's Chapel, New York, I)ot\ 8, 1815, and
priest, in Trinity Church, New York, Apr, 11,
1816, After four years in (Vinandttigua, then a
missionary frontier post of llu* Kpiscopul Church
in Western New York, ho was rlrdrd, in 18,20,
to the rectorship of St, Ann's (Imrch, Brook-
lyn, N. Y,
Having1 been elected assistant bishop of Penn-
sylvania, after a hitter partisan controversy be-
tween the High Churchmen ;mo! Low Church-
men of the <lny» he was comet-rated at Christ
Church, Philadelphia, Oct. a$, 18^7, thereby In-
coming associated with Bishop William White
[#.7'.]« At that time Onderdonk was ow* of ttu*
most noted churchmen in the ministry of the
Episcopal Church. On the death of Bi>hop
While in 1836 he became the second bishop of
Pennsylvania, In 1844 he wrote to the House
of Bishops confessing1 his habitual abuse of in-
toxicating liquor, tendering bin rrMgimfuw of
his jurisdiction, and asking for discipline, Ui$
resignation was accepted ( Journal *>/»,» (7m-
crd Convention, 1844, p, 104), and he waa HUH-
ponded by the House of Bishops from *'a!l pub-
lic exercise of the offices ami functions of the
sacred Ministry, and in particular from nil exer-
cise whatsoever of the office and work »f a Bish-
op in the Church of God11 (/Wrf,, pp. 171-73),
He accepted his sentence in a spirit of humility,
spending part of his period of mtsprnnmn in
writing1, So exemplary was hm conduct that lie
was restored to the active ministry by the House
of Bishops in 2856, two years before bin death,
Onderdonk was known AH one of the outstand-
ing theological scholars of his day am! an expert
controversialist, In the early part of 1844 he
had been the cause of an extensive controversy,
carried on chiefly in the church pw m, learning
that Bishop John H. Hopkins fa,*.] of Vermont
intended to^give a series of fifteen lecture* on
Romanism in Philadelphia, occupying in rota*
tion the pulpits of five parishes* he wrote Hop-
kins that he had received the information with
regret and astonishment"— regret* because he
felt the subject calculated to cause undue agita-
tion and excitement, and astonishment, because
he had not been consulted m head of the diocese,
Hopkins canceled the proposed lectures*
take the matter to
Otiderdonk's
O'Neal
PiiUlc of Canandaigua (1813); Episcopacy
Tested by Scriptures (1830); Episcopacy Ex-
amined and Rccxamincd (1835) J Essay on Re-
generation (1835) ; Family Devotions from the
Liturgy (1835) J Thoughts on Some of the Ob-
jections to Christianity (1835) ; Sermons and
Episcopal Charges (2 vols., 1851). He wrote
several hymns and versions of the Psalms, which
appeared in the collection of Psalms and hymns
appended to the prayer book of that day.
[Elmer Onclerdonk, Gcncal. of the Ondcrdonk Fam-
ily in America (1910) ; W. S. Perry, The Bishops of
the Am. Ch. (1897) ; H. G, Batterson, A Sketch-Book
of thc^ Am. Episcopate (1878) ; Jour, of the Proc, of
the Bishops, Clergy and Laity of the Protestant Epis-
copal Ch. in the £/. S. A., Assembled in a Gen. Con-
vention, 1844, 1856; the Churchman, 1844-58; Epis-
copal Recorder, 1844-58; Pennsylvanian (Phila.),
Dec. 7, 1858.] G.E.S.
O'NEAL, EDWARD ASBURY (Sept. 20,
i8i8-Nov. 7, 1890), Confederate soldier, gov-
ernor of Alabama, was born in Madison County,
Ala., while Alabama was still a territory. His
father, Edward O'Neal, a native of Ireland,
and his mother, Rebecca (Wheat) O'Neal, of
Huguenot extraction, had removed from South
Carolina shortly before his birth. When Ed-
ward was very young, his father died, and his
mother, who appears to have been a woman of
great force of character, managed the business
affairs of the family and taught her two sons
until they were ready to enter the academy. He
not only graduated from the academy but also
graduated from LaGrange College in 1836. On
Apr. 12, 1838, he was married to Olivia Moore
at Huntsville. He studied law, was admitted to
the bar in 1840, and began practice at Florence,
Ala. Within a year he was chosen by the state
legislature to serve as solicitor of the 4th cir-
cuit and held this office for four years. He was
always interested in politics. He was a candi-
date for Congress in 1848 but was defeated. Fie
became one of the leaders of the movement for
secession in northern Alabama. In 1861 he en-
listed in the Confederate army and was chosen
major of the 9th Alabama Infantry. His promo-
tion was rapid. In October of that year he be-
came lieutenant-colonel, and the next spring he
was raised to the rank of colonel and assigned
to the 26th Alabama Infantry. He led his reg-
iment in the battles of the Peninsular cam-
paign, was wounded at the battle of Seven Pines
and again at Boonsboro, led Rodes's Division in
the battle of Chancellorsville, where he was
again wounded, and he was in command of the
same division at Gettysburg*. Early in 1864 the
26th Alabama was returned to the state to re-
cruit its ranks. From there it was sent to Dalton,
Ga., to aid in the defense against Sherman. He
O'Neale
led Canty's Brigade at Marietta and at Peach-
tree Creek. He was relieved of his command
after this campaign and placed on detached duty.
When the war closed he was in Alabama arrest-
ing deserters from the Army of the Tennessee.
For the last eighteen months of the war he acted
as brigadier-general, but he never received a
commission.
At the close of the war he returned to Florence
to resume the practice of his profession and his
activity in politics. He was the leader of the
Democratic party in northern Alabama during
the Reconstruction period and a member of the
constitutional convention of 1875. ^n *8$2 ne
was elected governor of the state and was re-
elected in 1884. His administration was a turn-
ing point in the history of Alabama. The devel-
opment of the state, which had been arrested by
the war and Reconstruction, was taken up again ;
the state was prosperous, and for the first time
money was available for something1 more than
necessities. His major interests during his ad-
ministrations were education and prison reform.
Normal schools were established, and greatly
increased appropriations were made for other
state schools through his influence. The first
steps toward prison reform were taken with the
establishment of the board of convict inspectors.
At the close of his administration he returned
to Florence and lived there until his death.
[Manuscript material in the State Department of
Archives and History. Montgomery ; Willis Brewer,
Alabama (1872); J, E. Saundera, Marly Settlers of
Ala, (1899) ; Confederate Mil. Hist., ed. by C A.
Evans (1899), vol. VII; T. M. Owen, Hist, of Ala.
and Diet, of Ala, Bi&g. (rpsi)* vol. IV; Gov. Edward
A. O'Neal . . . Proceedings of the Joint Session of the
Senate and House of Representatives of Ala, (1927) ;
Daily Reg. (Mobile), Nov. 8, 1890.] jj.F.
O'NEALE, MARGARET (i/96-Nov. 8,
I%79), was the wife of John H. Eaton [#.*>.],
secretary of war tinder Andrew Jackson, Few
careers have been as varied, colorful, and dra-
matic as that of "Peggy" O'Neale, Her father,
William O'Neale, was a tavern-keeper of Wash-
ington, D, C, from the founding of the city.
P^&y was a pretty child and was spoiled by
guests at her father's inn. Her mother, Rhoda
Howell, was apparently a woman of refinement
and, according to her daughter (Autobiography,
post, p. i), a sister of Richard Howell [#.^,]>
governor of New Jersey, Peggy attended Mrs.
Hayward's Seminary in Washington and for a
little while Madame Day's school in New York.
At an early age she was married to John B.
Timberlake, a purser in the navy, and by him
had a son and two daughters. When John H.
Eaton first came to Washington in 1818 as sena-
O'Neale
tor from Tennessee, he took lodgings at the
O'Neale tavern and became acquainted with the
vivacious daughter of his host. When Andrew
Jackson also came to Washington in 1823 as sen-
ator, he took up his quarters with his friend Eaton
and wrote home to Mrs. Jackson of the "amiable"
O'Neale family, and particularly of Mrs. Tim-
berlake, who "plays on the Piano Delightfully,
& every Sunday evening entertains her pious
mother with Sacred music to which we are in-
vited" (Jackson Papers, Dec. 21, 1823, Library
of Congress). Presently rumors began to cir-
culate to the effect that Eaton had become too
familiar with Mrs. Timberlake. Then in 1828
her husband died while on duty in the Mediter-
ranean. It was rumored that he had committed
suicide. Within the year Eaton proposed to
marry the fetching widow and consulted his
friend Jackson, who had just been elected Presi-
dent, as to the propriety of his intentions, Jack-
son, who had always been fond of Peggy, ad-
vised the match as a means of discrediting the
rumors, and the wedding accordingly took place
on Jan. I, 1829.
It was now time for the new President to se-
lect his cabinet and Eaton was docketed for the
secretaryship of war. Other prominent Tenncs-
seeans had reason to expect the place, but Eaton
was one of those personal followers in whom
Jackson gloried. A great clamor was raised by
the elite of Washington because of Eaton's wife ;
but Jackson, whose beloved wife had just died
under the sting of unjust imputations, would not
heed it. He was enough of a gentleman to be
chivalrous and enough of a frontiersman to be
simple, direct, and stubborn. He would stand
by his friend and his own prerogatives. His
family broke up and his cabinet dissolved in the
heat of the social war, but the President did not
desert Peggy. Eaton resigned from the cabinet
in 1831 and in 1834 he was appointed governor
of Florida. In 1836 he was sent to Madrid as
minister to the court of His Catholic Majesty,
Here his wife basked for four years in the bril-
liance of a society which had no prejudice against
her. In 1840 the Eatons returned to the United
States and settled down again in Washington,
There Eaton died in 1856. Peggy, a wealthy
widow, devoted herself to the rearing of her
grandchildren but soon succumbed to the
charms of an Italian dancing master, Antonio
Buchignani, and married him. After a few years
of married life her husband defrauded her of her
woman who dragged out
O'Ncall
[The AutMoff, nf JfVjW.v 4/''«if*»tt { to.tjl, dictated fo
1873, & revealing if imt irluMr. IV m.muM'tijtt \va«
left in the hamls of Mr*, Ktion'-t juMm m NCAV York
City, the Rev, Ota*, K I>CHHH, wnl _iu inthtu'tttinu wan
undertaken by his »«»», the Hr\, !',tlv\,u«i M, IWms,
The popular biography KV ynrrita f'oJLirk, /*iv0y
Eaton, D?tit$c?itty*x Mixtwsn ti»jui), »* ^parrntly
based upon authentic wwivr nrnfrmh, imt *H m»t Docu-
mented. There «re wcmmt* of Mar^arrt (VNVale in
Jas. Parton, Life of /f«t/rvtt' Jiwltwn OW»«*l» Vol, 111,
and M«a<le MiniHtfrfutir, »S'<wi«< dm, Aifc/ir.? ( i^jft),
and there are reference* to her in Utr wm-kn lir.tJtng
with the adimntatrntitm «»f Awlrrw jf;tt*k<u*it< Hrr W*IM!«
fit name if» variously Kftriirii, twt t^n «lrnN in thr nffice
of the Recorder *»f Dmh of thr J>p*mvl nf Columbia
are signed by her father "William O"N?%tIc/'| <j» j» *
O'NEALLJOHN BELTON (Apr. to, i;^
Dec. 27, 1863), Mrthor fin«l jurist, \viis hf»m tm
Bush River, Nowbmy District, S, (\ The* .son
of Anne (Kelly) ;UN! Hugh O^Nntll, he \VHM of
Irish ancestry tm !>uth si«Irst Ho was ;t drscrtul*
ant of Hugh CVNeill <*r < )*Nr;tIr who, aliotit 17^0,
<Iesorte<l from a British ship m jwchur in the*
Delaware Hivor and stitlnl i«t thr St^qtjrlminm
River, where ho is ,s;iul t<# haw t'funKOt! hin muiic
to G'NeuIl in onlcr tt» rscapt* tirtrctitm. AH a
child Jahn Helton (>*N«*«II posnt'ssctt a pr<*ro-
ciouH niind with a r^nmrkahlc memory, and he
acquired a suflidettt nmstt'ry of !«ntio niui Citrrk
at the Ncwhcrry ncudrmy to rn;thir him to enter
the junior cla.s« at the South Carolina ( olle^,
wliera he grathmtnl in i8ia.
Hecntcrtnl the militia, in whirh he ronf to the
rank of nmjor»K?m*ral !>y thr timr he w«?* thirty-
two. When he was twenty-three he became
a representative from Newherry District in the
state legislature! hut he wan defeated for reelec-
tion because of his nuppnrt of it mrii*ure inerta^-
ing the salaries of jutigrM. In i8aa* however* he
was again elected to the !cgiN!jtU!rrf where he
sat for three cmiKecutive terms am! &rrwd as
speaker during the last two terms. In 1827 he
was known to favor a financial meamtrf regard-
ed by his constituents m extravagant, although
as speaker he did not vote upon it, ami he was
not re81ected the next yetr, Hia neecmd retire-
ment from the legislature operttd for him a wider
field, the one fa which his greatest rotation
was achieved. He had been admitted to the bar
in 1814, and the legialature elected him circuit
judge b i8a8. Two years later he wit tdvancdl
to the South Carolina court of appeals. To*
gether with David Johnson and William Har-
per he performed the duties of this court utttB
1835, when its decision in the eaaei of Tkt SM*
** rtlaHow Ed. McCrndy va. B* P, Hmi and
of Th& Stot* *# ntatiom /®m$$ MeDwM m
O'Neall
The judges, however, were transferred to the
other courts of the state, and he was assigned to
the court of law appeals. In this capacity he
served for the remainder of his life. Upon the
death of John S. Richardson in 1850 he was
elected president of the court of law appeals and
of the court of errors, and in 1859 he became
chief justice of South Carolina.
As a leader in the cause of temperance he
exerted a profound influence upon the state. In
his early youth, when he sold rum over the
counter of his father's grocery to half-pint cus-
tomers, he acquired an aversion to the traffic in
intoxicating liquor, and this was intensified
into hatred when indulgence on the part of his
father led the latter to bankruptcy and the tem-
porary loss of his rnind. In 1832 he took a
pledge to abstain from liquor and, in 1833, to
abstain from tobacco. He forthwith plunged into
the cause of temperance reform. He allied him-
self with the Head's Spring temperance society,
which affiliated with the "Washington move-
ment/' a national temperance organization that
was then making its appearance in South Caro-
lina, and in 1841 he was appointed president of
the South Carolina Temperance Society. In
1849 he joined the Sons of Temperance, in Oc-
tober 1850 was elected president of that body in
South Carolina, and at the Richmond meeting
in 1852 was elected president of the Sons of
Temperance of North America. He delivered
numerous addresses for the cause and for a time
conducted a column, "The Drunkard's Looking-
Glass," in the South Carolina Temperance Ad-
vocate, a weekly paper published at Columbia.
He was an active and many-sided man; he
was president of the Columbia and Greenville
railroad, was greatly interested in scientific agri-
culture and was for many years president of the
Newberry agricultural society, one of the earli-
est of its kind in the state, and served as a trus-
tee of the South Carolina College for forty years.
Although of Quaker ancestry he became a mem-
ber of the Baptist Church and served successive-
ly as president of the Newberry Baptist Bible
Society, of the Bible board of the state Baptist
Convention, and of the South Carolina Baptist
Convention. He delivered many addresses on
education, Sunday schools, and railroads ; among
them the two following especially set forth his
views on temperance and education, "Address
to Lawyers," in A Course of Lectures on . . .
Temperance . . . before the Charleston Total Ab-
stinence Society by Fourteen of its Members . . *
1851 (1852) and Oration Delivered before the
Clariosophic Society . . . 1826 (1827), Awriter of
ease and facility, he contributed dozens of fugi-
O'Neill
tive essays and letters to the newspapers of the
state. His longer works include The Negro Lam
of South Carolina (1848), a paper originally
read before a meeting of the state agricultural
society; The Annals of Newberry f Historical,
Biographical, and Anecdotal (1859), that con-
tains a good deal of information about his early
life; and The Biographical Sketches of the
Bench and Bar of South Carolina (2 vols., 1859),
a collection still regarded as authoritative. Op-
posed to both nullification and secession, he was
active in the deliberations and conventions of
the Union party in 1832, but owing to his ad-
vanced age he took no steps against the seces-
sion movement in 1860. He was a handsome man.
His voice was remarkably clear, and on the
bench his charges are said to have been eloquent
and impressive. He was married, on June 25,
1818, to Helen Pope of Edgefield. Several years
later, upon the death of his grandmother, Han-
nah (Belton) Kelly, he inherited "Springfield,"
an estate near Newberry, and resided there until
his death.
[Sketch by Mitchell King in Bioff: Sketches of the
Bench and Bar, ante, vol. I, copied in U. R. Brooks,
5*. C. Bench and Bar, vol. I (1908) and abridged in
Cyc. of Eminent and Representative Men of the Caro-
Unas (1892), vol. I; Maximilian Laborde, A Tribute
to Hon. L B* O'Neall (1872) ; Addresses of J, H, Car-
lisle, cd by J. H. Carlisle, Jr. (1910) ; Charleston
Daily Conner t Dec. 30, 1863.] J.W. P n.
O'NEILL, JAMES (Nov. 15, i849~Aug. 10,
1920), actor, was one of many foreign-born
players whose entire professional life was passed
on the American stage. He was born in Kilkenny,
Ireland, the son of Edmond and Kathenne
O'Neill, and was brought by his parents to
America when he was five years of age. His
schooling", obtained in Buffalo, Cincinnati, and
other cities, was meager, and his first appear-
ances on the stage were made in Cincinnati in
1867. In one of these he found himself on the
stage carrying a spear as a member of the guard
that was to arrest Edwin Forrest in one of his
typical robustious characters, and he was so over-
awed by the reputation and personality of the
star that he failed utterly in his task. Undaunted
by this failure, he succeeded in securing succes-
sive positions in stock companies in Baltimore,
Cleveland, Chicago, and other cities.
Finally his great opportunity came, and on
Oct. 2, 1876, he became a member of the Union
Square Theatre Company in New York, sharing
for a time leading roles with Charles R, Thorne,
Jr. His debut there was made as the cripple
Pierre in The Two Orphans, one of the most
sympathetic roles in that lachrymose melodrama,
and among the other characters he acted there
43
O'Neill
during that and later seasons were Vladimir in
The Danicheffs, Mons. Florion in The Mother's
Secret, Maurice in Miss Multon, George Lovell
in The Man of Sweets, Mons. de Montaiglin in
Raywonde, and Julian Gray in The Nciv Mag-
dalen. Unlike some actors who have only the one
quality to help them advance in their profession,
he possessed both the advantage of physical at-
traction and the distinction of intellectual attain-
ments. He has been described in his early days
as "of faultless figure, as erect in carriage as a
major, with dark hair and deep brown eyes,
darker and deeper for the clearness and white-
ness of his complexion, his manner easy and
bearing graceful, his voice rich-toned and mu-
sical/' In 1877 he went to San Francisco and
remained there three years, his most notable ap-
pearance in that city being as Christ in Salmi
Morse's production of the Passion Play at the
Grand Opera House which aroused so much
discussion and opposition that it was withdrawn
by legal process and caused the arrest and fining
of members of the company.
With his first appearance in 1882 as Edmoncl
Dantes in a stage version of Monte Crist o began
a new era in his career. Heretofore he had been
known as a versatile actor. Henceforth for prac-
tically the rest of his life he was condemned to
be identified with one play and one character,
Season after season his reappearance as Ed-
mond Dantes was an annual event in many cities
throughout the country. He made again and
again ineffectual attempts to abandon it, and
while he failed to attract the public in one new
part after another, in Monte Crist o he was al-
ways successful. Remembering his earlier tri-
umphs in a wide range of parts, he naturally had
no ambition to be famous in one character, but
the public would not allow him to be anyone
but Edmond Dantes. In time, therefore, he in-
evitably came to act it by rote, and the inter-
O'Neill
1900, p, 9), while In1 was still in the full flight
of his Motif? (V/,v/«» cartvr, a,s a "thorough actor,
powerful wlion power is w|wwl, very versatile
and in his dciuc.mw, KcMtms vtx'ali.sw, and
spirit, honest and MmTrr,'* ant! creating and
sustaining *' romantic illusion/* Fur sonic two
years before 1m death, \vhirh twwmt at New
London, Comu, where he hat! made his home
for many years, he had heen in failing* health, the
result of an automobile amdntu ! fe hat! played
the part of Kdniond hantes more than nix thou-
sand times. He was nmnierf tu Kllrn yninlan in
July 1875, and she aeemnpamed hint on many of
his tours, although Iw UIHT n*nutk<*«l that she
had somewhat of an aversion for the atmonphere
of the stage* Kugene O'NVill, the American
dramatist, is their MW,
fSee: H, Ct, M«kr, "J.iwr* O'Nrill," In /''.i«**w,
Af tors of 7Watv (iHyM, ril l»v !•', I' MrKtiy ami
L, Wiuitatr ! A, IX Slonm, / Jnr /'/IMVIX MM*«
UWH); J, !$, Clupp fl*'d I*' I'" I'Mu1"*!, /'A»v*'Fjf *
/VtWft/, pt, -J (i*juj|; T A- Htutut. >l //ni, t
N. Y.Sttiy,' (j vt*N,, to«0 j Aitlw* l!nruMi*\v, Vl
Pn\wnt J)ay (j ; y«»Ia,, »*>47) ; iiifrrvtrw tit A*, $*,
,
(*, E!
Digest, Am, aHt *<MO ; the ,VM« I N, V, I, JV, J*.
O'NEILL, J03HN (Mar, a i8j4-Ja«, 7, 1878),
soldier and Fenian Irnlrr, wan burn at Drum-
gallon in the parish of Clontihrrt. County Mont*
ghan, Ireland* His father dird Worr the tey'i
birth* John remained in hU native pariMh, ob-
taining the tlcntcntft «f an cxlwatiun, nmi! 1848,
when he cnii|yrated to America tu join hi« mc^h*
cr^and her elder chiltlrrn, who had settled m
Elizabeth, N* J.( gome yearn before, He attend*
ed school for another year, and afterward worked
successively m a shop clerk, jt traveling book-
agent, and proprietor of a Cathaiic buokHhop in
Richmond, In " * * ' * • - - - -
came bywords of the w_. _ v
plays he produced from time to time°were Ip'on*
tenelle, by Harrison Grey Fiske and Minnie
Maddern Fiske, and Don Carlos de Seville, a
poetic drama by Eugene Fellner. The public did
not care to see him in any of them. He was no
more fortunate with revivals of The Three M us*
keteers, The Dead Heart, and Virginius.
u In his last active years on the stage he helped
in the making- of a motion picture version of
Monte Cnsto, and his last real acting was done
as Jesse, the Jewish patrician in The Wanderer
during the season of 1916-17. William Winter
Bar, in the
of Hoi-gntt's Ohio raid Oa
44
O'Neill
Ford. Feeling that he was being passed over
for promotion, in the spring" of 1864 he resigned
from his regiment and was appointed captain in
the 17th United States Colored Infantry, only
to leave the service in November. About this
time he married Mary Crow. While working
successfully as a claims agent in Tennessee, he
became interested in the plans for an invasion
of Canada proposed by the party headed by W.
R. Roberts [q.v."] in the Fenian Brotherhood,
He acted as a Fenian organizer in his district
and in May 1866 led a detachment from Nash-
ville to take part in the attack. Finding himself
in command of the raiding party at Buffalo he
led a force of 600 men, by his account, across
the Niagara and occupied the Canadian village
of Fort Erie. The next day he defeated a small
column of Canadian volunteers near Ridgeway,
and that night escaped from Canada with his
men by boat before British troops closed in on
his position. The raiders were arrested by a
United States gunboat but released a few days
later, and a charge of breach of the neutrality
laws brought against O'Neill was dropped.
A few months later he was appointed "inspec-
tor-general of the Irish Republican Army," and
at the end of 1867 he replaced Roberts as presi-
dent of his branch of the Brotherhood and pro-
ceeded to prepare for another attack on Canada.
There were obstructionists within his own or-
ganization, but his threats caused much alarm in
Canada. In 1870 he quarreled with his "senate/'
and only a fraction of the Fenian organization
supported him when on May 25 he attempted a
raid at Eccles Hill on the Vermont border. His
men flecl when the Canadians opened fire, and he
himself was arrested by a United States marshal
and sentenced to two years' imprisonment, but
he was released by presidential pardon after
three months. He declared he would not again
trouble Canada but was persuaded by W. B.
O'Donoghue, formerly a member of Louis Riel's
rebel government at Fort Garry, to attack Mani-
toba. The Fenian council, now mistrusting
O'Neill, rejected the scheme, but he made the
attempt with a few adherents on Oct. 5, 1871.
He seized the Hudson's Bay post at Pembina
(on territory then disputed between Canada and
the United States) but was immediately arrested
by United States troops. He was released by
the American courts. Later he became agent for
a firm of land speculators who desired Irish set-
tlers for a tract in Holt County, Nebr. While thus
engaged he died at Omaha. The chief town of
Holt County bears his name.
The idea of invading Canada as a means of
gaining Irish freedom can hardly be accounted
O'Neill -Opdyke
other than singularly foolish, but friends and foes
credited O'Neill with sincerity and courage in
his pursuit of his object. He rejected assassina-
tion as an Irish weapon, insisting on "fair and
honorable fight"; and though Fenianism was
condemned by the church, he claimed to be a de-
vout Catholic. His egotism made it hard for him
to work with others.
[See O'Neill's own publications : Address . , . to the
Officers and Members of the Fenian Brotherhood, on
the State of the Organisation (1868) ; Message . „ . to
the Seventh Nat. Cong. (1868) ; Official Report . . . on
the Attempt to Invade Canada . . . i<V/o . , . also a Re~
port of the Battle of Ridgeway (1870) ; letter in the
Irish ^ American (N. _¥,)» Sept. 28, 1867. See also:
"Fenians" and "McMicken Reports" scries in the Mac-
donald Papers, Pub. Archives of Canada; Henri Le
Caron (Thomas Beach), Twenty- five Years in the Se-
cret Service (1892) ; John Savage, Fenian Heroes and
Martyrs (1868) ; G. McMicken, The Abortive Fenian
Raid on Manitoba (1888), reprinted in Trans. andProc.
Hist, and Sci, Soc. of Manitoba, vol. I (1880) : War of
the Rebellion: Official Records (Army}, I ser. XXIII
(pt. r), XXXI (pt. i) ; III ser. IV ; (facial Army Reg.
of the Volunteer Force of the U> S. Amy (Civil War),
pts. VI, VIII; Report of the Adj. Gen. of . . . hid.,
vol. Ill (1866); Irish American, Jan. ig and Feb. 3,
l878^ C.P.S.
O'NEILL, MARGARET L. [See O'NEALE,
MARGARET, 1796-1879],
OPDYKE, GEORGE (Dec. 7, iSo5~June 12,
1880), merchant, municipal reformer, publicist,
was born in King-wood Township, Hunterdon
County, N. J, He was a son of George and Mary
(Stout) Opdycke and a descendant of Louris
Jansen Opdycke, who emigrated from Holland to
New Nether] and prior to 1653* He attended a
country school, became a teacher at the age of
sixteen, and clerk in a store at Baptistown, N. J,,
at the age of eighteen. In 1825 he borrowed $500
and in company with another youth went to
Cleveland, Ohio, where they established a store.
The venture proved only moderately profitable,
and the next year they sold their business and
sought a more promising location. At New Or-
leans, learning1 that clothing was being sold
at a profit of one hundred per cent, they set up
a store and began manufacturing their own
stock. The demand for clothing soon outran the
capacity of the plant. Opdyke, seeking- a greater
source of merchandise, went to New York in
1832 and established probably the first impor-
tant clothing factory in the city. He also en-
gaged in the retail business there and later
opened branch stores at Memphis, Tenn., and
at Charleston, S. C He made and sold princi-
pally rough clothing for plantation hands. In
1846 he placed the business in charge of his
brother-in-law, John D, Scott, and turned his
attention to importing and selling drygoods at
wholesale. Both enterprises prospered, and by
1853 Opdyke was a millionaire. During the Civil
45
Opdyke
War he manufactured uniforms and arms for the
Federal government. In 1869, having- retired
from merchandising, he established the banking
house of George Opdyke & Company, which
successfully withstood the panic of 1873, though
with considerable loss to the fortune of the
founder.
Opdyke's Southern experiences convinced
him that slavery was an economic evil, not to be
extended under any circumstances. In 1848 he
began an active political career as a delegate to
the convention of the Free-Soil party at Buffalo,
and as an unsuccessful candidate for Congress,
In 1854 he became a Republican. He was a mem-
ber of the New York Assembly, 1859 ; mayor
of New York, 1862-63 ; member of the state con-
stitutional convention, 1867-68 ; and of the con-
stitutional commission, 1872-73. In politics he
was independent, acting always on the principle
that the people should have strong, honest, and
efficient government. In the Assembly he ef-
fectively opposed attempts to grant franchises
against the interests of New York City, He at-*
tended the Republican National Convention,
1860, and opposed the nomination of Seward be*
cause he thought him too closely associated with
the Republican boss, Thurlow Weed. As mayor,
he vetoed a great number of ordinances designed
to grant special favors. His annual message,
1863, contained proposals of many reforms, some
of which have been adopted, while others still re-
main on the program of the municipal reformer.
He recommended an increase in the powers of
the mayor, and the abolition of state commis-
sions and of county governments which over-
lapped city governments. He looked forward to
a greater city of "Manhattan" which would in-
clude New York, Brooklyn, and their environs.
The most severe test of his administration
occurred during the draft riots in July 1863, The
city had been stripped of troops to repel Lee's
invasion of Pennsylvania. The police were un-
der the control of a state commission. Under
the laws and the charter the mayor's powers
were moral rather than legal. Opdyke obtained
the cooperation of the police commission and the
Oppcnhcim
Weed to assert that Opdyke had we
the city, and also the federal Knvetnment. in con-
nection with clothing fontuvK An unfortunate
and indecisive libel MnJ teMjIted*
Opdyke also gained MHW* {trtmtitinteg an an
economist His TMI/W tw /V/j/iVa/ ttwutmy
(1851) was designed as an American reply to
John Stuart Mill's /Voii'if/*^ *»/ /W»ViV<j/ /:><>««
0wy. In it Opdyke exjnrv>nl hh opinion that
fiat money was desirahle if i^Mird in limited
amounts. In a later AY/w/ i»« /At* Cwwwy
(1858) he proposed taxing lunfc nufrt of small
denominations out of ex i-f riser and advocated
the issuance by the national ^ovrruwent of jj^jj
certificates. These rtvonwintd.itinir. were sub.
scquently adopted* though nut in the form tics
sired by Opdyke, lit* protested a^iin-.i the over-
issuance of greenback-, during the \v,»r but after-
ward recommended that the vnlnnu* of currency
he not reduced ton tjuickly. In apprantnce
Opdyke was tall ant! slrndn ; in tiuiwcr, gra-
cious, lie was a confidant of m;»nv leaders in na-
tional affairs and a friend of tnaw di'<iitn;ni<i|icd
scholars and authors He w;t*t nt:n rird, un Sept,
26, i8a9» to K!iy;tl»rth Hail Strykrr of New
Jersey. She with their j*ix children survived him.
; (',
at.
Tht
*
), vol II; 7*Af
Aiir/w
, June
/ \M
\\ $I$*M AIU! W,
OPPENHEIM, JAMES (Mny 2* .
4, 1932), poet and nuvdint, W«H born in St, Pawl,
Minn., the cWert son of Mnitlibt (Schloxit) and
Joseph Oppenheim, cotnfortal»ly niunued Ameri-
can Jews, James wan a Irnhy when tltry niovd
to New York City* where he rrrrivrrl lti« rdti*
cation, chiefly in the public ndim*!*, I IU (nther*i
death, when he wan «!x9 brought him, t<x> early,
a sense of reRpon«ibiiityv and \m contact* with
Dr. Felix Adler encouragrc! hint In a »trctiuous
ethical discipline, from which the enfer ®mm«
o«s boy sought refuge in the rending am! writ-
ing of poetry, For a few y«?nr§ he took cxtcnitcm
put a price upon the rioters' abstaining frotnfu™ abotrt a ^^ • 8pe8^
thet violence. Hi<? nwn rTaJwi *~n:--*. ±^ », «? - yc»r ai tupfitnntoiidwnt o% th<© H^bifW
^* *j.i>3 v/wj.1 M<tljui agwltlSit 1l£l6i ClTV Tfef5nJli<*»T 1Cl**l*AAl 4t f*f t / it
ior he&vy prooertv IOSSPQ <1iiriti«y t\* * A. i j « *MI*V«L* wvncw?* 10* wtris C^^^S"*^^lf fc^Bt p^0v**
gtn«notsled tog too radical, had to naign. Resolving to Ihre
46
Oppenheim
by his pen, lie wrote popular sentimental short
stories and mediocre novels, which expressed his
passion for social justice. He believed that his
writing- was warped by the necessity for making
it pay — he had a wife and two sons to support
The fault probably lay as much in the fact that
his moral fervor exceeded his ability to convey it.
His first book of verse, Monday Morning and
Other Poems, appeared in 1909, but it was almost
half a dozen years later, when he broke sharply
with the middle-class world in which he had been
living, that he began to find himself as a poet.
In the free rhythms and clear emotions of Songs
for the New Age (1914) there were signs that
he was coming into his own. The happiest period
of his career began with the establishment, in
November 1916, of The Seven Arts, a monthly
of which he was the editor and which included
among its contributors men who have since be-
come the most distinguished of American writers.
When it took a bold stand against the World
War, its subsidy was withdrawn, and Oppen-
heim was ostracized as a traitor. Spiritually and
physically sick, he found salvation in the psycho-
analytic doctrines of Jung. For a time he was a
practising psychoanalyst and also tried to popu-
larize Jung's theories through the press. Un-
fortunately, he allowed this interest to obtrude
itself into his poetry, becoming less self-critical
than ever. This is obvious in The Sea (1924),
a volume containing all of his verse that he wished
to preserve. He sinks to prosy banality in the
part of the book which reprints The Mystic War-
rior (1921) and rises to the height of his attain-
ment in the Golden Bird (first published sepa-
rately, 1923), which contains melodious love
lyrics and poems successfully fusing the themes
of Whitman and the Psalmist.
He was divorced from his first wife in 1914.
When his companion, Gertrude Smith, was taken
from him by illness, he married Linda Gray, who
cherished him in the last years of his life. These
were darkened by sickness, poverty, and the
clouding of his early fame. He died of tuber-
culosis at the age of fifty. There was warmth,
candor, and sweetness in the man, but his poetic
gift was inadequate fully to express his sensitive
and insurgent nature. Besides the works men-
tioned above, he published the following books
of pros* :Doctor East (1909), Wild Oats (1910),
Pay-Envelopes (1911), The Nine-Tenths (1911),
The Olympian (1912), Idle Wives (1914), The
Psychology of Jung (1925) ; and these volumes
of verse: The Pioneers (1910), War and Laugh-
ter (1916), The Book of Self (1917)- Parts of
The Beloved (1915), a novel, were reprinted as
free verse.
Optic — Orcutt
[File of The Seven Arts; Louis Untenncyer, The
New Era in American Poetry (1919) ; Paul Rosenfeld,
Men Seen (1925) ; H. W. Cook, Our Poets of Today
(1923) ; N. Y. Times, Aug. 5 and 31, 1932; informa-
tion from Arthur B. Spingarn of New York City.]
B.D.
OPTIC, OLIVER [See ADAMS, WILLIAM
TAYLOR, 1822-1897].
ORCUTT, HIRAM (Feb. 3, iSis-Apr. 17,
1899), educator, was the youngest son of ten
children bom to John Snell and Hannah (Cur-
rier) Orcutt, of Ac-worth, 3SL II. His father, a
farmer, was barely able to provide for his large
family, and Hiram was obliged to work on the
farm, attending the district school but three
months in each year. By the time he was eigh-
teen, he had had one term in the academy at
Chester, Vt Inspired by his instructors, he de-
cided to prepare himself for college, and attended
school at Cavendish, Vt, Unity, N. PL, and
Meriden, N. H. At twenty-one, he entered Phil-
lips Academy, Andover, Mass., and two years
later matriculated at Dartmouth College, grad-
uating* in 1842. Throughout this period he sup-
ported himself by teaching school during the
winter terms, and on Aug. is, 1842, he married
Sarah Ames Cummings, daughter of Daniel and
Hannah (Ames) Cummings, of Haverhill, Mass.
After her death, he married Ellen Lazette Dana,
Apr. 8, 1865, daughter of Ranson Stephen and
Laura Lazette (Moulton) Dana, of Poughkeep-
sie, N. Y. Immediately after graduating from
college, be became principal of Hebron (N. EL)
Academy.
In 1843, he was elected principal of Thetford
(Vt.) Academy, in which position lie achieved a
noteworthy reputation among the headmasters
of New England. After twelve conspicuously
successful years of service there, he accepted an
appointment as principal of the Ladies* Semi-
nary at North Granville, N. Y. Here, too, he
distinguished himself as teacher and administra-
tor. Having fulfilled the terms of his contract
in 1860, he resigned and established the Glen-
wood Ladies' Seminary at West Brattleboro, Vt.,
as a private venture. Four years later he was
appointed principal of the Tilclen Ladies' Semi-
nary at West Lebanon, N. H., and conducted
both institutions successfully until 1868, when
he sold his interest in the school at West Brattle-
boro. During these years, he found time to serve
also as superintendent of schools in Brattleboro,
Vt, and Lebanon, N. H. ( 1860-66), and as editor
of the Vermont School Journal (1861-65)- He
established various educational associations, and
gave many lectures before teachers' institutes in
both New Hampshire and Vermont* Fort two
47
Ord
years, 1870-72, he represented the town of Leb-
anon in the New Hampshire General Court.
Here he drafted the measures which established
the State Normal School at Plymouth, made pub-
lic school attendance compulsory, and authorized
towns to change from the district to the town
system of school administration. For six years
after its establishment in 1870 he assisted the
Normal School as secretary of the board of trus-
tees. In 1880, he resigned from the principal-
ship of the Tilden Ladies7 Seminary, and re-
moved to Boston, where he spent the remainder
of his life. As early as 1876, he had been a mem-
ber of the advisory board of the Netv England
Journal of Education, and in 1881 he was ap-
pointed associate editor and manager of the sub-
scription department. From 1875 to 1898, when
he retired, he was manager of the New England
Bureau of Education, which, under his direc-
tion, became the leading teacher's agency in
Massachusetts.
Orcutt was a prolific and influential contribu-
tor of educational articles to New England
periodicals and newspapers. In addition, he col-
laborated with Truman Rickard in the prepara-
tion of Class Book of Prose wd Poetry (1847),
a book that went through many editions. He
published, also, Gleanings from School-Life Ex-
perience or, Hints to Common School Teachers,
Parents and Pupils (1858) ; Methods of School
Discipline (1871); Teachers' Manual (1871);
Parents' Manual (1874) ; Howe and School
Training (1874) ; School Keeping; How to Do
It (1885), and Among the Theologies (1888).
[Am. Jour, of Educ., Dec. 1865; Paul Monroe, A
Cyc. of Educ., IV (1913), SS4~S5; Vital Records of
Hauerhill, Mass. (1911), II, 80; J. L, Merrill, Hist, of
Acworth (1869), pp. 90, 251-53 ; New England Jour, of
Educ., June 17, 1876; Boston Transcript, Apr, 18,
1899; Orcutt's autobiography (MS.) in the possession
of his son, Win. Dana Orcutt, Boston, Mass.]
R.F.S.
ORD, EDWARD OTHO CRESAP (Oct. 18,
i8i8-July 22, 1883), soldier, was born in Cum-
berland, Md, the third son of James Ord, an
officer in the United States Navy for a short
time, and afterwards a lieutenant in the army
during the War of 1812. His mother was a
daughter of Col. Daniel Cresap, who had been a
lieutenant of Maryland Volunteers. His grand-
father had commanded one of the regiments
which Washington sent to Pennsylvania to quell
the whiskey insurrection. In 1819, the Ords
moved to Washington, D. C, where Edward re-
ceived his early schooling mostly from his fa-
ther a thorough scholar. When but seven years
old, he showed marked aptitudes a calculator.
At sixteen he entered the United States Military
Ord
Academy, and graduated in tSjt), .nnenteenth in
a class of thirty-one, On July ?» ifya he was
appointed second liVutcu.mt and assigned t?> the
3rd Artillery. His la^f M'tvitv wa% against tho
Seminole Indians in the Hnnd.t K verities in
1840, He was promoted tlr^i lieutenant for gal-
lant conduct on this expedition. In 1847 ho was
sent on the f.cfiuttfan from New Yoik, around
Cape Horn, to California, Shortly after his ar-
rival, he was dispatched with two men to capture
three murderers, lie eamrht up with them at
Santa Barbara, shot one uho attempted torneapo,
brought the other two to my tii.il before ;w
alcadc court, .sectored their eonvietion, and
promptly executed them, On! lud to take mat-
ters in his own hands, fur the affade would
neither assume respon'.ihility u**r t.ikr a^y ac-
tion without Ord's dirrvtion, Onl nnrtved his
captaincy on Sept, 7, 1850, v\t San Fnutciseu,
Get 14, 1854, he married Muv Mercer Tlmwp-
son ; they had two MWS and a daughter,
During 1856. in Oregon, he* r;unp;uKnrd Mir*
cessfully against the KMKW Hiver Indian and
later against the Spokane Indians in Wa^liing*
ton Territory, In 1850, he wan m the Aitillcry
School at I'Nul Monro<% V;»M and st'tvnl in the
expedition that snpprc^ed John Htmvn'i raid «t
Harpers Ferry, At the ntithrrak of tfor C*ivi!
War, ho was stationed at the I*itsii!in, S,m I'Vnn-
cisco, where lie was appointed liri^;t(lir! genern!
of volunteers nn Srpt, 14, iHr»t, He W;H ordered
East and from Ntn-emher tRr»i to May iKCueom*
nmnded a brigade in tljr army defending Wash-
ington, I). C During this pnind* nt Dranw-
ville, Va,» Dec. an, 1861, he led the attack nKainut
the Confederate foreca timier < Jen, j, K. H, Stuart,
The morale of hi* ntrn wan low ; Init ihrmigh
his hrilliant leadership, Mirers W;H aitainrcl and
the drooping spirits of the men revived, For hit
conduct in this action he was breve ttr d lirutrrumt-
colonel
He was appointed major-genrrnl of volunteers,
May 2, 1862* In the Army of the TrnmwHee he
commanded the left wing from AiiKmt to Sep-
tember 1862, and on Sept, 19, wn« lirrvrttrd colo-
nel for gallant and meritorious service during the
advance upon luka, MU«. After the battle of
Corinth, in October, he joined the Federal amy
m pursuit of the retreating Confecfmtei at
Hatchie, assumed command, am! drove back the
head of the Confederate column, After this en-
gagement, in which he was severely wounded, he
was brevetted brigadier-general From June 18
to Oct 08, 1863, he commanded the Kill Army
Corps m the Army of the Tennessee in the Vlcks-*
burg campaign* During the iie§ e of Vfcksbtnf ,
he served on Grtufs staff and kttr, Jtdy i^
Ord
1863, took part in the capture of Jackson, Miss.
From August to October 1863, he served with
the Army of Western Louisiana. In March 1864
he joined Gen. Franz Sigel at Cumberland and,
with Gen. George Crook, directed the campaign
against Staunton, Va. On July 9, 1864, he was
given command of the VIII and later, of the
XVIII Army Corps, in the operations before
Richmond. In the assault and capture of Fort
Harrison, Sept. 29, he was severely wounded.
After his recovery he assumed command, Jan.
8, 1865, of the Army of the James and the De-
partment of North Carolina. He engaged in the
various operations about Petersburg, Va., and
in the pin-suit of General Lee until the surrender
at Appomattox Court House, Apr. 9, 1865. On
Mar. 13, 1865, ne nad ^een brevetted major-gen-
eral. His aicle-de-camp, the Rev. S. S. Seward,
said : "I never saw him under any circumstances
lose his self-control or forfeit for an instant his
character as a courteous gentleman. . . . Before
battle ... he was exceedingly cautious . . . but as
soon as the first bullet whistled over his head he
seemed to lose all sense of fear, all hesitation, all
thought, except to go forward and win the vic-
tory" (New York Tribune, July 26, 1883).
Following the war he commanded several mili-
tary departments in turn until he was retired,
Dec. 6, 1880. By Act of Congress, approved
Jan. 28, 1 88 1, he was made a major-general on
the retired list Subsequently he became identi-
fied with various civilian enterprises and re-
mained so engaged until stricken with yellow
fever en route from New York to Vera Cruz.
He was taken ashore at Havana, Cuba, where
he died. His remains were interred in the Na-
tional Cemetery at Arlington, Va.
[P, T. Tyson, Geology and Industrial Resources of
California (1851) ; Asso. Grads. U. S. Mil. Acad., Ann,
Reunion, 1884; War of the. Rebellion: Official Records
(Army) ; F. B. Heitraan, Hist. Reg. and Diet. U. S.
Army (1903) ; G. W. Cullum, Biog, Reg, Officers and
Grads. U. S. Mil Acad. (arcl eel, 1891), vol II; rec-
ords of the U. S. Pension Office.] Q Q 33.
ORD, GEORGE (Mar. 4, i78r-Jan. 24, 1866),
naturalist and philologist, was born probably in
Philadelphia, where his father, George Ord, for-
merly a sea-captain, had established himself in
1798 as a ship-chandler and rope-maker. His
mother was Rebecca Lindemeyer, daughter of
George and Judith Lindemeyer, said to be de-
scended from early Swedish settlers on the Dela-
ware, George entered his father's firm m 1800
and continued the business for some years after
his father's death in 1806, eventually retiring,
probably in 1829, to live thereafter the life of a
gentleman of leisure. He was married in 1815
and had a daughter who died in infancy and a
Ord
son, Joseph Benjamin Ord, who became an artist
and portrait painter.
Of George Ord's early education there is no
record, but he acquired somehow a broad and
varied knowledge of both literature and science.
At twenty-four he was the close friend and com-
panion of Alexander Wilson [q.v.'], fifteen years
his senior, who was then beginning his great
work on American birds : American Ornithology;
or, the Natural History of the Birds of the United
States (9 vols., 1808-14). Ord accompanied him
on various excursions in the neighborhood of
Philadelphia and his name not infrequently oc-
curs on the pages of the Ornithology. Upon
Wilson's premature death, Ord, who was one of
his executors, took upon himself the completion
of the work, editing Volume VIII, then ready
for the press, and writing all of the text for Vol-
ume IX, which covered the birds depicted m
Wilson's remaining drawings. Several years
later, in 1824-25, he published another edition of
the work with much additional material. Because
of the excessive modesty which was one of his
marked characteristics and his earnest desire not
to detract from Wilson's credit, he concealed his
participation whenever possible, and it is dif-
ficult in, some instances to determine which para-
graphs are his contributions. In the ninth vol-
ume (1814) of the Ornithology, he published a
life of Wilson, in which he paid full tribute to his
lamented friend, the perpetuation of whose mem-
ory and the defense of whose work became the
great purpose of his life. The appearance of
Audubon's beautiful plates about the time that
Ord was preparing his later edition excited Ord's
jealousy to a high pitch, and with the aid of his
friend Charles Waterton he did all in his power
to discredit Auclubon. The attacks were vigor-
ously met by Attdubon's friends and thus arose
what has often been termed the Wilson- Audubon
controversy, although Wilson had died long be-
fore the controversy began.
In 1818 Orel accompanied Thomas Say, Titian
Peale, and William Maclure [qq.v."] on what was
perhaps his only extensive field trip, an expe-
dition to Georgia and Florida resulting in the
acquisition of many interesting collections. Be-
sides the biography of Wilson he prepared
memoirs of Say and C. A. Lesueur, an anony-
mous account of the zoology of North America
for the second American edition (1815) of Wil-
liam Guthrie's New Geographical and Com-
mercial Grammar, and a dozen papers on various
subjects published in the proceedings of several
societies. In later life he disposed of his manu-
scripts on philology, the results of forty years
research, to Latham of London who used them
49
Ordronaux
with full credit in the compilation of his new
edition of Johnson's Dictionary. Ord's profound
learning received ample recognition in the hon-
ors conferred upon him by the scientific societies
of Philadelphia. Personally he is described by
Malvina Lawson, daughter of the engraver of
Wilson's plates, as "a very singular person, very
excitable, almost of pure nervous temperament.
Proud, shy and reserved toward strangers ; but
expansive and brilliant with his friends." He
would sometimes get into a temper of rage if
opposed in argument but his anger was soon for-
gotten. He attained the age of eighty-five, out-
living most of his old friends and making no new
ones. In his last years he was a recluse, with-
drawn from the world, living among his books.
[Samuel Rhoads, "George Ord," Cassinia, a Bird
Annual, 1908 (1909) ; Walter Faxon, "Early Editions
of Wilson's Ornithology," Auk, Apr, 1901 ; F, L, Burns,
"Miss Lawson's Recollections of Ornithologists," Ibid.,
July 1917; Public Ledger (Phila.), Jan. 26, 1866,]
ORDRONAUX, JOHN (Aug. 3, iS30~Jan«
20, 1908), lawyer and physician, son of John and
Elizabeth (Charreton) Ordronaux, was born in
New York City. His father, a Frenchman, com-
manded a privateer in the War of 1812 and died
in 1841, whereupon John, the only child, was
adopted by John Moulton of Roslyn, L. I, He
graduated from Dartmouth College in 1850 and
from the Harvard Law School in 1852. He prac-
tised law at Taunton, Mass,, for two years, then
removed to New York, utilizing his leisure in
the study of medicine. He received an honorary
degree of M.D. from the National Medical Col-
lege, Washington, D. C. (Medical Department
of Columbian, now George Washington Uni-
versity), in 1859, where in the following year he
lectured on medical jurisprudence. His teach-
ing record was remarkable. For forty-eight
years he was lecturer, professor, or professor
emeritus of medical jurisprudence in various
schools of law and medicine: Columbia Uni-
versity Law School, 1860-1908; Dartmouth Col-
lege Medical School, 1864-1903; National Medi*
cal College, Washington, D. C., and
was appointed assist surg th
National Guard. HfeffiS
oi Hedth in Armies ior th
0^w «| SM£ (x86 )
Ordronaux
In I$6t) he published Jnri.'ipnidi'i
He was the first New V*nk M.ii
- - •"•""••" **i mvj
in lunacy (1874--^) ami rr\Knl an*! cndiiknl the
lunacy laws of the Mate, Hr \\a , the* author of
and on //H( JWiVw/ J,v/'«v/,v ^{ fo\\
, ith ltnlitttj
<f»|/ ///!'
' fl,V i
as
Expounded in
(1878); 77*** /We/
Indictment ( 1880} ; /«*//« iY ,„
to the Disposal oj /wrim* C VWHM/.V ( iSHt ) ; $
Constitutional Letiidtttiiw in //jr< rnilcd .sVii
(1891), The In.sMiamrtt wntk \M\>* an attempt
"to expound iliusc ad!uim-<tt;i(ivr junvrrs which,
in our dual form nf rrj»r«'M*»»utUr irMvrumu'nt*
arc sovereign within fhHr M-VOM! '.|*hr»rs «»f ac-
tion/1 a theory hy which n\vr Iriu' M'ctuni
nf
f
1 niMt»,*'
nf in.<nf,i!
!, In th
Hjs
tirM of
tr,ius|,t!initt
»*/
,»/
Without (HSintcfyrattnH
trfl)«tionS to thf» Ittrr.'
were nmny autt always Ksuin-*
letters he <liscovrrr*l M
Notable was his f«n*tu4
Sanitath SaleruitonuM ;
School tif Sderiwut (1870), ;t l«mk lung nut of
print ami keenly snuulJt by ro!!ri*furH, !lr w^^
also a contributor of wvrnil ttriKiii;i! tran»iaimn*
to Home? , , , Pnwntfd tv M^iem AV«i^«
(1908), edited by C I*, nn<i J, (\ D;in,i, aji to
which Dr. Charlc*H L, DIIIW ctimntrtttnl: "It h
rather strange that America ban rnntribntrd m
little to the trannlation or apf}rm;ttitm nf «%jr
poet Dr, John Onlromuix han licrii by far the
most successful" (!ntr<x!iKii<m, ji, xiii'),
Although nf ample means, Ortlnumitx wat the
least self-indulgent of mm ami ilcninl hintnetf
much by^rcason of an jnmitf, alnuiHt rittirbid,
prudence in expenditure. Fur yrar* be rrMricted
himself to a lunchron that nhfiuM nut rxceed
twenty-five cents in cti»t. lie would rvt*« nmipie
to add a desired book to hi* n!iclv<% But this
trait was not disclosed, ar wen ffurnttrcl, in ordi-
nary intercourse with men, to whom he* wan •!*
ways a genial and charming companion, except
when in the mood of deprei*ion that
•
??*!"*?* ?" ft *" °bvtol>i lnttWlt
Pr?fmional actlvitiei and welfare ol
Ordway
carry a bit of tarred rope in his purse for like
protective purposes, and in winter, when putting
on his overcoat and muffler, be most careful to
"button up the caloric." If his visit fell in hot
weather he would prescribe a refreshing drink
which he called "psychological lemonade," com-
posed, among other ingredients, of ice-water,
dilute phosphoric acid, tincture of gentian, and
sugar. He was reputed the real inventor of a
"glycerine tonic," since exploited commercially
under the name of a well-known early superin-
tendent of the Utica institution in which it was
extensively prescribed. On arriving at his next
official post he would often send a kind message
to the young friends from whom he had just
separated himself, sometimes in Latin, on a well-
filled postcard, the phrase, Sparge multa amicitiae
vcrba apud omncs fra£rcsf being a favorite greet-
ing. He was deeply religious, and occasionally
acted as lay reader in the Episcopal Church. He
never married, but compensated for that celibacy
by becoming beloved father to the community in
which for long years he dwelt. He died of cere-
bral apoplexy, at Glen Head, L. I.
IThe Institutional Care of the Insane in the V. S.
and Canada, ed. by H. M. Kurd, IV (1917), 467-69;
T. H. Shastid, in H. A. Kelly and W. L. Burrage, Am,
Medic. Biogs., (1920) ; Long Island Medic. Jour., Apr.
1908 ; Nation (N. Y.), Jan. 23, 1908 ; L. W. King-man,
The Kingman and Qrdronaux Families (1911) ; N. Y.
Times t Jan. 21, 1908; recollections of Dr. E. N, Brush,
Baltimore; personal acquaintance.] G.A.B r.
ORDWAY, JOHN (c. i77$-c. 1817), explorer,
was one of ten children of John and Hannah
(Morse) Ordway, who lived at Amesbury, Mass.,
until about 1774 and subsequently at Bow, N.
H., where John was born. Ruins of the parental
home at Bow show that the father was a substan-
tial farmer. His elder son Stephen lived in later
life at Hebron, N. H., and became a prominent
citizen there. About 1800 the younger John en-
listed in the United States army and in 1803 was
sergeant in Capt. Russell Bissell's company of
the ist Infantry, stationed at Kaskaskia, 111.
Thither in that year came Capt. Meriwether
Lewis [#.#.], enlisting recruits for his expedition
across the continent, Ordway joined the expe-
dition, was continued as sergeant, and appointed
to keep the rosters and orderly books. During the
first winter of preparation, when the men of the
party were encamped at Dubois River, opposite
St. Louis, he was frequently in charge of the de-
tachment during the absence of the captains,
Lewis and Clark. With the expedition he spent
the first winter at the village of the Mandan In-
dians, leaving there Apr. 7, 1805, for the western
journey. The next winter was spent on the shores
of the Pacific, where Ordway endured his full
O'Reilly
share of the hardships and dangers of the situ-
ation. On the return journey the two leaders sepa-
rated, Lewis undertaking a northern route, while
Clark with Ordway sought the headwaters of the
Missouri. From this point Ordway was dis-
patched with nine men to join Lewis ; his journal
covering the period July 13-19, 1806, is the sole
record of that portion of the expedition. Ordway's
party, augmented by some of Lewis* men, over-
took Lewis on July 28, and continued with him
to St. Louis, where the united expedition arrived
in safety on Sept. 23.
After his return Ordway paid a visit to his
home and family in New Hampshire. In 1807 he
went back to Missouri, where he bought con-
siderable land and established a plantation in the
New Madrid district. His home suffered severe-
ly in the earthquake of 1811, when as his sister
described the scene, it was "a dreadful sight to
see the ground burst and throw out water as high
as the trees/* Practically nothing is known of
Ordway's further career, except that in 1818 his
widow, Elizabeth, applied for lands appropriated
for the relief of the earthquake sufferers. The
journal that John Ordway kept on the expedition
was secured by Captain Clark for his records,
but then it disappeared for many years. In 1913
it was found among the Biddle papers, and three
years later was published in the Wisconsin His~
torical Collections (vol. XXII, 1916). It is a
straightforward, clear narrative o£ the day by
day happenings on the journey. Both the com-
manders trusted Ordway and he appears to have
been next to them in both ability and authority.
[Records of the Ordway family are in the Vital Rec-
ords of Amesbury, Mass. ; those of Bow, N. H,, are
lost, and consequently the date of birth is lacking. See
family letters in Mo, Hist. Rcv,f July 1908 ; J. H, Morse
and E. W. Leavitt, Morse Geneal. (1903); (X D,
Wheeler, The Trail of Lewis and Clark (2 vols., 1904) ;
sketch in preface to the journal, Wis. Hist. Soc. Colls,,
vol. XXII (1916) ; Miss. Valley Hist, Rev., June ipiS.J
L.P.K.
O'REILLY, ALEXANDER (i722-Mar. 23,
1794), officer in the Spanish army, was born at
Baltrasna, County Heath, Ireland, the son of
Thomas Reilly. He was taken by his parents to
Spain, where at the age of ten he became a cadet
in the Hibernia Regiment Though crippled for
life by a wound received in Italy in the War of
the Austrian Succession, he won rapid promo-
tion, thanks to native ability and to the patronage
of various magnates, one of whom was the Irish-
man, Richard Wall, then an influential Spanish
minister, A rare knowledge of modem warfare,
acquired through a mission to Austria and France
during the Seven Years' War, made O'Reilly a
leader in the reform of the Spanish army. His
O'Reilly
services in the war with Portugal and ia the re-
organization of the defenses of Cuba and Puerto
Rico won him the rank of major-general (1763)
and lieutenant-general (1767).
After the uprising of 1768 against Ulloa, the
first Spanish governor of Louisiana, O'Reilly
was sent with a force of some three thousand
men to take formal possession of the province,
punish the rebels, and assimilate the government
of the province to that of the other Spanish do-
minions in America. He carried out his orders
with vigor and success. The power of the King
he demonstrated by executing five of the ring-
leaders; his clemency, by pardoning the rest.
This is the episode that won him the sobriquet,
"Bloody O'Reilly." The comprehensive regula-
tions which he drew up for the administration of
Louisiana remained in effect with little change
to the end of the Spanish period. His conduct
was highly praised by the King and the council
of the Indies, and in October 1770 the French
ambassador reported that O'Reilly was regarded
as the leader of the military party in vSpain,
Honors were heaped upon him : in 1770 he was
made inspector-general of infantry and placed in
charge of a school for officers, and in 1771 he
was given the title of count. Even the utter fail-
ure of his expedition against Algiers in 1775 did
not deprive him of the King's favor; but he" was
demoted from the military governorship of
Madrid to that of Cadiz, and his intrigues against
Floridablanca later led to his banishment to the
province of Galicia. Recalled in 1794 to take
command of the army in Catalonia, he died at
Bonete, near Chinchilla (Murcia), on the way
to his post. His wife was Rosa de las Casas, a
member of an influential family. His eldest son
inherited the title and took up his residence in
Cuba.
[Sources include: Jacobo de la Pezuela y Lobo
Diccionario.^dclalsladeCuba (Madrid), IV (x8<56)'
164 ;_ Antonio Ballesteros y Beretta, Historic? '
Espana (Barcelona, 1923-29), V, 193, 358, 389; ;
uel Serrano y Sanz, ed., Documentor Hisitricos
Florida y la Luisiana (Madrid, 19:2), pn, 305-313-
Chas Gayarre, Hist, of La. (4th ed., 1003 if 1«^
354, HI, 1-41; B F. French, Hist. Emails of la ^
(1853), 240-9:; Marc de Villiers du Terrage I«
fST^f* ? & la Louisiana Francis* {Paris,
n.dO, pp. 291-326 ; H, E. Bolton, At hwasl > dc AfWw
O'Reilly
telegraph linos, was horn in <*arnckmaeross
Province of Ulster, Ireland, His father was a
merchant who met with reverses in business. His
mother was Alicia Ledbetter* the daughter of a
physician, The family nf three* emigrated to
America in fHtft an<! settled in NVw York, where
the boy was apprenticed to ttaptKir Irvine, edi-
tor and owner of the New York CWttmfwiM, a
newspaper which was a Mam-h advocate of the
Erie Canal project. Owing; to a change in the
ownership of the paper, the apprenticeship termi*
nated in a year, and O'Keilly's new rntplnvors
were Clayton $ Kintfst.tnd, pnhlM}rt\ in \v hn.se
office he received valtuhle training, At the nge
of seventeen he heeaine a^ht,mt editor of the
New JVA" J\ttrii*tt the or^an of the Peopled
party, which elected IVWin rtinton Kwernor
of New York in iH»*4, Two years later Henry
C, Sleight and Luther Tm'krr esia!*!i\hed the
Rochester Daily ."M?srfi,vr at HueliMer, Nf, Y#
Tucker hecame its tmsinrss manager amt'w*
lected as its editor ynwtj* O'HHIly, with whom
he hat! been as>uriutn| on the /**t/nW, The
Advertiser was immediately MuvrWHl, and it*
youthful and vigorous editor M*W K.iiwd notice
as the chief opponent <*f Thnrlow \\Vnl, in the
great anti-Masonic excitement whieh hroke mit
owing tt> the alwluetumof William .\t»r«an ji/.r.].
Weed wan ehairman of an indignation meeting
held in Rochester in i)t*er*nhrr iHj6 ttnct !m-
camc one of the national Irmlrr* t»f the imti*
Masonic political party. In an rdiforial pub-
lushed Mar, xfi, 1837, O*Kfiity ohjrcird to the
<4harsh words, denunciation tmti proper iptitm"
which were "visited alike upon the tmuwnt and
the guilty/1 and thin led to it war of words* with
Weed, who established an opposition paper in
Rochester and, in iHaH, hat! both fhr editor and
the owner of the Advtrtiwr inclicfrcl far libel,
The issue never came to trial.
O'Reilly was conHtawly lulvuneing a rauie.
fn 1833 he began the agitation far the rebuild-
ing and enlargement of the Kric Caiwl, m& in
1859, when the railroad Interest ww huntile to
the canal, he appealed ta the people of the »u*e
to protect the interests of the waterway. In 1845
he entered into a contract with S. F, B, Morie
and Amos Kendall to raise the capital for tto
construction of telegraph linen from Extern
Pennsylvania to St Louis and the Great Lakes,
He erected some eight thousand miles of line, but
°™LLY' HENRY
m
difficulties led him lo abandcm his
Aside
52
O'Reilly
with Incidental Notices of Western New York.
In 1859 he gave a collection of historical manu-
scripts to the New York Historical Society, and
subsequently he gave a smaller collection of docu-
ments to the Rochester Historical Society. He
was married to Marcia Brooks, a daughter of
Gen. Micah Brooks. They had one son, Henry
Brooks O'Reilly, who was killed at the battle of
Williamsburg, May 5, 1862. Although O'Reilly
was in many respects a remarkable man, he
lacked prudence in money matters, and old age
found him a poor man.
[See : The Rochester Hist. Soc. Ptib. Fund Scr.f vol.
V (1926), and vol. IX (1930) ; Alexander Jones, Hist.
Sketch of the Electric Telegraph (1852) ; J. D. Reid,
The Telegraph in America (1879) ; Edward L. Morse,
Samuel F. B. Morse: His Letters and Journals (1914),
vol. II ; R. H. Gillet, First Telegraph Case before the
U. S, Supreme Court (1853) ; and the N. Y. Daily Trib-
une} Ang. 1 8, 1886. O'Reilly changed the spelling of
his name to O'Rielly, and that form is on his tomb-
stone, but the name appears more commonly in the usual
spelling.] W.M.B.
O'REILLY, JOHN BOYLE (June 28, 1844-
Aug. 10, 1890), poet, editor and patriot, son of
William, David and Eliza (Boyle) O'Reilly, de-
scended from ancient Irish families, was born at
Castle Dowth, near Drogheda, on the south bank
of the Boyne, where his father kept a school. He
spent four years as an apprentice on the Drogheda
Argus and three in England on the Preston
Guardian, returning to Ireland in 1863 to enlist
in the Tenth Hussars. Like most other young
Irishmen he joined the Fenian Order. Almost a
third of the English army were Irish. Utterly
sincere, young O'Reilly obtained many "recruits/1
but his Fenian connection was discovered in
1866. He was tried by court martial, charged
with "not giving information" of "an intended
mutiny." Sentence of death as a conspirator to
levy war against the Queen was passed on July
9, commuted the same day to life imprisonment,
and subsequently to twenty years of penal servi-
tude* After several years of solitary confinement
at Millbanfc and a period of hard labor in the
brickyards at Chatham, he was removed to Dart-
moor.
O'Reilly was one of the sixty-three political
prisoners deported to Australia in the first com-
pany sent there since the uprising of 1848. Oa
Jan. 10, 1868, the Hougoumont dropped anchor
before Fremantle near Perth. He was "Con-
vict No. 9843." Sustained by an ever-buoyant
spirit, he never gave up the idea of escape. Fa-
ther Patrick McCabe befriended him. The priest
called devoted friends to his aid, and obtained
the assistance of an American whaling* vessel.
The prisoner made his start on Feb. 18, 1869.
After weary days of peril and suspense he was
O'Reilly
rowed out to sea and taken aboard the whaler
Gazelle, of New Bedford, Captain David R. Gif-
ford. During the ensuing cruise the courage of
the second mate, Henry C. Hathaway, saved
O'Reilly from death, and his ingenuity saved the
fugitive from capture at Roderique. For many
years subsequently in America they were close
friends. Off the Cape of Good Hope he was
transferred to the American barque Sapphire,
and at Liverpool he became "third mate" of the
Bombay which landed him in safety at Philadel-
phia on Nov. 23, 1869. That same day he took
out his first naturalization papers.
He knew nobody in the United States. But
the story of his escape had preceded him and his
personality procured him friends. Already he
was called "the poet." He went on to Boston
and obtained employment on the Pilot, the most
influential "Irish paper" in America. As "war
correspondent" he covered the Fenian raid into
Canada from St. Albans. The frank criticisms
of that ill-judged foray by such a writer pro-
duced a marked impression. Speedily he rose to
fame. In 1876 the Catholic Archbishop of Bos-
ton and O'Reilly bought the Pilot. For fifteen
years its influence now was nation-wide. As a
Democrat he wrote vigorously of politics but re-
fused to seek any office. He was a devout Catho-
lic but tolerant and magnanimous. He became
an ardent advocate of Home Rule and the Irish
leader in New England, but he always empha-
sized the duties of American citizenship. He
lectured throughout the country. His Songs /row
Southern Seas appeared in 1873 J Songs, Legends
and Ballads in 1878; The Statues in the Block
in 1881 ; In Bohemia in 1886. He published a
novel, Moondyne, in 1879, and a work on ath-
letics, Ethics of Boxing and Manly Sport, in
1888. With Robert Grant, Frederic J. Stimson
("J. S. of Dale"), and John T. Wheelwright, he
wrote a composite "novel of tomorrow," The
King's Men (1884). O'Reilly was the poet for
the O'Connell centenary, for the dedication of
the Crispus Attucks monument on Boston Com-
mon, and he read a notable poem at the dedica-
tion of the Pilgrim Monument at Plymouth in
1889. He died before reaching his full stature
as a poet. Born with the gift, he began to sing
as a boy. Throughout his life most of his verse-
writing had to be done almost without leisure.
He disdained "the carving of cherry-stones/' the
elaboration of trifles. There are good lines in his
poems, the sentiment is kindly, the themes wide-
ly varied. He seems most at home in a swinging
ballad measure. Widely popular in his time, he
is now best remembered by a group of short
poems which express his love of the spiritual
S3
O'Reilly
things in human life. His genius for .
gained him the affection of men of all faiths
all grades of culture. He was a founder of clubs,
a canoe enthusiast, an excellent athlete, and a
social favorite. On Aug. 15, ^\he turned
Mary Murphy, the daughter of John and Jane
(Smiley) Murphy, of Charleston. His death
at the summer home in Hull was occasioned by
overwork and insomnia. A memorial in the Bos-
ton Fenway was erected by popular subscription.
There are busts in the Boston Public Library and
the Catholic University in Washington.
rSources include: J. J. Roche, Life of Tokn Boyle
0>R^i^^M^ials published by the Qty of
Boston (1890, 897) 5 files of the Pilot and other Bos-
ton newspapWs;97 jisti^ McCarthy, R«^«™*
(1899) vol. I; Wemyss Reid, Memoirs and Corre-
spondence of Lyon Playfair (1899); E. P. Mitchell,
it Au.
Boyle O'Reilly.] F.L.B.
O'REILLY, ROBERT MAITLAND (Jan,
14, i845-Nov. 3, 1912), surgeon general, United
States Army, was descended from an old Irish
family, one branch of which, emigrating to Spain,
produced Gen. Alexander O'Reilly [g#.], who
was captain general of Cuba and one of the Span-
ish governors of Louisiana. The American
branch settled in Pennsylvania before the Revo-
lution and it was in Philadelphia that, to John
and Ellen (Maitland) O'Reilly, Robert was born*
He was educated in the public schools of his na-
tive city and had begun the study of medicine
when the Civil War commenced. In August
1862 he was appointed an acting medical cadet
and assigned to the Cuyler General Hospital in
Philadelphia; later he served as a medical cadet
in a hospital at Chattanooga and in the office of
the medical director of the Army of the Cumber-
land.
With the close of the Civil War he resumed
his medical studies at the University of Penn-
sylvania and was graduated in 1866. In May
1867 he was appointed assistant surgeon in the
army and was sent out to California by way of
Panama with a detachment of recruits. From
1868 to 1869 he was in Arizona with troops op-
erating against hostile Indians. In 1874 he par-
ticipated in the Sioux campaign in Wyoming
and Montana. While on duty incident to labor
disturbances in Pennsylvania in 1877, he sus-
tained an injury which incapacitated him for two
years. Soon after his return from sick leave, he
was assigned to duty as attending surgeon in
Washington. In this capacity his attractive per-
sonality and his professional skill made hto a
prominent figure in the capital. He was the
White House physician during the two admin*
O'Reilly
istrations of President Cleveland, with whom he
was on terms of intimate friendship.
Following1 the outbreak of the Spanish-Ameri-
can War, O'Reilly, then a major, was chief
surgeon of Gen. John J. Coppin^r's division at
Mobile, Ala., and later was transferred to the
staff of Gen. J, F. Wade in Havana, The medi-
cal department ship Hay State was placed at his
disposal and he was sent to Jamaica for the pur-
pose of acquiring information relative to the ex-
perience of the British army in tropical hygiene,
He made a study of the housing fotxl and care
of troops, and submitted recommendations in re-
lation to these subjects which were of material
value* Returning' from Cuba in November f Hoo,
he commanded the Josiah Simpson Hospital at
Fort Monroe, Va,, and later was transferred to
San Francisco as chief surgeon of the depart-
ment of California, On Sept. 7, igtu, he sumwl-
eel William II. Forwood |</jr'.J as surtfoon-Ken-
eral of the army, General O'Reilly brought into
his office a group of highly intelligent young of-
ficers and organized it into divisions, *ach with
a responsible head, Unsatisfactory conditions
in the army disclosed by the Spanish War t'tuwrd
the appointment of the Dodge Commission by
President McKinley. The findings of the com-
mission relating to the medical department took
the form of a number of reeommemlutiww, which
it devolved upon General O'Reilly to carry out.
Among other reforms which resulted was a re«
organization of the medical corps ami the cre-
ation of the medical reserve corps. He wan presi-
dent of the board which recommended the
adoption of typhoid prophylaxis for the army.
In 1906 he represented the United States at the
international conference at Geneva, Switzerland*
for the revision of the Geneva Convention. He
was retired for age on Sept 14, 1909, and con-
tinued his residence in Washington until hit
death three years later from uremic potaoning*
The only notable contribution to medical liter**
ture made by him was in the monograph on mili-
tary surgery, which appeared in the fourth edition
of W. W, Keen's American Textbook of Surgery
(1903), in which he collaborated with Maj* Wil-
liam C, Borden.
O'Reilly was a man who won affection and
loyalty from all who came into intimate contact
with him. Though of a sensitive and retiring dis«
position he had an unfailing fund of courtesy and
good nature, He was 2 devotee of chamber music
and an accomplished performer upon the violin.
Some of his deepest friendships were with those
to whom he was bound by the ties of music. Oti
Aug. 16, 1877, he married Frances L* Ptrdea of
Oswego, N, Y., who, with one daughter* stir*
54
O'Rielly — Ormsby
vived him. The death of a son just grown to
manhood saddened his later years.
[J. E. Plleher, Surgeon Generals of the Army
(1905) ; F, H. Garrison, "In Memoriam : General Rob-
ert Maitland O'Reilly," N. F. Medic. Jour., Nov. 30,
1912; H, A. Kelly and W. L. Burrage, Am. Medic.
Biogs. (1920) ; Who's Who in America, 191:2-13 ; Pub-
lic Ledger (Phila.), and Evening Star (Washington),
Nov. 4, 1912.] J.M.P— n.
O'RIELLY, HENRY [See O'REILLY, HENRY,
1806-1886].
ORMSBY, WATERMAN LILLY (1809-
Nov. i, 1883), engraver, was born in Hampton,
Conn. He received a public-school education
and at an early age became an apprentice in an
engraving establishment. In 1829 he was a stu-
dent in the National Academy of Design in New
York City, and during his early life he lived at
various times in Rochester, in Albany, where he
engraved over his own name, and in Lancaster,
Mass., where he worked for the firm of Carter,
Andrews & Company. Finally he settled in New
York City, where he became the proprietor of
the New York Bank Note Company and one of
the founders of the Continental Bank Note Com-
pany. He died in Brooklyn, N. Y., at the age
of seventy-four.
During the first quarter of the nineteenth cen-
tury the process of bank-note engraving was
cheapened and facilitated by the introduction of
machinery, and by the end of the century hand-
craftsmanship had been almost entirely super-
seded. Ormsby represented a curious combina-
tion of the two techniques. He was a versatile
and accomplished inventor of machinery to facili-
tate the processes of engraving, but he was bit-
terly opposed to the complete replacement of the
artist-craftsman. He held that notes should be
engraved as a unit upon a single plate, with care-
ful craftsmanship exerted on the design and in-
terdependence of the composition. The counter-
feiter would thus be foiled "not because he does
not know how the work is done, but because he
can not do it" (Cydoidal Con figurations t p. 37).
Ormsby was particularly bitter about the claims
set forth for "Patent Green Tint*' as a safeguard
against spurious imitation. "Indeed," he wrote,
"unless there is some interposition of Divine
Providence, the prospect seems to be, that pass-
ports to Heaven will, eventually, be printed in
'Patent Tint/ But unless they are more secure
against counterfeiting the 'narrow way' will be
terribly crowded" (Ibid., p. 43).
Ormsby was not frequently so urbane about
what he considered charlatanry. He displays
himself in his writings as a disgruntled eccentric,
sensitive about his craftsmanship and childish
Orne
about his enmities. He considered himself dis-
criminated against in business, but the forces
of industrial change and reorganization were
against him. He was an excellent line engraver,
however, and was called upon for a great deal of
work despite his conviction of persecution. His
designs for notes were in wide use by the gov-
ernment at the time of the Civil War. He was
the author of several pamphlets, among them
Cycloidal Configurations, or the Harvest of
Cottnterfciiers (n.d.), and of a volume on paper-
money engraving entitled A Description of the
Present System of Bank Note Engraving ( 1852) .
[D, M. Stauffer, Am, Engravers upon Capper and
Steel (1907) ; Subject Matter Index of Patents for In?-
mentions, 1790-1873 (1874) ; Frank Weitenkampf, Am.
Graphic Art (1924) ; the £«* (N. Y.), Nov. a, 1883.]
3E.T.
ORNE, JOHN (Apr. 29, i834-Nov. 29, 1911),
Orientalist, was born in Newburyport, Mass., the
son of John and Sarah Ingalls (Morse) Orne.
The Orne family was well known and respected
iu Newburyport, ancl the name appears more
than once in the early town records. John Orne,
Jr., after completing the regular course in the
Newburyport high school, studied by himself and
was able to enter the sophomore class at Am-
herst College in 1852. Graduating there in 1855
with the degree of A,B,, and a member of Phi
Beta Kappa, he chose the teaching profession and
taught with success in a number of secondary
schools, chiefly in Newburyport, Lawrence, and
Salem, from 1856 until 1867. In the latter year,
Nov. 28, he married Louisa Fisk, daughter of
Richard Lindsay, of Salem. They had no chil-
dren. In this year also he accepted the appoint-
ment as sub-master and teacher of physics in the
Cambridge High School ; and at this post he re-
mained for about twenty years, after which he
retired from teaching".
While in Cambridge, Orne became interested
in the Semitic languages. Under the guidance
of Crawford H. Toy, who went to Harvard as
Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Oriental
Languages in 1880, he began the study of Arabic,
and was introduced by him to the most impor-
tant working tools of research in this field. He
also made considerable progress in Hebrew and
was a member of the Harvard Biblical Club.
The most of his spare time, however, he devoted
to Arabic and Mohammedan studies, pursuing
them with remarkable energy and enthusiasm,
gradually collecting a considerable library of
texts and translations, and ultimately reaching1
a degree of proficiency in Arabic rarely attained
by one who is mainly self-taught In 1889 he
was made curator of the Arabic manuscripts in
ss
Orr
the Semitic Museum of Harvard University,
and he held this office during the remainder of
his life He was a corporate member of the
American Oriental Society for twenty-one years,
having joined in i8qo. He contributed to the
Orr
transit system in New York City and to con-
tract for its construction and operation. At the
first meeting he was elected president, and he
served in this capacity until too? when the Com-
mission's duties were transferred to {lie Public
Service Commission, After four years of study,
ship: the one dealing with an important medical
'---•-; which he analyzed and in part trans-
collection; the other describing, with specimen
translations, a highly interesting collection of
Arabic mortuary tablets from Egypt, dated in
the ninth century A.D., acquired for the Harvard
Semitic Museum in 1890. Orne received the de-
gree of Ph.D. from Amherst College in 1896,
"for eminent attainments in the Arabic language
and literature/'
[Who's Who in America, 1910-11; obituary notice
in the Amherst Grads.' Quart,, Jan. 1913 ; Bwg. Record
of the Alumni of Amherst College, 1821-71 \ J- J;. £llf;
rier, Hist, of Newbttryport, vol. I (1906) and Ouki
Newbury" (1898); Boston Transcript, Dec. x, 1911;
Boston- Daily Advertiser, Dec. 2, 1911-] C. C.T.
ORR, ALEXANDER ECTOR (Mar, 2, 1831-
June 3, 1914), merchant, was the son of William
and Mary (Moore) Orr. He was born in Stra-
bane, County Tyrone, Ireland, whither his fa-
ther's family had migrated in the seventeenth
century from Scotland. Alexander, while trav-
eling in the United States in 1850, was so favor-
ably impressed that he returned the next year to
New York City to live. He worked as a clerk in
several commission houses before forming, in
1858, a connection with David Dows & Com-
pany, at that time possibly the largest grain
dealers in the United States. He became a part-
ner in 1 86 1 and the firm's representative on the
floor of the Produce Exchange in 1863. Intense
interest in the business and a remarkable energy
soon made him the dominant member of the firm,
a force in the Exchange, and a recognized au-
thority in his field. He helped reorganize the
Produce Exchange, 1871-72, was long chair-
man of its important arbitration committee, a
leading organizer of its Benefit Assurance So-
ciety and its Gratuity Association, secretary of
the building committee which erected the Ex-
change's three-million-dollar home, and served
as president, 1887-88. He gave similar service
to the Chamber of Commerce of the State of
New York, aided in the erection of its new build-
ing1, and served as vice-president, 1889-94, and
as president, 1894-99.
In 1894 Orr was appointed a member of the
Rapid Transit Commission, created by the state
legislature to draw up plans for a comprehensive
tral feature of the system. The contracts wore
let in i<)oo and the first trains \vw operated in
ing ol service, "it is i\ cncruw i;»n» com-
mented the IfV>rWV ffVfr editorially (March
1904, p. 4512), "that the mstlioM municipal con-
venience ever constructed IMS hern Cm* frnm
corruption ami free from political tnjin;ijL«rnK*nt
, . , has been built— in New York, too—without
scandal ; and very much of the ewltt for this his-
toric achievement lu'Uwtf* to Mr, Alexander K,
Orr."
In 1875-76 Orr served, hy Governor Tildrn*!*
appointment, as one of the four members of the
commission which, in invent iKatinK the man-
agement of New York's Mate carnK* t«xposnl the
operations of the notorious *Y;wnl rit^/' He
was frequently called before the Mate lr#i*ki-
ture to advise on transportation an*! nmrkrtwj?
problems. He served us chairman of tin* "citi-
zen's movement** which elected Scth Low mayor
of Brooklyn in iNKi, awl he tonk ;t UadinK part
in other reform movement?* in local New York
politics. When president of the Chamber of
Commerce during Cleveland's Mroml term, he
gave encouragement ami pmvctftil support to
the president's Bound money policies Orr*»
knowledge and ability were sought for hy many
banks, insurance companies, and railways; and,
though at one time he wan n member of no leu
than twenty-nine hoards of directory he gave
conscientious service to each, When the Hughes
Investigation shattered public faith in the New
York Life Insurance Company, he wan per*
suaded to become its president* and in eighteen
months he had the company completely reorgan-
ized and restored to its former standing. In id*
dition, he found time to wrve in official capaci-
ties for the Brooklyn Academy of M«sic» the
Long Island State Hospital, the Long Island
Historical Society, and the Society for the Ref-
ormation of Juvenile Delinquents, and he was
a trustee of many similar institutions. He wa»
treasurer for nearly fifty yetri of the Long Isl-
and Diocese of the Protestant Episcopal Church,
managing its many complicated ftindi, and con-
tributing large amounts to them. He was sur-
vived by three daughters, born to his first wife,
Juliet Buckingham Dows, whom he married In
1857 and who died in i8;a. His wm& wife wt»
Orr
Margaret Shippen Luquer, whom he married in
[The chief source is a privately printed memorial :
In Memory of A. E. Orr (1917)- See also : Letters and
Lit. Memorials of Samuel J, Tildcn (2 vols., 1908), ed.
by John Bigelow ; annual reports and monthly Bulletin
of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of N. Y.,
especially the Bulletin for June 1914 ; Rapid Transit in
N. Y. City and in Other Great Cities (1905), prepared
by the Chamber of Commerce ; Cat. of Portraits in the
Chamber of Commerce (1924), containing a sketch
and a copy of the portrait painted by A. H. Munsell,
Orr's son-in-law; N. Y. Times f June 4, 1914; Brook-
lyn Daily Eagle, June 3, 4, 1914.] O. W. H.
ORR, GUSTAVUS JOHN (Aug. 9>
Dec. n, 1887), educator, was born in Orrville,
Anderson County, S. C, the son of James and
Anne (Anderson) Orr. In 1821 the family
moved to Jackson County, Ga,, and there young"
Orr grew into manhood, working on the farm,
and attending such schools as there were. In
1835 his father put him in a store at Jefferson,
the county seat, but the boy had other plans re-
volving in his mind. In 1839 he set out for East
Tennessee to attend the Maryville academy and
then entered the University of Georgia but, ow-
ing to a high if not exaggerated sense of honor,
left the university at the end of his junior year
rather than help the faculty in a matter of dis-
cipline. He entered Emory College, Oxford,
Ga., and was graduated in 1844. He then re-
solved to study law, but his record at Emory
had been so good that he was offered a position
as a teacher in the preparatory department and
as a tutor in the college. He returned to Jeffer-
son after two years, however, and began the
study of law with one of the resident attorneys,
but by the end of the year he gave up the idea
of becoming a lawyer. In 1847 he was married
to Eliza Caroline Anderson, who bore him ten
children, and he accepted a position in a girls'
school at Covington, Ga. The next year Emory
College offered him the professorship of mathe-
matics. His ability as a mathematician was rec-
ognized in 1859, when Gov. Joseph E. Brown
appointed him Georgia's commissioner to settle
by survey a troublesome boundary dispute with
Florida. By 1867 the Civil War and Reconstruc-
tion had reduced the college to the vanishing
point, and he accepted the presidency of the
Southern Masonic Female College at Coving-
ton, There he remained until 1870, when he be-
came professor of mathematics at Oglethorpe
College, which was removed from. Midway to
Atlanta that year.
However, the work on which his fame was to
rest was yet to be done. In January 1872 the
Democrats took control of the state from the
Carpet-baggers, and among the first acts of the
Orr
new governor was the appointment of Orr as
state school commissioner. The law for the es-
tablishment of a common-school system, passed
in 1870, was based on a report he had made in
1869 to the Georgia teachers' association. Thor-
oughly revised and rewritten in 1872, this new
act became the basis of the state's common-
school system and served admirably the purpose
for many years. He was reappointed successive-
ly by the succeeding governors and remained
school commissioner until his death. Owing to
a school debt caused by his predecessor, he
did not open the schools until 1873, and in his
work of setting up an educational system he met
and overcame many prejudices that had grown
up under Carpet-bag management. He wrote
many articles for the newspapers and many let-
ters to individuals, and he made hundreds of
speeches throughout the state. He early reached
the conviction that the federal government
might find ways to help education in the states,
and in the advocacy of this program he spoke
widely over the United States and appeared at
various times before congressional committees.
In 1881 he was made vice-president of the Na-
tional Education Association, and the following
year he became its president He had a high
sense of justice and a broad outlook in a day
when sectional narrowness was too common.
He plead for justice to the negro and lost no
popularity in his vState in doing so. He became
the agent for the Peabocly Fund in Georgia and
directed the use of much of this money foj nor-
mal institutes and free scholarships.
[Georgia, ed. by A. D. Candler and C. A. Evans
(1006), vol. Ill ; C. E. Jones, Education in Ga. (1889) ;
I. W. Avery, The Hist, of the State of Ga. (copr. 1881) ;
L. L, Knight, A Standard Hist, of Ga. (1917), vol. II ;
C. M. Thompson, Reconstruction in Ga. (1915) ; ^*"
Icwta Constitiition, Dec. 12, 1887; S. A, Echols,
Georgia's Gen. Assembly of 1878. Biag, Sketches
(1878).] E.MX.
ORR, HUGH (Jan. 2, i7is-Dec. 6, 1798), in-
ventor, patriot, the son of Robert Orr, was born
in Lochwinnoch, Renfrewshire, Scotland. He
received a common-school education in his na-
tive town and then learned the trade of white-
smith, becoming especially skilled in the mak-
ing of edged tools. When he was twenty-five
years old, having mastered also the gunsmith
and locksmith trades, he sailed for America,
and landed at Boston on June 7, 1740. He spent
a year in Easton, Bristol County, Mass., and
then removed to East Bridgewater, where he
applied for work to a man named Keith, a maker
of scythes. The story is told that he was quickly
hired when he demonstrated his skill by making
a keen razor out of an old iron skillet handle.
57
Orr
Not content merely to fashion scythes in the es-
tablished way, Orr made constant experiments
in an effort to improve the manufacturing meth-
ods, not only of scythes but of axes and edged
tools generally. Thus he devised and built for
the shop a trip-hammer said to have been the
first in the colonies. His reputation as a maker
of edged tools quickly spread and in a few years
when his employer retired, Orr became owner
of the shop. House and ship carpenters, mill-
wrights and wheelwrights for twenty miles
around came to him for new tools or to have old
ones reconditioned. Thus he busied himself for
upwards of thirty years, from time to time en-
larging his establishment, and training his sons
and other workmen in his craft.
Meanwhile, aware of the growing discord be-
tween the colonies and the mother country, he
prepared his shop for the manufacture of fire-
arms. As early as 1748, for the Province of Mas-
sachusetts Bay, he made 500 muskets which were
deposited in Castle William, but nearly all of
them were carried off by the British when they
evacuated Boston. These muskets are believed
to be the first ever made in the colonies. At the
outbreak of the Revolution, being an ardent sup-
porter of the Patriot cause, Orr again began
producing muskets and in addition, "in concert
with a French gentleman," built a foundry at
Bridgewater, Mass., for casting cannon. At
that time the usual practice in making- iron or
brass ordnance was to cast the piece with a cylin-
drical cavity somewhat smaller than the caliber
desired, but Orr and his partner employed an
improved method just then introduced in Eu-
rope. This consisted in making a solid casting
and boring it to the proper caliber with a boring
bar-iron and cutter. Though a difficult method,
it yielded a far superior cannon both in strength
and accuracy. During the war, Orr successfully
produced a great number of iron and some brass
cannon, from 3- to 42~pounders, besides a vast
quantity of cannon-shot.
When peace was declared he resumed the
manufacture of edged tools, but also turned his
attention toward helping in the establishment
of industries in the new states. A strong advo-
cate of the machine as a substitute for hand
labor, he had for years kept himself posted on
all new developments taking place abroad m the
application of machinery to textile manufacture
and as early as 175,3 had invented a machine to
clean flaxseed. Through his correspondents
abroad he learned of the carding and spinning
machines being made and used in England and
about 1785 he successfully induced tJT*£d
Scotch mechanics, Robert and AlmjKfer™
Orr
who were acquainted with the now machines, to
come to America and construct textile machin-
ery in liis shop and at his exprnse. The follow-
ing year Orr was elected to tho Massachusetts
Senate and persuaded that body to encourage by
practical means the establishment of textile man-
ufactories in the state. State grants were made
to enable the Barr brothers to construct a rov-
ing machine and "several other machine* as
might be necessary for carding roping and
spinning- cotton and wool" {Walton, /wl, «,
151) and to enable Thomas Sowrrs, anchor
Scotch mechanic under Orr's dim-lion, lo build
other textile machinery, About the suup time
Orr employed at his own expense n man named
McChire who knew how to weave by hand with
the fly shuttle. This wan probably ihr first me
of the fly shuttle in America, flu* next year,
Man 8, 1787, the legislature placed the machine*'
made by Somers and the Ham in the charge of
Orr, with the proviso that }w should "explain to
such citizens as may apply for thr same tin* prin-
ciples on which said machines art* constructed
and the advantages arising1 from thrir unr, uncl
alscK . „ allow them to see the muchine* at work**
(Ibid.}. Advertisements to thin **(Trct were in*
sorted in the MajwiehusettM newspapers and
the machines soon came to be known m "The
State Models/1 While thry wrrc imperfect itnd
of little practical use, it was from them thai the
early American textile-machinery manufacturers!
obtained many of their idtm Although permit-
>r the creation of n manufacturing
his own.
His interest in metals led directly to hh one
hobby, namely, the collecting of mineral* am!
ores. This hobby was quite widely known and
as a result, from every newly discovered ore de-
posit throughout the colonies Orr wa* immedi-
ately furnished sample® of the rock?* and min-
erals so that at the time of hi* death he wns te
possession of a very valuable mineral collection.
He was married on Aug. 4, 1743, to Mnry But
of East Bridgewater, and of chin union to
children were born. His ion Robert Orr lot-
lowed closely in his footsteps and became i
skilled metal craftsman* He introduced the mtn*
ufacture of iron shovels into Ma»uchu*etts and
m 1804 became master armorer of the govtra*
meat arsenal at Spring field,
[ftOBmitt Tk$ MtoMi, ***** mrf 0* F<f***£
*ps (1894) ; Ferry Walton, Tto S^^rSXK
&9ffiLMa*i' &***. ^ Co/fc., vol. IX ( 1804} j W.
ka&snB.rt.ir^^^-1*
aw,
Orr
ORR, JAMES LAWRENCE (May 12, 1822-
May 5, 1873), speaker of the House of Repre-
sentatives, governor of South Carolina, Con-
federate States senator, was born in Crayton-
ville, Pendleton District (now Anderson Coun-
ty), S. C, the great-grandson of Robert Orr
who emigrated from Ireland to Bucks County,
Pa., about 1730 and later removed to Wake
County, N. C., and the son of Martha (McCann)
Orr, a daughter of Irish emigrants, and Chris-
topher Orr, a prosperous merchant. He was
the brother of Jehu Amaziah Orr [g.#.]. His
early years were spent in schools near his home
and as a clerk in his father's store. In 1839 he
entered the University of Virginia, where he
began the study of law. Returning to South'
Carolina he completed his law studies in the of-
fice of Joseph N. Whitner and was admitted to
the bar when he became of age. In the fall of
the following year he married Mary Jane, the
daughter of Samuel Marshall of Abbeville Dis-
trict, and began to edit the Anderson Gazette, a
weekly newspaper. Within two years he aban-
doned journalism to devote himself to politics
and to become the law partner of J. P. Reed. The
court records of Anderson for the period show
that this firm enjoyed nearly half the law busi-
ness of that district In 1844, at the age of twen-
ty-two, he became a member of the state legis-
lature, where he served until 1848. In that body
he distinguished himself as the opponent of the
parish system and as the champion of the popu-
lar election of presidential electors, internal im-
provements, and the reform of the public schools.
Although a believer in the right of secession, he
opposed the Bluffton movement, which would
have committed the state to another nullifica-
tion experiment. In 1848, after an exciting can-
vass, he was elected to Congress, where he served
until 1859. In Congress he was largely instru-
mental in stifling the secessionist tendencies of
his state. Although he had voted against the
compromise measures of 1850, the following
year he canvassed the state against the advo-
cates of immediate secession and won a signal
victory. This gave him opportunity to organize
the South Carolina branch of the National Dem-
ocratic party. He was able to bring about the
defeat of R. B. Rhett for reelection to the United
States Senate and to get himself chosen head
of the state's delegation to the National Demo-
cratic Convention of 1856, where he supported
the policies of Stephen A. Douglas. These ac-
tions, coupled with his opposition to Know-
Nothingism, made him very popular in the
North, and he was elected speaker of the fed-
eral House of Representatives in 1857. He was
Orr
mentioned as a possibility for the Democratic
presidential nomination in 1860 and was presi-
dent of the state convention of April 1860, in
which he stressed the value of the Union and
prevented the delegates to the national conven-
tion from being instructed for secession.
Nevertheless, he changed his views to meet
the changing sentiment of his state. Already he
had overstepped himself, having been defeated
for the United States Senate in 1858 for quoting
a famous phrase of Webster on nullification. He
withdrew from the National Democratic Con-
vention of 1860 with the other South Carolina
delegates and ardently championed the with-
drawal of the state from the Union. He signed
the ordinance of secession, was one of the three
commissioners sent to Washington to negotiate
for the possession of the Charleston forts, or-
ganized Orr's Regiment of Rifles for service
under the Confederacy, and, after a brief and un-
distinguished military career, was elected a Con-
federate States senator in December 1861. In this
capacity he served until the fall of the Richmond
government. Realizing that the defeat of the
Confederacy was inevitable, he was among the
first who prepared for the problems of Recon-
struction. He quarreled with President Davis
and in 1864 advocated a negotiated peace. Es-
pousing the Reconstruction policies of President
Johnson, he played a prominent part in the state
constitutional convention of 1865 and was elected
governor by a small majority. As governor he
pursued a compromising policy. He advocated
modification of the notorious "black code" and
provision for restricted negro suffrage, and he
headed the state's delegation to the Union Na-
tional Convention of 1866. Yet when Congress
refused to accept these overtures, in a defiant
mood he advised the state legislature to reject the
Fourteenth Amendment Changing his course
again when he saw that congressional Recon-
struction would be applied to the South, he
shrewdly attempted to accommodate the state to
the inevitable. He cooperated with the military
officers, advised the whites to accept the Recon-
struction acts, and made a statesmanlike address
before that Radical state constitutional conven-
tion of 1868. Losing the confidence of the whites,
he joined the Radical party. He was elected to
the circuit bench in 1868 and served until 1870.
He supported Grant's Ku-Klux policy before the
Republican National Convention of 1872, and
the president appointed him minister to Russia,
After a few months at his new post, he died of
pneumonia at St. Petersburg.
His phenomenal success as a politician was
largely due to unusual personal qualities. Al-
59
Orr
though he was neither elegant in manners nor
learned, his powerful physique, ringing voice,
and intelligent face gave him an air of distinc-
tion. Genial and generous, he was liked even
by his political enemies. Unlike most South
Carolinians of his day, he accurately understood
Northern public opinion and knew when it was
expedient to accommodate his views to it. Had
his advice been followed, South Carolina would
have escaped many of its misfortunes. Yet his
faults were patent. He changed his views too
frequently to inspire popular confidence. His
enemies were correct in ascribing this to ulterior
motives, for every move he made redounded to
his personal advantage in the form of some new
public office.
ICyc. of Eminent and Representative Men of the
Carolina* (1892), I; B. F. Perry, Reminiscences of
Public Men (1883) ; F. B. Simians and R, H. Woody,
S. C. during Reconstruction (1933) ; J. S, Reynolds,
Reconstruction in S. C. (1905); C, S. Boucher, "The
Secession and Cooperative Movement in S. C.," Wash*
ington Univ. Studies, Humanistic Series, Apr. IP 18;
L. A. White, "The National Democrats of S, C.,"
South Atlantic Quart,, Oct. 1929; Charleston Daily
Courier, Dec. 4, 1865, Aug. 26, 1872 ; News and Courier
(Charleston), May 7, 1873.] w j> g
ORR, JEHU AMAZIAH (Apr. 10, x8^8-Mar.
9, 1921), legislator and lawyer, was born in An-
derson County, S. C, the son of Christopher
and Martha (McCann) Orr and a brother of
James Lawrence Orr [q.v,~\. About 1843 the
family moved to the eastern section of Missis-
sippi. He studied at Erskine College in South
Carolina and at the College of New Jersey
(Princeton). In 1849 he entered the practice of
law at Houston, Miss., and shortly afterward
was chosen secretary of the state Senate. In
1852 he became a member of the lower house,
and there he actively opposed the immediate sale
of the Chickasaw school lands. Unfortunately,
the land was sold two years later, after he had
completed his term in the legislature and had
been appointed United States attorney for the
northern district of Mississippi. He was a mem-
ber of the Democratic convention that nomi-
Orth
he resigned to enter the Second Confederate
Congress. After he was con v meed that the
establishment of a separate republic in the South
was impossible, he maintained that terms, ad-
vantageous to the South, aught to be obtained
before exhaustion placed it at the mercy of the
enemy, and he was disappointed that the Rich-
mond administration, by insisting1 on Confed-
erate independence as a sine qua JMH, rendered
futile the 1 lampton Roads conference. In a sub-
sequent speech before the legislature* of Mis-
sissippi, he advocated a change in the executive
policy of the Confederacy and blamed President
Davis for the failure of the peace negotiations*
The criticism was not welcomed at tbe tinu* {F,
A. Montgomery, AVw/wVfvmv.? t»/ a MAW^'A!
plan in Aw and /f't/r I *gt>t» pp, Jjt>«^0),
At the dose of hostilities In* was a^ain ahead
of his constituency, when he advised the pur-
tial enfranchisement of the »CKIWS. In 1870 he
became a jtidtft* of tbe Mh judicial eireuit and
served for six years, lit* took part in tbe move-
ment that returned tbe Democrats to power in
Mississippi in i$;6. From 187 j until bin resig-
nation in 1004 he was an active wewhrr of the
board of trustees of the University of Missm-
sippi. For fifty years he W;IH an rider in the
Presbyterian Church, While be was lou in the
public eye after the close of Reconstruction, bis
life was none the less active, for he devoted
himself with great success to the practice of
law, in which bin powers seemed to increase with
age. The latter part of his life was spent at Co-
lumbus, Miss, He was married twice, first to
Elizabeth Ramsay Gnu** of Ow-knaaw County,
S. C,, in 1852* and* .second, to Cornelia Ewing
Van de Graaff of Sumter County, Alit,t I» 1857.
JDuntor JRowUnct, Aftrjfafrrf fitse*^, vol. lit;
M
W.
Term' >"
*'
tide of war feeling convinced \
fflct was inevitable, and from
ported the Confederacy. He was a
the Mississippi convention of i 61 th
for secession and then served in the provisional movS t.
Congress of the Confederacy. He JS7ES theSr
ment of 1400 men, the 3Ist Mi "
teers and served in the 1862 and
m Mississippi. In April of the
60
- emiK<-at«! to
^ LtheHMo;avian, lea^ Zb-andorf
TV™ ! T a««nd'n(T the local schools and
^"^ He entered
Cooper- In l839 ^
" I"d WM *dmittcd to
» °win<r year' in October, he
^ M"ler °f <***«*
l84° •» "«* hls dte "
speaker, steoping ladiant for Htrri-
Orth
son. This activity brought him prominence, and
in 1843 ^e Whigs elected him to the state Sen-
ate, where he served until 1848. In 1845, as a
result of discord in the Loco Foco ranks, he was
elected president of the Senate. His name was
presented as a candidate for the gubernatorial
nomination in 1846, but he withdrew in favor
of Joseph Marshall. Although he thought the
nomination of Taylor on the Whig ticket a mis-
taken political move, he served as a presiden-
tial elector for Taylor and stumped northern
Indiana. His wife died in 1849 an^ on Aug. 28,
1850, he married Mary A. Ayers of Lafayette.
After the enactment of the Compromise Meas-
ures of 1850, like many anti-slavery Whigs, he
joined the Know-Nothings, but in 1852 cam-
paigned for Scott. He was president of the In-
diana Know-Nothing Council for 1854-55, sub-
sequently joined the People's party of Indiana,
and out of this helped organize the Republican
party in the state.
In 1861, Gov. O. P. Morton [#.#.] appointed
him one of the five Indiana representatives to
the Peace Conference in Washington. Preju-
diced before going, he returned convinced that
conflict was inevitable and advised preparation
for war. When Governor Morton called for
volunteers in July 1862, Orth reported in In-
dianapolis twenty-four hours later as elected
captain of some two hundred men. The danger
of invasion over, the company was mustered
out, Aug. 20, 1862. In this year Orth was elect-
ed to the Thirty-eighth Congress. He served
continuously through the Forty-first, but was
not a candidate for reelection in 1870. In Con-
gress he urged vigorous prosecution of the war
and later, stringent reconstruction measures. He
voted for the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amend-
ments, opposing the later anti-Chinese legisla-
tion as contrary to the latter. Holding at first
a position halfway between the Radicals and
Johnson, he slowly gravitated toward the ex-
treme Radicals when he became convinced that
Johnson was as unwilling to compromise as they.
Following the war, his interest turned to for-
eign affairs. In 1866 he began a fight for recog-
nition of the right of expatriation. Two years
later he undertook the management of the House
legislation looking toward the annexation of
Santo Domingo, but opposed the recognition of
Cuban belligerency as unprofitable. In 1868,
also, he framed the Orth Bill which made cer-
tain changes in the diplomatic and consular serv-
ices. In the Forty-first Congress he was one of
the small group who brought about the election
of James G. Blame to the speakership. He was
recommended in 1871 for appointment as United
Orthwein
States minister at Berlin, but it was decided to
continue George Bancroft in that post, and
Orth was offered, but refused, the commission-
ership of internal revenue. He was returned to
the Forty-third Congress but was not a candi-
date in 1874. *n March 1875, after declining the
mission to Brazil, he was appointed minister
to Austria-Hungary, but resigned in May 1876
to accept the Republican nomination for the gov-
ernorship of Indiana. Party discord, however,
caused him to withdraw in favor of Benjamin
Harrison. In 1878 he reentered politics and was
elected to the Forty-sixth Congress. Reelectecl
two years later, he died, at Lafayette, Ind., be-
fore the expiration of his term. Orth recognized
the necessity of machinery in politics, and never
hesitated to sacrifice principle for party solidar-
ity. No unpopular legislation ever received his
vote.
[W. H. Barnes, Hist, of the Thirty-ninth Cong, of
the U. S. (1867), and The Fortieth Cong, of the U. S.,
vol. II (1870); Biog. Dir. Am. Cong. (1928); S. M.
Cullom, Fifty Years of Public Service (1911) ; Memo-
rial Addresses on the Life and Character of Godlovc S.
Orth, 47 Cong., 2 Sess. (1883) ; C, B. Stover and C. W.
Beachem, The Alumni Record of Gettysburg Coll.
(1932); Indianapolis Sentinel, Dec. 17, 1882; manu-
script letters of Orth in the Ind. State Lib. ; records in
the Adjt.-General's Office, Indianapolis; papers in the
William H. English Collection, Univ. of Chicago Lib.]
J.L.N.
ORTHWEIN, CHARLES F. (Jan. 28, 1839-
Dec. 28, 1898), grain merchant, was born near
Stuttgart, in Wurtteniberg, Germany. His
mother died when he was quite young*. His fa-
ther, Charles C Orthwein, made provision for
his schooling and the boy was given the best edu-
cation which the state schools of southern Ger-
many could afford. In 1854 he came to the United
States with his father, brothers, and sisters.
After a brief stop in St. Louis the family set-
tled for a time in Logan County, 111., but the
father soon became dissatisfied with his new
home, and with the other children, returned to
Germany, leaving young Charles behind. His
first business experience was in a store in his
Illinois home, but he saw larger opportunities
in St. Louis, and accordingly obtained employ-
ment in the wholesale grocery and commission
house of Ed. Eggers & Company. In a short time
this concern was dissolved ; whereupon he formed
a partnership with Gustave Haenschen, under the
name of Haenschen & Orthwein, and established
a grain commission business. This venture was
launched during the Civil War, and the part-
ners' warehouses became a base of supplies for
the Union armies. Since trade with the South
was cut off, Orthwein turned his attention to the
grain markets of other parts of the country and
61
Orton
eventually made St. Louis the dominant grain
center of the Mississippi Valley.
After the war he dispatched the first grain
shipment to Europe by way of the Mississippi
River, sending a cargo of 12,000 bushels in 1866.
This venture was at first financially unprofit-
able, but the benefits to St. Louis were impor-
tant. He frequently addressed business meet-
ings and spoke in private to urge that St. Louis
engage in the export trade by way of the Mis-
sissippi and the Gulf of Mexico. In furtherance
of this project he was instrumental in laying1 a
petition before Congress for river and harbor
improvements. He prevailed upon the Illinois
Central Railroad and other lines to build more
adequate grain terminal facilities in New Or-
leans and other cities. Making St, Louis the cen-
ter of his organization, he established branches
in many cities in the United States and Europe.
He owned the Victoria elevator and mill in St,
Louis, several elevators in Kansas City, New
Orleans, Galveston, Seneca, Mo., and New
York City. He also owned a large tract of land
in St. Claire County, Mo. He was interested in
the Southern Electric Railway Company of
which he was president, and at one time held a
very large interest in the National Railway Com-
pany. He was president of the Merchants Ex-
change and a director in the German Savings
Bank of St. Louis. He early affiliated himself
with the Democratic party, and later became
what was known as a "Sound Money Demo-
crat" He was a member of the Church of the
United Brethren in Christ. He married Caroline
Nulsen, daughter of John C. Nulsen, in 1866,
and they had six sons and three daughters. He
died at his home in St Louis at the close of his
sixtieth year.
[St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dec. 28, 29, 1808; St.
Louts Globe-Democrat, Dec. 29, 1898; Si. Louis R®~
#Mc, Dec 29 1898 ; Wm. Hyde and H. L, Conard,
Encyc. of the Hist, of St. Louis (1899), III, 1678 ]
O.B.
ORTON, EDWARD FRANCIS BAXTER
(Mar. 9, ifcg-Oct 16, 1899), geologist, educa-
Edward's boyhood w^p^J I most? T?n
N. Y., whe7e his S wal
was fitted for college
Orton
cipal in an aoatloiny at !'"rit\ !*,i,( and
1849-50 studied in Lam* Th«-nh^i^al Srminaiv,
Cincinnati, (Mtio, Mtjipuititur
while hytutnriiiK. At tho rn«|ni
to eye troubles anil oihrr c,i»«,«st lir withdrew
and spent several mouths in nutdunr life <>« a
farm. Later* he made a sea voyage in a masting
vessel. In the spring nf i8$t he luramt* a teacher
in the Delaware Literary Institute, Franklin,
N. Y», hut passed the year tN-U1™.^ at ihe Law-
rence Scientific School of n,i!'v;m{ t*uiver,sitv.
The years 1853-54 found him ;^t.«in trartut^ jtj
the Delaware Institute^ hnt» still intent ojinn the
ministry as a profession, he then entered the An-
clover (Mass.) Theolo^ie,d Snninaiv, \\'ithuut
tfraduntintf, he was nrdainrd ,u IMlii, un Jan,
it 1856, hy the Delaware rrrsbyiny,
So far as is recorded he* h;itl iiMitifrsini no
marked likinff for the natural snrnn«., prior to
his entering the Lawrenre Scientific School,
where he was interested ehHly in chemistry
and botany. In 185**, however, |r Invjuur pr«,«
fessor of natural science** in the *,t,iit* tiormal
school, Albany, N, Y, Owrgrd with holding
heretical views, he resiKned ;tt the rnd of three
years, and from 1859 to 18(15 \v»v« j»? incipfti of nn
academy at Chester, OnotRc t ontity, whrrc hin
success was such that he wan rln trt] prufcHHtir
of natural history in Antioch CVIIc^e, Yellow
Springs, Ohio, a position he continued m hold
until chosen its president in iK;j» Mrnnwhiie,
in 1869, he had k«en appointrtl an ttsniMnnt tm
the Geological Survey of Ohio untlrr John S,
Newberry for.!, and in 1873 was tnatlr profes-
sor of geology and prwitlrnt of the nrwly r^tnb«
Hshed College of Agriculture ami Nfrdutnicft,
which in 1878 became the* Ntatc iitiivrrHity, in
1881 he voluntarily resipird \m |irrsit!t*nry, but
he retained his prafasorship to the end of hii*
life. In x88a» on the reorganixntinn of ihe Ht«te
survey, he wan appointed »tate gcoluKiiftt,
aition he held until hi$ death »«vrnir«n
later,
Though his interest in geology developed late
yet as ttatc geoloist he wai markedly
were brought out vdtsmei V to VII of the final
f the survey; theie differed in a marked
i from those of his predecessor in this at-
Entering Hamilton College as a who^re
1845, he graduated with
The year following he
.
" a
**»• Hc *» th«
mamrnr tto
of the
two
Orton
relations, and to warn of the probability of their
exhaustion through a continuance of the waste-
ful practices then employed. He lived to see his
forebodings become actualities.
As an administrator, Orton was a compelling
force in the organization of the College of Agri-
culture and its subsequent development into
the state university. He was a likable man;
quiet in his manner and of a somewhat retiring
nature. Sagacious, kindly, and conservative, he
won out where a more aggressive man would
have failed. His interest in the public welfare
was deep, especially in matters of public health
and conservation of resources. In his opposi-
tion to the reckless wasting of natural gas, he
was a pioneer. In 1855 ne married Mary M.
Jennings of Franklin, N. Y., by whom he had
four children ; his wife died in 1873 and two years
later he married Anna Davenport Torrey of
Millbury, Mass., by whom he had two children.
He suffered a stroke of paralysis early in De-
cember of 1881, which deprived him of the use
of his left arm and caused a slight limp in his
walk, but he retained his mental powers unim-
paired until 1899 when, on Oct. 16, he died sud-
denly and painlessly.
[Edward Orton, An Account of the Descendants of
Thomas Orton of Windsor, Conn. (1896) ; In Me-
moriam, Edward Orton, Ph.D., ZX.D.. (1899) ; G. K.
Gilbert, in Bull, of the Gaol. Soc. of America, Oct 31,
1900 ; I. C. White, in Am. Geologist } Apr. 1900 ; Henry
Howe, Hist. Colls, of Ohio; vol. I (1890) ; J. J. Steven-
son, in Jour, of Geology, Apr.-May 1900 ; Washington
Gladden, in Ohio Archceol. and Hist. Pubs., vol. VIII
(1900) ,* Ohio State Jour. (Columbus), Oct, 17, 1899.]
G.P.M.
ORTON, HARLOW SOUTH (Nov. 23,
1817- July 4, 1895), lawyer, jurist, was the son
o£ Harlow N. Orton, M.D., and Grace (Marsh)
Orton* He came of vigorous pioneer stock and
was descended from Thomas Orton, an early
settler in Connecticut. Both of his grandfathers
were Baptist clergymen and fought in the Revo-
lutionary War. He was born and reared on a
farm in Madison County, N. Y., and after attend-
ing Hamilton Academy he spent two years
(1835-37) at Madison University (now Colgate
University) . For one year he taught in and had
charge of Paris Academy in Bourbon County,
Ky. He completed his preparation for the bar
in the law office of his brother, Myron H. Orton,
in La Porte, Ind.» where he was admitted in
1838. On July 5, 1839, he was married to Eliza-
beth Cheney, daughter of a prosperous Maryland
planter. He was keenly interested in politics
and was an active member of the Whig party,
although after 1854 he was an independent Demo-
crat. In 1840 he made nearly one hundred
speeches advocating the election of General Har-
Orton
rison. In 1843 the governor of Indiana appoint-
ed him probate judge of Porter County. He
commenced the practice of law in Milwaukee,
Wis., in 1847, and six years later became private
secretary to Governor Leonard J. Farwell. He
then removed to Madison, Wis., where he con-
tinued to reside until the time of his death.
In 1854 he was elected a member of the As-
sembly. The following year he was retained in
the case of Attorney General ex rel. Bashford
vs. Bar stow (4 Wis,, 567), one of the early im-
portant cases establishing the right of the judici-
ary to determine the legality of the election of
officers of a coordinate branch of the government.
The fact that he was employed as counsel indi-
cates his standing at the bar. He was associated
with and opposed to the ablest lawyers of the
Wisconsin of his clay and played a leading part
in the trial of this novel and celebrated case. He
was also retained in the so-called Granger Case,
Attorney General vs. Railroad Companies (35
Wis., 425). With other eminent counsel he rep-
resented the state. In 1859 he was elected judge
of the ninth judicial circuit, was rcelected with-
out opposition, but resigned the office in 1865
to resume the general practice of his profession.
He was again elected to the legislature in 1869
and in 1871. In 1876 he was an unsuccessful
candidate of the Democratic party for a seat in
Congress and in the same year was appointed
one of the committee which compiled the Re-
vised Statutes of the State of Wisconsin (1878).
From 1869 to 1874 he was dean of the law school
of the University of Wisconsin, from, which in-
stitution he received in 1869 the degree of LL.D.
He continued the practice of his profession un-
til April 1878, when he was elected a justice of
the supreme court of Wisconsin. He became its
chief justice in January 1894 and continued to
occupy that position until his death.
Physically Orton was a man of powerful
rugged frame and was possessed of tremendous
energy and vitality. Intellectually he was keen,
alert, and vigorous almost to the point of ag-
gressiveness. He possessed in extraordinary de-
gree the ability to- express his thoughts in forcible
and striking language. Generous, warm-hearted,
somewhat impulsive, he had a strong sense of
justice and right With a firm and positive char-
acter he combined open-mindedness and the
power of listening sympathetically to the views
of others. He was not regarded by his con-
temporaries or those who followed him as a pro-
found student of the law. It was as an advocate
that he excelled, so that he was markedly suc-
cessful in jury trials and in forensic contests
where appeals to public feeling and opinion were
Orton
involved. It was because of his ability along
these lines that he was retained in the Barstow
case His service as a member of the supreme
court was marked by great industry and thorough
devotion to his work.
[See: memorial exercises of .the _Wis. :
, Conn., r<54i (1896); the
1897 ; Madison Democrat, July 6, 1895- J M, B. R.
ORTON, JAMES (Apr. 21, iSao-Sept. 25,
1877), zoologist, explorer, educator, was born
at Seneca Falls, N. Y., the fifth child of Rev,
Azariah Giles and Minerva (Squire) Orton ami
a descendant of Thomas Orton who settled in
Windsor, Conn., about 1641. His father, a grad-
uate of Williams College, was a man of great
intellectual attainments but lacked the practical
gifts necessary for professional or financial ad*
vancement, and his life was spent as pastor of
small country parishes where salaries were
meager and living conditions hard, Four of his
eight sons died in infancy. James early became
interested in the natural sciences, and the two
passions of his youth were the study of natural
history and writing. He made numerous col-
lecting trips in the vicinity of his home and sent
a long series of communications to the Scientific
American and other periodicals. At the age of
nineteen he published The Miners Guide and
Metallurgist's Directory (1849).
Partly because of ill health and partly because
of financial difficulties, he was delayed in enter-
ing college, but eventually matriculated at Wil-
liams and graduated in 1855, There he became
intimate with Henry A. Ward, later curator of
the museum of the University of Rochester and
founder of Ward's Natural History Establish-
ment. With Ward, Orton made many walking
trips, especially for the collection of specimens*
During his undergraduate days he accompanied
two scientific expeditions to Nova Scotia and
Newfoundland, and acquired such a reputation
as a naturalist that the president of Williams ad-
vised him to make the study of natural history
his life work. He adhered, however, to his origi-
nal purpose of becoming a minister, entered An-
dover Theological Seminary, graduated in 1858,
and was ordained to the Presbyterian ministry,
July ri, 1860. In 1859 he married Ellen, daugh-
ter of Asahel and Mary Foote. She survived him
fifty-three years, dying June 12, 1930. He held
various pastorates in New York State and in
Maine, during the first few years after his ordi*
Orton
nation, but definitely <loei«leil on tin* life of a
naturalist in ttfod, \\hen hr went to the Univer-
sity of Rochester as instructor in natural history,
acting as a substitute (or \Vant. who was absent
on leave, In t8(x) he was appointed professor of
natural history at Va^ar College, which po-
sition he held «ntil his death,
Three expeditions to South Ameriut, where
he explored the equatorial Andes und the region
of the Amazons, yielded Orion's nw.st important
contributions to science, The first of thcw ex-
peditions, in 1867, traverse*! the region from
Guayaquil to Quito, down the Napu River to
Pebas on the Mctranon, and ftom there to Para
by steamer. This involved cliinhint* Cretin nt»a
level at Guayaquil over the western i 'onlilleras
to a height of 15,000 feet, After bin return he
published '/Vie //w/i\< nm/ the .'Jwustw (1870),
On the second expedition, iH;*,*. he went from
Para up the Aiua/ou'» to Vuriitu^uas and from
there over the Andes to fVni, Numerous com-
munications which on these two trips luid tn^n
sent to journals in the t'nileit States, denlmf
with the geology, climate, mhahiUnts flora,
fauna, and economic resources of the countries
visited, were ultimately brought together in Tk&
Andes &mi the Annm^m, of which it third edititm
appeared in iB/o, The collect itm* were dii*
trilmted among; various imtHcuifK
In 1876 Orton urganiwl a third expedition,
While the first two had been carried out largely
at his own expense, the third was financed by
Edward Drinker Coj*e | i/.r, j of Philadelphia, who
was to receive In return whatever fos*i!H were
collected* One object of thr trip was to explore
the Ben* River for thr commercial advantage of
the Bolivian government. Accompanied by Dr.
E, R. Heath, whom he hue! met on an curlier ex-
pedition, Orton started out with ti gtiiird of §01*
dkrs which the government offifitdi strongly
advised taking m protection agatn»t wild ari*
mals and savage men- At thr junction of tfat
Beni and Matnore rivem this jpard ckieirted*
taking with them most of the other men, Tfee
leaders were thus forced to return to the cotit
After many hardships they finally reached Lake
Titicaca and started to mil across it to Ptmo te
Petu On this short trip Orton was taken with
a hemorrhage and died, Because he was a non-
Catholic, permission to bury hb body in eoose*
crated ground was refuted, but Sefior EitavtSt
owner of a small island in the lake, offered & plot
there, which offer wag accepted In i$ai *
monument presented by Va«sar alumnae wti
erected at his grave and tinveEed with « kborstt
ceremonies* The collections of this third
dition were tate over by tibt Peiwi&it
Orton
ment to be sent to the United States, but they
were never received.
An important publication for its time was
Orton's Comparative Zoology, Structural and
Systematic (1876), which was in advance of its
contemporaries in stressing function as much as
structure, most zoological textbooks of that date
being mainly anatomical or taxonomic. He pub-
lished also Underground Treasures, How and
Where to Find Them (1872), which a genera-
tion after his death was in sufficient demand to
warrant a new edition ; The Proverbialist and the
Poet: Proverbs Illustrated by Parallel or Rela-
tive Passages from the Poets (1852) ; and The
Liberal Education of Women, the Demand and
the Method (1873).
[Susan R. Orton, "A Sketch of James Orton," Vassar
Quart., Feb. 1916; James Orton, The Andes and the
Amazons (3rd ed., 1876) ; E. Albes, "An Early Ameri-
can Explorer/' Bull, of the Pan-American Union, July
1914; I. K. Macdennott, "An International Dedication
Ceremony," Ibid., Aug. 1922 ; Edward Orton, An Ac-
count of the Descendants of Thomas Orton of Windsor,
Conn. (1896) ; N. Y. Tribune, Oct. 31, 1877-]
A. L. T.
ORTON, WILLIAM (June 14, i826~Apr. 22,
1878), telegraph executive, came of an old Eng-
lish family. The first of the family in America
was Thomas Orton who was living in Windsor,
Conn., in 1641 and later was one of the original
settlers of Farmington, Conn. The father of
William Orton, Horatio Woodruff Orton, a
teacher, moved from Connecticut to a farm near
Cuba, Allegany County, N. Y. He married
Sarah Carson in 1825 and the following year
William was born. His father taught him to
study and to concentrate his energies. He at-
tended the district schools and the Albany Nor-
mal School, from which he graduated in 1846.
Meanwhile he worked in a printing shop, and
later in the Geneva bookstore of George H.
Derby. He also taught school several years. In
1850 he married Agnes Johnston Gillespie ; they
had eight children. In 1852 he became a partner
in the publishing firm of Derby, Orton & Mul-
ligan in Buffalo but in 1856 moved to New York,
where he was well known in the publishing busi-
ness until the failure of his firm two years later.
In 1860 he became interested in New York City
politics and threw himself into the local affairs
of his ward. In 1861 he was elected to the New
York Common Council, and there made his mark
as a convincing debater and as a leader of the
Republican minority. He also took up the study
of law and was admitted to the bar in the spring
of 1867.
In 1862 President Lincoln appointed him col-
lector of internal revenue at New York. So suc-
cessful was his conduct of this office during the
Orton
war that in 1865 President Johnson appointed
him commissioner of internal revenue at Wash-
ington. Meanwhile, the telegraph had been
spreading through the country. By 1864 two
companies dominated the industry, the Western
Union and the American Telegraph. To com-
pete with these, in that year a third company was
formed, the United States Telegraph Company.
Its preliminary development was not sufficient-
ly wise for it to stand the struggle, and its presi-
dent resigned. Well-meaning friends secured the
election of William Orton to the presidency in
October 1865 an<3 he resigned his commissioner-
ship to accept the new task. Becoming acquaint-
ed with the actual condition of the company and
realizing more and more the importance to the
public of a single service in communications, he
set to work with Jeptha H. Wade, president of
the Western Union, to merge the United States
Telegraph Company into the older organization.
This was accomplished in April 1866. Wade
continued as president of the enlarged Western
Union Telegraph Company and Orton became
vice-president. At the same time the headquar-
ters of the Western Union were moved from
Rochester to New York. Wade and Orton then
initiated negotiations with E. S. Sanford, presi-
dent of the American Telegraph Company, for
the merger of that company into the Western
Union, and this was completed in June 1866. A
year later Wacle resigned, and on July 10, 1867,
Orton became president
At this time he was a man of tall, commanding
figure, of large frame and dignified bearing. He
was built to be a strong man, but the unremitting
strain to which he subjected his nervous energies
impaired his health and weakened his consti-
tution. As president, he found that the merging
of the three companies into one entailed serious
problems of financial adjustment, rendered more
difficult by the disturbed financial conditions that
prevailed during and after the Civil War. To
justify the inflated capital of $41,000,000 that the
Western Union took over with the mergers the
new president had to increase greatly the real
assets of the company. Further, the Western
Union had now become truly national in scope
and in responsibility. The vast railroad and high-
way development of the time necessitated an
enormous amount of new construction. No less
did efficient service to the public require expen-
sive replacement.
Orton started out by suspending dividends.
He also at once began to encourage invention
and to stimulate scientific standards in tele-
graphic engineering. Once his program got un-
der way, the business and public service of the
Ortynsky
company increased rapidly. Before 1871 only
one telegraphic message could be transmitted
Stearns
rnplex
fice of the Western Union in New York City
increased from 3,500 in 1871 to 75,000 in 1875.
With unification came also opposition. In
1869 three bills were introduced into Congress
to provide that the Government should take over
tbe ownership and operation of the telegraph
companies. Orton probably rendered his great-
est service to the development of American in-
dustry by his fight against these and similar pro-
posals. Appearing repeatedly before the United
States Senate and House Committees, by formal
address and informal debate he contended for the
principles on which he was transforming the
telegraphic service of his day. He brought to
bear his exhaustive knowledge of the facts of
both Amerkan and European telegraphy. He
closed any legislation of the kind as impracti-
cal and contrary to the best development of tele-
graphic communications, and he denounced it as
coiifiscatory and unconstitutional. Ever ready
to meet attack, and always throwing himself with
all his high-strung energy into the struggle, he
wm But the long fight, added to the heavy
strain of his regular executive and constructive
latjors, sapped his strength, His tense nervous
piiyskpie, btroyant though it was, broke, and he
<Sed suddenly of apoplexy on Apr. 22, 1878.
lArm. Reports of the President of the Western Union
Teiegrwph Company, 1867-78 ; Jour, of the Telegraph,
1867-78, esp. tbe Memorial Ntimber, May I, 1878 ; The
Tefagmpher, 1864-77 ; J. D. Reid, The Telegraph in
America (1879) ; Edward Orton, An Account of the
M**™w&mts of Thomas Orton of Windsor, Conn.
>; tf. 7. Tr&me, N. Y. Times, N. Y. Herald,
0SEYJKKY, STEPHEN SOTER (Jan. 29,
J8©£-Har. 24, 1916), Catholic prelate, son of
Jbfa and Mary (Kulczycka) Ortynsky, was
tern at Cktynyezt, Galicia, Austria, of old
Educated in the public school
hobycz and in the Uni-
.which he received the
ordained, July 18,
reat
! ,& tte Slavic tongues
of
Galicia,
Osborn
creased immigration of people of these lands and
of adherents of the Roman Catholic Church who
followed the Greek rite, it was held desirable in
Rome that a bishop be sent to the United States
who would have special care of the pru»**« -i«'i
congregations of Greek Catholics as a sa
the religious and political
agents, Hence, Dr, Ortynsky was appointed an
auxiliary to the Latin bishops with the title of
bishop of Daulia and with headquarters at Phila-
delphia. On May 12, 1907, he was consecrated
by Archbishop Szeptycky of Lcmberj^
In the rather difficult position which he oc-
cupied he displayed wisdom and ability. ! le was
tactful in dealing with the various hishojw and
in preventing any feeling of conflicting juris-
diction, His work among1 the RuihenianH and
Ukrainians was marked with a hitfh degree of
success. He established parishes, built schools,
counteracted Greek Orthodox propaganda, fos-
tered Americanization, fought ratlicali*w» ami
Introduced the Sisters of the Order nf Si, Itowi!
the Great These achievements led to the estab-
lishment of a Ukrainian Greek Catholic dh*ce$e
and Ortynsky's appointment as Greek Catholic
bishop for the United States with St. Mary of
the Immaculate Conception Church in Philadel-
phia (which he established in 1909) as his cathe-
dral (May 28, 1913). He founded St, itn*i!*s
Orphanage for dependent children and erttab-
lished for his countrymen the fraternal order
"Providence," with its organ Aw#rykat to which
he was an active contributor. During the war
he was deeply concerned over Rutmmn atrocities
in Galicia and the imprisonment of his patron,
Metropolitan Szeptycky, He published an appeal
in the form of two courageous pastoral letters
(1915), which condemned the Cwtr'a Pan-Slavic
crusade of "liberation of Slavic peoples*11 while
he trampled on their churches and undermined
their nationalism, At the time of his death he
had charge of a half million Greek Catholics, 153
churches, and 150 pariah schools,
*^£^wW*£to(itii)\C9ik HIWKV VI,
£#*• ; £ J- £*»«&, Tht Official C&lk, Dimton 6 w
OSBORN, CHARLES (Aug. si, Ws-D«c.
29, 1850), abolitionist, the grandson of Matthew
Oabora who emigrated from England probably
?S? tTne^Bd ** ** °* David and M^*et
removed to KROJC __/f
be became a Quite preacher, AM
ameto* muster from 1806 to 1840 fee trai^td
ife
O shorn
thousands of miles visiting and preaching* in
nearly every Quaker meeting- throughout the
United States, Canada, and Great Britain. He
lived in Jefferson County, Tenn., Mount Pleas-
ant, Ohio, and from 1819 to 1842 in Wayne
County, Ind., excepting the years from 1827 to
1830 that he spent in Warren and Clinton coun-
ties, Ohio. In 1842 he removed to Cass County,
Mich., and in 1848 to Porter County, Ind., where
he died. On Jan. n, 1798, he married Sarah
Newman, who died on Aug. 10, 1812, leaving"
seven children, and on Sept. 26, 1813, he married
Hannah Swain, who bore him nine children.
Endowed by his Quaker environment with a
reforming spirit and influenced by the privations
of a semi-pioneer life, he maintained with cour-
age and ability his moral, religious, and anti-
slavery convictions. In December 1814, at the
house of his father-in-law, Elihu Swain, he be-
gan his career as an anti-slavery leader by lay-
ing the foundations for the Tennessee Manu-
mission Society, whose organization he did not,
however, complete until the next February at
Lostcreek Meeting House. In 1816 he founded
similar societies in Guilford County, N. C.
While at Mount Pleasant, Ohio, he published the
Philanthropist, from Aug. 29, 1817, to Oct. 8,
1818, a paper partially devoted to anti-slavery
agitation. It has been asserted that he himself,
and, through him, the manumission societies and
Philanthropist were the earliest advocates of
immediate emancipation. This assertion cannot
be substantiated. The societies definitely advo-
cated gradual emancipation. His own strong
moral and religious convictions did not include
demands for immediate emancipation until his
affiliation with Garrisonian abolition about 1832.
Through the Philanthropist he denounced the
American Society for Colonizing the Free Peo-
ple of Colour of the United States, afterward the
American Colonization Society, as a specious
device of slaveholders to protect slavery, ex-
patriate free negroes, and thwart other emanci-
pation schemes. Following Quaker tradition he
long opposed the use of products of slave labor,
considering them stolen goods because slaves'
labor was stolen by their masters. His exhorta-
tions resulted in the formation on Jan. 22, 1842,
of the Free Produce Association of Wayne Coun-
ty, Ind., and the establishment of a propagandist
newspaper, the Free Labor Advocate and Anti-
Slavery Chronicle. When the conservatives, who,
only mildly abolitionist, believed in confining
anti-slavery activity to their own religious or-
ganization, gained control over the Indiana Year-
ly Meeting, which before 1842 was dominated
by the active abolitionist radicals, they removed
Osborn
him and others from the Meeting for Sufferings,
a governing committee of the Church, on which
he had served for years. This was a severe and
unexpected blow to him. Bitterly lamenting the
conservatives' position, he participated promi-
nently in the secession of 2,000 radicals who
formed the Indiana Yearly Meeting of Anti-
Slavery Friends in February 1843. He con-
tinued his interest in the later activities of the
seceders and died condemning the Fugitive-slave
Law. After his death, in 1854 the Church pub-
lished The Journal of that Faithful Servant of
Christ f Charles Osborn.
[Minutes of the Manumission Soc. of N. C, in the
Guilford College Lib. ; minutes of Ind. Yearly Meeting
of Anti-Slavery Friends in Earlham College Lib.;
Emancipator, pub. by Elihu Embree, Apr. 30, May 31,
1820; Walter Edgerton, A Hist, of the Separation in
Ind. Yearly Meeting (1856) ; Levi Coffin, Reminiscences
(1876) ; Hist, of Wayne County, Ind. (1884), vol. II;
G. W. Julian, "The Rank of Charles Osborn as an Anti-
Slavery Pioneer," Ind. Hist, Soc. Pubs., vol. II, no. 6
(1891); S. B. Weeks, Southern Quakers and Slavery
(1896); P. M. Sherrill, "Quakers and N. C. Manu-
mission Soc.," Trinity Coll Hist. Soc. Papers, X
(1914); A. E. Martin, "Anti-Slavery Soc. in Tenn.,"
Tenn. Hist. Mag., Dec. 1915.] R A K
OSBORN, HENRY STAFFORD (Aug. 17,
i823-Feb. 2, 1894), Presbyterian clergyman,
author, map-maker, was born in Philadelphia,
the son of the Rev. Truman Osborn, of New
England stock, and Eliza (Paget) Osborn, of a
South Carolina family. Henry received the de-
gree of A.B. from the University of Pennsyl-
vania in 1841, entered Union Theological Semi-
nary, where he graduated in 1845, and on Apr.
9, 1848, was ordained a minister in the Presby-
terian Church. Meantime he had been stated
supply at Coventry, R. I., 1845-46, and in 1846
had gone to Hanover, Va., where he was in
charge of a church till 1849. He served pas-
torates at Richmond, Va., 1849-53 \ Liberty, Va.,
1853-58; and Belvidere, N. J., 1859-65. In 1860,
while at Belvidere, he married Pauline Courson,
to which union was born one daughter. He had
a strong bent toward science, and during his
early years in the ministry served for some time
as professor of natural science in Roanoke Col-
lege, Virginia. In 1866 he accepted the profes-
sorship of chemistry and mining engineering in
Lafayette College, resigning to assume in 1870
that of the natural sciences in Miami University,
Oxford, Ohio. Although in 1873 Miami Univer-
sity closed temporarily, he continued his resi-
dence in Oxford until his death, devoting his
time to the ministry, lecturing, writing, and pub-
lishing.
He went abroad for travel and study in 1850-
67
Osborn
« and again in 1858-59. V*™Z Ae SQC0^ tri?
he made special studies in the geography and
plants of Palestine, as a result of which he pub-
lished Palestine, Past and Present (London,
I&Q) and Plants of the Holy Land with Their
Frmts and Flowers (1860), illustrated by origi-
nal drawings which exhibit accuracy of observa-
tion and striking artistic skill. His chief inter-
ests from 1873 to the time of his death were the
extension of his studies and publication in his
two fields of original inquiry, the Holy Land and
nsetaJkrgy. In connection with his later works
OB the Holy Land, he established in Oxford a
"Map Shop" from which, with the assistance of
one employee, for twenty years he published for
dmrches and Sunday schools in England and
America his attractive hand-made maps, illus-
trating the geography of Palestine and the ancient
world for the benefit of ministers and Sunday-
school teachers. His New Descriptive Geog-
raphy of Palestine was issued in 1877. His pub-
lications in the field of mineralogy included
Metallurgy, Iron and Steel (1869) ; A Practical
Mmml of Minerals, Mines and Mining ( 1888) ;
and The Prospector's Field-book and Guide
(1892). He was a member of a number of sci-
entific societies both at home and abroad. He
was a man of versatile talents and striking per-
sonality—tall, thin to gauntness, talkative, no-
tably genial among friends, lover of harmless
gossip. Like a true philosopher he was indif-
fefenf to economic considerations and social con-
tentions. To and from his map shop, in his re-
search laboratory, on field trips, on business
errands, he wore his familiar "tile" hat and
woming clothes. While much abstracted in his
daly contacts, when engaged in conversation or
address Ms mind exhibited a many-sided interest
1 a keen discrimination that marked him as
intellectual.
J&* • £**- °f flu Grads. and Former Students of
m^^^^f' id &°9l; H* C' -Baird> bicfi:' sketch'
* r. TJ*«K* Fd>. 4, Ts94fl] Gmde (*nd £*; ^ '
1AUGHTON (C. iSoc-Dec. 13,
was a man whose pecul-
-—. ^^^^^ pjnagowstic disposition, er-
*2*""^taW^ Desire to be something
OMttirt.irt^^*.'^ his fdlow me^
fUiose in the minor
• H© was born
5 a well-
Qsborn
he was studious there can he no doubt If fce
was popular, a change iwist have come over him
after he left college, perhaps tnvintf to tht* death
of a favorite sister* and aggravated by the tin-
favorable reception accorded to his htuik*, After
he returned from a year of foreign travel, lie
lived for nearly half a century in retirement in
New York, although he was surrounded hy many
who might have become his friend* and asso-
ciates in society and the world t»f letters. In
1831 his Sixty Years of the /,*/<* of Jen" my Lm§
was published in two volumes^ its rambling atyle
and varied material revealing beyond doubt that
he had been a faithful student of Lmmice Sterne
and Tristram Shandy. The harsh mid antago-
nistic comment of the pre.ss npfw this book set
him against the critics and revic*w«*rn, and there-
after he waged continuous verbal warfare with
them. Many of his hooks were issued nt his own
expense ant! without his name* Hinting hin «uc«
cessive publications being 77i<* Pmw* *?/ ////««
Ad-Dew; The Confess IMS &f a /Wf
The Vision of RuMa, m /t/»ic' Stwy u/ tl
of Manhattan: w!ih llhtxtnttiinis /?**H^ &n *V
(1838), aimed particularly at \Vi!H;uti L_.^
Stone, 1792-1844 [>/,rJ( Injt wbirh aNa con-
tained a fierce attack cm WnnNwi irth nwi replies
to his critics, and Arthur tttrryl { 1841 }( a vd*
ume of miscellaneous poems Ami a °nt*vH'* in two
cantos which gave the name ta the volume, Thexe
were followed by numerous tnigrdirs ami comes
dies^with such titles a* 7Vu» tlwrfs Xarriftt,
Matilda of Denmark, W<w$ r<i/»i*//M» und Mm-
awns, a Tragedy G} Jnvish //i.«/*irv. !!e ilso
wrote a Handbook of Ytmnff ^r/ij^ &nd Ama-
teurs in Oil Painting, puUi»hcd in 1845,
In addition to his literary gift*, he wan a paint-
er and musician of some skill, and i« nuutcr of
several languages, According to Jamv» Grant
Wilson, he was at least six feet ull, of fine phy-
sique and carriage, while Foe, writing of him
when he was about the age of thirty-five, mn
that he was "probably five feet leu or eleven,
muscular and active." Poe «to described him
as undoubtedly one of 'Nature1! own nobk-
men, full of generosity, courage, h0rtor-*««<hivil*
rous in every respect, but unhappily, otrryii^
his ideas of chivalry, or rather of independence,
to the point of Quixotism, if not of absolute in.
^^il / has no dcmbt been mJMppreheiided,
and ttierefore wrcmgad, by the world ; but lie
should not fatl to remember thai the source ol
;,r;;">i;,1:
Osborn
to disclose any mention of their production in
New York or elsewhere.
[E. A. Poe, The Literati (1850) ; S. A. Allibone, A
Critical Diet, of English Lit. and British and Am.
Authors, vol. II (1870) ; J. G, Wilson, Bryant and His
Friends (1886); the World (N. Y.), Dec. 14, 1878.]
E.F.E.
OSBORN, MORRIS GALPIN (Apr. 17,
i858~May 6, 1932), editor, long a leader in the
public affairs of Connecticut, was born in New
Haven, the son of Minott Augur and Catharine
Sophia (Gilbert) Osborn. He prepared for col-
lege in the Hopkins Grammar School and in 1880
graduated from Yale. His father was owner of
the New Haven Evening Register and his home,
a rendezvous for men of influence in the state
and nation. Young Osborn grew up, therefore,
in an atmosphere conducive to interest in politi-
cal matters and acquired high ideals of public
service. Upon leaving college he became a re-
porter on the Register., and in 1884, its editor.
In 1907 he was made editor-in-chief of the New
Haven Journal-Courier, which position he held
till his death. Under the name "Trumbull," in
1890 he began contributing to the Sunday edition
of the New York Herald piquant articles on po-
litical happenings in Connecticut, which are an
invaluable source of historical information. In
addition to his newspaper work, he published
A Glance Backward: Editorial Reminiscences
(1905), and delivered the Bromley Lectures on
Journalism, Literature, and Public Affairs at
Yale in 1920, published the following year un-
der the title Isaac H. Bromley. He also edited
Men of Mark in Connecticut (5 vols., 1906-10)
and History of Connecticut in Monograph Form
(5 vols., 1925), and was a contributor to the
Dictionary of American Biography.
Both a lucid, forceful writer, and a brilliant
speaker, he did as much to mould public opinion
in Connecticut during his lifetime as any other
one man, while by his contemporaries in news-
paper circles his abilities were widely recog-
nized. On every important issue of the day, local
and national, he took a decided stand, and main-
tained it with courageous independence. No one
who tried to influence him by base appeals ever
remained long in his ofiice. He fought hard but
goodnaturedly and with the generosity and gal-
lantry of a born gentleman. Politically, he was
an old-time Democrat, and his advice in party
councils carried weight. He was on the staff of
Gov. Thomas M. Waller in 1883 and thereafter
was always known as "Colonel." He was a dele-
gate to the National Democratic Convention of
1892 and enjoyed the confidence of President
Cleveland during both his administrations. A
Osborn
member of the state constitutional convention of
1902, he led a notable but unsuccessful fight to
change the antiquated system of representation
in the legislature. For some thirty-five yeais he
was active in the Connecticut Civil Service Re-
form Association; in the presidential campaign
of 1896 he broke with his party and was an of-
ficial of the Connecticut Sound Money League;
in the local activities created by the World War,
he took a leading part. Prohibition he assailed
in season and out of season, attacking it as vicious
in principle and deplorable in results. Perhaps
his most valuable service, certainly the one that
gave him greatest satisfaction, was in connection
with the state prison. From 1895 till his death
he was on the board of directors and after 1912
its president, acting also as chairman of the
parole board. He practically determined the
policy of the institution, took a personal interest
in the inmates, and was their friend and adviser
after their parole. He was both an idealist and
a realist. He had implicit faith that the people,
sufficiently informed, would do the right thing,
and that the world was getting better; but he
faced facts with both eyes open.
Tall and debonair, quick at repartee, a spir-
ited raconteur with a rich resonant voice, he at
once became the center of any group he joined.
Significant of the confidence and regard he in-
spired is the fact that among his warmest friends
were persons widely apart socially and of diverse
political and religious views. In 1922 an infec-
tion necessitated the amputation of one of his
legs. He bore its loss with his customary buoy-
ant cheerfulness, and was soon back at his work,
remaining active until shortly before his death.
Married Dec. 27, 1881, to Kate Louise Gardner
of New York, he was survived by three sons and
two daughters.
[A Hist, of the Class of Eighty, Yak College (1910) ;
Who's Who in America, 1930-31 ; N. Y. Times, May
7, 1932; New Haven Journal-Courier, May 7 ff. ; per-
sonal acquaintance.] H.E. S.
OSBORN, SELL EC K (c. 1782-*:. October
1826), journalist, poet, was born in Trumbull,
Conn., the son of Nathaniel Osborn. At an early
age he was apprenticed as a printer. From June
19, 1802, to Jan. 3, 1803, he edited the Suffolk
County Herald at Sag Harbor, N. Y. In 1805
he joined Timothy Ashley in editing The Wit-
ness, at Litch field, Conn. The town was at that
time strongly Federalist and contained several
outspoken critics of President Jefferson and his
policies. Democrats encouraged the publishers
to expose Federalist fallacies and uphold the
President in their columns. Osborn penned edi-
6.9
Osborn
trials with youthful zeal and indiscretion The
prominent Federalists were decorated with op-
Brobiocis and malodorous nicknames until one,
^Crowbar Justice" (Julius) Deming, sued the
editors for libel. At the session of the county
court in April 1806, they were found guilty, fined
each $100 and costs, and ordered under bonds to
%*£ the peace & be of good behaviour . . . till
tfeeiiext Term of this Court" and "to stand com-
mitted within the Gaol of s'd County untill this
Judgment be complied with" (Litchfield County
CdertRec0rds,XVI, 304-05)- Ashley exhibited
compliance, but Osborn chose to "stand com-
juittecT and from his cell, as sole editor, con-
tinued The Witness. This made him a veritable
Jofea Wilkes in the eyes of John C. Calhoun
[$«.], then a law student in Litchfield (New
J&rk Patriot, Nov. 27, 1823), and of the Repub-
lican newspapers throughout the country and
madi political capital was made of his imprison-
ment On Aug. 6, 1806, a demonstration was
staged in Ms honor; there was a procession fol-
lowed l>y "spread-eagle exercises in the meeting
house*1 and a collation on the Green opposite the
jai; the first toast offered was: "Selleck Os-
tefa! the Later Daniel in the lion's den. He is
tecMt^ Ms persecutors that the beasts cannot
devour him!" (White, post; p. 165). Reporting
Ifee Incident, a Washington paper said that the
^efsecutioa of federalism" had raised Osborn
*%igli In the esteem of dispassionate men" ( Na-
tfemd Inte&gencerj Aug. 20, 1806).
It Is more than possible that the presence in
tfeat litcMeM parade of a squad of cavalry
ffi&k from Massachusetts induced Osborn some
tipe alter Ks release to become a cavalryman.
lie was commissioned first lieutenant of light
^€0ns iat&e United States army July 8, 1808,
«as promoted to captain Feb. 20, 1811, became
aitatei to the first regiment of light dragoons
J%4 i?12 0* second regiment having been
fat year), served in the War of 1812
n frontier and was honorably dis-
, 1814, He soon returned to news*
himself, after a brief
Osborn
a poem called 'The Contrast-Mar War and
Peace," containing1 these lines ;
"Heaven hasten the time when thr battle shall
And dread terror be bani*h*d aCiir ;
When Love
Like a tlovc
With the EMBLEM OF PEACE
Shall return to the Ark, nnd that wr?tch«<iit«it
Which embitters the horrorn of War,**
As these verses indicate* (inborn was an out,
spoken advocate of pcacts <l«*«*j»itc the apparent
contradiction of his career an a cavalryman, A
volume of his verse entitled simply I\n-ms was
published in Boston in iRaj, In iHio4 at New
Bedford, Mass., he married Mfiry, d'tu^hter of
Barnabas Hamm«n<l. They hat! two cliihiren, a
son and a daughter,
WwmVaw Watchman, J«Iy 16, iHiy; Ft B, Htit-
man4, Hui. J?fgr. wd />iV/, f\ A*, /frmv (tutu), cea»
taining some inaceuracir?* ; A, <*, \Vlittr, 7'A«? //ai, #/
Mf r<?««» o/ Litehfitldi ( «w«, < IQVO) » K, A Ami G, u
Duyckinck, C^f, «>/ Am, 1 1>, (iH;'5i, vnl, II; Samuel
'v (iH^o), v«i|t II*
(fV»»«**j/, «>/ iA '
I tt*h$i<?ld
cej @ctm®nx & /w.
Roland Hammond, X //wf,
of Wm, Hmmwitl
, . <
tor, Ans, 13. 1606; LltrhlirtrJ (*«»ut»iy r(*urt
buli (Conn,) Cong, Church rrctirri* /
(Washington, D, C,), Oct.
A. B, P,
OSBORN, THOMAS ANDREW <Oct. a
i836-Feb» 4 1898), lawyer, utAtrnttmn.
was born in Meadville, Pa,, the Him of
and Elizabeth (Morri$) Oftbnrti. He was ap-
prenticed to a Mcadville printer nml earned
enough money to attend the preparatory depart-
ment of Allegheny College ( 1855-57), He ate
had a few months of legal atucly in the office of
Judge Derickson of Meadville in 1856. In 1857
he traveled westward to Ponttac, Mich., where
his career was officially launched hy hitt admis-
sion to the bar just after hii twcntyofiriit birth-
day, In November of the same year he turned
westward again and settled in Kanaaa. He fiat
found work as a compoiitor in the office of As
Kcmsas H&rM of Pmdom In Lawrence, and n
acting editor during the absence of the mm,
In the spring of 1858 he opened a law office to
Etorood and in the same yair was elected attar-
m of Dwiphati Cotaity, His winning person
a%, energy, and ability had by this time beet
dtoomteted to stich a degree that in 1859
tookitt mt as »emtor from Doniphtu
m the -fotteistaw of tht ntw state of
aboot three years
tfoe OWller ^
Jrfy 16, 1817).
Osborn
trim United States marshal, but political differ-
ences caused his removal by President Johnson
n 1867.
In the election of 1872 Osborn was made gov-
ernor of Kansas, and the following year he be-
>an his two eventful terms in that office. Three
najor crises arose, each of which he met with
;haracteristic ability. His efficient relief meas-
ires during the "Grasshopper Year" of 1874
earned him the admiration and gratitude of the
)eople of Kansas, The threat of a serious Indian
rprising on the southern border of the state was
successfully overcome by moderate but deter-
nined action. The discovery in 1875 of mis-
ronduct in the use of funds by the state treasurer
vas followed by prompt measures which averted
-vhat might have become a serious financial
:risis. Under his administration the settlement
)f Kansas made great progress and many new
:ounties were organized. In 1877, after having
msuccessfully campaigned for a seat in the
Jnited States Senate, Osborn was appointed
umister to Chile by President Hayes. During
lis residence at Santiago, Chile became involved
n war with Peru and Bolivia. Osborn's attempts
o effect a peaceful settlement between the coun-
ries were appreciated but futile. With the help
if Thomas Ogclen Osborn [<?.?/.], American min-
ster to Argentina, however, he was instrumen-
al in settling the long-standing Patagonian
oundary dispute, for which he received the pub-
ic thanks of the government of Chile. In 1881
e was appointed minister to Brazil by President
tarfield. While no sensational event marked his
esidence at Rio cle Janeiro, the Brazilian gov-
rtirnent showed its appreciation of his four years
f service by bestowing upon him the highest
onor that could be given a foreigner, the Grand
*ross of the Order of the Rose.
Returning to Kansas Osborn resumed his busi-
ess and political interests. In 1888 he headed
le Kansas delegation at the Republican Na-
onal Convention. The same year he was elected
tate senator from Shawnee County and held of-
ce for two terms. He engaged in extensive
usiness activities, including banking, real-estate,
lining, investments, and railroads. He was a
irector of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe
Railroad from 1894 until his death. In 1870 he
larried Julia Delahay, daughter of Judge Mark
V. Delahay of Leavenworth, Kan. They had
ne son. Osborn died suddenly in 1898, while
n a visit to his old home in Meadville.
[Charles S. Gleed, "Thomas A. Osborn," Trans. Kan.
tatc Hist. Soc., vol. VI (1900) ; W. E. Connelley, ed.,
Standard Hist, of Kan. and Kansans (1918), vol. II;
, R. Tuttle, A New Centennial Hist, of the State of
an. (1876) ; Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations
' the U. S., 1878-82 ; Message of the President of the
Osborn
U. S,, Transmitting Papers Relating to the War in
South America and Attempts to Bring About a Peace
(1882); D. W. Wilder, The Annals of Kan., 1541-
1885 (1886) ; the Topeka Daily Capital, Feb. 5, 1898.]
I.L.T.
OSBORN, THOMAS OGDEN (Aug. 11,
r832-Mar. 27, 1904), lawyer, soldier, diplomat,
was born in Jersey, Ohio, the son of Samuel and
Hannah (Meeker) Osborn. He graduated in
1854 from Ohio University at Athens and after
reading law for two years in the office of Gen.
Lew Wallace at Crawfordsville, Ind., was ad-
mitted to the bar. In 1858 he began the prac-
tice of law in Chicago. With the opening of the
Civil War, however, he threw all his energies
into recruiting a regiment of volunteers, the
39th Illinois Infantry, christened the Yates Pha-
lanx in honor of the governor of the state. He
was elected lieutenant-colonel of the regiment,
which was attached to the Army of the Potomac,
and was shortly promoted to colonel. He was
wounded in the attack on Fort Wagner and
later more seriously in the battle of Drewry's
Bluff, when a bullet shattered his right elbow.
For gallantry in action he was brevetted briga-
dier-general. After more than four months he
was discharged from Chesapeake Hospital, but,
too weak to return to the field, was given a fur-
lough. He spent his period of convalescence
delivering a vigorous series of speeches in Michi-
gan, Illinois, and Indiana in Lincoln's second
presidential campaign. Returning to active serv-
ice in December 1864, he remained with his
command on the north side of Richmond all win-
ter, and on Apr. 2, 1865, in a dangerous and gal-
lant charge captured Fort Gregg. This resulted
in the fall of Petersburg and Richmond. Osborn
was made full brigadier-general of volunteers,
and the Yates Phalanx was presented with a
brazen eagle by the Secretary of War.
After the war Osborn returned to his law
practice in Chicago. He was treasurer of Cook
County, III, in the years 1867-69 ; served on the
board of managers of the National Home for
Disabled Volunteer Soldiers ; and on Jan. 7, 1873,
was appointed a member of the Commission to
Inquire into the Depredations Committed on the
Texas Frontier, and spent the winter investigat-
ing conditions in the Rio Grande Valley. On
Feb. 10, 1874, President Grant appointed him
minister resident in the Argentine Republic.
Never content to fill a passive role, he was not
only careful to protect American interests, but
tried to make himself a valued counselor and
trusted friend of the Argentines. On July 6,
1880, his good offices were effective in terminat-
ing the civil war between the national govern-
ment and the province of Buenos Aires. For
Osborn
many years the relations between Argentina and
Chile had been disturbed by a misunderstanding
over the Patagonian boundary between the two
countries. Osborn and his colleague, Thomas
Andrew Osborn [#.#.], American minister to
Chile, took the initiative in bringing about a
settlement. The snowy Andes blocked travel be-
tween the two capitals, but a treaty was success-
fully negotiated and ratified (Oct. 22, 1881) by
telegraph. Osborn commented that it might well
be called "the Wire Treaty." Others suggested
"the Osborn Treaty" as an appropriate name.
Osborn was publicly thanked by the Argentine
government and commended by his own. The
Argentine Republic afterward presented him
with a shield, "very handsome, artistic, and cost-
ly," bearing figures representing Chile and Ar-
gentina with hands joined, and the United States
extending an olive branch. This shield, said to
be the last finished work of Gustave Dore, was
hung in the Art Institute of Chicago.
Osborn resigned in 1885 but remained in South
America, engaging in railway projects. One link
of the Pan-American Railway, from Asuncion,
Paraguay, to Sucre, Bolivia, was known as the
Osborn Concession. He returned to Chicago in
1890 and retired from active business. He died
suddenly in Washington, D. C, in 1904, and was
buried in Arlington National Cemetery. He
never married.
. Sketches of the Leading Men of Chicago
(1868) ; Chicago Record-Herald^ Mar. 28, 1904; "Hist.
of the Thirty-ninth Infantry," in Report of the Adj,~
Gen. of the State of III. (1867), vol. I; "Report and
Accompanying Documents ... on the Relations of the
U. S. with Mexico/' House Report 701, 45 Cong,, 3
Sess. ; Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the
U. S., 1874-85 ; War of the Rebellion: Official Records
{Army} ; Buenos Ayrcs Herald, Nov. 14, 1880 ; Who's
Who in America, 1903-05 ; the Washington Post, Mar*
28, 1004.] I.L.T.
OSBORN, WILLIAM HENRY (Dec, 21,
1820-Mar. 2, 1894), railroad promoter and presi-
dent, philanthropist, was born at Salem, Mass,,
the son of William and Anna Henfield (Bow-
ditch) Osborn. He came of old New England
stock, His earliest-known direct ancestor was
a sea-captain, whom he resembled in his adven-
turous nature and independence. After attend-
ing the rural and high school of his community,
he abandoned the routine of formal education at
the age of thirteen to enter the East India House
of Peele, Hubbell & Company of Boston. Within
a few years his aptitude for business won him
an appointment as their representative in Manila,
where he later established himself in his own
interest. Returning to the United States after
about ten years, on Dec. 14, 1853, he married
Virginia Reed Sturges, daughter of Jonathan
Osborn
Sturges, a New York merchant and one of the
incorporators of the Illinois Central Railroad,
Of this road, still incomplete, Osborn was made
president in 1855. The company was then in a
critical financial position. The "Schuyler frauds"
(overissue of the stock of the New York & New
Haven road, under the presidency of Robert
Schuyler who was at the same time president of
the Illinois Central) had made it virtually im-
possible to negotiate railroad securities, but
Osborn reorganized the Illinois Central and
placed it on a firm financial basis. When the
panic of 1857 with its disastrous accompaniment
swept the country, he again brought order into
the chaos of the railroad's affairs by negotiating
a personal loan, and reestablished the company's
credit by assessments upon stockholders and a
new bond issue, thereby giving to the company
permanent financial stability. The use of this
road by the government during1 the Civil War
for the transportation of troops and war mate-
rials and of grain and supplies, the rapid develop-
ment of the natural resources of the country, and
the consequent settlement of the company's lands
so contributed to its material success that soon
after 1861 it began to pay dividends to share-
holders. Its credit continued to rise, and before
severing his connection with the company, Os-
born was able to negotiate its bonds at 3J<*%,
an unprecedented accomplishment. For about
thirty years he controlled the destinies of the Illi-
nois Central, serving for ten years as president
(1855-65), twenty-two as director (1854-76),
and six as president of the Chicago, St* Louis
& New Orleans (1877-82), During the last pe-
riod he exercised his customary energy and
ability in working1 out plans and policies whereby
the Illinois Central acquired this line as an ex-
tension to New Orleans and became one of the
world's most important railroad properties*
His retirement from business in 1882 meant
only a transfer of activity ; thereafter he devoted
himself to philanthropy and the art of living.
His private beneficence had a very wide range ;
while resident in Chicago he and his wife had
actively promoted the welfare of the railroad
workers by means of an employees' relief asso-
ciation and a library; in New York he was
closely identified with the Society for the Relief
of the Ruptured and Crippled, the Bellevue
Training School for Nurses, and the New York
Hospital He rounded his career and enriched
his personal life by a fine discrimination in lit-
erature and art, his library and art collection both
being considerable. Among those whose warm
friendship he enjoyed were the poet E, R Whip-
pie, whom he knew from childhood; Frederick
Osborne
E. Church, the artist ; and Samuel J. Tilclcn. His
prominent traits were sincerity, hatred of affec-
tation in people and of sham in men or in meas-
ures, and a pronounced tenacity of conviction.
Much of his time toward the close o! his life was
spent quietly on his estate "Castle Rock," at Gar-
rison, N. V. lie died in New York City, sur-
vived by two of his four children*
[Family records suppHecl by a son, Prof. Henry Fair-
field (inborn ; tributes of friends ; recollections of Pres-
(i<jx«0 ; JV. F, Tributw, Mar. 4, 1894."!
OSBORNE, JAMES WALKER (Jan. $,
i8s9-Scpt 7, i<)t<)), lawyer, was horn in Char-
lotte, N, C, the son of James W, Osborne and
Mary (Irwin) Osborne. I Hs ancestors on both
sides of the house canto of North-oE-Trelan<l
stock. I Its father was a judge of the superior
court of North Carolina, highly respected and
esteemed in his community; his mother was a
woman of strong and vigorous mind, deeply read
in literature, profoundly interested in public af-
fairs, and a devoted companion to her children.
He was graduated in 1879 from Davidson Col-
lege, North Carolina, He stood high m his
classes and showed even then the enormous en-
ergy, mental and physical, which characterized
him throughout: his life. In 1883 he sought a
wider field for his ambitions in New York, where
he studied in the Columbia University Law
School, graduated in 1885, and was immediately
admitted to the bar.
He was by principle and by heredity an ardent
Democrat and his legal and political activities
soon brought him into public notice. In 1891
De Lancey Nicoll fV/^'l who was then district
attorney of New York County, appointed him as
a member of his staff of young men remarkable
for their character and ability. In this good
company Osborne soon made his mark. During
his eleven years of service, he conducted many
of the most important criminal prosecutions iti
the County of New York Of these, perhaps, the
best known were the cases of Roland Burnham
Molincux and Albert T. Patrick, In the former,
upon the first trial, the defendant was convicted,
but the judgment was reversed by the court of
appeals, and upon the second trial he was ac-
quitted (The Molmem Case, *929> edited ^
Samuel Klaus), Albert T. Patrick was convict-
ed, and the conviction was affirmed (182 N. Y.
Reports, 131), but the sentence of death ^ was
commuted by Governor Higgms to life imprison-
ment, and Patrick was afterwards pardoned' by
Governor DJx. Osbortie was thorough and care-
Osborne
ful in preparation, logical and forceful in the
presentation of his evidence, and searching in
his cross-examinations. In his addresses to the
jury, he was eloquent and persuasive. In 1902
lie resigned and entered into private practice,
resuming after an interval membership in the
firm of Osborne, Lamb & Petty, with which he
had been connected before his public service. In
1905 he was nominated by the Democratic party
as district attorney for New York County but
was defeated by William Travcrs Jerome, an
independent Democrat, nominated upon a fusion
ticket, who won by a small majority,
Osborne continued in private practice during
the rest of his life, but accepted a number of pub-
lie retainers in which he rendered notable serv-
ice. In 1909, he was appointed a special attor-
ney general of the state of New York for the
purpose of investigating and prosecuting the
American Tee Company for violation of the anti-
trust statutes. After a long and bitterly contest-
ed litigation, he was successful in securing the
conviction of the Ice Company and the imposi-
tion of the maximum penalty. In 1910 he ap-
peared as counsel for State Senator Benin Con-
ger in the prosecution of State Senator Jotharn
Allds before the New York Senate upon, the
charge of taking a bribe to influence his action
as a legislator. Although Allcls had at his back
very powerful influence, both political and finan-
cial, and counted many devoted friends, Osborne
conclusively proved his guilt and his conviction
followed (Documents of the Senate of the State
of New York, 1910, no. 28). In the following
year Osborne was counsel for the committee of
the New York Senate winch investigated polit-
ical and social conditions in the City of Albany,
uncovering many gross evils. In 1913, as spe-
cial attorney general, he conducted a vigorous
investigation of conditions and treatment of pris-
oners in the state prison at Osshring, which dis-
closed many abuses and led to the appointment of
Thomas Mott Osborne [#.t/.] as warden of Sing
Sing prison,
Along with his professional activities, Osborne
was a constant and devoted student of literature
and history. He was passionately fond of chess
and was an excellent amateur player. To the end
of his life, in spite of failing health, he continued
his love for and his exercise in athletic sports.
On Jan. 8, 1896, he married Lelia Van Wyck,
the daughter of Judge Augustus Van Wyck.
He was survived by his wife and by their son.
In his family life, he showed the same warm feel-
ing and the same kindly sympathy that marked
all the other phases of his intense nature. He
died in New York at the age of sixty,
73
Osborne
ITke Asso. of the Bar of the City of tf. 7,,
Book 1920 ; AT. y. County Lawyers' Asso., Year Book,
1920; N. Y. Herald, Sept. 8, 1919; personal acquaint-
ance.] G. G. B.
OSBORNE, THOMAS BURR (Aug. 5>
i859-Jan. 29, 1929) , biochemist, was born in New
Haven, Conn., of old New England stock, the
grandson of Eli Whitney Blake |>j.7/.], His par-
ents were Frances Louisa (Blake) Osborne and
Arthur Dimon Osborne, the latter educated as a
lawyer and subsequently engaged in banking.
From Yale College Osborne received the de-
gree of B.A. in 1881 and that of Ph.D. in 1885.
During his boyhood and youth he was greatly
interested in the study of plants, insects, and
birds, of which he collected hundreds of speci-
mens prior to 1880 when he began to be engrossed
in the pursuit of chemistry. A biographer has
said: "Osborne had no taste for poetry, the
drama or noble prose. He was a realist. ... A
love of nature was music, and poetry to him" (K.
H. Jenkins, in Thomas B. Osborne — a Memo-
rial, post, pp. 281-82). From Prof. Samuel W.
Johnson [q.v.] of the Sheffield Scientific School
he received much early inspiration and encour-
agement toward a career of research. For a time
he served as Johnson's assistant, and on June 23,
1886, married his daughter, Elizabeth Annah
Johnson. Two children were born to them, In
May 1886 Osborne became a member of the
staff of the Connecticut Agricultural Experi-
ment Station, where he labored until his retire-
ment in 1928.
The first of the contributions that were des-
tined to bring him recognition as the foremost
expert on the proteins of plants was a paper on
the oat-kernel published (1891) in the Report
of the Experiment Station for 1890. This was
followed in the next decade by descriptions of
the proteins of no less than thirty-two different
seeds. Such proteins were demonstrated to be
well-characterized substances worthy of the in-
tensive study of biochemists. This fact was fur-
ther emphasized when Osborne succeeded in
crystallizing many of the seed globulins, there-
by rendering carefully purified proteins of defi-
nite individuality available for further investi-
gation. Through his own researches on crystal-
line vegetable globulins, notably the edestin of
hempseed, he demonstrated that proteins in gen-
eral behave towards acids like bases, that they
form salts both with acids and with alkalis, and
show many evidences of a capacity to undergo
electrolytic dissociation and enter into ionic re-
actions.
Beginning in 1906, with the aid of a number
of younger collaborators, he began a series of
Osborne
laborious, carefully executed hydrolytic decom-
positions of purified proteins that have added
greatly to the understanding of their ammo acid
components. These analyses helped to pave the
way for the extensive researches on the nutri-
tive properties or biological value of various
proteins which he began in collaboration with
Prof. Lafayette B. Mendel of Yale University in
1900. During a period of twenty years of fruit-
ful cooperation in research they published more
than a hundred papers in scientific journals. Tn
these were recorded the development of technique
for feeding individual small animals with mix-
tures of somexvhat purified foodstuffs— the so-
called "synthetic" diets, Among the outstanding
contributions were the demonstrations of the
unlike "biological value" of different proteins in
nutrition and growth. Tn the course of these
studies came the discovery that butter-frit, egg
yolk, cod-liver oil, many green leaves, ami
other parts of plants and animals contain a sub-
stance, soluble in fats, that is an indispensable
dietary requisite and has since been designated
as vitamin A, Lack of this food factor may lead
to the appearance of the eye disorder Cxeroph-
thalmia), to the genesis of urinary calculi, and
to other pathological manifestations, What was
subsequently termed vitamin B was also soon
brought into the picture of adequate nutrition.
Extensive reports were made of the distribution
of various vitamins in natural food products.
The phenomena of growth, its suppression and
acceleration under various regimens, and the
effect of the individual inorganic constituents of
the diet received attention,
A detailed catalogue of O.sbornr's further con-
tributions (see Thomas /?. Osbnrne*- ~a Memo*
rial) includes investigations of the wheat plant
for which he was the first to receive the Thomas
Burr Osborne gold medal founded by the Amer-
ican Association of Cereal Chemists in recogni-
tion of his outstanding contributions to cereal
chemistry. Appreciation of the fundamental
character of his protein investigations came early
from Germany, where his paper on the oat~ker-
nel was translated and published by V, Gries$"
mayer in 1897, Osborne*s own monograph The
Vegetable Proteins, which first appeared in
1909 and was extensively revised in 1934, is a
classic in biochemical literature. Somewhat re*
lated to the demonstrations of the unlike bio*
logical values of the proteins are the investiga-
tions of their immtmological or anaphylactogenic
properties conducted with great success in col-
laboration with Prof, H, Gideon Wells of the
University of Chicago,
Honors came to Osborne from various sources ;
74
Osborne
he was elected a member of many learned socie-
ties at home and abroad, including the National
Academy of Sciences. During the last seven
years of his life lie was a research associate in
biochemistry in Yale University, a designation
of distinction that conferred full professorial
rank* The breadth of his knowledge and interest
is revealed by the fact that in addition to his in-
tense scientific activities, recorded in more than
250 papers and monographs, he served for years
as a director of the Second National Bank of
New Haven, his acumen in financial matters as
well as his lively interest in the political ques-
tions and economic problems of the day making"
him well qualified and most acceptable to the
directorate. One of his scientific associates
has pointed out (Thomas IL Oslwnn* — a Memo-
rial, p. 3/0 that "few chemists have been privi-
leged to follow the dictates of their interest so
long and successfully without tin* interruptions
or distractions that may retard the progress of
the devotees of science/1 Another intimate col-
league ( I hid., p, £&s) described him as "a, whole-
some clean-minded man, quick, impulsive, gen-
erous and broadminded and in all ways compan-
ionable."
[Outlines of Osl)ornt*'» career will he found in Who's
Who in America, io.!H-ji>; and in J* M. and Jaques
Cattail, Am. A/<'» of S?it vol IV (1927). In Th»mas
B, 0 shorn c~~ tt Memorial (l«Vb. 1030), Bull, 3U» Conn.
Affric, Experiment Station, arc collected a number of
biographical sketches (with u photograph), a complete
bibliography of Inn publications, a paper on "The Work
of Thomas Burr Osfoorne" by his associates L. B.
Mendel and If, B. Victey, first published in Scienccf
Apr, 11, ioa<>, and appreciations by Viokery in Y&lc
Jour* of Itioltwy and Medicine, Mar, it)2<), by Mendel
in Am. Jmtr, Sei, Apr. TQ^>, by H. IX D, in Jour, of
the Chew, *Vw\ (London), KW, pt. II, p, 2974, and by
H< L. Knight in farprriment Station Record (U. S,
Dcpt, of Ajyric,), June 1920. St*e also obituary iu New
Haven Journal Courier, Jan, 30, 1029.] L. B, M«
OSBORNE, THOMAS MOTT (Sept. 23,
i8$9-X*)et 20, 1926) , prison reformer, was born
at Auburn, N. Y. Ills father, David Munson
Osborne, a manufacturer of agricultural imple-
ments, was descended from Richard Osborn of
London, England, who, in 1634, settled in Hing-
ham, Mass.; 1m mother, EHaca (Wright), came
of old Pennsylvania Quaker stock. The wealth
of his family gave him an opportunity to travel
and to receive the cultural education of the priv-
ileged few* Upon his graduation from Harvard
cum laude in 1884 he began an apprenticeship in
his father's manufacturing1 establishment, and on
Oct 27, 1886, married Agnes Devens of Cam-
bridge. After his father's death, he was head of
the firm until 1903, when it was absorbed by the
International Harvester Company,
Politics interested him early. As member of
the Auburn school board, 1885-91 and 1893-
Osborne
95, and as mayor, 1903-06, he proved himself
efficient and honest. He soon became recognized
as a leader of the upstate Democrats, for short
periods held appointive state offices, and served
as delegate to the state and national conventions
of his party. His avocational interests centered
largely around music and dramatics, and he or-
ganized and directed in his home city both a
symphony orchestra and a dramatic club. His
talent as a pianist was particularly a source of
enjoyment to himself and to his friends.
Osborne's untiring work for prison reform
was his outstanding achievement Soon after his
wife's death in 1896 he became interested in the
George Junior Republic, and served for many
years as a member and, later, as chairman of its
governing board. To this work may be traced
his interest in prison administration. In 1906
he concluded an address to the National Prison
Association with these words, "The prison must
be an institution where every inmate must have
the largest practical amount of individual free-
dom, because 'it is liberty alone that fits men
for liberty'" (Proceedings . . ., 1906, p. 38).
These words of Gladstone thus became for him
the guide to a better system o£ prison treatment.
1 1 is opportunity to test their validity came in
1913 with his appointment to the chairmanship
Qf the newly created state commission for prison
reform. He began his duties in a most unortho-
dox manner by "serving" a week's term in the
Auburn prison ; the graphic account of this ex-
perience may be found in Within Prison Walls
(1914). As "Tom Brown" he sought to know
how life in prison affected those subjected to it,
and he emerged convinced that the conventional
treatment crushed the individuality and de-
stroyed the manhood and self-respect of the
prisoners, the very foundation on which refor-
mation must rest During his confinement a
prisoner had suggested to him a plan which took
form in the famous Mutual Welfare League,
through which Auburn prisoners, tinder sympa-
thetic guidance, achieved a sense of- corporate
responsibility, which became a powerful force
in refittting them for social life. From 1914 to
1916, as warden of Sing Sing, and from 1917 to
1920, as commanding officer of the Portsmouth
Naval Prison, Osborne used the Mutual Wel-
fare League plan with conspicuous success, A
splendid educational tool was in this way strik-
ingly adapted to prison conditions, and even
though the idea of self-government was by no
means new, Osborne will probably be remem-
bered as one of its conspicuous exponents, so
far as its use in prison administration is con-
cerned. In his two books, Society and Prisons
75
Osceola
(1916) and Prisons and Common Sense (i924)>
his penal philosophy is well presented, particu-
larly in the former.
Osborne was a man of a singularly fine and
upright character. Tall and athletic, he gave the
impression of rugged physical strength, and
equally strong was his passion for justice and
fair dealing. His public life was consequently
turbulent, for while he called forth a keen loyalty
in most of those who learned to know him inti-
mately, his intransigency and his intolerance of
opposition also created for him vigorous enmi-
ties. During his prison administration in Sing
Sing, particularly, his unsparing criticism of po-
litical interference subjected him to the vilest
abuse, which culminated in an indictment by the
Westchester County grand jury, December 1915,
on charges of mismanagement and immorality ;
the case never came to trial. After his resigna-
tion from Portsmouth in 1920, he spent the re-
maining years of his life lecturing and writing
on prison reform. The finest monument to his
memory is the "Tom Brown" house in New
York City, headquarters of two organizations
which he founded and which have recently been,
merged under the title "The Osborne Associ-
ation." One of these was the Welfare League
Association, an aid society for discharged pris-
oners, and the other, the National Society of
Penal Information, which on the basis of field
studies of actual prison conditions, conducts an
intelligent propaganda for prison reform. He
died in Auburn, N. Y., survived by four sons.
[W R. Cutter, Gencal. and Family Hist, of the State
of Conn. (1911), vol. Ill; N. Y. Times, Oct. 21, 1926;
J. J. Chapman, "Thomas Mott Osborne" and "Osborne's
Place in Hist. Criminology," Harvard Graduates' Mag.,
March, June 1927; Thomas Mott Oshornc, pamphlet
of memorial addresses published by the Nat. Soc, of
Penal Information Cn.d.) ; Prank Tannenbaum in The
Survey, Oct. ipso-Mar. 1931, and Osborne of Sing
Sing (1933) ; F. H. Wines, Punishment and Reforma-
tion (1919), ed. by W. I. Lane; F. E. Haynes, Crim-
inology (1930) ; C, M. Liepmann, Die^Sclbstvcrwaltunff
dcr Gefangenen (1926) ; Who's Who in America, 1926-
27 ; genealogical information from a son, Charles D.
Osborne.] T, S — n,
OSCEOLA (c. 1800- Jan, 30, 1838), leader in
the Second Seminole War, was born probably
on the Tallapoosa River among the Creek In-
dians in what is now the state of Georgia, He
was also known as Powell, a name that is ex-
plained variously as being that of a Scots father,
grandfather, or step-father. Yet in spite of wide-
spread opinion to the contrary it seems probable
that he was of pure Indian blood and was a re-
markably handsome example of a typical "full-
blood and wild Indian" (Catlin's notes in Don-
aldson, post, p, 217 ; Welch, post, pp. 23-24). He
is said to have fought against Jackson during the
Osceola
War of 1812 and again in 1818, About 1832 he
was living near Fort King;, visited the fort fre-
quently, and was from time to time employed to
restrain predatory Indians or to arrest, deserters
from the army. Gradually he began to assume a
position of consequence among the Indians, al-
though he had not been born to high rank nor is
there any record that he was ever formally
chosen a chief. He opposed the treaty of 1832 at
Payne's Landing1, in which some of the ^lesser
chiefs agreed to removal across the Mississippi
within three years, and he rejected the treaty of
the next year at Fort Gibson, where some of the
Seminoles were tricked into seeming to agree to
immediate removal. He was present on Apr. 22,
1835, at the meeting called by Wiley Thompson
[^.] in an effort to persuade the chiefs to ac-
knowledge the treaty of Payne's Landing. Al-
though most of the chiefs contented themselves
with a silent refusal to touch the pen to such an
instrument, Osceola is reported to have plunged
his great knife into the paper in a dramatic ges-
ture of defiance. He was arrested and impris-
oned until, feigning a change of heart, he was
released with the understanding1 that he would
use his influence in favor of immediate emigra-
tion,
Instead, he gathered the forces of opposition,
accomplished the murder of Wiley Thompson
and Charley Emathla, a chief who had signed the
treaty of Fort Gibson, and precipitated the Sec-
ond Seminole War, in which his skill and ruth-
less daring carried him to a position of authentic
leadership. He hid the women and children of
the tribe in the great swamps of the region and
led the warriors in the perilous work of harass-
ing the white army, He was so successfuHn his
guerrilla tactics as to arouse public criticism of
the army and, especially, of its leader, Gen.
Thomas S. Jesup [#,<]> who, goaded by failure
and actuated by the kind of mthkssness com-
mon to both soldiers and civilians on the fron-
tier, ordered Osceola to be seized when he came
for an interview in October 1837, In spite of the
revulsion of public opinion caused by such a
violation of the flag of truce, Osceola was taken
to Fort Marion at Saint Augustine and later re-
moved to Fort Moultrie near Charleston, S. C,
where he died,
[Files of the Office of Indian Affairs j C H. Cot,
Red Patriots (1898), according to a statement by the
Indian Office never suppressed by It: Grant Fore-
man, Indian Removal (1932) j Andrew Welch, A Nar~
rative of . . , Ofieola NikRanochee , . . with , . , nwt.
of Oceola (1841) ; J. T. Sprague, The Origin , . , of
the Florida War (1848) ; Thomas Donaldson, 'The
George Catlin Indian Gallery in the XL S, National
Museum," in Annual Report of the Board of Rewnts
of the Smithsonian Institution, 1885; Army and Navy
76
Osgood
Chronicle, Jan. 21, Feb. 18, Mar, 31, Apr. 7, 1836,
Dec. 14, 1837; N ties' Weekly Register, Jan. 30, Feb.
6, 20, 1836, Nov. 4, 1837; Miles' National Register,
Feb. 3, *7, 1838.] ICE. C.
OSGOOD, FRANCES SARGENT LOCKE
(June 18, i8n-May 12, 1850), poet, was de-
scended from William Locke who emigrated
from England to Massachusetts in 1635. The
daughter of Joseph Locke, merchant, and Mary
(Ingersoll) Foster Locke, she was born at Bos-
ton but lived in childhood in Hingham, Mass.
A brother, sister, and half-sister (Anna Maria
Foster Locke) wrote verse, and her parents en-
couraged Fanny to do likewise. Under the pseu-
donym "Florence," she contributed to the Juve-
nile Miscellany edited by Mrs. Child. In 1834
while preparing verses on the paintings at the
Boston Athenanmi, she met one of the exhibitors,
Samuel Stlllnmn Osgood, a painter of some tal-
ent. She sat to him for a portrait and on Oct. 7,
1835, married him. With her husband she soon
sailed for London, where Osgood had studied at
the Royal Academy. He now gave his time to
painting portraits, while she continued to write.
The attractive young matron was taken up by
Mrs. Norton, mingled iti literary circles, con-
tributed to magazines, and published a miniature
volume,, The Casket of Fate (sncl ed., Boston,
1840). A daughter, Ellen Frances, was born
July 15, 1836. In 1838 appeared a volume of
poems, A Wreath of Wild Plotvcrs from New
England (reissued, N. Y., 1842), which was
well received, though her English fame was
slight enough to make Elizabeth Barrett ask
Browning in 1845 if he had ever heard of her.
The collection contained a drama, Elfrida, with
some good scenes and one mighty line, Sheridan
Knowlcs asked her to write a play for him,
and the result was The Happy Release, or the
Triumphs of Love, which reached neither the
boards nor (apparently) the printer. Her fa-
thcr's death in 1839 called the Osgoods to Bos-
ton, where on July 21 a second daughter, May
Vincent, was born. The family moved to New
York, and Mrs. Osgoocl contributed to most of
the better literary periodicals of the day. Her
output Included many poems and occasional
prose tales, usually including verses. She some-
times used the pen name, Kate Carol. She had
an editorial connection with Snowdevtfs Ladies
Companion, which was merely nominal, but she
wrote or prepared for the press several volumes,
Including The Poetry of Flowers and the Flow-
ers of Poetry (1841, often reprinted); The
Snowdrop, a New Year Gift for Children, and
The Rose, Sketches in Verse (both Providence,
1842) ; Puss in Boots (1844) ; The Cries of New
Osgood
York (1846); The Flower Alphabet (Boston,
n.d.). In March 1845, she met Edgar Allan Poe
[#-^.]» with whom her romantic story "Ida
Grey" (Graham's Magazine, August 1845) an(*
contemporary comment indicate she fell in love.
Poe and she were much together at literary gath-
erings— where Rufus W, Griswold [g.^.] was
another admirer — they wrote verses to each
other, and the critic, willingly blind, gave un-
measured praise In "The Literati" and elsewhere
to her mild poetry. When his inspiration failed,
he asked her to write a poem for him to deliver
in November 1845, in Boston, but her "Lulin"
proved unsuitable. Her friendship with Poe was
one cause of the quarrels that led to Poe's libel
suit against Thomas Dtmn English [q.v.]. Poe
and Frances Osgood probably ceased to meet
about 1847, but were not embittered. A selec-
tion, Poems, was Issued in 1846 and a larger se-
lection under the same title appeared with illus-
trations in 1850 ; both were occasionally reprint-
ed, the smaller as late as 1861. A daughter,
Fanny Fay, born in 1846, died early ; the mother
was consumptive, but continued to write volumi-
nously. A little pamphlet, A Letter aboitt the
Lions (1849), was her *ast separate work — a
gentle satire. Her husband went off to Califor-
nia In 1849 without her and returned to find her
very ill. They moved into a new home at 112
West 22nd St., New York, where she died on
May 12, 1850. She was buried in Mount Au-
burn Cemetery, Cambridge, Mass. In 1851 her
friends published The Memorial, Written by
Friends of the late Mrs. . . . Osgood, edited by
Mary E. Hewitt; it was reissued as Laurel
Leaves In 1854. A little faded charm still clings
to a few of her poems, the lines on Fanny Ellsler,
the hymn "Labor," the requiem for Poe, and the
songs "Call me pet names" and "My heart is a
Music-Box/1 but she Is remembered chiefly as
a friend of Poe.
[Biographical sketches of Frances Osgood include
one by Griswold in The Memorial named above (re-
printed in the International Magazine, Dec. i, 1850)
and a very good one in J. G. Locke, Book of the Lockes
(1853). See a*80 the works of Poe; biographies of
Poe j and W. M. Griswold's Passages from the Corre-
spondence of and Other Papers of Rufus W. Griswold
(1898) ; obituaries in the N. Y. Daily Tribune, May 13,
14, 1850, and the N. Y. Herald, May 13, 1850 ; and an
article by H. F, Harrington in the Critic, Oct. 3, 1880.
Many of her papers are preserved with those of Gris-
wold, her literary executor, in the Boston Public Library.
A charming portrait by her husband, together with his
pictures of Griswold and Poe, are in the N. Y, Hist.
Soc. Some of her minor volumes are very rare, no
copies of the London Casket of Fate, or The1 R0s£
(mentioned by Griswold) were located by the writer :
her Lines to Mr. Dodson (Brooklyn, 1885) was issued
in an edition of only ten copies. For discussion of some
disputed dates of her children's births, etc., see article
by T. 0. Mabbott in Notes and Queries, Jan. io, 1931.
77
Osgood
A book on Frances Osgood is in preparation by Annie
Barcns Minga.] TOM
OSGOOD, GEORGE LAURIE (Apr. 3,
iS44-Dec. 12, 1922), singer, composer, conduc-
tor, and teacher, was born in Chelsea, Mass., the
son of John Hamilton Osgood and Adeline
(Stevens) Osgood, and a descendant of John
Osgood who emigrated to Massachusetts in
1638. As a child he showed an acute sense of
pitch, and was given every musical advantage
from his earliest years. At Harvard, where he
was graduated in 1866, after studying composi-
tion and the organ under John Knowles Paine
[4.^.], he directed the college glee cluh and or-
chestra for three successive years. After gradu-
ation he went to Germany, where he remained
three years studying singing in Berlin under
Ferdinand Sieber and Karl August Haupt, the
former famous as an exponent of the old Italian
tradition, and German song and choral music
with Robert Franz. He then went to Italy for
three years of further vocal study at Milan under
Francesco Lamperti, after which he made a suc-
cessful concert tour of Germany. As a result he
was engaged in 1872 by Theodore Thomas
[<y,z/,] for a winter tour of the United States
with his orchestra as tenor soloist. For some
thirty years thereafter Osgood played a leading
partin Boston's musical life. He was very popu-
lar as a teacher and brought out a number of suc-
cessful singers. He also directed an annual series
of chamber-music concerts of a high quality, and
completely transformed the Boylston Club of
Boston, of which he was conductor from 1875 t°
1893, from a male chorus into a mixed choral
organization of two hundred voices. Under the
name of the Boston Singers' Society (1890), he
established its reputation for brilliant perform-
ance of difficult pieces. He translated the texts
of many choral works and songs, and published
a Guide in the Art of Singing (copr. 1874),
which by 1917 had gone through eight editions.
He also composed a number of part-songs and
anthems and fifty songs, besides editing The
Boylston Collection of Choruses. On Apr. 15,
1868, he married Jeannette Cabot Farley, by
whom he had three children ; she died Aug. 24,
1888, and on June 27, 1891, he married June
Bright After 1903 he made his home in Europe,
first in Geneva, and later, in Godalming, Eng-
land, where he had a large country estate and
where he died.
[Ira Osgood and Eben Putnam, A Geneal. of the De-
scendants of John, Christopher, and William Osgood
(1894); Musical America, Dec. 23, 1922; Musical
Courier, Dec. 28, 1922; Who's Who in America, 1918-
19; death notice in The Times (London), Dec. 14,
F.H.M.
Osgood
OSGOOD, HERBERT LEVI (Apr. 9, 1855-
Sept ii, 1918), historian, was born on a farm
in Canton, Me., in the upper Anclroscoggin val-
ley, the son of Stephen and Joan (Staples) Os-
good. He was descended from John Osgood,
who came from Hampshire, England, probably
in 1638, lived for a time at Ipswich, Mass., and
in 1645 settled in Andovcr. Intelligently encour-
aged at home, he passed through the local dis-
trict school and the Wilton (Me.) Academy to
Amhcrst College. Here he was influenced to-
ward historical scholarship by Professors Julius
H. Seelyc and Anson 1). Morse \'<]<].v.\ and espe-
cially by J. W. Burgess, and graduated in 1877,
fifth in a class of seventy-nine of which he was
president. He taught numerous subjects for two
years in Worcester (Mass,) Academy, and then
carried on post-graduate study under Morse
(taking the M.A. degree in 1880) and at Yule,
under William Graham Sunnier, In 1882-83 he
studied in Berlin under Wagner, Sdimoller,
Gneist, and Treitschke. He saw Ranke several
times and in general adopted his view of the
province and method of history. Kcturnmg to
New England he briefly filled in teaching in
Amherst and Smith colleges, and in the autumn
of 1883 took a position in the Brooklyn (N, Y.)
High School, which he held for six years. While
teaching there he studied under Burgess and
others at Columbia, where the School of Po-
litical Science had already reached high develop-
ment, and in 1889 won his Ph.D. degree with a
dissertation on Socialism and Anarchism ( 1889) »
being a study primarily of the works of Rod-
bertus and Proudhon,
Upon economic theory, however, he was not
to concentrate his interest. He desired a field
unworked with the tools of scientific method,
marked off by clear boundaries and not too large
for the employment of one lifetime; the political
history of the English colonies on the American
continent he regarded as meeting these speci-
fications* In an article on "England and the
Colonies" (Political Science Quarterly, Sept
1887), he urged sympathetic study of the British
colonial policy. He was one of the first if not
the first university professor in America to ques-
tion the legal justification of the Revolution,
however inevitable it may have been on geo-
graphical, economic, and psychological grounds,
In 1889-90 he spent fifteen months in the Public
Record Office in London carrying on investiga-
tions. He was then called to Columbia, advanc-
ing to full professor in 1896. Though he taught
general European history and the constitutional
history of England, he progressively concen-
trated on the American colonies; from his
Osgood
seminar there began to come a series of more
than fifty doctoral dissertations illuminating the
early history of every one of the thirteen colonies
and Canada as well as phases of British imperial
administration in London. He was deeply con-
scientious in guiding- students' researches, some-
times exchanging fifty or sixty letters with a
candidate in addition to many personal confer-
ences, lie and his students generally confined
themselves to legal institutions. "Social and
economic forces/1 he said in 1898 (Columbia
University /f////r/w, June 1808, p. 186), "should
he treated as contributing to and conditioning"
historical development, but the historian must
never lose sight of the fact that they operate
within a framework oC law." A little later in the
same year he pronounced his dictum more defi-
nitely ; "It is only through law and political insti-
tutions that; social forces become in the large
sense operative" (/Iniutal Report of the American
Historical sLwticiation lor the Year 1898, 1899,
p. 68). Abandoning the customary goographico-
economie grouping of the colonies— northern,
middle, and southern — he classified them accord-
ing to their law and polity: royal and chartered,
with the latter divided into proprietary and cor-
porate. Three articles in the Political Science
Quarterly (Jfune-Oct. 1896) on "The Colonial
Corporation/* and three in the American His-
torical Rwicw (July, Oct. 1897, Jan. 1898) on
"The Proprietary Province as a Form of Colo-
nial Government" had contained the elements of
the design worked out in the first two volumes of
The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Cen-
tury which appeared in 1904, The third volume,
published in 1907, traced imperial control
throughout the same period. In 1908 he received
the Loubat prize for the best work on early
American history published during the previous
five years,
Realmng that imperial records grew more
indispensable as the scholar came forward in the
eighteenth century, he went to London again in
1909 and remained there sixteen months; five
years later he returned for four months more.
By means of grants from Columbia University
and the Carnegie Institution he was able to em-
ploy copyists during1 these two visits and similar
assistance thereafter in America. At the time of
his death in 1918 he had virtually completed his
four volumes on The American Colonies in the
Eighteenth Century, carrying the narrative down
to 1763 ; a fund provided by Dwight W. Morrow
made possible their publication in I924- In these
volumes the author felt that he was pioneering,
much of the period having had no general scien-
tific treatment before. The whole seven-volume
Osgood
work is largely the story of the struggle be-
tween British executives and colonial assemblies,
wherein one may watch the development of the
American political spirit which found expres-
sion in the Revolution. The posthumous volumes,
like their predecessors, were honored with the
Loubat prize in 1928.
He was a man of quiet manner, appreciative
of music and pictorial art, and given to philo-
sophical reflection. His life work is largely
summed up in his seven volumes; he wrote no
textbook, his nearest approach to it being the
section he contributed on the early history of the
United States in the Encyclopedia Britannica
( I ith eel, vol. XXVII, 663-84) . He gave com-
paratively little attention to anything but teach-
ing and writing his chapters, but in 1900 he made
a report on the archives of New York for the
American Historical Association (Annual Re-
port . f . for the Year 1900, 1901, vol. II, 67-250)
which has remained an unequaled model for such
surveys, and after long effort he was chiefly re-
sponsible for reforming the archival administra-
tion of the state in 1907. In 1905 were published
the eight-volume Minutes of the Common Coun-
cil of the City of New York, 1675-1776, which
he edited. He was originally strong and athletic,
but his severe regimen reduced him to frailty by
the age of sixty. On July 22, 1885, he married
Caroline Augusta Simoncls, daughter of Rev.
Alpha Hiram and Sarah (Pettibone) Simonds;
she with a daughter and two sons survived him,
but the sons died subsequently in early manhood.
[D. R. Fox, Herbert Levi Osgood^ An American
Scholar (1924), with portrait ; obituaries in N. Y. Times*
Sept 13, 1918; the Nation (N. Y.), Sept. ax, 1918;
Columbia Univ. Quart., Jan. 1919; Eben Putnam, A
Genealogy of the Descendants of John, Christopher,
and William Osgood (1894), p. 184.] D.R.F.
OSGOOD, HOWARD (Jam. 4, iSai-Nov. 28,
1911), Baptist clergyman, teacher, and author,
was. born on "Magnolia Plantation," in Pla-
quemines Parish, La., the son of Isaac and Jane
Rebecca (Hall) Osgood. His father was of New
England ancestry, a nephew of Samuel Osgood
iq,v.]> Although a wealthy planter, he became
thoroughly dissatisfied with slavery and moved
North, settling near New York City. Born and
reared an Episcopalian, Howard Osgood joined
the Baptist Church from conviction and at con-
siderable personal cost. Entering Harvard Col-
lege in 1846, he left in 1849, but nine years latejr
was awarded the degree of A.B. He made an
intensive study of the Germany theology. Or-
dained a Baptist minister, Feb. 12, 1857, he
served as pastor at Flushing, L. I, 1856-58, and
of the North Baptist Church, New York City,
79
Osgood
1860-66. From 1868 to 1874 he was professor
of Hebrew at Crozer Theological Seminary,
Chester, Pa., acting also as librarian.
It was at the Rochester Theological Seminary,
however, that he made his record as a teacher.
During 1875-76 he served as acting professor
of church history and for the next twenty-five
years was librarian and professor of Old Testa-
ment interpretation. He was a member of the
famous quintet — Strong1, Osgood, Stevens, Pat-
tison, and True — which for the last quarter of
the nineteenth century was the pride of that semi-
nary. He was a chivalrous Southern gentleman
given to hospitality. Master of five languages,
devoted to archaeology, rigidly conservative, un-
willing to grant any quarter to the historical
method of investigation, he spoke and wrote in
behalf of a very orthodox interpretation of the
Old Testament His Biblical point of view may
be gathered from the following articles and book-
lets : The Old Testament, What It Is and What
It Teaches (1879) ; Short Sketch of the Chris-
tology of the Old Testament (1880) ; Essays in
Pcntatcuchal Criticism (1888); "Old Wine in
New Wine Skins," Bibliothcca Sacra (July
1893) J contributions to Anti-higher Criticism
(1894), edited by L. W. Munhall; "President
Harper's Lectures," Bibliothcca Sacra (April
1895). The arguments now advanced by Funda-
mentalists were vigorously pressed by him. Be-
cause of his union with the Baptist denomina-
tion, he wrote on the form and significance of
baptism. His Archaeology of Baptism (32 pp.,
plates) contains much first-hand data. Since he
regarded the Baptists and Anabaptists as inti-
mately related, he formed at Rochester one of the
best American collections of "Anabaptistica."
His Protestant Pcdo-baptism and the Doctrine
of a Church (n.d, ; Baptist Tracts, vol. II, no. 3)
indicates how decisive his break with Angli-
canism had been.
Named as a member of the American commis-
sion for the revision of the Scriptures, his re-
search in connection with the work of this office
resulted in the publication, 1899, °f a- seventy-four
page booklet on References to the Versions by
British Revisers, a critical study of the accuracy
of British scholarship. His most excellent work
as translator is found in his "Introduction to
the Three Middle Books of the Pentateuch" in
the second volume of Philip SchafFs American
edition of John E. Lange's Commentary on the
Holy Scriptures. In addition to the publications
referred to, Osgood was also the author of Gram-
'mojr of the Hebrew Language for Beginners
(1895); Old Testament Ethics (ad.); "The
Oldest Book in the World," Bibliotheca Sacra
Osgood
(October 1888); Quotations of the- Old Testa-
ment (1880) and Topics in the Psalms (n.d.).
The last decade of his life although spent in
retirement was occupied with diligent research
and occasional lectures. On Apr. 14, 1853, he
married Caroline Townsend Lawrence, by whom
he had three sons and four daughters. He died
at Rochester.
[See Rochester Record, May 1912 and Nov. 1917;
Who's Who in America, i^io-t i ; Jour, and Messenger,
Dec, 7, 1911 ; Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, N.
Y.), Nov. 29, 1911 ; Ira Osgood and Eben Putnam, A
Gcweal, of the Descendants of John, Christopher, and
William Osypod (1804). The library of the 1*0! tfaU;-
Rochester Divinity School contains most of his pam-
phlets, articles, and books.] Qt j|< j^.
OSGOOD, JACOB (Mar. 16, i777~Nov. *;,
1844), religious enthusiast, founder of the Os»
gooclites, was born at South Hampton, N. II,,
the son of Philip Osgood, farmer, and a de-
scendant of William Osgootl, who emigrated to
Salisbury, Mass., in 1638. Philip Osgood was
married in succession to Elizabeth, Appiu, and
Mehitable Flanders, daughters of a South Hamp-
ton farmer ; Jacob was probably son of Mehitable.
In 1790 the family moved to Warner, N, If.
Jacob became a fanner ; he was also trained as a
singer, and taught singing1 classes. In 1797 hu
married Miriam Stevens, by whom he had eight
children.
In 1802 lie was converted, but he rejected both
Calvinism and Universalisrn as inventions of the
devil. Although he felt himself ordered of God
to preach, timidity prevented, and he became a
"pharisee Christian," attending services in the
Congregational meeting house. Again awakened
religiously in 1805, he began to preach and cause
disturbances in the meeting house at Warner and
elsewhere. He joined the Freewill Baptists, but
refused to acknowledge any theological principles
except that one must love God and one's neigh-
bor or be damned. This refusal, together with
his unconventional methods of preaching, made
him a suspect to the elders of the church. Others
embraced his views and in 1812 the Osgooclitcs
became a separate sect They enjoyed occasional
revivals, especially in 1816-17, and won disciples
in Warner, Canterbury, Sutton, South Hamp-
ton, Newtown, Aniesbury Mills, and Newbury-
Byfield, As late as 1885 a few still bore the name.
Osgood believed that everything established
by law was from the devil. He was particularly
opposed to paid ministers, lawcourts, magis-
trates, town meetings, and military training ; he
said that it was wicked for Christians to fight*
Between 1819 and 1826 a few of the sect were
imprisoned and otherwise persecuted for refus-
ing to attend training or pay the fines imposed
Osgood
for absence. Osgood himself had a heifer taken
from him, and in 1820 was imprisoned for eleven
days; while in prison he preached and sang to
his followers through the bars, and also enjoyed
much "good beer." When released, he refused to
leave the jail, saying that he had been thrust in
against his wish and must be carried out ; he was,
although it took several men to lift his ponderous
frame. Members of the sect also suffered some
ill treatment from their neighbors, but people
soon realized that they were honest and harm-
less. They were opposed to doctors and practised
faith healing, Osgood claims to have healed a con-
sumptive girl by laying his hands on her, after
doctors had said her case was hopeless. He is
credited with remarkable powers of prayer. Ac-
cording to tradition, Gocl often answered his
petitions by sending rain after drought and fine
weather after rain ; on one occasion, it was said,
when a frost in early autumn killed his neigh-
bors' corn, through his prayer to God his own
corn was spared. His curses were considered
equally efficacious : two or three times persecu-
tors were killed or hurt in accidents after Osgood
had threatened them with the wrath of God.
Osgooclite meetings were a disorderly mixture
of hymns, prayers, and exhortations, in which all
the brethren participated. When a lull came Os-
good would dismiss them with the words : "If
there's no more to be said, meeting's done."
When he preached he sat in a chair, closed his
eyes, and held the side of his face with one hand.
Osgoodite hymns were composed by Osgood and
other members of the sect; they consisted mostly
of denunciations of clergymen, lawyers, doctors,
Calvinists, Methodists, Baptists, Universallsts,
Milleritcs, Whig politicians, abolitionists, female
reformers, tobacco-smokers, and builders of rail-
roads. Though opposed to tobacco, the Osgoodites
attacked the temperance movement because of its
clerical origin.
Osgood weighed 345 pounds. He was simple,
outspoken, and courageous, "He would talk and
weep and laugh almost in the same instant, and
his talk never seemed tedious." He was quick
in repartee. In spite of his eccentricities he gives
the impression of having tried sincerely to be a
good Christian,
[The Life and Christian Experience of Jacob Os-
good, with Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1873), a pam-
phlet, now rare, printed at Warner, N. H., a copy of
which is owned by George H. Sargent, of Warner ; Ira
Osgood and Ebcn Putnam, A Geneal of the Descend-
ants of John, Christopher, and William Osgood (1894) ;
Walter Harriman, The Hist, of Warner, N. H, (18794;
P. M. Colby, "Hist, of Warner," in D. H, Kurd, MM.
of M&rrimack and Belknap Counties, AT. H. (1885) ; AT.
H. Patriot and State Gasett® (Concord), Dec. 5, 1844*
for death notice,] H, B. P.
Osgood
OSGOOD, SAMUEL (Feb. 3, i747/48-Aug.
12, 1813), soldier, legislator, politician, was born
in Andover, Mass. He was descended in the fifth
generation from Capt. John Osgood who came
to Massachusetts in 1638 and settled at Andover
about 1645. Samuel was the third son of Capt.
Peter Osgood and Sarah, daughter of Captain
Timothy and Catherine (Sprague) Johnson.
Educated at Harvard, he had planned to enter
the ministry, but upon his graduation in 1770 he
joined his brother Peter in business. Ill health
Is assigned for this change of purpose. With the
outbreak of the Revolution young Osgood joined
the army as captain of a company of minute men,
became major and aide-de-camp to Gen. Artemas
Ward [#.#.], and subsequently attained the rank
of colonel. His legislative apprenticeship in-
cluded service in the Essex convention (1774),
in the Provincial Congress (1775 and after), in
the constitutional convention of 1779, in the state
Senate (1780), and in the Philadelphia conven-
tion for the limitation of prices (1780). Elected
in February 1781, he took his seat in the Con-
tinental Congress on June 12, and was reflected
until, by virtue of the three-year limitation pre-
scribed by the Articles of Confederation, his serv-
ices were terminated, Mar. i, 1784.
As a member of Congress he was alert and
capable, serving on many important committees
and having a hand in the preparation of numer-
ous constructive measures, particularly those re-
lating to business and finance. He was, for in-
stance, appointed by Congress a director in the
Bank of North America (Dec. I, 1781) and
was a member of the important treasury board
throughout his three years of service. Marbois,
the secretary of the French legation, himself
favorably impressed with Osgood's ability and
character, recorded that he was much esteemed
for his good sense and integrity (Affaires
Strangles, fitats-Unis, Mem. et Doc., I). Os-
good, for his part, was among those who became
decidedly suspicious of the designs of France.
He was, in fact, one of that numerous group with
whom fear of centralized power and of "aristo-
cratical influence" was becoming an obsession.
(See for instance his letters to John Adams and
Stephen Higginson, in Burnett, post, VII, 378,
414, 430 ; and letter to John Adams, in The Works
of John Adams, 1850-56, VIII, 418.) A par-
ticular manifestation of this feeling during the
latter part of Osgood's career in Congress was
directed against the one-man power in finance
(Robert Morris) and the outcome was that in
1784 the treasury was put into commission. A$
Gerry, one of the promoters of the measure, had
planned (Gerry to Stephen Higginson, May 13,
81
Osgood
1784, Burnett, VII, 522), on Jan. 25, 1785, short-
ly after Congress had removed to New York,
Osgood was chosen one of the three commission-
ers of the treasury. These — Osgood, Walter Liv-
ingston, and Arthur Lee — conducted the business
of the treasury until the establishment of the new
system, with a secretary at the head, in September
1789.
It was altogether in keeping1 with Osgood's
trend of thought in this period that he should
oppose the new Constitution. It had cost him, he
wrote to Samuel Adams, "many a sleepless night
to find out the most obnoxious Part of the pro-
posed Plan," and he had finally fixed upon "the
exclusive Legislation in the Ten Miles Square"
(Jan. 5, 1788, Samuel Adams Papers). Along
with numerous others he had favored a "peram-
bulatory" Congress (Burnett, VII, 349). Never-
theless, he became sufficiently reconciled to the
new government to seek an appointment under
it, and Washington made him postmaster-general
(confirmed Sept. 26, 1789). Osgood's plan for
the postal service (Annals of Congress, i Cong.
2 Sess., cols. 2107-2114; Am, State Papers: Post
Office, 1834, p. 5) emphasized the importance of
connecting the capital with the "extremes," but
Congress failed to enact a new measure respect-
ing the department until after his retirement.
Upon the removal o£ the government to Phila-
delphia he resigned and was succeeded by Tim-
othy Pickering [.q.v.] in August 1791. (For one
explanation of his resignation see Octavius Pick-
ering and C. W. Upham, Life of Timothy Pick-
ering, 1873, II, 502.)
No doubt the ties he had established in New
York influenced his decision to remain there.
His first wife, Martha Brandon, to whom he was
married Jan. 4, 1775, had died in 1778 and on
May 24, 1786, he had married Maria (Bowne)
Franklin, widow of Walter Franklin of New
York City. The Franklins were connected with
the Clintons by marriage, and this fact doubtless
contributed toward bringing about close political
relations between Osgood and DeWitt Clinton.
In the ten years following 1791 he appears to
have taken only minor parts in politics, devoting*
himself particularly to theological studies. In
the campaign of 1800, however, he won election
to the New York assembly, and was chosen speak-
er. He also won in this campaign a most un-
flattering portrait from the vitriolic pen of
"Aristides" (William P. Van Ness), who re-
ferred to him sarcastically as "that learned and
pious expounder of the prophecies" (An Exami-
nation of the Various Charges Exhibited Against
Aaron Burr, new ed., 1804, pp. 31-33), A friend
of Jefferson since Congressional days and now
O'Shea
a thoroughgoing Republican, Osgood lost no
time in offering to the new President his serv-
ices (letter to Madison, Apr. 24, 1801, Madison
Papers), and was rewarded with the office of
supervisor of internal revenue for the district of
New York (see his letter to Jefferson, Mar. 30,
1802, Jefferson Papers). A more desirable ap-
pointment shortly followed, May 10, 1803, when
he was made naval officer of the port of New
York. This office he retained until his death. Note-
worthy among the acts of his life as a public-
spirited citizen of New York was his work as an
organizer and incorporate)!* of the Society . . .
for the Establishment of a Free School for the
Education of Poor Children, later known as the
Free School Society, and still later, as the Pub-
lic School Society. He was also one of the
founders of the American Academy of Fine Arts,
[Letters of Osgood are found in a number of dif-
ferent repositories, particularly the N. Y. Pub. Lib.
(Samuel Adams Papers and the Emmet Collection), the
Mass. Archives, and the Mass. Hist. Hoc. (Knox Papers,
Heath Papers, Pickering1 Papers). A body of OHKOOU Pa-
pers is in the N. Y. Hist. Sue, The records of the Board
of Treasury, 1784-89, are in the Papers of the Conti-
nental Congress, nos. 138-146; to be supplemented by
Washington's Letter-Book, no. 8 (Lib. of Cong,), The
principal printed sources are: Ira Osgood ami Rben
Putnam, A Ccncal of the Descendants of John, Chris*
tophcr, and William Osgood (1894); Ncw-tengland
Hist, and GcncaL Reg*, Jan. 1866; J, G. Wilson, The
Memorial Hist, of the City of N. F., vol. Ill (1893) J
M. J. Lamb, Hist, of the City of AT. Y,t vol. II (eopr,
1880) ; IX S, Alexander,, A Political Hist, of the State
of N. Y,, vol. I (1906) ; E. C, Burnett, Letters of Mem-
bers of the Continental Congress, vols. V, VI, VH
(1931-34) ; Jours, of the Continental Congress ; N. Y.
Ga&ettc & General Advertiser, Aug. 14, 1813, 1^^. jj,
O'SHEA, MICHAEL VINCENT (Sept 17,
1866- Jan. 14, 1932), educator, author, was the
second ot the ten children of Michael and Mar-
garet (Fitzgerald) O'Shea of LeRoy, N, Y.
Michael senior had come to the United States
from Valencia, Ireland, at about the close of the
Civil War and engaged in farming:, of which his
son had experience in his youth. Much more
important in shaping him, however, were his
elder-brother responsibilities for the eight young-
er children, since out of these responsibilities
seems to have developed his life interest in child-
welfare. From the LeRoy Academy he entered
Cornell University in 1889 and received the de-
gree of bachelor of letters in 1892. Between
academy and university he had taught in country
schools, and in the university he planned his
course with a view to teaching. After his grad-
uation he was for three years professor of psy-
chology and education at the state normal school,
Mankato, Minn. In 1894 he married Harriet
Frisbie Eastabrooks of Milledgeville, III, who
also was a teacher in the normal school at Man-
kato, In 1893 he became professor of pedagogy
O'Shea
in the Teachers College, Buffalo, N. Y. Two
years later President Charles Kendall Adams of
the University of Wisconsin, who as president
of Cornell had known O'Shea as a student, in-
duced him to come to Wisconsin as professor of
education. This position he held to the time of
his death.
From 1897 to the end of his life he interspersed
his classroom duties with lecturing throughout
the United States on subjects concerned with
child welfare and education. With a talent for
clear and lucid statement, he developed unusual
skill in popularizing educational theory, and on
the public platform his powers of interpretation
were continually in wide demand. For this form
of service his intellectual resourcefulness, his
native wit, his dynamic vigor, and his charm of
personality were invaluable assets. The field of
this activity was extended to England and Scot-
land in 1905, 1906, and 1910, during which years,
too, he studied the European schools. In 1905
he was chairman of the American committee at
the International Congress of Education at Liege,
Belgium, and in 1910 of the International Con-
gress of Home Education at Brussels. His coun-
sel was widely sought by parents, school boards,
and both city and state boards of education. In
1925 he made a survey of the all-year schools of
Newark, N. J. In 1925-26 he directed an all-
state survey of Mississippi's educational system,
and in 1927 of Virginia's.
In the field of authorship he was continuously
active, his most important productions being
Education as Adjustment (1903) ; Linguistic
Development and Education (1907) ; Social De-
velopment and Education (1909) ; Mental De~
velopmcnt and Education (1921) ; The Child —
His Nature and His Needs (1924) ; Newer Ways
with Children (1929). He also contributed to
the authorship of various series of elementary
school textbooks. At the time of his death he was
chairman of the educational board of the Chil-
dren's Book Club ; editor-in-chief of The World
Book Encyclopedia (19 vols., I933)> of ^ the
Junior Home Magazine, and of The Nation's
Schools. He held membership and offices in vari-
ous scientific and educational associations. The
vital imagination and genial curiosity that were
his made him welcome and useful among a host
of friends. His religious affiliations were with
the Congregational Church and he was long of-
ficially connected with the Young Men's Chris-
tian Association and the Young Women's Chris-
tian Association. His wife, two sons, and two
daughters survived him.
{Who's Who in America, 1930-31 J Wis. State Jour.
(Madison), Jan. 18, 1932 j Jour, of Education, Jan. 25,
Osier
1932 j School and Society, Feb. 27, 1932 ; R. G. Thwaites,
The Univ. of Wis.f Its Hist, and Its Alumni (1900).]
WJ.C.
OSLER, WILLIAM (July 12, i849~Dec. 29,
I9I9)i physician, born at Bond Head, Upper
Canada, was the youngest son of the Rev. Feath-
erstone Lake Osier and Ellen Free (Pickton)
Osier, who had come from Cornwall in 1837 and
were of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic extraction re-
spectively. The father, derived from a family of
merchants and ship-owners, was of thick-set
build and fair complexion, and was reserved in
temperament, though he made himself beloved.
The mother, born in London, was slender, short,
and of olive complexion ; in her girlhood, she was
pretty, clever, witty, lively, quick at repartee,
wilful but good-tempered, not easily influenced,
faithful in friendship, and of strong religious
bent. Health and longevity characterized both
the Osier and Pickton families. William Osier
resembled his mother in mental and emotional
traits as well as in personal appearance, though
he was also like a paternal uncle, Edward, a
navy surgeon and general medical practitioner,
of dark complexion and short stature, who was
interested in writing and in natural history. As
a boy, William Osier was rather undersized, but
wiry and well-proportioned, supple in body, with
an elastic swinging step; he excelled in cricket,
football, and swimming, and was of impulsive
but generous temperament. He was full of pranks
and practical jokes which were usually harmless
but sometimes led to regrets, as when he once
killed a pig with a stone, or when he chopped off
the tip of his sister's finger, or when he and
eight comrades, "fumigated" the house-keeper of
a school and in consequence spent a few days in
jail and were fined.
After attendance at grammar schools in Dun-
das and Barrie, Ont, he entered Trinity College
School at Weston in 1866, where he came into
contact with two strong personalities : first, with
the founder of the school and its warden, the
Rev. W. A. Johnson, "who knew nature and how
to get boys interested in it" (Cushing, post, I,
27) and to use books of reference, and, second,
with its medical director, Dr. James Bovell, a
man of boundless ambition combined with energy
and industry but with the "fatal fault of diffuse-
ness," an omnivorous reader, who at this time
and during the next few years exerted an ex-
traordinary influence upon the young Osier.
While at Weston, he became head prefect, ac-
quired knowledge easily (though he disliked
mathematics), won the Chancellor's Prize, and
became interested in diatoms and fresh water
polyzoa. Through "Father" Johnson's influence,
Osier
he learned to love the Bible and Sir Thomas
Browne's Religio Medici.
Though Osier had expected to take holy or-
ders, he decided, apparently under the influence
of Bovell and of Johnson, to abandon theology
and become a physician. Entering the Toronto
Medical School in the autumn of 1868, he worked
there and in Bovell' s library for two years, after
which he went to McGill Medical School, Mon-
treal, because of the better clinical opportunities
it afforded. Here he graduated in 1872, In
Toronto, at the age of twenty, he had begun what
he later called his "ink-pot career" by a brief
sketch entitled "Christmas and the Microscope"
(published in Hardwickc's Science-Gossip, Feb.
i, 1869) ; and in Montreal, at the age of twenty-
two, he began to report cases in medical journals.
He had great admiration for one of his McGill
teachers, Dr. Robert Palmer Howard, a courtly,
scholarly gentleman, who worked hard in the
hospital, studied medical literature assiduously,
was ever alert to new problems, wrote excellent
clinical papers, and, with his colleagues, taught
with extraordinary care and accuracy by the
methods of the Edinburgh School, introducing
the pupils to the writings of Graves, Stokes, and
Laennec. Osier, later in life, asserted that to
Johnson, Bovell, and Howard he owed his suc-
cess— "if success means getting what you want
and being satisfied with it" (The Master Word
in Medicine, 1903, quoted by Gushing, I, 69).
After graduation, he spent two years (1872-
74) in study in Europe, visiting clinics in Great
Britain, in Berlin, and in Vienna. He "walked
the hospitals" with Murchison, Jenner, Wilson
Fox, Ringer, and Bastian in London, with Traube
and Frerichs in Berlin, and with Bamberger,
Neumann, and Hebra and other famous special-
ists in Vienna; but he spent most of his time at
work in histology, physiology, and experimental
pathology in Burdon Sanderson's laboratory at
University College Hospital m London. In this
laboratory, he studied the antagonistic action of
atropin and physostigmin upon the white blood
corpuscles, and observed in the circulating blood,
before anyone else, the presence of what later
were called the "blood-platelets," describing them
so carefully that the results of the studies were
presented to the Royal Society (Proceedings, vol.
XXII, 1874, PP. 391 «0-
In 1874, he returned to Canada, did a little
practice as substitute for another physician in
Dundas, where he earned his first professional
fee — "speck in cornea. . . 500" (Gushing, 1, 120),
served a month as locum ten&w for the resident
physician of the City Hospital in Hamilton "for
the consideration of $25.00 and a pair of old-
Osler
fashioned elastic-sided boots" (Ibid.)t and then
received an offer of a lectureship upon the in-
stitutes of medicine in McGill Medical School,
which he accepted. In 1875, upon the death of
Dr. J. M. Drake, he was officially appointed pro-
fessor. While at work in histology and physi-
ology, he was industrious also in other pursuits ;
he performed many autopsies, worked in the
smallpox wards (where he contracted the disease
himself) , read widely and voraciously, helped the
library, started a Journal Club, wrote for the
medical journals, delivered inspiring addresses,
enlivened interest in medical associations, con-
tributed specimens to the museums, saw a few
patients in consultation, participated energeti-
cally and whole-heartedly in all the medical ac-
tivities of the city, and infected others with his
enthusiasm. In 1876, a new position, patholo-
gist to the Montreal General Hospital, was cre-
ated for him, and a demonstration course in
pathology, modeled upon that of Virchow, which
he had observed in Berlin, was immediately un-
dertaken. Three large quarto volumes of records
of the autopsies made, written in his own hand,
have been preserved. During this period, he held
also a professorship in the Veterinary College
and maintained an interest in comparative physi-
ology and pathology, making reports upon bron-
cho-pneumonia of parasitic origin in clogs, hog
cholera, and bovine tuberculosis. One who knew
him at this time commented upon his abounding
vitality, his love of work, his promptness, alert-
ness, and cheerfulness, his refusal to think ill of
anyone, or to listen to ill-natured gossip or cen-
sure, his freedom from self-conceit and boastful-
ness, his happy knack of friendliness to people of
all ages and conditions, and " 'his outgiving, ex-
pressing nature, sympathetic and true* " (Ib%d*t
162).
Along with the laboratory work mentioned, he
kept up his interest in clinical medicine, with the
result that, in 1878, he was appointed "full phy-
sician" to the Montreal General Hospital He
thereupon went to London to take membership
in the Royal College of Physicians and to observe
clinical work for three months with Murchison,
Gee, Roberts, Bastian, Ringer, Sutton, Savage,
and Gowers, thus beginning a habit that he
strongly recommended to others — that of "quin-
quennial brain-dusting" (The Student Life, 1905,
quoted by Gushing, I, 167). At this time he
made the acquaintance of Grainger Stewart,
Jonathan Hutchinson, Clifford Allbutt, Gairdner,
and Broadbent, all of whom he admired for their
ideals and their practical clinical methods. While
he was attending physician in Montreal, the sec-
tion of the hoepital of which he was given charge
84
Osier
underwent a revolution. Though patients were
given very little medicine (Osier's treatment has
been described as "a mixture of nux vomica and
hope"), many recovered readily by virtue of his
interest and encouragement; the old patients
rapidly disappeared, and new ones stayed but a
short time. During this Montreal period, his
studies of the anaemias, of aneurysms, and of
endocarditis and valvular disease of the heart
were notable.
As early as 1884, the year after he was elected
a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of
London, he had recognized the possibilities of
medical school work on a university basis ; he
felt sure that greater results would be achieved
if there could be better laboratories and a paid
staff: "men placed above the worries and vex-
ations of practice, and whose time will be devoted
solely to teaching and investigating the subjects
they profess" ("On the University Question,"
editorial in Canada Medical and Surgical Jour-
nal, January 1884) . The summer of that year he
spent in Europe (London, Berlin, Leipzig) and
while there was offered and accepted appoint-
ment as professor of clinical medicine in the
University of Pennsylvania. The decision to leave
Montreal was difficult, and had to be made, he
asserted, by flipping a coin. McGill deplored
the loss of a vitalizing influence, exercised by
personal contact ; Osier, himself, remarked char-
acteristically, that in parting he "felt the chordae
tenclineae grow tense" (Gushing, I, 229).
His removal to Philadelphia, in 1884, marked
the beginning of a twenty-one year period of
residence and work in the United States. In his
new position, he was startling, at first, with his
informal ways and his halting speech, devoid of
any attempt at oratorical effect But his clinical
work in the hospital wards, his thorough knowl-
edge of his subject, and his interest in autopsies
and in the work of the clinical laboratory, soon
gained respect; and, besides, his rare traits of
personality made him popular alike as teacher,
clinician, and consultant. In addition to regular
work in the medical school, he made clinical and
pathological studies at Blockley Hospital, and
supported and stimulated the medical societies.
Many contributions to medical literature, includ-
ing The Gulstonian Lectures on Malignant Endo-
carditis (1885), the Cartwright Lectures, On
Certain Problems of the Blood Corpuscles (1886 ;
reprinted from Medical News, Philadelphia, Apr.
3, 10, 17, 1886) ; and his monograph, "The Cere-
bral Palsies of Children" (Ibid., July X4-Aug.
1 1, 1888) , belong to this period. Now and again
his spirit of fun became irrepressible ; occasion-
ally he would publish as a practical joke some
Osier
absurd letter or paper under the pen name
"Edgerton Y. Davis of Caughnawauga, P.Q.,"
that "mischievous half of his, analogous to
M'Connachie, the "fanciful half" of Sir James
Barrie.
In September 1888, Osier was appointed phy-
sician-in-chief to the new Johns Hopkins Hos-
pital, Baltimore, which was to be opened formal-
ly in May 1889. There he remained for sixteen
years — probably the most eventful and most in-
fluential period of his life. The Johns Hopkins
University had appointed William H. Welch as
professor of pathology in 1884, and his choice for
the professorship of medicine was Osier, a se-
lection that later gained the approval of John
Shaw Billings [#.?/.], adviser of the hospital
trustees, and of Daniel Coit Oilman [#.z>.], presi-
dent of the University. As the Johns Hopkins
Medical School, in which Osier was to be pro-
fessor of medicine, did not open until four years
after the opening of the hospital, the time neces-
sary for the organization of a clinical staff and
of the institutional work was available. The hos-
pital was organized upon a unit system com-
parable to that in use in the great German uni-
versities, with a graded resident staff; but the
teaching was later conducted more in accordance
with the best British and French traditions. The
teaching program included instruction of small
groups of students who served in the wards as
clinical clerks and surgical dressers, practical
work in clinical laboratories, amphitheatre clin-
ics, and demonstrations of conditions of "the
unwashed" in the out-patient department. Osier
selected as his resident physicians, successively,
H. A. Lafleur, W. S. Thayer, T. B. Futcher,
Thomas McCrae, and R. I. Cole, and he sought,
as assistants and internes, what he called "A.A.I,
copper-bottomed young graduates" (Gushing, I,
304). He made every effort to infect these men
with the spirit of earnestness, the love of thor-
oughness and of orderliness in work with rigid
mastery of one's time, the appreciation of knowl-
edge for its own sake (apart from its value for
practice and for pecuniary considerations), the
determination to become familiar with the best
thought of the world, and the desire to make
original contributions to knowledge. Through
his pupils he may be said to have created an
American school of internal medicine.
In 1891, he published his Principles and Prac-
tice of Medicine, which became so popular as a
text for students and practitioners that, of the
first two editions alone, 41,000 copies were sold.
By 1930, it had reached its eleventh edition; it
has been translated into French, German, Span-
ish, and Chinese. It was the perusal of this text-
Osier
book by the Rev. F. T. Gates [#.v.], the adviser
of Mr. John D. Rockefeller, that led to Mr.
Rockefeller's large endowments of work in high-
er medicine and medical education. Later, with
the aid of Thomas McCrae, Osier edited Modern
Medicine (1907-10), a systematic treatise in
seven volumes.
During his Johns Hopkins period, he was an
active investigator of typhoid fever, malaria,
pneumonia, amoebiasis, tuberculosis (for which
he devised the home treatment), cardiovascular
disease, the visceral lesions of the erythema
group, ball-valve gallstone in the common duct,
the relations of gall stones to typhoid, and
cyanosis with polycythaemia (Vaquez-Oslcr dis-
ease) ; but his main contributions to medical
research lay in his stimulation and insemination
of the minds of others. In the field of public
health he was an active propagandist, waging
war especially against typhoid, malaria, tuber-
culosis, anti-vivisectionists, and the conditions
responsible for infant mortality. He helped to
make the Johns Hopkins Hospital a place of
refuge for the sick poor of the city, and he did
much for the medical libraries of Baltimore, es-
pecially for the library of the Medical and
Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland. He was in
demand for the making of "occasional address-
es/' among which Acquanimitas (1889), The
Master Word in Medicine (1903), Science and
Immortality (1904), and The Student Life
(1905) may be mentioned as illustrating- the
charm of his literary style, his love of literary
allusions born of his wide reading, his kindly
advice and graceful humor, and his practical
common sense combined with high ideals of
scholarship and of life. One of his addresses,
"The Fixed Period" (Journal of the American
Medical Association, Mar. 4, 1905), in which
he referred to Trollope's novel that suggested the
chloroforming of men over sixty, caused an un-
expected storm of protest. The misinterpretation
of his meaning caused him pain, for he had al-
ways been especially respectful, tender, and
affectionate to older men, and those who knew
him were well aware of his especial interest in
human beings at the two extremes of life. More-
over, his mission had been to soothe rather than
to irritate. He was always composing disputes
and bringing together discordant elements in the
profession, services that brought him fame as a
peace-maker. Throughout this period, as a con-
sulting practitioner* he attracted patients from
near and far; moreover, he became "the doctor's
doctor," and, despite every effort to restrict the
number of his patients, was finally overwhelmed
by them, a fact that, together with some "sub-
Osler
sternal threaten ings," had some weight in his
decision to accept, in 1905, the call to the Regius
Professorship of Medicine in the University of
Oxford, which he held until his death nearly
fifteen years later.
In Oxford, he soon shoxvccl that the oppor-
tunities of a Regius professorship are as great
as arc the qualities of its incumbent. One of his
chief interests was the Bodleian Library, of which
he was a curator and for which he secured valu-
able gifts. He was Master of the Almshouse at
Ewelnie and took a deep interest in the old men
there. He participated actively in reforms in
public health, in medical education, and in pro-
fessional organization in England. He was a
member of the two committees that advised the
Board o£ Education and the Treasury in the dis-
tribution of state grants to the universities. In
the development of the Oxford Medical School,
the work of the Oxford Press, the formation of
the Association of Physicians of Great Britain
and Ireland (1906), the launching of the Quar-
terly Journal of Medicine (1906), the amalga-
mation of the London medical societies into the
Royal Society of Medicine (1907), and the for-
mation of its historical section (1912), he took
an active part. Throughout life, and especially
after fifty, he evinced much interest in the his-
tory of medicine and in the collecting1 of old medi-
cal books. He continued to be in demand as an
occasional speaker ; among his notable addresses
after he went to Oxford were Man's Redemption
of Man (1910); A Way of Life (1914), de-
livered at Yale; The Old Humanities and the
Nczu Science (1919), a presidential address be-
fore the Classical Association. He received many
honorary degrees from universities, was elected
president of the Ashniolean Natural History So-
ciety (1919), the Bibliographical Society (1913-
19), and the Classical Association (1919), and
in 1911, at the time of the coronation of King
George V, was made a baronet, much, he de-
clared, to the embarrassment of his democratic
simplicity.
Upon the outbreak of the World War, he was
made physician-in-chief of the Queen's Canadian
Military Hospital at Shorncliff e, and later shared
in the propaganda for disease prevention in the
army. Typhoid and paratyphoid, war nephritis,
trench fever, the Dardanelles diarrhoea, and the
soldiers1 heart were among the maladies in which
he showed especial interest.
He had married in 1892, when in Baltimore,
Grace Linzee (Revere), the widow of Dr. Sam-
uel W. Gross [$#.] of Philadelphia, and the ex-
traordinary hospitality of "the Chief" and Mrs,
Osier at i W. Monument St, in Baltimore, and
86
Osier
later of Sir William and Lady Osier at 13 3STor-
ham Gardens in Oxford (which came to "be
known as "The Open Arms") was noteworthy.
Their first child died soon after birth ; the sec-
ond, Edward Revere Osier, was killed in Belgium
in 1917 while on active service as an officer in
the Royal Field Artillery. In October 1918 his
collection of hooks and an endowment fund were
given as a memorial by his parents to The Johns
Hopkins University for the encouragement of
the study of English literature of the Tudor and
Stuart periods. During his later life, Osier suf-
fered from recurrent attacks of bronchitis; he
jokingly declared that he sometimes "coughed
his Pacchionian bodies loose." At the end of
1919, worn out by war activities and exhausted
by grief over the death of his son, he developed
an empycma and a pulmonary abscess which,
despite operation, proved fatal.
Several portraits of Osier were painted, in-
cluding paintings by Thomas Corner and by
Seymour Thomas, the best known being that by
Sargent in a group, "The Four Doctors/' which
hangs in the Welch Library of the Johns Hop-
kins Medical School. His appearance in 1903
is reproduced in a plaque made by Vernon in
Paris. A well-known sketch made by Max Bro-
del, showing Osier with halo and wings domi-
nating a cyclone that sweeps away disease, bears
the legend: "The Saint — Johns Hopkins Hos-
pital/' A part of his personal library, consisting
of some 7,600 bound volumes bearing upon the
history of medicine and science, was bequeathed
to McGill University; it is catalogued in Bib-
Uothcca Qdcriana (Oxford, 1929), edited by W.
W. Francis, R. H. Hill, and Archibald Malloch ;
his collection of important editions in English
literature was given to the Tudor and Stuart
Club of The Johns Hopkins University ; a third
part, consisting chiefly of modern clinical books,
was given to the Johns Hopkins Hospital.
His most eminent colleague, Dr. Welch, has
stated that, at the time of his death, Osier was
"probably the greatest figure in the medical
world ; the best known, the most influential, the
most beloved. . . . His life embodied his precepts,
and his students cherished his words'' (Johns
Hopkins Alumni Magazine, 1921, quoted by
Gushing, I, 428, n.)* "Cultivate peace of mind,
serenity, the philosophy of Marcus Aurelius,"
was his advice ; "Think not too much of tomor-
row, but of the work of today, the work which is
immediately before you/' Writing shortly be-
fore his death (Gushing, II, 679), he said: "The
confounded thing [his illness] drags on in an
unpleasant way — and in one's 7ist year, the
harbour is not far off. And such a happy voyage !
Ossoli — Ostenaco — Osten Sacken
& such dear companions all the way! And the
future does not worry/'
[The definitive biography is Harvey Gushing, The Life
of Sir William Osier (2 vols., 1925) ; a shorter work is
K G. Reid, The Great Physician; A Short Life of Sir
William Osier (1931). A bibliography of his writings
(730 items), assembled by M. W. Blogrg, appeared in
Bull, Johns Hopkins Hospital, July 1919. See also a
memorial volume of appreciations and reminiscences
by various authors with classified bibliography of Os-
ier s writings and a list of writings about him, privately
issued as Bull. No. IX of the Internal Asso. of Medic.
Museums and Jour, of Technical Methods (Montreal,
1930). Many references are listed in the Index Cata-
logue of the Library of the Surgeon-General's Office,
3 sen VIII (1929), 469-70.] L.F.B.
OSSOLI, MARGARET FULLER [See FUL-
LER, SARAH MARGARET, 1810-1850].
OSTENACO [See OXITACITY, fl. 1756-1777].
OSTEN SACKEN, CARL ROBERT RO-
MANOVICH VON DER (Aug. 21, 1828-
May 20, 1906), entomologist, diplomat, was a
native of St. Petersburg-, and died at Heidelberg,
Germany. Although he was a Russian baron, his
most productive years were passed in the United
States and the bulk of his life work was con-
cerned with the dipterous fauna of America. In
1839, at the age of eleven, he became interested
in entomology while on a visit to Baden Baden.
He was educated in St. Petersburg, and entered
the diplomatic service in 1849. In 1856, when
twenty-eight years old, he was appointed secre-
tary to the Russian legation at Washington. Six
years later he was made consul general of Russia
in New York City, resigning- in 1871. After
several journeys to Europe he was in the United
States unofficially from 1873 to 1877. Before
leaving Russia he had written three entomologi-
cal papers. During his American sojourn he was
principally engaged, partly in collaboration with
Dr. Hermann Loew of Vienna, in an investiga-
tion of the Diptera of America north of the Isth-
mus of Panama. He published, first, in 1858,
through the Smithsonian Institution, a Cata-
logue of the Described Diptera of North Amer-
ica. This was followed by a series of papers, very
largely descriptive, and four volumes under the
general title Monographs of the Diptera of
North America (1862-73) by Loew and him-
self, also published by the Smithsonian Institu-
tion. Subsequently, after visiting the principal
type collections of Europe, he prepared a second
catalogue, of a critical character (Smithsonian
Institution, 1878), which, according to an emi-
nent authority, "for clearness, completeness and
absolute mastery of the subject, must forever re-
main an unapproachable model for later work-
ers" (Aldrich, post, p. 270). The Loew and
Osten Sacken type collection was eventually
Osterhaus
placed in the Museum of Comparative Zoology
at Cambridge, Mass.
In 1877 he went to Heidelberg, where he re-
mained for the rest of his life. He continued to
work, carried on a correspondence with ento-
mologists in different parts of the world, and
published many papers, mainly rather brief but
all of importance. He spoke and wrote many
languages, but preferred English, which he used
with great clearness and force. In his closing
years he jokingly referred to himself as "the
grandfather of American Dipterology," a title
that he really deserved. Before he died he pub-
lished at his own expense Record of My Life
Work in Entomology (three parts; pts. 1-2, in-
cluding pp. 1-206, Cambridge, Mass., 1903; pt
3, pp. 207-240, Heidelberg, 1904), which con-
tains his portrait and a critical bibliography of
179 titles in addition to a deal of interesting
notes and correspondence.
[J. M. Aldrich and C. W. Johnson^ in Entomological
News, Oct. 1906; G. H. Verrall, in Entomolofjistfs
Monthly Mag. (London), Oct. 1906; Illustrirtc Zcitwnff
(Leipzig), June 14, 1906.] L.O.H.
OSTERHAUS, PETER JOSEPH (Jan. 4,
iS23-Jan. 2, 1917), Union soldier, consul, son
of Anton A. Osterhaus, was born in Coblenz,
Germany. He received his early education in
his native city, studied at a military school in
Berlin, and served as a volunteer in the spth In-
fantry Regiment. In 1846, at Kreuznach in
Rhenish Prussia, he married Natilda Born. He
became involved in the Revolution of 1848, and
when the government triumphed he emigrated
to the United States (1849), settling in Belle-
ville, III, where he was employed as a drygoods
clerk. He later moved to Lebanon, III, and
operated a general merchandise business. Mov-
ing with his family to St. Louis, Mo., in 1851,
he became bookkeeper for a wholesale hardware
firm.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, he volun-
teered as a private in the i2th Missouri Volun-
teers. He was soon commissioned captain, Com-
pany A, 2nd Missouri Volunteer Infantry, pro-
moted to major, Apr. 27, 1861, and fought in
the battle of Wilson's Creek, Aug. 10, 1861. On
Aug. 27 of that year, he was honorably dis-
charged from this commission, and on Dec. 19
following, commissioned colonel, I2th Missouri
Volunteer Infantry. Vacating that commission
in June 1862, he accepted appointment as briga-
dier-general, United States Volunteers. He
commanded the ist Division of Gen, S. R. Cur-
tis' corps and, in the Army of the Southwest, a
division which took part in the engagement at
Pea Ridge, Ark. (Mar. 6-8, 1862). He was in
Osterhaus
command of the 3rd Division, Army of the
Southwest, to Dec. 31, 1862, and of the 9th Divi-
sion of the same army from Dec. 31, 1862, to
Aug. 2, 1863. In this last command he partici-
pated in the Vicksburg campaign. In a sharp en-
gagement at Big Black River, Miss., on May 17,
1863, he was wounded by a shell fragment. His
next command was the ist Division, XV Corps
of Grant's army at Chattanooga. Under tem-
porary command of Gen. Joseph Hooker, Oster-
haus led his troops over Lookout Creek, climbed
to the summit of Missionary Ridge, took literally
thousands of prisoners, and drove, the Confed-
erate southern wing from the crest of the ridge.
On July 23, 1864, he was made a major-general
of volunteers. He was chief of staff to the com-
manding1 general of the military division of West
Mississippi to May 27, 1865; commanded the
Department of the Mississippi to June 13, 1865;
the District of the Mississippi to July 17, 1865 ;
the Northern District of the Mississippi to Sept.
16, 1865; the Department of the Mississippi to
Nov, 18, 1865, and the Western District of the
Mississippi to Jan, 17, 1866, when he was re-
lieved, having been honorably mustered out Jan,
15, 1866.
General Osterhaus served as United States
Consul to France, from June 18, 1866, until Aug.
16, 1877, residing- at Lyons. His term included
the period of the Franco-Prussian War, and his
reports show keen insight into the economic
problems involved in French compliance with
the conditions of peace imposed by Germany,
When relieved by his successor, he returned to
the United States and engaged in the manufac-
ture and exporting of hardware. He was again
called into public service, however, and acted as
vice and deputy consul of the United States at
Mannheim, Germany, from Mar. 16, 1898, to
Nov. 8, 1900, when he resigned that he might re-
tire and enjoy a rest within the circle of his fam-
ily and his friends. On June 27, 1902, Congress
authorized an additional pension for his services
as a major-general of volunteers. This pension
was stopped Mar. 20, 1905, for on Mar. 3, 1903,
Congress by special act appointed him brigadier-
general of the United States Army, and on Mar.
17 he went on the retired list. He lived to the
age of ninety-four, his death occurring* at Duts-
burg, Germany, where he was buried, On Nov.
15, 1863, his first wife died in Si Louis, and on
July 28, 1864, he married her sister, Amalia
Born, By his first marriage he had five children,
and by his second, three,
War of the Rebellion: Official Records
Battles and Leaders of the Cvvil War (4 vols. 1887-
88) ; F. B, Heitman, Hist. Reg. and Diet, C7, S. Army
(1903) ; T. H. S. Hamersly, Complete Army and Navy
O'Sullivan
Rcff* of the V. S. (188.2): pension records; consular
files, State Department ; personnel records, War Depart-
ment ; N. V. 7"zwt\v, Jan. 6, 1017; family records in
possession of Alexander Ostcrliaus, Hollywood, Cal»]
C.CB. "
O'SULLIVAN, JOHN LOUIS (November
1813- Kol>. 24, 1895), journalist, diplomat, was
born, according1 tt> tradition, on a British man-
of-war, in the harbor of Gibraltar. His father,
John O'Sullivan, American merchant and sea
captain, later consul for the Island of Tcncriffc,
had served in Miranda's Venezuela expedition
in 1806. 1 Its grandfather, T. II. O'Sullivan, had
been a member of the Irish Brigade in the French
army, btit during the, American Revolution had
joined the British army in New York; his great-
grandfather, John CVSttllivan, born in County
Kerry, Ireland, was adjutant-general in the army
of "Bonnie. Prince Charlie" in 1745, escaping
to France after the defeat at; Oulloden (Diction-
ary of National tthifjniphy, XL1I, 318, 319).
Jolm Louis (VSullivan appears to have inherited
a family propensity for championing lost causes,
lie backed Narciso Lopez in his filibustering ex-
peditions against Cuba (1849-51), was twice in-
dicted for violation of the neutrality laws (sec
Democratic Kwlcw, April tRsa), and though he
escaped conviction, lost heavily in those ven-
tures, "having been ruined for Cuba/' as he told
James Buchanan, During the American Civil
War he lived abroad, voicing his Southern sym-
pathy in several pamphlets in which he urged
Northern Democrats to end the war, and the
British government: to recognize the Confeder-
acy* Prior to that time, however, he had won a
place of some prominence m American letters
and politics.
Educated at a military school in France, at
Westminster School, England, and at Columbia
College, where he took degrees in 1831 and 1834,
he practised law in New York until 1837, when,
in collaboration with S. D, Langtree, he estab-
lished the United Stales Mayastnc and Demo-
cratic Review, first published in Washington,
D, C.» and in July 1841 moved to New York,
The aim of this publication, as O'Sullivan stated
it, was "to strike the hitherto silent string of the
democratic genius of the age and the country"
(Passages from the Correspondence and Other
Papers of Rufwt W. Griswold, 1898, p. 123).
The editors succeeded in this aim, for the Demo-
cratic Review became the mouthpiece for the
exuberant nationalism of the period, glorifying
all things American and predicting" the expan-
sion of ' the United States till its boundaries
should embrace the North American continent
and Cuba as well. Tt was in an article in this
magazine (July-August 1845), almost certainly
Otacite — Otermin
written by O'Sullivan, that the phrase "manifest
destiny" first appeared (J. W. Pratt, "The Ori-
gin of 'Manifest Destiny/ " American Historical
Review, July 1927). In the literary field, the
Review secured contributions from Hawthorne
(between whom and O'Sullivan a warm friend-
ship developed), Thorcau, Poe, Bryant, and
others. In 1846 O'Sullivan sold the magazine.
From August 1844 to 1846 he had also edited the
New York Morning Nczus, which he had found-
ed jointly with Samuel J. Tilden [#.#.]. In 1841
he was in the New York legislature, where he
advocated the abolition of capital punishment
From 1846 to 1854 he was a member of the board
of regents of the University of the State of New
York. On Feb. I, 1854 (two years after his trial
for filibustering) President Pierce named him
charge d'affaires in Portugal, and on June 19 of
the same year he was nominated minister resi-
dent He served in this capacity until 1858,
championing American ideals and defending
the American conception of "manifest destiny."
Thereafter, be resided in Lisbon, London, and
Paris until 1871 or later. From 1879 to 1895 he
lived obscurely in New York. Julian Hawthorne,
who knew him well, has described him as "hand-
some, charming", affectionate and unlucky, but an
optimist to the last." It is noteworthy that at the
time of his death "manifest destiny" was again
becoming a popular watchword. He was married
in 1846 to a daughter of Dr. Kearny Rodgers.
fNnmerons personal glimpses of O'Sullivan appear
in Julian Hawthorne, Nathaniel Hawthorne and His
Wife (a vols., 1885). Consult also F. L. Mott, A Hist
of Am* Mays*, 1741-1850 (1930) ; AlRernon Tassin,
The Mag. in America, (1916) ; J. w. Pratt, 'John L.
0' Sullivan and Manifest Destiny," N. Y. Hisb., July
193 v files of the Democratic Rev. from 1837 to 1846 ;
& Y. Tribune, Mar. 36, 1895.] J. W. P— t.
OTACITE [See OUTACITY, fl. !75<>-i777].
OTERMfN, ANTONIO de (fl. 1678-1683),
is known solely in connection with his adminis-
tration as governor of New Mexico from 1678
to 1683, during: which time occurred the disas-
trous Pueblo Indian uprising- which resulted in
the abandonment of New Mexico by the Span-
iards for twelve years. When Otermin became
governor, Spanish settlers in the upper Rio
Grande region numbered about 2,900 persons
and settlement extended from Isleta in the south,
near present Albuquerque, to Taos in the north, a
distance of about one hundred and fifty miles, and
from Pecos in the east to Jemez in the west, a dis-
tance of about seventy-five miles. The most im-
portant settlements were Santa F6, the capital,
and also the center of a ranching district known
as Rio Arriba, and Isleta, which was the center
of a flourishing farming community known as
Otermin
Rio Abajo. In the latter district the governor
was represented by Lieutenant-Governor Garcia.
In the third year of Otermin's administration
a native of the north, Pope, planned a general
rebellion, which, because of the discovery of the
plot, was begun prematurely on Aug. 10, 1680.
The Spaniards in the outlying districts were
taken unawares and 380 civilians, including men,
women, and children, and twenty-one mission-
aries lost their lives. One thousand refugees
finally assembled at Santa Fe under Otermin and
fifteen hundred at Isleta under Garcia, each
group being led to believe by the attacking In-
dians that all other Spaniards in the province had
been killed. At Santa Fe Otermin and his group
of refugees heroically withstood for nine days
a siege during which their position was made
unbearable through the diversion of a stream of
water by the natives. In a desperate daybreak
attack led by Otermin on Aug. 20 the demoral-
ized besiegers were defeated, after which the
Spaniards began a retreat to Isleta, from where
the southern refugees had retreated toward the
south. Overtaking this group, Otermin and the
entire body of refugees proceeded to the mission
of Guaclalupe (at present Juarez, opposite El
Paso, Tex.), being accompanied thither by 317
loyal Indians of the Tigua and Piros tribes. By
October the Spaniards had been lodged in three
temporary settlements in the vicinity of Guacla-
lupe and ultimately the loyal Indians were also
lodged in three pueblos, one of them being the
historic pueblo of Isleta which at present is situ-
ated a few miles below El Paso on the American
side of the river.
At Guadalupe the refugees under Otermin
were aided by the viceregal government, and,
pending- the contemplated reconqucst of New
Mexico, the provincial capital was temporarily
designated as El Paso del Rio del Norte (pres-
ent Juarez). In the winter of 1681-82 Otermin
led a poorly equipped expedition of 146 soldiers
to reconquer New Mexico. Little was accom-
plished except to ascertain the determination of
the rebels and to burn eight pueblos and sack
three others located in the heart of the Pueblo
region. On returning to El Paso Otermin peti-
tioned for a leave in order to seek medical treat-
ment. The viceregal fiscal recommended the
disapproval of the request but in August 1683,
Don Jironza Petris de Cruzate assumed his du-
ties as successor of Otermin at El Paso. Despite
the many available documents of the period
1678-82, nothing is known of Otermin before
the former or after the latter year. In a formal
complaint filed against him with his successor,
the cabildo of Santa Fe stated that Otermin,
Otey
"not being able or not wishing to govern," en-
trusted his authority to his maestro de campo
Javier, "a man of bad faith, avaricious and cun-
ning," who was charged with having goaded the
Indians to rebel in 1680,
[Authoritative accounts of the administration of
Otermin are in C, W. Hackctt, "The Revolt of the
Pueblo Indians of N. Mex. in 1680," in Quart, Tc.v.
State Hist. Asso., Oct. 1911, and "plenum's Attempt
to Reconquer N, Mex., 1681-82," in Old Santa /«Y,
Jan.— Apr. if)t6. Consult also Anne TC. Hughes, The
Beginnings of Spanish Settlement in the Kl l'a$o Dis-
trict (1014) ; and Caspar Perez de Vill.iRra, Itistoria, dc
la Niicva Mexico (ed. 1900), vol. II, App. II I.I
C. W. H.
OTEY, JAMES HERVEY (Jan, 27, 1800-
Apr. 23, 1863), first Protestant Episcopal bishop
of Tennessee, was born in Bedford County, Va.,
one of a family of twelve children. His grand-
father, Col. John Otey, fought in the Revolution;
his father, Isaac, was a fanner and served for
thirty years as the representative of his county in
the Virginia legislature; his mother was a Mat-
thew, a descendant of Tobias Matthew, Arch-
bishop of York, 1606-1628. At the age of twenty,
James Ilcrvcy graduated from the University of
North Carolina with the degree of bachelor of
belles-lettres. Remaining in the university as in-
structor in Crock and Latin, he had to lead the
daily prayers in the chapel, Since he showed evi-
dent embarrassment, a friend gave him an Episco-
pal prayer book, the first he had seen, his parents
not being members of any church. On Oct. 13,
1821, he married Eliza D. Pannill of Petersburg,
Va., and soon took charge of an academy at War-
renton. Here he was baptized by the village rec-
tor, Rev. William Mercer Green, later first bish-
op of Mississippi, Bishop John S. Ravenscroft
r<M'-] confirmed him, and on Oct. 10, 1825, or-
dained him deacon. On June 7, 1827, he was or-
dained priest by the same bishop.
Settling in Franklin, Tenn., he opened a
school, serving also as pastor and missionary for
eight years, with only one other Episcopal cler-
gyman in the state. Bishop Ravenscroft visited
him in 1829 and the diocese of Tennessee was
organized at Nashville. In 1833 there were only
five presbyters and one deacon in the diocese,
but at the convention held at Franklin in June
of that year Otey was elected bishop, and was
consecrated in Philadelphia, Jan. 14, 1834. His
services by toilsome journeys on horseback ex-
tended through Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi,
Arkansas, and Indian Territory as well as Ten-
nessee. 'Weary, weary, weary," found frequent
repetition in his diary. In 1852 he settled in
Memphis.
As the originator of the idea, and one of the
founders of the University of the South, Bishop
Otis
Otey deserves remembrance. The formal meet-
ing for organization was held on Lookout Moun-
tain, Chattanooga, July 4, 1857. Otey made an
address, was elected chairman of the meeting
and later, chancellor of the Institution, Sewanee
was selected as the site, ant! ten thousand acres
secured. The legislature granted a charter, Jan,
6, 1858, nearly $500,000 was subscribed, and the
corner stone was laid* Oet TO, 1860, War stopped
all further effort and swept away all the sub-
scriptions. Before it was over, Otey had died
and Bishop Charles T. Quintan! [ q.v."\ took up
the work,
By birth and early training, Otey was an "old-
time Whig/' a stanch supporter of the Consti-
tution, 11 is letters on the eve of war show the
horror It aroused in his soul. The clergy in his
diocese were recommended to use the ante-com-
munion office* which did not contain any prayer
for the President, in place of the usual services
of morning and evening prayer, which included
such a petition. He wrote to Secretary of State
Seward, begging that hostilities be suspended
and imploring him to use his influence with the
President in the interest of peace, ( See *4The
Change of Secession Sentiment in Virginia in
1 86 1," in *-/jm*nV<w Historical AVnVw, October
1925.) General Sherman treated Bishop Otey
with marked respect, did not; compel him to take
the usual oath of allegiance, and wan a frequent
attendant at the Bishop's services in Memphis,
Notwithstanding the secession of the Southern
states, Otey saw no reason for dividing" the
Church. He, felt that at least "the opinions and
consent of our northern brethren should be con-
sulted in any such step, and everything avoided
as far as possible likely to give offence to any
portion of the Church,"
The death of Ins wife in June 1861 was a heavy
blow to him, and bin own followed in less than
two years. They had nine children, His re-
mains lie in the churchyard in Ashwoocl, where
a memorial service is still held every year. He
was the author of one book. Doctrine, Discipline,
and Worship of the American Branch of the
Catholic Church, Explained and Unfolded in
Three Sermons (1852).
[W, M. Green, Mamrtr of Rt* Rw. James Harvey
Oteyf D.D., LL.D,, the first Bishop of Tennessee
(1885), with extracts from hi» diary, letters, addresses
and sermons; A, H, Noll ///*/. of (he Church in the
Diocese of Tenn. (1900) ; W. S, Perry, The Hist, of
the Am. Episcopal Church, z8s?~r883 (1885), vol. II;
Daniel McLeod, The Rebellion in Tmn.: Observations
on Bishop 0 toy's Letter to the Hon. William A. Snward
C.L.W.
OTIS, BASS (July 17, 1784-Nov. 3, 1861),
portrait painter, engraver, pioneer in lithography
in the United States, was the son of Dr. Josiah
Otis
and Susanna (Orr) Otis, and a descendant of
John Otis who emigrated to Massachusetts in
1630 or 1631 and settled in Hingham. He was
born in Bridgewater, Mass. At an early age he
is said to have been apprenticed to a scythe-mak-
er in his native town. Dunlap said he was in-
formed that the artist received his first instruc-
tions in painting by working for a coach painter,
evidently after having- completed his apprentice-
ship in the implement factory. By the time he
first appeared in New York, in 1808, he had es-
tablished a reputation as a painter of portraits.
Tn 1812 he went to Philadelphia and set up a
studio. He signalized his arrival in the city by
sending eight portraits to the Second Annual
Exhibition of the Columbian Society of Artists,
in May 1813, which was the first display o£ his
work. To the 1813 Exhibition he contributed
among others, a portrait of himself. He painted
portrait's of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison,
Joseph Hopkinson, Commodore Truxtun, Charles
Thomson, and Dr. Caspar Wistar for Dcla-
fiaine's Repository of the Lives and Portraits of
Distinguished American Characters, between
1815 and 1818, but only one of these portraits
was engraved, that of Jefferson, because the work
did not go beyond the first two volumes. The Jef-
ferson portrait was painted from life. For several
years Otis appears to have been kept busy copy-
ing portraits for Dclaplaine, painting many more
than those noted above, and annually sending his
work to the exhibitions of the Pennsylvania
Academy of the Fine Arts.
To the exhibition of 1819, Otis sent the only
composition he is known to have painted. This
was entitled, "Interior of an Iron Foundry/' and
is understood to have pictured the place where
he served his apprenticeship. The painting" was
favorably received, and the artist presented it to
the Academy. In 1815 he invented the perspec-
tive protractor, but this contrivance seems to
have attracted little attention, although com-
mended by several artists. He was noted for
painting portraits of deceased persons, sketching
them in their coffins, and giving them a life-like
character on his canvas. One of the distinguished
examples of this work was his portrait of Stephen
Girard, which he copied at least once, and which
is apparently the only likeness of the "mariner
and merchant." Dunlap did not think highly of
Otis' work, declaring that his portraits were
"all of a class ; if not so originally, he made them
so" (post, II, p. 383), although he admitted that
Otis had "strong natural talents, and a good
perception of character." A year before his death
Otis painted a portrait of himself for Ferdinand
J. Dreer, of Philadelphia, an antiquary, which
Otis
was reproduced In the Pennsylvania Magazine
of History and Biography (October 1913).
Otis' chief claim to fame lies in the fact that
he made the first lithograph in America. This
has been identified by the writer as the portrait
of the Rev. Abner Knceland, affixed to the vol-
ume of his lectures, published in 1818. The plate
bears the inscription, uBass Otis, Sc.," and does
not resemble the familiar lithograph, because in
Otis' ignorance of the art, he merely etched the
stone in a combination of lithotint, stipple, and
line, methods not intended to be used in combi-
nation. That the plate is a lithograph has
been denied by Frank Weitenkampf (American
Graphic Art, 1924, p. 152), who claims that it
was executed on copper. Joseph Pcnncll, how-
ever, who was an expert lithographer, expressed
himself to the writer as satisfied that it was
a print from a stone. Otis made in precisely the
same manner a lithograph which appeared in the
Analcctic Magazine, for July 1819, but he limited
his method to expression in line. It was an etch-
ing on stone, contrary to the design and purpose
of lithography, which is intended for surface and
not for intaglio printing. The lithograph in the
Analcctic has always been cited as the first Amer-
ican lithograph, although the magazine that con-
tained it did not claim for it that distinction.
Otis was married, in 1819, to Alice Pierie of
Philadelphia. In 1845, after her death, he left
Philadelphia and opened a studio in New York.
Five years later he was painting portraits in Bos-
ton but in 1859 he returned to Philadelphia.
There he later died and was buried beside his
wife and children in Christ Church Burial
Ground.
[Jos. Jackson's "Bass Otis, America's First Lithog-
rapher," Pa. Maff. of ffist. and Biog., Oct. 1913, con-
tains some errors corrected in this sketch. See also :
D. M, Stauffer, Am. Engravers Upon Copper and Steel
(1907) ; Mantle Fielding, Am. Engravers Upon Copper
and Steel (1917) ; Wm. Dunlap, Hist, of the Rise and
Progress of the Arts of Design in the U. S. (rev. ed., 3
vols., 1918; ; E, L. Clark, A Record of the Inscriptions
on the Tablets and Gravestones in the Burial Grounds
of Christ Church, Phila. (1864); Vital Records of
Bridgewater, Mass. (2 vols., 1916); Pub, Ledger
(Phila.), Nov. 4, 1861.] jj.
OTIS, CHARLES EUGENE (May u, 1846-
Nov. 8, 1917), jurist, was the son of Isaac Otis,
a descendant of John Otis who emigrated from
England about 1631 and settled in Hingham,
Mass., and of Caroline Abigail (Curtiss) Otis.
Born on a farm in Prairieville Township, Barry
County, Mich,, he attended Prairie Seminary at
Richland, the Kalamazoo high school, and the
University of Michigan, where he received the
degree of A.B. in 1869. After teaching school
for two years he went to St. Paul and read law
with his brother, George L. Otis, a leading mem-
Otis
ber of the Minnesota bar, entering into partner-
ship with him as soon as he was admitted to prac-
tice, in 1873. This firm lasted until 1883 when,
upon the death of George L. Otis, a younger
brother, Arthur G., was associated with the sur-
vivor.
An avowed Democrat, Otis was appointed
judge of the second district of Minnesota in 1889
by the Republican governor, William R. Mer-
riam, to fill a vacancy. At the general election of
1890 he was nominated by both parties, but in
1896, since he had repudiated the Chicago plat-
form, his own party refused to renoniinate him.
The Republicans supported him, however, and he
was elected for another term, Declining a third
nomination, in 1903 he resumed the practice of
law in partnership with his son, James C Otis,
and these two, a little later, brought into the
firm Willis C. Otis, a nephew of the older mem-
ber. This organization persisted down to 1917;
at that time Willis went; into the army, ami a new
partner, Kenneth G. Brill, was admitted, the firm
name becoming Otis & Brill, In 1904 Otis was
a candidate for chief justice of the supreme court
of the state but, along- with the rest of his party,
went down to defeat before the Roosevelt land-
slide.
Always interested in civic matters, he was an
alderman of St. Paul from 1880 to 1883 and a
member of the library board from t8c)6 to 1899,
As judge, many parties were willing to place
their cases in his hands to hear and decide. He
sustained the validity of the so-called "Bell
Charter" of St. Paul, a new organic law passed
in 1891, which did much to secure a more eco-
nomical and less corrupt government for the city*
His principal claim to remembrance, however,
comes from his having been appointed, with the
consent of all parties, by Judge Walter H, San-
born of the Eighth United States Circuit Court
to take testimony, hear arguments, and report
findings of fact and "conclusions of law, together
with the forms of decrees which he recommended
to be entered, in the nine Minnesota railroad rate
cases" (Proceedings, Minnesota State Bar As*
sedation, 1918, pp. 159-61). The work of taking
testimony and hearing arguments lasted from
June 2> 1908, to May 26, 1910, and Otis* report
as master in chancery was submitted June 29,
1910. His findings and conclusions as to the
three roads which were taken for test cases were
approved by Judge Sanborn, who rendered a de-
cision in favor of the complainants (the stock-
holders). These had sought by injunction to pre-
vent the railroad officials from complying with
the Minnesota law, on the grounds that the law
operated to interfere with interstate commerce.
Otis
over which Congress and not the state has juris-
diction, and that the prescribed rates were con-
fiscatory, hence in violation of the Fourteenth
Amendment:. When the case was taken to the
Supreme Court of the United States on appeal,
that court, speaking through Justice Hughes, re-
versed the decision on the first point, holding
that since Congress had not dealt: with this phase
of intrastate commerce, the field was open to
state action. As to the second point, that the rates
were conllscatory, the lower eoxtrt was sustained
as to one railroad, the Minneapolis & St. Louis,
but not in the case of the more important ones,
the Northern Pacific and the Great Northern.
The testimony of his associates both during1 his
lifetime and after Ids death supports the state-
ment indorsed by the bar association that Otis
"was a man of the highest character and ability,
a patriotic citizen and an honest, able and fear-
less judge," On Sept. 3, 1874, he married Eliza-
beth Noyes Ransom; they had three children,
two o£ whom survived him. His death occurred
m St Paul
f W. A, Otis, A Gcwal and Hist. Memoir of the
Family in Awrica (1924) ; A. N, Marquis, The Book
of MinncMtaHs Uw) : •/**>£. Minn. State Bar Asso.,
xMh Ann. AVjwwn (191%) ; ajo C/. S. Reports, 35? ; 184
Fed. Reporter, 7<>S ; Dally News (St. Paul), Nov. 8,
1917.] L.B.S.
OTIS, CHARLES ROLLIN (Apr. 29, 183$-
May 24, 1927), inventor, manufacturer, was
bom in Troy, N. Y., the son of Elisha Graves
Otis I'^.'l and Susan A, (Houghton). After
obtaining1 a grade-school education at Halifax,
Vt, and Albany, N. Y,, he entered his father's
machine shop at the age of thirteen, and learned
his trade. He became especially familiar with
steam engines, and when his father moved to
Bergen, N, J,, to become master mechanic of a
bedstead factory there, young Otis, although but
fifteen, was made engineer. The following year
when his father moved to Yonkers, N. Y,, he
went with him and assisted in the erection of a
new factory there. He worked side by side with
his father in the construction of an elevator, and
was so impressed by the safety appliance devised
by the elder Otis that he urged the latter to es-
tablish a shop for the building of elevators. Close
association with his father developed in^the son
the same integrity and genius for invention pos-
sessed by the former, and upon his death in 1861
Charles was in a position successfully to carry
on the elevator business, which his father had
established in Yonkers.
As the demand for elevators increased during
the sixties, Otis and his younger brother sup-
plied it, and at the same time continued to make
improvements in the machinery, On Oct. 18,
Otis
1864, Charles Otis obtained a patent for elevator
brakes (No. 44,740) ; in 1865 he secured three
patents for improvements on his father's steam
hoisting engine; on Sept. 10, 1867, he patented
an improved valve for the steam engine (No-.
68,783) ; and the following year, still other im-
provements. He succeeded, too, Feb. 21, 1871,
in securing a reissue of his father's original pat-
ent of 1861, which was assigned to the new firm
known as Otis Brothers & Company, organized
in 1864. By 1872 the firm was doing a business
of $393,000. After the company was incorporated
a few years later and the business continued to
grow, Otis and his brother retired (1882), sell-
ing their holdings to a syndicate of capitalists.
Several years later, however, the brothers re-
gained control and Charles was again elected
president. He continued in this capacity until
1890, when he retired and spent the balance of
his life in travel.
He was appointed a member of the board of
education of Yonkers in 1886 and served con-
tinuously in that capacity for a great many years.
A member of the committee on teachers and in-
struction, he devoted much time to visiting and
inspecting schools. He was an extensive reader
and owned a valuable library, including: both
classical and scientific works. On Aug. 28, 1861,
he married Caroline F. Boyd of New York, who
died in 1925. Otis' death occurred at Sommer-
ville, S. C. His second cousin and nurse, Mar-
garet Otis Nesbit, claimed that he had married
her in December 1926 and contested his will, in
which he had left her $10,000 out of an estate of
$1,250,000. After seven months of litigation, and
the payment of gifts, annuities, and legal ex-
penses, the estate amounted to $461,000, of which
the widow received $130,000.
[W A Otis, A GeneaL and Hist, Memoir of the Otis
Family in America (1924) ', C. E. Allison, The Hist, of
Yonkers (1896) ; New York Times, July 3, Sept. 19,
1027 Tan. 1 8, 1928; information as to certain tacts
from the Otis Elevator Co. ; Patent Office records.]
C.W.M— n.
OTIS, ELISHA GRAVES (Aug. 3, 1811-
Apr. 8, 1861), manufacturer, inventor, the son
of Stephen and Phoebe (Glynn) Otis, was born
on his father's farm at Halifax, Windham Coun-
ty, Vt, He was a descendant of John Otis who
emigrated from England as early as 1631 and
settled in Hingham, Mass. Stephen was for
many years a justice of the peace in Halifax and
also served four terras as a member of the state
legislature. Young Otis received his education
in his native town, where he remained until the
age of nineteen, when he went to Troy, N. Y.
Here for five years he carried on building opera-
tions. Forced by illness to give up this strenu-
93
Otis
ous work, he secured a trucking- business and
engaged in hauling goods between Troy and
Brattleboro, Vt. After three years, having ac-
cumulated a little capital, he purchased some
land on the Green River in Vermont, where he
built a house and gristmill. The latter was not
a success, however, and converting it into a saw-
mill, he began the manufacture of carriages and
wagons, which business he continued rather suc-
cessfully until about 1845.
Failing health again compelling him to change
his occupation, he moved with his family to Al-
bany, N. Y., where he found employment as mas-
ter mechanic in a bedstead manufactory. In the
course of his three years' employment there, he
acquired a little capital and with this established
a small machine shop, where he did general job-
bing work and also constructed a turbine water-
wheel of his own invention. The source of pow-
er for his shop was Patroon's Creek, and when
in 1851 the city of Albany took over the creek as
part of its water supply, Otis was forced out of
business. Meanwhile, one of his former employ-
ers had established a bedstead factory at Bergen,
N. J., and Otis moved there late in 1851 to be-
come master mechanic in this factory. The fol-
lowing year his employers began the construc-
tion of a new factory at Yonkers, N. Y,, and Otis
was put in charge of its erection and the instal-
lation of the machinery. In the course of this
work it became necessary to construct an eleva-
tor, and during its building Otis devised and
incorporated a number of unique features. The
most important of these was a safety appliance
that operated automatically and prevented the
elevator from falling in case the lifting chain or
rope broke.
This elevator, the first with safety appliances,
attracted the attention of a number of New York
manufacturers with the result that in a short time
Otis was given orders for three elevators. He
thereupon gave up his position with the bedstead
factory and established a shop of his own in
Yonkers. The three elevators which he built and
installed may be said to be the beginning of the
elevator business. In 1854 he demonstrated his
safety elevator at the American Institute Fair in
New York by standing on a full-size model and
deliberately cutting the rope after it had ascend-
ed to some height. From this time on, his busi-
ness gradually expanded until at the time of his
premature death he had a plant valued at $5,000
and employed from eight to ten men. Orders for
elevators were, of course, not numerous and in
addition to carrying on the work of improving
them, he devised a number of other mechanical
contrivances. On May 25, 1852, he received a
Otis
patent for railroad car trucks and brakes (No.
8,973) , and on Oct. 20, 1857, one for a steam plow
(No. 18,468). He also invented a bake oven,
patentee! Aug. 24, 18558 (No. 21,271), but with
the invention of his steam elevator, for which he
received a patent (No. 124) on Jan. 15, 1861, he
established the firm foundation for the elevator
business upon which his sons so successfully
built. Otis was twice married: first, on June 2>
1834, to Susan A. Hotighton of Halifax, who
died Feb. 25, 1842; and second, about 1845, to
Mrs. Elizabeth A. Boycl At the time of his death
in Yonkers he was survived by his widow and
two sons of his former marriage, one of whom
was Charles R. Otis [ qx>J\.
[W. A. Otis, A Gcncal. owf Hist. Memoir of the Otis
Family in America (i<)-;4) ; C. K, Allison, The f/ist. of
Yonkers (r8c)6) ; data from Otis Klcvutor Company,
N., Y. ; K. W. Byrn, The I'nwess of Invention in the
Nineteenth Century (1900); Patent Ofiice ivoonls, j
C W. M— n.
OTIS, ELWELL STEPHEN (Mar, 25, 1838-
Oet. 21, 1909), soldier, was born at Frederick,
Mel, the son of William and Mary Ann Catherine
(Late) Otis, and a descendant of .Richard Otis
who was in Massachusetts as early as 1655. Kl-
well graduated at the University of Rochester in
1858 and at the Harvard Law School in 1861,
and then began the practice of law in New York,
On Sept 13, 1862, however, he entered the mili-
tary service as captain in the I40th New York
Infantry. With this regiment he served in all
the subsequent operations of the V (Warren's)
Corps, Army of the Potomac. He became lieu-
tenant-colonel Dec, 23, 1863, and after the battle
of Spotsylvania commanded his regiment, re-
placing the colonel, who had been killed in ac-
tion. On Oct i, 1864, during the operations about
Petersburg, he was wounded in the head by a
rifle bullet — a wound which occasioned him in-
convenience for the rest of his life, lie was
given sick leave, but being still unfit for duty at
its termination he was honorably mustered out
on Jan. 24, 1865. For gallant conduct in action
he received the brevet ranks of colonel and
brigadier-general of volunteers.
In the reorganization of the regular army af-
ter the war, he was appointed lieutenant-colonel
in the 22nd Infantry, with rank from July 28,
1866. He accepted the appointment on Feb. 7,
1867, and joined his regiment in Dakota. As
additional recognition of his services at Spotsyl-
vania, he received the brevet rank of colonel in
the regular service. He remained with his regi-
ment in the northwest until 1880, serving in vari-
ous Indian campaigns, the most important of
which was that of Little Big Horn in 1876 and
1877. In 1874 and 1875 he was assistant in-
94
Otis
specter-general of the Department of Dakota.
The ideas which he formed during these years
of frontier service are contained in his thought-
ful book The Indian Question, published in New
York in 1878.
On Feb. 8, 1880, he was promoted colonel of
the 20th Infantry, and joined his new command
on Mar, 31. In the autumn of the next year he
moved with headquarters and two companies of
his regiment to Fort Leavenworth, having been
designated by General Sherman, commanding
the army, to establish a school of application for
young officers. Three companies from other in-
fantry regiments, four troops of cavalry, and a
light battery were added to his command. He
organized the school, and remained as its com-
mandant until June 1885. It rapidly established
itself as the center of military education in the
army. Under various official names, but always
colloquially as "Leavenworth," it has had con-
tinuous existence, and, among the numerous spe-
cial schools which have grown up in the army,
it has retained its hegemony. In the fall of 1890
he left his regiment to become chief of the re-
cruiting service. He never rejoined it, for on
Nov. 28, 1893, he was promoted brigadier-gen-
eral, lie commanded the department of the Co-
lumbia until the spring of 1897, then went to the
Department of Colorado.
On May 4, 1898, he was made major-general
of volunteers, and ordered to San Francisco for
duty with the force outfitting for the Philippines.
The first expedition sailed on May 25; General
Otis went in July, with the fourth. Upon ar-
rival in Manila on Aug. 21 he was placed in com-
mand of the VI II Army Corps, comprising all
the troops present, and on the 29th he relieved
General Wesley Merritt [tf.f.] in command of
the Department of the Pacific and as military
governor of the Philippines. The situation was
complicated and delicate. The first necessity was
to relieve the Spanish officials, both military and
civil, throughout the islands, and to establish
American government with the least possible
confusion. The Spanish officials could not al-
ways be found; and when found, their affairs
were often in confusion and an orderly transfer
impossible. Meanwhile, Aguinaldo and his in-
surgent government were maneuvering for rec-
ognition and for military position in the outskirts
of Manila. The American government was es-
tablished, and, by the exercise of great diplo-
macy and self-restraint, peace with the insurgents
was maintained until Feb. 4, 1899, On that night
a Filipino soldier approached the American out-
posts, refusing to halt or to answer challenges.
The American sentinel finallv fired, and the fire
Otis
was instantly and actively taken up by the in-
surgent troops. The situation was tense in Ma-
nila for a few days, but the city was promptly
cleared of insurgents, and American columns
took the offensive in all directions. The opera-
tions thus begun continued until the insurgent
forces were completely scattered, then gradually
passed into occupation of the country, suppres-
sion of brigandage, and the establishment of civil
government. General Otis continued in com-
mand until May 5, 1900, when he was relieved
by Gen. Arthur Mac Arthur and returned to the
United States. For his services in the Islands
he received the brevet rank of major-general in
the regular service, and on June 16, 1900, was
promoted substantively to that grade. Until his
retirement, Mar. 25, 1902, he commanded the De-
partment of the Lakes ; he then took up his resi-
dence in Rochester, where he remained until his
death.
Otis was twice married : first, Oct. 5, 1870, to
Louise, daughter of Judge Henry R. Seldon of
Rochester, who died Apr. 24, 1875 J second, Apr.
13, 1878, to Louise, daughter of Col. Alexander
Hamilton Bowman and widow of Col. Miles Mc-
Alester. She, with three daughters, survived
him. He was a man of medium height, stoutly
built, erect, soldierly and distinguished in ap-
pearance. He was quiet in his tastes and man-
ner, but forceful and never afraid of responsi-
bility. His command in the Philippines was one
continuous series of decisions which had to be
made with no precedents to guide; Otis made
them, as a rule, without reference to Washing-
ton* His legal instincts and training stood him
in good stead, and the adaptations of Spanish
law to the new conditions, worked out under ln*s
direction, still stand as the basis of Philippine
administration.
[W. A. Otis, A Gcncal, and Hist. Memoir of the Otis
Family in America (1924) ; Official Army Reg., 1909;
Hist. Sketch ...<?/ the U. $. Infantry and Cavalry
School. Fort Lcavcnworth, Kan. (1895) ; Report of
Maj.-Gcn. E. S. Otis, U. S. Volunteers, on Military Op-
erations and Civil Affairs in the Philippine Islands
(1899) ; Army and Navy Jour,, Oct. 23, 1909 ; Demo-
crat and Chronicle (Rochester, N. Y.), Oct. 21, 1909;
information furnished by Mrs. Harry Knight Elston,
Otis' eldest daughter, and by Maj.-Gen. Fred W. Sla-
den, formerly his aide-de-camp.] O.L. S., Jr.
OTIS, FESSENDEN NOTT (Mar. 6, 1825-
May 24, 1900), physician, was born at Ballston
Springs, Saratoga County, N. Y., the son of Oran
Gray and Lucy (King-man) Otis, and a de-
scendant of John Otis, born in England, who
settled in Hingham, Mass., about 1631. In 1843
Fessenden met with an accident because of which
he was unable to continue systematic study. He
took up landscape drawing and perspective,
95
Otis
which he taught successfully, publishing several
textbooks on the subject. One of these, Easy Les-
sons in Landscape, had reached a fifth edition in
1856. Because of his attainments in this field
Union College gave him the honorary degree of
A.M. in 1851 and the following year he was
elected to Phi Beta Kappa. In the meantime he
had entered the medical department of the Uni-
versity of the City of New York (now New York
University), taking as his preceptor Dr. John
Whittaker, demonstrator of anatomy. In 1850
he transferred with Dr. Whittaker to the New
York Medical College and graduated therefrom
in 1852, receiving the gold medal for his grad-
uation thesis. After an interncship at the Char-
ity Hospital, which terminated in 1853, he served
as ship surgeon in the Panama, and, later, in the
Pacific service, and in 1861 published Illustrated
History of the Panama Railroad, reissued in 1867
under the title, History of the Panama Railroad.
He married, in 1859, Frances Helen Cooke of
Catskill, N. Y.
In 1860 he began private practice in New
York, where he served as police surgeon from
1861 to 1871 and president of the medical board
of the police department from 1869 to 1871. He
was lecturer (1862-71) and professor of genito-
urinary and venereal diseases (1871-90) at the
College of Physicians and Surgeons, surgeon to
the Charity Hospital for ten years, and consult-
ant to the Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital and
to the New York Skin and Cancer Hospital, He
was a fellow of the New York Academy of Medi-
cine, the New York State Medical Society, the
British Medical Association, the American As-
sociation of Genito-Urinary Surgeons, and the
New York Medical and Surgical Society.
His interest came to be concentrated chiefly
in genito-urinary diseases. In 1878 he published
Stricture of the Male Urethra; Its Radical Cure
and from that time he was largely concerned with
establishing the curability of urethral stricture,
and in advocating1 certain principles which he
regarded as fundamental to that cure. The state
of medical science in his day confined the surgi-
cal attack upon the urinary organs to the urethra.
Diseases of other organs were diagnosed as
urethral and attacked as such. The doctrines of
Otis were at first received unfavorably, but later
won acceptance in the United States and had in-
fluence in England. The 1889 edition of Stricture
of the Male Urethra is memorable for its auda-
cious inclusion of a perfectly sound attack by Dr.
H. B. Sands upon many items of the Otis theory
and the brilliant discussion of this by the author.
The theory is recognized today as fantastic yet
in practice it provided a basis for attacking stric-
96
Otis
tures of the male urethra more radically and
more successfully than they had ever been at-
tacked before. Today Otis is recognized as the
first man to have cured stricture. His urethro-
tome and urethrameter are widely used. His
theories are of historic interest and his memory
still lives as that of a charming, enthusiastic,
and honest gentleman. Among his publications,
in addition to numerous contributions to medical
journals, arc Classroom Lectures on Syphilis and
the Genito-Urinary Diseases (1878) ; Contagion
of Syphilis (1878) ; Clinical Lectures on the
Physiological Pathology of Syphilis and Treat-
ment of Syphilis . . . (1881) ; Practical Clinical
Lessons on Syphilis and the Gcnito-Urinaiy
Diseases (1883). lie died in New Orleans of a
carbuncle during convalescence from double
pneumonia.
[W. A. Otis, A Gcneal. and Hist. Memoir of the Otis
Family in America (1024) ; John Shratly, The Coll. of
Physicians and Snrt/cons, N. Y.f and Its tfoittutmt Of-
ficers, Instructors, Benefactors, and Alumni, a Uist,
(n.tl), vol. 1; H. A. Kdly and W. L. Hun-age, Am.
Medic. Bioijs. (1920) ; Hrunsfonl Lewis, Uist, of Urot-
0()y (1033), I, 74-75 ; Medic. Record, June A 23, tgoo :
Daily Picayune (New Orleans), May 35, 1900; alumni
records of Union College,] E I K
OTIS, GEORGE ALEXANDER (Nov. 12,
i830-Feb. 23, i88r), military surgeon, editor of
the surgical volumes of the Medical and Surgical
History of the War of the Rebellion, was a de-
scendant of John Otis of England, who settled
in Hingharn, Mass., about 1631, His great-
grandfather was a physician of Scituate, Mass. ;
his grandfather was a Boston merchant with an
interest in literature; his father, also named
George Alexander Otis, was a lawyer, who in
1830 married Anna Maria Hickman, daughter
of a Virginian. In 1831 the elder Otis died of
tuberculosis, leaving an infant son of the same
name. The boy attended the Boston Latin School,
and later Fairfax Institute in Alexandria, Va,,
where he was prepared for college. Entering
Princeton in 1846 as a sophomore, he received
his bachelor's degree in 1849 and in 1851, that
of M.A. At college he displayed a special fond-
ness for literature.
He studied medicine under the preceptorship
of Dr. R H. Deane of Richmond, Va., where his
mother resided. In the fall of 1849 he matricu-
lated in the medical department of the University
of Pennsylvania, from which school he received
the degree of M.D, in 1851. While still an un-
dergraduate in medicine, Sept. 19, 1850, he mar-
ried Pauline Clark Baury, the daughter of Alfred
Louis Baury, an Episcopal clergyman of New-
ton Lower Falls., Mass. ; they had two daughters.
After his graduation, he went to Paris, expect-
ing to specialize in ophthalmic surgery, but he
Otis
found general surgery more attractive. The riot-
ing that marked Louis Napoleon's coup d'etat in
1851 gave him opportunities to see military sur-
gery and the work of such masters as Velpeau,
Roux, and Jobert He returned to the United
States in 1852 and settled in Richmond. In
April of the following year, he founded the Vir-
ginia Medical and Surgical Journal,, and made
it an excellent periodical, notable for its trans-
lations and abstracts from the French. Mean-
while he was not prospering, and in 1854 he re-
moved to Springfield, Mass., from which place
he acted as a corresponding editor of the Journal
until the close of 1859. In Springfield he at-
tended more closely to private practice, and was
more successful.
Upon the outbreak of the Civil War he was
appointed surgeon of the 27th Massachusetts
Volunteers, and was mustered into the Federal
service on Sept, 14, 1861. He accompanied the
regiment South and served with it in Maryland,
Virginia, and North Carolina. For a few months,
early in 1863, he was on detached service in the
Department of the South. Here he attracted the
notice of Surgeon Charles H. Crane, medical di-
rector, which notice later led to his assignment to
the duty which proved to be his great work for
the last sixteen years of his life. On July 28,
1863, he was granted twenty days' leave of ab-
sence because of his wife's serious illness. Reach-
ing home on Aug. i, he learned that she had died
on July 24. Having no near relatives to whom to
entrust the care of his small daughters, he placed
them in a convent. Returning to his regiment,
he served with it and on detached duty, includ-
ing duty as a division surgeon, until May 1864,
when he was granted sick leave, In June 1864
he resigned his commission as surgeon of the
s/th Massachusetts and accepted an appointment
as assistant surgeon, United States Volunteers.
While in Washington he again met Surgeon
Crane, at this time on duty in the surgeon-gen-
eral's office, who secured his detail as assistant
to Surgeon John H. Brinton, United States Vol-
unteers, then curator of the Army Medical Mu-
seum and engaged in collecting materials for a
surgical history of the war. In August Otis was
promoted to the grade of surgeon of volunteers,
and in the following October he was ordered to
relieve Surgeon Brinton of his duties. These
duties Otis continued to perform until his death.
Immediately after the close of the war, under di-
rection of Surgeon-General Barnes, Otis and
Surgeon Woodward prepared Reports on the Ex-
tent and Nature of the Materials Available for
the Preparation of a Medical and Surgical His-
tory of the War (1866). It presented an im-
Otis
pressive array of data and attracted widespread
and favorable notice.
In 1866 Otis accepted an appointment as as-
sistant surgeon in the regular army. Meanwhile,
he had devoted himself to the study and arrange-
ment of the materials for the surgical history.
His Report on Amputations at the Hip joint in
Military Surgery was published in 1867, his Re-
port on Excisions of the Head of the Femur for
Gunshot Injury, in 1869. These monographs met
with general favor from the profession and ex-
alted his reputation as a writer. The first surgi-
cal volume of The Medical and Surgical History
of the War of the Rebellion appeared in 1870.
It treated of the special wounds and injuries of
the head, face, neck, spine, and chest. It was
richly illustrated and contained interesting dis-
cussions of the vast amount of material dealt
with. The second surgical volume was issued in
1876, and treated of the wounds and injuries of
the abdomen, pelvis, back, and upper extremities.
It was quite as interesting as the first volume
and even larger. Both met with a most favor-
able reception at home and abroad. During the
interval between the appearance of these vol-
umes, and later, Otis wrote many articles, the
most important being A Report of Stirgical Cases
Treated in the Army of the United States from
1865 to 1871 (1871), A Report on a Plan for
Transporting Wovinded Soldiers by Railway in
Time of War (1875) ; and A Report on the
Transport of Sick and Wounded by Pack Ani-
tnals (1877). These were all issued as circulars
of the surgeon-general's office.
In 1877 he suffered a stroke of paralysis, and
was an invalid thereafter until his death. He
continued work, however, and at the time of his
death, which his friend, Woodward, says came
"as a welcome release from suffering" (Ameri-
can Journal of the Medical Sciences, July 1881,
p. 293), was engaged on the third surgical vol-
ume, which was later completed tinder the editor-
ship of Surgeon D. L. Huntington. Concerning
Otis' methods of work, one of his assistants
made the following comment: "It must be re-
membered that in order to achieve these various
stupendous successes, the work was not all done
by Dr. Otis alone. He had under his direct com-
mand at the time, in the old Ford's theater on
loth Street in Washington, a great body of
skilled clerks, who did nothing beyond collect-
ing, classifying, and arranging the records of
the field and post hospitals of the Civil War ; so
this great mass of material was ever ready for
the use of the medical officer in command of that
division of the Museum" (Medical Life, May
1924, p. 192).
97
Otis
[W. A. Otis, A GcncaL and Hist. Memoir of the Otis
Family in America (1924) ; circulars and circular or-
ders, surgeon general's office, 1881 ; Trcms. Am. Medic
As*oc.t vol. XXXII (1881) ; Medic. Life, May 1024;
Am Jour, of the Medic. Sciences, July 1881 ; British
Medic. Jour Aug. 13, 1881 ; Evening Star (Washing-
ton, D. C), teb. 23, 1881.] R M< A_
OTIS, HARRISON GRAY (Oct. 8, 1765-
Oct. 28, 1848), statesman, was born in Boston,
the eldest child of Samuel Allyne and Elizabeth
(Gray) Otis. His father was brother to James
Otis and Mercy Otis Warren [qq.v.1], and the
youngest child of Col. James Otis of Barnstable,
Mass. His mother was the daughter of Harrison
Gray (1711-94), treasurer of the province of
Massachusetts Bay, and a refugee Loyalist in the
Revolution. "Harry" Otis, as he was always
called by his friends, inherited the winning per-
sonality, charming manners, and full-blooded
enjoyment of life that have characterized the
Otis family for two hundred years, and which
marked him off from the somewhat austere and
inflexible type of New England political leader.
He also developed a brilliant if somewhat facile
intellect. His education at the Boston Latin
School was interrupted by the siege of Boston.
Entering Harvard College in 1779, he graduated
first in the class of 1783 and in later years re-
ceived the usual appointment to the Harvard cor-
poration and board of overseers that are awarded
to successful alumni. His father, a merchant
who had speculated heavily during the war, went
bankrupt after its close. Harry read law with
Judge John Lowell [#.?;.] and was admitted to
the Boston bar in 1786. The same year he com-
manded a volunteer infantry company during
Shays's Rebellion, but did not sec action; and
made a reputation as an orator when taking his
master's degree at Harvard.
Otis quickly rose to a leading place at the Bos-
ton bar, earned a large income for the period,
and acquired within ten years considerable prop-
erty, largely by investments and speculations in
Boston real estate, and Maine and Yazoo lands.
On May 31, 1790, he married the daughter of
a Boston merchant, Sally Foster (1770-1836),
who bore him eleven children. A liberal in so-
cial and religious matters, he was a member of
the Brattle Square Church (Unitarian). A Fed-
eralist, like almost all of his class in New Eng-
land^ Otis first served his party in 1794 by dis-
suading the Boston town meeting from support-
ing Madison's anti-British resolutions. The same
year, and in 1795, he was elected a Boston rep-
resentative to the General Court of Massachu-
setts. Another burst of eloquence in Boston town
meeting on April 25, 1796, routed the local Jef-
fersonians who were attacking Jay's Treaty, and
helped to make Boston the "headquarters of
Otis
good principles" from the Federalist point of
view. President Washington immediately ap-
pointed him United States district attorney for
Massachusetts, an office which he resigned the
same year in order to enter Congress, as the suc-
cessor to Fisher Ames [<?.•?'.].
In Congress (1797-1801) Otis established
close relations with the South Carolina Fed-
eralists, John Rutledge, Jr., and Robert Gooclloe
Harper [</.?',], and supported the measures of
President Adams' administration by speech and
written word. Pie was foremost in creating the
system of armed neutrality in 1797-98 to meet
French aggression, which, like most of the Fed-
eralists, he considered a "Jacobin" offensive to
undermine the federal government, and destroy
the basis of American society. For that reason,
he supported the Alien and Sedition Acts. An
ardent^ admirer of Alexander Hamilton, he was
preparing1 to urge a declaration of war against
France m 1799, when President Adams accepted
the conciliatory advances of the French govern-
ment In the factional fi^ht that then broke out
in the Federalist party Otis defended and sup-
ported the President. He und Mrs. Otis were
leading figures in the "Republican Court" at
Philadelphia, but found Washington little to
their taste, and he refused to stand for reelection
to Congress in iSoo.
Otis then settled down in Boston and became
a leader in politics, in society, and at the bar.
Charles Bulfmch [q.v.] was employed to design
for him three of the most distinguished dwelling-
houses that are still standing- in Boston, The
first (now 141 Cambridge St.) was built in
I795-96 and sold in 1800, when a much larger
one (85 Mount Vernon St.) was erected on
Beacon Hill, the greater part of which Otis and
a small syndicate had purchased, when a pas-
ture, in order to develop as a residential district
The third Otis mansion (45 Beacon St.), built
in 1806, became his home for the rest of his life ;
and he also maintained the country estate of
"Oakley" in Watertown. The Otis houses were
centers of Boston hospitality. J. Q. Adams wrote
in 1816, "In the course of nearly thirty years that
I have known him, and throughout the range of
experience that I have had in that time, it has
not fallen to my lot to meet a man more skilled in
the useful art of entertaining his friends than
Otis; . . . His Person while in Youth, his grace-
ful Deportment, his sportive wit, his quick intel-
ligence, his eloquent fluency, always made a
strong impression upon my Mind; while his
warm domestic Affection, his active Friendship,
and his Generosity, always commanded my es-
teem" (Morison, post, I, 224),
Otis
In politics Otis was an active party manager,
and the principal connecting link of the Federal-
ist aristocracy with the Boston democracy; but
he was never admitted to the inner councils of
the "Essex Junto," who suspected insincerity in
his polished manners, and possible defection in
his support of President Adams. His few pub-
lished orations do not justify the high reputation
that he enjoyed as a public speaker. He was
fluent, classical in language and diction, but ready
in wit and allusion, the favorite orator of Boston
town meeting in the generation between Samuel
Adams and Daniel Webster. Otis served in the
Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1802-
05 and in 1813-14 (speaker, 1803-05), and in
the state Senate 1805-13 and 1814-17 (president,
1805-06, 1808-11). Although not privy to the
Federalist secession plot of 1804, he became an
active leader of the state-rights movement in his
party at the time of Jefferson's Embargo, con-
sistently opposed the War of 1812, and led the
Hartford Convention of 1814. Otis proposed a
New England convention as early as 1808, but
used his influence against a similar movement
during1 the war until the summer of 1814 when,
in his opinion* a convention became necessary to
control and moderate the exasperated feelings of
New England, to concert maneuvers for inter-
state defence against Great Britain when the
federal government was powerless to help, and
to procure concessions to New England com-
mercial interests from the other states. He was
chairman of the joint committee of the General
Court which reported in favor of the Hartford
Convention in October 1814, drafted the call to
the other New England States, and was chosen
by the legislature second of the twelve Massa-
chusetts delegates to Hartford. In the Conven-
tion itself (Dec. 15, i8i4-Jan. 5, 1815) Otis
served on all important committees, and drafted
the final report (The Proceedings of a Conven-
tion of Delegates ...at Hartford, 1815), which
well expressed his caution, moderation, and
averseness to force an issue with the federal gov-
ernment. Appointed by the Governor of Massa-
chusetts on Jan. 31, 1815, one of a committee of
three to negotiate with the authorities at Wash-
ington about using federal revenues for state de-
fense, he proceeded to the capital, but was met
on the way by news of the Peace of Ghent, which
rendered his mission abortive and himself ridicu-
lous.
Otis supported both the administrations of
Monroe, and helped to inaugurate the "era of
good feelings" by entertaining the President at
Boston in 1817. He was elected that year to the
United States Senate, after declining a Federal-
Otis
ist nomination to the governorship of Massa-
chusetts. But he effectually shut himself out
from becoming a national figure by becoming
the public champion of the Hartford Convention.
After consulting his friends on the desirability
of publishing the journal of the Convention in
1818, he published Letters Developing the Char-
acter and Views of the Hartford Convention
( 1820) , and Otis? Letters in Defense of the Hart-
ford Convention . . . (1824), engaged in an acrid
pamphlet controversy on it with J. Q. Adams
(Correspondence between John Qnincy Adams
. » . and Several Citizens of Massachusetts Con-
cerning the Charge of a Design to Dissolve1 the
Union . . . 1829), and frequently adverted to the
subject in his public speeches. Every such ef-
fort stirred up feelings and charges which he
was powerless to allay, and which, however un-
justified in fact, he would have better allowed the
public to forget. In the United States Senate he
did not particularly distinguish himself, although
he entered with great ardor into the effort to
form a northern bloc against the extension of
slavery to Missouri in 1820. The atmosphere of
Washington seemed so unfriendly, and his ef-
forts to obtain payment of the Massachusetts
war claims were so constantly thwarted, that he
resigned his seat in 1822 in order to run for
mayor of Boston. On that occasion he was de-
feated. The Federalist nomination for governor
of Massachusetts was given to him in 1823, upon
the refusal of John Brooks [<?.£'.] to run again.
The Republicans put up a strong candidate, Dr.
William Eustis [#.#.], and as Otis unwisely made
the Hartford Convention the principal issue of
the campaign, he was badly defeated ; that de-
feat marked the passing of the Federalist party
in its last stronghold.
Otis never relinquished his hold of local public
affairs. He was thrice elected mayor of Boston
(1829-31), and he acquired some notoriety by
refusing to interfere with William Lloyd Gar-
rison. He greatly deprecated and publicly de-
nounced the abolitionist movement, which he
foretold would bring about a division of the
Union, but refused to countenance any suppres-
sion of free speech on slavery. In the 1820*5 Otis
became a considerable owner of manufacturing
stock, and a convert to protection, although he
had been instrumental in defeating the Baldwin
tariff of 1820. After flirting with the Jacksonian
party he became a stout Whig, and a supporter
of Henry Clay. Always an enemy to democracy,
he firmly believed that the country was going to
the dogs. In 1848, in his eighty-third year, Otis
published a pungent letter against the "fifteen-
gallon" temperance law, and another (Boston
99
Otis
Atlas, Oct. 2, 1848), in all the verve of his youth-
ful style, in favor of General Taylor. Old age
and debility prostrated him, and before the presi-
dential campaign was over, he died at his Boston
residence on Oct. 28, 1848.
[S. E. Morison, The Life and Letters of Harrison
Gray Otis, Federalist, 1765-1848 (2 vols., 1913), with
portraits and bibliography ; Pubs. Colonial Soc. of
Mass., XIV (1913), 329-50; Mass, Hist. Soc. Proc.f
XLVIII (1915), 343-Si ; LX (1927), 24-31, 324-30^;
W. A. Otis, A GcneaL and Hist. Memoir of the Otis
Family in America (1924) ; Great Georgian Houses of
America (1933), pub. for the benefit of the Architect's
Emergency Committee ; obituary in Boston Daily Ad"
vcrtiser, Oct. 30, 1848.] S.E. M.
OTIS, HARRISON GRAY (Feb. 10, 1837-
July 30, 1917), soldier, journalist, was born at
Marietta, Ohio, the youngest of the children of
Stephen Otis and his second wife, Sarah Dyer
Otis. He was descended from John Otis, an
early colonist In Massachusetts. He received a
brief common-school education and at the age of
fourteen became a printer's apprentice. In 1856-
57 he attended Wctherby's Academy at Lowell,
Ohio, for live months, and afterward took a
commercial course at Granger's College at Co-
lumbus, He resided for a time in Louisville, Ky.,
where he became an active member of the new
Republican party and served as a delegate from
that state to the national convention of 1860.
He enlisted in the Union army at the beginning
of the Civil War and served with the I2th and
23rd Ohio Infantry. He fought in fifteen en-
gagements, was twice wounded, attained the rank
of captain, and at the end of the war was brevettecl
major and lieutenant-colonel. After his dis-
charge he returned to Marietta and for about
eighteen months was publisher of a small local
newspaper. In 1866-67 he was official reporter
of the Ohio House of Representatives, then
moved to Washington where he was foreman in
the government printing office (1868-69)* Cur-
ing this period he acted as Washington corre-
spondent of the Ohio State Journal, and had
immediate charge of the Grand Army Journal.
In 1868 he was a delegate from the District of
Columbia to the soldiers' and sailors' convention
at Chicago which first nominated General Grant
for the presidency. For about five years (1871-
75) he was chief of a division in the Patent Of-
fice.
In 1876 Otis moved to California. He first
settled in Santa Barbara and for four years con-
ducted the Santa Barbara Press. From 1879 to
1 88 1 he served as special agent of the Treasury
Department to enforce the terms of the lease of
the Alaska seal fisheries to the Alaska Commer-
cial Company. In 1882 he moved to Los Angeles
and purchased a substantial interest in the
Otis
Times, which about this time had absorbed the
Weekly Mirror; by 1886 he had acquired full
control. For the next thirty years, as president
and active manager of the Times-Mirror Com-
pany, he was one of California's most pictur-
esque, forceful, and noted journalists. Under
his wise and aggressive leadership, the Times
contributed in many ways to the growth and ex-
pansion of Southern California. In 1888, he
was largely instrumental in organizing the. Los
Angeles Chamber of Commerce. His journal-
istic career was temporarily interrupted by the
Spanish-American War. At its outbreak, he
was appointed brigadier-general of volunteers,
and with his command saw active service in the
Philippines. At the end of the war he wavs bre-
vettcd major-general "for meritorious conduct
in action at Caloocan."
For many years the Times was widely known
for its zealous championship of the open shop
and for its bitter and unrelenting opposition to
union labor, Tn revenge for its unsparing at-
tacks, a group of union men dynamited the Times
plant Oct. i, 1910, destroying the building and
killing twenty-one employees. The sensational
trial (1911) of the McNaniara brothers, charged
with the crime, attracted nation-wide attention
and came to a dramatic end by their confessions,
(See The New International Year Book, 1911,
pp. 138, 692-93). In 1914 Otis transferred his
controlling interest to his daughter and son-
in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Chandler, but he
continued in active direction of the Times until
the day of his death. A contemporary journalist,
speaking of his "most powerful personality"
and "overwhelming individuality/' says that
"he permeated and dominated his entire estab-
lishment He marched his martial way through
every department — editorial, news, mechanical,
and business. He knew every detail of every de-
partment better than the men at the head of
them/1
In addition to his newspaper interests, Otis be-
came identified with a number of business ven-
tures all of which proved highly profitable : he
was president of the board of control of the Los
Angeles Suburban Homes Company ; a director
of the California-Mexico Land and Cattle Com-
pany, and president of the Colorado River Land
Company, its successor. Throughout his long
life he retained his early interest in politics, tak-
ing an active part in all state campaigns in Cali-
fornia. He was an uncompromising Republican
and vehement opponent of the Progressive move-
ment in that party. He was interested in inter-
national arbitration, and one of his last efforts
was developing the details of his peace program,
IOO
Otis
outlined in his Plan to End Wars (1915), a
synopsis of which had been published in the
Times only a few days before his death.
On Sept. n, 1859, Otis was married to Eliza
A. Wctherby, who was actively associated with
him in journalism until her death in 1904. Five
children were born to them, one son and four
daughters. He died at the home of his daughter,
Mrs. Chandler, in Hollywood. His own city res-
idence, "The Bivouac/' had been given, the pre-
ceding1 Christmas, to Los Angeles County for a
public art gallery; it is now known as the Otis
Art Institute. Two daughters and thirteen
grandchildren survived him.
[R. 1). Hunt, Cat, and Calif oniians (1926), vol.
Ill ; Circular No. 17, ser. of 1917, Cal. Commandery,
MIL Order of the Loyal Legion ; A letter from Har-
risan Cray Otis (pamphlet, 1917) ; J. M. Lee, Hist, of
AM. Journalism (10,23); The Antobiog. of Lincoln
Stcffcns (1031), vol. H; P, B. Heihnan, I fist. Rcf/.
. of the tL .V. Army (1903), vol. I ; W. A. Otis, A
GcncaL and Hist. Memoir of the Otis Family in
America (192.1); Mrho's Who in America, 1916-17;
Evening Herald (Los Angeles), > July ^30, 1917; K-vam-
incr (Los Angeles), San lfrtwcijsco Chronicle and Los
Angeles Times, July 31, *9*7.] P.Q.R.
OTIS, JAMES (Feb. 5, 1725-^,1^23, 1783),
politician and publicist, came of a Glastonbury
yeoman's family that emigrated to Massachu-
setts about 1631. His grandfather, John Otis
(1657-1727), moved to Barnstable, commanded
the militia of that county, served as judge for
twenty-five years, and as councilor of the prov-
ince Cor nineteen years. John's son James (1702-
78), generally called Colonel Otis, a self-edu-
cated lawyer, married Mary Allyne of Pilgrim
stock; James Otis, born hi his grandfather's
house at the Great Marshes, West Barnstable,
was the eldest of their thirteen children. He was
prepared for Harvard by the local minister,
graduated with the class of 1743* studied law
tinder Jeremiah Gridley [</.7'.l, was admitted in
1748 to the bar of Plymouth County, and two
years later moved to Boston, In the Spring of
1755 he married Ruth, the well-dowered daugh-
ter "of Capt Nathaniel Cunningham, a Boston
merchant. There were three children, a son and
two daughters. Blackburn's portrait of Otis
ded eyes, giving no hint of the inner flame that
eventually consumed him.
By painstaking study Otis became learned in
the common, civil, and admiralty law; and his
interest in the theory of law was coeval ^with
his interest in the law itself. An enthusiastic
student of the ancient classics, he published The
Rudiments of Latin Prosody . . . cmd the Princi-
ples of Harmony in Poetic and Prostyle Compo-
sition (1760) ; another treatise, on Greek pros-
Otis
ody, remained in manuscript and was destroyed
with his other papers. He was also an avid
reader of classical English literature, and of an-
cient and modern works on political theory. As
a barrister his mind was supple, his apprehen-
sion quick, his pleading, brilliant and captivating ;
following the superior court circuit, he became
known in all parts of the province. Thomas
Hutchinson [g.z/.] admitted "that he never knew
fairer or more noble conduct in a pleader, than
in Otis," who disdained technicalities and "de-
fended his causes solely on their broad and sub-
stantial foundations" (Tudor, post, p. 36). Ene-
mies later described him as a smugglers' attor-
ney ; actually, he acted as king's attorney in the
absence of the attorney general in 1754 (Josiah
Quincy, Jr., Reports, I, 402, note) ; and later,
Governor Pownall appointed him king's advo-
cate general of the vice-admiralty court at Bos-
ton.
In 1760, Pitt ordered the Sugar Act of 1733
to be strictly enforced. The royal customs col-
lectors applied to the superior court of the prov-
ince for writs of assistance, in order to help
them in search of evidence of violation. Otis, in
his official capacity, was expected to argue for
the writs. Instead, he resigned his lucrative of-
fice and undertook, for Boston merchants, to op-
pose the issuance. Unfortunately the circum-
stances were such as to cause his motives to be
questioned. Governor Shirley had promised to
appoint Colonel Otis to the superior bench, and
asked Francis Bernard [q.vJ], who became gov-
ernor in August 1760, to make the promise good.
The elder Otis was now speaker of the House,
and leader of the bar in the three southern coun-
ties ; he had great influence over the rural mem-
bers of the House, and both as member from
Barnstable and as colonel of the county militia
had cooperated loyally with the administration
during the war. On Sept. n, Chief Justice Ste-
phen Sewall died. Colonel Otis at once bespoke
Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson's influence to
be appointee! junior associate justice, supposing
the chief justiceship filled from the court itself.
James Otis' account (Boston Gazette, Apr. 4,
Massachusetts Bay, III, 86; P. 0. Hutchinson,
The Diary and Letters of . . . Thomas Hutchin-
son, I, 1883, pp. 65-66) as to what assurances
were given; but Hutchinson was appointed
chief justice Nov. 13, 1760. One rumor had it
that James Otis then declared "that he would
set the province in flames, if he perished by
the fire" ; another, that he declaimed from the
Aeneid, "Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta
IOI
Otis
movebo !" Both stories were flatly denied by
Otis; and, as John Adams pointed out, he had
resigned an office far more lucrative than the
one his father wanted ; but the Loyalists always
believed that his entire political course, and in-
deed the Revolution in Massachusetts, arose out
of frustrated family ambition (Hutchinson, His-
tory, III, 88). Otis certainly felt that Hutch-
inson and Bernard had "double-crossed" him,
and that they were endeavoring1 to accumulate
the chief offices in the province.
In February 1761, Otis and Oxeribridge
Thacher argued the illegality of writs of as-
sistance before the full bench of the superior
court, in the Council chamber at the Old State
House, Boston. The picturesque scene was viv-
idly described by John Adams in 1817 (Works,
X, 247) to Otis' biographer: "Otis was a flame
of fire ! ... he hurried away every thing before
him. American independence was then and there
born ; the seeds of patriots and heroes were then
and there sown . . ." But exactly what Otis said
cannot now be recovered with any exactness.
John Adams' notes taken on the occasion con-
tain these significant sentences : "An act against
the Constitution is void ; an act against national
equity is void ; and if an act of Parliament should
be made, in the very words of this petition, it
would be void. The executive Courts must pass
such acts into disuse. . . . Reason of the common
law to control an act of Parliament" (Works,
II, 522). The phrase, "Taxation without rep-
resentation is tyranny," which was not germane
to the issue, appears only in Adams' final ex-
pansion of his notes, made about 1820 (Tudor,
post, p. 77). Otis and Thacher lost their case.
But in 1766, Otis' position was sustained by
Attorney General cle Grey, who ruled that the
act of Parliament in question did not authorize
the issuance of writs of assistance in the Colo-
nies (Massachusetts Historical Society Pro-
ceedings, LVIII, 1925, pp. 22, 7I-73)- The sig-
nificance of Otis' speech, however, lies in his
harking back to the constitutional doctrines of
Coke and Sir Matthew Hale, invoking a funda-
mental law embodying the principles of natural
law, and superior to acts of Parliament; a doc-
trine upon which colonial publicists leant dur-
ing the next twenty-five years, which was em-
bodied in the federal and state constitutions, and
which in its final form became the American doc-
trine of judicial supremacy.
In May 1761, two months after this speech,
Otis was chosen one of the four representatives
of Boston to the General Court, the provincial
legislature. His father was the same year re-
elected speaker of the House. Hutchinson (His-
Otis
tory, III, 166) credits the two with marshalling
the old town and country parties into a popu-
lar bloc against the crown officials. In the ses-
sion of 1761-62, they opposed the administra-
tion on sundry questions involving privilege, but
promoted a grant of Mount Desert Island to
Governor Bernard; this last was really a log-
rolling device to get royal consent to establish-
ing new townships in that part of Maine ( W. O.
Sawtelle, Publications of the Colonial Society of
Massachusetts, XXIV, 1923, pp. 203-04). Otis
was moderately interested in other new town-
ships, but not those.
In his first political pamphlet, A Vindication
of the Conduct of the House of Representatives
(1762), Otis made a brief exposition of the
rights of Englishmen, and defended his party's
policy vigorously, Scurrilously abused as "Blus-
ter" in the Boston livening Post, Feb. 14, 1763,
he lashed back savagely in the Boston Case tic
for Feb. 28, Mar. 28, and Apr. 4, 1763. Yet, in
the midst of these altercations, he struck a high
note of patriotism in a Faneuil Hall speech as
moderator of Boston town meeting. He ex-
tolled the British Constitution and the King;
declared "Every British Subject in America is,
of Common Right, by Acts of Parliament, and
by the laws of God and Nature, entitled to all
the essential Privileges of Britons"; that at-
tempts to stretch the royal prerogative were re-
sponsible for whatever unpleasantness had oc-
curred; that "the true Interests of Great Britain
and her Plantations are mutual ; and what God
in his Providence has united, let no man dare
attempt to pull assunder" (Boston Cassette, Mar.
21, 1763). On other occasions, the vehemence
of Otis' language distressed even his friends
(John Adams, Works, II, 142-44) ; and this
conduct was the more wondered at because
James was normally good-humored and socia-
ble, like all his family. Friends and foes alike
agreed that from 1761 to 1769 Otis was the po-
litical leader of Massachusetts Bay, although
Samuel Adams was probably more popular in
Boston. Otis was also active in local organiza-
tions like the "Sons of Liberty," and the "Cor-
kass," which met in Tom Dawes' attic and made
up a slate of candidates and measures for the
town meeting1 (Boston Evening Post, Mar. 14,
21, 1763).
An appearance of coalition between Otis and
Hutchinson in 1763-64, as John Adams remem-
bered (Works X, 295-96), "well nigh destroyed
Otis' popularity and influence forever"; and
when on Feb. i, 1764, Governor Bernard ap-
pointed Colonel Otis chief justice of the common
pleas and judge of probate in Barnstable Coun-
102
Otis
ty, many assumed that the family had sold out.
Adams declares that only the revival of attacks
saved Otis from defeat in the spring election;
hut an examination of the newspaper files proves
that he was not opposed in 1764. The next year,
when he was scurrilously attacked in the Eve-
ning Post (especially in Samuel Waterhouse's
ditty "Jemmibullcro," May 13, 1765, in which he
is called, among* other things, a "rackoon" and
a "filthy actinic") lie almost failed of reelection.
In the meantime, to counteract the new Sugar or
Revenue Act of 1764, Otis wrote The Rights of
the British Colonies Asserted and Proved, pub-
lished at Boston July 23, 1764, and reprinted
in London the next: year. "One of the earliest
and ablest pamphlets written from the natural
law point of view'1 (C. 1*1. Mcllwain, The Amer-
ican Revolution* 1923, p. 153), the Rights is a
closely reasoned statement of the constitutional
position of the colonies in the single common-
wealth that; Otis believed the British Empire to
be. In it were developed the principles recorded
in his writs of assistance argument, principles
to which Otis remained faithful while he kept
his reason. The "wavering" or "retreat" often
referred to in secondary accounts is found neither
in his writings nor his recorded speeches.
The 1 louse adopted Otis1 doctrine as its own,
and cm June 14, 1764, he was appointed chair-
man of a committee of the General Court to cor-
respond with other colonial assemblies. The
proposed Stamp Act soon overshadowed the
Sugar Act The Stamp Act Congress was sum-
moned by a circular letter of invitation to the
other colonies, adopted by the Massachusetts
House on motion of Otis, who was appointed
one of the three Massachusetts delegates. A few
clays afterward came the news of Patrick Henry's
Virginia resolves, which Otis thought treason-
able, but which temporarily took the leadership
of public sentiment out of his hands, fomenting
riots at Boston that summer. Otis much pre-
ferred "dutiful and loyal Addresses to his Maj-
esty and his Parliament, who alone under God
can extricate the Colonies from the painful
Scenes of Tumult, Confusion, & Distress" (to
Henry Shcrburne, Nov. 26, 1765* Stamp Act
Manuscripts, Library of Congress). The Con-
gress met at New York on Oct 7* On this, Otis1
second and last journey outside New England,
he met other colonial leaders such as Thomas
McKcan [gw.], who later referred to him as
"the boldest and best speaker1' (John Adams,
Works, X, 60), and John Dickinson [#.«/.], who
carried on a friendly correspondence with Otis
for several years, and through him published
the "Letters from a Farmer" and Liberty Song
Otis
in Boston (Mercy O. Warren, History of the
Rise, Progress and Termination of the Ameri-
can Revolution, 1805, vol. I, 412-14; Warren-
Adams Letters, I, 1917, pp. 3-7). Otis served
on one of the three committees of the Congress,
which adopted his constitutional doctrine, while
rejecting colonial representation in Parliament,
which Otis had proposed in his Rights of the Col-
onies, It seems probable that Otis' colleagues
persuaded him that representation would not
help the colonies, for he did not mention it there-
after (Hutchinson to Franklin, Jan. 6, 1766,
Bancroft Manuscripts, New York Public Li-
brary).
Having failed to persuade Governor Bernard
to let the courts function without stamped paper
until the act was repealed, Otis and his lawyer
friends had plenty of leisure. In the "Monday
Night Club" of politicians, Otis was "fiery and
feverous; his imagination flames, his passions
blaze" (John Adams, Works, II, 162-63). But
he also belonged to the "Sodalitas," a law club
that met under Gridley's presidency to study and
discuss ancient law ; and John Rowe notes Otis'
presence at sundry private dinners, public ban-
quets, coffee-house reunions, tea parties, and
country-house assemblies (Anne R. Cunning-
ham, Letters and Diary of John Rowe, 1903).
In the same year, he published three pamphlets.
One of these, Considerations on behalf of the
Colonists, in a Letter to a Noble Lord, was a
reply to Soame Jenyns' defence of the Stamp
Act. A Vindication of the British Colonies, and
Brief Remarks on the Defence of the Halifax
Libel on the British-American Colonies, were
replies to Martin Howard's Letter from a Gen-
tleman at Halifax, and its sequel. The first,
dated Sept 4, 1765, was a lively discussion of
"virtual" representation. Otis declared that
Jenyns' reasoning could as well prove the whole
globe, as America, represented in the House of
Commons; if Manchester and Birmingham
were not represented, they ought to be. His
greatest indignation was reserved for Howard's
statement that the admission of colonial repre-
sentation would defile the "purity" and destroy
the "beauty and symmetry" of the House of
Commons (Vindication, p. 28). He challenged
the justice of suppressing colonial manufac-
tures (Considerations, p. 22), and pointed out
the exploitation inherent in the imperial system
(pp. 29-30). But he still stoutly maintained
that Parliament had "an undoubted power, au-
thority, and jurisdiction, over the whole" (Ibid.,
pp. 9, 13, 36) . In Brief Remarks, he made a furi-
ous attack on his critics.
Otis' pamphlets probably had more influence
103
Otis
in America and England, before 1774, than those
of any other American except John Dickinson.
They laid a broad basis for American political
theory on natural law. Otis avoided the two im-
passes into which several of his contemporaries
stepped: the distinction between external and
internal taxation, and the sanctity of colonial
charters. But in advocating colonial represen-
tation, he took a false turning1 himself. He had
not the foresight to perceive a federal solution :
an imperhim in impcrio was to him "the great-
est of all political solicisms" (Vindication, p.
18) . Nor did he face the choice between submis-
sion and revolution. If Parliament's sovereign
authority was not recognized "the colonies would
be independent, which none but rebels, fools, or
madmen, will contend for , . . Were these colo-
nies left to themselves, to-morrow, America
would be a meer shambles of blood and confu-
sion . . ." (Ibid., pp. 21-22). Neither in theory
nor in tastes was Otis a democrat; his often vi-
tuperative language arose from his own hot pas-
sions, not from any catering to popularity.
At the spring election of 1766, Samuel Adams,
whose qualities were needed to temper Otis'
rashness and turbulence, and the Hampshire
Cato, Joseph Hawley [#.«'.], were elected with
him to the General Court, During the next two
years, this triumvirate directed the majority in
the House of Representatives. Otis generally
prepared the rough draft of the state papers
that issued from that body, while Adams did the
smoothing and revision. When the General
Court met, it refused to reelect Chief Justice
Hutchinson and his Oliver associates to the
Council, and James Otis was chosen speaker of
the House. Governor Bernard negatived both
this election and that of six councilors, including
Colonel Otis. During the next two years, no
opportunity was neglected by the triumvirate to
put the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor in
a hole; and Otis spent so much time on public
affairs that his law practice was almost com-
pletely neglected.
When news of the Townshend Act arrived,
Otis was prompt to denounce an incitement to
violence which had been posted on the Boston
"liberty tree." Presiding over a town meeting
that very day (Nov. 20, 1767), he declared that
"no possible circumstances" could justify "tu-
mults and disorders, either to our consciences
before God, or legally before men" (Richard
Frothingham, Life and Times of Joseph War-
If renf 1865, pp. 38-39, notes). Otis also presided
• over the town meeting on Oct 28 that launched
the non-importation movement. The Massachu-
» setts circular letter, adopted by the House on Feb.
Otis
ii, 1768, was the joint product of Otis and Sam-
uel Adams (John Adams, ll'orks, X, 367).
They triumphed when the House voted not to
rescind 92 to 17, on June 30, 1768. This spirited
defiance did more to unite the colonies than any
measure since the Stamp Act. The Massachu-
setts "92" became another such talisman as No.
45 of the North Briton,
The sloop Liberty case, the news that Otis and
Adams were threatened with trial for treason in
England, and that troops were being sent to Bos-
ton, followed in quick succession. Yet Otis still
continued to oppose direct action. Ho organized
and moderated the town meeting of Sept. 12-13,
1768, which quashed proposals of resistance to
the landing1 of troops, and called a convention at
Faneuil Hall ten days later. Otis, to the dismay
of Adams, refused at first to take his seat in this
convention, kept Adams quiet when he did ap-
pear, and doubtless showed his hand in the mild
resolutions that the convention passed (W. V,
Wells, The Life and Public Services of Samuel
Adams t 1865, vol. I, 216-18; Hutchinson, His-
tory f III, 205-06). Considering* his repeated ef-
forts to prevent violence, it is not surprising that
Otis' irritable nature was stirred to a frenzy of
resentment when the publication of some inter-
cepted letters showed that Bernard, and the
commissioners of the customs, had been writing
home that he was a malignant incendiary. On
Sept 4, 1769, he posted these officials in the Bos-
ton Gazette as liars. The next evening he en-
tered the British Coffee House at the site of
60 State St., where John Robinson and other
crown officers were seated A brawl ensued in
which Robinson struck Otis a severe blow on
the head with a cutlass or hanger, Otis was
finally rescued by outsiders. He sued Robinson
and obtained a verdict of £2000 damages ; Gov-
ernor Hutchinson, who waa delighted at what
he termed "a very decent drubbing/1 was plan-
ning "to steer this whole business" so as to get
Robinson off and reward him with promotion,
when Otis, on receiving an apology from Robin-
son's attorney, released all damages beyond
court costs, lawyers' fees, and physicians* bills,
which amounted to £112 I0£ 8d (Tudor, past, pp»
360-62, 503-06 j Proceedings Massachusetts
Historical Society, XLV11, 1914, p. 209; Publi-
cations of the Colonial Society of Massachu*
setts, XI, 1910, pp, 5-7; Massachusetts Archives,
XXV, 437-38, XXVI, 375 ; papers of the case
in Suffolk County Court Files, 102, 135).
Robinson's assault finished Otis1 career* It
is true that for several years his conduct at times
had given people cause to doubt his sanity (Eve~>
ning Post, Feb. 14, 1763, p. 2 ; Proceedings Mas-*
104
Otis
sachitsctts Historical Society, IV, 1870, p. 53),
and an offensive garrulity had been growing on
him. His family life was unhappy: Mrs. Otis,
"beautiful, placid and formal" (Tuclor, p. 20)
was a high Tory* But the crack on his head per-
manently unhinged his reason. "He rambles and
wanders like a ship without a helm," noted John
Adams in January 1770 (JTorks, II, 226) ; in
February he was "raving mad," broke windows
in the Old State House, fired guns from his win-
dow (John Rowo, Diary, pp. 199, 201), called on
Governor Hulehmson, and craved his protec-
tion on the king's highway. He did not stand for
election in 1770, but seemed so completely re-
stored in T7/T as to be chosen once more, and
for the last time; his course at that session was
conciliatory. But by September he was as dis-
tracted as ever, and began to drink heavily
(Massachusetts Archives, XXVII, 228, 246-
47) ; and in December 1771 the probate court,
on representation that James Otis was won
compos '/m'M/i'j, appointed his younger brother
Samuel A. Otis guardian (American Law Re-
view, July i8()0» p. 664), He enjoyed several
lucid intervals later; but: none of his political
opinions recorded subsequent to his injury are
important.
After 1771 Otis led a quiet life, well cared for
by friends and relatives. On June 17, 1775, lie
borrowed a gun, and rushed among the flying
bullets on Bunker Hill, but returned unscathed
(Proccedint/s Massachusetts Historical Society,,
XIT, 1873, p. 69). Only fire from heaven could
release liis fiery soul; death came, as he had
always wished it to come, by a stroke of light-
ning, as he was watching a summer thunder-
storm in the Isaac Osgood farmhouse at Ando-
ver, on May 23,
[In addition to the pamphlets mentioned in the text,
Otis probably wrote the. political introduction to the
1764 edition of William Wood's New England s Pros-
pec? (ace I'roc. Mass. Hist, Soc., VI, 1863, p. ago).
All the political pamphlets are reprinted with an intro-
duction by C. F. Muliott in TheUnw. of Mo. Studies,
IV, nos. i, 4, July, Oct. 1939-, The best discussion of
their doctrine is in B. F. Wright, Jr., American Inter-
pretations of Natural Law (iQ3U; For bibliography
of various versions of the writs of assistance speech,
see Edward Channing, A Hist, of the U. $., Ill (1012),
S notes. Many cases in which Otis was an attorney
are reported, and the legality of writs of assistance dis-
cussecl by Horace Gray, with illustrative documents,
in Josiah Quincy, Jr.. Reports of Cases v . tn the Su-
perior Court of Judicature of the Prownce of Mass,
Bay, I (1865), pp. 395-540 ; but see an opinion by At-
torney General de Grey, printed by G. G. Welkins in
Proc. Mass. Hist. See., LVIII (i9«5)i ,7^-7.3* Otis
contributed many articles, signed and unsigned, to the
Boston GascttG between 1701 and 1769;, answers or
attacks may be found in the Boston Evening Post. He
destroyed all his papers before his death, and tas he
corresponded little, very few of his letters are in ex-
istence. The Otis MSS. and Otis Papers at the Mass.
Hist* Soc. are mainly law papers ox his father, and
Ott
contain but a few personal letters. John Adams'
"Diary," and his letters to William Tudor about Otis
are in C. F. Adams, ed.f The Works of John Adams,
vols. II (1850) and X (1856). Thomas Hutchinson, as
he once promised Otis (Mass. Archives, XXVI, 86),
was "revenged of him" in The Hist, of the Province of
Mass, Bay, III (1828) ; the more vituperative and gos-
sipy "Origin and Progress of the American Rebellion"
written by Peter Oliver in 1781 (Egerton MSS., Br.
Museum ; copies in Mass. Hist, Soc. and Lib. of Cong.)
is amusing, but adds little save invective to Hutchinson.
Many of the latter's contemporary comments in his cor-
respondence (Mass. Archives, XXV-XXVI ; Bancroft
MSS., N. Y. Public Lib.), are printed in J. K. Hosmer,
The Life of Thomas Hutchinson (1896). Other un-
favorable comments may be found in the Bernard and
Chalmers Papers among the Sparks MSS. in the Har-
vard College Lib.
William Tuclor, The Life of fames Otis (1823), is the
only biography, and J. H. Ellis, "James Otis," Am. Law
Rev., July 1869, PP. 641-65, the only article, worth men-
tioning. Richard Frothingham, The Rise of the Repub-
lic (ist ed., 1872), and J. G. Palfrey, Hist, of New Eng-
land, vol. V (1890), contain the fullest account of Mas-
sachusetts politics in the period when Otis was active.
The portraits of Otis and his wife, painted in 1755 by
Joseph Blackburn, arc owned by Mrs. Charles F. R.US-
sell, and usually exhibited in the Boston Museum of
Fine Arts. The best reproductions are in the Catalogue
entitled Massachusetts Bay Colony Tercentenary Loan
Exhibition of One Hundred Colonial Portraits, pub-
lished by that Museum in 1930. See also W. A. Otis,
A Cental, and Hist. Memoir of the Otis Family in-
America (1924) ; W. H. Whitmpre, A Mass. Civil
List for the Colonial and Provincial Periods (1870).]
S.E.M.
OTT, ISAAC (Nov. 30, i847-Jan. i, 1916),
physician and writer, was born in Northampton
County, Pa., the son of Jacob and Sarah Ann
LaBarre Ott. He studied at Lafayette College,
Easton, Pa., receiving his degree of A.B. in 1867,
and the next year entered as a medical student at
the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia,
where he received the degree of M.D. in 1869.
He began the practice of medicine at Easton,
Pa., and always considered that place his home
although he was frequently called away by the
numerous positions that he held. He was resi-
dent physician of St. Mary's Hospital in Phila-
delphia during the year 1871. After a few years
of practical experience he went abroad for fur-
ther study and attended lectures at the Univer-
sities of Leipzig, Wurzburg, and Berlin. He
was for a time lecturer in physiology at the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania (1878-79) and in 1879
a fellow in the biology department of John Hop-
kins University in Baltimore. In 1894 he be-
came professor of physiology in the Medico-
Chirurgical College in Philadelphia, and during
1895-96 was dean of the College but resigned
that office, preferring to devote more time to his
practice, teaching, research, and writing. In
addition to his practice in Easton and his teach-
ing in Philadelphia, Ott was for many years con-
sulting neurologist to the Pennsylvania Asylum
in Norristown. He resigned from the faculty of
the Medico-Chirurgical College two years be-
Ottassite — Ottendorfer
fore his death but continued to be director of
laboratories. His death, caused by pneumonia,
occurred at his home in Easton.
Ott was not only a successful practitioner and
teacher but he found time for extensive re-
searches. He studied the actions of medicines
on the human body and the effects of certain
drugs, particularly the alkaloids which act as
depressants or stimulants, such as cocain, vera-
tria, gelsemium, lobelina, lycoctonia, and the-
bain. Under the general title of "Contributions
to the Physiology and Pathology of the Nervous
System" he published at different times a series
of twenty neurological papers, among them an
account of the retrograde and lateral move-
ments with hypnotism ; and a report of the effect
of section of the spinal cord on the excretion of
carbonic acid. His later researches were de-
voted to the endocrine secretions and the ther-
mogenetic centers of the brain. He is credited
with the discovery of the hormone of milk se-
cretion. Also he was the first scientist to dem-
onstrate that injury to the corpus striatum causes
a rise in heat production and body temperature.
His papers on his thermogcnctic researches in-
clude: A New Function of the Optic Thalami
(1879), in collaboration with G, B. W. Field;
The Heat-Centre in the Brain (1887) ; The Pour
Cerebral Heat-Centres (1887), in collaboration
with W. S. Carter ; The Thcrmo-Inhibitory Ap-
paratus (1887), with Charles Colmar; and
Thcrmogcnetic Apparatus: Its Relation to Atro-
pine (1887), also with Charles Colmar ; and The
Heat-Centres of the Cortes? CcrcM and Pens
Varolii. His other writings include; Action
of Medicines (1878); Modern Antipyretics
(1891); Textbook of Physiology (1904); and
Internal Secretions (1910). He was a member
of the American Physiological Society; the
American Neurological Society; German Med-
ical Society of New York; Philadelphia Neuro-
logical Society; and the American Society of
Naturalists. He was survived by his widow,
Katherine (Wykof!) Ott, whom he had married
on Oct. 14, 1886.
[Joseph McFarlatid, memoir in the Jour, of Nervous
and Mental Disease, Mar, 1916 ; Who's Who in Amer-
ica, 1914-15 ; J. W. Jordan, Encyc, of Pa, 3iog,f vol. II
(1914) ; Jour. Am, Medic, Asso,t Jan. 1916; H. A.
Kelly and W. L. Bttrrage, Am. Medic. Biogs. (1920) ;
Philct. Evening Bull,. Jan. i, 1916; P**&, Ledger
(Phila.), Jan. a, 1916.) F.E.W.
OTTASSITE [See OXTTACITY, fl. 1756-1777],
OTTENDORFER, ANNABEHR UHL
(Feb. 13, iSis-Apr. i, 1884), philanthropist
and proprietor of the New-Yorker Stoctts-Zei-
twig, was the daughter of Edtmrd Behr, a mer-
chant in Wiirzburg, Germany. She was born in
Ottendorfer
that city. Living- in an age when higher educa-
tion for women was generally frowned upon, she
enjoyed only a common-school training, though
showing an early aptitude for learning. Of
the first years of her life little else is known. In
1836 or 1837, in company with a relative, she
left Germany for the United States, determined
to make her own way in the growing republic of
the West. The first year she spent with a broth-
er in Niagara County, N. Y, In 1838 she made
the acquaintance of a young printer, Jacob Uhl,
whom she married in New York City the same
year. The early years of their married life were
marked by struggle and penury. In 1844 they
purchased, on the instalment plan, the German
job-printing and book-and-newspapor publish-
ing business of Julius Bottichcr in New York.
The New-Yorker Shwts-Kdtuny was printed in
this office. By dint of the hard work and thrifti-
ness of the two owners, the enterprise proved so
successful that they were able the next year to
purchase the Staats-Zchnn$}> then a small week-
ly, Anna Uhl did her full share as compositor,
secretary, and general mannger* The paper de-
veloped first into a tri-weokly, then into a daily
publication. In 1852 Uhl died, and the widow,
displaying remarkable perseverance and execu-
tive ability, not only cared for her six small
children but also continued to attend to the con-
stantly growing business of her publishing con-
cern and of the Stoat $«Zcitiwg in particular.
From 1852 to 1859 she was the sole manager,
declining several flattering offers of purchase.
On July 23, 1839, she was married to her as-
sistant, Oswald Ottendorfer {t]w*"\«
After this marriage, which did not cause Mrs,
Ottendorfer to discontinue her managerial ac-
tivities, the newspaper enjoyed even greater HUC-
cess, financially and professionally, than before.
Daily she would receive in her private offices a
host of visitors, many of whom came to solicit
her philanthropic cooperation* In accordance
with her means Mrs, Ottendorfer had always
engaged in charitable work; in her declining-
years, when she had amassed a considerable for-
tune, she did so extensively. Many of her philan-
thropies, of considerable scope for their day,
were privately bestowed and have never been
published* In 1875 she founded the Isabella
Home for Aged Women in Astoria, Long Isl-
and, named in memory of her deceased daughter*
In 1881, she gave, in memory of her deceased
son, the Hermann Uhl Memorial Fund for Ger-
man«Araerican educational purposes in New
York City and Milwaukee. The next year she
donated a large sum for the women's pavilion
of the German Hospital in New York City, and
106
Ottendorfer
soon after another for the German Dispensary •
on Second Avenue, also in New York City. In-
stitutions in Brooklyn, N, Y., Newark and Eliz-
abeth, N. J., and Meriden, Conn.t also benefited
by her charities. She gave liberally, too, for pro-
viding means for the study of the German lan-
guage in New York and elsewhere. In 1883 she
was decorated by the Empress Augusta of Ger-
many for her charitable endeavors. Further
sums for philanthropic purposes were stipulated
in her last will. Of her six children, all by her
first marriage, a son and three daughters sur-
vived her,
[See: Harper's Rasar, May 3, 1884; H. A. Ratter-
niami, /Inmt Ottcndtn-fcr, Mine dentsch-amcrikanische
Philanthropic (1^85), reprinted from Der Deutsche
Pwnicr, Nov. 1884; A. B, Faust, The German Element
in tlw If. />'. (10-17), vol. H ; Zur Imnncnmg an Anna
Ottendorfer ( 1 884 ) ; Sonntogsblaft dcr New-Yorker
Staats-Zrituny, Apr. 6, 1884.] E. H.Z,
OTTENDORFER, OSWALD (Feb. 26,
1826-1)00. 15, T<)ot)), philanthropist and pro-
prietor of the. New-Yorker Slaals-Zcitung, was
the son of Vincenz and Catharine (Ncumeister)
Ottendorfer. He was born, according1 to one
source, on Feb. 14, but in all likelihood the later
date is correct in conformity to the Gregorian
calendar, while the earlier date is based upon
Old-Style computation. The youngest of six
children, he was born in the town of Zwittau in
Moravia, then a province of Austria-Hungary,
now in Czechoslovakia. His father was a cloth-
maker in fair circumstances. After attending the
school of his native town and the gymnasia of
Leitomischl and Brium, he entered the Univer-
sity of Vienna in 1846 and studied chiefly phi-
losophy. The next year lie emigrated to Prague,
learning the Czech language and taking^ up the
study of law at the university. When in 1848
liberal uprisings occurred sporadically in vari-
ous sections of the German-speaking: coun-
tries, Ottendorfer took an active part, first in
the revolt against the Metternich government
in Vienna, then in the Schleswig-Holstein war
against Denmark, and finally in the revolutions
in Saxony and Baden. From 1849 to 1850 he
continued his university studies in Heidelberg
but, under the constant menace of arrest by the
victorious forces o£ reaction, decided to flee first
to Switzerland, then to the United States. He
embarked for America late in September 1850
and arrived in New York on Oct. 26. After
many bitter struggles he secured employment
in the counting-room of the New- Yorker Staats-
Zeitmg in 1851. The nesct year, when the pro-
prietor of this newspaper, Jacob Uhl, died, Ot-
tendorfer became the assistant of the widow,
Anna (Behr) Uhl (see Ottendorfer, Anna Behr
Otterbein
Uhl), in its management. In 1858. he was made
editor ; the following year, on July 23, he mar-
ried Mrs. Uhl.
Under his management the Staats-Zeitung
flourished, developing from an insignificant for-
eign-language newspaper into an influential,
widely read metropolitan organ. A reform Dem-
ocrat, Ottendorfer was active in anti-Tammany
movements in New York and through his edi-
torial and other public utterances became a force
even in national politics. He served as alder-
man and supervisor in New York City from
1872 to 1874 and was a candidate for mayor in
1874. He gave $300,000 for the erection and
endowment of an educational institution in his
native town (Die Ottendorfer 'sche Freie Volks-
Bibliothck) and founded a home for aged and
indigent men on Long Island. The Ottendorfer
Branch of the New York Public Library in New
York was also established by him. He was uni-
versally respected as a man of substantial char-
acter, stanch liberalism, and great social-mind-
edness. The Ottendorfer Memorial Fellowship
awarded annually to an American student of the
German language and literature for study abroad
was created in his memory.
[See Who's Who in America, 1899-1900 ; Zur Erin-
wrung an Oswald Ottendorfer (1900), published by the
Staats-Zeitung ; and SonntagsUatt der New-Yorker
Staats-Zcitung, Dec. 16, 1900.] E.H.Z.
OTTERBEIN, PHILIP WILLIAM (June
3, i726-Nov, 17, 1813), German Reformed cler-
gyman, founder of the Church of the United
Brethren in Christ, was born at Dillenburg-, in
what is now the Prussian administrative district
of Wiesbaden, the fourth of the ten children of
Johann Daniel and Wilhelmina Henrietta (Hoer-
len) Otterbein, and the elder of a pair of twins.
His father, grandfather, and five brothers were
ministers ; his one sister to live to maturity be-
came a minister's wife. He was educated at the
Reformed seminary at Herborn, where the Cal-
vinistic theological atmosphere was mollified
somewhat by pietistic strains in one or two of
the professors. On June 13, *749, he was or-
dained as vicar of Ockersdorf in succession to
his brother. His evangelical zeal and strictness
were disliked by his ecclesiastical superiors, so
that when Michael Schlatter [g.u] came to Her-
born to recruit missionaries for work in Penn-
sylvania, Otterbein was encouraged to volunteer.
He did, and arrived at New York in Schlatter's
company July 28, 1752. Till his death sixty-one
years later he was the active pastor of various
German Reformed congregations : at Lancaster,
Pa 1752-58; Tulpehocken, 1758-60; Frederick,
Md, 1760-65; York, Pa., 1765-74; and of the
Otterbein
Second Evangelical Reformed Church, Balti-
more, 1774-1813. On Apr. 19, 1762, he married
Susan Le Roy of Lancaster, whose sister a few
years later married John William Henclel [#.?'.].
His wife's death Apr. 22, 1768, was a grievous
affliction to him, and he never remarried. In
1770-71 he made a long-deferred visit to his rela-
tives in Germany. To the end of his life he was
a member in good standing1 of the German Re-
formed Coetus of Pennsylvania and was regard-
ed in fact as one of its noblest supports. In turn
lie seems to have prized his relation to the Coetus
and always considered himself a minister of the
Reformed Church. He was, nevertheless, the
instigator of a non-sectarian religious movement,
to which, shortly before his death, he gave the
status of an independent denomination.
At Lancaster, which was a frontier community
when he came to it, Otterbein underwent a peri-
od of great emotional stress, accompanied by a
clarifying and deepening of his religious convic-
tions such as is usually designated by the term
"conversion." Thereafter he devoted himself with
heroic energy to religious work and tried par-
ticularly to minister to the spiritual needs of the
unchurched Germans who wore scattered every-
where through the backwoods of Pennsylvania
and Maryland. At Whitsuntide one year, prob-
ably 1768, he had his famous meeting with Mar-
tin Boehm [#.?'.] at Isaac Long's farm some six
miles northeast of Lancaster, and after that the
two men worked together cordially. By 1772 he
was organizing classes on the Wcslcyan model
and appointing class leaders. On May 4, 1774,
the day he began his duties in Baltimore, he met
Francis Asbury [#.2'."], who was ever after his
friend and admirer. Otterbein took part in As-
bury's consecration Dec. 27, 1784, to the office of
superintendent of the Methodists in America. In
1789, at a meeting at Otterbein's parsonage, Ot-
terbein, Boehm, and six lay evangelists formed
an organization of a sort and adopted a confes-
sion of faith, which was evidently the work of
Otterbein himself. During all these years he was
making frequent trips through Maryland and
Pennsylvania and even into Virginia. In 1800
the first annual conference of the United Brethren
was held near Frederick, Md. Otterbein was seri-
ously ill in 1805 and thereafter traveled never
more than a few miles from Baltimore, and the
movement of which he had been the leader began
to fall into the hands of younger men. Many of
them by this time were administering the sacra-
ments and conducting themselves in general as
if they were ordained ministers. Seven weeks
before his death Otterbein was persuaded to or-
dain three of them, Christian Newcomer, Joseph
Otto
Hoffman, and Frederick S chaffer. Why he had
declined for so many years to take this step, and
what the condition of his mind was when finally
he did take it, were for two generations the sub-
ject of violent controversy, and to these ques-
tions no decisive answer can be given. By
conferring ordination upon them, Otterbein es-
tablished the United Brethren as, according to
Protestant views, a branch of the universal
church.
He was a man of lofty character, and in per-
sonal culture a strange contrast to his rude as-
sociates, all of whom were products of their
frontier environment He left almost no letters
or papers, and his only known publication is Die
hcilbrinyctui? Mi'njfchwmlutty nnd der hcnitche
Sicy Jcstt Christi (Genmmtown, Pa., 1763), He
made a temperate use of tobacco and alcohol, and
raised money to buy bells for his church by or-
ganizing a lottery, but he opposed tlus use of
organs, patronage of the theatre, and member-
ship in the Masonic order,
C Henry Harbaugli, The Fathers of the Gcnnan Rc~
formed Chntrh, vol. II (Lancaster, Pa., 1857) ; A, W.
Drury, The Life of A*<T. /VitVty JFw, Otterbem (Day-
ton, Ohio, 1884), ruv, und incorp, in IUH Hist, of the
Church of the United ttwthren in (hnst (Dayton,
KP4); W. J. Hinkc, "Philip Wm, OtterMn ami the
Kt» formed Church,*' I'wjtbyt. ami AV/0r tned AVr,, July
i ooi ; Minutes ami Letters , , , o/ the (Jermtw- Reformed
Conffrcytilioni? in /*<*,, /^-pj ( 1903). 1 Qt n, Q,
OTTO, BODO (i7ii-Junc TJI, 1787), one of
the more influential German settlers of Pennsyl-
vania during the first half of the eighteenth cen-
tury, senior surgeon of the Continental Army,
was born in Hanover, Germany. His father was
Christopher Otto, controller of the district of
Schartxfels, and his mother Maria Magdalena
Nienecken. He was named for his baptismal
sponsor. Privy Councilor Baron Bodo van Gberg.
lie received an excellent scholastic education
with a view to entering the profession of medi-
cine, served an apprenticeship with physicians
and surgeons in Harzburg, Hildesheim, and
Hamburg, was intern for a time at the Lazaretto
at Hamburg, and served as surgeon in the Duke
of Celle's Dragoons, In 1736 he was married to
Elizabeth Sanchen and settled in Luneburg where
he was accepted as a member of the "College of
Surgeons" and became surgeon to the prisoners
and invalids in the fortress of Kalkberg. After
the death of his first wife he was married in 1742
to Catharina Dorothea Dahncken. Three sons
by this marriage became surgeons and later as-
sisted their father in hospital service during the
American Revolution. In 1749 he was appointed
chief surgeon for the district of Schartzfels. This
position he held until 1755, when, with his fam-
ily, he emigrated to America on the Neptwe
108
Otto
from Rotterdam. He opened an office In Phila-
delphia late in 1755, tout in 1760 he removed to
New T^™°y» where his practice is said to have
extended over Gloucester, Salem, and Cumber-
land counties. After the death of his second wife
he returned in 1766 to Philadelphia, and later
in the same year married Maria Margaretha
Paris (J. 1>. Linn, Record of Pennsylvania Mar-
riages Prior to 181Q, II, 1880, p. 339), who sur-
vived him.
Otto was a stanch Lutheran and through the
influence of; the Patriarch Henry Mclchior
Muhlenherg1, a lifelong friend, removed to Read-
ing1, Pa., in 1773. His influence amongst his
countrymen of German descent was great and
he became a leader in the patriot cause, serving
upon the Berks County Committee of Safety and
as delegate to the Pennsylvania Provincial Con-
gress of 1/76. Later in 1776 he was appointed
senior surgeon of the Middle Division of the
Continental hospitals and labored in New Jersey
with the wounded from the battle oE Long Island.
On Feb. 17, 1777, Congress ordered him to Tren-
ton to establish a military hospital for the treat-
ment of smallpox. He remained until September
1777 when he was assigned to a hospital in Beth-
lehem, Pa. In the spring of 1778 he was^ placed
in charge of the hospitals at Yellow Springs
where many of the sick from the camp at Valley
Forge were treated Upon the reorganization of
the medical and hospital departments by Con-
gress in i /Bo, Otto was one of the fifteen phy-
sicians selected for the hospital department and
was among the last to leave the service Feb. i,
1782, At the time of his retirement from the
army Dr. John Cochran, the director-general,
wrote a testimonial commenting upon Otto's hu-
manity and the success of his medical practice.
After the war he reopened his Philadelphia of-
fice but soon returned to Reading He had been
elected a member of the American Philosophical
Society in 1769 and had for many years been an
active member of the Pennsylvania German So-
ciety. He died in 1787 and is buried in the
churchyard of Trinity Lutheran Church of Read-
ing1, where a shaft has been erected to his
memory by the D.A.R. A sword and some of his
surgical instruments are in the collection of the
Historical Society of Berks County.
[Most of the information about Bodo Otto is con-
tained in imprinted materials: in the archives of the
Pa. German Soc., the Hist. Soc. of Berks County, the
Hist Soc. of Pa., the records of the Adj.-Gen, m Wash-
ington, and in documents in the possession of a de-
scendant, James E. Gibson of Phila.J J»B.N.
OTTO, JOHN CONRAD (Mar. 15, I774~
June 26, 1844), physician, was born near Wood-
bury, N. J., the son of Dr. Bodo and Catherina
Otto
(Schweighauser) Otto and the grandson of Bodo
Otto [q.v."]. His mother was the daughter of a
Swiss immigrant. Young Otto was sent to the
College of New Jersey (later Princeton) and
graduated in 1792 at the age of eighteen. He
entered the office of Benjamin Rush the next
spring and became Rush's favorite pupil and
close friend until the latter's death. In 1796 he
was graduated from the University of Pennsyl-
vania; liis graduation thesis was a study on
epilepsy. He returned to the subject in later
life when in 1828 he thought he had found a
successful cure for the disease ("Case of Epilepsy,
Successfully Treated/' North American Medical
and Surgical Journal, July 1828). Settling as a
practitioner in Philadelphia, he quickly had op-
portunity to study yellow fever, which appeared
in epidemic proportions in 1797, *79&, 1799>
1802, 1803 and 1805. In the second of these epi-
demics, Otto was himself attacked. In the same
year, 1798, he was elected a physician to the
Philadelphia Dispensary, a position that he held
for five years. He was also for many years phy-
sician both to the Orphan Asylum and the
Magdalen Asylum.
Otto's most important contribution to medical
science was his original description of hemophilia
in the Medical Repository (vol. VI, 1803, p. 3)
under the title "An Account of an Hemorrhagic
Disposition Existing in certain Families." Al-
though isolated and incomplete accounts of this
hereditary disease can be found in the literature
since the time of the Talmud, Otto's may fairly
be considered the first adequate description, so
that the attention of the medical world was fixed
upon it as a recognized clinical entity. He noted
the essential feature of transmission in one fam-
ily (Smith-Sheppard) over a period of at least
seventy or eighty years, also "that the males only
are subject," and "although the females are ex-
empt, they are still capable of transmitting it to
their male children." Two years later Otto pub-
lished another paper on the same subject (Phila-
delphia Medical Museum, vol. I, 1805, no. 3),
giving the history of a Maryland family, and in
1808 his original paper was reprinted in the Lon-
don Medical and Physical Journal (July 1808).
Soon confirmed by other American observers,
the work was recognized and expanded in Ger-
many by Nasse and Schonlein. It was one of
the most notable contributions made by an Amer-
ican to medical science up to that time.
When Benjamin Rush died in 1813, Otto was
chosen to succeed him as a physician to the Penn-
sylvania Hospital and served for twenty-two
years. On his resignation in 1834 a special reso-
lution acknowledged his "long, faithful and use-
IO9
Otto
M" labors, and it is probable that Otto's own
generation attached more importance to his bed-
side labors and lectures than it did to his de-
scription of hemophilia. To meet the expected
cholera epidemic in 1832 a committee of twelve
leading" physicians was appointed to take meas-
ures necessary to cope with the situation. Otto
was unanimously selected chairman of the body.
This was the western extension of the first great
modern cholera epidemic. In Philadelphia alone
during July and August 1832 there were 2,240
cases with 750 deaths. After the epidemic, the
city of Philadelphia presented a handsome silver
pitcher to Otto in recognition of his services.
Elected a member of the College of Physicians
in March 1819, he held various offices in that
body, being censor for many years and vice-
president for the last four years of his life. Some
at least of his papers were read before that body,
including an article on "Congenital Incontinence
of Urine," which though done in 1830, fourteen
years before his death, seems to be the last medi-
cal article that he wrote. He died in his seventy-
first year, of "extensive organic disease of the
heart/' though he had for years been a sufferer
from frequent attacks of severe "general gout."
He was interred in the newly opened Woodlands
cemetery in West Philadelphia, In 1802 he had
married Eliza Tod. They had nine children, one
of whom was William Tod Otto
[Isaac Parrish, memoir in Summary of the Trans.
Coll. of Physicians of Phila,, vol I (1846) ; Wm, Osier,
"Haemophilia," in Wm. Pepper's System of Practical
Medicine, vol. Ill (1885) ; E. B. Krumbhaar, "John
Conrad Otto and the Recognition of Hemophilia," Bull.
Johns Hopkins Hospital, Jan, 1930; Pub. Ledger
(Phila.)j June 20, 1844 ; information as to certain facts
from Otto Tod Mallery, Philadelphia, Pa,] E. B.K.
OTTO, WILLIAM TOD (Jan. 19, i8i6-Nov.
7, 1905), jurist, assistant secretary of the in-
terior, United States Supreme Court reporter,
was born in Philadelphia, Pa,, the son of Dr.
John Conrad Otto [gw.] and Eliza Tod. He
entered the University of Pennsylvania in 1829,
receiving his degree of A.B. in 1833, After com-
pleting his study of law in the office of Joseph
R. Ingersoll he moved to Brownstown, Ind., in
the fall of 1836. In 1844 he was elected presi-
dent judge of the second judicial circuit He
was the last judge to be elected by the legislature
and served until 1852, when he was defeated by
George A. Bicknell, Democrat. For five years,
1847-52, he was professor of law at Indiana Uni-
versity. At thirty-six, he had won the reputa-
tion of being one of the ablest presiding circuit
judges in the state. On the bench he was auto-
cratic and austere, brooking no familiarity, but
outside of official life he displayed a sense of
Ouconnastote — Ouray
humor and a pleasing personality. At the ex-
piration of his term in 1853, he moved to New
Albany and engaged in private practice. Ilis
services were at once in demand for eases pend-
ing1 in the Indiana Supreme Court. In 1855 he
was employed to test the constitutionality of the
state liquor law as counsel for the appellant in
Bccbe vs. the State (6 Ind,, 501). In the de-
cision a substantial part of the law was adjudged
unconstitutional.
In 1858 Otto was defeated as Republican can-
didate for the state attorney-generalship. In
1860 he was one of the Indiana delegates to the
Republican National Convention. From the first
he supported Lincoln and in January 1863 Lin-
coln appointed him assistant secretary of the
interior. In this position he took an active in-
terest in Indian affairs and recommended legis-
lation for Indian betterment. His ability gained
him the respect of Orvillc IL Browning1 and
Hugh McCulloch, who urged Grant to appoint
him arbitrator for the United States under the
convention with Spain for the adjudication of
claims for damages sustained by American citi-
zens in Cuba, He resigned as assistant secretary
of the interior in 1871 to accept this position and
served until 1875 when he was appointed reporter
of the United States Supreme ("curt. Mean-
while he continued with his law practice, and in
January 1873 he argued before the United States
Supreme Court on the Judiciary Act of Feb. 5,
1867, maintaining that the Supreme Court, un-
der this act, had no more power than under the
Act of 1789 even though the express limitation
of powers had been omitted The decision, given
two years later, upheld Otto's arguments (87
U. 5\, 590). In 1883 Otto resigned as Supreme
Court Reporter, having completed seventeen vol-
umes (91-107 U. S.) of reports. In 1885 he was
appointed one of the United States Representa-
tives to the International Postal Congress at
Lisbon* Otto never married, but a tombstone
erected by him in the cemetery at Brownstown
marks the grave o£ a woman who was to have
become his wife. After his retirement from pub-
lic life he continued to practise law. He died in
Philadelphia in his ninetieth year.
[Sources include : L. C, Baird, Baird's Hist, of Clwk
County, Ind. (1909) ; a short autobiographical sketch
written by Otto for William H. English which is in
the English Collection at the Univ. of Chicago ; Univ.
of jp«. Bioff, Cat. of the Matriculates of the Coll . , «
1740-1803 (1894); Evening Bull (Phlla,), Nov. 9,
J.L.N.
OUCONNASTOTE [See OCONOSTOTA, d,
1785].
OURAY (c. i833~Aug. 24, 1880), a head chief
of the Uncompahgre Utes, was born probably
110
Ouray
at Taos, N. Mex. The meaning of his name is
uncertain; although to a treaty made in 1863 he
signed himself "U-niyt the Arrow," various in-
terpretations have been offered. The date (1820)
given for his birth by Thomas, in the Handbook
of American Indians, is evidently an error, as
well as the statement that he was born in Colo-
rado. Frank Hall (History of the State of Colo-
rado, vol. II, 1890) says that his father was a
Tabeguache (Uneompahgre) Ute and his mother
a Jiearilla Apache and that his boyhood was spent
among Mexican rancheros of the better class,
from whom he learned to speak Spanish correct-
ly. At eighteen he joined his father's band in
southwestern Colorado, and, about 1860, on his
father's death, became its chief. In 1862 he was
appointed an interpreter, at $500 a year, at the
Los Piuos Agency in southern Colorado, and in
the same year visited Washington in behalf of
his tribe. At Conejos, the agency headquarters,
he signed the treaty of Oct. 7, 1863, when he
was designated by the government as "head-
chief of the Western Utes." To Christopher
Carson [V/.r'.l, who, according to General Sher-
juan, "'exercised a powerful influence over him"
(Ellis, past, p« 248), he became closely attached
while Carson was in command at Fort Garland
in 1867, and in the summer of that year he aided
Carson in suppressing the uprising of a Ute sub-
chief, Kaniatse. In February 1868, with a dele-
gation of Utcs, he again visited Washington,
where, with Carson and others, he negotiated
the treaty of Mar. 2, In 1872 he strongly resisted
the efforts of the government to compel his tribe
to relinquish certain lands granted them in per-
petuity, but in the following year accepted a com-
promise. In the same year the government grant-
ed him an annuity of $1,000 which continued un-
til his death, and also built for him a comfortable
dwelling. Because of his remoteness from the
scene he was unable to prevent the Meeker mas-
sacre at the White River Agency, in September
1879 * he was, however, able to check the spread
of the outbreak and to restore peace. He died at
Ms home on the Los Plnos reservation,
Like most of the Utes, Ouray was short and
stout His head was strikingly large, with regu-
lar features that bore an expression of good will
He spoke a broken English readily, and he was
fond of conversation, especially with cultivated
men. His manners were courtly and gentle.
From his youth he advocated friendliness toward
the whites, and, though stiffly defending the in-
terests of his people, always discouraged vio-
lence. In his personal life he was something1 of
a Puritan; he avoided obscene and profane lan-
guage, never used tobacco, and abhorred whiskey,
Outacity
though occasionally in company he drank a little
wine. ^From an early day he was inclined to
Christianity, and two years before his death he
joined the Methodist Church. It has been said
of him that he was the only outstanding per-
sonality developed among- the Ute people. His
wife Chipeta, whom he married in 1859 and who
endeared herself to the whites by many acts of
kindness, survived him for more than thirty years.
[Cyrus Thomas, in F. W. Hodge, Handbook of Am
Indians, pt. II (1910) ; J. H. Baker, Hist, of Colo'
vol. I (1927); Thos. Sttirgis, The Ute War of 1879
(pamphlet, 1879) ; H. H. Bancroft, Hist, of Ncv.t Colo
?£» Wyo. (1890) ; Sidney Jocknick, Early Days on the
Western Slope of Colo. (1913) ; E, L. Sabm, Kit Carson
J)ays (1914); E. S. Ellis, The Life of Kit Carson
oo 9\l Weekly Gasctte (Colo. Springs), Sept. n,
lotto ; Iwcky Mountain News (Denver), Aug. 24, 1880.]
WJ.G.
OUTACITY (fl. I75<$~i777), Cherokee chief,
lived in the Overfull town of Tamali on the Little
Tennessee River in what is now Monroe Coun-
ty, Tenn. He was spoken of by several different
names — Ostenaco, Austenaco, or Ustenacah,
Judcl's Friend or Judge Friend, and Mankiller—
and that by which he was most commonly known,
probably only a title of rank, was spelled vari-
ously, as Outacity, Ottassite, and Otacite. He
is often identified with the Wrosetasatow who
in 1721 signed a treaty with Gov. Francis Nichol-
son. In 1757 he led a band of warriors down the
Valley of Virginia to join Col. George Wash-
ington at Fort Loudoun near Winchester, but in
the subsequent uprising led by Oconostota [g.#.]
he took an active part and was present at the
surrender of Fort Loudoun in the Cherokee coun-
try in 1760. Although a lesser chief among the
Cherokee, he was thrust forward by the influ-
ence of British and American authority. His
chief claim to distinction was due to a visit to
England in 1762 under the guidance of Henry
Timberlake [#.z>.], whose hope of advancement
seemed to be in advertising an intimacy with
Outacity as proof of influence over the Indians.
On the night before he sailed for Plymouth,
Outacity made a farewell speech with a moving
eloquence that was remembered by Thomas Jef-
ferson half a century later. After a short and
easy voyage — though he was sick all the way —
he arrived in London on June 18. During this
visit he and his two companions bore themselves
with graceful dignity and were quite the sensa-
tion of the town. They had an audience of an
hour and a half with King George, were painted
by Joshua Reynolds, and kept Oliver Goldsmith
waiting three hours for a visit while, as he com-
plained, Outacity dressed and prinked himself
with a savage vanity as great as any to be found
in civilization. The Royal Magazine for July
III
Outcault
1762 carried a full-page engraving of a portrait
of Outacity and an article describing the little
party. In August they sailed for home and
Outacity 's brief hour of importance was at an end.
His later history continued to be that of a
minor leader. His name was signed to various
treaties of the period, and there is record of Brit-
ish attempts to strengthen his position in the
tribe in the belief that his loyalty might he more
dependable than that of some other Indian lead-
ers. Like the rest of his tribe he fought for
Great Britain in the Revolution, and he probably
died during that struggle or in the period im-
mediately afterward.
UJcitt. Henry Timbrrlake's Memoirs (1927), ed. by
S. C. Williams ; Lib. of Coiiff. transcripts from British
Public Record Office, esp. COB: 72, pp. 436-371 The
Colonial Records of M 6'., vols. VII, VIII, X (1890) ;
The State Records of N. C,f vols, XI, XVII (1895-99) ;
Alexander Hewat, An Hist, Account of , , . S. C. ( 1779)*
I, 297-98, II, 538 ; London Ma&astnc, June, July, Aug.,
Sept. 176-2, material indexed under Cherokee; Annual
Register . . . 1762 (1763), j). 92 ; P. L. Ford, The Writ-
ings of Thomas Jefferson, vol. IX (1808) ; S, M. Hamil-
ton, Letters to Washington, vols, I, H (1898-99) ; W.
C. Ford, The Writings of George Washington, vol. I
(i88t)); "The Official Records of Robert Dinwiddie,"
Va. Atof. Colls., n.s. IV (1884) ; J. W. M. Gibbs, The
Works of Oliver Goldsmith, V (1886), 202,]
K.E.C
OUTCAULT, RICHARD FELTON (Jan.
14, i863-Scpt 25, 1928), comic artist, was born
in Lancaster, Ohio, the son of J. P. and Cathe-
rine (Davis) Outcault, He was educated at
McMicken College (later part of the University
of Cincinnati), and went to Paris for further
training" in art, returning with his status assured
by a beret and a velveteen painting" jacket. On
Christmas Day, 1890, he was married to Mary
Jane Martin, in Lancaster, Ohio, With his wife
he removed to New York City, where his comic
talents were disciplined and persecuted by the
minutiae and drawing-to-scale required of him
as draftsman on the Electrical World and the
Street Railway Journal. He found time, how-
ever, to do some comic pictures for Truth) a
weekly journal with a none too respectable repu-
tation, and to submit other drawings to Life and
Judge.
Meanwhile the newspapers were experiment-
ing with color presses, and after many ludicrous
failures a process was developed by the New
York World which seemed satisfactory. Mor-
rill Goddard, the Sunday editor, carried the day
for comics rather than fashions as the feature
of the new colored supplement, and in casting-
about for comic talent was referred to Outcault,
since the men whose reputations were already
established were unavailable because of contracts
with comic periodicals. Accordingly, on Sun-
day, Nov. 18, 1894, Outcault inaugurated the
Outerbridge
"funny paper," His first drawing" — with sig-
nificance probably undreamed of — was entitled
"The Origin of a New Species." Shortly after-
ward he produced u I Togun's Alloy" ami its hero,
the ""Yellow Kiel," which boosted to sensational
heights the already notable success of the comic
supplement Meanwhile the Arcw York Journal
had added a colored page to its regular Sunday
edition, and in 1896, with the lure of a tremendous
salary, enticed Outcault away from the fTorld.
George Luks, however, was employed to take his
place, and with Luks doing yellow kids for the
World and Outcault continuing the original in
the Journal a sensational rivalry developed in
Park Row. While this struggle was in process
the other papers designated the contenders as
" Yellow Kid journals/' later shortened to "yel-
low journals/1 a term destined to have a career
of its own in journalism.
Outcault's next connection was with the New
York Herald, in which his "Pure Li'l Mose"
appeared in tj)0i and, in icjotf, the renowned
"Buster Brown." Buster ami his dog Tige
eclipsed all their inventor's earlier successes and
brought him a fortune and countless offers of
employment cm foreign newspapers. Buster be-
came a fad that spread all over the country and
his name was appropriated for cigars, suits, gar-
ters, belts, sweaters, and even children. Outcault
published several books on Buster Brown and
Tige. He returned to the Journal in 1905, but
he retired from active work about ten years be-
fore his death. He was seriously interested in
the theater, delighted in taking part in amateur
performances, and was co-author of the dramatic
version of Buster Brown. He died at his home
in Flushing, Long Island, after an illness of
about ten weeks.
Outcault was the originator of the bad boy
type of humor which dominated the comic pro-
ductions of the country for the first decade of the
twentieth century, The fun of the hoodlum is
perennial, but he interpreted it with what he
himself called a "kind of epigrammatical humor
of a strain that I look on peculiarly as my own/"
[R, L. McCardell, "Opper, Outcault and Company:
the Comic Supplement and the Men who Make It,"
Everybody's Mctg., June 1905 ; WhQ*$ Who in Am@ncaf
Ne
; obituaries t in the New York papers for Sept.
26, 1938, and editorials in the papers for the following
day ; W. G, Bleyer, Main Currents in th® Hist, of Am*
Journalism (19^7), PP» 339-40,]
OUTERBRIDGE, ALEXANDER EWING
(July 31, iSscnJan. 15, 1928), metallurgist, was
born in Philadelphia, the son of Alexander Ewing
and Laura C, (Harvey) Outerbridge, and a
member of a family prominent in the shipping
business in New York, Newfoundland, and the
112
Outerbrldge
Bermudas. He was educated at the Episcopal
Academy, Philadelphia, and subsequently re-
ceived private instruction in chemistry and
mathematics. In 1867 he became assistant to
Henry Morton [#.*>.], then secretary of the
Franklin Institute, and when Morton, in the
absence of Dr. John F. Frazer, became acting
professor of chemistry and physics at the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania, Outcrbridge aided him
in his teaching1. He also taught English at the
Episcopal Academy.
lie was appointed in 1868 assistant in the as-
say department of the United States Mint in
Philadelphia. During his ten years in this post
he made several notable contributions to metal-
lurgy. For eight months in 1873, at the Mint
and in laboratories at Stevens Institute, Hoboken,
and the University of Pennsylvania, he experi-
mented with the spectrum analysis of gold, silver,
and other metals, reporting his results in the
Annual Report of the Director of the Mint
(1874). In 1876 he developed a method of ob-
taining thin films of gold or other metals for
study under the microscope with transmitted as
well as reflected light. He deposited the gold
electrically on copper foil, then dissolved the cop-
per, leaving the thin gold film to be mounted on
a glass slide. Such films were obtained i/io,-
000,000 of an inch in thickness. Later ^series of
experiments dealt with the impurities in silver.
While at the Mint he also designed apparatus to
collect metallic vapors escaping from the cruci-
bles when precious metals were melted in the
furnaces.
In 1878 he declined appointment as chief as-
sayer at the United States Mint in Helena, Mont.,
but the next year accepted a transfer to the Mint
at New Orleans where an assay office was to be
reestablished. After organizing the office, he re-
turned in 1880 to the Philadelphia Mint, but
shortly resigned to become metallurgist for A.
Whitney & Son, Philadelphia, manufacturers of
car wheels. In 1888 he resigned this position
and became metallurgist for William Sellers &
Company, Philadelphia, in which connection he
continued until his death. During the year 1886
he invented a process for carbonizing delicate
plant leaves, lace, and other organic substances
without rendering them brittle. These carbon-
ized materials or patterns were utilized in mould-
ing iron, steel, bronze or other metals to obtain
perfect replicas of such delicate objects to use as
dies. For this contribution he received the John
Scott Medal from the City of Philadelphia
(1888). In a paper read before the American
Institute of Mining Engineers, Feb, 20, 1896
(Transactions, vol. XXVI, 1897), he made pub-
I
Overman
lie his two years' study on the "mobility of mole-
cules" of solid cast-iron ; the Franklin Institute
appointed a committee to investigate the subject,
publishing the report in its Journal^ July 1898.
The year previous, 1897, he had again received
the John Scott Medal for these studies. From
them it later became evident that iron castings
could be made to grow or change in cubical di-
mensions while in the solid state without de-
stroying their metallic properties or distorting
their shapes (Mobility of Molecules of Cast-iron,
1904). For this discovery Outerbridge was
awarded in 1904 the Elliott Cresson Gold Medal
by the Franklin Institute. While investigating
the process of hardening tool steel, he perfected
a form of permanent color screen for determin-
ing the precise temperature of a bath of molten
metal.
Outerbridge was an active member of the
Franklin Institute, serving on its committee of
science and arts for fourteen years and on its
board of managers for five ; was made professor
of metallurgy in 1901 and president of the min-
ing and metallurgical section in 1908. He was
an extensive contributor to newspapers and tech-
nical publications. Having great personal charm,
he made friends easily. He played on the Amer-
ican cricket team in a number of international
matches at a time when that gentlemen's game
appealed strongly to Philadelphians. In politics
he was an adherent of the Republican party ; in
religion, a member of the Episcopal Church. He
married in 1880 Mary Ely Whitney of Philadel-
phia, who died the following- year after the birth
of a son. On Jan. 29, 1905, he married Margaret
Hall Dunn, who, with his son, survived him.
Uour. Franklin lnst.t Apr. 1928 ; J. M. and Jacques
Cattail, Am. Men of Science (4th ed., 1927) ; Who s
Who in Engineering, 1925 ; Who's Who in America,
1926-27; Pub. Ledger (Phila), Jan, 16, 1928.]
F.L.G.
OVERMAN, FREDERICK (c. iSos-Jan. 7,
1852), metallurgist, was born in Elberfeld, Ger-
many, and baptized Johann Friedrich in the re-
formed church at Barmen on Mar. 3, 1805. His
parents, Johann Caspar Overmann and Maria
Catherina (Ruhl), who were people of humble
circumstances, could afford to give him only an
elementary education. They then apprenticed
him to a merchant, but he found this occupation
not to his liking and was apprenticed to a cabi-
net maker. While becoming proficient ^ in his
trade, he utilized every opportunity to gain gen-
eral knowledge. At the completion of his ap-
prenticeship he started on his wander jahre and,
making his way to Berlin, there gained admission
to the Royal Polytechnic Institute. Benth, its
13
Overman
director, soon discovered the youth's native abil-
ity and encouraged him in every way, introduc-
ing him to Alexander von Humboldt and to vari-
ous architects and artists who were prominent
in Berlin at the time. Except for his Ubcr die
frischcn dcs rohcisens, which was published at
Briinn in 1838, no record now remains of the
successive steps by which he rose to be, at an
early age, an authority in Europe on the metal-
lurgy of iron, but according to his biographer
(Roebling, post) he traveled all over Europe in-
troducing his patented improvements in the
puddling of iron and in manufacturing processes.
Pie superintended the erection of a number of
large plants, and was for a time in charge of
engineering works at the royal mines at Chem-
nitz, Saxony, presumably an establishment where
the pumps and other iron equipment were con-
structed. He also made a study of the mineral
and industrial resources of Austria, collecting
data for the use of Prince Metternich in negoti-
ating a new commercial treaty with Great
Britain. In the meantime, on May 9, 1829, in
the church in which he was christened, he mar-
ried Wilhelmina Friederike Helena Petzholtz.
In 1842, apparently dissatisfied with political
and social conditions in Europe, he came to the
United States, where he anglicized his name and
passed the rest of his life. It is probable that he
went very soon to Pennsylvania, the seat of near-
ly one-third of the whole iron industry of the
United States, which owed most of its growth
to German technologists. A scientist rather than
a business man, he seems to have had a checkered
career of success and failure. Turning to the
writing of technological works in English, he
published in 1850 The Manufacture of Iron, a
volume of some five hundred pages, followed by
The Manufacture of Steel (1851), Practical
Mineralogy, Assaying, and Mining (1851), The
Moulders and Founder's Pocket Guide (1851),
and Mechanics for the Millwright, Machinist^
Engineer, Civil Engineer, Architect, and Student
(1851). He had nearly completed A Treatise
on Metallurgy (1852), 700 pages, dealing with
mining as well as the metallurgy of the common
metals, when he was accidentally killed by in-
haling arsene in his Philadelphia laboratory. The
work appeared shortly after his death, with a
final chapter added by the publishers and a
preface containing a biographical sketch of the
author. If Overman had lived to a greater age
he probably would have been a leading figure in
the development of metallurgy in the United
States, but he died almost a decade before the
discoveries on the Comstock lode gave a great
impetus to non-ferrous metallurgy, and two dec-
Overman
acles before the introduction of the Bessemer
process into America similarly stimulated the
metallurgy of iron. His Treatise on Metallurgy
went through six editions. It exhibits a sur-
prisingly sound understanding of the nature of
alloys, and all his works deserve more recognition
than has been accorded them for their influence
on the development of mineral technology in
America.
[Overman's own writings ; preface by Jolm A. Roe-
bhiitf \q,v.\ to Overman's Treatise* on A/cfutfim/v
(iBsiO; North American and ?/, S, Gasrtt? (1'hilu.f,
Jan. o» iHs-j; information, meUuHnpr thtit from dmtvh
records at Barmen, from the Vcrein deiitseher Kisen-
hiittenlcute.] ^ ^ ^
OVERMAN, LEE SLATER (Jan. 3, 1854-
Dec- 12, 1930), senator from North Carolina,
was horn in Salisbury, Kowan County, N, C,
the son of William ami Mary (Slater) Overman.
His father belonged to a family lung established
in eastern North Carolina but in 1835 removed
to Kowan County and there became a successful
merchant and manufacturer. After a preparatory
training- in private selux)ls the boy entered Trin-
ity College (now Duke University) and grad-
uated in 1874. He then taught in Winston-Salem,
N. C., but his ambition turned to law and poli-
tics, lie took an active part in the gubernatorial
campaign of 1876 that resulted in the election of
Zebulon Baird Vance [qw.'i became Vance's
private secretary, and, when Vance became
United States senator in 1879, was for a time sec-
retary to Vance's successor, Thomas J. Jarvis.
In 1878 he was admitted to the bar and on Oct.
31 of that year was married to Mary P, Merri-
mon, the eldest daughter of Augustus S. Merri-
mon [q.v.]. He began the practice of law in
Salisbury in 1880. In 1881 he campaigned in the
interest of a prohibition amendment to the state
constitution, although Salisbury was the strong-
hold of the liquor interests. In 1883, ^85, 1887,
1893, anc^ *899 he was a member of the state
House of Representatives from Rowan County
and was elected speaker in 1893, As a legislator
he manifested courage and became a recognized
leader of the Democratic party. He also favored
leasing the control of state-owned railroads to
railway corporations and the establishment of a
corporation commission* In 1895 he was the
choice of the Democratic caucus of the legisla-
ture for the United States Senate, but he was
defeated by Jeter C. Pritchard, who had the sup-
port of the Republicans and Populists. In 1903
after a long contest he was elected over Pritchard.
His record as a senator was that of a liberal
conservative. He had deep reverence for Amer-
ican constitutional government as established
and came to be regarded one of the best con-
114
Overton
stitutional lawyers in the Senate. On the other
hand his interest in changing national problems
led him to support many measures in the interest
of various groups and classes of people when he
believed such measure lay within the scope of
existing powers of government. Thus he ob-
tained an appropriation for the appointment of
commercial agents abroad to aid in the extension
of foreign trade, supported the formation of a
labor department, and led the fight in the Senate
for the Clayton Bill that included in its clauses
larger protection of labor interests. Meanwhile
he was very vigilant for the interests of North
Carolina; notable was the prevention, through
his efforts, of suits against the state by Cuba for
the redemption of bonds that the supreme court
of North Carolina had declared invalid. When
the Democratic party obtained control of the
Senate in 1913, he became chairman of the rules
committee and was ranking member of the ju-
diciary and appropriations committees ; and dur-
ing the prolonged absences of the chairman of
the latter committee, he guided deliberations. He
gave cordial support to the measures favored by
President Wilson during his first term, and in
1913 he was also chairman of a Senate commit-
tee that investigated the activities of lobbies.
During the World War he consistently advo-
cated strengthening the hand of the chief execu-
tive and gave final shape to the Senate bill to
empower President Wilson to transfer the func-
tions of one department of government to another.
This was known as the Overman Law, In 1918
he was chairman of the sub-committee of the
judiciary that investigated German propaganda
and, in 1919, chairman of a committee that in-
vestigated Bolshevist propaganda. To the time
of his death he had served almost twenty-eight
years, having been reflected to the Senate in
1909, 1914, 1920, and 1926. He embodied its
best traditions — 'his snow-white hair, his dignity
and courtesy, and his occasional bursts of ora-
tory suggesting the image of a Roman.
[Personal scrapbooks of Overman in possession of
family ; Lee S. Overman. Memorial Addresses . . . in
the S&nate and House of Representatives (1931) ; Who's
Who in America^ 1930-31 ; News and Observer (Ra-
leigh), Dec. 12, 1:930; N, Y. Timest Dec. 12-14, 1930,]
W.K.B.
OVERTON, JOHN (Apr. 9, i766~Apr. 12,
1 833)7 jurist, pioneer, and politician, was born
in Louisa County, Va., the son of James and
Mary (Waller) Overton (Overton family data,
compiled by Edyth Rucker Whitley, Nashville,
Tenn.). His family, of English origin, was well
connected but poor, and young Overton taught
school for several years in order to assist in the
education of his brothers and sisters. In 1787
Overton
he migrated to Kentucky for the purpose of
studying law and took board in the home of a
Mrs. Robards, of Mercer County. Completing
his studies two years later, he decided to practise
law in the frontier town of Nashville, Tenn.
Making his way thither, he became a boarder in
the home of the widow of Col. John Donelson.
Here he was the bed-fellow of Andrew Jackson,
another young lawyer who had shortly preceded
him to Nashville (Parton, post, I, 149). In 1790
the western part of North Carolina became the
Southwest Territory, and Overton was made
supervisor of the federal excise (Knoxville Ga-
zette, June 5, 1795). During this period he also
became much interested in land speculations and
was Jackson's partner in some of the most im-
portant land deals (Bassett, post, I, 13-15). In
1794 these two men purchased the Rice tract,
upon which, in 1819, they founded the town of
Memphis.
In 1804 Jackson resigned his place upon the
bench of the superior court of Tennessee and
Overton succeeded to the post, holding this po-
sition until the old courts were abolished, Jan. i,
1810. In November 1811 he was appointed a
member of the supreme court of the state to
succeed George Campbell. In 1816 he resigned.
He published two volumes of Tennessee Reports
(1813-17), which cover cases tried before the
court from 1791 to 1816. Being intimately con-
nected with the formulation of the law during
the plastic period of a new jurisdiction, he be-
came the recognized authority on all matters
relating to land legislation, and in many cases
it was his influence which shaped the form it
took. He also built up the largest landed estate
in Tennessee and was considered the richest citi-
zen of the commonwealth. After his retirement
from the bench, he devoted his entire time to the
promotion of his private interests and the politi-
cal fortunes of Andrew Jackson. In 1821 he,
William B. Lewis, and John H. Eaton [##.#.]
formed an informal committee of close personal
friends for the advancement of Jackson's can-
didacy for the presidency, and from this time un-
til the election of 1828 they were largely engaged
in the defense of their hero against his enemies
(T. P. Abernethy, "Andrew Jackson and the
Rise of Southwestern Democracy," in American
Historical Review, October 1927, pp. 71-72).
Because he had resided with the Robards family
in Kentucky, Overtones services were especially
valuable in combating the scandal bruited about
during the campaign in connection with Jack-
son's marriage to Rachel Robards, formerly
Rachel Donelson. Though Overton kept copiplete
records of all his transactions, before his death
Owen
he destroyed his correspondence with Jackson.
On the election of "Old Hickory" to the presi-
dency, Overtoil asked for no office and accepted
no favors, remaining1 in Nashville to the end of
his life. He must have possessed rare qualities,
for he xvas unique in being" able to live on inti-
mate terms with Jackson as an adviser and friend
without friction and without becoming" a mere
follower.
Henry A. Wise, who visited "The Hermitage"
in 1828, described Overtoil as he sat in the fam-
ily circle with a bandanna handkerchief thrown
over his bald head, nose and chin nearly meeting*,
making1 ineffectual efforts to enter into the con-
versation (Seven Decades of flic Union, 1872,
pp. 100-03) . His private life was apparently un-
eventful. His wife, Mary McConnell (White)
May, was the widow of Dr. Francis May, the
daughter of Gen. James White, and the sister of
Hugh Lawson White.
[The best sketches of Overtoil are in J. W, Caldwell,
Sketches of the Bench and Bar of Tcnn. (1898), and
W. W, Clayton, Hist, of Davidson County, Tcnn.
(1880). See also James Pnrton, Life of Andrew J tick-
son (3 vols., 1860) ; J. S. Bassett, Correspondence of
Andrew Jackson (6 vols., 1926-33) ; obituary in Nash-
ville Republican and State Gasrttr, Apr, 17, 1833*
There is a good collection of Overtoil's correspondence
in the possession of the Tenn, Hist. Soc., Nashville.]
T.P.A.
OWEN, DAVID DALE (June 24, i8o7~Nov.
13, 1860), geologist, third son of the social phi-
lanthropist Robert Owen [see Dictionary of Na-
tional Biography] and Ann Caroline Dale, his
wife, was born at "Braxfield House," near New
Lanark, Scotland. Like his elder brother, Rob-
ert Dale Owen [#*«/.], he received his early train-
ing from private tutors and at the Lanark Acad-
emy, and then proceeded to the educational
institution of Philipp Emanuel von Fellenberg,
near Berne, Switzerland Here he took a three-
year course, beginning1 in 1824, In November
1827, with his brother Richard, he sailed for
America, where their father had undertaken to
plant a socialistic community at New Harmony,
Ind. They reached New Harmony early in Janu-
ary 1828. In 1831, in company with Prof. H, D.
Rogers [#.v.], David Owen sailed for London,
where he attended lectures in chemistry and geol-
ogy at the London University. Returning in
1832, after recovering from an attack of Asiatic
cholera, he entered upon a course in medicine at
the Ohio Medical College in Cincinnati, mean-
while spending his summers in arranging and
classifying the collection of fossils made by the
geologist William Maclure [#.£/.].
After graduating in medicine in 1836, he spent
one summer as a volunteer on the geological sur-
vey of Tennessee under Gerard Troost
Owen
and in 1837 accepted the proffered position of
state geologist of Indiana. Working without as-
sistants, he made his own field observations and
his own chemical analyses in a laboratory he had
established at New Harmony. At the end of the
first year, having rendered but one report, he re-
signed to accept an appointment from James
Whitcomb, federal land commissioner, to make
a survey of the Pubuque and Mineral Point dis-
tricts of Wisconsin and Iowa, an area of about
eleven thousand square miles, In carrying* out
this task he displayed exceptional energy and
administrative ability. lie received his commis-
sion Au#. 17, 1839, engaged and instructed his
139 assistants as to purposes and methods of pro-
cedure, and presented his report on Nov. 14 fol-
lowing, a "feat of tfenenilship which has never
been equalled in American geological history"
(Merrill, post, p, 199). The report was pub-
lished, under date of Apr. 2, 1840, as House Docu-
ment 239 (26 Cong,, i Sess,), In 1847 he was
appointed United States geologist to make a sur-
vey of the Chippewa Land District, the work
being1 subsequently extended to include a more
complete survey of the northwestern territory
of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, which with
field and laboratory work occupied his time and
attention until 1852, It was in the course of this
survey that Dr. John Evans made under Owen's
direction the first survey of the Afamiaiscs
Torres* or Bad lands of the Upper Missouri. The
complete report, Report of a Geological Surivy
of Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota, and Inci*
dentally of a Portion of Nebraska Territory
(1852), formed a quarto volume of 628 pages
of text, with fifteen plates of fossils, nineteen
folding sections, and a geological map, The il-
lustrations of fossil remains were particularly
fine for that period.
In 1854 Owen was appointed state geologist
of Kentucky and continued to hold the position
for five years. In 1857, he accepted also the po-
sition of state geologist of Arkansas, but here
his limit was reached: he died in the midst of
his task in 1860 and his final report was edited by
J. P. Lesley [#.#.]. In the meanwhile, however,
he had accepted a third office, becoming for the
second time state geologist of Indiana— an ap-
pointment made with the understanding that the
actual work of the survey was to be done by his
brother, Richard Owen, who had recently re-
signed the professorship of geology in the uni-
versity at Nashville, Term, The Report of a
Geological Reconnaissance of Indiana Made
during the Years 1859 and 1860 mder the Di-
rection of the Late D, D, Owen was published by
Richard Owen in 1862,
116
Owen
Viewed in the light of today, much of Owen's
work can be regarded as reconnaissance. He
was the first to point out the rich mineral na-
ture of the Town and Wisconsin lands, and that
the ores of lead and zinc were limited to the
magnesian limestone, and the first to give the
name subctii'herilcrons to beds immediately un-
derlying1 the coal of Indiana. He was an artist,
and his pictured geological sections arc un-
equaled for their artistic beauty. Of the twenty-
five plates in his report of 1840, fourteen are
from his own drawings. His chief publications,
besides those mentioned above, are the four re-
ports of the Geological Survey of Kentucky (4
vols., 1856-61') ; First Report of a Geological
RccMinoisnaitcv of . . . Arkansas (1858), and
Second Report . . . (1860). He is said to have
been a man of kindly, equitable disposition.
Aside from geology he was most fond of chem-
istry, and at his own expense built a fully
equipped laboratory at a cost of $10,000. He was
married cm Mar. 23, 1837, to Caroline C. Neef,
daughter of Francis Joseph Nicholas Neef [$.*/.],
educational leader of the New Harmony com-
munity. Four children were born to them. His
death at fifty-three, in the midst of his labors,
was due to the undermining of his constitution
by exposure and malaria and unremitting atten-
tion to his strenuous duties,
[Editorial in Am. Geologist, Auff. 1889, based, it is
said, on information from Richard Owen; Am. Jour.
$d. and Arts, Jan. 1861 ; First-Fourth Report of the
GeoL Survey in Ky. Made during the Years 1854 to
18 V), vol. IV (1861) ; Pop, AVi. Mo.f Dec. 1895 ; G. P.
Merrill, Tlw First One Hundred Years of Am. Geology
(1924) ; G, B, Loekwood, 7Vn? New Harmony Move-
ment (1905); Caroline Dale Snedeker, The Town of
the F cartes ( 1 93 1 ) . J G. P. M.
OWEN, EDWARD THOMAS (Mar. 4,
xfiSO^Nov. 9, 1931); educator, was born at
Hartford, Conn. * His father, Elijah Hunter
Owen, a merchant, of Welsh ancestry, and his
mother, Susannah Boarclman, of English de-
scent, were of old New-England stock. Owen
was educated in the Hartford public schools and
was graduated from Yale in 1872 with numer-
ous scholastic and athletic honors. He was a
member of half a dozen social and musical clubs
and always set down as the proudest accomplish-
ment of his life his winning of the Southgate cup
in the single-scull race, in which he broke all pre-
vious records. He spent a year in graduate study
at Yale, and three more in Europe, two at Got-
tingcn and one in Paris. In 1878 he went to the
University of Wisconsin as instructor in mod-
ern languages and the following year was made
professor of French language and literature. He
remained on the faculty until his retirement from
Owen
active teaching in 1914, serving for several years
as head of the department of Romance languages.
Owen's specialty as a scholar lay in a pioneer
field. He aimed at rationalizing grammar by a
radical revision of its method and nomenclature.
He rejected its conventions as pseudo-science,
akin to astrology or alchemy. He contended that
its classification Is unstable, overlapping, and
contradictory, and the so-callecl parts of speech
an absurdity. Why, for example, speak of "dis-
junctive conjunctives"? He paved the way for
creating a truly logical grammar, based upon
an analysis of the antecedent psychological states
that prompt expression, by taking these as an
abstract or ideal norm for clarifying and classing
usage and the deformations that usage entails.
These theories he developed in a series of mon-
ographs published in the Transactions of the
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Let-
ters: "The Meaning and Function of Thought
Connectives" (vol. XII, pt i, 1898) ; "A Revi-
sion of the Pronouns, with Special Examination
of Relatives and Relative Clauses" (vol. XIII,
pt I, 1901); "Interrogative Thought, and the
Means of its Expression" (vol. XIV, pt. 2,
1904) ; "Hybrid Parts of Speech" (vol. XVI, pt.
I, 1909) ; "The Relations expressed by the Pas-
sive Voice" (vol. XVII, pt I, 1911) ; "Linguis-
tic Aberrations" (vol. XXIII, 1927), and "Syn-
tax of the Adverb, Preposition, and Conjunc-
tion" (vol. XXVI, 1931). He also edited vari-
ous modern French texts.
Of tall, athletic build and great physical
strength, Owen was always a devotee of the
outdoor life and outdoor sports. He loved the
countryside, sailed and fished on the lakes around
Madison, and roamed on horseback over the
wooded hills. Later in life he turned gardener
on his suburban estate. He was long chairman
of the University Athletic Committee, and was
a founder of the Madison Park and Pleasure-
Drive Association. He donated to the city, in
commemoration of two daughters who died in
childhood, the beautiful Owen Park and Drive.
Another lifelong pursuit was the collecting of
butterflies. During frequent midwinter trips in
tropic lands he gathered a large collection of
rare specimens. He loved leisure, cultivated
many interests, was well read and at times bold-
ly personal in his judgments, decidedly Anglo-
Saxon and Victorian, though idolizing Balzac
and girding at Wordsworth, He was a gentle-
man of the old school, fond of good talk, full of
genial wit and shrewd good sense, of indulgence
and enthusiasm. He was married, on Apr. n,
1874, to Emilie Brace Pratt, of Hartford, Conn.
She with two daughters survived him.
117
Owen
[Bull, of Yale Univ. ; Obit. Record of Grads. De-
ceased During the Vcar Ending July I, 1932 (103-) I
R. G. Thwaites, The Univ. of Wis. (1900) ; K.H. Owen,
"Some of the Owen Ancestors," a manuscript geneal-
ogy; Wis. State lour. (Madison), Nov. 10, 1931.]
W.F.G.
OWEN, GRIFFITH (c. i647~Au£. 19,
Colonial leader, Quaker preacher, surgeon, was
born in Wales, the son of Robert and Jane
(Vaughan) Owen of Dolscredu, near Dolgelly,
Before emigrating to America, he studied medi-
cine and moved to Prescott in Lancashire, Eng-
land, where he practised as a physician for some
years. He became a Quaker by conviction, his
father having- given up his connection with the
Society of Friends. He was married before he
left England, but the family name of his wife,
Sarah, is not recorded. She died in Philadel-
phia in 1702. The certificate of membership
from ITartshaw West Monthly Meeting in Eng-
land to Philadelphia states that Owen had "for
many years phest [profest] ye blessed Truth,"
and had "been very well esteemed being of great
service in his place.'*
He came to Philadelphia in, the ship Vine in
company with his father and mother and bring-
ing his wife, three children, and seven servants.
They landed at Philadelphia Sept 17, 1684.
Owen settled at first in Merion, now Lower
Men on Township, in the tract of 40,000 acres
assigned by William Penn to the Welsh Quaker
immigrants, but soon afterward moved to Phil-
adelphia, where he built one of the most attrac-
tive houses in the new colony, William Penn,
in his letters (Penn-Logan Correspondence,
post, I, 597), refers to Griffith Owen's house
with a touch of envy, as being finer than he him-
self could afford. Owen's medical practice was
extensive and he had the reputation of being a
skilled surgeon. He was elected a member of the
Colonial Assembly in 1686 and the three years
following. In 1690 he was chosen a member of
the Provincial Council, in which he continued
to sit until his death, trusted and beloved by the
Proprietor, who refers to him in his letters to
James Logan as "honest Griffith Owen" (Ibid.,
I, 172, 206). On one occasion, however, he
strongly opposed the Proprietor's policy, when
Penn proposed to sell part of the Welsh Tract
to other incoming settlers, Griffith Owen led
the opposition to this new policy and drafted the
vigorous Remonstrance against it to the com-
missioners of the government, but the Remon-
strance failed and the Welsh Tract was divided,
Throughout his life in the Pennsylvania col-
ony^ Owen was one of the foremost Friends in
public service. He is mentioned a hundred times
in the Minutes of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.
Owen
He was appointed to membership on the most
important committees of the Meeting, and usu-
ally served as chairman. lie was chosen to set-
tle differences, to solve complexities, to deal
with offenders, to raise funds and to select teach-
ers for William Perm's Chartered School, now the
William Penn Charter School, lie was one of the
outstanding Quaker preachers in the Colony, He
traveled frequently on religious visits to England,
to Maryland, to the Eastern Shore, to Virginia,
and twice to New England, lie was in the thick
of the struggle over what: at that time was called
"the Apostasy of Oeorge Keith" [ </,?'. ], which
rent the harmony of the infant colony. Friends
in Philadelphia issued a document — 6 in- Ant lent
Testimony AVwwrf (London, H)<)S)- — which
was intended to clarify their theological posi-
tion in this controversy, This document was in
the main drafted by Griffith Owen who was
chairman of the committee. It is an important
paper since it is one of the very earliest confes-
sions of faith of the Pennsylvania Quakers. It
is strikingly theological and orthodox, with al-
most no emphasis on peculiar Quaker lines of
thought With JWilliam Penn. Thomas Story
and others, Griffith Owen founded in September
1701 the Meeting of Ministers of Philadelphia
(later called Meeting of Ministers and Elders).
In 1704 he married, as his second wife, Sarah
Saunders, a widow, daughter of John Song-
hurst His interest in the Welsh Tract con-
tinued unabated throughout his life, and he often
visited the three Welsh Meetings aover the
Schuylkill," namely, Haverford, Merion, and
Radnor. He died in Philadelphia at the age of
seventy years.
tPa, Mag. of Hist, and fihff., Oct. 1884; "Corre-
spondence bet ww« William Penn and James Loffan,"
Memoirs of the //iH St>c. of /'«, vote. IX-K (t8;o-
73) ; Hobert Proud, The //«*. of Pa, (a vnto,, 1707-
08) ; T, A, Glenn, Welsh Founds of Pa, (1913). vol.
II, and Morion in the Wrhh Tract (1896); Th«
Frm^d (Phila.), Mar, io™Apr, 7, Apr, Ji~j8. iB^s;
Gtneal* Sec. of Pa, Pubs,, especially vol§. III-Vll
(Jan. *0G6~Mar, 1930), IX (Mar. lo-u), p. 46; Jacob
Painter. Thomas and Margaret Mituhall and Their
Marty Descendants; To Which Are Added Some Ac-
counts of Gnffith Owen and Descendants (1867),]
R.M.J,
OWEN, ROBERT DALE (Nov. 9, 1801-
June 24, 1877), social reformer, author, elder
brother of David Dale Owen [#,t>,]» was born
at Glasgow, Scotland, the eldest son of Robert
Owen [see Dictionary of National Biography]
and Ann Caroline (Dale) Owen, His mother
was the daughter of David Dale, proprietor of
the cotton-mills at New Lanark, where Robert
Owen was beginning: to put into practice his
theory of social reform, Robert Dale Owen's
whole life, most of it spent in the United States,
18
Owen
was vshuped by hivS father's influence. Possessed
o£ much of his father's gift for original and lib-
eral thought in social matters, he added to it a
practicality and, after a time, a patience of his
own. He was instructed in the New Lanark
school and by private tutors until the age of
eighteen, when he went for four years to the
progressive institution of Philipp Emanuel von
Fellenberg at Hofw}'!, Switzerland. There he
gained "a belief which existing abuses cannot
shake nor worldly scepticism destroy, an abid-
ing faith in human virtue and in social progress"
(Thread hi f/ My Way, p. 175). On his return
to his father's cotton-mill community, he took
charge of the school, of which he wrote the only
comprehensive description (An Outline of the
System* of Jirfit cation at New Lanark, 1824), and
when Ins father was absent he managed the fac-
tories. In November 1825 he came to the United
States with his father, the two proceeding early
the next year to New Harmony, Ind., where the
elder Owen had determined to begin an experi-
ment in social reform through cooperation and
rational education. Robert Dale Owen eagerly
volunteered for manual work, but finding him-
self: physically unlit for it, was glad to teach the
school and edit the New Harmony Gazette. His
editorial utterances reflected his enthusiasm for
the adventure, but later in life he described the
colonists as a "heterogeneous collection of rad-
icals, enthusiastic devotees of principle, honest
latituclinarians and laasy theorists, with a sprin-
kling of unprincipled sharpers thrown in"
(Threading My Urayt p. 286).
No sooner had the New Harmony experiment
failed, in the spring of 1827, than he was destined
for another disappointment. At New Harmony
he had come under the influence of Frances
Wright [//.?'.] , ten years his senior and a vigor-
ous personality. In 1825 she had founded Nash-
oba, near Memphis, Tenn., a community devoted
to gradual emancipation of slaves. Owen now
went with her to the colony, but finding it in
a declining way, he accompanied her to Europe,
where be met Lafayette, Godwin, Bentham, and
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. He was much
drawn to the last, and in later life wished he
had come under her gentle persuasion rather
than the driving force of Frances Wright. On
his return to America, after an unprofitable visit
to Nashoba he went back to New Harmony to
continue the Gasette, whither Miss Wright soon
followed him. He now engaged with her for
two years in the work of the "Free Enquirers/'
a coterie opposed to organized religion (par-
ticularly the evangelical sects with their revi-
vals), and advocating liberal divorce laws, wide-
Owen
spread industrial education, and a more nearly
equal distribution of wealth. In June 1829 he
left New Harmony and took up residence with
others of the inner circle in New York. Here
he devoted most of his time to editing- the Free
Enquirer, which was the old New Harmony Ga-
zette rechristened. He was active in the autumn
of this year in forming the "Association, for the
Protection of Industry and for the Promotion of
National Education," his creed for which was
belief in "a National System of Equal, Repub-
lican, Protective, Practical Education, the sole
regenerator of a profligate age." This associa-
tion was successful in 1829-30 in ousting the
agrarians under Thomas Skidmore (author of
The Rights of Man to Property, 1829) from the
councils of the New York Working- Men's Party
and substituting: a program of public education
for their dream of equal division of property;
but the workers finally repudiated the leadership
of the Free Enquirers.
The work which Owen did in New York
(promoting o£ lectures, educational and health
centers, and free-thinking- publications), corre-
sponded closely to the propaganda activities of
his father, whom he joined in England in 1832.
For six months father and son were co-editors
of The Crisis; then the son returned to New
Harmony and began the most useful part of his
career. He served three terms in the Indiana
legislature (1836-38) and gave effect to his
educational policies by securing for the public
schools one-half of the state's allocation of sur-
plus funds of the federal government. He was
elected to Congress in 1842 as a Democrat, and
served two terms (1843-47), but was defeated
for a third. In 1844 he introduced a resolution
requesting the President to notify Great Britain
of the termination of the joint occupation of
Oregon; this measure became the basis for the
solution of the Oregon boundary dispute. In
1845 he introduced the bill under which the
Smithsonian Institution was constituted, and
as a member of the organization committee of
the regents he insisted that the work of the Insti-
tution should include popular dissemination of
scientific knowledge as well as investigation.
His versatility was apparent in his service as
chairman of the building committee, and he tried
to make his experience available to others by
publishing Hints on Public Architecture (1849).
In the Indiana constitutional convention of 1850
and in the legislature the next year, he success-
fully advocated property rights for married
women and liberality in divorce laws ; his views
on the latter subject involved him later in a de-
bate with Horace Greeley [igf.vj in the New
119
Owen
York Tribune, afterwards widely circulated in
pamphlet form (Divorce: Being a Correspond-
ence between Horace Grecley and Robert Dale
Ozucn, 1860), President Pierce appointed him
charge d'affaires at Naples in 1853, and two
years later made him minister. In Italy he em-
braced Spiritualism, and worked to give the cult
a scientific hasis for its beliefs. His books, Foot-
falls on the Boundary of Another World (1860)
and The Debatable Land between This World
and the Next (1872), show a strange mixture of
credulousness and suspicion,
When he, returned to America in 1858 he he-
came one of the leading advocates of emancipa-
tion. ITe was commissioned by the governor of
Indiana to purchase arms in Europe for the state
troops (May 30, i86i-Fcb, 6, 1863). His letter
to the President, Sept. 17, 1862, published with
letters to Chase and Stanton in a pamphlet, The
Policy of Emancipation (1863), was credited
by Secretary Chase with having "had more in-
fluence on him [Lincoln] than any other docu-
ment which reached him on the subject" (Lock-
wood, post, p. 3/t). In 1863 the Secretary of
War appointed Owen chairman of a committee
to investigate the condition of the freedmen, out
of which study grew his volume. The Wrong
of Slavery (1864), an understanding treatment
of the whole institution. In The Future of the
North-West (1863) he protested vigorously
against the scheme, put forward in Indiana and
the Northwest, of reconstructing the Union by
leaving out New England. He was opposed to
the immediate enfranchisement of the negro, ad-
vocating a plan whereby the suffrage should be
granted freedmen after a period of ten years.
Besides the publications mentioned, he was the
author of Pocahontas: A Historical Drawa
(1837) ; Beyond the Breakers (1870), a novel;
and many pamphlets on questions of public in-
terest. In 1873-75 he contributed a number of
autobiographical articles to the Atlantic Month"
ly. The first of these (January-November 1873),
covering his first twenty-seven years, were pub-
lished in book form under the title, Threading
My Way (1874). He was twice married: on
Apr. 12, 1832, to Mary Jane Robinson, who died
in 1871, and on June 23, 1876, to Lottie Walton
Kellogg, He died at his summer home on Lake
George, New York, following a period of mental
derangement,
[Robert Dale Owen, Threading My Way (1874), sup-
plemented by articles in the Atlantic Monthly, Feb.,
June, July, Nov., Dec. 1874, Jan., June 1875 : G. B.
Lockwood, The New Harmony Movement (1905) ;
Frank Podmore, Robert Owen: A Biog, (2 vols,,
1906) ; A. H, Estabrook, "The Family History of Rob-
ert Owen," Ind. Mag, of Hist,, Mar. 1923 ; L. M. Sears,
"Robert Dale Owen as a Mystic," Ibid., Mar.
Owen
"Robert Dale 0\ven and Indiana's Common School
Fund," /&it/., Mar. K)a«j; Caroline Dale Snedcker,
The Town of the Fcurlcitit (IQ^I); \\, R. Waterman,
/'Vflwv.v Wrifiht (19.14) ; Indianapolis Journal, June
27, Indianapolis Sentinel, June -:(>, 1877,! B, M.
OWEN, WILLIAM FLORENCE (1844-
May 4, 1906), actor, was of English and Welsh
ancestry on his father's side and of Irish on his
mother's, lie was horn in Limerick* Ireland,
and after various attempts as a newspaper writer,
in business, and as a public reader in Canada,
whither he had gone at about the age of twenty,
he at last fulfilled a boyish ambition to become
an actor, and remained upon the stage for the
rest of his life. He frequently remarked to his
friends that it; was a decision he never regretted,
even when his fortunes were not at the highest
flood. More than once he said, in substantially
the same words: "To be an actor one must be so
filled with love for the work that one must be
willing" to starve, to suffer, to endure almost any*
thing1 rather than to give up his profession.*'
His first professional enslavement was at Salem,
Ohio, Dec. 17, 1867, with Catherine Hayes, as
Victor Carrington in Watts Phillips' melo-
drama, Nob ndy's Daughter, and as Sir Matthew
Scraps in Sketches in India. An engagement
in stock during1 the next season at Griswold's
Opera House in Troy, N, Y.f gave him oppor-
tunity to appear in support; of several stars in
such parts as Sir Hugh Kvans in Merry H'wcs
of JTindsor, Old Deschapelles in The Lady of
Lyons* Gobbo in The Merchant of Vetricc, and
the Second Gravecliggcr in Jtamlet* Seasons of
miscellaneous engagements here and there in all
sorts of characters followed, including appear-
ances with Adelaide Neilson as Sir Andrew
Aguecheck in Twelfth Night, with Joseph Jef-
ferson as Cockles in Rip Van Winkle, and with
George Rignolcl as Pistol in King Henry V.
During the season of 1883-86 he was leading
comedian at the Boston Museum while George
W. Wilson, the regular occupant of that posi-
tion, was temporarily on tour with Booth and
Salvini, For several seasons he was leading
comedian with Madame Modjeska, playing
Touchstone, Sir Toby Belch, Cloten in Cym-
beline, Michonnet in Adricnne Lecouwcur? and
Brigard in. Frcu Frou. He also supported Marie
Wainwright in the fall of 1889, and Julia Mar-
lowe in 1895-96, Of his impersonation of Fal-
staff in the latter's production of King Henry
IV it was said that "it seems as if the whole of
the witty knight's soul was given by the actor/'
Owen was a member of Augustin Daly's com-
pany during a part of the nineties, appearing in
comedy roles in support of Ada Rehan, and
when in 1899-1900 Mrs. Fiske produced Lang-
I2O
Owens
clon Elwyn Mitchell's dramatic version of Van-
ity Pair under the title of Becky Sharp, he ap-
peared as Joseph Scclley. He repeated the part
upon her revival of that play only a short time
before his death, being forced to retire from the
stage on account of serious illness. In figure he
was rotund of body, his features were of comic
cast, in manner he was a comedian of the unctu-
ous type, a genuine Sir Toby Belch, an admir-
able Falstaff, a perfect Touchstone, He was in
all respects an actor and not a clown, his re-
sources being in his mind and in his voice, and
not the result of cither vocal or physical antics.
fj. B. Clapp and K. F. TCelgett, Players of the Pres-
ent t pt. It (1900) ; Win. Winter, Shakespeare on the
Stay?, vScr. a (1915), ser. 3 (igi6) ; Af, Y, Dramatic
Mirror, Mar. at, 1896, May is, 1906; Boston Tran-
script, May 4, 1906 ; personal recollections.] E. F.E.
OWENS, JOHN EDMOND (Apr. 2, 1823-
Dec. 7, 1886), actor and manager, although of
English birth, became famous on the American
stage especially as an interpreter of Yankee
characters. IT is birthplace was Liverpool, but
he was of Welsh parentage, the son of Owen
Griffith Owen and Mary Anclcrton, the surname
having been changed to Owens by his father in
early manhood. When tbe boy was five years
old, the family came to America and made their
home in Philadelphia, whither they had been
preceded by relatives. There John Eclmond was
educated in the public schools, and while serving"
as a clerk in a drugstore he made his stage
debut, at the age of seventeen, in a minor part
at Burton's National Theatre. His progress was
slow, his first important character not being
given him until Sept. 27, 1841, when at the
same theatre he acted Peter Poultice in The
Ocean Child. Within ten years he had acquired
wide celebrity as a comedian throughout the
United States and during his long career he
managed companies in Baltimore, New Orleans,
and other cities. He was sometimes a star, some-
times leading low comedian in stock and travel-
ing companies. In his Autobiography, Joseph
Jefferson refers to Owens as he saw him in New
Orleans in 1846 as "the then rising young come-
dian," and describes him as "the handsomest
low comedian I had ever seen," with a "neat dap-
per little figure, and a face full of lively expres-
sion," and an "effective style and great flow of
animal spirits" (post, p. 81), In 1856 he first
played Solon Shingle in The Peoples Lawyer,
and when he was at the Adelphi Theatre in Lon-
don in 1865, Dickens saw him and pronounced
his portrayal of the part as one of the most vivid
and natural characterizations he had ever seen
on the stage.
Owens
Through the years Owens' repertory became
extensive; among his most popular impersona-
tions were Toodles, Dr. Pangloss in The Heir
at Law, Dr. Ollapod in The Poor Gentleman,
Major Wellington de Boots in Everybody's
Friend, Caleb Plummer, Paul Pry, Aminadab
Sleek, and in fact practically all the stereotyped
comedy roles of that era. In 1876 he added
Perkyn Middlcwick in Henry J. Byron's com-
edy, Our Boys, then at the height of its popu-
larity, to his list of characters, and when in 1882
he joined the Madison Square Theatre Com-
pany in New York, he was seen as Elbert
Rogers, the old farmer, in Esmcralda, with Annie
Russell in the title role. In 1885 he retired on
account of illness to his estate of Aigburth Vale,
about six miles from Baltimore, which he had
bought in 1853, and increasing its size by the
addition of many acres from time to time, he
amused himself, during- the intermissions be-
tween his engagements and tours in the enter-
tainment of his many friends both in and out of
the theatrical profession. He would often say:
"Every man has his hobby, and mine is harmless.
Spending money on my country residence enter-
tains me, and the improvements I make give work
to people who need it." On Apr. 19, 1849, he was
married to Mary C. Stevens, daughter of John
G. Stevens of Baltimore, and she survived him
many years, writing a biography of him, and
energetically defending him from what she
thought was unfair criticism of his acting by
those who denied his skill as an expert comedian.
When Clara Morris wrote with somewhat bad
taste that even his marriage with the "little
orthodox Quakeress" seemed "an expression of
eccentricity," Mrs. Owens retorted by saying in
a letter to the New York Dramatic Mirror (June
22, 1901) that she had evidently been inspired
"by imagination rather than memory."
The consensus of opinion about Owens is that
he was a comedian who relied mainly for his ef-
fects upon the resources of a genuine comic per-
sonality, that he did frequently indulge in ex-
travagance of action in order to arouse laughter,
that in his impersonations of Yankee characters
he was truer to the footlights than to real life,
but that his "jolly rotund and flexible features,
his plump and comical looking figure, his jaunty
air and personal peculiarities were almost as fa-
miliar off the stage as his lifelike and truly ar-
tistic impersonations were on it" Few Ameri-
can comedians have been more popular in their
day ; few have lingered longer in the memories
of those who saw them. The name of Owens is
a tradition of the American stage that inevitably
suggests comedy and laughter.
121
Owens
[Memories of the Professional and Social Life of
John B. Owens (1892), written by Owens' wife; Clara
Morris, Life on the Staff c (1901) and Stage Confidences
(1002) ; The Autobiofj. of Jos. Jefferson (1890) ; Wm.
Winter, The Wallet of Time (1913), vol. I ; N. Y. Dra-
matic Mirror, June 22, 1901 ; Boston Herald, Jan. 9,
1885; Brooklyn Eagle, Oct. 20, 1885; Sun (Balti-
more), and N. F. Times, Dec. 8, 1886; the World
(N. YO, Dec. ii, 1886.] E.F.E.
OWENS, MICHAEL JOSEPH (Jan. I,
iS59~Dec. 27, 1923), inventor, glass manufac-
turer, son of John and Mary (Chapman) Owens,
was born in Mason. County, Va. (now W. Va.).
His father was a coal miner with unusual me-
chanical genius but decidedly unpractical. It was
his mother who was responsible for the practical
qualities that played such a prominent part in
his career. Michael had helped his father in the
mines, and at the age of ten, recognizing the
family's needs, he took employment in a glass
factory in Wheeling, W. Va., where he shoveled
coal into the "glory hole" or unit employed for
resoftening glass during various stages of its
manipulation in blowing. At that time glass-
blowers worked in two five-hour shifts per day.
Black with soot and coal dust Michael would re-
turn to his home, bathe and clean up, and be
ready for another blackening during the after-
noon period. By the time he was fifteen he had
become a glassblower.
In 1888, he began work in Toledo, Ohio, in
the glass factory of Edward Drurnrnond Libbey
[q.v."\ . Three months later he became its superin-
tendent, and then the manager of a branch fac-
tory at Findlay, Ohio. In 1893 he had charge of
the famous exhibit of the Libbey Glass Company
at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chi-
cago. Somewhat before this time he had begun
a series of experiments which led to the perfec-
tion of a completely automatic bottle-blowing
machine. At first he applied an exceedingly sim-
ple principle, using a piston pump to suck glass
into a mold from the surface of a pot of molten
metal, then placing the gathered mass over an-
other mold into which the article was blown by
reversing the pump. The first bottles were de-
cidedly crude, but in time this experiment re-
sulted in a machine of over 9000 separate parts
which, as recently modified, is capable of blow-
ing four finished bottles per second. Preliminary
patents for these machines were taken out in
1895 (patents No. 534,840; 548,587; 548,588).
As the machine was developed, other patents
were secured, that of Nov. 8, 1904 (No. 774^90)
representing it essentially perfected. In 1903
Owens with Libbey and others organized the
Owens Bottle Machine Company. Of this con-
cern, later called the Owens Battle Company,
Owens was manager from 1915 to 1919, and vice-
Owsley
president from 1915 until his death. He was also
vice-president of the Owens European Bottle
Company, organized in 1905 with a plant at Man-
chester, England. When Irving W. Colburn
[q.z>.~\ began his researches in 1900 on a machine
for the continuous drawing of flat sheet glass,
Owens, together with his partner, Libbey, pro-
vided funds for the perfection of the machine.
They purchased the patents in 1912, and in 1916
formed the Libbey-Owens Sheet Glass Company,
whose first factory was built at Charleston, W*
Va. Of this company Owens was vice-president
until his death.
Owens possessed unusual mechanical ability
but lacked the scientific knowledge required for
the perfection of his plans. He displayed wise
judgment, however, in consulting others, and a
device thus brought to perfect ion he always con-
sidered a joint invention, though the fundamental
idea had been his own, In 1919 he retired as
general manager of the Owens Bottle Company
to devote more time to his inventions, Tn addi-
tion to his bottle and sheet-glass machines, he
perfected machines \vhich were used in other
factories for the blowing1 of lamp-chimneys and
tumblers. During his lifetime he was granted
forty-five United States patents on apparatus for
controlling the operation of molds, annealing
ovens, blowing glass, fire-finishing glass articles,
the formation of special bottle necks, the making
of sheet glass, the dumping of raw materials from
the bottom of freight cars, the charging and op-
erating of gas producers, the transferring of hot
glass from furnaces to the blowing and drawing
units. Some of these patents were taken out
jointly with others, but the majority were award-
ed to him independently. After his death a num-
ber of patents were granted that had been applied
for during his lifetime. He died in Toledo, sur-
vived by his wife, Mary (McKelvey) Owens of
Bellaire, Ohio, whom he married in 1889, together
with a son and a daughter,
[Keene Sumner, "Don't Try to Carry the Whole
World On Your Shoulders/' Aw, Mag., July 1933;
Michael J. Owens (privately printed, 1923), a aeries of
memorial articles including reprinted editorials from
the Glass Container, Jan. 1934, and Toledo papers;
Who's Who in America* 1933-33; Tokdo N&ws~Be&f
Dec. 2?, a8, 1923.] A. S.
OWSLEY, WILLIAM (i78a-Dec. 9, 1862),
Kentucky jurist and governor, was born in Vir-
ginia, but in 1783 his parents, William and Cath-
erine (Bolin) Owsley, removed with him to
Lincoln County, Ky. After a common-school
education, he held positions as teacher, deputy
surveyor, and deputy sheriff. He studied law
under John Boyle and practised in Garrard
122
Owslcy
County. About 1804 he married Elizabeth Gill.
They had five children. In 1809 and 1811 he was
a member of the state, legislature. Appointed to
the court of appeals in 1812, he resigned in 1813
but was almost immediately reappointed. One of
the most important decisions in which he par-
ticipated was Commonwealth vs. James Morrison
(2 Marsliall, 75), in which the court denied the
right of the Bank of the United States to estab-
lish branches in Kentucky (2 Marshall, 75), al-
though it later yielded to the decision of the fed-
eral Supreme Court. Another important case
was Blair > <Sr. vs. Williams (4 Littcll, 34),
wherein the court held unconstituitonal the Ken-
tucky replevin act of 1820 giving debtors two
years' grace unless creditors would agree to ac-
cept notes of the state bank. This decision met
with an outburst of popular criticism, but it was
reaffirmed by Owsley's opinion in Lapslcy vs.
Brashcars and Barr (Ibid., 47), which declared
that the court need not follow the opinions of the
legislature in interpreting the constitution and
that previous replevin laws did not affect the
issue. After these decisions the court was
abolished by the legislature and a new one cre-
ated. Nevertheless, he, with his colleagues, John
Boyle and Benjamin Mills [<MW.], continued to
function as the old court, and after much contro-
versy the new court was abolished. In 1828 he
and Mills resigned, were renominated, but failed
of confirmation by the Senate. He resumed prac-
tice in Garrard County and was again represen-
tative of that county in the state House of Rep-
resentatives in 1831 and in the state Senate from
1832 to 1834. In 1833 he was a Clay presidential
elector and from 1834 to 1836 was secretary of
state under Gov. James T. Moorehead. He prac-
tised in Frankfort until 1843, when he retired
from active practice and, having divided his farm
in Garrard County among his five children,
bought a new farm in Boyle County, near Dan-
ville.
In 1844, as the Whig candidate for governor,
he defeated William O. Butler, the Democratic
candidate, by a majority of about 5,000 votes.
He was an able governor from 1844 to 1848 but
was not popular on account of his unsociableness
and, especially on account of his removal of Ben-
jamin Hardin [g-0.] as secretary of state. The
courts upheld him, but under the constitution of
1850 the governor was denied the power of re-
moving this official. He was tall, slender, erect,
simple, reserved. His prompt call of the militia
in 1845 prevented a popular rescue of a convicted
murderer. On the outbreak of the Mexican War,
after receiving a letter from Gen* E. P. Games
at New Orleans but before receiving official
Paca
notice from the War Department, he issued a
call for volunteers and in a few days, by means
of private subscriptions, had the Louisville
Legion on its way to New Orleans. Largely
owing to his recommendations, the state debt was
decreased and the state prison improved. His
last years were spent on his farm near Danville.
[Lewis and R. H. Collins, Hist, of Ky., revised ed.
(2 vols., 1874) ; W. E. Connelly and E. M. Coulter, Hist,
of Ky. (ig22\ vol. II; H. Levm, The Lawyers and
Lawmakers of Ky. (1897) ; The Biog. Encyc. of Ky,
(1878) ; L. P. Little, Ben Hardin (1887)]. ^ c. M.
PACA, WILLIAM (Oct. 31, 1740-0 ct. 13,
1799), signer of the Declaration of Independence,
third governor of Maryland, jurist, was born
near Abingdon, Harford County, Md., the sec-
ond son of John and Elizabeth (Smith) Paca.
The Paca family may have been of Italian origin ,*
they appear in America as well-to-do planters in
the latter part of the seventeenth century. At the
age of fifteen William was sent to the College of
Philadelphia where he received an M.A. degree
in 1759. Shortly afterward he went to Annapolis
where he studied law in the office of Stephen
Bordley and was admitted to practice before the
mayor's court in 1761. He completed his legal
training at the Inner Temple in London and was
admitted to the bar of the provincial court in
1764. On May 26, 1763, he was married to Mary
Chew, the daughter of Samuel and Henrietta
Maria (Lloyd) Chew of Annapolis, who had "a
very considerable fortune" (Annapolis Maryland
Gazette, June 2, 1763). Only one of their five
children reached maturity. His wife died in 1774
and in 1777 he was married to Anne Harrison of
Philadelphia who died three years later.
Paca was first elected to the provincial legis-
lature in 1768 and soon became identified with
the party opposed to the Proprietor. With Sam-
uel Chase and others he urged that Governor
Eden's proclamation regulating the fees of civil
officers should be recalled. This was later done.
He also led the opposition against the poll tax
which had been laid for the support of the
clergy. During this controversy Chase, Paca,
and Thomas Johnson wrote (1774) an article in
reply to Daniel Dulany and James Holliday who
had defended the tax (Delaplaine, post, pp. 56-
57). It was reprinted in London papers and
brought the group into considerable prominence.
While in the Assembly Paca was on the commit-
tee that directed the construction of the State
House at Annapolis. In the preliminaries of the
Revolution he became a leader of the patriot
cause. He served on the Maryland Committee
of Correspondence and was elected to the First
Continental Congress in June 1774. In October
123
Paca
he returned to Annapolis where he was one of
the representatives of that city in the Provincial
Convention which mot from Nov. 21 to 24. A3
member of the Second Continental Congress al-
most continuously from 1775 to 17/9 he served
on many important committees, among1 them the
special Committee of Thirteen for Foreign Af-
fairs. After Maryland removed the restrictions
on the actions of her delegates in June 1776,
Paca and his colleagues, Chase, Thomas Stone,
and Charles Carroll, were free to vote for and
sign the Declaration of Independence (C. F.
Adams, The Works of John Adams, IX, 1854,
p. 416).
Soon after the war started Paca became a mem-
ber of the Maryland Council of Safety and spent
several thousand dollars of his own money out-
fitting1 troops* He was in the convention that
framed a constitution for the state in August
1776 and was elected one of the fifteen members
of the first state Senate. In 1778 he was appoint-
ed chief judge of the Maryland General Court
and two years later was appointed by Congress
as the chief justice of the court of appeals in
admiralty and prize cases (Journals of the Con-
tinental Congress, Feb. 9, 1780). In November
1782 he was elected governor of Maryland by
the legislature and was reflected unanimously in.
1783 and 1784, his last term ending1 Nov. 26,
1785. As governor he was greatly interested in
the welfare of returning soldiers and in reviving-
interests which the war exigency had caused to
decline. He took an active part in raising sub-
scriptions for Washington College and laid the
cornerstone for the first building in 1783. The
Society of the Cincinnati elected Paca to hon-
orary membership for his services during the
war. From 1784 to 1787 he served as vice-presi-
dent of the Maryland Society, though the order
was only for those who had served as army of-
ficers (Annals of the Society of the Cincinnati of
Maryland, 1897, p. 32).
Paca was a delegate in the Maryland conven-
tion which adopted the federal Constitution in
1788. Although he proposed twenty-eight amend-
ments he voted for adoption when the conven-
tion decided it had either to accept or reject the
Constitution as submitted to it. In 1789 Wash-
ington appointed Paca federal district judge. He
held this position until his death at "Wye Hall,"
his country home, in Talbot County, John Adams
described Paca as a "deliberator" (Burnett, post,
I, p. 67). He was identified with all important
political movements in his state from his entrance
into politics until his death. The numerous com-
mittees on which he served and the offices which
he filled bear witness to his devotion to duty.
Pacheco
[H. E. Buchholz, Governors of Kfd. (1908), O. Tilgh-
man, Hist, of Talbot County, Md,, vol. II (igrg), and
John Sanderson, Bioy. of the Signers to the Declaration
of Independence, vol. VLI1 (iS*7), contain .short but
rather inaecuratw nivounts of Para's life. Kor periods
and events in his career see: K. M. Knwland, The Life
of Chas, Carroll of ^Carrollton, J /,?/'"- /#.-?.? (^ vols,,
1898) ; E. S. Delapluinc, The Life of Thomas Johnson
(1927) ; K. C, Burnett, Letters of Members of the Con-
tinental Cong,, vols. 1-Vl ( 1921-33) ; Archives of A/rf..
vols. XI, XII, XUU, XI-V, XLV11, XKVIII (i8g>-
103*) J "Official Letter Book of Governor and Council,1'
Maryland Archives (unpublished), vol. LXXVII1 ; L.
W. Barrcll, "Washington College, 17*^," in Md. Hist,
Mag., June ton; St. Johns Parish Records, llarford
County; "Geneal. Keeonl," in the Md. Hist. Soc. ; B. C.
Sterner. "Maryland's Adoption of the Ked. Consti-
tution, Am. Mist. AY?/., Oct. itfw-Jnn. 1000 ; Baltimore
American, Oct. 17, 1799; Fed. (iusette^ Oct. i6\ 1799,]
M.K.F.
PACHECO, ROMUALDO (Oct. 31, 1831-
Jan. 23, 1899), governor ol California, congress-
man, diplomat, was born at Santa Barbara, Cal.
He "was the second son of Lieutenant of Kngi"
neers Romunldo Pacheco, a native of ( hianajuato,
Mexico, who went to California in 1825 as avi
aide-de-camp to Governor Kcheamlia, and of
Dona Ramona Carillo, daughter of Don Joaquin
Carillo of San Die&'o. The period of his child-
hood was one of turbulence. Spanish rule had
come to an end in 1822; Mexico was involved in
revolutionary difficulties. In the. combat at
Cahuenga Pass near Los Angeles in December
1831, Lieut Pacheco was killed, leaving1 a widow
and two sons, Mariano and Romtirddo. Dona
Ramona subsequently married an English sea
captain, John Wilson. In 1840 the two children
were sent to Honolulu for schooling. By the age
of fifteen Romualclo was back in California, serv-
ing as supercargo on vessels in which his step-
father was interested. He was commanding- a
trading ship in 1846 when California passed un-
der American control, When the state was ad-
mitted to the Union, he took the oath of allegiance
to the United States and thereafter became one
of the most active of its citizens. His family
stood high in native California society and his
English education and experience had fitted him
for immediate political usefulness, He served
several terms in the state Senate and also as
judge of the superior court of his county* In
1863 he was appointed state treasurer by Gov.
Leland Stanford to fill a vacancy. By subsequent
election he served in this office for four years* In
1871 he was elected lieutenant-governor of Cali-
fornia, and upon Governor Booth's election to the
United States Senate, became governor of the
state in January 1875,
Pacheco was the Republican candidate for the
Forty-fifth Congress in 1876, for the fourth dis-
trict He was given the certificate of election
and took his seat in 1877, but the House subse-
124
Packard
quently decided that his Democratic opponent
had won the election hy a few voles. Pacheco
was the Republican candidate again in 1878, was
elected, and was reflected in 1880. His service
at Washington was primarily as a member and
subsequently as chairman of the committee on
private land claims, a subject of much interest
and litigation in California. Ending his congres-
sional services in 1889, he was chosen by Presi-
dent Harrison in 1890 as American minister
plenipotentiary to the Central American Repub-
lics. The next year he was accredited solely to
Guatemala and Honduras. He appears to have
satisfactorily represented the United States both
in the settlement of the Colima dispute and in the
harmonization of relations between these Repub-
lics. Subsequent to his retirement from the dip-
lomatic service, he accepted the management of
a cattle ranch in north Coahuila, Mexico, and
later returned to San Francisco to engage in
stock brokerage business. He died in January
1899 at Oakland, Calif.
As a public official, Pacheco made an excellent
record. While lieutenant-governor of the state,
he served, ex oflicio, as warden of the San Qucn-
tin penitentiary, where he found conditions which
he worked to ameliorate. During his brief serv-
ice as governor he took a strong attitude toward
the development of the state university, and he
was notably independent in his refusal to exercise
executive clemency to wrong-doers. But per-
haps his great service was in uniting the Span-
ish-speaking element of the state with the Amer-
ican settlers who entered in great numbers from
1849 on, in a common effort to build a harmoni-
ous California society and inculcate a loyal citi-
zenship within the United States. In 1863
Pacheco married Mary Mclntire, the writer of a
number of successful comedies. He was a strik-
ingly handsome man, a fine horseman, and was
known among all his acquaintances for his per-
sonal charm and cultivated manners. It is re-
lated in his family that his greatest pleasure was
to assemble at San Luis Obispo guests from far
and wide for that typical ranch hospitality in
which took place the sports and the unaffected
social diversions which are a part of the state's
heritage from its Spanish origin.
[RL H, Bancroft, Hist, of Cat. (1890), vol. VII; T.
H. Hittell, Hut, of Cat., vol. IV (1897) ; C. E, Chap-
man, A Hist, of CaL; The Spanish Period (1921);
Ricliard H. Dana, Two Years Before the Mast (1869
ed.) ; Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the
U. S,t 1890-91 ; obituaries in New York and San Fran-
cisco papers ; information as to certain facts furnished
by Mariano Pacheco of San Luis Obispo.] D. P.B.
PACKARD, ALPHEUS SPRING (Dec. 23,
1798-July 13, 1884), college teacher, brother of
Packard
Joseph Packard \_q.v.], was born at Chelmsford,
Mass., the son of Hezekiah and Mary (Spring-)
Packard. He was a descendant of Samuel Pack-
ard, who emigrated from Norfolk, England, in
1638 and settled in Hingham, Mass. Alpheus was
educated at his father's home in Wiscasset, Me,,
at Phillips Exeter Academy, and at Bowdoin Col-
lege, where he was graduated second in his class
with the Latin salutatory in 1816. After three
years spent in teaching at various Maine acad-
emies, he was called to be tutor at Bowdoin, be-
ginning an uninterrupted service of sixty-five
years which ended only with his death and which
in extent, continuity, and variety has rarely been
exceeded in American academic life. From 1824
until 1865 he was professor of the Latin and
Greek languages ; from 1842 until 1845 also pro-
fessor of rhetoric and oratory j and from 1864
until 1884 Collins Professor of Natural and Re-
vealed Religion. He was also college librarian
from 1869 until 1881 ; and acting president from
1883 until 1884. On May 16, 1850, he was regu-
larly ordained to the Congregational ministry and
added preaching and the conduct of the chapel
services at the college to his other manifold
duties. For forty-five years he was librarian of
the Maine Historical Society, and for over thirty
years, a member of the Brunswick school com-
mittee.
The long years of service which he gave to so
many different offices form but one indication of
a character marked by unusual stamina and utter
fidelity. All his long life he was in perfect health ;
and he was remarkably industrious and me-
thodical. Although, like so many other teachers of
his generation, he gave the greater part of his
time and energy to his classes, he was a compe-
tent, if not an original, scholar. He edited
Xcnophon's Memorabilia of Socrates^ with Eng-
lish Notes (1839) and wrote and published more
than thirty essays and addresses, chiefly on edu-
cational and historical themes. As a teacher of
the classics he did not emphasize unduly philo-
logical and grammatical details but always en-
deavored to unfold and illustrate the thought of
the author. He set forth his theory of the art of
teaching in these words : "Like faithful guides,
we are to show the pupil the most direct path to
knowledge, and become the companions of his
way, pointing out to him the most favorable
points whence he may view all that is grand and
beautiful in the extensive field of human knowl-
edge" (quoted in Memorial, post, pp. 5, 6). His
methods were singularly effective and he was
held in high esteem by his students. It was his
good fortune to have under his instruction Long-
fellow, Hawthorne, and many others of later
125
Packard
Packard
eminence. Longfellow in his poem Morituri racier, and in the spring of 1864 he accompanied
Salutamus delivered in 1875 at the fiftieth anni-
versary of his graduation from Bowcloin paid
Packard, the only surviving niemher of the faculty
of the twenties, the well-known tribute :
"Honor and reverence and the good repute
That follows faithful service as its fruit
Be unto him whom living wo salute."
He had a character of singular sweetness and
gentlenesSS combined with strong conviction. His
portrait hy Vinton, now in the Bowdoin Art Mu-
seum, reveals the features of a strong man, in-
dubitably the gentleman. In person he was de-
scribed as most impressive, very handsome, with
a fine figure, and with none of the carelessness of
dress and appearance that is not infrequent in
academic circles, He was married, first, in 1827,
to Frances Elizabeth, daughter of President Jesse
Appleton [#.?'.], who died in 1839 leaving five
children, among them Alphcus S, Packard [#.?'.],
zoologist of Brown University; and second, in
1844, to Mrs. Caroline W, (Bartclles) McLellan
of Portland, who bore him one child. He died
suddenly of heart failure at Squirrel Island, Me.,
while on a pleasure excursion with members of
his family, and was buried in Brunswick.
[G. T. Little, Gencal. and Family Hist, of the State
of Maine (1909), vol. II ; W. R. Cutter, M>w England
Families, Gcncal. and Memorial (1913), vol. I ; L, C.
Hatch, The Hist, of Bowdoin Coll. (1027) ; Memorial:
Alphcus Spring Packard, 1798-1884 (1886), with bib-
Hog;. ; Bowdoin Orient, July 16 and Oct. x, 1884 ; Daily
Eastern Argus (Portland, Me.), July 14, 1884; Boston
Transcript, July 14, 1884.] K. G, M. S.
PACKARD, ALPHEUS SPRING (Feb. 19,
i839-Feb. 14, 1905), entomologist, teacher, was
born in Brunswick, Me., and died at Providence,
R. I, His father was Prof. Alpheus Spring
Packard [#.£/.] of Bowcloin College ; his mother,
Frances Elizabeth Appleton, daughter of Rev.
Jesse Appleton [q.v.], president of Bowcloin, and
a sister of the wife of President Franklin Pierce
[#.#.]. The most of his male ancestors on both
sides were ministers, and he was the first scien-
tist in the family. A born naturalist, he began to
collect minerals and shells when about fourteen
or fifteen years old, and to read the natural his-
tory books in the library of the college. At six-
teen he began to collect insects, and at eighteen
commenced the study of comparative anatomy.
The next year he entered into correspondence
with Samuel H. Scudder [qjvj], then living- at
Williamstown, Mass,, thus beginning a friend-
ship which lasted through life. Entering- Bow-
doin in 1857, he graduated with the degree of
A.B. in 1861. In the summer of 1860 he went with
Prof. Paul A. Chadbourne [g.v.] upon the stu-
dents' expedition from Williams College to Lab-
the expedition organized by William Bradford,
1823-1892 [</.7'.*I, the marine artist. Jlis obser-
vations on these trips are recorded in 77; r Labra-
dor Coast. A Journal <>/ VVcw Summer Cniiscs
to that Region (1891). He was assistant on the
Maine Geological Survey (i 861-62 )t examining
fossils in the Fish River region for the purpose
of determining the age of the rocks.
After his graduation from Bowdoin, Packard
went to Cambridge to study tinder Agassis, and
soon became a student assistant. In the mean-
time he received the degree of A. AT, from How-
doin (1862) and MJ). from the Maine Medical
School (1864). In the latter year he was com-
missioned assistant surgeon in the first Maine
Veteran Volunteers and wont to the front, serv-
ing until the close of the war. For a year there-
after he was connected with the Boston Society
of Natural History and then became curator of
the Essex Institute* In October 1867 lie married
Elizabeth Derby, daughter of Samuel Haker Wal-
cott That same year ho was appointed a curator
of the Peabody Academy of Science, Salem,
Mass,, of which he was later director, and with
Edward S, Morse, Frederick W. Putnam, and
Alpheus Hyatt Fw«l founded the American
Naturalist, of which he was editor-in-chief until
1887* He was lecturer on economic entomology
at the Maine College of Agriculture and Me-
chanics (1870) and at the Massachusetts Agri-
cultural College (1870-78), and lecturer on en-
tomology at Bowcloin (1871-74). In 1869 he
published his Guide to the Study of Insects, an
illustrated volume of large size. The influence of
this hook on the study of entomology in the
United States can hardly be overestimated. There
was an unexpectedly large sale, and it was adopt-
ed by many of the colleges and universities,
Some subsequent editions were published.
Through this book, Packard became one of the
best-known men in scientific circles in America,
and in 1872 was elected to the National Academy
of Sciences. In the same year he visited Europe
for the first time and was warmly greeted by the
most prominent naturalists- In 1873 he was one
of the teachers in the Anderson School of Natu-
ral History at Pemkese, established by the elder
Agassiz, He was temporarily connected with the
Kentucky Geological Survey in 1874, and in 1875,
with the United States Geological Survey of the
Territories under Ferdinand V. Hayden [#.#.].
In 1877 he became a member of the United States
Entomological Commission, with Charles V-
Riley and Cyrus Thomas [qq.v.'j, to investigate
the Rocky Mountain locust. He resigned his
position at the Peabody Academy of Science in
126
Packard
1878 to become professor of zoology and geology
at Brown University, where he remained for the
rest of his life. In 1898 he published his well-
known Text-Book of Entomology, which dealt
with the anatomy, physiology, embryology, and
metamorphoses of insects.
During his career he worked incessantly. He
was an ardent evolutionist and a man of great
breadth of mind. Although a sound taxonomist,
having described fifty genera and about five hun-
dred and eighty species in many groups, his work
was especially strong along biological lines. His
last work was his monumental Monograph of the
Bouibycine Moths (3 vols., 1895-1914), the last
volume being completed and edited after his
death by T. D. A. Cocker ell. He did a great work
in popularizing science, but did little public lec-
turing on account of a defective palate. In ad-
dition to his scientific pursuits he was greatly
interested in music and art. He was an honorary
member of the Entomological Society of France
and of the Entomological Society of London.
His bibliography contains 579 titles. Aside from
the important works already mentioned, he was
the author of A Monograph of the Gcometrid
Mo this or Phalaenidae of the United States
(1876), and Insects Injurious to Forest and
Shade Trees (1881), of which a second edition
appeared in 1890. These constituted the first
notable contributions to the study of forest en-
tomology in North America. They were pro-
fusely illustrated and dealt almost entirely with
the biological aspects of the insects treated. At
the time of his death he was generally considered
by both American and European scientific men
as the broadest, the most learned, and the most
accomplished entomologist in the United States.
[T. D. A. Cockerell, in Biog. Memoirs Nat. Acad.
$ci.t vol. IX (1920), with bibbog. ; Samuel Henshaw,
The Entomological Writings of Dr. Alphcus Spring
Packard (1887) ; Popular Sci. Mo.{ May 1905 ; Who's
Who in America, 1903-05 ; Providence Daily four.,
Feb. 15, 1905.3 L.O.H.
PACKARD, FREDERICK ADOLPHUS
(Sept 26, 1794-Nov. 11, 1867), editor of Sunday-
school publications, was born in Marlboro, Mass.
His father was the Rev. Asa Packard, a de-
scendant of Samuel Packard, who emigrated from
England to Massachusetts in 1638, settling in
Hingham; his mother was Nancy Quincy, also
of Puritan descent. For many years Asa Pack-
ard was pastor of the Congregational Church in
Marlboro. Frederick prepared for college under
his uncle, Hezekiah Packard, father of Alpheus
S. and Joseph Packard [##.#.], at Wiscasset,
Me., and graduated from Harvard in 1814 with
honors. He then studied law at Northampton,
Mass., and practised at Springfield from 1817
Packard
until 1829. In 1819 he became editor and pro-
prietor of the Hampshire Federalist (later the
Hampden Federalist), a weekly journal giving
the news of the day as well as articles on literary,
scientific, and religious subjects ,* it was a pred-
ecessor of the Springfield Republican. In 1822
he married Elizabeth Dwight Hooker, daughter
of Judge John Hooker. Shortly after, he united
with the First Congregational Church of Spring-
field, and at once became interested in the Sun-
day school. He was elected its superintendent
in 1827, and in 1828 was sent as a delegate to the
Fourth Anniversary of the Sunday School
Union. During 1828-29, he was a member of the
state legislature of Massachusetts.
In the latter part of 1828 he was asked to be-
come editorial secretary of the American Sun-
day School Union. Upon accepting the office, he
moved to Philadelphia and until 1858 edited con-
tinuously all of the weekly and monthly periodi-
cals of the Union, as well as all the books issued
with its imprint. Certain unpleasant differences
among the managers of the Union led to a sus-
pension of his duties for a short time in 1858.
Later, this opposition was withdrawn and he
resumed his editorial work, continuing therein
until the time of his death in 1867. During the
period of his editorship more than 2,000 books
passed through his hands. Between forty and
fifty of these were written by him, though, owing
to his unobtrusive disposition, he did not permit
his name to appear on them, a fact which makes
it difficult to identify them. In 1837 the Sunday
School Union prepared a "Select Library" of
some 120 volumes for use in public schools. The
following year Packard endeavored to get Horace
Mann [#.z>.] and the Massachusetts Board of
Education to approve the introduction of these
into the Massachusetts schools. Since, in the
opinion of Mann, the books were patently sec-
tarian, their admission was not sanctioned. As
a result, Packard carried on for years in news-
papers and magazines a persistent attack upon
Mann and the Board for excluding orthodox re-
ligion from the system of public education. (For
full discussion of this episode, see R. B. Culver,
Horace Mann and Religion in the Massachusetts
Public Schools, 1929).
Packard was a man of many interests, and a
great worker. He was a director of Girard Col-
lege for Orphans, and in July 1849 was elected
to its presidency, which he declined. He was
manager of the House of Refuge, and for twenty-
one years editor of the Journal of Prison Dis-
cipline. He also wrote many articles on reli-
gious, educational, and other subjects, Among
the magazines of the Sunday School Union which
127
Packard
he edited was the Sunday School Journal and Ad-
vocate of Christian Religion and Youth's Penny
Gazette, which later became the Child's World;
the society's annual reports were also prepared
by him. His own books include The Union- Bible
Dictionary (1837), The Teacher Taught (1839),
The Teacher Teaching (i86t), The Rock
(1861), and Life of Robert Owen (1866). He
had four children, among* whom were Lewis
Richard Packard, professor of Greek at Yale,
and John Hooker Packard [#.?'.].
[Charles Hudson, Hist, of the Town of Marlborough
, , . Mass. (186.2) ; Annual Reports of the Am. Sunday
School Union, particularly The 44th Ann, Report, May
i«68 ; E. W. Rice, The Sunday School Movement //tfo~
iy/7 and the Am, Sunday-School Union, I7$o~iyi?
(1917) ; G. H. Griffin, Frederick A, Packard, A Me-
morial Discourse (1890) ; Philu, Inquirer, Nov. 12,
H.I.D.
PACKARD, JAMES WARD (Nov. 5, 1863-
Mar. 20, 1928), engineer, inventor, manufac-
turer, son of Warren and Mary E. (Doucl)
Packard, was born in Warren, Ohio, His fa-
ther was a successful business man, engaged first
in the hardware trade in Warren and later in
extensive sawmill operations in Ohio, Pennsyl-
vania, and New York. James spent a normal
boy's life at home and developed a particularly
keen interest in mechanics and electricity. He
prepared for college in his birthplace, and at the
age of seventeen entered Lehigh University,
Bethlehem, Pa,, the youngest in the class, grad-
uating in 1884 with the degree of mechanical en-
gineer. Immediately following his graduation he
ivent to work in a steam power plant in New
^ork City, and a year or so later obtained the
iob of foreman for the Sawyer-Mann Electric
Company, New York, manufacturers of the Saw-
der-Mann incandescent electric lamp. This as-
sociation presumably gave him his first real
opportunity to engage in research and experiment-
ation, for in the course of the succeeding five
'ears he acquired a number of valuable patents.
These included a new form of incandescent lamp,
, lamp socket, and four patents on improvements
n vacuum pumps for exhausting the air from
ncandescent lamp bulbs.
In 1889 the Sawyer-Mann Company was sold to
he Westinghouse interests, which sale included
tie transfer of Packard's patents ; and, although
e had the opportunity to connect himself with
ie new owners, Packard returned to his home
i Warren and with his brother started an elec-
rical business under the name of the Packard
Electric Company. The following- year, with the
id of local capital, the brothers reorganized
aeir company as the New York & Ohio Corn-
any, and for more than ten years engaged in
Packard
the manufacture of electrical transformers, fuse
boxes, measuring instruments, and cables. At
first these products were of the conventional type,
but Packard, devoting his lime especially to re-
search, devised a number of improvements, which
were immediately manufactured by the company.
Thus on Oct. 9, 180)4, he obtained two patents
for a transformer and fuse box ; he devised a
number of further improvements in transformers
in 1897 and 1899, and perfected a new electrical
measuring instrument in rgoo.
Early in this decade Packard had become in-
terested also in the "horseless carriage" and
bought a French De Dion-Bouton motor tricycle
which, incidentally, had been constructed in
Massachusetts. He also investigated the early
European horseless carriages and as a result, be-
tween 1891 and 1893, conceived the idea of build-
ing such a vehicle himself. Assisted by one of
his shopmen, he drew up plans ft>r u vehicle and
negotiated for the purchase of a gasoline engine
from Charles King of Detroit. The depression
of 1893 unfortunately halted for five years the
actual building of the automobile. In t8<)8, how-
ever, he purchased one of the first Wintou auto-
mobiles and shortly afterwards, in company with
George Weiss, who had been one of the or-
gangers of the Winton Company, and W. A,
Hatcher, the Winton shop superintendent, he
designed and built his first automobile, which was
given a roacl test Nov. 6, 1899. Following this
successful trial, the Ohio Automobile Company
was immediately formed as a department of Pack-
ard's electric company, and the manufacture of
Packard automobiles was begun early in 1900. Af-
ter several years of successful operation, in 1903,
with the assistance of outside financial help, he
reorganized his company as the Packard Motor
Car Company and established a new plant at De-
troit, Mich., where it has remained ever since.
Although president of the new company, Pack-
ard continued to live in Warren, The mercantile
side of the business had very little appeal for him,
however, and after a few years he relinquished
the presidency and for the remainder of his life
acted as consultant and adviser to the company.
As in his earlier electrical work, so in the auto-
mobile field his greatest interest was in research,
and he contributed many valuable improvements
to the automobile, These included gasoline en-
gines; transmission, ignition and carburetion
systems ; chassis construction ; and braking mech-
anisms. His success, it has been said, was due
primarily to his sensitiveness to mechanical
crudeness and his talent to see how things that
had been done could be done better, His homes
were storehouses of useful and experimental de-
128
Packard
vices, including a collection of watches, which,
for exquisite beauty and intricate mechanism,
was perhaps the finest ever assembled by an indi-
vidual. It is now in the possession o£ the Horo-
logical Institute of America, Washington, D. C.
His philanthropies were many, the outstanding
ones being a million-dollar laboratory for elec-
trical and mechanical engineering given to
Lehigh University and the sum of a million dol-
lars given to the Seaman's Institute in New York.
In August 1904 he married Elizabeth Achsah
Gillmer of Warren, Ohio, who survived him at
the time of his death in Cleveland.
[J. G. Butler, Hist, of Yowigstown and the Motio-
ning" Valley, Ohio (1921, vols. I-1I) ; correspondence
with Horologicnl Institute of America and the Packard
family ; J. R. Doolittle, The Romance of the Automobile
Industry (1916); Automobile Trade Jour., Dec. i,
1934; Automobile Industries f Mar, 24, 1928 ; Cleveland
Phrin Dealer, Mar. 21, 1928 ; Who's Who in America,
ig 26-27 ; Patent Office records.] C.W.M — n.
PACKARD, JOHN HOOKER (Aug. 15,
i832-May 21, 1907), surgeon, was born in
Philadelphia, the son of Frederick A. Packard
['#,«/.], of old New England ancestry. His fa-
ther's line went back to Samuel Packard who
came to America in 1638; through his mother,
Elizabeth D wight (Hooker), he was descended
from Rev, Thomas Hooker [#,#.], who emi-
grated to New England in 1633, and founded the
town of Hartford, Conn., in 1636. John Hooker
Packard received the degree of A.B. from the
University of Pennsylvania in 1850, and that of
3VLD, from the same institution in 1853. He
then went abroad and walked the hospitals of the
Old World, spending most of his time in London
and Paris, in the latter place seeing some of
Nflaton's operations. On his return to America
he served as resident physician in the Pennsyl-
vania Hospital, with winch institution he was to
have a long and honorable career. During the
Civil War he was acting assistant surgeon in
the United States Army, and served as attending
surgeon to the Christian Street and to the Sat-
terlee General hospitals in Philadelphia. Though
ill at the time, he obeyed at once emergency or-
ders to report at the scene of action during the
battle of Gettysburg, where "for three days and
nights he labored incessantly, and then, being
utterly unable to continue at work, was sent
back to Philadelphia, suffering from a nearly
fatal attack of typhoid" (Gibbon, post, p. Ivii).
In 1863, his election as surgeon to the Episco-
pal Hospital, Philadelphia, introduced him again
to major surgery, especially traumatic major
surgery. He resigned from the Episcopal Hos-
pital, when, in 1884, he was elected surgeon to
the Pennsylvania Hospital, a position which he
Packard
held until 1896. He served also for a number of
years as surgeon to St. Joseph's Hospital. He
was the type of man who took personal interest
in the administration of the institutions with
which he was connected. Elected a fellow of
the College of Physicians of Philadelphia in
1858, he served faithfully as secretary from 1862
to 1877. In 1885 ne was elected vice-president
of the college. He also served as Mutter Lec-
turer, being the first to hold this post. His Lec-
tures on Inflammation Delivered before the Col-
lege of Physicians of Philadelphia under the
Bequest of Dr. Mutter were published in book
form in 1865. He also gave the second series,
published under the title Notes on Fractures of
the Upper Extremity (1867). Packard was a
founder of the Philadelphia Academy of Surgery
( 1879) , the Pathological Society of Philadelphia,
and the Obstetrical Society of Philadelphia. He
was also an original fellow of the American
Surgical Association (1880) and its treasurer
(1880-83)-
His published works include A Treatise on
Fractures (1859), a translation of J. F. Mal-
gaigne's work; A Manual of Minor Surgery
(1863) ; and/4 Hand-book of Operative Surgery
(1870). He contributed to John Ashhurst's In-
ternational Encyclopaedia of Surgery the articles
entitled "Poisoned Wounds'' and "Injuries to
Bones" (the latter, a monograph of 260 pages) ;
and to J. M. Keating's Cyclopaedia of the Dis-
eases of Children the chapters entitled "Colot-
omy" and "Fractures and Dislocations," In
1881 he edited an American edition of Timothy
Holmes's System of Surgery. He was also re-
sponsible for three editions of The Philadelphia
Medical Register and Directory (1868, 1871,
1873). He was recognized as an expert in
medico-legal cases, and often served as expert
witness. He was an active member of the Penn-
sylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and was on
its board of directors from 1884, and chairman
of its committee on instruction from 1887 to his
death. His own artistic skill was considerable
and his hospital histories were often adorned by
excellent sketches. His last days were saddened
by being forced to give up all active surgical
work as the result of an infection of his finger,
acquired in the course of his professional duties
(1896). He was married, June 3, 1858, to Eliza-
beth Wood ; they had six children, two of his five
sons becoming physicians.
[J. H. Gibbon, "Memoir of John Hooker Packard,
M.D." Trans, of the Coll. of Physicians of Phila., 3
ser. XXXI (1909) ; R. H. Harte, "Presentation of the
Portrait of Dr. John H. Packard," Ibid., 3 ser. XXXIX
(1917) ; H, A. Kelly and W. L. Burrage, Am. Medic.
Biogs, (1920) ; Who's Who in America, 1906-07 ; Pub-
lic Ledger (Phila.), May 22, 1907.] A. P. C. A.
129
Packard
PACKARD, JOSEPH (Dec. 23, i8i2-May 3,
1902), Episcopal clergyman, Biblical vscholar,
was born at Wiscasset, Me., the son of Hezekiah
and Mary (Spring) Packard, and a descendant
of Samuel Packard who emigrated from England
to Hinghara, Mass., in 1638, later moving to
Bridgewater. His father enlisted in the Revolu-
tionary army at the age of thirteen, later grad-
uated at Harvard, and was a minister and teach-
er. Joseph's home life was, therefore, that of a
New England country minister's household, very
simple, but strongly influenced by religion and
learning. He began the study of Latin and Greek
at an early age with his father ; at twelve went
to Phillips Academy, Andover ; at fourteen taught
Greek and Latin in his father's school ; and at fif-
teen entered Bowdoin College, where his broth-
er, Alpheus Spring Packard, 1798-1884 lq.v.1
was professor of Latin and Greek and Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow was his French profes-
sor, He graduated in 1831, salutatorian of his
class, delivering the address in Latin, After
graduating, he taught for several years and was
in charge of Brattleboro Academy, Vermont,
In 1833 he entered Andover Seminary, and
while there became a member of the Episcopal
Church, to which he had been attracted by "its
liturgy and its ways." He valued highly the his-
toric episcopate, the right of the laity to repre-
sentation in church councils, the custom of com-
mon worship, and the sacraments, and remained
during his long life a stanch and devoted church-
man of the evangelical school In 1834 he be-
came professor of Latin, Hebrew, and other
branches in Bristol College, and two years later
was elected professor of sacred literature in the
Theological Seminary in Virginia, where he
spent the rest of his life* He was ordained deacon
by Bishop Griswold, July 17, 1836, and priest by
Bishop Meade, Sept, 29, 1837. In January 1838
he married Rosina Jones, daughter of Walter
Jones [gw.] and grand-niece of "Light-Horse
Harry" Lee. They had nine children, four sons
and five daughters. He served for twelve years
an the American Committee for the Revision of
the Bible, published several articles in the Bib-
'iotheca Sacra, and edited "The Book of Mai-
ichi" (1874) in J. P. Lange's Commentary on
l,he Holy^ Scriptures, In 1874 he became dean of
:he Seminary and held this position until he re-
:ired in 1895. He continued to live at the Semi-
lary until his death.
Packard's life covered almost all of the nine-
;eenth century, and in him two civilizations met :
:he Puritan of New England and the Cavalier
md Church of England of Virginia. His father
;aw General Washington take command of the
Packard
army under the elm at Cambridge, his father-in-
law commanded the militia of the District of Co-
lumbia against the British hi 1814, while he him-
self was acquainted with Generals Lee and
Jackson, and lost two sons in the Confederate
Army, lie was remarkable, also, for his great
length of service as a professor in one institution,
through which he exerted no little influence upon
the religious life of America. He was an hon-
est, accurate, and thoroughly trained scholar,
with a fine simplicity of character, singleness of
purpose, good judgment, practical wisdom, and
unfailing sympathy.
[Who's Who m America, IQOI-OJ: T, J. PadkartI,
ed,, Kcceltcetiwtjr <>/ a Lonu Life, Joseph }*dckanlt D J)
O0<u); W, A. K, Goodwin, Iftjtt. <»/ the Theological
Sern* in Vat (1923) ; Alt\vtindna Gasette, May *, 190^,)
T.K.N.
PACKARD, SILAS SADLER (Apr. 28,
ife6-0et 27, i8g8), pioneer in business educa-
tion, was born at Cumnnngton, Mass., son of
Chester and Kunice (Sadler) Packard, His fa-
ther was a descendant of Samuel Packard who
settled in Ilingham, Mass., in 1638 and later re-
moved to Hridgewatcr, In 1833, when Silas was
seven years old, his family migrated to Fredonia,
Licking County, Ohio, taking a month for the
journey and traveling the entire distance from
Troy, N, Y,, to Newark, Ohio, by water, His
account of this trip and of the family's adven-
tures in the new home. My Recollections of Ohio
(1890), written many years later, given a typical
picture of the pioneer experiences of hundreds
of New England families. A few terms in the
district schools and a year in Granville Academy,
Granville, Ohio, constituted all the formal school-
ing that the boy was able to acquire, but his na-
tive resourcefulness carried him far, At sixteen
he was a teacher of penmanship in country
schools. Three years later, having become mas*
ter of a Kentucky school, he exhibited proficiency
in portrait painting, for which he had to prepare
his own materials. This interest, however, seems
to have been temporary. At Cincinnati in 1848
he resumed the teaching of penmanship in a
commercial school and later added bookkeeping
to the branches in which he offered instruction.
After a brief residence in Adrian, Mich* ( 1850-*
51), he spent two years in Lockport, N. Y., re-
moving to Tonawanda, N, Y., in 1853, where he
started a weekly newspaper, the Niagara River
Pilot.
In 1856 he became associated with Henry B«
Bryant and Henry D. Stratton in promoting a
chain of business "colleges." This enterprise
took him to Chicago and to Albany, N, Y. In
1858 he founded Packard's Business College in
the city of New York. He also assisted in cotn-
130
Packer
piling Byrant and Stratton's National Book-
Keeping, a series of textbooks the first of which
was published in 1860, and from May 1868 to
March 1870 he published Packard's Monthly.
Once having decided that his career was to He
in the field of commercial education, he held to
that objective for the remaining forty years of
his life. The New York school prospered under
his direction; in its first twenty-five years it
numbered 6,000 pupils. He was eager and meas-
urably successful in promoting the training of
young1 women for office work and in convincing
employers of their capability. The introduction
of the typewriter, with the increased demand for
stenographers, was met by added facilities for
training in those branches. Packard was one of
the first business-school proprietors to sense the
meaning of the changed conditions in business
life and to adapt his methods to them. For many
years he held a place of accredited leadership in
his chosen vocation. He was accounted a good
speaker and writer and was active in several or-
ganisations, notably the Ohio Society. On Mar.
6, 1850, he was married to Marion Helena
Crocker.
fTheophilus Packard, The Gcncals. of Samuel Pack-
ard, of ilri(tgewatcrf Maws., and of Abel Packard, of
Cummin(jtont Mass, (1871) ; Moses Gary, A Gencal.of
the Families Who Have Settled in the North Parish
of Rridt/cwatcr ( 1824) ; N. Y. Tribune, Oct. 28, 1898;
B. J. Leasing, Hut. of N. F. City (1884) ; Nat. Mag.,
Dec. 3:891, pp. ;2QS~o8.] W.B.S.
PACKER, ASA (Dec. 29, i8o5~May 17, 1879),
railroad builder, congressman, philanthropist,
was born at Groton, New London County,
Conn., the son of Elisha Packer, Jr. It appears
that his formal education was limited to the rudi-
ments secured in the local district school. As a
youth he entered the tannery of Elias Smith at
North Stonington and so conducted himself that
his employer planned to take him into partnership
but died before the arrangements were completed.
As a result, young- Asa, after experimenting with
farming in Connectictit and finding conditions
unsatisfactory, determined at the age of seven-
teen to seek his fortune in Pennsylvania. Set-
ting out on foot with a knapsack on his back he
arrived in 1822 in Brooklyn, Susquehanna Coun-
ty, where he served as an apprentice to a relative
who was a carpenter and joiner. He followed
this trade for several years and even worked at
it for a time in the city of New York while still
maintaining a residence at Springville, also in
Susquehanna County, where he purchased land
in 1823 and built with his own hands a cabin that
served as his home for ten years. Mauch Chunk
on the Upper Lehigh at this time acquired real
importance owing to the completion of the Lehigh
Packer
Valley canal, and Packer became the owner and
master of a canal boat that carried coal from this
place to Philadelphia. Saving his earnings he
purchased coal lands on the Upper Susquehanna
and in this way laid the foundations of the for-
tune that he came to possess. In 1831 he also
began to operate a store and boatyard in partner-
ship with his younger and only brother, R. W.
Packer, and subsequently took a contract for the
construction of canal locks on the upper naviga-
tion of the Lehigh which he completed in 1837.
The year following he was at Pottsville, build-
ing boats to transfer coal to New York by way
of the New Canal. He engaged in mining and
transporting coal for the Lehigh Coal & Navi-
gation Company and also purchased and operated
on his own account mines at Hazleton.
In 1843 Packer entered public life upon his
election to the state legislature. As a member of
that body he was able to secure an act for the
creation of the county of Carbon with Mauch
Chunk as its county seat For five years subse-
quent to the erection of the county he was asso-
ciate judge of the county court. In politics he
was a Democrat and in 1852 he was elected to
Congress from the thirteenth district and served
for two terms. While fairly constant in his at-
tendance he made no speeches. He was inclined
to be regular, usually voting with the majority
of his party, and supporting both Pierce and
Buchanan. His power within the ranks of the
Democratic party cannot be measured by speeches
and public appearances. In the National Demo-
cratic Convention of 1868 he received the votes
of the Pennsylvania delegation for president ; in
1869 he was the Democratic nominee for gover-
nor. But he was not destined to enter public of-
fice again, although he accepted in 1876 a post
as commissioner for the Centennial Exhibition
and was especially influential in connection with
the Centennial Board of Finance. The year pre-
ceding his election to a seat in Congress he ac-
quired a controlling interest in a projected rail-
road incorporated in 1846 under the name of the
Delaware, Lehigh, Schuylkill & Susquehanna
Railroad Company, which in 1853 became the
Lehigh Valley Railroad Company. This he not
only financed but built in spite of the unwilling-
ness of the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company
to support a project that seemed doomed to fail-
ure. Although he was financially embarrassed
at times "before the completion of the road he
shared largely in the profits of the mining and
transportation business that was developed and
became before his death the richest man in Penn-
sylvania.
At the close of the Civil War Packer decided
131
Packer
to establish an institution for the education of the
youth of the region that had for over forty years
been the scene of his chief business activities. To
achieve this end he set aside $500,000 and also
donated a considerable body of land. In 1866 the
new institution, Lehigh University, was chartered
by the Pennsylvania legislature and opened for
instruction in temporary buildings. Packer add-
ed greatly to his original gift to this foundation
during his lifetime and in his will made it a
beneficiary to the extent of $1,500,000, In ad-
dition, he liberally endowed the university library.
He also gave most liberally to various activities
of the Episcopal Church of which he was a mem-
ber and by his will his great wealth was largely
distributed. He died at his Philadelphia residence
in his seventy-fifth year. He had married, on
Jan. 23, 1828, Sarah M. Blakeslee, the daughter
of a farmer of Schuylkill township in Susque-
hanna County. She with two sons and a daughter
survived him. Packer possessed an indomitable
will, unusual foresight, and business judgment.
He knew the value of money and never allowed
himself to divert it to channels that would not be
generally profitable or beneficial. Accordingly he
never indulged in extravagances but always lived
with rigid simplicity.
[Outline of the Career of the Hon. Asa Packer1 of
Pa. (1867); M, A. DeW. Howe, The Lchiph Univ.:
Asa Packer, Flounder (1879) ; J, M. Lcavitt, Unw, Scr~
mon: Memorial to A. Packer (1870) ; Henry Conp^e,
Asa Packer (n.cl.) ; The Bhg. Hncyc. of Pa, of the
Nineteenth Century (1874) ; f. W. Jordan, ttncyc. of
Pa. Biog., vol. VI (iQitf) ; M, S. Henry, Hist, of Lchinh
Valley (1860) ; ftioff. Dir. Am. Cong, (1928); C JtC.
Stark, Groton, Conn,, 1705-1905 (10-22") ; Archives of
the Hist. Soc, of Pa. ; collection of newspaper clippings
relating to Packer in the Lehigh Univ, Lib.'!
L.H.G.
PACKER, WILLIAM FISHER (Apr. 2,
i8o7-Scpt 27, 1870), editor and politician, was
born in Howard Township, Centre County, Pa.,
the son of James and Chanty (Bye) Packer. He
received but little schooling- since his father, a
farmer, died when William was but seven years
old. In January 1820 he apprenticed himself to
a relative, Sairmel J. Packer, who was editor of
the Public Inquirer at Stmbury, Pa,, to learn the
printing trade. Later the paper was discontinued
and he entered the office of Henry Pctrikin, pub-
lisher of the Belief onte Patriot at Bellefonte, Pa,
In 1825 he went to Harrisburg and worked as a
journeyman printer on the Pennsylvania Intel-
ligencer, published by Charles Mowry and Simon
Cameron. Two years later he was appointed
clerk in the register's office of Lycoming County
at Williamsport, Pa., and at the same time com-
menced the study of law in the office of Joseph
B. Anthony of that place. In the fall of 1827 he
formed a connection with John Brandon, pub-
Packer
lisher of the Lycoming Gazette, which at this
time was the only newspaper issued in the north-
ern part of Pennsylvania. On Aug. 18, 1829, he
became the sole owner of the paper and published
it until May 1836, when he sold it to John R, Eek.
The Gazette was a Democratic paper and as its
editor Packer became a leader in the local af-
fairs of that party and was sent as a delegate to
the National Democratic Convention at Balti-
more, Mcl.» in 1835. Kventunlly he became known
as one of the ablest politicians of Pennsylvania.
In 1831 Packer worked to secure state appro-
priations for the completion of the West: Branch
Division of the Pennsylvania Canal, and from
June 1832 until 1835, when the canal was com-
pleted, he was superintendent of that division.
In 1836 he joined with O, Barrett and Benjamin
Parke in publishing the Keystone at Harrisburg,
Pa., which in a, short time became a strong influ-
ence in Pennsylvania politics, lie retained his in-
terest in this paper until 1841, In February 1839
he was appointed a canal commissioner for the
state and served until 1841, The following year
he was appointed auditor-general of Pennsylvania
and held this office until May i, 1845. In 1847
and again in 1848 he was elected a member t>£ the
state House of Representatives and during- both
terms served as speaker. In 1840 he was elected
to the state Senate, Here he carried through,
against strong opposition, the bill to incorporate
the Susquehamm Railroad Company, and xtpon
the organization of the company on June 10, 1852,
he was made its president I le served until 1854,
when the road was consolidated with others to
form the Northern Central Railway Company,
and then was made a member of the board of
directors. In 1857 he was elected governor of
Pennsylvania. He was essentially a Northern
moderate which was revealed by his strong op-
position to the Kansas policy of Buchanan, al-
though he had labored for the latter's nomina-
tion at the National Democratic Convention in
1856, and by his opposition to secession in 1861,
As governor he continued his activities in be-
half of improved transportation facilities for the
state. He urged state aid to carry on the con-
struction of the Sunbury & Erie Railroad and
shortly after he left office the measure was passed*
At the close of his term as governor in 1861 he
retired from political life and returned to his
home at Williamsport, Pa,, where he later died.
He had married, on Dec, 24, 1829, Mary W.
Vanderbelt, by whom he had six children,
[G. P* Doiadioo, ed, Pa,; A Hist. (1926), vol. Ill;
W. H. Egle, An Illustrated Hist, of the Commonwealth
of Pa. (1876) ; T. W. Lloyd, Hist, of Lycoming County,
Pa, (1929) I J. B. Linn, Hist, of Centre and Clinton
Counties, Pa. (1883) ; W. B. Wilson, Hist, of the Pa.
132
Paddock
Railroad Company (1899), vol. I ; Pub. Ledger (Phila.),
Sept. 28, 1870,] J.H.F*
PADDOCK, ALGERNON SIDNEY (Nov.
9, i830-Oct. 17, 1897), secretary and acting gov-
ernor of the territory of Nebraska, United States
senator, was born at Glens Falls, N. Y., the son
of Ira A. Paddock, a prominent lawyer, and
Lucinda (Wells) Paddock. He attended a local
academy, then entered Union College at Sche-
ncctady, N. Y., from which, however, owing to
financial difficulties, he was never graduated.
Later he taught school and read law. In May
1857 he followed his brother, Joseph W. Pad-
clock, to Omaha, Nebr., where he promptly se-
cured admission to the bar, preempted a farm
nearby, and threw himself actively into the life
of the new community. He was married on Dec.
22, 1859, to Emma L. Mack, daughter of Daniel
and Lucinda (Perry) Mack, of St Lawrence
County, N. Y.
Most of Paddock's time was soon absorbed in
politics. He identified himself with the Repub-
lican party, wrote strong anti-slavery editorials
for the Nebraska Republican, ran for the state
legislature in 1858 and lost, sat in the first Re-
publican territorial convention ever to be held
in Nebraska, and attended both the national con-
ventions that nominated Lincoln for the presi-
dency. During the campaign of 1860 he stumped
the state of New York for the Republican ticket,
and perhaps in reward for this service he was
appointed by President Lincoln on Seward's
nomination to be secretary of Nebraska terri-
tory. This office Paddock held continuously from
1861 to 1867, and twice, once in 1862 and again
in 1867, he also acted as governor. He did not,
therefore, see service in the Civil War, although
he worked energetically to fill the Nebraska
quotas of volunteers, and to enlist militia for the
defense of the Nebraska frontier against the In-
dians. During the Reconstruction period, at con-
siderable cost to his political advancement, he
stood loyally by the Johnson administration. He
went clown to defeat in 1866 as the Independent
Republican candidate for Congress ; he failed of
election in 1867 to the United States Senate, and
he declined an appointment tendered him by
President Johnson in 1868 as governor of Wyo-
ming, He was still at odds with the dominant
wing of the Republican party during the cam-
paign of 1872, when he supported Greeley for
president That same year he changed his resi-
dence to Beatrice, Gage County, Nebr., and
turned his attention to business.
Paddock rendered his principal public service
as a member of the United States Senate for two
terms, 1875-81, and 1887-93. He was the poli-
Paddock
tician's ideal senator, for he conceived it to be his
chief duty in Washington to look after the in-
terests of his constituents. Few senators have
ever worked harder or more successfully at this
task; during his second term alone he was said
to have introduced or reported 328 bills that
eventually passed. He watched jealously the in-
terests of Nebraskans whenever national policies
that would touch them intimately were tip for
consideration. Perhaps his greatest triumph
came in 1890, when in response to a resolution
he had introduced the Interstate Commerce Com-
mission investigated the charges of excessive
freight rates on western railroads and ordered
reductions that saved Nebraska producers many
thousands of dollars. He was replaced in 1881
by Chas. H. Van Wyck and in 1893 by William
V. Allen, both men of radical tendencies who
rose to power on waves of agrarian discontent.
From 1882 to 1886 he was a member of the
famous Utah Commission which sought with
some success to induce the Mormons to obey the
national laws on polygamy. Paddock had many
friends, and deserved to have them. He was
even-tempered, unfailingly courteous, optimistic
— particularly with regard to the future of Ne-
braska— and always a man of his word. He died
in 1897 survived by his wife and three of his five
children.
[J. Sterling Morton and Albert Watkins, Illustrated
Hist, of Neb., vol. I (1905) ; T. W. Tipton, Forty Years
of Neb. (1902) ; A. C. Edmunds, Pen Sketches of
Nebraskans (1871) ; H. J. Dobbs, Hist, of Gage Coun-
ty, Neb. (1918) ; Neb. State Jour. (Lincoln) and Morn-
ing World-Herald (Omaha), Oct. 18, 1897-]
J.D.H.
PADDOCK, BENJAMIN HENRY (Feb.
29, i828-Mar. 9, 1891), bishop of the Protestant
Episcopal Church, son of Rev. Seth Birdsey and
Emily (Flagg) Paddock, was born in Norwich,
Conn., where his father was for many years rec-
tor of Christ Church. Benjamin was a sedate,
serious-minded youth whose natural bent was
toward the ministry. He graduated from Trin-
ity College, Hartford, in 1848 and, after a year
spent in teaching at the Cheshire Academy,
Cheshire, Conn., of which his father was then
principal, he entered the General Theological
Seminary, New York, completing his course there
in 1852. On June 29 of that year he was ad-
mitted to deacon's orders at Christ Church,
Stratford, Conn., of which his brother, John
Adams Paddock [#.f.], later also a bishop, was
rector. In May 1853 he married Caroline H.
Cooke of Wallingford, Conn., and on Sept. 27, at
Trinity Church, Norwalk, he was ordained priest
While deacon he served for a time as assistant
minister at the Church of the Epiphany, New
133
Paddock
York, Following: a few months' rectorship in
Portland, Mc,y which place he left in the interest
of his health, he took charge of Trinity Church,
Norwich. After about seven years here he went
to Christ Church, Detroit. His first wife having
died in 1860, he married in 1863 Anna D. Sanger
of Detroit. He was always greatly interested
in missionary activities, and in 1868 was elected
missionary bishop of Oregon and Washington,
but declined. In May 1869 he became rector of
Grace Church, Brooklyn, where he remained
until 1873, in which year he was elected bishop
of Massachusetts and on Sept. 17 was conse-
crated to that office in his own church.
Bishop Paddock had just the qualities which
the troubled diocese of Massachusetts needed in
its spiritual overseer. His election fell in the
period when the strife between high church and
low church adherents was most intense. The
General Convention of 1871 had been a stormy
one, and Paddock had delivered a speech there
which had made a strong impression both be-
cause of its content and its spirit. In Massachu-
setts there was much bitterness. After the death
of Bishop Eastburn, an implacable opponent of
high church practices, each party was eager that
one favorable to its views should be chosen as his
successor* The election finally narrowed clown
to a contest between Rev. Henry C. Potter and
Rev. James De Koven [qq.v.], leader of the high
church movement. When it was clear that neither
could be elected, Paddock, a compromise candi-
date, was chosen. Time proved the choice a hap-
py one. His abilities were in no wise extraor-
dinary, but he was a man of sound judgment,
transparent goodness, and singleness of purpose.
Not given to speculation, he went placidly on his
way, the faith he had received from the fathers
undisturbed by doubts within or turmoil without.
Though firm in his own convictions, he was not
contentious or partisan and allowed great lati-
tude to others. Phillips Brooks said of him that
he was "not so much a leader as the creator of
conditions of advance" (Allen, post, III, 407).
In this respect he rendered a great service to his
diocese. He showed practical wisdom of a high
order, did not dictate to his clergy hut so far as
was expedient left them alone, avoided taking
sides, and devoted himself assiduously to build-
ing tip the weak places in the diocese. As a re-
sult the discord died out, cooperation took its
place, and not only was comparative harmony
achieved, but through the missionary interest of
the bishop the diocese grew and strengthened. At
the age of sixty-three he broke down under his
labors, and died of cerebral hemorrhage a few
months later. Among his published sermons and
Paddock
addresses are : The Church's Ceaseless Work and
Chiefest Glory (1859); Our Cause, Our Con-
fidence, and Our Consequent Duty (iH6r) ; The
Noble Ambition of a Christian Colleye (1866) ;
Diocese of Massachusetts: The ttishofi's Com-
memoration Address on the Tenth Anniversary
of His Consecration ( 1883) ; The First Century
of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese
of Afassaclntsetts (1^85), The Bishop Paddock
Lectureship at the General Theological Seminary
is named in his honor,
[T, M. Qurk, A Mwnorittl Scnnon on the Life and
Ch&racter of AV, AV?>. llenj&min //<wv VtHhfaek ( tfloO ;
A. V, G. AIlcii, Life and Letters <>/ Phillip llrvolfj!
(tool), vttls. 1J, HI j The ChHrclnnant Mar, 14, i8<n ;
llosttw //miMand ftoston Daily (itobcf Mar. to, i»St)u]
H. K. S,
PADDOCK, JOHN ADAMS (Jan, TO, tSjj-
Mar. 4, 1894), bishop of the Protestant Episcopal
Church, was born in Norwich, Conn., the eldest
son of Rev, Seth Bmlsey and Emily (Flng'tf)
Paddock, and n brother of Bishop Benjamin ii.
Paddock ["</•?'• 1* When twenty years old he grad-
uated from Trinity College, Hartford, and in
1849 from the General Theological Seminary,
New York. On July 22 of that year he was or-
dained deacon at Christ Church, Norwich. He
served as assistant to Rev. Lot Jones at the
Church of the Epiphany, New York, and in
June 1850 married Ellen M, Jones, the rector's
daughter, who died shortly after their marriage*
In 1850 he was ordained priest at Christ Church,
Stratford, Conn,, of which church he was rector
until 1855. ^?°r the next twenty-five years he was
in charge of St. Peter's Church, Brooklyn, and
active in the administrative work of the diocese
of Long Island. On Apr. 23, 1856, he married
Frances Chester, daughter of Patrick and Susan
Alada (Thurston) Fanning, Tn tH8o he was
made missionary bishop of Washington Terri-
tory and on Dec, 15, was consecrated at St.
Peter's.
In the spring of the following year he began
more than a decade of strenuous activity in the
Northwest On the way out his wife contracted
pneumonia and died soon after their arrival on
the field. Before leaving the East she had col-
lected money to take with her as the nucleus of
a fund for establishing1 a much«needed hospital.
More was added, and on the first anniversary of
her death, Bishop Paddock dedicated at Tacoma
the Fannie C* Paddock Memorial Hospital (later
the Tacoma General Hospital) . With good sense
and unflagging devotion, never sparing himself,
he sought to further the religious and educational
interests of the Territory* One of his achieve-
ments was the raising of $50,000 in the East to
insure a conditional gift of land and money for
134
Padilla
the establishment at Tacoma of the Anna Wright
Seminary, and Washington College. His efforts
in this cause impaired his health, and he was
never entirely well thereafter. By 1892 the com-
paratively few missions and parishes of which
he had taken charge when he was made bishop
had so increased in numbers that the field was
divided into two jurisdictions, and he became
missionary bishop of Olympia, with some fifty-
seven missions and parishes in his care. While
returning from the General Convention of 1892,
he suffered a stroke and later went to Southern
California in the interest of his health. Here,
near Santa Barbara, he died; his burial was at
Vancouver. Among his published writings are :
An Historical Discourse, Delivered in Christ
Church, Stratford, Conn., Mar. 28th, 1855
(1855) ; and The Modern Manifestations of Su-
perstition and Skepticism (1870).
[W. F. Brooks, Hist, of the Fanning Family (1905),
vol. I ; Herbert Hunt, Tacoma, Its Hist, and Its Build-
ers (1916), vol. I ; Churchman, Mar. 17, 1894; Tacoma
Daily Ledger and Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Mar. 6,
1894; information from Fannie Paddock Hinsdale,
Vancouver, B. C] H.E. S.
PADILLA, JUAN DE (c. 1500-*. 1544),
Franciscan missionary, was a native of Andalu-
sia. It was said that he "had been a fighting man
in his youth" (Castaneda, in Winship, post,
1904, p. 33). He came to New Spain about the
year 1528 and was attached to the Order of
Friars Minor m the province of Santo Evan-
gelio. In 1529 he became a military chaplain in
the expedition of Nuiio de Guzman to Nueva
Galicia and Culiacan. In this capacity he served
for three years, trying to rescue from oppres-
sion and slavery the natives who had been cap-
tured by the Spanish settlers on the borderland
of the unknown wilderness. In the course of the
following years he made many missionary jour-
neys among the Mexican Indians. He built
monasteries at Zapotlan, Tuxpam, and Tulan-
cingo, ruling the friars as superior and guardian
until 1540. In that year, hearing of the new lands
discovered by Fray Marcos de Niza [#.#.], he
was fired with apostolic zeal to Christianize the
natives there. In company with Fray Marcos
and two other religious of the Order of St. Fran-
cis he obtained permission to join the expedition
of Francisco Vazquez Coronado [gw.]. One
may gauge the stamina of the much-traveled Pa-
dilla by the fact that he was a pedestrian in all
his journeys. After reaching Zttni with Coro-
nado he trudged on with Pedro de Tovar to Mo-
qui in the vicinity of the Grand Canyon, and
after wending his way back to Zuni, joined
Hernando de Alvarado on a trip of several hun-
dred miles over vast deserts and immense rocky
Page
areas; he accompanied Coronado with a well-
selected troop of cavaliers in search of the myth-
ical Quivira and returned with the disappointed
General to Cicuye (now known as Pecos, N.
Hex.).
When Coronado abandoned New Mexico in
1542, Padilla, Fray Juan de la Cruz, and the
lay brother Fray Luis Descalona remained be-
hind in the midst of the savages, with only one
mounted Portuguese soldier as a military escort.
Two donados of the Franciscan Order (ter-
tiaries) and two Mexican Indian boys also cast
their hazardous lot with the friars. Slowly they
retraced the weary way to Quivira. The little
party plodded the long and painful journey to
the place where Coronado had planted a cross,
and there established the first mission in the
North American Southwest. The religious in-
fluence exercised by the padre upon the roving
children of the prairies soon gained their con-
fidence and affection, but his ardent missionary
zeal urged him to attempt also the conversion of
the Guas, a hostile tribe near by. This project
was bitterly opposed by the Quivirans, but Pa-
dilla was determined to go. Only one day after
his departure, he was overtaken by a galloping
horde of Quivira Indians. His companions were
ordered to flee for their lives, while he dropped
on his knees offering his soul to his Master, and
as he prayed, the Quivirans pierced him from
head to foot with arrows. There has been much
difference of opinion about the location of Qui-
vira, the place near which he met his martyrdom.
It has been placed on the Canadian River in the
Texas Panhandle (Donoghue, post) and also in
what is now Kansas, somewhat north of the pres-
ent Wichita (C. O. Paullin and J. K. Wright,
Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United
States, 1932, pi. 38). The year of his death is
given variously as 1642 and 1644; the day of his
commemoration is Nov. 30.
[Original sources are documents of Coronado, Casta-
neda, and Jaramillo, in C election de Documentos Ine-
ditos Relativos al Descubrimiento . . . de las Posesiones
Espanolds . . ., Ill (1863), 363-69, 511-13, XIII
(1870), 263-68, XIV (1870), 304-29, translated by
G. P. Winship in U. S. Bureau of Ethnology, Four-
teenth Ann. Report, 1892-93 (1896) and in Winship,
The Journey of Coronado (1904). See also P. J. Folk
in Mid- America, Jan., Oct. 1930; David Donoghue, in
Southwestern Hist. Quart., Jan. 1929 ; A. F. Bandelier,
in Am. Cath. Quart. Rev., July 1890 ; Augustin de
Vetancurt, "Menalogio Franciscano," Teatro Mexi-
cano, vol. IV (1871).] P.J.F.
PAGE, CHARLES GRAFTON (Jan. 25,
i8i2-May 5, 1868), physician, pioneer in elec-
trical experiment, was the son of a sea captain,
Jeremiah Lee Page, and his wife Lucy (Lang*)
Page. He was of English ancestry, descended
from John Page who came to New England in
135
Page
1630, and was a native of Salem, Mass., where
both his parents were born. Entering: Harvard
in 1828 at the age of sixteen, he graduated
four years later and then studied medicine in
Boston, He began practice in Salem, but at the
same time engaged in experimental research in
electricity, this he continued with short inter-
missions throughout his life, publishing the re-
sults from time to time in Silliman's American
Journal of Science and Arts. Starting with
Henry's calorimotor for obtaining sparks and
shocks, he developed an induction apparatus of
greater intensity than Henry's. This he de-
scribed in the Journal of January 1837, and it
is recognized to be in principle, with Ruhm-
korff's improvements, the induction coil of to-
day. About this time, too, he devised the self-
acting circuit breaker and appears to have been
the first to apply it to produce the extreme alter-
ations necessary in induction machines* He in-
dependently discovered, also, the remarkable
effect produced by substituting bundles of iron
wires for solid iron bars in induction coils, Early
in 1838, under Page's direction, all these dis-
coveries were incorporated in a coil machine by
Daniel Davis, Jr., an instrument maker of Bos-
ton, Mass,, who subsequently made and sold at
a considerable profit many more machines simi-
lar to this original one. Page, however, did
not receive any financial benefit In this same
year he moved with his parents to Fairfax Coun-
ty, Va. Here he practised his profession for a
time, and continued his electrical experiments,
especially in the field of magneto-electricity, his
chief object being to introduce electro-magnet-
ism as a substitute, to a greater or less extent,
for steam power. Being- a man of moderate
means, however, he could ill afford to devote his
full time to this work, and in consequence his
progress was rather slow.
About 1841 he was made one of the two prin-
cipal examiners in the United States Patent Of-
fice, and in 1844 accepted, in addition, the chair
of chemistry in the medical department of Co-
lumbian College (now George Washington Uni-
versity). He was compelled, however, to relin-
quish this position in 1849 on account of the
pressure of his duties in the Patent Office, Dur-
ing this period his electrical work had definitely
advanced, and by 1846 he had completed a small
reciprocating electro-magnetic engine, having1 as
its source of powet the force with which the pole
of an electro-magnet is drawn into its magnet-
izing helix. Three years later, as a result of a
series of public lectures on dectro-magnetism
which he gave in Washington, attended by a
special committee of the United States Senate,
Page
Page was granted a special Congressional ap-
propriation to continue his work on a large scale.
He built several large stationary reciprocating
electro-magnetic engines of both the vertical and
horizontal types ; then, about 1850, began the
construction of a locomotive having two of his
electric engines. Upon its completion in 1851, it
was tried out over a .specially constructed track
five miles long between Washington and Bla-
densburg, Md. The trial was not successful even
though a speed of nineteen miles an hour was
obtained, mainly because the electric batteries
were incapable of furnishing the necessary cur-
rent to operate the locomotive for any appre-
ciable length of time.
In 1852 he resigned from the Patent Office
and, in association with J, J. Greenough and
Charles L, Fleischmann, established in Wash-
ington the American Polytechnic Journal', the
first number of which appeared early in 1853.
During the two years of its existence (1853-54)
he contributed many articles on electricity, in-
cluding his History of Induction: The Amm»
can Claim to the Induction Coil and its Electro*
static Developments, published in book form in
1867. lie continued with his electrical experi-
ments in his own laboratory and patented his de*
sign of a reciprocating electro-magnetic engine,
receiving patent number 10,480 on Jan, 31, 1854.
After the discontinuance of the American Poly-
technic Journal, Page did not appear in any pub-
lic capacity until 1861, when he again became
examiner of patents in the Patent Office, a posi-
tion he held for the remainder of his life. Out-
side of his electrical researches his greatest in-
terest, especially in the latter part of his life,
lay in rose culture. In this work he produced
several new varieties, which he described in
print and cuttings of which he furnished to rose
growers both in the United States and abroad.
On Sept 23, 1844, he married Priscilla Sewall
Webster of Augusta, Me,, and at his death was
survived by his widow and five children*
[C N, Page, Gtnteit* Chart of the Page Family
(19x7) ; T. u Martin and Joseph Wetder, The Elec-
tric Motor and its Applications (1887) ; Am, Jour, of
Sci&ncG and Arts, July 1869 ; Waldemar ICaenrpff«rt, A
Popular Hist, of Am* Xnvsntion (1934), vol. I ; E* W.
Byrn, Tht Progrw of Invention In tha Ninetemtk
C&ntury (1900); S. P, Thompson, Dynamo* Electric
Machinery (1803); P, S. W, Page, Rewtniscenc«sf
1 883-1886 (privately printed, 1890) ; Evening $tw
(Washington), May 6, 1868 j Patent OflBce records.]
PAGE, DAVID PERKINS (July 4, jgio-
Jan, i, 1848), educator, was bom in Epping,
N, H. His father was a wdRo-do farmer who
refused for years to allow his $Q® to leave the
farm to attend an academy- Finally, whe& David
36
Page
was sixteen, his entreaties prevailed and for a
few months he attended Hampton Academy in
New Hampshire and for the next winter taught
a district school in the neighborhood. Then,
after a few more months at the academy, he
taught successively in a district school in Ep-
ping for a winter and then in Newbury, Mass.
By this time he had determined to make teach-
ing1 his profession and at the age of nineteen
opened a private school in Newburyport. He be-
gan with five pupils but before the end of the
term there were more applicants than he could
accommodate. Two years later, in 1831, he was
appointed associate principal of the Newbury-
port High School, in charge of the English de-
partment. In this position he remained for
twelve years. On Dec. 16, 1832, he was married
to Susan Maria Lunt.
During" the winter of 1843 the legislature of
the state of New York adopted the normal school
system then in operation in Massachusetts and
made an appropriation to establish a normal
school in Albany in 1844. Opposition was de-
termined and unscrupulous, and the success of
the plan depended largely upon the choice of the
principal. On the recommendation of Horace
Mann and other eminent educators in Massa-
chusetts members of the executive committee
entered into correspondence with Page and he
was appointee! to the position. In Albany he
found chaos. The rooms were unfinished ; there
was no apparatus, and nothing was ready for the
opening session. By his tact and energy he
was able to overcome the obstacles to progress
and soon he had won favor. For three years he
gave himself no rest. During the vacations he
visited the different parts of the state, attended
teachers' institutes, and lectured day after day.
Everywhere he removed prejudice, won friends,
and attracted pupils to the school. Opposition
had died down. By 1847 the school was no
longer an experiment, but to achieve this suc-
cess Page had undermined his own strength. Af-
ter an illness of a few days he died from pneu-
monia on Jan. i, 1848.
Page possessed a singular aptitude for teach-
ing. His intense fondness for study had led him
to acquire a good knowledge of Latin and a fair
amount of Greek, He was an excellent mathe-
matician and had rather more than an ordinary
acquaintance with chemistry and the other nat-
ural sciences in addition to a thorough knowl-
edge of history and literature. He studied the
natures and capacities of his students and won
from them a respect which insured a high degree
of order and harmony in his school. He was
liked as a teacher and his students attended his
Page
lectures with interest. Before he left Newbury-
port he had delivered several addresses before
the Essex County Teachers* Association, which
Horace Mann praised most highly. Of his lec-
ture, "The Mutual Duties of Parents and Teach-
ers/' six thousand copies, a large number for
those days, were printed and distributed among
the teachers of Massachusetts. Page's contem-
poraries have described him as a man of great
personal charm. His one published book, The
Theory and Practice of Teaching,, or the Motives
and Methods of Good School-Keeping, was is-
sued in 1847, the year before his death. It passed
through many editions and was considered an
invaluable guide for the inexperienced teacher.
He also prepared a "Normal Chart of Elemen-
tary Sounds" for class-room use. The best edi-
tion of his work on teaching is that issued in
1885 by William H. Payne.
[There is a biographical sketch of Page in W. H.
Payne's edition of Page's Theory and Practice of
Teaching, See also : W. F. Phelps, David P. Page : His
Life and Teachings (1892) ; J. M. Greenwood, ed., The
Life and Work of David P. Page (1893), including
some of Page's writings ; E. A. Huntingdon, A Funeral
Discourse on David Perkins Page (1848) ; the Com-
mon School four.,, Apr. i, 1848 ; thtAm. Jour, of Educ.,
Dec. 1858; Daily Albany Argus, Jan. 4, 1848.]
J.S-n.
PAGE, JOHN (Apr. 17, 1743 o.s.-Oct n,
1808), Revolutionary patriot, congressman, gov-
ernor of Virginia, was born at "Rosewell," the
great house built in Gloucester County by his
grandfather, Mann Page [#.£>.]. He was the son
of Mann and Alice (Grymes) Page and thus
represented an alliance of two of the dominant
families in Tidewater Virginia. He gave to his
grandmother, Judith (Carter) Page, the credit
for whetting his appetite for reading and stimu-
lating his inquisitive mind. When nine years
old he was put in the grammar-school of the
Rev. William Yates with some dozen sons of
neighboring planters. The arid training he had
there was little to his liking, and after a year a
private tutor was engaged for him. When he
was thirteen he entered the grammar-school at
the College of William and Mary and continued
there until 1763, when he finished the regular
course in the philosophy schools. At William
and Mary he and Thomas Jefferson became fast
friends, sharing their ideas and their confidences.
Their correspondence spanned fifty years with
not a discord in its friendly harmony. It was to
him that Jefferson wrote the letters that reveal
his youthful romance with the "fair Belinda,"
Rebecca Burwell who was so soon to marry
Jacquelin Ambler (Ford, post, I, 342, 357) r °*
his friend, Jefferson declared thirty years later
to Albert Gallatin that he loved him as a brothet
137
Page
(Ibid., VIII, 85). About 1765 Page married
Frances, the daughter of Robert Carter Burwell
of Isle of Wight County. They had twelve chil-
dren, five of whom were married to sons and
daughters of Thomas Nelson [^l- In 1789
Page married in New York City, Margaret, the
daughter of William Lowthcr of Scotland, who
bore him eight children. For a time he was pres-
ident of the Society for the Advancement of Use-
ful Knowledge, at Williamsburg, a group that
sought to play the role of the Royal Society of
London in Virginia. With his friend David
Jameson he was interested in astronomy and
made experiments in measuring the fall of
rain and dew. His friends called him "John
Partridge" because of his astronomical pursuits,
especially in calculating an eclipse of the sun.
He confessed in later years that he did not think
he had made great proficiency in any study for
he was too sociable to shut himself off in solitude
for study as did his friend, Jefferson (Autobiog-
raphy, post, p. 151). He followed the fortunes
of the Anglican Church with zeal and such de-
votion that he was suggested by certain of his
friends as the first bishop of Virginia. In his re-
ligious convictions he was orthodox, and he op-
posed on many occasions the free thinking of
certain of his fellow Virginians. In 1785 he was
a lay delegate from Virginia to the convention
of his church in New York,
In politics he began his career as a member
of the colonial House of Burgesses under the
patronage of his kinsmen, the Nelsons, and he
had the favor of the governors, Botetourt and
Dttnmore. When the tide of Revolutionary senti-
ment rose he helped to direct its flow as a mem-
ber of the Council and the Committee of Public
Safety and then as lieutenant-governor under
Patrick Henry. He was a member of the con-
vention that framed the constitution for Vir-
ginia in 1776. He served in a military capacity
in the Yorktown campaign and contributed of
his private means to the Revolutionary funds,
In the election for governor of Virginia in 1779
he ran a close second to his friend Jefferson, but
this political matching was not allowed to strain
the constancy of their friendship (see Ford, post,
II, 188). After the Revolution he represented
Gloucester in most sessions of the Virginia As-
sembly until 1789 when he went to Congress.
He sat in that body until 1797 when, as he said,
John Adams and Alexander Hamilton shut him
out (Autobiography, post, p, 150). With James
Madison, 1749-1812 [$.vj, and others he rep-
resented Virginia in determining the boundary
between Pennsylvania and Virginia In 1784 He
waged an active campaign for Jefferson in 1800.
Page
In 1802 he succeeded James Monroe as governor
of Virginia and served three successive terms in
that office. In the closing years of his life he
held the office of commissioner of loans, a fed-
eral office to which his friend Jefferson appointed
him, recognising his need of an office with a
salary but fearing to place him in a position
where his ton little discriminating trust in his
fcllowmen might bring woe to him.
The care of a family of twenty children, the
maintenance of the princely mansion of "Rose-
weir ami his sociable rather than business incli-
nations brought Page in his later years to a de-
cline in fortunes, Tn 1/86 lu» had been the largest
slave owner in Abingxltm Parish in Gloucester
County, counting1 his black people to the number
of i Co. On his death at the ago of sixty-four he
was buried in the yard of St. John's Church at
Richmond, where many of the stirring scenes of
the Revolution took place, His own estimate of
his life was that it had been a life devoted to lib-
erty*
["Letters and photostats in Archives «f TTniv. of Va,,
and Archives of American Pht!<w>iJhu*nI Soe,, Phila-
delphia \ brief autobiography in F$. Hfst.
. . t
July 1850, mid in Meude, post, lt p, 147; The Writings
of Thomas Jefffrson, eel, by P, 1,, Fortl vnk T, IT, IV,
vIWX (iflga-QK) ; /s.r<rwf/*v Jour, of the Council of
Colonial Fa, vol». Hi, IV (1928-^) ; Am, //u*» Rw,t
July iHt>6; F#, Mag, t»f Hist, Witt Biog^ July 1803,
July 1896, Dot, iS<?7, Oct. i$cu, Oct. IQXIJ Wm. and
Mary College Quart,, Jan, 1896, pp. 300-01, Get, 1896,
Apr, 1916; Wm. Mcntle, Old Churches . . . of Fa. (*
vols., 1861) ; R. A, Lancaster, Historic Fa, Homes and
Churches (1015) ; R. C M, Page. Carnal, of th$ Pag$
Family in Fa. (1883); ttiehmond Unquirer, Oct. 14,
|8°8':I M.H.W,
PAGE, MANN (r6gx-Jan, 24, 1730), Virginia
planter and councilor, was born in Virginia, the
grandson of John Page, who emigrated from
England about 1650, became the progenitor of
the Page family in Virginia, and established his
house firmly in lands and public regard. Mann
Page was the son of Matthew Page who was ac-
tive in public and private affairs of the colony-
He inherited large possessions from his father
while his mother, Mary (Mann) Page, the sole
heiress of John and Mary Mann of "Timber-
neck," Gloucester County, had brought to her
husband and children broad acres. Both parents
died before he was sixteen years old, and the
boy was sent abroad in 1706 to Eton College* In
1709 he entered St John's College, Oxford.
On Feb. <5, xjr 13/14, he became a member of the
Council of Virginia on the recommendation of
the governor of the colony, who described him
as a man of culture and influence, His associates
were the important men of the colony.
By inheritance and by patents taken In his
own right he became, according to tradition, the
Page
second largest land owner In Virginia. His so-
cial and economic position was entrenched by
his marriage first, in 1712, to Judith, the daugh-
ter of Ralph Wonneley, the secretary of: Vir-
ginia, hy whom he had two sons and a daughter,
and second, in 1718, to Judith, the daughter of
Robert Carter, 1663-1732 [</.r,l, by whom he
had five sons and a daughter. His father-in-law,
"King" Carter, associated Page with him in or-
ganizing the Frying Pan Company to mine cop-
per on the boundary of the present counties of
Fairfax and Loudoun, where they held a tract
of some 27,000 acres and reopened an old Indian
trail from Tidewater to the mine on Frying Pan
Run, At his death when he was still a relatively
young man, Page owned land in Frederick,
Prince William, Spotsylvania, Gloucester, Es-
sex, James City, Hanover and King William
counties, His mast lasting monument was his
home, <4Rosewell," begun in 1725 on the right
bank of Carter's Creek in Gloucester County,
near the junction with the York River, It was
barely completed before his death. The years
have wrapped about this house many traditions.
Built of brick, three stories high, with marble
casements, carved mahogany finishings, and a
lead roof, it was probably the largest home of
an eighteenth-century colonial planter in Vir-
ginia.' With the wings it had a frontage of 232
feet and something like thirty-five rooms. So
severe a drain was the financing1 of such a struc-
ture in planter economy that Page's heirs were
embarrassed by the debts that devolved upon
them and had to sell lands to realize money to
discharge the obligation. At the council board,
acquiring and administering' his huge tracts of
land, stretching- wide the patrimony for his rap-
idly increasing* family, he was a typical gentle-
man of his age. When his surviving widow
came to write his epitaph she declared, "His
publick Trust he faithfully Discharged with Can-
dour and Discretion Truth and Justice, Nor was
he less eminent in his private Behaviour, . . , "
(Virginia Magazine of History and Biography,
Jan. 1924, p, 45,)
[Fa May. of Hist and Bioff., Apr, 1897, July 1808,
Oct. 1905, Apr, 1913, Jan. 19*3* Jan, 1924; Win.
Meade, Old Churches . . . of Fa, (2 vole,, 1861) ; R. C.
M, Page, GmoaL of tht Page Family in Fa, (1883) ;
R, A, Lancaster, Historic Fa, Hom^s and Churches
(1015) ; Ex0c. four, of tht Council of Colonial Fa.,
vols. III, IV (i9«8-3o) ; Wm> and Mary College Quart.,
Jam 1898.] M.H.W.
PAGE, RICHARD LUCIAN (Dec. 20, 1807-
Aug. 9, 1901), Confederate naval and army
officer, son of William Byrd and Anne (Lee)
Page, was born in Clarke County, Va. His fa-
ther, a farmer and planter, was <>f the Page fani-
Page
ily of Virginia which descended from John Page,
an immigrant from England in early colonial
clays. His mother was the sister of Henry,
41 Light-Horse Harry/' Lee [g.z/,]. He attended
the common-schools of Clarke County and Alex-
andria, Va. He chose the navy for a career, be-
came a midshipman in 1824, and did his first
cruising on board the John Adams with Admiral
Porter in the West Indies. In 1825 he was
transferred to the Brandyimne to convey Gen-
eral Lafayette to France. He became a passed
midshipman in 1830, was promoted to lieuten-
ant in 1834, and to commander in 1855, which
grade he held at the outbreak of the Civil War.
During this period he did sea duty in nearly
every part of the globe and served three tours on
ordnance duty and one as executive officer at the
Norfolk navy yard. His more important assign-
ments at sea were as executive officer and com-
mander of the Independence, flagship of Com-
modore Shubrick, during the Mexican War, as
commander of the Perry from 1852 to 1854, and
as commander of the Germantown from 1857 to
1859.
Resigning from the Federal service when Vir-
ginia seceded, Page became an aide on the staff
of Gov. John Letcher of Virginia and was as-
signed to duty in connection with the organiza-
tion of a state navy. He supervised the construc-
tion of fortifications at the mouth of the James
River and on the Nansemond River and Pagan
Creek. On June 10, 1861, he was commissioned
commander in the Confederate States navy and
was assigned to duty as ordnance officer at the
Norfolk navy yard. While on this duty he vol-
unteered to assist in firing an eleven-inch gun
at Sewell's Point against Federal vessels. He
was soon promoted to captain and assigned the
task of establishing an ordnance and construc-
tion depot at Charlotte, N, C., which he operated
for about two years. He was with Commodore
Tattnall on board the Savannah at the naval bat-
tle off Port Royal. In 1864 he was commissioned
brigadier-general in the provisional army and
placed in command of the outer defenses of Mo-
bile Bay with headquarters at Fort Morgan, Ala.
He gallantly defended his fort against the com-
bined sea and land attack of Admiral Farragut
and General Granger, but after a terrific bom-
bardment which made breaches in the walls of
the fort and disabled most of his cannon and set
fire to the citadel, he was compelled on Aug. 23,
1864, to capitulate. He was held as a prisoner
of war until September 1865. After the war he
settled at Norfolk, Va,, and took an active in-
terest in the affairs of the community. He served
from 1875 to 1883 as superintendent of public
Page
schools. In 1841 he had married Alexina, daugh-
ter of Richard and Elizabeth (Calvert) Taylor
of Norfolk, Va, He died at Bluendge Summit,
Pa., in his ninety-fourth year. He was survived
by his wife and three children.
War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army} ;
J. T. Scharf, Hist, of the Confai- States Navy (1887) J
C. A, Evans, eel,, Confed, Mil. Hut. (1899), vol. Ill;
T, H. S. Hamersly, Gen. Reg. of the U. S. Navy and
Marine Corps (1883) ; Special Orders of the Adjutant
and Inspector General's Office , Confcd. States, 1861-
65; Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. vol, IV
(1888) ; R. C. M. Pa#e( Ocncal, of the Pac/e Family in
Vii. (1883) ; P.ncyc. of Va, Biog. (1915), vol. Ill ; Ftt,-
Pilot (Norfolk), Aug. 10, 1901.] S.J.H.
PAGE, THOMAS JEFFERSON (Jan. 4,
i8o8-0ct. 26, 1899), naval officer, explorer, was
born on his father's estate in Matthews County,
Va., eighth son of Mann and Elizabeth (Nel-
son) Page and grandson of Gov, John Page and
Gov. Thomas Nelson [qq.v.~\ of Virginia. He
was appointed midshipman Oct. i, 1827, and
joined the Erie in the West Indies. Then fol-
lowed several years of coast survey work, 1833-
42, during which time he was promoted to lieu-
tenant, 1837, and gained special favor with the
director of the survey, Ferdinand Rudolph Has*
sler (Memoir and Correspondence of Charles
Stccdman, Rear Admiral, 1912, p. 129; portrait
of Page, p. 156), After a cruise in the Colum*
bus to the Mediterranean and Brazil, 1842-44,
he was attached to the Naval Observatory, and
then in the Far East commanded the brig
Dolphin, 1848-51. Here, in association with his
friend R. B. Forbes, a Boston merchant, he real-
ized the need of a surveying expedition in the
China seas, for the benefit of commerce and
whalers, and upon his return proposed it to the
department This expedition was organized, but
enlarged to include the Bering Sea and North
Pacific, and put under a senior officer, Com-
mander Ringgold, Page was offered second in
command but declined and was subsequently as-
signed to command another expedition, in the
small side-wheel steamer Water Witch, to "sur-
vey and explore the river La Plata and its tribu-
taries," which had just been opened to commerce
after the fall of the dictator Rosas in Argentina.
The Water Witch left Norfolk Feb. 8, 1853, and
after considerable delay at Buenos Aires, during-
treaty negotiations with the new government,
sailed in September for the ascent of the Parani
and Paraguay rivers. In the next two years Hie
expedition covered 3600 miles of river naviga-
tion and 4400 miles of exploration ashore, ac-
counts of which appear in the commandos re-
port (Report of the Secretary of the Nwyf i8g6,
pp. 430-65) arid in his bbok> La Plata: The Ar-
gentme Confederation awct Faragwy (1859),
Page
which went to two editions and was translated
into Spanish,
Page appears to have conducted his work
with great energy and with adequate diplomacy,
though Lieut, (later Rear Admiral) Animen,
who was for a time tinder him, expresses the
view that Page "was entirely a gentleman, but
* . . not well fitted to command such an expedi-
tion" (The Old Nmy and the New, 1891, p,
269). Page had secured full privileges in their
national waters from Brazil and Argentina, but
had difficulties on this point with the dictator
Lopez of Paraguay, especially after a quarrel
between Lopez and an American trading com-
pany organized by the United States consul at
Asuncion, Edward Augustus Hopkins [#.?'.],
in which Page supported the consul. By a de-
cree of Get 3, 1854, the Ifd/cr H'itch was ex-
cluded from Paraguayan waters, and on Feb. I,
1855, while under the temporary command of
Lieut William N. Jeffers, she was fired upon
from the Paraguayan fort Itapura while ascend-
ing the Parana. Page was greatly incensed,
sought vainly for a demonstration from Com-
modore Sailer of the Brazil Squadron, and on
returning home in 3\fay 1856, called for an ex-
pedition to bring Paraguay to account for this
action and alleged injuries to the trading com-
pany. President Buchanan took up the matter
in his first message (1857), and a force of nine-
teen ships was dispatched under Commodore
Shubrick with Page, now commander (1855),
as fleet captain. A treaty with Paraguay was
quickly arranged, and Page, relieved of fleet du~
ties, resumed explorations from the spring of
1859 to the autumn of 1860, ascending1 the Para-
guay to the head of navigation,
In the Civil War Page joined the Confederacy,
was for over a year in command of batteries at
Gloucester Point, York River, and was em-
played here and elsewhere in Virginia river de-
fenses until March 1863, when he went to Eu-
rope to command one of the Confederate iron-
clads building there. After a year of seclusion
in Florence, Italy, he was appointed in Decem-
ber 1864 to command the Stonewall, formerly
the Sphynx, a powerful ironclad built in France
for the Confederacy, then sold to Denmark, and
by Denmark retransf erred after the War of 1864,
Page took her out of Copenhagen Jan, 7, 1865,
received officers and stores off Quiberon, and
then put in at Corunna and later Ferrol. Here
he was watched by the Niagara, Capt Thomas
Tingey Craveti [g.z>.], and the Swrtimento, bat
when the Stonewall steamed out ori Mar, 24 and
challenged battle, Craven prudently refused to
xisk his wooden vessel** After sloping at Us*
140
Page
bon, Mar. 26, the Stonewall crossed to Havana,
where on news of the downfall of the Confed-
eracy she was turned over to the Spanish au-
thorities. After the war Page went to Argen-
tina and spent some time on a cattle farm in En-
tre Rios, then superintended the construction of
four Argentine ironclads in England, and about
1880 went to Florence. He died in Rome in his
ninety-second year. He was survived by his wife
Benjamina, daughter of Benjamin Price of Lou-
doun County, Va., whom he married at Wash-
ington in 1838, and by whom he had five sons and
two daughters.
[In addition to the references cited see: "Autobiog.
Sketch of Thos, Jefferson Page," Proc. U. $. Naval
Inst., Oct. 1923 ; War of the Rebellion: Official Records
(Navy), especially 3 vSer. I— III ; R. C. M, Page, Geneal,
of the Page Family in Va. (1883) ; J, D. Bullock, The
Secret Service of the Confcd. Slates in Europe (1884) ;
B. F. Sands, From Reefer to Rear Admiral (1899) ; T.
J, Page, "The Confederate Cruiser Stonewall," Southern
Hist. Soc. Papers, VII (1879), 263-80; biographical
sketch (reprinted from the Richmond Times. Oct. 20,
1899), IM., XXVJI (1899), 519-31.] A.W.
PAGE, THOMAS NELSON (Apr. 23, 1853-
Nov. i, 1922), diplomat and man of letters, was
born at "Oakland," a plantation near Beaver
Dam, in Hanover County, Va., the son of Maj.
John Page, an artillery officer in the Army of
Northern Virginia throughout the Civil War,
and the great-grandson of Gov. John Page, 1743-
1808 [$.?>.]. His mother before her marriage
was Elizabeth Burwell Nelson, and among his
kindred he counted Randolphs, Pendletons, Wick-
hams, Carters, Lees, and members of other dis-
tinguished families. His youth was spent amid
scenes of war and reconstruction which so im-
pressed him as to color his whole thinking in af-
ter life. As a boy he attended schools in the
neighborhood of his home, helped with the farm
work, listened to accounts of the golden times
"before the War," heard the recent battles feel-
ingly discussed, and read the many good books
found in the family library. In 1869 he entered
Washington College, Lexington, Va., where he
came into personal contact with Gen. Robert E.
Lee, then president of the institution. Withdraw-
ing from the college in June 1872, he read law
under his father for a year; then, in order to
secure money for continuing his education, he
spent several months as private tutor in a family
living near Louisville, Ky. Entering the Uni-
versity of Virginia in October 1873, ne applied
himself to study with unusual diligence, and on
July 2, 1874, received the degree of LL.B. In the
fall of 1874 he settled as a lawyer in Richmond,
Va., in time built up a practice, became inter-
ested in civic affairs, and took an active part in
the social life of the city. On July 26, 1886, he
Page
married Anne Seddon Bruce, who died in 1888.
From childhood Page had shown a relish for
literature and had written for college magazines
and later for newspapers. His real start as an
author, however, was made in 1884, when in the
Century Magazine for April appeared his dialect
story "Marse Chan." Thereafter editors were
always pleased to consider his manuscripts, and
by degrees he was weaned from the law and en-
tered upon a busy life as story writer, novelist,
and essayist. He made numerous friendships
among literary men, steadily attracted attention
by his work, and by 1889, during a stay abroad,
had the satisfaction of finding himself known in
some quarters even in England. Upon returning
from Europe he made an extended lecture tour
which further increased his reputation. After his
second marriage, June 6, 1893, to Florence Lath-
rop Field, the widow of Henry Field of Chicago,
he abandoned the practice of law entirely, and
removing to Washington, D. C., established a
home which became a center of hospitality.
The bulk of his literary work was fiction, most
of it dealing with life in the South either just be-
fore or just after the Civil War. His most popu-
lar books were In Ole Virginia (1887) , a volume
of tales largely in the negro dialect; the novel
Red Rock (1898) ; a story, The Old Gentleman
of the Black Stock ( 1897 ) ; a collection of sketches
and stories, The Burial of the Guns (1894) ; and
two volumes for children, Two Little Confed-
erates (1888) and Among the Camps (1891). In
the same tone as the fiction and closely akin to it
in theme are his essays and social studies, in The
Old South (1892), Social Life in Old Virginia
(1897), The Negro, the Southerner's Problem
(1904), and The Old Dominion (1908). Besides
the books named he wrote a dozen other volumes
of fiction; several semihistorical works and
eulogistic biographies, the most ambitious of the
latter being Robert E. Lee, Man and Soldier
( 191 1 ) ; a series of elementary lectures on Dante ;
a collection of dialect verse, Befo- de War
(1888), published in collaboration with Armi-
stead Churchill Gordon; and a volume of poems,
The Coast of Bohemia (1906).
In 1913 Page was appointed by President Wil-
son ambassador to Italy, the duties of which of-
fice he performed conscientiously and with suc-
cess. Upon the outbreak of the World War he
aided hundreds of Americans in reaching home;
and throughout the years of the struggle his tact
and helpful labors won for him the esteem of
officials in Rome and of many Italian people.
During the peace negotiations he made a fruit-
less trip to Paris in an attempt to explain the
Italian position and demands, and later he wrote
Page
a sympathetic account of Italy's aims and part in
the fighting: Italy and the World War (1920).
In 1919, resigning his ambassadorship, Page re-
turned to America and resumed his literary
career. Bad health, however, handicapped him,
and the death of his second wife in 1921 was a
misfortune from which he never fully recovered,
He died at "Oakland" on Nov. i, 1922, and was
buried in Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington,
D. C He left no children.
By his friends Page was considered a worthy
and representative member of the Virginia aris-
tocracy, lie was modest in bearing, instinctive-
ly polite, considerate of women, cultivated in
taste; throughout life he held fast to beliefs and
a standard of conduct acquired in boyhood. A
pride in the class from which he sprang in part
explains his character, as well as certain qualities
found in his literary work. Viewing plantation
society as a partisan, he overemphasized its at-
tractive side, minimized or neglected its faults,
and failed to penetrate far beneath its surface
appearance. In practically all he wrote, whether
biography or historical essay or fiction, he was
at heart a romancer — a romancer who, perhaps
more than any other single man of his genera-
tion, exploited the conception of the ante-bellum
South as a region of feudalistic splendor. His
literary method, no less than his material, proved
to be what readers of the day wished; and for
more than thirty years his books were widely
popular. The dialect tales which first brought
him into literary prominence represent his best
work ; upon these and a few other short stories
and sketches his reputation as a man of letters
must continue to rest
[A biography by Pace's brother, Rosewell Page, Thos,
Nelson Page: A Memoir of a Virginia Gentleman
( 1 9^3 ")T contains first-hand information, as does like-
wise the appreciative article by Page's friend, A. C.
Gordon, in Scribner's Mag.t Jan. 1923, Two Little Con-
federates, parts of The Burial of the Guns, and other
of Page's books have autobiographical value. Comments
upon him as a literary figure appear in H. A. Toulmm,
Jr,, Social Historians (19:*) and M. J. Moses, The Lit,
of thti South (1910), Information as to certain facts
was furnished for this sketch by Mr, Rosewell Page.]
J.H.N,
PAGE, WALTER HINES (Aug. 15, 1855-
Dec. 21, 1918), journalist and diplomat, was born
at Gary, N, C, of pioneer stock. The Pages were
of English origin and belonged to the substantial
farmer class. Walter's father, Allison Francis
Page, although the owner of a few slaves, dis-
approved of the institution of slavery and of the
sectionalism that held sway in the South before
the Civil War, From him Walter early imbibed
a strong attachment to the Union and to democ*
racy, and subsequent reading merely confirmed
him in these loyalties, From his mother, Cathe*
Page
rinc Francos Raboteau, who was of Scotch and
Huguenot descent, he inherited an abiding love
of nature and an appreciation of good books. The
rudiments of his education were acquired under
her tutelage and it was she who introduced him
to Dickens and Scott. These beginnings, tog-ether
with a few years at local schools and at Bingham
Academy at Mebane, N. C., were Page's prepa-
rations for his college course.
In 1871 he entered Trinity College, N. C (now
Duke University), but he had little liking for
the place and in January 1873 transferred to
Randolph-Maeon College, Ashland, Va. The
change was an important one, for it brought Page
in contact with stimulating companions and with
Thomas Randolph Price (f/.r,|, who aroused in
him a devotion to Greek and English literature
that remained with him throughout his life. In
addition Price instilled in the impressionable
youth a love of England that doubtless helps to
explain Page's immense enthusiasm for the old
country and her cause during the World Wan
From the guidance of Price, Page passed to that
of Basil L. Gildersleeve f </,-?', j at The Johns Hop-
kins University, Price had obtained for his pupil
one of the first twenty fellowships when the new
Institution opened in 1876, and for the next two
years Page pursued his studies under America's
most distinguished classicist. But bin residence
at Johns Hopkins satisfied him that he did not
wish to devote his life to Greek scholarship and
in March 1878 he left the university,
After two or three false starts, Page definitely
chose journalism as his profession and in Feb-
ruary 1880 became a "cub" reporter on the St.
Joseph Gascttc, St. Joseph, Mo. In five months
he was editor of the paper, The experience was
valuable to him, but in the summer of 1881 he
withdrew in favor of a novel venture of his own.
He made an extended tour of the South to study
the region and its problems and prepared for
syndication in the leading newspapers of the
country a series of penetrating articles based upon
his observations. Page had already acquired a
vivid style and his experiment proved a distinct
success. The New York World late in 1881 gave
him a roving commission and for a year he
traveled first in the West and then with the
peripatetic tariff commission of 1882 reporting
its hearings. Upon his return to New York he
served for another year as literary critic and edi-
torial writer, but resigned when Joseph Pulitzer
took over the World in 1883, Page now went
home to take up a cause that had been close to
his heart since boyhood, a crusade for the recon-
stitution of the South, and particularly of his na«
tive state. He acquired control of the Raleigh
142
Page
State Chronicle, completely revised it, and
plunged into a startling campaign that was both
iconoclastic and vigorously constructive. He de-
manded the cessation of Confederate hero-wor-
ship and a widening of opportunities for the com-
mon man; he pleaded for decent educational
facilities for whites and negroes, the promotion
of scientific agriculture, local industries, and bet-
ter roads. Page was sound and prophetic in his
reforms, but his audacity and impatience aroused
considerable hostility to him (H. W. Odum,
Southern Pioneers in Social Interpretation^
1925). His paper was not a financial success
and in 1885 *ie was obliged to relinquish it and
return to New York.
It was not until 1887, however, when he joined
the business staff of the Forum, a moribund
monthly review, that an opportunity commen-
surate with his talents came to him. His initial
efforts to improve its financial condition were
not successful, but when in 1891 he acquired the
practical direction of the whole publication, it
took on new life and in a few years he made it
one of the most entertaining and influential re-
views in America. This achievement gave Page
a reputation and in 1895 brought him an invita-
tion to become literary adviser and associate
editor of the Atlantic Monthly; three years later
he succeeded to the editorship. His record in it
justified the opportunity given him and under his
brief but stimulating leadership the magazine
departed from its rather conventional New Eng-
land character and became an outspoken, pro-
vocative journal. Page was happy in his work,
but fresh enterprises beckoned him to New York
again and in 1899 he became a partner in the new
publishing house of Doubleday, Page & Com-
pany, and the following year founded The
World's Work, of which he served as editor un-
til 1913. This magazine, devoted to politics and
practical affairs, was undoubtedly Page's most
important contribution to American journalism.
As an editor he was ingenious and resourceful in
his methods and persuasive in guiding his
writers. "He made a friend of almost every con-
tributor and a contributor of almost every friend"
(Outlook, June 27, 1928, p. 356). He used his
periodical freely to encourage educational, agri-
cultural, industrial, and sanitary improvements
in the South and gave much of his time to lec-
turing, correspondence, and committee work to
advance these and other beneficent causes. As a
member of the Southern Education Board and
the General Education Board he did much to
promote the idea of popular education as an in-
dispensable complement to political and social de-
mocracy. He was also an active worker on the
Page
International Health Commission and on Theo-
dore Roosevelt's Country Life Commission. One
of the most social, humorous, and kindly of men,
he worked easily with others and his services
were much in demand for large philanthropic
enterprises.
In politics Page had been a Jeffersonian Demo-
crat since his youth, but he never accepted the
leadership of William Jennings Bryan. He was
among the early and avowed advocates of the
candidacy of his old friend, Woodrow Wilson,
for the presidency and gladly accepted the am-
bassadorship to Great Britain in 1913, partly be-
cause he anticipated that it would give him an
admirable opportunity to promote Anglo-Ameri-
can ascendancy in world affairs. His winsome
personality, cultivation, and sympathetic views
speedily won for him a hearty welcome in Lon-
don, and in the fifteen months prior to the out-
break of the war he worked harmoniously with
the President in eliminating causes of friction
between the United States and Great Britain, no-
tably in connection with the Mexican and Pana-
ma tolls questions. His brilliant and illuminating
letters on English life and affairs were greatly
enjoyed and valued by the President and stamped
him as one of the most fascinating letter-writers
of his time. So highly did Wilson value Page's
services that when the Ambassador suggested re-
signing in 1914 for financial reasons, the Presi-
dent obtained funds privately in order that Page
might remain in London (Baker, Wilson, IV,
32-34).
After the war broke out, however, the two men
gradually drifted apart because of their quite
different conceptions of the course the United
States ought to pursue. Page had little sympathy
with Wilson's purpose to maintain a strict neu-
trality in thought and action and to enforce a full
observance of American rights by both groups
of belligerents. Almost from the beginning he
construed the war as a gigantic assault on demo-
cratic civilization by Prussian militarism and be-
lieved that the United States should give at least
limited support to the Allies by temporarily ac-
quiescing in Britain's restrictions upon commerce
between the United States and Germany's neu-
tral neighbors (Hendrick, Page, vols. I-III,
passim; Intimate Papers of Colonel House, I,
304-05; II, 304-13). In the autumn of 1914 he
thwarted the administration's efforts to prevail
upon the British to accept the provisions of the
Declaration of London (1909), which they had
not ratified, by threatening to resign if the State
Department continued its insistence (Hendrick,
I, 383) ; and in January 1915, in a test case in-
volving the Dacia, he enabled the British Foreign
143
Page
Office to avoid serious complications by suggest-
ing to Sir Edward Grey that the vessel, formerly
German-owned but now under American regis-
try, be seized by the French, the expectation be-
ing that this would arouse less antagonism in the
United States (Ibid., 394; HI, 222-26, 236), In
these and other ways Page manifested his oppo-
sition to Wilson's course in the early stages o£ the
war, but generally he adhered to his instructions.
His enthusiasm for the Allied cause was ill-con-
cealed from the British ministry (Ibid,, II, 237,
400; Grey, Twenty-Five Years, II, no), how-
ever, and probably made him less effective in
presenting American contentions than he might
otherwise have been. His irritation at the Presi-
dent's policy was greatly intensified when the ad-
ministration carried on an extended paper con-
troversy with Germany over the sinking of the
Lusitania and other merchant vessels carrying
American passengers instead of promptly sever-
ing diplomatic relations and making war prepa-
rations. He refused to be a party to Colonel
House's peace proposals in London early in 1916
and was hostile to those of Germany and the
President in December 1916, because he thought
the war must continue until Germany was
crushed (House, II, 135-36, 177-78, 402-03).
By this time Page had lost all confidence in
his chief; he contended that Wilson had failed to
grasp the significance of the struggle and had
abdicated leadership in foreign affairs. For these
as well as for personal reasons in November 1916
he asked to be relieved, but by the time an answer
came (Feb. 5, 1917), the whole situation had
changed and at the President's request Page con-
sented to remain. Throughout the neutrality
period Page expressed himself with much frank-
ness in letters to Wilson and House and con-
stantly pleaded for a close Anglo-American
accord, but his views were discounted as being
pro-British (Ibid., I, 456; II, 99, 269-70)- That
Page was greatly influenced by his residence in
Lqndon in wartime, and that he underestimated
the peace sentiment among the American people
and in Congress is apparent, but it is equally clear
that his sturdy devotion to his own country, its
people and its democracy, was never shaken*
Since Page believed that "only some sort of ac-
tive and open identification with the Allies" could
put Americans "in effective protest" against the
Central Powers (Hendrick, II, 193), he rejoiced
when the United States finally entered the war.
He interpreted the step as a vindication of his
own contentions, the more so since Wilson's war
message took much the same ground as he had
advocated earlier. Once in tlie struggle Page was
eager for the United Stages to #articip&f€r In
Page
"dead earnest/* He urged the immediate dis-
patch to Ktirope of naval and merchant fleets and
a small expeditionary force to be followed by a
powerful army ; also the granting to the Allies of
a large loan at a low rate of interest, His tasks
at the embassy became greater than ever, hut he
was now contented and hopeful that his cherished
purpose of drawing the English-speaking nations
together for world leadership would be realized,
The strain of ofildnl work together with nephri-
tis undermined his health, however, and in Au-
gust JQtB he was obliged to n-stgn. He returned
to the United States in October awl two months
later died in Pindutrst, N, C», a war casualty.
His wife, Willia Alice (Wilson) Pa^e, whom
he married in 1:880, three sons, and a daughter
survived him.
In addition to his voluminous correspondence
and journalistic writings, Page was the author
of three books: The Rdndldiny of Old Common-
wealths (1902), a group of essays looking toward
the training of the "forgotten man" in the South j
A Publisher's Confe.mon (WS, W3)» which
expressed Page's business creed ; and The South-
erner (K;Q<)), a novel written under the pseudo-
nym "Nicholas Worth/* expressing his ideas for
Southern development But it is his letters, so
rich in literary and human quality and 50 full of
whimsical humor, that will stand as Page's most
enduring- contribution to American literature,
[The principal aoitrccg are B, J. HendHck, Th& Lifs
and Letters of Walter H, P&g$ ($ voln., 1 {MJ-JS ) r and
Th@ Tr&ining &f <r* /tfmmYan (1938), A brief dfeetch
of Page's services in London, based largely on Hen-
drick'3 volumes, ia contained in Becklea willaon, Am&r-
tYa'j Ambassador^ to Ungitmd (19^8), These works
together with Viacoiwt Grey, Twenty*Fw9 Yean (A
vow., loss), are extremely favorable to Pajre. An ar-
ticle ho»tile to him it, C, H. Grattan, "Th« Walter
Hinea Page Ltaend/* American Mvrcur$i Sept, 1935.
Other very useful sources are : Th* Intimate Papers of
Colonel HOUS&, ecL by Charles Seymour (4 vols., jo#6-
sB) ; and R, S. Baker, Woodrow Wilson .• Lift and Let*
tvrj? (4 vols., 1037-31), The aeriei of Papers Keating
to th® Foreign Relations of the U* $*> 1913-18 (1920-
33) In indispensable far a detailed atudy of Page's am-
bassadorship,] A»H,M,
PAGE, WILLIAM (January i8n-Scpt. 30,
1885), portrait painter, born at Albany, N* Y,,
was the son of Levl and Tamer (Gale) Dunnel
Page, In 1819, when the family moved to New
York, the boy of eight was already making draw-
ings of heads, and a likeness of his mother was
considered "remarkably correct/1 He entered
Joseph Hoxie's classical school and afterward
went to a public school. At the age of eleven he
won a prize for a sepia drawing from the Ameri-
can Institute. Three years later he was taken out
of school and placed in the law office of Frederic
de Peyster, who, becoming convinced that the
lad was not qualified to distmgtiiah. bteiself in tibe
144
Page
legal profession, took him to Col. John Trumbull
[#.#.], who advised him to "stick to the law."
Disregarding this advice, in 1825 he began the
study of drawing and painting under James Her-
ring [g.z'.] ; in. 1826 he became the pupil of S. F.
B. Morse [#.?'.] and at the National Academy,
where he received a silver medal for drawing.
At the age of seventeen he joined the Presby-
terian church and determined to prepare himself
for the ministry. To this end he studied for a
short time at Andover and at Amherst, but after
about two years he suddenly changed his mind
and made a prompt return to portrait painting in
Albany. He was then nineteen. He fell in love
with Lavinia Twibill and they married. After
three children had been bora to them they fell
out and were divorced. Page moved to New
York and continued painting portraits with suc-
cess. He was married to Sara A. Dougherty and
with her, in 1844, he went to Boston, where they
made a stay of three years. Many of his best
portraits were painted at this period. His sitters
included John Quincy Adams, Josiah Quincy,
Charles Simmer, James Russell Lowell, Wen-
dell Phillips, Charles W. Eliot, and Col. R. G.
Shaw. Several of these portraits are in Harvard
Memorial Hall In 1849 ^a£e went to *ta*y anc^
remained there eleven years, for the most part
living in Rome, Florence, and Venice. There he
was considered the leading American painter of
the day and enjoyed the friendship of eminent
literary and artistic personages. He made a spe-
cial study of Titian's works and tried to discover
the secret of their color. It is probable that his
own later work suffered in respect of originality
and spontaneity from his excessive preoccupation
with the methods of the Venetian masters. Much
of his work was experimental, but at his best he
was a remarkable portraitist. His drawing was
especially strong. He became intensely interested
in an alleged cleath-rnask of Shakespeare and
made a trip to Germany in 1874 especially to
study it and make several copies in color. One
of these is in the Metropolitan Museum, New
York.
While he was living in Italy he obtained a
divorce from his second wife, and in 1858 he mar-
ried Sophia S. Hitchcock, by whom he had six
children. He was an academician, and from 1871
to 1873 he was president of the National Acad-
emy. From 1860 to the time of his death he
practised his profession in New York. He lec-
tured to the students of the National Academy;
numbered Lowell, Emerson, Hawthorne, and the
Brownings among his friends ; and was a pic-
turesque as well as important figure in the art
world. His portraits of Governors Marcy and
Paine
Fenton are in the New York City Hall; his
"Ruth and Naomi" belongs to the New York
Historical Society ; a Holy Family is owned by
the Boston Athenaeum ; five of his portraits, in-
cluding those of John Quincy Adams and Wil-
liam Lloyd Garrison, with a half-length "Ceres,"
are in the Boston Art Museum ; and "The Young
Merchants" is in the Pennsylvania Academy of
the Fine Arts. One of his most important his-
torical pieces, "Farragut's Triumphal Entry into
Mobile Bay," was purchased by a committee and
presented to the Grand Duke Alexis of Russia in
1871. During the last years of his life Page had
a home at Eagleswood, N. J., where George In-
ness [#.£>.] was his neighbor and intimate friend.
They were both Swedenborgians. Page died at
Tottenville, Staten Island, at the age of seventy-
four.
[Wm, Dunlap, Hist . of the Rise and Progress of the
Arts of Design in the U. S. (rev. ed., 3 vols., 1918) ; H.
T. Tudkerman, Book of the Artists (1867); Samuel
Isham, Hist, of Am. Painting (1905) ; W. H. Downes,
article in Atlantic Monthly, Sept. 1888 ; Art Jour,, May
1876 ; Cat. of Paintings, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
(1921) ; Illustrated Cat.: Paintings in the Metropolitan
Museum of Art (1905) ; Geo. Gale, The Gale Family
Records in England and the U. S. (1866) ; Albany Eve.
Jour., Oct. i, 1885 ; World (N. Y.), and N. Y. Times,
Oct. 2, 1885).] W.H.D.
PAINE, BYRON (Oct. 10, i827~Jan. 13,
1871), advocate of state rights in Wisconsin,
judge, the son of James H. and Marilla (Paine)
Paine, was born in Painesville, Ohio, founded by
his mother's grandfather, Edward Paine, a Revo-
lutionary officer from Connecticut. An academy
at Painesville gave him his formal schooling,
which was later supplemented by wide reading,
the acquisition of the German language, and the
literary training that is afforded by practice in
writing for the press. Removing with his father,
who was a practising lawyer, to Wisconsin Ter-
ritory in the year before its admission as a state,
he studied law and was admitted to the bar at
Milwaukee in 1849. In the early years of his
professional career, when clients were few, he
did much writing for the Free Democrat, a free-
soil newspaper at Milwaukee. He and his father
both held the anti-slavery views prevalent at the
time on the Western Reserve of Ohio and were
sympathetic with the flame of angry protest
against the enactment of the Fugitive-slave Law
in 1850. In 1854 he appeared before the state
supreme court as counsel for Sherman M. Booth,
the editor of the newspaper to which he had con-
tributed, when the rescue of a negro, Joshua
Glover, involved Booth in criminal proceedings.
Paine's argument for the granting of a writ of
habeas corpus was mainly an attack on the con-
stitutionality of the Fugitive-slave Law (Uncon~
Paine
stitutionality of the Fugitive Act. Argument . , .
in the Matter of the Petition of Sherman M.
Booth for a Hrrit of Habeas Corpus, n.d.). The
state court granted the writ, but renewed efforts
of the federal authorities ended, in 1859, with the
decision of the federal Supreme Court uphold-
ing1 the right of the federal authorities to try
Booth. Paine expressed in no uncertain terms
his own belief in state sovereignty, and the de-
fiance of the federal authorities voiced by the
Wisconsin judges and by him was received with
acclamation among anti-slavery men everywhere.
He reaped a rich harvest of personal popularity
in his own state, which culminated in his elec-
tion, the spring of 1859, as associate justice of
the state supreme court on a campaign platform,
remarkable hi Wisconsin history, of "State
Rights and Byron Paine !" Carl Schurz, then a
citizen of Wisconsin, came tinder the spell. Years
afterward the figure of young Paine, whose "tall
and sturdy frame, and his face, not regular of
feature, but beautiful in its expression of abso-
lute sincerity, kindness, and intelligence, made
his very appearance a picture of strength ruled
by reason, justice, and benevolence," remained a
cherished memory in Schurz's recollections
(Schurz, post, p. 112).
Nevertheless, in 1861, when Lincoln called for
men and resources to defend the Union, no state
responded more heartily than Wisconsin* In No-
vember 1864 Paine resigned from the bench and
•was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the 43rd
Wisconsin Volunteers. The next May he re-
sumed his law practice in Milwaukee. In 1867
he was reappointed to a seat on the state supreme
bench, to which he was later elected and on which
he served until his death. In two opinions, of
1869 and 1870, he made the effort to analyze and
set forth the convictions he continued to hold
concerning state rights ancl to point out wherein
he understood they differed from the doctrine of
the right of secession (Knorr vs, The Home In-
surance Company and In re Tarbte, 25 Wis* Re-
Ports, 150-66 and 394-413), The close reasoning
and keen exposition of these opinions command-
ed the respect of his fellow judges and lawyers,
most of whom had come wholly to disagree with
his view of the once dominant issue, It is note-
worthy that a man raised to a judicial station by
a popular movement, without regard to his pro-
fessional qualifications, should have won the con-
fidence and respect of the bar so completely. He
was survived by his wife Clarissa R. ( Wyman)
Paine, whom he had married on Oct. 7, 1854,
and by their four sons.
Mr< Jttce Paime " *? Wit, Reports , as-
< 0\l 1t' '
(1898), vol. I ; P. M, Reed, The Bench and Bar of Wis.
Paine
(1882) ; C. W. ButterfieM, Hist, of Dane County, Wis
(i88oj ; J, B, Winslpw, The Story of a Great Court
(191:2); The Reminiscences of Carl Schura, vol. II
(1907) ; E. K. Bryant, "The Supreme Court of Wis.,"
Green Bay, Mar. 1897 ; Chart No. .?, Showing Ancestry
of Descendants of Gen. ttttward Paine, comp. by J L.
Paine (IQCU) ; IKu. State Jour. (Madison), fan, 14 '16
18, 1871 J VV.B.S, '
PAINE, CHARLES (Apr. 15, i7Q9~July 6,
^53 )» manufacturer, railroad promoter, gover-
nor of Vermont, brother of Martyn Paine [#.?',],
was born at Williamstown, Vt, fifth of the eight
children of Elijah [</.?/,] and Sarah (Porter)
Paine, A high-spirited, adventurous boy, more
interested in sport than study, he was neverthe-
less destined by his father for a professional ca-
reen lie entered Phillips Kxeter Academy in
1813, and in 18x6, following the family tradition,
Harvard College, from which he graduated in
1820. Four years of college life proved his ca-
pacity for gay and joyous companionship rather
than^for serious study, A century later, if he had
survived the sterner scholastic requirements of
his alma mater, he would probably have ranked
high among the popular athletes of his class.
Overcoming parental objections, he settled after
graduation at NorthfieM, Vt.» where he soon be-
came the manager of bis father's woollen-mills.
Business responsibilities ami the close contact
with the strong personality of his father brought
out his more solid qualities, He, too, became a
model of punctuality, exactness, and strict hon-
esty in business dealings, but with somewhat less
of sternness than the older man displayed. His
enterprise and his initiative in the adoption of
improved machinery shortly brought increased
prosperity to his factory, now organized on a
large scale* Like his father, he interested him-
self in farming and stock breeding. Here also
financial success followed.
Meanwhile, he was taking part in state politics.
For one term he was a member of the House of
Representatives (1828-20). After standing for
the governorship as a Whig in 1835, he was
elected to that office in 1841 and again in 1842.
Like the other Whigs of his region, Paine was a
strong protectionist ; unlike the majority of them,
he was so incensed by President Tyler's failure
to follow the party leaders that he urged a con-
stitutional amendment not merely to limit the
president to one term but to deprive him of the
veto power, "the only monarchical feature in our
form of government" (Governor's message in
Journal of the House of Representatives of the
State of Vermont, 1841, p, 33). He failed to se-
cure a geological survey and a reorganization of
the school system in the state, but he did intro-
duce a new and more thorough system of ac-
counting by state officers.
146
Paine
After his retirement as governor, he devoted
the rest of his life to railway promotion. Efforts,
under charters of 1832 and 1835, to build a rail-
road through the center of the state had failed
from lack of financial support Paine now be-
came the moving spirit in a new endeavor. The
Vermont Central Railroad Company was or-
ganized in 1845 with Paine as president of the
board of directors. It was intended that the
road, crossing the state from northwest to south-
east, should form a part of a great trunk line con-
necting Boston with Chicago by way of northern
New York and the Lakes. With the aid of capi-
talists in Boston, where the financial direction
was retained, Paine succeeded in completing the
road, Dec. 31, 1849. Unfortunately, and partly
through Paine' s fault, the railroad left Mont-
pelier, the capital, on a side line, as it did Bur-
lington after connection was made with Mon-
treal. It did, however, pass through Paine's
hilltop village of Northfielcl Despite his de-
termined efforts, the road was not a financial suc-
cess. In 1852 it passed into the hands of receivers
and Paine in the last year of his life turned to the
promotion of a railroad to the Pacific over a
southern route. During explorations for this
purpose he died of dysentery at Waco, Tex. He
had become known for his philanthropy in his
own village and elsewhere in the state, but his
greatest service was the railroad which his per-
sistence had carried to completion. He was never
married.
[Paine Family Records, Oct. 1882 ; J. G, Ullery, Men
of Vermont (1894); John Gregory, Centenmal Proc.
and Hist. Incidents of the Early Settlers of Northfield,
Vt (1878) : A. M. Hemenway, The Vt, Hist. Gazetteer,
vote. I (1868), IV (1882) ; E. S. Gannett, The Useful
Man. A Sermon Delivered at the Funeral of Hon.
Charles Paine (1853); Vcrmontcr, vol. XXXV U
(1932), nos. U-I2.] P.D.E.
PAINE, CHARLES JACKSON (Aug. 26,
i833-Aug. 12, 1916), soldier, capitalist, yachts-
man, was born in Boston, Mass., the eldest of the
nine children of Charles Gushing and Fanny
Cabot (Jackson) Paine. He was the great-
grandson of Robert Treat Paine, signer of the
Declaration of Independence, a grandson of
Charles Jackson, jurist, and a brother of Robert
Treat Paine, 1835-1910 [qq.v.]. After attending
the Boston Latin School and graduating from
Harvard in 1853, he studied in the law office of
Rufus Choate and was admitted to the bar on
Sept 15, 1856. , He then visited Europe and on
his return spent some months in St. Louis, but
from 1858 to the outbreak of the Civil War he
maintained an office in Boston. On Sept. 5, 1861,
he was authorized to recruit a company, and on
Oct. 8 he was mustered in as captain and left
Paine
with his troops to join the force about Washing-
ton. He was commissioned major Jan. 16, 1862,
and was made colonel of the 2nd Louisiana Vol-
unteers on Oct. 23 of the same year. On Nov. 7,
1863, he was given command of a brigade, but he
relinquished this assignment to join the staff of
Gen. B. F. Butler. On July 4, 1864, the Senate
confirmed him as brigadier-general; he com-
manded a division in various operations under
Butler, was made major-general of volunteers by
brevet on Jan. 15, 1865, and was mustered out of
the army Jan. 15, 1866. After the war he de-
voted his energies to business affairs. He em-
ployed the extensive capital he controlled in
large enterprises of the period, principally rail-
road building and development, and he took a
prominent part in the management of several
systems, including the Atchison, Topeka & Santa
Fe; Chicago, Burlington & Quincy; and the
Mexican Central Railway. His financial power
and acumen were recognized by the well in-
formed, but he gained little public recognition
except an appointment as one of three members
of a commission on bimetalism accredited by the
United States to Great Britain, France, and Ger-
many in 1897.
Paine was best known as a yachtsman. His
narrow escapes from drowning as a youth did
not reduce his love for this sport, and in the sev-
enties he became prominent by purchasing the
Halcyon, a slow craft, and making changes that
greatly increased her speed. In 1885 he joined
a syndicate to build a cup-defender to represent
New England, and this boat, the Puritan, won
the trial races and beat the British challenger
Genesta. In the two succeeding years he assumed
the entire cost of two more defenders : the May-
flower, which won in the trials and in the cup-
races against the Galatea; and the Volunteer,
which defeated both American competitors and
the Scotch challenger Thistle. Edward Burgess
[q.v.J, who designed all of Paine's successful de-
fenders, died before the next race in 1893; but
Paine had an entry, the Jubilee, which was elim-
inated in the trials. His interest in yachting con-
tinued, however, to his last years, and his prac-
tical skill and conspicuous fairness were influ-
ences on American yacht design and interna-
tional sport. He was an unpretentious man,
avoiding any kind of display. The old straw hat
and plain garb in which he sailed his cup-de-
fenders were often contrasted with the elaborate
costumes of less famous and less wealthy owners.
He was without aloofness and his unobtrusive-
ness may have contributed to an underestimation
of his ability and achievement. On Mar. 26, 1867,
he married Julia Bryant, a grand-daughter of
Paine
Hannah Farnham Sawyer Lee [q.v,] ; they had
seven children. He died in Western, Mass.
[Sources include : Report of the Hansard Class of
18 $3 > . . . Issued on the Sixtieth Anniversary (1913) ;
Sarah C. Paine, Paine Ancestry (1912), ed. by C. H.
Pope; F. B. Heitman, Hist. Rcff. and Diet, of the U. S,
Army (1903)* vol. I; A Testimonial to Chas. /. Paine
and Edward Burgess from the City of Boston (1887),
printed by order of the City Council ; Boston Tran-
script, Aug. 14, 1 6, 1916 ; N. y. Times t Aug. 15, 1916,]
S,G.
PAINE, ELIJAH (Jan. 21, i757~Apr. 28,
1842), farmer, manufacturer, and jurist, was a
native of Brooklyn, Conn., the second of eight
children horn to Scth and Mabel (Tyler) Paine.
His ancestors, of English descent on both sides,
had long* resided in New England, Financial
difficulties delayed his preparation for college.
He was studying under the direction of his uncle,
Rev. John Paine of Sturhridgc, Mass,, when an
September 1776 he decided to join the Revolu-
tionary army. Military life, however, especially
garrison duty at Fort Washington, N. Y», proved
uninteresting, and the war promised to drag on
indefinitely; accordingly young Paine shortly re-
turned to his studies. In the fall of 1777 he en-
tered Harvard College, from which he graduated
in 1781, His high standing is indicated by his
nomination in 1782 as first orator by the newly
founded chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, and his elec-
tion as its president in 1783, Meanwhile, he had
begun to study law in Boston, under Benjamin
Lincoln, and in 1784 was admitted to the bar.
Seeking a place to establish himself, he fol-
lowed the trend of migration northward to Ver-
mont, pushing deep into the backwoods. With a
few friends he made the first settlement at Wil-
liamstown during the summer of 1784, Here he
cleared a large farm. Here, too, and also in the
neighboring township of Northfield, he built saw
and grist mills. He was by nature a man of af-
fairs, quick to see a profit, hard at a bargain,
punctual in fulfilling his obligations, and equally
exacting with others. A stern, masterful man,
six feet tall and strongly built, with a powerful
voice, he had the initiative, energy, and execu-
tive ability which on a broader stage would have
made him a captain of industry. In early Ver-
mont he became a farmer on a large scale, a
breeder of animals of many sorts, leading1 the
way in popularizing merino sheep. By 1812 he
had a flock of 1500 head. Then with character-
istic energy he built in Northfield a large wool-
len-mill, where he produced flannels and broad-
cloths. Already, in 1803, he had constructed a
turnpike connecting his district with die capital
at Montpelier, In 1825 he became the first presi-
dent of the Bank of Montpetkr.
Meanwhile he was taking ta active part lu
Paine
tics. Only two years after his arrival in Ver-
mont he was a member and secretary of the con-
stitutional convention of 1786, From 1787 to
1790 he was in the lower house of the state leg-
islature. He served thereafter as judge of pro-
bate in the Randolph district ( 1788-91) ; as jus-
tice of the state supreme court (1791-93); as
United States senator (1795-1801) ; as judge of
the United States district court for Vermont,
under one of Adams' "midnight" appointments
(1801: -42); and simultaneously as postmaster
of his village (1815-42). He early aligned him-
self with the Federalists, He. voted for the rati-
fication of the Jay treaty, though at the cost of
some unpopularity at home. In general he seems
to have carried out his public duties with ability,
but neither in Washington nor on the bench in
Vermont did he leave any particular mark. As
a judge he was known rather for strict discipline
than for deep learning.
Throughout his life he was an ardent support-
er of education, He endeavored in vain to have
the state university located at Willmmstown, but
that his interest was not merely that of a real-
estate promoter is evidenced by his long and ac-
tive service as trustee of that institution, and of
Middlebury and Dartmouth colleges as well. He
took a prominent part in the affairs of the last
named, being an aggressive leader of the anti-
Whcclock faction in 1815 and thereafter (J. K,
Lord, A History of Dartmouth College, 19*3),
He was honored by membership in the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Ameri-
can Antiquarian Society* For many years he
was president of the Vermont Colonization So-
ciety, to which, and also to other benefactions,
he contributed generously. He married, June 7,
1790, Sarah Porter of Plymouth, N, H. By her
he had eight children; two of his sons were
Charles and Martyn
[Manuscript sketch of h!« father by Martyn Paine
in the library of the Univ, of Vt ; 3iog, Dir. Am. Cong*
(ioa8) j John Gregory, C&ntmni&l Proc, and Hist* In-
cidents of th® Early Stttlcr* of Northfi&td, Vt, (1878) j
J, M. Comstock, A List of the Principal Civil Officers
of Vt. from 1777 to 1918 (i0*8)j A. M, Hemenway,
Vt, Hist. Ga8@tt8®rt vol. II (1871) ; Vt* Watchman and
$tat@ Jour. (Montpelier), May at, i84-t,] P.D.E,
PAINE, HALBERT ELEAZHR (Feb. 4*
i826~Apr. 14, 1905), lawyer, Union soldier, con-
gressman, and commissioner of patents, was the
son of Eleazer and Caroline (Hoyt) Paine, He
was descended from a long line of Puritan an-
cestry running back to Stephen Paine who ml*
grated to New England in 1638, He was born at
Chardon, Geattga County, Ohio, was educated
in the schools of that community «nd completed
his academic training at Wdrtttftt Reserve Col-
148
Paine
lege, from which he graduated in 1845. After
graduation he removed to Mississippi, where he
taught school for a time, but soon returned to
Ohio and took up the study of law. In 1848 he
was admitted to the bar and began practice at
Cleveland. On Sept. 10, 1850, he was married to
Elizabeth Leaworthy Brigham of Windham,
Ohio. Removing to Milwaukee, Wis., In 1857,
he opened a law office there, and soon formed a
partnership with Carl Schurz \_q.v.~] . The latter
was so constantly engaged in politics, however,
that the work of the office fell almost completely
upon Paine. Both were idealists and in consid-
erable measure crusaders. When the Civil War
broke out, Paine "turned the key in his office and
joined the army." He was commissioned colonel
of the 4th Wisconsin Cavalry, July 2, 1861, and
brigadier-general of volunteers, Mar. 13, 1863.
At Harrisburg, Pa., his regiment was offered a
stock train for transportation, which he indig-
nantly refused, and, arming his men with pick-
handles, he seized the next suitable train that
passed through. He refused to return fugitives
and also declined to obey General Butler's order
to burn Baton Rouge. His military service was
distinguished. He lost a leg in the attack upon
Port Hudson, La., and thereafter served on a mil-
itary commission, as commander of forts m the
defense of Washington, and finally as command-
er of the military district of Illinois. He was
brevetted major-general of volunteers, Mar. 13,
1865, for conspicuous gallantry on several occa-
sions, especially at Port Hudson. On May 15,
1865, he resigned from the army.
In the Thirty-ninth, Fortieth, and Forty-first
congresses, to which Paine was elected as a rep-
resentative from Wisconsin, he supported the
Radical faction. His two speeches on recon-
struction subscribe to the "State Suicide The-
ory" (Congressional Globe, 40 Cong"., 2 Sess.,
App., pp. 272-75, 314-16). In the Fortieth Con-
gress, he was chairman of the committee on mili-
tia and in the Forty-first, he served as chairman
of the committee on elections, of which he had
been a member during his first term in Congress.
The position was extremely important, because
of the question of seating representatives from
the Southern states. As a practical politician,
from his position as chairman of the committee
on contested elections, he was sometimes forced
to answer Thaddeus Stevens' question, "Which
is our rascal ?" Hi£ reports to the House were
* brief, direct, and conclusive.
Declining to stand for reelection in 1870, he
took up the practice of law in Washington. His
former law partner, Carl Schurz, pressed him to
become the assistant secretary in the Department
Paine
of the Interior. He declined for financial rea-
sons, but later accepted the post of commissioner
of patents. During his eighteen months in this
office (November i878-May 1880), he instituted
important changes in the bureau. The most im-
portant of these were the substitution of scale
drawings for models; the provision that errors
of the patent office could be rectified without
changing the date of the origin of the patentees'
rights ; the dating of claims for grants from the
time of receipt of the application instead of at
some time within three months thereafter; and
the introduction of the use of typewriters.
After his resignation Paine resumed law prac-
tice, which he followed to the end of his life. In
1888 he published A Treatise on the Law of Elec-
tions to Public Offices, which remains the au-
thoritative work upon the subject. It exhibits
the rules and principles applicable to contests be-
fore judicial tribunals and parliamentary bodies,
and is based upon American, English, Scotch,
Irish, and Canadian authorities. It consists of
900 pages of heavily annotated text and a com-
prehensive list of cases (to 1888) which consti-
tute the precedents from which the rules and
principles are derived. Systematically present-
ing all the aspects of the law upon elections, it
stands as a monument to the industry, compre-
hension, and thoroughness which were dominant
attributes of the author's character.
[Milwaukee Jour., and Milwaukee Sentinel, Apr. 17,
1905; S. B. Ladd, "Halbert Eleazer Paine," in Tour,
of the Patent Office Society, Nov. 1920 ; Who's Who in
America, 1903-05 ; Paine Family Records, Jan. 1882,
The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz, vols. II (1907), III
(1908) ; F. B. Heitman, Hist. Reg. and Diet. U. S.
Army (1903), vol. I; War of the Rebellion, Official
Records (Army) ; Biog. Dir. Am. Cong. (1928).]
J.L.S.
PAINE, HENRY WARREN (Aug. 30, 1810-
Dec. 26, 1893), lawyer, was born at Winslow,
Me., the son of Lemuel and Jane Thomson
(Warren) Paine and a descendant of William
Paine who emigrated to Massachusetts in 1635.
His mother was a niece of Gen. Joseph Warren
[q.v.*] . In childhood and youth he was noted for
his abstention from the usual recreations. "He
never rowed a boat, never skated, never played
ball, goal, cards, chess, checkers, or any other
game" (Mathews, post, p. 196). Entering Wa-
terville (now Colby) College, Waterville, Me.,
in 1826 and graduating there in 1830, he con-
tinued for another year as tutor. He never lost
his interest in the institution and from 1849 to
1862 he was a member of its board of trustees.
Following his father into the legal profession,
he studied first in the office of his uncle, Samuel
S. Warren of China, Me., and then took a year's
course at the Harvard Law School (1832-33).
149
Paine
In 1834 he was admitted to the bar of Kennebec
County, Me., and began practice at Hallowell.
The following1 year he was elected to the state
legislature, where he served through the 1837
session and also in 1853, Meanwhile, May I,
1837, he was married to Lucy E. Coffin of New-
buryport, Mass., and one daughter was born to
them. From 1834 to 1839 he was the attorney
for Kennebcc County, and also became conspicu-
ously successful in private practice. His grow-
ing reputation lecl him eventually into a larger
field and in 1854 he established himself in Bos-
ton, where for over a quarter of a century he was
a recognized leader of a distinguished bar. He
was particularly effective before juries ; but fair
and courteous to his opponents. His professional
income was large but he was careless in collect-
ing fees and it was estimated that he gave away
$100,000. A Democrat, even during the Civil
War, he reluctantly consented to become his
party's candidate for governor of Massachusetts
in 1863 and again in 1864; but, of course, with-
out hope of success. He is said to have been of-
fered a seat in the United States Senate from
Maine in 1853, and also one on the supreme ju-
dicial court of Massachusetts in 1867. From
1872 to 1885 he lectured on real property law at
the Boston University Law School, with the
great popularity of which his own personality
had much to do. Failing health and hearing, due
to overwork and lack of recreation, caused him
to give up teaching as well as practice, and his
last decade was passed in virtual retirement
During the last two years of his life he was un-
able to recognize his friends, and he had "dis-
covered at last that, big as were his ancestors'
deposits of vigor and vitality to his credit, he
had overdrawn his account for years, and must
now repay the excess with compound interest"
(Mathews, post, p. 197). His career well illus-
trates the ephemeral nature of the advocate's
fame. Efforts in forensic oratory, however ef-
fective, are rarely preserved, and records of pro-
fessional triumphs are too often buried forever
in the archives of the courts, Paine inherited
from his father a taste for literature ; he had a
remarkable memory, and was noted for his use
of literary allusion and his aptness of repartee,
His death occurred in Cambridge, Mass,
tThe most extensive account of Paine ia William
Mathews, "A Great New England Lawyer/' New Bng*
land Magagine, Apr, 1894 ; »ee also, Paine Family Rec*
ordst No, i, Nov. 1878 j Green Bag, Feb. 1804 \_Albany
Law Jour,f Jan. 6, 1894; Boston Transcript, Dec, *o,
PAINE, JOHN ALSOP (Jan. 14, i84o~July
24, 1912), archeologist and botanist, was born
at Newark, N. J,, the son of Dr. John Alsop
Paine
Paine and Amanda S. (Kellogg), who had pre-
viously lived in Oneida County, N. Y. After
graduating from Hamilton College in 1859, he
studied theology at Andover, where he was grad-
uated in 1862. He had shown a particular inter-
est in botany, which led to his engagement by
the board of regents of the University of the
State of New York to report on the flora of
Oneida County. The results of his study were
published by the regents as Cataloguer of Plants
Pound in Oneida County ami I'icinity (1865).
His interest in scientific research led him* to
study for a year (1866-67) at the Sheffield Sci-
entific School of Yale and at the Columbia
School of Mines. He was then appointed pro-
fessor of natural science at Robert College, Con-
stantinople, a missionary institution which had
been founded only four years previously. In
preparation for his work there he was ordained
to the ministry at Newark, N, J*, on May 29,
1867, After completing his two-year term at
Robert College, he spent a year in the universi-
ties of Leipzig and Halle, pursuing scientific and
philological studies. From r8?o to 1871 he was
professor of natural science and German at Lake
Forest University, Illinois, He then returned
to the East as associate editor of the Independent,
a post which ho held until his appointment in
1872 as archeologist and naturalist on the staff
of the American Palestine Exploration Society.
With this appointment, Paine's career may be
said to have reached its climax. Unfortunately,
his training1 was too scattered, and his interests
too wide to permit him to take advantage of the
opportunity which presented itself for a distin-
guished scholarly careen He seems, also, to
have had difficulties with the head of the expe-
dition, Lieut Edgar Z. Steever, Jr., a recent
West Point graduate. After nearly three months
of waiting in Beirut, the base of operations, the
expedition was finally able to begin its work in
Moab (March 1873), where it continued until
midsummer. Only part of the results of its work
were ever published, the most important being-
described by Paine in the Third Statement of the
Palestine Exploration Society, January 1875,
consisting of two papers entitled "The Identifi-
cation of Mount Pisgah," and "A List of Plants
Collected between the Two Zarquas, Eastern
Palestine." In 1874 Hamilton College gave him
the honorary degree of Ph.D., in recognition of
his work.
The following years were devoted to some-
what scattered journalistic work and research in
various scientific and philological fields- From
October 1881 to July 1884 he edited and pub-
lished an ephemeral periodical known as the
150
Paine
Journal of Christian Philosophy, and in 1887-
88 he was on the editorial staff of the Century
Dictionary. For a time he thought seriously of
specializing in ancient oriental studies, and sev-
eral papers by him appeared in the Journal of
the American Oriental Society between 1885
and 1889. These papers show much acuteness
and critical ability, but a lack of depth. In 1889
he was appointed curator of casts in the Metro-
politan Museum, a post which he held until his
retirement in February 1906. During this period
he spent much of his time at his home in Tarry-
town, N. Y., pursuing researches of a miscel-
laneous character. His favorite subjects, how-
ever, appear to have been the history of the un-
successful attempts made by Spanish and French
followers of Columbus to colonize the eastern
coast of North America in the sixteenth cen-
tury, and the chemistry and radio-activity of
rare elements. In the field of archeology he
published Handbook No. 7 of the Metropolitan
Museum, on its collection of plaster casts and
bronze reproductions of ancient sculpture.
[A Hist, of the Class of '59 of Hamilton Call.
(1899) ; Gen. Cat. of the Theological Sem,, Andover,
Mass. iSoS-xgoS (1909); Torrcya, Aug. 1912; Who's
Who in America, 1912-13; N. Y. Times, July 25,
1912-] W.F.A.
PAINE, JOHN KNOWLES (Jan. 9, 1839-
Apr. 25, 1906), American composer, teacher, and
organist, was born in Portland, Me., was mar-
ried, on Sept. 7, 1869, to Mary Elizabeth Gree-
ley, and died in Cambridge, Mass. He was the
son of Jacob Small and Rebecca (Beebe)
Downes Paine and was descended from Thomas
Payne who emigrated to Yarmouth, in Massa-
chusetts, in the seventeenth century. He came
of a musical family. His grandfather, John K.
H. Paine, built the first organ in Maine. Of
Jacob's five children John Knowles was preco-
ciously gifted and was soon destined for a mu-
sical career. He studied in Portland with an
excellent musician, the organist Hermann Kotz-
schmar. In 1857, at the age of nineteen, he was
given the privilege of being sent to Germany for
further study in music. Here he became a pupil
of Karl August Haupt iti Berlin, one of the
foremost German organists, and here he gained
that power and facility in organ-playing that
was his first distinction and that first established
his position as a musician. He is said to have
studied also theory and composition with Wie-
precht and Teschner. He remained in Berlin for
three years and there made a name for himself.
In 1 86 1 he appeared in the city as an organ vir-
tuoso, when his playing was praised by German
critics as showing mastery of the instrument and
especially a command of the difficulties of Bach's
Paine
music. He also played with success in other
German cities and gave an organ recital in Lon-
don that won for him commendation. In that
year, 1861, he returned to America. His first
appearance was at a concert in Portland. This
was followed by others in Boston of which
Dwighfs Journal of Music declared that "so
marked was the freedom, ease, and repose of Mr.
Paine's manner of performance on the organ
that one was almost led to overlook the exceed-
ing brilliancy of his execution" (Nov. 9, 1861,
p. 254) . It was not long before he made for him-
self the reputation of one of the leading organ-
ists of the United States. The great Walcker
organ in the Music Hall, Boston, one of the most
notable organs in the country at that time, had
been bought in Germany, brought to Boston,
and put into that hall largely through Paine's ef-
forts while he was still a student in Germany.
On this he gave frequent recitals, heard by large
audiences, in which he introduced many works
of Bach not then widely known in America, and
a source of much fretful complaint in the press.
He also became organist of the West Church in
Boston.
In 1862 Paine resigned his church position to
take the post of director of music at Harvard
College, acting as organist and choir-master.
The catalogue of the college had offered musical
instruction "with special reference to the devo-
tional services in the Chapel," and extending to
the "higher branches of part-singing," as early
as 1856. In the year after his appointment as
"instructor of music" Paine added two lecture
courses, one on musical form and another on
counterpoint and fugue. In 1869 Charles W.
Eliot became president of the university, and
immediately set about carrying out his revolu-
tionary plans for an elective system and a great
increase in the number and variety of courses
open to undergraduates. In these Paine had a
share. In 1872 he announced a comprehensive
elective course in musical theory and in 1873, *n
the face of strong conservative opposition, he was
made an assistant professor and offered three new
courses in theory, adding the next year a course
in the history of music. One of the chief oppo-
nents of these plans was Francis Parkman, the
historian, a member of the Corporation, who is
said to have ended every deliberation of that
body with the words "musica delenda est" ; and
who, for many subsequent years, when the col-
lege was faced with a need of funds, was always
ready with a motion to abolish the musical de-
partment. Finally, in 1875, Paine was promo-ted
to a full professorship, occupying one of the first
chairs in music to be established in any Ameri-
Paine
can university. He continued his activity in his
Harvard professorship till his resignation at the
end of the academic year 1905, a short time be-
fore his death.
He had begun in his youth in Portland to show
his ambition to be a composer. One of his early
elaborate works was a Mass in D, which he went
back to Berlin in 1867 to conduct at a concert of
the Singakadcmic. Contemporary reports sug-
gest that it was a highly competent but scarcely
inspired composition. In 1873 his oratorio of
"St. Peter'1 was given in Portland, then a year
later in Boston by the Handel and Haydn Soci-
ety, That, too, was found more commendable
for its competence than admirable for its depth
and beauty. The fact was that Paine had not
yet found himself or emancipated himself wholly
from the pupillary status. A great progress was
noted in his first symphony, in C minor (opus
23), played in 1876 by Theodore Thomas, and
much more in his second symphony (opus 34),
entitled "I'm Fnihling," played in 1880. At its
first performance in Boston this symphony
aroused great enthusiasm. An account of it is
extant relating how ladies waved handkerchiefs,
men shouted in approbation, and the highly re-
spected John S. Dwight, arbiter in Boston of
criticism, if not of manners, stood in his seat,
frantically opening and shutting his umbrella as
an expression of uncontrollable enthusiasm.
This approbation extended to numerous other
performances in Boston and elsewhere. The
next year another and still higher point in his
career was reached. In i88t the classical de-
partment of Harvard gave a stage performance,
in Greek, of Sophocles' (Edipus Tyranms, for
which Paine composed the music, consisting of
a prelude for orchestra and numerous choruses
for male voices. The performance attracted
widespread attention as the first of such classical
revivals in the United States upon such a scale,
and made a deep impression not only upon schol-
ars but also- upon music-lovers. At intervals
thereafter Paine produced other important
works: a symphonic poem, "An Island Fan-
tasy" ; an overture, "As You Like It" ; a sym-
phonic poem, "The Tempest" ; cantatas includ-
ing "Phoebus, Arise" (to words by William
Drummond) ; "The Realm of Fancy" (Keats) ;
"The Song of Promise" (George E* Wood-
berry) ; "The Nativity" (Milton) ; and music
for a stage performance at Harvard of The Birds
of Aristophanes. After his resignation in 1905
he hoped to devote himself to composition, but
the time allotted him was short At the time of
his death he was at work oti a symphonic poem,
"Lincoln," left unfinished.
Paine
Paine's position in American music was rec-
ognized by commissions given him to set to mu-
sic Whittier's hymn for the opening of the Cen-
tennial Exposition in 1876; to write a "Colum-
bus March and Hymn" for the World's Colum-
bian Exposition in Chicago; and a setting of
Stedman's "Hymn of the West" for the St. Louis
Exposition in 1904. In 1903 he was the official
delegate of Harvard to the Wagner Festival in
Berlin, where he received a gold medal, and his
prelude to CEdipits was played at an international
concert. In his later years he spent much time
on an opera, Asar&, for which he himself wrote
the text, and by which he set great store. The
subject is that of Aucassin and Nicolette in the
time of the Trouveres in Provence. It was fin-
ished and published in English and in a German
translation, but it was never produced upon the
operatic stage. Concert performances of it were
given in Boston several times that disclosed
many beauties and certain traits of originality;
but It is not clear that any great dramatic power
or effectiveness was declared in them. Paine's
allegiance was given more and more unreservedly
in his maturer years to the romantic tendencies
of the mid-nineteenth century, and the influence
of Schumann is unmistakably to be discerned in
many of his works. He yielded also to the influ-
ence of Wagner, though he never became as
close an imitator of his methods as many were
tempted to become in the years of Wagner's most
potent spell Paine's earlier works were found
by many somewhat coldly academic, lacking
spontaneity of inspiration. None can make that
complaint against the "Springtime" symphony,
or "An Island Fantasy/' or the music to (Edipus,
particularly the prelude, As he matured, his ex-
pression gained greatly in geniality and in poetic
beauty. His romantic tendencies were manifest-
ed in program music of the more ideal sort, after
Beethoven's canon, "more expression of feeling
than delineation/' In Amra the freedom of dra-
matic form that came from Wagner's example
is to be found ; the old-time divisions into arias
and other set "numbers" are abandoned and the
exigencies of the drama mainly condition the
form of the music. But it would not be true to
call the music "Wagnerian" in the generally ac-
cepted meaning of that term. It is wholly char-
acteristic of Paine.
The best of Fame's works show fertility, a
genuine warmth and spontaneity of invention,
and a fine harmonic feeling, as well as a sure
touch in the organization of form, and skill in
instrumentation. It cannot be said that in any
real sense they disclose "American** characteris-
tics ; Paints musicianship was purdy a pf oduct
Paine
of European influences, as indeed was inevitable
in his day and for a good while thereafter. His
larger compositions gradually lost their place on
orchestral or choral programs. With all their
individual charm, sometimes power and impres-
siveness, they have not shown the vitality o£
great works of genius. Yet there are always the
influences of fashion and the narrow prejudices
and often the ignorance of foreign conductors
of American orchestras to be reckoned with in
accounting for neglect It is possible that the
finer works of Paine would be found to have
still a power to give delight, if they were given
a chance to communicate it. But whatever may
be the present vitality of Paine's music, it made
history; it held up a high standard — it rather
produced and established a high standard — of
American art, and served a valuable purpose in
keeping American music in the minds and in the
affection of American music-lovers.
Perhaps greater, or at least more lasting than
his music, was Paine's influence as a teacher.
Harvard left him free to shape his teaching as
he chose ; and he has been called the first in this
country to teach music as an art and not as a
trade. Nature had not gifted him with inspiring
qualities as a lecturer, but in the years of his ac-
tivity at Harvard he accomplished a great work
in inforcing upon a body of undergraduates des-
tined to become music-lovers and supporters of
music, the value of music as a component of a
liberal education. To those delving more deeply
into the technique of musical theory and musical
composition, even to those who became compos-
ers, he furnished tools which in his day were
none too easy to acquire in America, where in-
stitutions for imparting a thorough grounding
in that technique were neither numerous nor of
high standing. Paine's teaching sent forth from
Harvard a number of composers of talent and
accomplishment who have contributed much of
value to American music, as well as others who
have handed on the torch of his learning as
teachers and as writers of history and criticism.
[G. T. Edwards, Music and Musicians of Me. (1928) ;
J. T. Howard, Ow Am. Music (1930) ; The Develop-
ment of Harvard Univ. (1930), ed. by S. E. Monson;
L. C. Elson, The Hist, of Am. Music (1904); Ru-
pert Hughes, Contemporary Am. Composers (1900);
D wigfafs four, of Music, May 25, Aug. 10, Aug. 24,
Nov. 9, 1861, Feb. i, 18625 the Harvard Grads. Mag.,
Sept. 1906 ; Boston Transcript, Apr. 25, 1906.]
Iv. A.
PAINE, MARTYN (July 8, i794~Nov. 10,
1877), 'physician, was born in Williamstown,
Vt, son of Elijah [#.*>.] and Sarah (Porter)
Paine and brother of Charles Paine [q.v.']. He
received his education from private tutors,
among them being Francis Brown, subsequent-
Paine
ly president of Dartmouth College. After com-
pleting his preparatory education at Atkinson,
N. H., Paine entered Harvard College in 1809,
receiving his degree of A.B. in 1813. In that
year he began the study of medicine under the
preceptor ship of the well-known Doctors War-
ren, father and son, of Boston. He entered the
medical department of Harvard in 1815 and was
graduated M.D. in 1816. His graduation thesis
treated the subject of inflammation, and all his
life he maintained that "most diseases are in-
flammatory in origin and demand antiphlogistic
treatment.'1 For six years (1816-22) he prac-
tised in Montreal and then removed to New
York, where he lived for fifty-five years. In 1825
he married Mary Ann Weeks, by whom he had
a daughter and two sons. His first published
work, Letters on the Cholera Asphyxia^ appeared
in 1832.
In the late thirties he was one of the most ac-
tive promoters of the medical college of the
University of the City of New York and when
it opened in 1841 he was associated with Valen-
tine Mott, John W. Draper, Granville S. Patti-
son, Gunning S. Bedford, and John Revere on
its first faculty. Here he continued to teach for
some twenty-five years, at first as professor of
the institutes of medicine, but after 1850 as pro-
fessor of therapeutics and materia medica.
Though he was not an interesting teacher, for
he read his lectures, he came to be regarded as
the leading professor of therapeutics in the coun-
try. His Institutes of Medicine (1847), a work
of uoo pages, went through nine editions, and
his Materia Medica and Therapeutics (1848),
through three. He was a bitter opponent of the
use of tobacco and alcoholic liquors. Purging
and bleeding were his favorite remedies. He was
the last of the confirmed phlebotomists. He en-
joyed a considerable European reputation and
was a member of the Royal Society of Prussia,
the Medical Society of Sweden, the Society of
Naturalists and Physicians of Dresden, the Med-
ical Society of Leipzig, several Canadian scien-
tific bodies, and many American medical and
historical societies. In America he was re-
nowned "for his thorough acquaintance with
modern medical literature and for the wide range
of his knowledge of contemporaneous authors"
(Gross, post, II, 388).
In the early fifties he was sent by his faculty
colleagues to Albany to use his influence for the
passage of legislation permitting dissections in
New York state. Up to 1854 there was a strmgent
law on the statute books forbidding dissection
under penalty of imprisonment at hard labor;
and the Board of Coimcilmen of New York fcity
153
Paine
had urged the legislature "to oppose by every
means the passage of any bill legalizing the dis-
section of dead bodies" (Gross, post, II, 388).
Paine succeeded in securing in 1854, though by
the scantiest of margins, the passage of an act
abolishing the law prohibiting dissection. A de-
vout Episcopalian, he published a book entitled,
On Theoretical Geology Sustaining the Natural
Constitution of the Mosaic Records of Creation
and the Flood in Opposition to the Prevailing
Geological Theory (1856). To him is attributed
the authorship of a series of editorial articles,
"Medical Education in Great Britain According1
to Documentary Evidence/' published in the
New York Medical Press in 1859, maintaining
the superiority of medical education in the
United States over that in Great Britain,
[S. W, Francis, 8%og. Sketches of Distinguished Lilt-
ing N. y. Physician* (1867), pp. 25-38, nkctch renr.
from Medic, and Surgic, Reporter, July 21, 1866 ; S.TX
Gross, Autobiography O vols., 1887) ; J. J, Walsh, Hist,
of Medicine in N. K. State (5 vola,, 1910) ; J. 1- Cham-
berlain, N, Y. Univ. (xooOi Medic. Record, Nov. 17,
1877; N, y. Tribune, Nov. xa, 1877.] JJ.W.
PAINE, RALPH DELAHAYE (Aug. 28,
x87i-Apr, 29, 1925), journalist, author, was
born in Lemont, 111, From his father, the Rev.
Samuel Delahaye Paine, who fought in the
trenches at Xnkerrnan and who commanded a bat-
tery of light artillery in the Civil War, he in-
herited a passion for daring deeds on both land
and sea. From his mother, Elizabeth Brown
(Philbrook) Paine, came his admiration for New
England's history as exemplified in the annals
of the seaport towns. While still a boy in Jack-
sonville, Fla., where his father held a small
parish, Paine saved enough from his salary as a
twelve-dollar-a-weefc reporter to enter Yale Col-
lege in the fall of 1890* He then began to cover
the athletic news for a syndicate of over twenty
newspapers and thereby pay for the whole of his
own education and a part of his sister's school-
ing. His powerful physique won him a seat in
the university crew and a place on the football
squad, and his charm of personality brought to
him the highest social honors Yale could offer.
Immediately after graduation in 1894, he joined
the staff of the Philadelphia Press, and two years
later he was sent to England to cover the Yale-
Oxford crew race, serving again in 1904 in a
similar capacity for ColUsfs Weekly at the track
meet between the Yale-Harvard and Oxford-
Cambridge teams. But it was as war correspond-
ent during the Cuban revolution and the Span-
ish-American War that Paine enjoyed to the full
his love of semi-quixotic adventure, for during
that period he combined news-gathering with
filibustering under the doughty captain "Dyna-
Paine
mite Johnny O'Brien." William Randolph Hearst
selected Paine as the proper "fool-adventurer"
to take a gold sword to Gome?:, the Cuban lead-
er, but after Paine had carried the "bauble" over
5,000 miles he had to send it to the patriot, only
to learn that the swarthy hero had accepted it
with scorn — a fact which Paine found highly
amusing.
In 1900 Paine was sent to China to cover the
Boxer Uprising (see The Dragon and the Crow,
1912, and Roads of stdt'CHtitt'C, 1922). In 1902
the New York Herald placed him in charge of
its campaign against the beef trust, a campaign
which brought him notice because of its notable
success. After a brief connection with the New
York Tch\(/raph as managing* editor, Paine gave
up journalism and began his career as fiction
writer and historian. His researches as a his-
torian led him to Salem, Mass,, whore he delved
into the history of Yankee shipping1 and published
his results in The Ships and Sailors of Old Salem
(1909), The Old Merchant Marine (1919), and
The Pirjht for ti !frcc ,SVa (1920)* As the at-
mosphere of his alma mater is felt in such fine
boys' stories as The Stroke Oar (1908), Col*
let/e Years (1909), Sandy Sawyer, Sophomore
(1911), awl l<ir$t Doum, Kentucky! (1921), so
the roar of the seven seas is heard in The Pray-
ing Skiver and Other Stories (1906), The
Wrecking Master (1911), The Adventures of
Captain O'Shca (1913), The Call of the Off-
Shore Wind (iQiB), and many others of Paine's
sea stories, In 1917 Paine was appointed special
observer with the Allied fleets, an experience
which was unique and thrilling in the extreme
(see Roads of ddrcntitre). Into his storks went
the influence of his friendships with such war
correspondents as Stephen Crane, Ernest Mc-
Cready, and Richard Harding Davis, and his
careful study of Joseph Conrad's writings, the
result being a literary style marked by genial
humor, graphic phrasing, and vivid picturization*
On Apr, 5, 1903, Paine married Mrs. Katha-
rine Lansing Morse of Watertown, N, Y., and
in 1908 they moved to Durham, N. H« Paine
represented Durham in the state legislature
(1919) and served on the state board of educa-
tion from 1919 to 1921, He was presented a
medal by the citizens of Dunkirk, France, in
gratitude for his kindness to the citizens of that
city during the war. He died in Concord, N, H.,
and was laid to rest near his literary workshop
at "Shankhassick," his Durham residence. He
was survived by his widow, and by five children,
two of whom were step-children.
[For further biographical d«ta wwlt tfae retniicm
records of Fame's college class (Yale, 1894), especially
154
Paine
the Qwndecennial Record (1909), the Quarter-Century
Record (1922), and the Thirty Year Record (1923) ;
Who's Who in America, 1924-25 ; the Granite Monthly,
May, 1925 ; and A. S. Pier, "A Yale Man. of the 'Nine-
ties/* in the Harvard Grads.' Mag.3 Dec. 1923. Jacques
des Gachons's preface to La Victoire Impr&vue (1910),
a French translation of six short stories by Paine, is a
Frenchman's estimate of Paine's position among Amer-
ican short-story writers. For book reviews of Paine's
works see the Book Rev, Digest for the years 1906 to
1927 inclusive. Certain information was supplied for
this sketch by Paine's classmate and intimate friend,
the Rev. Wm. S. Beard, New York City.] A. E. R.
PAINE, ROBERT (Nov. 12, 1799-0 ct. 19,
1882), bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
South, was the son of James and Nancy (Wil-
liams) Paine and a descendant of Dr. James
Paine, who emigrated from England in 1699 and
settled in Person County, N. C, where Robert
was born. In 1814 his parents moved to Giles
County, Tenn. He was sent to the best private
schools of the region and was ready to enter the
sophomore class of Cumberland College, Nash-
ville, Tenn., when, on Oct. 9, 1817, he had a vital
religious experience and became convinced of a
call to preach. Within a month after conversion
he was traveling a circuit, and in October 1818
was admitted on trial to the Tennessee Confer-
ence of the Methodist Episcopal Church. On
Nov. n, 1821, he was ordained deacon, and on
Nov. 26, 1823, elder. His rise was rapid; at the
age of twenty-four he was sent as a delegate to
the General Conference, and he attended every
session of that body for the next twenty years.
In 1830, when LaGrange College, Franklin
County, Ala., was founded under the patronage
of the Tennessee and Alabama conferences, Paine
was selected to be its first president, although
for four years, out of modesty, he refused to ac-
cept the title of president, preferring to call him-
self superintendent. He had a difficult task
directing the affairs of a college which lacked
endowment and equipment, but he gave sacrificial
service to the institution. For a number of years
he contributed more than half of his annual sal-
ary to the school. He found the work of a college
executive irksome and preferred to be in the pas-
torate, but for sixteen years, out of a sense of duty
to his denomination, he remained as president
Paine was closely connected with the forma-
tion of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South,
He was a delegate to the General Conference of
1844, which marked the schism in the Methodist
Episcopal Church, and was chairman of the com-
mittee that prepared the Plan of Separation, pro-
viding for a peaceable division of the Church.
He attended the convention at Louisville, Ky.,
May 1845, where the Methodist Episcopal
Church, South, was formally organized, and at
Paine
its first General Conference, May 1846, he was
elected bishop, which office he held for thirty-six
years. After his elevation to the episcopacy he
made his home at Aberdeen, Miss. He was not
a participant in partisan politics. For thirty years
prior to the Civil War he did not even vote in
presidential elections for fear that such action
might harm his moral and religious influence.
Because of this attitude, President Buchanan in-
vited him to the White House in November 1860,
in order to secure, as Buchanan said, an un-
biased statement in regard to the Southern states.
As his episcopal duties were hampered during the
Civil War, Paine preached in the Confederate
camps, secured chaplains for the army, and made
his home an asylum for wounded soldiers. When
at times the Federal troops came into the vicinity
of Aberdeen, it was necessary for the bishop to
go into temporary exile in order to avoid capture.
He was sixty-five years old when the Civil
War ended, but the next seventeen years of his
life were as busy as those of his early and middle
manhood. He played an important role during
the reconstruction period. He advised kindly
relations between the whites and the freedmen
and was instrumental in organizing the negro
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
South, into the Colored Methodist Episcopal
Church in America. His biographer (Rivers,
post) declares that to no man more than to Bishop
Paine was due the prosperity of the Church im-
mediately after the Civil War. He favored the
passage of progressive legislation at the General
Conference of 1866. He was vitally interested
in the securing of a great central university for
the Church, and he rejoiced over the founding of
Vanderbilt and its provision for theological edu-
cation. He did not retire from active work until
he was eighty-one years of age, and then only a
few months before his death.
Upon the request of the General Conference
of 1854 he wrote a biography of Bishop McKen-
dree, entitled Life and Times of William Mc-
Kendree (1869). He also prepared a series of
articles in 1881 for the Nashville Christian Ad-
vocate, under the title "Notes of Life/' In ad-
dition to his ability as an orator and administra-
tor, he was a good financier. At one time he
possessed considerable property, but as a result
of the Civil War he suffered heavy financial loss-
es. He was married three times : first, in 1824,
to Susanna Beck of Nashville, Tenn., who died
in June 1836; second, in 1837, to Amanda Shaw
of Columbia/ Tenn., who lived but a few months
thereafter; third, in 1839, to Mary Eliza Mill-
water. There were two sons by the first marriage
and four sons and three daughters by the third.
155
Paine
[R. H. Rivers, Life of Robert Paine (1884) ; J. B.
McFerrin, Hist, of Methodism in Tcnn. (3 vols., 1869-
73) ; Anscm West, A Mist, of Methodism in Ala,
(i8<H) ; "Bishop Robert Paine," in Quart. Rev, of M.
E. Church, South, n,s., vol. V (1882) ; Aberdeen J&JT-
amincr (Aberdeen, Miss.), Oct. 26, 188,2,] p.N.G.
PAINE, ROBERT TREAT (Mar. tr, 1731-
May ii, 1814), signer of the Declaration of In-
dependence, jurist, the son of Rev. Thomas and
Eunice (Treat) Paine, counted among1 his an-
cestors several leaders, ecclesiastical and politi-
cal, of early New England. He was a direct
descendant of Maj, Robert Treat ("d^'-l* a co^°~
nial governor of Connecticut, and of Rev. Sam-
uel Treat, one of the stalwart pioneers of Cape
Cod. Other notable forebears were Stephen
Hopkins, a signer of the Mayflower Compact;
and Rev, Samuel Willarcl [<?.?>.], acting president
of Harvard College. A great-uncle, Jusiuli Wil-
lard, was for thirty years secretary of the prov-
ince of Massachusetts Bay. The first of the Paine
family known to be in America was Thomas
Payne, who was admitted freeman of Plymouth
Colony in 1639. Rev* Thomas Paine, Robert's
father, left the pulpit to engage in mercantile af-
fairs at Boston and Halifax, Nova Scotia. At
the time of Robert's birth the Paine family lived
at Boston in School Street on Beacon Hill, at
the foot of which stood Old South Church, where
the child was duly christened. He was dedicated
to the ministry in accordance with family tra-
dition. After taking highest rank at the Latin
School, he entered Harvard College with the
class of 1749 and was domiciled at the home of
Rev. Nathaniel Appleton, college chaplain. Af-
ter graduating he taught for a while, then turned
to the study of theology. His brief career in the
ministry is best remembered for his services as
chaplain on the Crown Point Expedition of 1755.
To repair frail health he took to the sea — sailing
first to Carolina, then to the Azores, Spain, and
England, and concluding with a whaling voyage
to Greenland,
Paine came upon the New England stage dur-
ing the transition from an ecclesiastico-centric
to a politico-centric form of government As his
forebears had upheld the best Puritan traditions
under the old regime, he, true to his heritage,
assumed similar responsibilities under the new
order. By this time anxiety was subsiding in
religious minds over the question as to whether
or not the law waa a holy calling, and in accord-
ance with the trewd of the period Paine gravi-
tated quite naturally toward the Court House*
Even while pursuing his theological studies he
had begun to read law, and after a course with
Benjamin Pratt was admitted to the hatf in 1757.
He first hung out his shingle at Portfend, tat to
Paine
1761 moved his law books to Taunton. His zeal
in the rising Patriot cause resulted in his selec-
tion as associate prosecuting attorney in the cele-
brated "Boston Massacre" trial His argument
with regard to the underlying1 issue — whether
Parliament had a ritfht to quarter a standing army
in a town without its consent-— carried his name
throughout the closely attentive colonies,
He was elected to represent Taunton in the
provincial assembly ( 2773, 1774, 1775, *777> and
1778), When the call came in 1774 for a Conti-
nental Congress to meet at Philadelphia, he was
chosen one of the five Massachusetts delegates*
The fact that his name was known beyond local
boundaries because of hi,s part in the "Massacre"
case, his ecclesiastical ancestry and classical edu-
cation, his travels in the Carolinas, Pennsylvania,
New York, and Knglaiul, and his geographical
eligibility as a representative of the foremost
town of southern Massachusetts, all contributed
to his choice. At the first Congress he was ap-
pointed to the committees for drafting rules of
debate and for fasting and prayer. In the second
Congress* after the buttle of Bunker Hill, when
the creation and support of an army became the
chief concern of Qingress, he was appointed
chairman of a committee charged with provid-
ing gunpowder Ho was also a member of a
committee to reorganize the militia, At first
he was favorable toward the choice of Artemas
Ward [##.]» a college-mate, for commander-m-
chief of the army ; but eventually, under the lead*
ership of John Adams, he voted for Washington.
In later years he used this vote for Washington
as an argument in favor of a desired federal ap-
pointment
The final appeal to the Crown (July I77S) to
preserve amity and good will with the Colonies,
known as the Second Petition to the King or the
"Olive Branch Petition/1 bears the signature of
Paine, who was one of the few to sign both the
"Olive Branch Petition" and the Declaration of
Independence, He was reSlected to the Congress
in 1776 and served throughout that year. In
recognition of his services at Crown Point, he
was sent with a commission to negotiate a treaty
with the Indians of upper New York; he also
served on a committee to establish a hospital.
Though elected to the Congress of 1777, he did
not go to Philadelphia, but remained in Massa-
chusetts, where he served as speaker of tihe as-
sembly- He continued, however, to experiment
in the manufacturing of gunpowder atid served
on the committee appointed by Congress in De-
cember 1777 to inquire into the failure of the
Rhode Island Expedition, In thit samte year he
was elected first attorney-general of Massaditi-
Paine
setts ; in 1775 he had declined appointment to the
Massachusetts supreme court. He was a mem-
ber in 1778 of the committee of the legislature to
prepare a draft of a state constitution and in
1779-80 played an important part in drafting that
document He was also concerned with confis-
cating the estates of departed Loyalists and with
suppressing the rebellion led by Daniel Shays
[q.v.~] of impoverished Revolutionary soldiers.
Gov. John Hancock, a life-long friend, twice
appointed Paine to the new supreme court of
Massachusetts. The first of these appointments
(1783) he declined, preferring to continue as
attorney-general because of the larger salary, but
the second (1790) he accepted as becoming the
dignity of his advancing years. The extensive
area of Maine (then a part of Massachusetts)
necessitated tedious travels into remote regions
for a justice-in-eyre. On one occasion Paine was
arrested for traveling upon the Sabbath and
roundly fined by a cross-roads court for violat-
ing a law he himself had been instrumental in
framing. After fourteen years of service, in-
creasing deafness hastened his retirement from
the bench in 1804. He had moved his family to
Boston in 1780, establishing a residence in the
present Post Office Square, where a tablet indi-
cates its site, and here he passed his sunset years,
in daily converse with aristocratic fellow Fed-
eralists. Contemporary estimates of him usually
remark upon his tendency to drollery, and his
letters often display a whimsical extravagance
of language. His life-long interest in science,
especially in astronomy, led him to become a
founder (1780) of the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences. Participating actively in af-
fairs of the church, he broke away from the old
moorings of Calvinism under the rising tide of
"Rationalism," and found shelter in the harbor
of Unitarianism. His last public appearance was
at the installation of Edward Everett as minister
to the Brattle Street Church.
On Mar. 15, 1770, Paine married Sally Cobb,
sister of Gen. David Cobb, a lieutenant-governor
of Massachusetts. Of their eight children, Robert
Treat Paine, 1773-1811 [g.v.]— originally chris-
tened Thomas—became widely known as a poet.
Robert Treat Paine the Signer died May n,
1814, and was buried, from the Old Brick Church,
in the Old Granary Burial Ground, only a few
steps from the spot of his birth.
[Ralph Davol, Two Men of Taunton (1912) ; The
Works of John Adams (10 vols., 1850-56), ed. by C.
F. Adams ; John Sanderson, Biog, of the Signers to the
Declaration of Independence, vol. II (1822) j Sarah C.
Paine and C. H. Pope, Paine Ancestry (1912) ; New
England Palladium, Mar. 13, 1814; Paine's Journal of
Sixty Years (MS.), in the possession of the family.]
R.D.
Paine
PAINE, ROBERT TREAT (Dec. 9, 1773-
Nov. 13, 1811), poet, christened Thomas, but
legally renamed in 1801 after his eldest brother
who died of the yellow fever in 1798, was born
at Taunton, Mass., the second son of Robert
Treat Paine [#.^.], signer of the Declaration of
Independence, and his wife, Sally Cobb, the sis-
ter of the Revolutionary General Cobb. The
family moved to Boston in the boy's seventh year.
Robert attended the Boston Latin School, where
he led his class, and in 1788 he matriculated at
Harvard. Here he neglected routine exercises
for "natural philosophy and elegant literature."
Though he wrote Greek fluently and his name
was often doubly underscored for excellence in
composition, he showed a spirit of independence
of authority and was rusticated four months in
his senior year for opposing a tutor and airing
his wit to President Willard. From the moment
that he answered in couplet the satirical thrust
of a classmate, declares Prentiss, "his blessed
ruin was inevitable." In June 1792 he presented
a valedictory poem, and on Commencement Day,
a poem on Liberty. After graduating he entered
the business world as a clerk of James Tisdale,
but his contributions to the Massachusetts Maga-
zine and his interest in Sarah Wentworth Mor-
ton [#.#.] left little room for business. In the
winter of 1792-93, he fell in with the theatrical
folk of Board Alley, and when the company
moved into the new Boston Theatre in 1793,
verses by Paine that had won the gold medal of-
fered for a prologue raised the curtain on Sheri-
dan, Otway, and Shakespeare. The poet found
Eliza Baker, sixteen-year-old English actress,
more attractive than ledgers. He turned to the-
atrical criticism, and left Tisdale and business in
1794-
In October 1794 Paine founded the Federal
Orrery, of which his polite circle expected much.
But the editor deserted sober Federalist politics
for satire of the Jacobin faction. A mob attacked
his house. The son of a man he had pilloried
ignored his unloaded pistol, and thrashed him.
Paine, never robust for such interludes, declared
this whipping the turning point of his life. The
beau monde dropped him; they had long been
uncomfortable in his presence. He was married
to Miss Baker in February 1795, and his father
closed his door on him. The poet became Master
of Ceremonies at the Theatre, ran into debt, and
began to drink to excess. At the Harvard Com-
mencement, 1795, he defied President Willard
and read the censored lines on Jacobinism in
"The Invention of Letters." The poem brought
him $1,500. Next year he sold the Orrery, arid
the next, delivered a Phi Beta Kappa poem, "Tfie
157
Paine
Ruling Passion," which brought him $1,200. In
June 1798 he wrote "Adams and Liberty" for
the Massachusetts Charitable Fire Society. When
a host refused him a glass of wine till he had
added a stanza on Washington, Paine seized a
pen and wrote the best stanza of all. The song-
ran over the country like wildfire. At the break
with France in 1798, he delivered an oration
praised by Washington and President Adams,
and, at Washington's death, he delivered a eulogy.
In 1798 a short-lived reconciliation with his
father was effected. Paine was prevailed upon
to study and practise law with Theophilus Par-
sons. Though he quoted Horace in court, at-
tended plays and whist-parties, and made some
bets, he paid off debts and became an exemplary
Bostonian, being admitted to the bar in 1802.
But the next year found him a satellite of the
erratic theatrical Venus, Mrs. Jones. He lost
two children within four days in 1804, and was
very ill in 1805. Though he planned another pa-
per, a pantomime Bluebeard, and a play, and
tried to make a beginning on an edition of his col-
lected works in 1808, the old fluency was gone.
His shingle was taken down from the cobwebs
over his door in 1809. He drifted from poor
lodgings to poorer, and died in the attic of his
father's house. The best Bostonians attended his
funeral. Gilbert Stuart did his portrait from a
death mask.
Paine's poetry began in imitation of Dryden
and Gray; it ended in catch-worcls for political
campaigns. It is the kind of poetry in which
Agriculture and Freedom are capitalized. For
a Columbia too young for originality, he served
as bard. But Paine's life is more noteworthy.
He was spokesman of the fine Neo-Roman cult
of patriotism, of the age that produced the Society
of the Cincinnati, put the key of the Bastile in
Mt Vernon, raised domes above lawyers invok-
ing1 Virgil ; a lover of reason and the theatre, a
sort of sacrifice to youth and liberalism on the
altar of aristocratic Boston.
[There is a biographical introduction by Chas, Prcn*
tiss to Thf Works in Verse and Pro$$ of th& Late R&bt.
Treat Paine, Jr. (1812) and a review of Th® Works^
embracing a critical estimate of Palne's poetry, in the
Port Poho, May 1813, See also : Song of feffttrson md
Liberty (1874), *&> by J. P. Kirtland: Sarah C, Paine,
Paine Ancsstry (*9i3>» «d. by C, H, Pope; and the
Columbian Centinei (Boston )> Nov. 16, i8n,1
PAINE, ROBERT TREAT (Oct. 28, 1835-
Aug. n, 1910), philanthropist, was the third son
of Charles Gushing and Fanny Cabot (Jackson)
Paine and a brother of Charles Jackson Paine
[q.v.'j. He was a descendant of Thomas Paine
(or Payne) who settled in Yarmouth, Mass,,
and was admitted freeman of Plymouth Colony
Paine
in 1639, and of Gov. Robert Treat ftf.?'.] of Con-
necticut, and a great-grandson of Robert Treat
Paine [#.rj, signer of the Declaration o£ Inde-
pendence. Born in Boston, he was educated at
the Boston Latin School and Harvard College,
graduating1 from the latter in 1855 at the head of
his class. After a year at the Harvard Law
School, two years spent in study and travel in
Europe, and a further year of le^al study, he
was admitted to the bar in 1859, awl practised in
Boston with marked and immediate success, On
Apr. 24, 1862, he married Lydia Williams Ly-
man, by whom be had two sons and five daugh-
ters, Through his enterprise and wise invest-
ment in railroad and mining1 property he
acquired a large fortune at a comparatively early
age. He then retired from business and profes-
sional life and devoted himself exclusively to
charitable and philanthropic work,
As early as 1870 he began a movement for bet-
ter housing and in twenty years he had built in
the vicinity of 'Boston over a hundred suburban
dwellings, which workmgwen were encouraged
to buy on easy terms. His most successful and
original enterprise was the Wells Memorial In-
stitute for Working-men, organised in 1879, a
pioneer among institutions of the kind in the
country. Its building, erected in 1881 at Fame's
expense, became a center of industrial and trade-
school courses, the seat of a cooperative bank, a
successful club for working men, and even a
meeting place of organized labor* His activities
in behalf of better housing culminated in the
Workingmen's Building Association and the
Working-men's Loan Association, both formed
in 1888, of which he was the president. He was
one of the first to appreciate fully that social prob-
lems must be scientifically studied, and in 1887
he and his wife founded the Robert Treat Paine
Fellowship to enable Harvard graduates to study,
at home or abroad, the ethical problems of so-
ciety and public and private methods of ameliorat-
ing the conditions of the masses. In 1890 he
established, with an endowment of $200,000, the
Robert Treat Paine Association for the Help and
Elevation of Working People, the proceeds of the
endowment to be devoted to religious, charitable,
and educational work
It was in connection with the Associated Chari-
ties of Boston, of which he was the principal
founder and the president from 1879 to 1907, that
Paine's best work was done, His numerous ad-
dresses on the ideals of modern charity, which
had wide circulation in pamphlet form, brought
him recognition as a leading: authority on the
subject The motto of the Boston Associated
Charities, "Not Alms but a Friend," Invented
:S8
Paine
by Paine, expresses his idea of philanthropy. He
was a director of the American Prison Asso-
ciation and of the Boston Children's Aid Society
and was influential in raising- the prevailing
standards of social responsibility and in securing
legislation for social projects. He was an active
supporter of the peace movement, president of
the American Peace Society from 1891 to his
death, and prominent at national and interna-
tional peace conferences and at those held at Lake
Mohonk.
Paine* s only political office was his member-
ship in the Massachusetts House of Represen-
tatives for the session of 1884-85, during which
time he carried on investigations in connection
with the committee on charitable institutions, of
which he was chairman. Loyalty to his convic-
tions drove him, at considerable cost to himself,
into the Mugwump movement of 1884, and he was
an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for the
Forty-ninth Congress that year. Originally a
Unitarian, he went with his family to Trinity
Church in 1870 and remained thereafter a promi-
nent member of the Episcopal Church, to the
General Convention of which he was many times
a delegate. He was chairman of the building
committee of Trinity Church, and was primarily
reponsible for securing the site and raising the
funds for its present edifice. He was always
either vestryman or warden of Trinity, and be-
tween him and its rector, Phillips Brooks, there
existed a rich and lifelong friendship. He was
president of the board of trustees of the Episcopal
Theological School in Cambridge and a founder
of the Phillips Brooks House at Harvard, at the
dedication of which he made the address. He
was large in mind and body, a genuine idealist,
an executive of tact and force, with a rare capac-
ity for winning adherents to a cause in which his
convictions were enlisted. His death occurred
in Waltham, Mass.
[S. C. Paine and C. H, Pope, Paine Ancestry (ip^X
C H Paine, ed. ; M. C, Crawford, Famous Families of
Mass., vol. II (1930) ; Who's Who in America, 1910-
ii ; Survey, Aug. 20, 1910; Outlook, Aug. 27, 1910;
National Conference of Charities and Correction, In
Memoriam (1911) ; Boston Transcript, Aug. 12, 1910.]
r . T. P.
PAINE, THOMAS (Jan. 29, i737~June 8,
1809), revolutionary political pamphleteer, agi-
tator, deist author of The Age of Reason, was
born in Thetford, England, the son of Joseph
and Frances (Cocke) Paine. Joseph Paine was
a poor Quaker corset maker, rather unhappily
married to a lady who, as an Anglican and an
attorney's daughter, must have been somewhat
his social superior. Young Thomas went to gram-
mar-school until he reached thirteen, when pov-
erty made it necessary to apprentice him at the
Paine
paternal trade. At nineteen he left home, ship-
ping on the King of Prussia for a brief career as
a privateer at the outbreak of war in 1756. His
formal education can hardly have gone beyond
the rudiments ; indeed, as his enemies were de-
lighted to point out, he never learned to write
faultlessly grammatical English. In after life he
referred frequently and proudly to his Quaker
antecedents, and no doubt his feeling for the
sanctity of the inner citadel of human conscious-
ness had Quaker origins. But Paine had no
trace of Quaker humility, no capacity for mystic
self-surrender, and, since he fought in two wars,
no absolute doctrines of non-resistance. He
never, indeed, formally joined the Society of
Friends. Nor, in spite of the efforts of a pious
aunt, did he become an Anglican. He relates
that a sermon on the Redemption, heard at the
age of eight, impressed him with the cruelty im-
plicit in Christianity, and made him a precocious
rebel (Van der Weyde, ed., Life and Works,
VIII, 71). Probably the most permanent influ-
ence of these twenty years upon him lay in the
monotony of his occupation, in the ugliness of
his poverty, in the gap — evident to himself at
least — between his abilities and his apparent
destiny.
For nearly twenty years more those abilities
were concealed from the world. From 1757 to
1774 he was successively, and in various towns,
corset maker, exciseman, school-teacher, excise-
man again, tobacconist, and grocer. These last
occupations he was able to carry on while main-
taining his place in the excise. He went through
two brief, childless marriages. His first wife,
Mary Lambert, died within a year of their mar-
riage at Sandwich on Sept. 27, 1759 ; the second,
Elizabeth Ollive, whom he married on Mar. 26,
1771, while he was stationed at Lewes, was legal-
ly separated from him in 1774. The separation
seems to have been due, not to any scandal, but
to temperamental difficulties on both sides. The
mere fact of separation, however, proved later
a boon to Paine's enemies, and was generously
embroidered to discredit him (George Chalmers,
Life of Thomas Paine, 1791, pp. 33~35; James
Cheetham, Life of Thonms Paine, 1809, p. 30).
He was twice dismissed from the excise: first,
in 1765, for having, as he himself admitted,
stamped as examined goods he had not examined
at all; and finally, after a reinstatement which
shows that his first offense was regarded as
venial, for overstaying a leave of absence. The
real motive for this second dismissal was prob-
ably Paine's activity as agent for the excisemen
in their attempt to get Parliament to raise their
wages, a form of agitation then rather novel, and
159
Paine
even revolutionary. He drew up a brief for his
fellow excisemen, The Case of the Officers of Ex-
cise, privately printed in 1772 (published also in
1793), Cut off from his salary as exciseman, he
was obliged to &o into an ordinary and by no
means discreditable bankruptcy. Like many an-
other defeated European, he decided to try the
new world. In London as lobbyist for his fellow-
excisemen, Paine had had the luck to meet Frank-
lin, and to make a favorable impression upon
him. In October 1774, hearing- invaluable letters
of introduction from Franklin, this "ingenious,
worthy youn# man'* left for Philadelphia (A. H.
Smyth, Writings of ttcnjwnin Franklin, VI,
1906, pp* 248-49). Those years of failure and
poverty had given Paine an education. He had
not precisely learned from failure ; he had, in-
deed, failed in business partly through too great
a devotion to abstract learning-. Ever since he
had left school he had spent his spare time and
money on books, lectures, scientific apparatus,
He read widely but always seriously, worked
hard at mathematics, experimented with me-
chanical contrivances. He thus achieved what
was rare in Europe at the time, an education
strictly confined to contemporaneous matters.
No conservative, no evaluating discipline stood
between his temperament and his times. Eigh-
teenth-century science taught him to revolt
against a society quite unscientifically con-
structed.
In Philadelphia, where he arrived on Nov, 30,
1774, Paine fell naturally into journalism, He
supported himself largely by contributions to
Robert Aitken's Pennsylvania Magazine. His
first year's work covered a wide range, from
recent inventions to "Cupid & Hymen." He was
a pioneer in the movement for the abolition of
negro slavery (Pennsylvania Journal^ Mar* 8,
1775), but he cannot be numbered among- the
first defenders of women's rights. An article on
that subject in the Pennsylvania Magctxine, in*
eluded by Conway in his edition of Paine's works,
has been shown to be a translation from the
French, a language Paine could not read (Frank
Smith, in American Literatwet Nov* 1930, p*
277), Nor is it likely that Paine had any per-
sonal influence in establishing the text of the
Declaration of Independence (Albert Matthews,
Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society,
XLIII, 1910, pp. 241-53)- Common Sense gives
him sufficient title to originality and fame, and
his acknowledged writings are extensive enough
without uncertain additions based on "iitfernal
evidence."
Common Sense was published as au anony-
mous, two-shilling pamphlet of fo*ty*seveiiptge$
Paine
in Philadelphia on Jan. to, 1776. It urged the
immediate declaration of independence, not mere-
ly as a striking practical gesture that would help
unite the colonies and secure French and Spanish
aid, but as the fulfillment of America's moral
obligation to the worlcL The colonies must fall
away eventually, Paine said; a continent could
not remain tied to an island. If now, while
their society was still uncorrupt, natural, and
democratic, these colonies should free themselves
from a vicious monarchy, they could alter human
destiny by their example. Paine was the first
publicist to discover America's mission, It is
curious that, though his political ideology was
thoroughly Jeffersoniati, he insisted in all his
writings of this peritnl on the necessity for a
strong federal union, emphasizing1 the dangers
of particularism and state sovereignty. These
centralizing doctrines, emphatic in Common
Sense, were expanded in Public Good (1780), a
pamphlet directed against Virginia's western
land claims, Paine undoubtedly consulted such
leaders as Franklin and Rush about Covmnon
Sense, but the pamphlet itself was entirely his
own, and was launched on his own responsibil-
ity. Its success was amazing, Paine himself
wrote that 120,000 copies had been sold in less
than three months, and his best biographer as-
serts that 500,000 were sold in all (Conway, Life,
1, 67-69) , Even allowing for exaggeration, these
are impressive figures.
Paine's authorship soon became known* After
defending himself as "Forester" in the jPtw*-
syfawia Journal from the attacks of the Loyalist
William Smith, he enlisted in the army in time
to join in the retreat across New Jersey, At
Newark he set to work on his first Crisis* which
appeared in the P$?rn$ylwni& Journal on Dec.
19, and in pamphlet form on Dec, 23, The fa-
mous words with which it begins, "These are the
times that try men's souls/* probably did not win
the battle of Trenton, but its eloquence did
hearten many, Cheetham, Paine's bitter enemy,
writes that "the number was read in the cainp,
to every corporal's guard, and in the army and
out of it had more than the intended effect"
(Cheetham, Lifst p, 56)* EJeven other numbers
of the Crwwr, with four supernumerary ones, ap-
peared in the course of the war* The whole work
shows Paine at his best as a political journalist
Characteristic are number three (April 1777)
suggesting vigorous measures against American
Tories, and The Crisis Extraordinary (October
1780) pointing out how an efficient federal and
state tax system could readily shoulder the tw-
<fen of the war.
Fame's services obviously merited some rt-
Paine
ward. Occasional journalism was not, in his de-
voted but careless hands, an adequate means of
self-support In April 1777, he was appointed
by Congress secretary to its committee on for-
eign affairs, a position he filled well enough until
he was drawn into the extraordinary affair of
Beaumarchais. Before France dared risk active
alliance with the revolting colonies, supplies had
been sent to America through the medium of
Beaumarchais. Payment for these supplies was
disputed. Silas Deane [0.v.], American agent
recalled from France, upheld Beaumarchais'
claim. Congress, however, relying largely on
Arthur Lee [#.v.], who was still in France, re-
fused payment Deane, denied what he con-
sidered justice, rashly took to the newspapers in
his own defense. Paine had the true revolution-
ist's scent for corruption, and an optimist's trust
in the disinterestedness of the French govern-
ment. He replied to Deane in the Philadelphia
Packet, notably on Dec. 15, 1778, Jan. 2, and 9,
1779. In these letters he committed a double in-
discretion : he supported his contentions by refer-
ences to documents (reports from Lee), to which
his position gave him confidential access ; and
by his statements he made it appear that the
French government had sent supplies to the re-
volting colonies while it was still at peace with
Great Britain. Under pressure from the French
minister, Gerard, Paine resigned his position
(Jan. 8, 1779). Gerard asserts that he immedi-
ately thereafter got Paine to accept a thousand
dollars a year to write anonymously in the papers
in support of France, but that he proved an un-
reliable press agent, and had to be released. The
statement has only Gerard's authority, and is in-
consistent with Paine's character. He had, in-
deed, as his conduct in the Beaumarchais affair
shows, an idealistic devotion to the revolutionary
cause quite proof against the limitations of pro-
priety and tact ; but he was incapable of financial
dishonesty (Conway, Life, I, chap. IX).
Paine was soon (November 1779) given an
appointment as clerk of the Pennsylvania As-
sembly. He continued his Crisis, and in 1780
showed further his devotion to the revolutionary
cause by heading with a subscription of $500 out
of a salary installment of $1,699 (PaPer) a ftmc*
for the relief of Washington's army. In 1781 he
accompanied John Laurens to France in search
of further financial relief, and returned success-
fully in the same year with money and stores.
Beyond his expenses, he got nothing for the trip,
and further, he was obliged to give up his po-
sition in the Assembly. The successful peace
found him honored but poor. New York, how-
ever, gave him a confiscated Loyalist farm at
16
Paine
New Rochelle, and Pennsylvania £500 in cash.
For Paine's modest needs this was enough, and
until 1787 he lived in Bordentown, N. J., and in
New York, mildly lionized, writing, and work-
ing on his most cherished invention, an iron
bridge (D. C. Seitz, "Thomas Paine, Bridge
Builder," Virginia Quarterly Review, Oct. 1927,
p. 571). In 1786 he published Dissertations on
Government, The Affairs of the Bank, and Pa-
per-Money, in which he asserted that paper
money involved inevitable inflation and injus-
tice to creditors, and insisted that the state of
Pennsylvania could not legally repeal its charter
of the Bank of North America.
Because of his bridge (which he despaired of
getting erected in America), and no doubt his
temperamental restlessness, he went to Europe
in 1787. The fall of the Bastille found him in
Yorkshire making desperate efforts to get his
bridge built He had passed two pleasant years,
partly in France and partly in England, wel-
comed by liberals like Condorcet, Fox, and even
Burke, as the author of Common Sense and the
friend of Washington. The bridge did get built,
and stood up, though Paine lost money in the
affair. He went to Paris late in 1789, and for
nearly three years alternated between Paris and
London, a self-appointed missionary of the
world revolution. England, Paine felt, needed
his efforts if the revolutionary movement were
to continue its spread, and Burke's downright
and immediately popular condemnation of the
French Revolution late in 1790 provided an ex-
cellent opportunity for him to exert them. Paine
replied to Burke early in 1791 with the first
part of his Rights of Man. A second part fol-
lowed in February 1792.
The Rights of Man was first of all a party
pamphlet, an excellent piece of special pleading
in defense of specific measures taken in revolu-
tionary France. It is also an exposition of the
"principles of 1776 and 1789." Government
exists, Paine said, to guarantee to the individual
that portion of his natural rights of which un-
aided he could not ensure himself. These rights,
with respect to which all men are equal, are lib-
erty, property, security, and resistance to op-
pression. Only a republican form of govern-
ment can be trusted to maintain these rights;
and the republic must have a written constitu-
tion, including a bill of rights, manhood suf-
frage, executive officers chosen for short terms
and subjected to rotation in office, a judiciary
not beyond ultimate control by the people, a leg-
islative body popularly elected at regular inter-
vals, and a citizenry undivided by artificial Dis-
tinctions of birth and rank, by religious intol-
I
Paine
erance, by shocking economic inequalities. Such
a republic will be well and cheaply governed, or
rather, little governed, for "government is no
farther necessary than to supply the few cases
to which society and civilisation are not con-
veniently competent" (Van der Weycle, VI,
241). Part II contains, rather inconsistently,
numerous proposals for social legislation which-
show that Paine was not unaware of the class
struggle. Finally, the Rights of Man was an
appeal to the English people to overthrow their
monarchy and set up a republic* Paine clearly
hoped that his pamphlet would do in England
what Common Sense had done in America* It
did indeed become immensely popular with Eng-
lish radicals, and is said to have sold 200,000
copies by 1793 (Conway, Life, I, 346), It was
suppressed by Pitt's government, and its author,
safe for the moment in France, was tried for
treason and outlawed in December 1792.
Paine, with Washington, Hamilton, Madison,
and certain Europeans of adequate virtue, had
been made a French citizen by the Assembly on
Augv 26, 1792. In September the new French-
man was elected to the Convention from four
departments, choosing to sit for the Pas de Ca-
lais, As he could not speak French, and had to
have his speeches read for him, his role in that
assembly was inconsiderable. His friends, no-
tably Conclorcet, who knew English well, were
mostly among the respectable, prosperous, mod-
erate republicans of the Gironde group, and
Paine attached himself to their party. He did,
however, assert his independence and his hu-
manity at the trial of Louis XVI by urging that
the king be Imprisoned to the end of the war and
then banished for life* After the fall of the Gi«
rondins in June 1793 Paine ceased, on his own
admission, to attend an assembly which was but
a subordinate part of the tyrannical government
of the Terror (Van der Weyde, V, 308), With
a few congenial friends, he lived peacefully in
the semi-rural Faubourg St. Denis until, a vote
of the Convention having deprived him of his
French citizenship and parliamentary immunity,
he was imprisoned on Dec, 28, 1793, under a
law providing for the imprisonment of nationals
of countries at war with France. Poor Paine,
outlawed in England, was now arrested in France
as an Englishman, His imprisonment in the
Luxembourg was not very harsh, for he was
able to compose part of The Age of Reason there.
He was never brought to trial and, after the fall
of Robespierre had ended the Terror, was re-
leased in November 1794 at the request of the
new American minister, Monroe, who claimed
him as an American citizen,
Paine
There has grown up an exaggerated account
of Paine's tribulations in France, His imprison-
ment has been seen as a plot devised by his bit-
ter enemy, the American minister, Gouverneur
Morris | tf.r.], and consented to by violent Jaco-
bin politicians anxious to rid themselves of a
dangerous opponent. It is much more likely that
the simple, official explanation is the true one*
Paine was generally regarded by French poli-
ticians as a harmless humanitarian, Even his
heresy on the execution of Louis XVI was for-
given on the ground that, as a Quaker, he could
not vote for the death penalty, The debates in
the Convention make it clear that he lost his
French citizenship chiefly because patriotism,
fanned by military defeat into hysteria, demand-
ed extreme measures against foreigners. The
very fact that he was never brought to trial is
conclusive proof that the Jacobins did not desire
his death* Morris had a conservative's dislike
for Paine's ideas and activities, a social con-
formist's dislike for his Bohemian habits. When
Paine formally applied to him for protection,
Morris sent the French foreign minister a letter
which mildly disclaimed responsibility for
Fame's acts since his acceptance of French citi-
zenship, but which did at least request that in-
formation be communicated to the American
government The minister's reply denied Fame's
claim to American citizenship, Morris did not
press the matter, and wrote Jefferson that Paine,
even were the French brought to admit him an
American citizen, would still be liable under
French criminal law for offenses alleged to have
been committed in France, and that he was bet-
ter off unnoticed in jail than publicly on trial
before the pitikss revolutionary courts. It seems
gratuitous to attribute hypocrisy to Morris in an
act displaying such obvious common sense and
tact.
On his release from the Luxembourg*, Fame,
weakened by illness and without means of sup-
port, was hospitably cared for by Monroe and
nursed back to health. Restored to his seat in the
Convention, he appeared before that body in
July 1795 and reiterated his faith in the Rights
of Man, He next took up residence with Nico-
las de Bonneville, a moderate republican jour-
nalist whom he had known before the Terror.
Until 1802, when the Peace of Amiens made it
safe for him to return to America, he lived in
Paris, his slender resources eked out by the kind-
ness of friends. He wrote variously, and helped
to organize a little group of "Theophilanthro-
pists," a sort of ethical culture society which
aimed to supplant Christian superstitions with
an orderly faith in hunmnity* He published a
162
Paine
Dissertation on First-Principles of Government
(1795), and an essay, Agrarian Justice, . . .
(1797). The Letter to George Washington
(1796), in which he accused the president of
bad faith or at least indifference, and Morris of
deliberate plotting against him, was the outburst
of a disappointed man not wholly free from de-
lusions of persecution, and did much to injure his
reputation in America.
The great work of this period was The Age
of Reason (Part I, 1794; Part II, 1796). This
so-called "atheist's bible" begins with the asser-
tion, "I believe in one God, and no more ; and I
hope for happiness beyond this life." Paine, of
course, was not an atheist, but a deist, and The
Age of Reason was begun as a final justification
for the metaphysical ultimates of his belief. He
starts out with the familiar proofs of the exist-
ence of God, the argument from design and the
argument from a first cause. He defines knowl-
edge in the customary way of his century as
clear, mathematical, and scientific. He then
proceeds to show that man's knowledge of the
Christian God is not that sort of knowledge. The
second part of the work is an analysis of both
testaments, book by book, designed to show that
the Bible is inconsistent, and therefore not in-
fallible. Almost everything that Paine brings
forward here is today a commonplace of critical
scholarship. His attempts at a treatment of com-
parative religions, such as his reference to
"Christian mythology" and his scandalous anal-
ogy between the paternity of the first person of
the Trinity and the paternities of Zeus, are
modern enough in spirit, and today would offend
many professing Christians by their manner
rather than their matter — a remark which in-
deed holds true of the whole book. Having de-
molished Christianity, Paine returns to his God,
whose power is apparent "in the immensity of
the creation," whose wisdom is seen "in the un-
changeable order by which the incomprehensible
whole is governed" (Ibid., VIII, 43).
In October 1802 Paine at last returned home
to America. Mere physical absence, however,
had not prevented his playing his usual conten-
tious part in American politics. The first copy
of the Rights of Man to arrive in America was
lent by its recipient, J. Beckley, to Jefferson,
with the request that he pass it on to the printer
to get out an American edition. Jefferson [g^.]
passed it on, and wishing, as he characteristi-
cally explained later, to take off a little of the
"dryness" of a formal accompanying note, added
some genial remarks about the pamphlet's uses
as an antidote to the "political heresies" of the
time. The printer proceeded to publish JefTer-
Paine
son's note as a sort of official preface (P. L.
Ford, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, V, 1895,
pp. 328 ff.). The Federalists at once took up the
phrase "political heresies" as leveled at John
Adams — as indeed it was. J. Q. Adams as "Pub-
licola" attacked Paine's principles and Jeffer-
son's indiscretion in the Columbian Centinel
(June-July 1791), and Paine found himself vica-
riously in the midst of the bitterest possible
party warfare. The Age of Reason and the Let-
ter to Washington served to maintain his highly
controversial position in America. In 1801, Jef-
ferson involved himself further by offering
Paine passage home in a public vessel, the Mary-
land. By this time, as Henry Adams temperately
puts it, Paine was "regarded by respectable so-
ciety, both Federalist and Republican, as a per-
son to be avoided, a character to be feared"
(History of the United States, vol. I, 1889, p.
317). Paine wisely refused the offer, and re-
turned on a private vessel.
The last seven years of Paine's life were spent
partly in Bordentown, partly in New York City
and in New Rochelle. They were marked by
poverty, declining health, and social ostracism.
Paine wrote little of importance in these years.
In New York he mixed with radical society,
and especially with the rationalists gathered
around Elihu Palmer as the "Columbian Illumi-
nati." Madame de Bonneville, wife of his old
Parisian friend, had come to America with her
three children, one of whom was Benjamin
de Bonneville [#.z>.], of later fame. Paine gener-
ously helped to support the family, stranded in
America when Napoleon refused to allow the
father to leave France. In these final years of
Paine's life center many of the tales told to his
discredit — that he was a drunkard, a coward, an
adulterer, a tavern atheist. Many of these have
no basis at all. But one thing is certain; whether
deservedly or not, his last years were those of
an outcast. He died in New York on June 8,
1809. There is no evidence of a death-bed re-
pentance, though naturally enough such stories
were industriously circulated (Conway, Life,
II, 420). Since consecrated ground was closed
to the infidel, he was buried in a corner of his
farm in New Rochelle. In 1819 William Cob-
bett [g.^.], to atone for his bitter attacks on
Paine in the nineties, had the latter's bones dug
up, and took them back to England, intending to
raise a great monument to the patriotic author
of the Rights of Man. The monument was never
erected, and on Cobbett's death in 1835 the bones
passed into the hands of a receiver in probate.
The court refused to regard them as an asset,
and, with the coffin, they were acquired by afur-
163
Paine
niture dealer in 1844, at which point they are
lost to history.
Any attempt at a calm appraisal of Paine's
character runs the risk of shading hostile black
and friendly white into a neutral gray, Men al-
ways described him in superlatives, and in any-
thing" less than superlatives he seems unreal He
took an extreme, partisan stand on two issues
that still divide Americans : in politics, that of
the Jeffersonians against the Hamiltonians ; in
religion, that of the modernists against the fun-
damentalists. That Paine was a revolutionary
by temperament is a statement on which his ad-
mirers and his detractors can agree ; but it does
but form the start for an analysis of his charac-
ter. The repressed circumstances of his youth
taught him that something was wrong with the
world, His familiarity with the scientific and
sociological writings of his contemporaries gave
him a definite idea of a much better world. Ex-
perience helped him to fill in the outlines of this
picture of a better world, but hardly to alter
them. To the end, Paine would put up with
nothing less than the Republic of Man, In Amer-
ica, in England, in France, he was serving, not
men, but Reason*
This devotion to an abstraction, combined
with a temperament naturally rebellious, made
Paine extraordinarily sure of himself, His suc-
cess as a writer sustained his self-confidence,
while his failure at everything else supplied him
with an abundance of grievances. This quality
appeared to his enemies as a colossal vanity,
fitienne Dumont wrote that he "was drunk with
vanity. ... It was he who had done everything"
in America. . „ . He fancied that his book upon
the Rights of Man ought to be substituted for
every other book in the world" (Recollections of
Mirabeau, 1832, p. 271)* Even in the pages of
his friend Monroe, this vanity comes out, per-
haps in a truer light, as an extraordinary con-
viction of his own tightness, of his superior ob-
ligation to follow the light of his own reason (S*
M, Hamilton, Writings of James Monroe, II,
1899, p, 441). He had also the unworldliness of
the true revolutionary, Much has been made of
his failure to enrich himself out of the hundreds
of thousands of pamphlets he scattered over the
western world, of his selling Common Sense at
a loss, of his gift of the profits from the Right*
of Man to the radical London Corresponding So-
ciety. But he did these things perhaps as much
from indifference as from generosity* He sim~
ply lacked, as his early failures in business shew,
the gift of managing his own affairs. One sus*
pects that towards the end he came to nurse this
weakness as a virtue. Indeed, it is difficult to
Paine
escape the conclusion that in some respects Paine
was the professional radical, the persecuted wit-
ness against the sins of the mighty. No doubt he
was badly treated by respectable people on his
return to America* No doubt he really was per-
secuted for his failures, big1 and little, to conform
to current standards* But he gained an easy if
somewhat shabby martyrdom thereby. And,
cruel though the remark may seem, a happy, hon-
ored Paine is inconceivable in any world short
of his own ideal one.
Of many of the aspersions spread by the pious
and the conservative against Paine's character,
we can make short shrift. Like most hated pub*
lie men, he was accused of sexual irregularities,
but all the evidence makes him out a singularly
chaste man. After his death, Cheetham accused
him of adultery with Madame <le Bonneville,
thirty-one years his junior* She brought a libel
action against Cheetham and won it trium-
phantly (Ctmway, Lift\ II, 399)* Nor can Paine
be accused of financial dishonesty. He had nu-
merous connections, especially in France, with
men who were enriching1 themselves at public
expense, but no one has succeeded in pinning a
single job on him. Neither the charge that he
beat his first wife nor that of his cowardice dur-
ing the New Jersey campaipfn rests on any real
evidence. That of drunkenness is a different mat-
ten Too many people, friends and foes alike,
have mentioned Pained fondness for the brandy
bottle for the fact of his drinking to be disputed,
In his old age, he probably drank rather fre-
quently, But he never was, as fanatics have
charged, a dipsomaniac, nor did he die In de»
lirium tremens* He seems always to have been
careless about his personal appearance, and age
and ostracism made him in his last years a trifle
unlovely.
This opinionated and temperamental revolu-
tionary never could bear to inflict physical suf-
fering on any creature, He could not, like Robes-
pierre, be cruel to men ttnder the comfortable il-
lusion that he was destroying abstractions* He
did at times incline to think the great mass of
people foals. He is reported*— in a work of fic-
tion, indeed, but with great psychological truth
— as having defended the proposition that the
minority is, even in a legislative body, more apt
to be right than the majority (Royall Tyler, The
Algeria Captive, 1802, vol. I, chap. XXVIII).
But this paradox has become almost a tra4it!cmal
property of modern liberalism. It was one of
the beliefs that helped disarm Pafrae for action,
and prevent him from turning persecutor, In
the last madness of the Prenct* Revdtttkm te ap-
pears touchingly sane and mcwfe^t He car$d too
164
Paine
much for his ideal state — for liberty, equality,
and fraternity — to risk trying to realize it. His
ideals, his sense of martyrdom and election, his
softness, all the qualities that made him a good
agitator, combined to turn him against the Ter-
ror.
Paine seems never to have labored to learn to
write, but to have written easily and well from
the moment, near middle age, when he decided
to make writing his occupation. Now he did not
write romantic prose, nor Augustan prose. He
has nothing to do with mystery nor with majesty.
But his prose is not pedestrian. He wrote neatly,
lucidly, argumentatively, with the simplicity that
apes artlessness. His sentences are brief, or at
least relatively free from inversions and other
Latin tricks. All his rhetoric is centred on the
epithet, not on the sentence structure. He is full
of telling and quotable phrases : "government is
for the living, and not for the dead" ; "society is
produced by our wants and government by our
wickedness"; "the ragged relic and the anti-
quated precedent, the monk and the monarch,
will molder together" (Van der Weyde, VI, 26;
II, 97; VI, 302). If, as in the last quotation, the
epithets are a trifle theatrical, the effect on his
audience is all the more telling. Jefferson thought
Paine's style resembled Franklin's. Both men,
indeed, wrote simply in a century fond of pe-
riodic eloquence. But Paine is moving, almost
passionate, in a curiously contentious way; his
aphorisms lack the sleek touch of common sense.
Paine was always pleading a cause ; his books
are arguments, rather than expositions. Occa-
sionally his pleading seems unnecessarily in-
volved, or descends to endless chicanery. But
in general he succeeds admirably in being inter-
esting, understandable, and irritating— necessary
virtues of a revolutionary journalist.
Paine belongs rather to the history of opinion
than to the history of thought; he is the propa-
gandist, through whom the ideas of great orig-
inal thinkers are transmitted to the crowd. Yet
one cannot in fairness deny him that measure of
originality which makes stereotypes of philo-
sophical abstractions. His written work, and
in particular his major writings, Common Sense,
the Rights of Mom, and The Age of Reason can
be taken as one of the typical patterns of eigh-
teenth-century thought in Europe and America,
— in some respects, perhaps, as the most typical
of such patterns. At first sight, his surprising
ignorance of French may seem to have limited
his command over the materials common t6 his
contemporaries. But he mixed with the leading
radicals of both continents, learned a great deal
by talking, and thus absorbed his Bayle and his
Paine
Voltaire, his Rousseau and his Holbach at second
hand.
Fundamental to this pattern of Paine's is the
notion that mechanical causation in the New-
tonian sense is an absolutely universal phe-
nomenon. The laws of Nature, in his opinion,
apply to politics as to astronomy, and in both
fields men can, by discovering these laws and
adapting their conduct to them, make their lives
orderly and agreeable. Now in politics the ma-
jority of men have, through ignorance, dis-
obeyed these laws and have reaped the conse-
quence in unhappiness. To set up kings and
priests to secure political health is as foolish as
to set up magical incantations to secure physical
health. An enlightened people will abolish old
institutions as old superstitions, and in their
place put the law of Nature, codified in the Rights
of Man. Force as we know it will cease to exist,
and all government will be self-government.
Paine does not, of course, put things quite as
baldly as this. He fills in the pattern with many
and sometimes contradictory details. In partic-
ular, he hesitated before a dilemma familiar to
his contemporaries : are common men to be trust-
ed to manage their own affairs, or must the en-
lightened central government restrain selfish or
ignorant particularism? Though the theoretical
bases of his thought are all on the anarchic side,
he often proposes practical measures on the au-
thoritarian side (Van der Weyde, VII, 18; IV,
219 ff.). He makes no real attempt to sound the
meaning of his favorite abstractions — rights, lib-
erty, equality. His thought lacks subtlety and
shading. Like most of his contemporaries, he is
a confirmed environmentalist. But Paine is
blunter than any one but a propagandist may be.
"Man is not the enemy of man/' he asserts, "but
through the medium of a false system of govern-
ment" (Ibid., VI, 209). Heredity is a mere po-
litical imposition. It has no justification in na-
ture. Wisdom, in particular, is a "seedless plant"
(Ibid, 263).
These political ideas, save where they are pre-
served in such pieces of ritual as the preamble to
the Declaration of Independence or the French
Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citi-
zen, seem now outmoded enough. Much in
Paine's writings is almost quaint, as when he
argues that his deist God created the solar sys-
tem in order to teach men mathematics (Ibid.,
VIII, 83). The nineteenth century pointed out
adequately enough the weakness of his political
philosophy — the abuse of the deductive method,
the assumption that men are capable of guiding"
their conduct wholly by reason, the contempt for
history, the faith in written constitutkms, the
[65
Paine
neglect of economic conflicts. The twentieth
century is bidding fair to undermine the mechan-
ical concept of causation on which his whale sys-
tem rests. But of the work of Paine and men like
him this much at least remains: the final de-
struction of the idea of a society hierarchically
organized under a pessimistic and static cosmol-
ogy ; and the belief, now apparently rising again
in a chastened form after the anti-rationalism of
the nineteenth century, that human reason is
man's best guide in politics and in ethics.
As to how much influence Paine's writings
exerted on the course of history, there can he no
final answer. Conceivably the United States of
America might have become a free nation had
Common Sense never been written. But even
those who see history determined by economic
and other physical, concrete forces can hardly
deny that Common Sense helped to humanise
and to concentrate such forces. Since his death
Paine has lived on as a hero to a relatively small
band of free-thinkers, of which men like Inger-
soll and Bracllaugh were leaders. He has played
in both Anglo-Saxon countries a role similar to
that played by Voltaire on the Continent. To the
majority of Englishmen and Americans, his
name has been anathema. Not even his services
during the Revolution have made him popular in
the land which, after the abstract Republic of
Man, he held most clear. There arc signs, how-
ever, that the "atheist" is being forgotten in the
patriot. At the celebration of the centenary of
his death in New Rochelle in 1909, a Son of the
American Revolution, in full Continental uni-
form, shared the platform with Painite free-think-
ers. But there are still many to whom Paine is,
as he was to Theodore Roosevelt, a "filthy little
atheist" (Gottwrneur Morris, 1888, p. 289). The
discredit into which Paine fell is no doubt ex-
plicable partly by the fact that he was tempera-
mentally a rebel, a socially disreputable profes*
sional agitator, and that America has clone its
best to live down this aspect of its origins ; partly
by the fact that his life was an unheroic sequence
of purely literary struggles,
[Paine's unpublished letters and papers -were de-
stroyed by fire while in the possession of General
Bonneville, Most of his letters to Jefferson and other
contemporaries have been used by Con way in his Life.
Further scholarly research like that of Frank Smith,
"New Light on Thomas Paine's First Year in Amer-
ica/' Am@ricwi Lit$ratw$> Jan, 1930; "The Author-
ship of 'An Occasional Letter upon the Fair Sex/ "
Ibid,, Nov. 1930, can no doubt add somewhat to our
knowledge of Paine's minor journalistic writings. The
first critical and complete edition of his works is that of
M. D. Conway, The Writings of Th&mas Paine (4 vols,,
1894-96), The edition of W, M, Van der Weyde, The
Life and Works of Thomas Paine (10 vols., 1925), adds
nothing of importance to that of Conway, There are
numerous separate and inexpensive editions of Common
Painter
Sense, The Crisis^ the Rights of Man, and The Age of
Karly examples of hostile lives are those of George
Chalmers, ur "Francis OldyH" (1791) ; and James
Cheetham (1809); of friendly lives, those of T, C.
Rickman (1819)*, and Gilbert Vale (i&u). The stand-
ard biography is M. D. Conway, The Life of Thomas
Paine (% vols., iHo-0 ; this was ttran«latcd by Felix
Rabbe, and published, with additional malarial, as
Thomas Paine (tfjtf-tSov) et la Revolution dans Ics
deux Mondes (1900), Conway is an uncritical admirer,
and constantly exaggerates Panic's achievements ; he
is somewhat careless about giving exact references to
his authorities. t But he (lid a thorough piece of research
in Europe and in America, and generously publishes his
evidence as well as his conclusions, Subsequent lives
by Ellery Sedgwick (1800), F. J. Gould (tt^s), W. M.
Van der Weyde U9-J5, vol. 1 of the same author's edi-
tion of the Works}* ami M. A. I^est ( tg*!?), have added
no important facts, and little critical interpretation.
For Paine's political and theological ideas, see Leslie
Stephen, Hist, of Knylish Thouyht in the tKth Century
(2 vols., 1876), I, 458-64; H, <tfm-64; M, C, Tyler,
77ic Lit. Hist, of the Am, Revolution OHo;), I, 453-
74 ; C, K. Mernam, "Thomas Paine's Political Theo-
ries," Pol. Science Quart. ,t Sept, iH»>Q, pp, ,^-403; F,
J. C. llearnshaw, e<T,, Sflcial and Politiedl ideas of , . ,
the Revolutionary 7'>«i (1031), to«»4p, A recent arti-
cle is II, IL Clark, "Toward a Reinterpretation of
Thomas Paine/' Am. L iterate re, May 10,53, An otntu-
ary is in /V, Y. Rvcniny Post, June to, tBo$. There are
no critical bibliographies j nee the "Brief List of Pume's
Works'* in Conway, Life, llt 483-83; "Selected Rend-
ing List" in A, W. Peach, MecHons from the Works
of Thomas Paine (*QJ8)» i-iii.l ^^ n,
PAINTER, GAMALIEL (May 22, i?43-May
2T, iRro)^ Revolutionary soldier and one of the
founders of Middlebury College, was born in
New Haven, Conn., the third son and the young-
est of the six children of Shubacl and Elizabeth
(Dunbar) Painter. He was a descendant of
Thomas Painter who was living in Massachu-
setts in 1637 and later moved to Rhode Island,
Gamaliel received only a common -sehool educa-
tion, perhaps at Salisbury, Conn. Here, on Aug1.
20, 1767, he married Abigail Chipman. With
her brother, John, he purchased land in the town-
ship of Middlebury, Vt, possibly from his own
brother, Elisha, who was one of the original
grantees in 1761* After preliminary explorations
he took his wife and two sons to Vermont in
1773. Until the outbreak of the Revolution he
was busy with the usual duties of the backwoods-
man, clearing and planting his land, making1 sur-
veys, opening roads, and, like most early settlers
in western Vermont, resisting New York claim-
ants to his lands, With the outbreak of hostili-
ties he promptly joined the army, apparently
serving with the expedition to Canada in I77S»
The next year he became a lieutenant in War-
ner's Additional Continental Regiment. Later,
he held a captain's commission in Baldwin's Ar-
tillery Artificer Regiment, He retired from the
service in April 1782. Meanwhile, he had repre-
sented Middlebury at the two conventions at
Dorset, Jan. 16 and Sept 25, 1776? and in the
1 66
Painter
Windsor Convention (1777) which formed the
state constitution he sat for Cornwall. When,
however, British forces that year occupied much
of the western part of the state, he withdrew
from Vermont, returning' with his family in
1784.
Three years later, after buying- part of the site
of the future village of Middlebury, he moved
there and engaged actively in laying* out village
streets and selling lots. He erected a gristmill
to attract settlers and engaged in various enter-
prises to promote the prosperity of the settlement
which he was fathering. A simple, unassuming1
man, slow and halting in speech, and without any
claims to consideration on the score of culture
or education, he nevertheless won a position of
authority in the new community. His sturdy
physique and native mechanical sense fitted him
admirably for the manifold tasks of the frontier.
Sound judgment and shrewd business acumen,
combined with energy and initiative, soon gave
him a competence, which in the next thirty years
grew into a considerable fortune for that region.
Having won the respect of his neighbors he
renewed his political activity. Though without
legal training, he served as assistant judge of Ad-
dison County from 1785 to 1786 and from 1787
to 1795. In 1786 he was elected from Middle-
bury for the first of fourteen terms in the lower
house of the state legislature, a service which
continued with some interruptions until 1810.
Thereafter, he was twice (1813 and 1814) a
member of the council which shared the execu-
tive powers with the governor. Throughout his
life he was a firm Federalist. Conscious of the
handicaps of a deficient education, he was an
eager promoter of public instruction. He was
one of the five original trustees of the Addison
County grammar school founded at Middlebury
in 1797, and when, in 1800, Middlebury College
was added to this institution, Painter was one of
its fellows. This administrative position he held
until his death. His first wife having died in
1790, about 1795 he married Victoria Ball of
Salisbury, Conn., by whom he had one daughter.
Some time after 1806 he married for a third time,
Mrs. Ursula Bull, daughter of Isaac Bull and
widow of William Bull, of Litchfield, Conn. His
three children having died, he provided that
after the death of his third wife his estate should
go to the college which he had helped to found
and the building of which he had helped to erect.
[D L Jacobus, "The Painter Family," New England
Hist, and Geneal Reg., July 1914; Samuel Swift, Hist,
of the Town of Middlebury (1859) ; Records of the Gov-
ernor and Council of the State of Vt., vol. VI (1878) ;
J. M. Comstock, A List of the Principal Civil Officers
of Vt. from 1777 to 1918 (1918) ; G. C. Woodruff, A
Geneal. Reg. of the Inhabitants of the Town of Ditch-
Painter
field, Conn. (1900) ; Hist. Colls. Relating to the Town
of Salisbury, Litchfield County, Conn., vol. II (1916) ;
F. B. Heitman, Hist. Reg. of the Officers of the Conti-
nental Army (1914) ; A. M. Hemenway, The Vt. Hist.
Gazetteer, vol. I (1868) ; National Standard (Middle-
bury, Vt), May 26, 1819; Conn. Courant (Hartford),
JuneS, 1819.] P.D.E.
PAINTER, WILLIAM (Nov. 20, i838-July
15, 1906), engineer, inventor, was born on his
father's farm at Triadelphia, Montgomery Coun-
ty, Md, He was the son of Dr. Edward and
Louisa (Gilpin) Painter and was descended
from early seventeenth-century Quaker settlers
in Pennsylvania. During the first ten years of
William's life his father farmed in various places
in Maryland, the last being at Fallston, Harf ord
County, and the boy's education was received in
Friends' schools there and in Wilmington, Del.
In 1855 he became an apprentice in a patent-
leather manufacturing plant in Wilmington.
Here he remained for four years, during which
time he gave the first evidences of inventive abil-
ity, patenting a fare box on Aug. 3, 1858, and a
railroad car seat and couch on Aug. 31, of the
same year. In 1859 he returned to Fallston, Md.,
where his father had become the proprietor of a
general store, and postmaster, and for the suc-
ceeding six years he worked as his assistant.
During this time he devised and patented two
additional inventions, a counterfeit-coin detec-
tor, July 8, 1862; and a kerosene lamp burner,
June 30, 1863.
Realizing now that his greatest interest lay in
the field of mechanics and mechanical engineer-
ing, early in 1865 he moved with his family to
Baltimore and there obtained the position of
foreman of a machine shop. Here, in the suc-
ceeding twenty years he engaged in the construc-
tion and improvement of pumping and other ma-
chinery for his employers. He conducted, too, in
their establishment his own inventive and con-
sulting engineering work, devising upwards of
thirty-five contrivances, including an automatic
magneto-signal for telephones, a seed sower, a
soldering tool, and several pump valves. Soon
after 1880 he turned his attention to bottle stop-
pers, and after several years of experiment ob-
tained a patent, Apr. 14, 1885, for a wire-re-
taining rubber stopper, the feature of which was
that it could be removed easily with one hand.
To market this invention, the Triumph Bottle
Stopper Company was organized in Baltimore
by Painter and his friends. Soon afterward,
Sept. 29, 1885, he obtained a patent for a so-
called bottle seal, which was the first single-use
bottle stopper, other than corks, ever offered the
bottling trade. As this could be made and sold
for ten times less than the "Triumph" stopper,
167
Paley
the company organized to market the latter was
disbanded and the Bottle Seal Company was or-
ganized to market the new invention. It met
with ready approval and provided a large and
profitable business in the succeeding1 seven years.
About 1891, however, Painter conceived the idea
of a single-use cap stopper of metal, and on Feb.
2, 1892, obtained patents for such a sealing de-
vice. These are the basic patents of the "Crown
Cork" bottle caps used extensively throughout
the world today. To market this latest invention,
the Bottle Seal Company was reorganized as the
Crown Cork and Seal Company, Incorporated
Mar. 9, 1892, of which Painter was secretary
and general manager until he retired in 1903,
Besides the administrative work devolving on
him he directed the experimental work as well,
developing and patenting practically all of the
machinery, not only to manufacture the caps but
also to apply the caps to bottles. Tn the course
of his career he was granted some eighty-five
patents, the last one being issued after his death*
On Sept 9, 1861, he married Harriet Magee
Deacon of Philadelphia, Pa, ; at the time of his
death, in Baltimore, McL, he was survived by
his widow and three children*
[0. C. Painter, Gencal. and Rioy. Sketches fift th$
Family ef Samuel Painter (1903), and William Painter
and His Father, Dr. Edward Painter (10x4); Trans.
Am. Soc, Mechanical Engineers, vol. XX VII 1 (1907) I
Patent Office Records; Sun (Baltimore), July 16,
1906.] GW.M— n.
PALEY, JOHN (Feb. 6, i8;i-Dec, 23, 1907),
editor, author, was born in Pleshcsenitz, gov-
ernment of Minsk (some accounts say Radosz-
kowitz, government of Wilna), Russia, the $on
of Hyman Paley and Hayye Chortow. He re-
ceived a traditional Jewish training at private
schools, the Talmudical colleges of Minsk and
Volozhin, and the Rabbinical seminary at Li-
bay, under the directorship of Dr. Hillel Klein.
At the last-named city he first commenced to
acquire a secular education. Leaving Libau, he
continued his studies at Kaunas, in the present
Lithuania, and from thence proceeded to Mos-
cow, where he engaged in business. In 1888
he left for the United States, where he remained
until his death. He married Sophia Amchain-
tzky,
Almost from the first day of his arrival in
America, Paley was engaged in literary -work*
His first Yiddish novel, "Di Russishe Helden "
was written on the steamer bringing him to Nerwr
York. It was submitted to and accepted by the
Yiddish weekly Der Votksadvokat, and resulted
in an invitation to join the staff of that paper.
He later became its editor and publisher ( 1889-
91). In 1891 he became editor of Dt Yiddish*
Palfrey
Pressc in Philadelphia, and a year later editor
and publisher of the Volkftvacchtcr in New York
(1892-93), The success of this paper won for
him a reputation as one of the best Yiddish jour-
nalists in the country. When the Volkswaechtcr
was merged into the Jru&sh Daily News, he re-
mained on the staff, and shortly afterwards was
appointed editor-in-chief,
In Palcy's hands the Jewish Daily Nctvs
(Jiidisches Tagcbhitt), the oldest Yiddish daily
in the country, became a powerful organ of the
Yiddish-speaking masses who held orthodox re-
ligious views. Its circulation rose rapidly. It
was Paley who introduced into Yiddish journal-
ism all the devices which had popularized the
Hearst and Pulitzer publications, including
shrieking headlines and sensational news stories.
Tn his vigorous puhlicistie articles, however, be
chose to represent the conservative Jewish opin-
ion which was suspicious of the radical and so-
cialist dement in Jewish life. His forceful, in-
tensely Jewish articles, signed Hen Amitai, ap-
pealed strongly to Orthodox Jewry throughout
the country and won him a large personal fol-
lowing. On the other hand, he was singled out
by the Yiddish socialist press for bitter invective
and attack. His stirring appeals for noteworthy
causes, whether political or charitable, never
failed to elicit a quick and effective response
from his admirers, His journalistic talents and
strong hold on the masses were recognized by
both political parties, and turned to advantage in
times of political campaigns, Paley wielded his
sharp pen until his tragic death by suicide.
In addition to his work as journalist and es-
sayist he was the author of numerous novels and
short stories, some of which appeared in the
columns of his newspaper. He also translated
into Yiddish; many works of fiction from world
literature and wrote vaudeville sketches and
plays, some of which were produced on the Yid-
dish stage. His last work, a popular history of
the United States, which appeared serially in
the Jewish Daily N@w$f remained unfinished,
[Tht Am, Jewish Year Book, $66$ (1904) ; Jewish
Bncyc. (new ed,, ipssX vol. IX ; Am* Htbrcwf Dec* 37,
1907 ; Zalmen Reisen, Ltrmwn fun der Ytddi&h$r Ut&ra-
tur (WHni, 1927), vol. II; M Y. Times, Dec, «4i
PALFREY, JOHN CARVER (Dec, 25, 1833-
Jan. #9, 1906), soldier, engineer, was born in
Cambridge, Mass., the son of John Gorham Pal-
frey [#.#.] and Mary Ann (Hammond) Palfrey*
From his father he inherited an active mind and
a puritanical sense of obligation and integrity,
He attended the Boston Latin School, gradu-
ated from Harvard in 1853, and from West
Point, first in his class, in 1857. He was appoint-
1 68
Palfrey
Palfrey
cd brevet second lieutenant and, later in the
same year, second lieutenant in the corps of
engineers.
Up to the time of the Civil War he served as
assistant to the board of engineers for Atlantic
seacoast defenses, and was connected with the
construction and repair of the fortifications of
Portland Harbor, Me., and Portsmouth, N. H.
On the outbreak of war he was ordered to For-
tress Monroe, Va., as assistant engineer. From
December 1861 to January 1863 he was engaged
as superintending engineer in the construction of
the fort at Ship Island, Miss., and later was in
charge of the construction and repair of the for-
tifications about New Orleans, the field works
of the Department of the Gulf, and the defenses
of Pensacola, Fla. He participated in the Red
River campaign in 1864 and in the operations
against Port Hudson, La., Fort Gaines, Fort
Morgan and Mobile, Ala., and in the storming
of Blakely. Towards the close of the Red River
campaign, when the withdrawal of the support-
ing gunboats was blocked by the rapid fall of
water in the river, Palfrey, then a captain of
engineers, surveyed the stream and determined
the practicability of engineering expedients by
which the water level was raised, allowing the
vessels to pass over the rapids and escape cap-
ture. In the operations against Fort Gaines and
Fort Morgan he had immediate charge of the
field works. For his services in the war he was
brevetted major, lieutenant-colonel, colonel, and
brigadier-general. Immediately after the war, he
took part in the reconstruction of the San An-
tonio and Mexican Gulf Railroad of Texas.
On May i, 1866, he resigned from the army
and became agent of the Merrimack Manufac-
turing Company, Lowell, Mass. From July i,
1874, until he retired from active business in
1891, he was treasurer of the Manchester Mills
of Manchester, N. H. On Oct. 21, 1874, he mar-
ried Adelaide Eliza Payson of Belmont, Mass.
They had three children, two sons and a daugh-
ter. For many years he was an overseer of the
Thayer School of Civil Engineering of Dart-
mouth College. He was a member of the Massa-
chusetts Historical Society, and secretary of the
Military Historical Society of Massachusetts.
To the publications of the latter he contributed
a number of narratives of military operations in
which he had participated. Among these were
"The Siege of Yorktown" (Proceedings, vol. I,
1881) and "Port Hudson" (Ibid., vol. VIII,
1910). He died in Boston, and was buried in
Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge.
EG. W. Cullum, Biog. Reg. Officers and Grads. U. $.
Mil. Acad. (1891) ; F. B. Heitman, Hist. Reg. and Diet.
U. S. Army (1903) ; Battles and Leaders of the Civil
War (4 vols., 1887-88) ; C. F. Adams, "Tribute to
John C. Palfrey" in Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., 2 ser.
XX (1907) ; Report of the Harvard Class of 1853 . . .
Sixtieth Anniversary (1913) ; information from the
adjutant-general of the army and from General Pal-
frey's son.] GE.T.L.
PALFREY, JOHN GORHAM (May 2, 1796-
Apr. 26, 1881), Unitarian clergyman, editor, his-
torian, was a grandson of Maj. William Palfrey
who was paymaster of the American forces in
the Revolution, and the son of John and Mary
(Gorham) Palfrey of Boston, where John Gor-
ham was born. He received his earliest educa-
tion at a private school, and then went to Phil-
lips Academy, Exeter, N. H., where he pre-
pared for Harvard. He graduated from college
with the degree of A.B. in 1815, having for a
classmate Jared Sparks \_q.v.~\. After graduation
he studied for the Unitarian ministry and in 1818
was ordained as minister of the Church in Brat-
tle Square, Boston. He remained with that
church until 1831, when he was appointed Dex-
ter Professor of Sacred Literature in Harvard,
a post which he filled until his resignation in
1839.
He had long before begun to write for the
press, his earliest articles appearing in the North
American Review, of which Sparks was editor.
In 1825, during Sparks's temporary absence in
Europe, Palfrey acted as his substitute. In 1835
he bought the Review and conducted it with
much success until he sold it to Francis Bowen
[q.v.] in 1843. Between 1817 and 1859 he con-
tributed thirty-one important articles to it In
1842 and 1843 he was a member of the Massa-
chusetts legislature. Meanwhile, he had become
known as a lecturer, mainly on the evidences of
Christianity, the Jewish Scriptures, and similar
topics. He was interested in education, was
chairman of the committee on education in the
legislature, and cooperated with Horace Mann
\_q.v. "\ an his educational work. From 1844 to
1847 he was secretary of the Commonwealth and
from 1847 to 1849 a member of Congress. In
1 86 1 he was appointed postmaster at Boston, re-
taining that position until 1867. I*1 politics he
was at first a Whig and held his earlier offices
as such ; he was also an abolitionist, and himself
freed a few slaves that he had inherited from
his father, who had lived for a while in Louisi-
ana.
Among his writings may be mentioned: Ser-
mons on Duties Belonging to Some of the Con-
ditions of Private Life (1834) ; Academical Lec-
tures on the Jewish Scriptures and Antiquities
(4 vols., 1838-52) ; Lowell Lectures on the Ew-<
dences of Christianity (2 vols., 1843) ; "Life of
[69
Palfrey
William Palfrey," in Sparks's Library of Ameri-
can Biography (vol. XVII, 1848) ; and the PIis~
tory of New England (4 vols., 1858-75). A fifth
volume of the History, which he had almost fin-
ished but had not had time to prepare for the
press before his death, was published in 1890.
Palfrey's claim to fame rests on this work, He
appears to have been esteemed by his contempo-
raries, but his curious career — minister, profes-
sor, politician, postmaster, editor, writer, lec-
turer, and historian— indicates a certain lack of
definite purpose and aim, a weakness of some
sort in his character, As a recognition of his his-
torical work, he was twice elected to the Massa-
chusetts Historical Society and twice resigned,
and the Society took no notice of his death in the
usual form of memoir. The History of New
England was the result of a vast amount of re-
search, and he was both painstaking1 and usually
accurate in detail. Although there are minor
errors, some of which only subsequent research
has corrected, the innumerable foot-notes, which
are a feature of the volumes, are still a convenient
and useful mine of information as to events and
characters in the period he treated. (Tt may be
noted that owing1 to his advancing* age, the last
two volumes are considerably inferior to the first
three.) By frequently alternating his chapters
on colonial affairs with chapters on contemporary
events in England, thus attempting to provide
the reader with a more adequate background, he
introduced what at that time was rather an inno-
vation, For this he deserves much praise. He
probably tried to be fair in his judgments and
when the volumes appeared they were much ac-
claimed for their impartiality ; but from the stand-
point of today, the whole work must be considered
as biased in several respects* In the relations
between England and the colonies, Palfrey could
see little but tyranny on the one side and God-
fearing1 patriotism on the other. Nowhere does
he show any real understanding of motives and
problems, The work is strongly biased, also, by
his inability to admit any flaws in the Puritans.
So far as respects them, the volumes are special
pleading throughout. Furthermore, the work is
called a History of New England, although Pal-
frey writes as a retained advocate for Massachu-
setts when dealing with any conflict between that
colony and the others, a notable example of this
being- his treatment of the Massachusetts-Rhode
Island dispute over the Quakers. It may also be
noted that he wrote ad a dfergyman and his sym-
pathies were all with the- ecclesiastical Organiza-
tion rather than with thfe laymen fercKigfoout the
early struggles. Although his W6rk has now been
superseded for the general reader/ it still
Palladino
much value for the special student, and for near-
ly half a century \vas the one standard work on
New England,
He received the degree of LL.I). from St.
Andrew's College, Scotland, as well as honorary
degrees from Harvard, and was elected a mem-
ber of the American Antiquarian Society. On
Mar. n» 1823, he married Mary Ann, daughter
of Samuel Hammond of Boston; they had six
children, among whom were John Carver Pal-
frey [</,?'.] and. Sarah Hammond Palfrey. The
latter, a woman of varied intellectual attainments,
shared her father's interest in liberal theology
and was prominent in the social and philan-
thropic movements of her day. Besides contribut-
ing to periodicals, she published poems and sev-
eral novels.
[Proc, Am. Antiquarian $oc.t u,$,( vol. I
part of tho l*n>t\ of tht* Numismatic und Antiquarian
Soc. of rkifa . * , /M/ CiWU) ; Hh0. /)i>, Am. Cong.
-iB) ; J. S. Luring ?7t«« Hundred ttttjttfln Orators
3) I fio
Transcript t Apr,
J.T, A,
PALLADINO, LAWRENCE BENEDICT
(Aug. 15, z837~Auff. 19, *P*7). Honum Catholic
missionary, was born in Dileeto, Italy, and
trained in the preparatory colleges and semi-
naries of Genoa and Statins, In 1855 he entered
the Society of Jesus and continued his study of
philosophy and theology in Jesuit colleges in the
Tyrol and at Monaco until he was ordained a
priest, at Nice, in 1863. Meanwhile, apparently,
he had taught for a time in Verona, during which
period be witnessed the battle of Solferino
(1859)-
He volunteered for the California missions,
and taught classes for four years at St. Ignatius
College in San Francisco and at Santa Clara
(see J. W, Riordan, The First Half Century of
St. Ignatius Church and College, 1905), As-
signed to the Indian missions in the Rocky
Mountains (1867), he accompanied a party of
Jesuits, including Fathers Urban Grassl and
Joseph Bandini, to St. Ignatius Mission among
the Flatheads of Montana, incidentally acquiring
some knowledge of the dialects of the Walla Wal-
la and Coeur d' Aline tribesmen during the tedi*
ous overland journey. For several years he was
in charge of the mission and its Indian school,
which the government assisted to the extent of
contributing eight dollars each for fifty boys,
Both an industrial and agricultural institution,
it became an experimental farm for Indians and
piotieer settlers. About 1873 Palladino went to
Helena as an assistant to Father Joseph Metwtry
[#.#.], whose missiOfiary parish covered a huge
area. For sixteen years this was bis station but
he made frequent jourtieys thrwgfaomt Montana
Fallen
to serve isolated settlers, camps, and tribesmen.
As an example of his activities, after the battle
of Big Hole Basin in 1877, where Gen. John
Gibbon defeated the Nez Perces, he brought
sisters from Helena and Deer River to nurse
wounded Indians and soldiers. In 1883 he made
a visitation over the whole diocese in prepara-
tion for the coming of the first bishop of Helena,
J. B. Brondel [q.v.], in whose diocesan synods
of 1884 and 1887 he took a leading part as coun-
selor. In 1884 he was ordered back to his old
mission, with which he remained until called to
the rectorship of Gonzaga College in Spokane
(1894). After his term of service here, he was
in Seattle for a short time, but was finally as-
signed to Missoula, where he continued until his
death, though he was somewhat inactive after
the celebration in 1925 of his seventieth year in
the Society of Jesus.
In 1894 Palladino published a substantial vol-
ume, Indian and White in the Northwest; or a
History of Catholicity in Montana, which ranks
as a primary source of information concerning
the state, since it was written by one who wit-
nessed its transition from a wild Indian country
to a civilized community, was intimately ac-
quainted with its missionaries, traders, miners,
trappers, soldiers, and builders, and had traversed
every part of its mountains and plains. Other
than this book, Palladino's career permitted of
no writing save reports on Indians, a sketch of
one of his associates: Anthony RavalU, SJ.9
Forty Years a Missionary in the Rocky Moun-
tains (1884), and reminiscent notes on early
Montana (Woodstock Letters, 1880).
[In addition to his own writings, see Records Am.
Cath. Hist. Soc., Mar. 1923, Mar. 1927 ; annual Catholic
directories ; Helena Independent, Aug. 20, 1927.]
K. J . Jr.
FALLEN, CONDfi BENOIST (Dec. 5, 1858-
May 26, 1929) , editor, author, publicist, was born
in St. Louis, Mo., the son of Dr. Montrose An-
derson Pallen and Anne Elizabeth Benoist^ His
paternal grandfather moved from Virginia to
St. Louis, where for more than a quarter of a
century he taught at St. Louis Medical College.
Montrose Anderson Pallen, a native of Vicks-
burg, Miss., served as medical director, i86l-63»
under Gen. Henry A. Wise, Gen. William J.
Hardee, and the Department of Mississippi. In
1874 he was called to teach gynecology at the
University of the City of New York; in 1883 he
became interested in the organization of the medi-
cal school of Fordham University. Anne (Be-
noist) Pallen was a direct descendant of the
Chevalier Benoist who came to America as an
officer under Montcalm. Her father, Louis A.
^Benoist, was a banker in St. Louis,
Fallen
Conde Pallen was graduated from George-
town University, Washington, D. G, in 1880,
and in 1883 received the degree of master of arts
from the same institution. He studied also at
St. Louis University where, after acquiring the
degree of doctor of philosophy (1885), he re-
mained for a short time as teacher. His love of
study next carried him to Rome. Here one of
his classmates was a youth who later as Pius XI
was to confer upon him the Knighthood of St.
Gregory (1926). The decoration Pro Ecclesia
et Pontifice was earlier given him by Leo XIII.
From 1887 to 1897 Pallen was editor of Church
Progress (St. Louis). As Roman Catholic re-
visory editor of the New International Encyclo*-
pedia and of the Encyclopedia Americana he be-
came convinced that the time was appropriate
for the publication of a work, the need of which
had long been felt by Catholic scholars, which
would give "full and authoritative information
on the entire cycle of Catholic interests, action,
and doctrine." The Catholic Encyclopedia (16
vols., 1907-14; supplement, 1922) was the re-
sult. Pallen was one of its board of editors, and
from 1904 to 1920 was its managing editor.
From 1912 to 1920 he served as president of the
Encyclopedia Press which was organized to con-
tinue the publication of the Encyclopedia and to
sponsor other works in the Catholic field. He
was later editor of the Universal Knowledge
Foundation, whose program included a gen-
eral encyclopedia, Universal Knowledge, of
which two volumes (1927-28) appeared before
his death, and the New Catholic Dictionary
(1929).
Pallen began in 1885 a career in lecturing and
literature which brought him considerable fame
in Catholic circles. He contributed papers on
American Catholic literature ta the Catholic
Congress held in Baltimore in 1889 ; in the same
year he delivered the "Centennial Ode" at
Georgetown College. An essay, The Meaning of
the Idylls of the King (1904), brought from
Tennyson a treasured letter, reading: "You have
seen further into the real meaning of the Idylls
of the King than any of my commentators.11 His
other works include : The Philosophy of Litera-
ture (1897), New Rubaiyat (1898), Epochs of
Literature (1898), The Feast of Thalarchus
(1901), a dramatic poem; Death of Sir Launce-
lot and Other Poems (1902), Collected Poems
(1915), Education of Boys (1916), Crucible
Island (1919), a romance; As Man to Man: the
Adventures of a Commuter (1927)1 a series of
popular articles written to answer accusations
based upon misunderstanding of the teachings
of the Catholic Church; Ghost House (1928);
171
Palmer
and The King's Coil (1928). He was, besides,
a constant contributor to the Catholic periodical
press, and as chairman of the National Civic
Federation's Department of Subversive Move-
ments, was the indignant foe of restricted immi-
gration, feminism, and social radicalism,
In 1886 he married Georgiana McDougal
Adams of St, Louis, whose father, Gen, John
Adams of Nashville, Tenn., a graduate of West
Point, was killed in the battle of Franklin, She
and ten children survived him,
[Family papers ; The* Cath, Encyc. and Its Makers
(1917); L S. Kasby-Smith, Georgetown Univ. (1907)*
vol. a; WW$ Who in America, 1928-29; The New
Cath, Diet, (1929) ; Commonweal, June 12, 1939 ; N. Y.
Times and JV« y. Herald Tribune, May 27, 29, 1 929.]
L.F.S.
PALMER, ALBERT MARSHMAN (July 27,
i83&-Mar. 7, 1905), theatrical manager, was
born in North Stonington, Conn,, the son of a
Baptist clergyman, Albert Gallatin Palmer, and
Sarah Amelia Lang-worthy, antl a descendant of
Walter Palmer who settled in Stonington in
1653, He attended New York City schools and
the New York University Law School from
•which he graduated in 1860. Although he never
practised law, his studies stood him in good stead
in the management and control of the theatres
whose organizations he undertook in a troubled
but progressive period of America's theatre his-
tory. In 1872 he first entered the theatre as a
partner of Sheridan Shook (a theatre owner
with no flair for the art of the theatre) in the
management of the Union Square Theatre which
Shook had on his hands after an unsuccessful
experiment in management. One of their first
productions was Sarclou's Agnes in line with the
current tradition of the American theatre, in
which translations of foreign plays or plays
adapted or frankly purloined from foreign sources
were the most popular material. Although Palm-
er had not the distinctive theatre talents or train-
ing* of the other leading managers of his time—
like Wallack, himself an actor and a dramatist
with a long theatre tradition behind him, or Au-
gfustin Daly, a talented director and producer-
he had, nevertheless, certain outstanding virtues
which were of value to him and his theatres.
John Ranken Towse, who saw many of his per-
formances, has described him as "a man of con-
siderable cultivation, suave, shrewd, worldly,
somewhat hesitant and timid in judgment, but
with a first-rate executive ability, and a remark-
able faculty of finding means to serve his ends.
... All his representations were distinguished
by vigor and vitality, and that cooperative
smoothness and proportion which can only be
attained by actors long accustomed to each other's
Palmer
methods and characteristics" (post, pp. 140, 141),
And Arthur Hornhlow substantiates this judg-
ment: "Ho belonged to that school of managers
whom we find in control of the leading theatres
in Europe— men of culture, refinement and schol-
arship, . . . when a refined management gave the
drama both dignity and form" (post, II, p. 261).
As his experience in the theatre grew, Palmer
developed his native qualities of foresight,
shrewdness, and good taste, Kaoh year, until
1883, when he retired from the Union Square,
he improved his company, widened his repertory,
and begati gradually to turn his attention to the
cultivation and appreciation of American play-
wrights and of plays of American life and char-
acter. In 1883 he thought he would give up
theatre management and tnivel abroad, but after
a year of absence he joined the Mallory Brothers
and took over the Madison Square Theatre,
where he remained until i8<)t, lie then went to
Wai lack's Theatre at Broadway and Thirtieth
Street, renaming it Palmer's, and operated it
with varying success until i8cX>, when he re-
tired permanently from New York theatre man-
agement. Not the least of his attributes was his
ability to select good advisers and associates.
His play-reacler and adapter, A. R» Cazauran,
had an eager and adventurous taste in drama and
the fact that he often recommended and pleaded
the cause of plays a little out of the conventional
line of the clay may he the reason for the state-
ment that three of Palmer's most successful pro-
ductions, The Two Orphans, Sir Charles Young's
melodrama, Jim the Penman, with Agnes Booth,
and Alabama, by Augustus Thomas, were urged
upon him against his own will and judgment (see
MacKayc, post, It p* 241)* But the choice of
Cazauran as play-reader was in itself an indica-
tion not only of Palmer's intelligence, but of his
willingness to stand by the decisions of his asso-
ciates in matters they understood, sometimes,
better than he did,
Palmer has been said to have done more than
any other manager of his day to encourage native
dramatic ability (Moses, post, p» 77), His own
statements (Forum, July 1893) give evidence
of a forward-looking desire entirely beyond the
general thought of his day to get plays not only
by American authors but on native American
material, especially material which showed the
native American as something beyond the clown,
the trader, the backwoodsman. It is on his list
that such names as Augustus Thomas, Clyde
Fitch, Bronson Howard (The Banker's Daugh-
ter), and William Gillette (Hdd by the Enemy)
begin to be seen as the familiar property of the
theatre. Although he himself is not credited with
172
Palmer
the creation of any great actors, his companies
were always well chosen, often by the addition
of favorites from his rival's houses. In 1882 he
made a real contribution to the life of the theatre
by the foundation of the Actor's Fund of Amer-
ica, a charitable corporation of which he was the
second president. Palmer's second wife was the
divorced wife of Sheridan Shook. She had two
children who took Palmer's name and she and
Palmer had one daughter, Phyllis. After he had
retired from New York theatre management, he
managed road tours for Richard Mansfield for
some years. He died of a stroke of apoplexy in
his sixty-seventh year.
[M. J. Moses, The Am. Dramatist (1911); Percy
MacKaye, Epoch (2 vols., 1927) ; J. R. Towse, Sixty
Years of the Theatre (1916), pp. 140-45 ; Arthur Horn-
blow, A Hist, of the Theatre in America (1919), vol.
II ; Who's Who in America, 1903-05 ; AT. Y. Dram.
Mirror, Mar. 18, 1905 ; N. Y, Times, Mar. 8, 1905.]
EJ.R.L
PALMER, ALICE ELVIRA FREEMAN
(Feb. 21, i8$$~Dec. 6, 1902), educator, was the
eldest child of James Warren Freeman and Eliza-
beth Josephine (Higley) Freeman, She was
born in the village of Colesville, N. Y., not far
from Binghamton, in the valley of the Susque-
hanna. Her mother, a farmer's daughter and
village beauty, had had some experience in teach-
ing and was a woman of intelligence and sym-
pathy. From her came the child's large, appeal-
ing eyes, dark hair, lively interest in things of
the mind, marked executive and administrative
gifts. When Alice was in her seventh year, this
competent mother, herself hardly more than a
girl, assumed the support of the four young chil-
dren in order that her farmer husband might
fulfil his desire to be a physician by taking the
two years' training at the Albany Medical School.
Through her father, Alice inherited a Scottish
strain and the romantic courage of the pioneer
that quickened all her life's adventure; her fa-
ther's father had walked from Connecticut to
become one of the earliest settlers of Central
New York, her father's mother was the daughter
of James Knox, of Washington's Life Guard.
The child taught herself to read at three years
of age, and attended the village school at four.
In 1864, the family moved to the nearby village
of Windsor, a more convenient center for Dr.
Freeman. Here, in 1865, Alice entered Windsor
Academy, a preparatory and finishing school for
boys and girls, where at fourteen she became en-
gaged to a young teacher who was earning the
wherewithal to continue his own education. It
was a decorous and dignified engagement, but
the experience, awakening her womanhood, re-
vealed her to her clear-sighted sell When, in
Palmer
1870, her betrothed entered Yale Divinity School,
she discovered that a college education meant
more to her than marriage, and six months later
the engagement was dissolved, with respect and
good feeling on both sides.
She would have a college degree, she said, if
it took her fifty years to get it. That magnetic
persuasiveness which was to prove so effective
in her maturer years won its first victory in this
youthful struggle to convince her parents that
her ambition was practical and unselfish. In 1872,
at seventeen, she took the entrance examinations
for the University of Michigan and failed. Her
personality had made its impression on President
Angell, however, and at his request the examiners
allowed her to enter on trial, and she remained.
There followed seven years of unflagging indus-
try and indomitable courage, despite ill health
from overwork. In 1875, she interrupted her
junior year to assist the family fortunes by be-
coming the head of the high school of Ottawa,
111., for twenty weeks. In 1876, she received the
degree of B.A. from Michigan and taught in a
girls' seminary at Lake Geneva, Wis. In 1877
came the first invitation to Wellesley. Henry
Fowle Durant [#.^.], the founder, had heard of
her through President Angell, and offered her
an instructorship in mathematics, which she de-
clined. From 1877 to 1879 she taught in the high
school of Saginaw, Mich. In 1878, came Wel-
lesley's second call — to teach Greek. Her sister
Stella was ill, however, the family needed her ;
and again she declined. In 1879, Stella died, and
with characteristic persistence Durant sent her
a third invitation. At twenty-four, she became
the head of Wellesley's department of history;
in her first year Durant is said to have remarked
to a trustee ; "You see that little dark-eyed girl ?
She will be the next president of Wellesley"
(Life, post, p. 97). Shortly after his death, in
1881, the president, Ada L. Howard \_q.v."\, re-
signed, and Alice Freeman at twenty-six was
appointed vice-president of the college and acting
president In 1882 she became president, and her
administrative powers and gifts for organization
found here their perfect field.
During the six years of her administration the
Academic Council, the inner circle of heads of
departments, was established ; standing commit-
tees of the faculty were formed ; entrance exami-
nations were made more severe ; courses of study
were standardized and simplified ; the gymnasium
was refitted under the supervision of Dr. D. A.
Sargent of Harvard ; the personnel of the faculty
was strengthened ; connections were made with
a number of first-rate preparatory schools in dif-
ferent parts of the country. It was the day of
173
Palmer
beginning's, but no dry list of details can ade-
quately describe the quickening impulse of her
ardent and devoted personality. Never bookish,
never a scholar, she had a bent for people and a
genius for solving the concrete problems, and
Wellesley at this time needed just what she
could give* The institution was changed from a
glorified boarding-school to a genuine college in
her day, and the impetus gained from her con-
tagious and eminently practical idealism has
never been lost. In matters of general education,
she also began to play her part. On Nov. 21,
1881, in Boston, she was one of the small group
— seventeen women from eight different colleges
— called in conference to consider organizing the
women college graduates of the United States
into an association for the promotion of the edu-
cational interests of women. On Jan, 14, 1882,
she made the original motion which led to the
organization of the Association of Collegiate
Alumnae (forerunner of the American Asso-
ciation of University Women). She served two
terms as president, 1885-86 and 1889-90, She
was chairman of the important committee on Fel-
lowships, 1889-95, and general secretary with
power to direct and supervise the Association's
policy in 1901-02, In 1884, she was one of three
American delegates at the International Confer-
ence on Education in London,
On Dec. 23, 1887, she married Prof. George
Herbert Palmer [#,u] of the department of phi-
losophy at Harvard. The record of this uncloud-
ed marriage is given in her husband's story of
her life (post), a book which takes high rank
among- literary biographies. Although she now
resigned her presidency, her connection with
Wellesley did not cease. In 1888 she was elected
a trustee, and held this office till her death. In
1889, Governor Ames appointed her a member
of the Massachusetts board of education, and this
position also was hers till she died. In 1891, she
was one of five members of the board of man-
agers for the Massachusetts exhibit at the
World's Columbian Exposition. From 1892 to
1895 she was dean of women at the University
of Chicago.
To secure her acceptance of this appointment,
President William Rainey Harper [q.v<] re-
leased her from any obligation to teach, and fixed
the period of her yearly residence at twelve weeks,
to be distributed through the academic terms at
her convenience. She was to select her own sub-
dean, who would act fat her absence. The duties
of the office included supervision of the housing
and food of the women students, their cofldwt,
and the choice of their studies. Hter Wief im
coeducation made this position ea^edalfy atstess-
Palmer
tive to her, but at the end of three years, when
the women students were well established in the
university, she resigned from an office too im-
portant to be executed chiefly in absentia. Mean-
while, in 1893 and 1894, she was active in pro-
moting the changes through which RadcIifTe
College was formally attached to Harvard Uni-
versity. The International Institute for Girls in
Spain, Bradford Academy, the Women's Edu-
cation Association, each had a share in her busy
life. She had joined the Presbyterian Church
at fourteen, and later was prominent on the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign
Missions and in the Woman's Homo Missionary
Association,
In December 1902, while on a European holi-
day with her husband, she died in Paris, of heart
failure, three days after an operation for in-
tussusception of the intestine. Thirteen years
later her husband published a little btx)k of her
verse entitled A Marriage CycJc (1915)* To
those who knew her as the woman of committees
and affairs, the administrator and practical ex-
ecutive, occupied on the plane of the obvious,
these simple, reticent poems, so genuinely and
unaffectedly lyrical, reveal an unsuspected depth
of nature and delicacy of spiritual reserve. No
estimate of her temperament and achievement is
just which does not take into consideration this
slender volume*
Although Alice Freeman Palmer was no schol-
ar, her academic recognition was early and con-
tinuous, She received the degree of Ph.D. from
the University of Michigan in 1882, and honor-
ary doctorates from Columbia (1887) and Union
(1895). She Is commemorated in the Univer-
sity of Chicago by the chimes in Mitchell Tower,
dedicated in 1908 ; fellowships in the gift of Wel»
lesley and the American Association of Uni-
versity Women bear her name, as does an insti-
tute for colored boys and girls in Sedalia, N, G
In 1920 she was elected to the Hall of Fame at
New York University among the educators ; and
in May 1921 the commemorative tablet was un-
veiled there by her httsband, Her ashes, with
those of her husband, lie in the Wellesley Chapel,
beneath the bas relief by Daniel Chester French,
dedicated to her memory in 1909,
tThe essential source Is George Herbert Palmer, The
Lift of Alice Freeman Palmer (1908), supplemented by
Tn>0 TectehW) Essays and Addresses on Bduc&tion by
Georgs H trier t Palmer oMd Atic$ Pr@&m<m P&tmtr
(1908) and A. F. Palmer, A Marriaae Cyd* (*9*s)j
Florence Converse, The Story of Welksky (19*5) ; F,
M, Kixigsley, Tk« Uf$ of Henry Powte Durcmt (i0a4)»
See al»o Outlook, Dec, 13, 37, xp04tt JACU *#t *9<>4> Jw
#8, 1915* Jan, i&t 1916; R&v* of Jxw, (N, Y.J. Feb»
1003 j WeUssley Map** Feb. i0#$j Wtllttlty Collw
Nmus, Tune 1909; Wellesley MmftM 0*wl.,
xosi; University Record (Vnlv. of Chicago)*
v, of Chicaffo M»0,f July 1910;
174
Palmer
Ann. Report of the Board of Education [of Mass.]
1901-02 (1903) ; A Service in Memory of Alice Free-
man Palmer . . . Appkton Chapel, Harvard Univ
(1903) ; Boston Transcript, Dec. 8, 1902.] p Q
PALMER, ALONZO BENJAMIN (Oct. 6,
i8i5-Dcc. 23, 1887), physician, teacher, and
author of medical works, was the son of Benja-
min and Anna (Lay ton) Palmer, and a descend-
ant of Walter Palmer who emigrated from Not-
tingham, England, to Massachusetts about 1630
and settled, ultimately, in Stonington, Conn. He
was born in Richfield, Otsego County, N. Y. Al-
though he was left fatherless at nine, he re-
ceived an adequate preliminary schooling in
Oswego, Otsego, and Herkimer. Taking up the
study of medicine, he graduated in January 1839
from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of
the western district of New York, at Fairfield,
Herkimer County.
Soon after his graduation, he moved westward
to the comparatively new state of Michigan and
settled at Tecumseh. The need for doctors in the
new country was great and he soon built up a
busy practice. His work was beset with the dif-
ficulties attending any pioneer enterprise, but in
spite of the busy daily routine, he found time to
keep abreast of the best available teachings and
in the winters of 1847-48 and 1848-49, took post-
graduate courses in New York and Philadelphia
respectively. In 1850 he moved to Chicago, where
he became associated with Dr. Nathan Smith
Davis [$.ZA] in a general practice. Two years
later he was appointed city physician and became
the official medical adviser to the health officer
of the city. These latter positions he held for
three years. During this period (1852) the
cholera epidemic swept through Chicago. As city
physician, he had charge of the cholera hospital
which cared for fifteen hundred patients in the
course of the year. His wide experience and
careful observation during this epidemic resulted
in a paper, Observations on the Cause, Nature
and Treatment of Epidemic Cholera (1854),
which was followed in later years by other valu-
able contributions to the study of the subject.
In 1852, Palmer was appointed professor of
anatomy at the University of Michigan, but be-
cause of a limited budget did not assume the
chair. In the same institution he became suc-
cessively professor of materia rnedica, therapeu-
tics, and diseases of women and children (1854),
and professor of pathology and practice of medi-
cine (1860). The latter position he filled until
his death; In 1875, he became dean of the medi-
cal department and with the exception of one
year held that office until he died. In the mean-
time, from 1864 to 1867 he was professor of
Palmer
pathology and practice of medicine in the Berk-
shire Medical Institution at Pittsfidd, Mass.,
and from 1869 to 1879 was professor of the prac-
tice of medicine at Bowdoin College. Since his
courses at the University of Michigan ended in
March, he was able to lecture at the eastern in-
stitutions from April to June each year. At the
beginning of the Civil War he was surgeon in
the 2nd Michigan Infantry (May-September
1861), and was present at the first battle of Bull
Run and other engagements.
Besides his well-deserved reputation as a
teacher, Palmer became well known and respected
through his writings. His wide medical experi-
ence culminated in the publication of a textbook
entitled, Treatise on the Science and Practice of
Medicine, or the Pathology and Treatment of
Internal Diseases (2 vols., 1882). This was fol-
lowed by A Treatise on Epidemic Cholera and
Allied Diseases, published in 1885. His Lectures
on Sulphate of Quinine had appeared in 1858,
and Epidemic Cholera, Its Pathology and Treat-
ment, in 1866. The Temperance Teachings of
Science (1886) reflected his rigid belief in total
abstinence from alcoholic stimulants and nar-
cotics. From April 1853 to March 1860, Palmer
was editor of the Peninsular Journal of Medicine
and the Collateral Sciences and its successor, the
Peninsular and Independent Medical Journal,
published at Detroit. He was president in 1872
of the Michigan State Medical Society.
Endowed with a robust constitution, he was
"a conscientious and skillful practitioner, an able
writer, an earnest and successful teacher, and
above all a most estimable citizen and Christian"
( Davis, post}. His success as a physician, writer,
and teacher could scarcely have been so far-
reaching without his kindly, sympathetic view of
life. He was married twice : on July 19, 1843, to
Caroline Augusta Wright, who died in 1846, and
in 1867 to Love M. Root of Pittsfield, Mass.,
who survived him. There were no children.
[N. S. Davis, in Jour. Am. Medic. Asso., Dec. 31,
1887 ; memorial address by C. L. Ford, in Physician and
Surgeon, June-August 1888; Medic. Record, Dec. 31,
1887 ; Trans. Mich. State Medic. Soc., vol. XII (1888) ;
L. M. R. Palmer, Memorial of Alonzo Benjamin Palmer
(1890) ; H. A. Kelly and W. L. Burrage, Am. Medic.
Biogs. (1920) ; B. A. Hinsdale, Hist, of the Univ. of
Mich. (1906) ; Detroit Free Press, Dec. 24, 1887.]
G.M.L.
PALMER, BENJAMIN MORGAN (Jan. 25,
i8i8-May 28, 1902), Presbyterian clergyman,
was born at Charleston, S. C., second of the four
children of Rev. Edward and Sarah (Bunce)
Palmer. Both parents were of New England
stock, his father being a descendant of William
Palmer who emigrated to America in 1621. Pre-
pared for college by his parents and at a private
175
Palmer
academy, Benjamin entered Amlierst when he
was little more than fourteen years old. There
he found friends in Henry Ward Bcecher and
Stuart Robinson [tftf .?'•]• He led his class at
Arnherst, but was expelled in his second year for
refusing" to divulge the secrets of an undergrad-
uate society. Returning to South Carolina, he
taught school until, in January 1837, he entered
the University of Georgia, from which he grad-
uated eighteen months later, Tn 1841 he grad-
uated, also, from the Columbia Theological Semi-
nary, and in April of that year was licensed to
preach.
The following autumn he was invited to be-
come pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of
Savannah, Ga., and on Oct. 7 he married Mary
Augusta McConnell ; six children were born to
them, only two of whom lived to reach maturity,
On Mar. 6, 1842, he was ordained. He served
the church at Savannah only until January 1843,
when he went to the Presbyterian Church at Co-
lumbia, S. C. There he and other ministers
founded the Southern Presbyterian Review, the
first number of which appeared in June 1847,
He lectured at Columbia Theological Seminary,
and in 1854 resigned his pulpit to accept a pro-
fessorship there. Two years later he relinquished
it and became pastor of the First Presbyterian
Church of New Orleans, which he served until
his death. He was active in founding the Pres-
byterian Church in the Confederate States, and
was the first moderator of its General Assembly.
He participated in establishing1 Southwestern
Presbyterian University and a weekly paper, the
Southwestern Presbyterian, An ardent defender
of slavery, he advocated secession (see Daily
Delta, New Orleans, Nov. 30, 1860). During
the Civil War he was for a time commissioner of
his denomination to the Army of the Tennessee.
His eloquence, power of mind, breadth of human
sympathy, and most of all his perfect integrity
and devotion won him high esteem. Notable
among1 his achievements were his efforts for the
relief of the persecuted Jews of Russia in 1882,
and his leadership in the war on the Louisiana
Lottery (1890-91).
In addition to six books he published numer-
ous pampKlets, and contributed many articles to
the Southern Presbyterian R&view, the South-
western Presbyterian, and the Presbyterian
Qwtrterly. His books are : The Life and Letters of
James Henley ThornwM, D.D., LL.D, (1875) J
The Famly in Its Civil and Churchly Aspects
(1876) ; Formation of Character (1890) ; The
Broken Home, or Lessons in Sorrow (1890);
The Threefold Fellowship and the Threefold
Assurance (1892) ; and Theology of Prayer
Palmer
(1894). His death resulted from injuries which
he received when struck by a street car.
[T, C. Johnson, The Life and fitters of Benjamin
Morgan Palmer (copr. 190(1) ; Daily Picayune (New
Orleans), May 2$, *9<u ; rresbyt. Quart,, July 190-*;
R. Q. Mallard, "Personal Reminiscence** o£ Rev, B.
M. Palmer/' in Union Seminary Map,, Dec. iQcu-Jun.
iqo3 ; L. G. Vamler Vehle, The Presbyt. Churches and
the Federal Union, jr$d/~,r#<5p (isu-O.J C. F, A.
PALMER, BERTHA HONORS (May 22,
i849»Muy 5, 1918), social leader, was born in
Louisville, Ky., the daughter of KHza Dorsey
(Carr) and Henry H, Ilonorc, a leading busi-
ness man of the city who later removed to Chi-
cago. She was the sister of Ida Honorc who
married Frederick Dent Grant [</,r.], She at-
tended a convent-school near Baltimore, Md., and
also studied under private tutors. In 1871 she
was married to Potter Palmer r</«?'»l- Soon after
her marriage her husband lost a large part of his
fortune in the great fire that swept the city, and
she bent her energies to help him repair his loss-
es. To her aid and to the excellent business judg-
ment she developed lie attributed much of his
very great success. She had two sons, the elder
born in 1874 and the younger in 1875, and she
started on a social career that within a genera-
tion reached into every modern capital She be-
came the unquestioned social leader of the city
of Chicago and maintained a social position in
other cities of her own country and of Europe.
In 1891 she was chosen president of the Board
of Lady Managers of the World's Columbian Ex-
position. In this position she had the opportunity
to exercise both her social gifts and her business
acumen. She went to Europe to represent the
fair and was very successful, especially in, Italy
and Belgium, in arousing interest in the project
The social connections she made at that time
remained important to her all her life. It was
principally due to her efforts that the women's
department of the fair was so important a fea-
ture ; she urged that the women's exhibits should
have space in each state building, persuaded an
imposing list of royal women to lend exhibitions,
and obtained equal consideration for the activi-
ties of women. In 1892 she was chosen a trustee
of Northwestern University* Eight years later,
in 1900, President McKinley appointed her as a
member of the committee to the Paris Exposition,
During her later years she gave attention to
the management of the vast estate she had in-
herited from her husband in 1902. At her death
its value had more than doubled under her man-
agement She spent a great deal of her time and
money in charitable and philanthropic work. On
one occasion she opened her home for a meeting
of the national civic federation, at which several
176
Palmer
hundred representatives of capital and labor were
present. Each year she lent her executive abil-
ity and her social experience to the management
of the charity ball o£ Chicago, which grew in-
creasingly important as a social event and as a
means of collecting funds. She was said to give
some $50,000 annually to charity, and by her
will she left about half a million dollars for vari-
ous philanthropic purposes. During her early
married life she and her husband held member-
ship in one oi: the struggling Disciples of Christ
churches in Chicago. Later she became a com-
municant of the St. James Episcopal Church.
She (lied in her home at Osprey, Fla., on Sara-
sota Bay,
[J S. Currcy, Chicago (19x2), vol. Ill; Newton
Bateman, Paul Selby, and J. S. Currey, Hist. Encyc. of
III (2 vols,, 1025); House Beautiful, Jan. 1920;
Hampton Columbian May., Oct. 1911, pp. 540-42 ;
Munsw's Mag., Oct. 1900, p. 32 ; World To-day, Mar.
1907, i>. 226; N. y. Times, May 7, 18, 1918; Chicago
Daily Tribune, May 7, 1918.] C.M.T.
PALMER, DANIEL DAVID (Mar. 7, 1845-
Oct. 20, 1913) , founder of chiropractic, was born
on a farm at Lake Skoogag, near Toronto, Can-
ada, of pioneer Scotch-Irish parentage. Defi-
nite knowledge of his early life is scanty. He
had little benefit of schooling and was practically
self-educated. When he was in his middle thirties
he was a small merchant in What Cheer, Iowa.
Here his son, Bartlett Joshua, was born in 1881.
Shortly after his wife's death in 1883 he moved
to Burlington, Iowa, and took up the practice of
magnetic healing-, then in 1895 he moved to
Davenport, Iowa. He had made some study of
osteopathy and of spinal adjustments, interest in
which he attributed to the influence of Dr. James
Atkinson of Davenport. In September 1895 he
made the first trial of spinal adjustment upon the
colored janitor of the building in which he had
his office, for deafness. As originally stated by
Palmer his science "consisted in removing the
impingement of nerves in any of the three hun-
dred or more articulations of the human skeleton,
particularly the fifty-two articulations of the
vertebral column, by using processes of the verte-
brae as levers to rack the vertebra into position
(quoted in Gallaher, post, p. 34). Later in prac-
tice and in teaching, the offending nerve im-
pingements were confined to the intervertebral
foramina and the resultant effects charged to
impairment of function in the corresponding seg-
ments of the spinal cord. The name chiropractic
was suggested for the new science by the Rev.
Samuel H. Weed of Bloomington, 111., an early
patient. The name (Greek cheir, hand, and prak-
tikos, efficient) was freely translated by Palmer
as "done by hand/'
In 1898 he started the Palmer School of Chiro-
177
Palmer
practic, with a three months' course. He had but
fifteen students during its first five years, his son,
Bartlett Joshua, being among the graduates of
1902. Leaving the school in his son's care he
went in 1903 to Portland, Ore., where he opened
the Portland College of Chiropractic. The ven-
ture was not successful and he soon returned to
Davenport In 1906 he was arrested for prac-
tising medicine without a license and served a
sentence of six months in jail. When released he
severed his connection with the school which was
left to the direction of his son. He went to Okla-
homa City where he participated in the establish-
ment of the short-lived Palmer-Gregory Chiro-
practic College. From here he returned to
Portland and became affiliated with the recently
organized Pacific College of Chiropractic. Find-
ing conditions at this school uncongenial he re-
tired to private practice and to writing his Text-
book of the Science, Art and Philosophy of Chiro-
practic, which appeared in 1910. This voluminous
tome is an unrelated mixture of maxims, poetry,
satire, invective, and irrelevances. With "allop-
athy" as his main target, he spares nobody, least
of all his colleagues in chiropractic. In 1906 he
had published in collaboration with his son, Bart-
lett Joshua, The Science of Chiropractic, and in
1914 there was published a posthumous volume,
The Chiropractor, at Los Angeles, his later home.
In the meantime the Davenport school had pros-
pered under the younger Palmer. In August of
1913 there was held a widely heralded home-
coming of former students. An estrangement of
some years' standing existed between father and
son, but to this school celebration came its found-
er, an uninvited guest. While acting as self-ap-
pointed leader of a street parade of students and
graduates he was struck by a passing automobile
and taken unconscious to a hospital. He recov-
ered sufficiently to be moved to Los Angeles
where he died about two months after the ac-
cident.
Physically Palmer was short and heavy set,
with a broad round face and long flowing hair
and beard. Of a contentious disposition, he was
in continuous feud with his colleagues. He main-
tained a religious element in his conception of
chiropractic healing, which was early discarded
by his followers. He was thrice married, his third
wife surviving him. ^ .
[Harry Gallaher, Hist, of Chiropractic (Gutfcrie,
Okla 1930) ; Chittenden Turner, The Rise of Chwo-
practic (Los 'Angeles, 1931) J WM* Who in Davenport,
1929 ; LosAngele$TimestQct.2i, 1913- J J.M. P— n.
PALMER, ELIHU (Aug. 7, i764~Apr. 7>
1806), militant deist, was the eighth child of
Elihu and Lois (Foster) Palmer and a descendant
of Walter Palmer who was a freeman of Charles-
Palmer
town, Mass., in 1634 and later settled in Stoning-
ton, Conn. Elihu was born and brought up on
his father's farm at Canterbury, Conn,, and grad-
uated from Dartmouth College in 1787. In col-
lege he enjoyed a good reputation for integrity
and literary proficiency and was elected to Phi
Beta Kappa. He received aid from the college's
charity fund and taught school during vacations.
After graduation he preached at Pittsfield,
Mass,, and studied divinity under Rev* John Fos-
ter, who later became a UniversalivSt and fellow
radical. A few months later, he received a call
to the Presbyterian Church of Newtown, Long
Island, where his tenure lasted only six months
( 1 788-89) because of his liberalism. He re-
moved to Philadelphia and joined the Universal-
ists, but a proposed sermon against the divinity
of Jesus was too much even for them, and Palm-
er found it necessary to quit the city to escape
the wrath of outraged citizens. With his career
as a Christian minister behind him, he studied
law under the direction of a brother in western
Pennsylvania, returned to Philadelphia, and was
admitted to the bar in 1793, Three months later,
in the plague of yellow fever, he lost his wife and
was himself deprived of sight, This calamity un-
fitted him for the legal profession and he became
a free-lance, deistic preacher. He sent his chil-
dren to his father in Connecticut and removed to
Atlanta, Ga.
After about a year, he moved to New York,
which henceforth was the center of his activities.
Here he founded a deistical society, to which he
preached every Sunday evening. This society
was known successively as the Philosophical So-
ciety, Theistical Society, and Society of the Co-
lumbian IlluminatL Sister organizations in Phila-
delphia and Baltimore, where Palmer occasional-
ly went to preach, called themselves Theophilan-
thropists. He also preached in Newburgh, N,
Y., where the deists had formed a "Society of
Druids." The New York society, to further its
activities, established a weekly paper, The Tem-
ple of Reason, under the editorship of Dennis
Driscol, a recent immigrant from Ireland and an
ex-priest After only three months, Feb. 7, 1801,
this paper was suspended in New York, but was
resumed in Philadelphia the following- April
Though experiencing some financial difficulties
it survived there for nearly two years* In De-
cember 1803 Palmer began publishing in New
York The Prospetf: or, View of the Moral
World. He was assisted in this undertaking by
his second wife, Mary Powell, a widow, whom
he had married in 1803. lie Prospect appeared
weeMy until March 1805.
Calmer was a political as well as a religions
Palmer
liberal. More dominated by the ideas of the
French revolutionists than by his New England
background and directly influenced by Paine,
Volncy, Barlow, Condorcot, and Godwin, whom
he regarded as "among the greatest benefactors
of the human race," he saw in the American Rev-
olution the beginning of genuine republicanism
and a universal age of reason. In the struggle
between the Federalists and Republicans, he was
an eloquent and ardent opponent of * 'tyranny."
His religious rationalism, however, was quite
out of harmony with the trend of the times, lie
declared that the Bible offered no internal evi-
dence of divine authority, and that any religious
system requiring miracles to establish it was
neither reasonable nor true. Organized religion
was the product of "ambitious, designing, and
fanatic men*' who had succeeded in taking ad-
vantage of human ignorance, Moses, Mahomet,
and Jesus "were all of them impostors; two of
them notorious murderers in practice, and the
other a murderer in principle," These three to-
g-ether, Palmer believed, had perhaps "cost the
human race more blood and produced more sub-
stantial misery, than all the other fanatics of the
world'1 With respect for neither the founders
of religious systems nor for the Bible, which he
characterized as "a book, whose indecency and
immortality shock all common sense and common
honesty," Palmer preached the religion of im-
perverted Nature and rational education, "Man
has created moral evil and man must destroy it"
The American Revolution and the republican
movement had accomplished political emancipa-
tion. Education and reason were now to bring1
about freedom from degrading" religious super-
stitions.
The most complete statement of his thought is
his Principles of Nature; or, a Development of
the Moral Camcs of Happiness and Misery
among the Human Species (1802), which was
the textbook of his deistical societies* An anony-
mous pamphlet, The Exa/minm Examined; be*
ing a Defence of the Age of Reason (1794), Is
attributed to him. He was a contributor to The
Temple of Reason and the Prosp&cL One of his
best orations was An Enquiry R&latim to the
Moral <&• Political Improvement of the fflwman
Species (i?97)«
^Boundlessly optimistic, an eloquent speaker
with a deep and sonorous voice, honest In the ex-
pression of his beliefs to the point of utter tact-
lessness and disregard for his financial well-
being^ the blind Palmer was both a heroic and
a tragic figure. His main contribution to free-
thought was the organization of deistical socie-
ties with constitutions, ritual, secret meetings,
178
Palmer
public addresses, and newspapers. His efforts to
build a Temple of Nature where deist services
could be held, scientific lectures given, children
taught, and astronomical observations made,
were unsuccessful. At forty-one he had grown
old, weary, and tired of opposing" himself "con-
stantly to the current of public opinion." When
he died of pleurisy in Philadelphia, it was as the
champion of a cause which had brought him only
poverty and opposition.
[M. IX Con way. The Life of Thomas Paine (1892),
vol. II ; C. F. Emerson, Gen. Cat. of Dartmouth Coll,
(igio—ix); Posthumous Pieces . . , To Which Are
Prefixed a Memoir of Mr. Palmer by His Friend Mr.
John Fellows, and Mr. P aimers Principles of the De-
istical Soc. of the Stale of N. F. ( 1 8^4) ; J, W. Francis,
Old New York (i8<><>) ; The Antobiog. and Ministerial
Life of the KM. John Johnston, D.D. (1836), ed. by
James Curnuhan; E, W. Leavitt, Palmer Groups (1901—
05); James Riker, The Annals of Newt own (1852);
John Wood, A Full Jt.vposition of the Clintonian Fac-
tion,, and the Soc, of the Columbian Illwninati (1802) ;
G. Adolf Koch, Republican Religion: The American
Revolution and the Cult of Reason (1933).]
G.A.K.
PALMER, ERASTUS DOW (Apr. 2, 1817-
Mar. 9, 1904), sculptor, son of Erastus Dow and
Laurmda (Ball) Palmer, was born in humble
circumstances at Pompey, a rural village nine
miles from Syracuse, N. Y. He had only six
months of schooling, but from childhood, he had
a sound body, a clear mind, a delight in beauty,
and a skill of hand in expressing form. His first
business was carpentry. It is recorded that at
the age of nine he constructed a little sawmill,
which became the marvel of the townfolk, and
that at twelve he was an expert in making win-
dow sashes. At seventeen, with two other boys,
he set forth on foot to seek his fortune In the
western part of the state. Of the three he alone
reached Dunkirk, on Lake Erie, where for six
years he earned good wages. He next moved
eastward to Amsterdam, N, Y., where again he
found plenty to do, not only in simple carpentry,
but also in wood-carving and cabinet making,
After his marriage to Mary Jane Seaman,
daughter of a farmer in the neighborhood, he
went to Utica, and there built his house. Having
seen and admired certain shell cameos, lie at-
tempted a cameo portrait of his wife. Though he
knew nothing of the technique of the craft, and
indeed was obliged to devise the necessary tools,
his result was excellent. It met the approval of
a connoisseur, who gave an order for his own
portrait, and before long Palmer turned from
carpentry to cameo-cutting as a means of liveli-
hood. His precise eye and delicate skill of hand
found such favor that within two years he had
carved two hundred cameos, some of them "per-
fect gems," according to Tuckerman (post, p.
363). When the delicate work proved a strain
Palmer
on his eyes, at the suggestion of his patron he be-
gan to express his ideas in the ampler medium
of clay. His first effort, the "Infant Ceres,"
modeled from one of his children, was successful.
When carved in marble, the bust attracted atten-
tion at the 1850 exhibition of the National Acad-
emy of Design, and Palmer was taken into the
Academy as an honorary member.
In 1846 he had moved to Albany where his
career as a sculptor, already auspiciously begun,
was to continue for a quarter-century. Pleasing
bas-reliefs of winged heads called "Morning
Star" and "Evening Star" were followed by the
"Spirit's Flight," "Mercy," and "Faith." The
original of "Faith," a large relief modeled in
1852, for St. Peter's Church, Albany, represents
a draped female figure, standing with clasped
hands before a cross. Photographs of this gentle
composition had a wide popularity in American
homes. It was not a masterly work, but its
sweetness and simplicity appealed to the public.
"Few photographic copies of any work of sculp-
ture have had so large a sale" (Tuckerman, post,
p. 361). Palmer continued to occupy himself
with reliefs and with ideal busts such as the "In-
fant Flora" and the "June," the womanly "Res-
ignation," and the maidenly "Spring." It was
not until 1856 that he produced the "Indian
Girl," now owned by the Metropolitan Museum.
It was his first full-length marble statue and rep-
resented an Indian maid meditating upon a little
cross found in the forest. Thus he was about
thirty-nine years of age before he found the op-
portunity to model carefully a nude figure. The
wonder is that his eye and hand served him so
well. Powers1 "Greek Slave," at that time a
familiar figure in sculpture, was produced in
Florence, in an atmosphere of artistic tradition,
while Palmer's "Indian Girl" of 1856 and his
more beautiful "White Captive" of 1858 sprang
up in virgin soil, not far from the edge of the
wilderness.
The "White Captive," now in the Metropoli-
tan Museum of New York, surrounded by sculp-
tures of far greater sophistication, remains his
finest work. It tells a story of the American In-
dian wars, just as the "Greek Slave" tells a story
of European strife. It is a simple standing nude
figure of a young white girl, awaiting her fate
from her savage captors. "Nothing so fine,"
wrote Lorado Taft, "had come over the seas from
Italy; nothing so original, so dramatic, so hu-
man; nothing that could approach it, even in
charm of workmanship" (post, p. 137). In 1864,
the critic Jarves had expressed a contrary opin-
ion. To him it suggested "meat and immodesty"
(post, p. 280). In 1857, Palmer, like other
179
Palmer
sculptors of his time, hoped that he might design
a relief for the empty triangle in the gable of
the House wing of the Capitol. Taking as his
theme the landing of the Pilgrims, he composed
an elaborate small-scale model for a large com-
position which he hoped would match and per-
haps excel Crawford's "Past and Future of the
Republic/' sculptured over the Senate wing. Ut-
terly untrained though he was in such work, his
efforts were encouraged by influential citizens,
and he believed that the commission was to be
his. It was perhaps fortunate that his design was
rejected. The government paid him for his model
but did not award the commission.
Palmer was an individualist and firmly be-
lieved that beauty in art could be captured in his
native state of New York as well as in Italy.
His Albany studio, sixteen feet by eight feet,
with its north light was said to be one of the best
in the country. From that studio came a scries
of portrait busts in which Palmer's genius found
triumphant expression, probably beyond any-
thing that might have been attained in his pedi-
ment group. A bust of Alexander Hamilton was
of necessity studied from various sources1 —
Ccracchi, Trtunbull, Stuart, Robertson, Sharp-
less — but most of the series were made from life,
Among his notable sitters were Washington Ir-
ving', Moses Taylor, Erastus Corning, Governor
Morgan, Dr. James H. Armsby, and Henry Bur-
den. By a sympathetic searching of American
traits revealed with the skill of a hand disciplined
from his childhood, the sculptor imparted a new
vitality to portraiture in this field, Tuckerman
devotes an eloquent paragraph to "marvels of
plastic skill" such as the portrait of Mrs, Mc-
Cormick ; Taft states that "it is difficult to con-
ceive a finer bust" than that of Henry Burden,
In 1862, moved by the sacrifices of the Civil
War, Palmer created his "Peace in Bondage/1 a
three-quarters' length winged female figure in
marble, the nude torso, the head, the wings and
the fragment of drapery being" carved with a
charm rare at that time. Three years later came
the majestic seated "Angel of the Sepulchre/' an
Albany Cemetery monument — a draped male fig»
ure definitely prefiguring the noble quality to be
attained in. such work a generation later by Saint-
Gatidens, who, like Palmer, had begun his career
in art as a cameo-cutter. It was not until 1873
that Palmer went abroad At the mature age of
fifty-four, well prepared by his own experience
as a creative artist, he visited European cities
and enjoyed their treasures of art. For a few
months he took a studio in Paris, there to work
on his studies for his bronze statue of Chancellor
Robert R. Livingston, This statue, ordered by
Palmer
the stale of New York, was placed in the national
Capitol in 1874* "In matter of interpretation, of
charm, and of artistic integrity, nothing finer had
been done up to this time by an American sculp-
tor," wrote Lorado Taft (/wf, p. 140), It was
Palmer's last important work, but it shows no
decline in his powers. The folds of the academic
gown are skilfully disposed, and the hands beau-
tifully modeled, A replica, shown at the Centen-
nial of 1876, won a modal of the first class. Also
among his works are "Pleasures of Memory,"
"Kmignmt Children/1 "Sleeping Peri/* and "Am-
bush Chief," He continued to create fine por-
trait busts, and in his Albany studio Jonathan
Scott Hartley and Launt Thompson laid the
foundations of their careers.
Despite his laek of early schooling. Palmer was
by no means an uneducated man. He learned
much by systematic reading, as well as through
intercourse with persons of culture who were
attracted to him by his goodness and charm. In
1873 Union College conferred upon him the hon-
orary degree of A.M. Ik is rightly accounted a
pioneer, because in such works as the "White
Captive/* he was the first to endow American
sculpture with that greatly needed liberating
gift, lyric charm, He died in Albany, where* in
the Albany Historical and Art Society, there is
a collection of his models in plaster, A son,
Walter Launt Palmer f*^,], born in Albany in
1854, gained recognition as a painter of winter
landscapes.
[I-oradp Taft, The Hist, of Am. Sculpture (1904 and
lat«r editions) ; C, R, Post, A //to of European and
Am, Sculpture (1921), vol II ; C. E, I?airman, An and
Artists of the Capitol (tg^} ; H. T. Tuekerman, Book
of th& Artiste (1867) j W, J. Clark, Gnat Am. Sculp-
tures (1878) ; L J, Jarvea, The Art /dtoi (1864) ; An
Jour, (London), Oct. i» 1871 ; Albany Evening Jmr.
and AT, Y* Timcst Mar, 10, 1904,] A. A,
PALMER, GEORGE HERBERT (Mar. 19,
i842-May 7, 1933), philosopher, teacher, man
of letters, was born in Boston, Mass, His father,
Julius Auboyneau Palmer, a merchant of modest
means, came of an English family which settled
at Little Compton, R. I.f in 1636, His mother,
Lucy Manning1 Peabody, was descended from
John Peabody, who became a freeman of Box-
ford, Mass,, in 1674; his farm became George
Herbert Palmer's summer home. The boy, named
for the English poet, was physically feeble, hard-
ly expected to live through infancy. To a long
struggle with ill health, which affected all his
student years, he attributed his longevity, since
it compelled him to learn and observe the regimen
under which alotie he could maintain his working
power.
In spite of frequently interrupted schooling, he
1 80
Palmer
**
entered Phillips Andover Academy at twelve,
spending two years there, and after an interval
of travel and of experiment in the wholesale dry
goods trade, entered Harvard in 1860, graduat-
ing in regular course in 1864, He offered a com-
mencement part on Mill's Utilitarianism — Mill
having captured his early enthusiasm as none of
the regular teachers in the Harvard of his day
had been able to do. Graduate study in philos-
ophy was not available in America at that time,
except in schools of theology. Palmer accord-
ingly, after a year of teaching at the Salem High
School, entered Andover Theological Seminary
in 1865. In 1867, he left Andover to go abroad,
spent in Germany fragments of two years, visited
France and Italy, and returned to Andover to
receive the degree of B.D. in 1870. Later, dur-
ing a series of summers (in 1878 and following
years), he pursued studies in Hegel under the
personal guidance of Edward Caird, whom he
sought out in Glasgow.
Though as a young man Palmer was painfully
shy and hesitant both in speech and in writing,
there was in him a personal force which made
its impression on observant men. In 1870 Presi-
dent Charles William Eliot [<jw.], then in the
second year of his administration, offered him a
tutorship in Greek. Entering thus upon his serv-
ice of forty-three years in Harvard, Palmer at
once showed his power as a teacher by inaugurat-
ing a series of voluntary readings in the Odyssey,
out of which came his remarkable English ver-
sion, The Odyssey of Homer, published in 1884.
In 1872 an opening appeared in philosophy, as
instructor and assistant to Prof. Francis Bowen
[#.#,] ; after one year in this post Palmer was
made assistant professor of philosophy; he be-
came full professor in 1883. Though at first he
offered introductory courses, and indeed con-
tinued throughout his career to teach the intro-
ductory history of philosophy to fascinated
groups of students, his interest turned decisively
toward the theory of ethics : in 1889, "Philos-
ophy 4" became the staple course in that subject,
and with it his name as a teacher was peculiarly
associated until his retirement in 1913. From
1889, he held the Alford Professorship of "natu-
ral religion, moral philosophy and civil polity/1
Becoming professor emeritus in 1913, Palmer re-
linquished this chair to Josiah Royce [q.v."] ; but
he served the University as overseer until 1919,
and continued to reside within the Harvard Yard
until his death at the advanced age of ninety-one.
Palmer was inclined to disown for himself
originality in philosophical thought; he consid-
ered himself a critic and expositor rather than a
creator of new concepts. There was however a
Palmer
depth and vigor in his thought to which this esti-
mate does less than justice. While he prized true
judgment above novelty, there was an element of
genuine creation both in his masterly interpre-
tations of the history of thought, and in his sys-
tematic expositions of ethical theory. The clarity
for which he incessantly labored, his luminous
and fluent prose, gave both hearer and reader an
illusion of ease and simplicity which concealed
not alone the effort, but also the force of the
thinker. In Harvard he was the first to break
away from textbook and recitation in philosophy
and to work out his own system of ideas in lec-
tures.
He belonged by inheritance to the Puritan tra-
dition, and by training to the line of idealism, but
he was a keen critic of Puritanism, its "extreme
individualism and lack of a community sense,"
and he was equally dissatisfied with Hegel, on
the ground that Hegel had a defective sense of
the meaning of moral contrasts, and submerged
the individual in the institution. The Puritan in
him corrected the defects of Hegel ; and the col-
lectivist in him corrected the Puritan. The ethics
of self-realization, characteristic of the English
idealism of his day, he could not accept unless it
were understood that the self in question is not
the solitary or "abstract self," but the "conjunct
self," the self as related to and tied in with
others, through personal and institutional ties.
Without these institutions, individual life is thin,
unsatisfactory, ineffective. "Ally your labor with
an institution" was his precept and his example.
But within the institution, individual conscience
mast remain alert, correcting the institution and
keeping it from the rigidity of death. The most
perfect pre-arranged casuistry he considered in-
adequate to personal moral experience, which is
infinite and changing ; hence he took the Protes-
tant rather than the Catholic view of authority,
and aligned himself with Kant rather than with
Hegel in his view of duty. Duty, he was accus-
tomed to say, "is the call of the whole to the
part," and duty has its one absolute law, a rule
which is so final as to admit no deviation and yet
so transparent in its texture as to admit every
pulse of moral individuality : it is simply "the law
that there shall be law," that conduct shall never
be capricious.
The content of his course on ethics was never
completely published. Parts of it have appeared
in The Field of Ethics (1901), The Nature of
Goodness (1903), The Problem of Freedom
(1911), Altruism; Its Nature and Varieties
( 1919) . These works preserve much of the lucidr-
ity and compactness of Palmer's lectures. His
most memorable and effective works, however,
Palmer
vere those in which his philosophic thought gave
tself to the interpretation of personality and art.
in his own estimate, three of his books are likely
:o live a half century: The Odyssey (1884 and
following), The English Works of George Her-
bert (3 vols., 1905), The Life of Alice Freeman
Palmer (1908), These he calls his "hooks of af-
fection and gratitude'*; in them his powers of
diaracterization reach their height. With them
should be associated a series of contributions to
letters ; The Antigone of Sophocles ( 1899) ; Inti-
mations of Immortality in the Sonnets of Shak~
spcrc (1912) ; introduction to T. C Williams'
translation, The Georgia and Eclogues of Virgil
(I9iS)> Formative Types in English Poetry
(1918).
Palmer's greatness as a teacher was due in no
small degree to the artist in him, which compelled
him to orderliness of thought and presentation,
and made shoddy, unclear expression repugnant
to him. His speech abounded in expressions so
perfect that "they continued to glow in the dark
of the mind." But it was due as well to a dis-
cerning and persistent interest in persons. This
interest was not indiscriminate: the friendship
he offered was never genial, easy, intimate, pro-
fuse, but, with warm and enduring affection, held
its own dignity and reserve. Few have been so
gifted in the capacity for reaching objective esti-
mates of personal ability. It was a part of his
rigorous self-discipline to maintain an element
of realism in these judgments, and in view of his
belief that the imperfect has its own peculiar
glories' (The Glory of the Imperfect:, 1891) he
had no disposition to ignore the defects and para-
doxes of the character with which he dealt. As a
result, he was widely sought as a counselor in
the placing of men, and left an indelible impress
on the personnel of his department at Harvard,
which included James, Royce, Miinsterberg, and
Santayana. This department was in no small
measure of Palmer's building. Though he was
not a lover of debate, he appreciated diversities
of judgment, both in the composition of the de-
partment and in the minds of his own students.
Toward himself his judgment was equally ob-
jective and rigorous : that he knew and respected
his limitations is in no small degree a secret of
his success. He had early discovered the prin-
ciple that limitation is a necessary element in
achlevement-~a principle allied in his mind with
the doctrine of the Incarnationr-and he studied
each defect as a possible source of power. De-
ficient in physical energy, he husbanded it and
spent it with the masdmttm of effect. He was
short in stature, quiet m maroer awd movement*
but his voice was tern, capable of wide <
Palmer
range, and his person impressive ; bushy brows
over deep-set eyes lent a suggestion of concen-
trated will, which seemed perpetually on duty.
His simplicity of living, aided by a shrewd prac-
tical sense, made it possible for him to accumu-
late largely and to give generously. He gave to
Wdlesley College a remarkable collection of first
editions of English classics ; and in 1930 he add-
ed to this gift 900 letters of Robert and Elisabeth
Browning. To Harvard he gave a library of the
philosophical classics and a collection of editions
and papers of George Herbert. Where he felt an
obligation of honor or gratitude he interpreted it
in a large way, as in his monumental edition of
Herbert's writings. Externally 1m life was de-
corous, dominated by u passion for order, but
although order versus oddity meant for him fre-
quently a lack of interest in novelties of discus-
sion, inwardly he inhabited a wide place; his
touch with the classics lent steadiness to his out-
look, his judgment was rapid, contemporary, per-
tinent, wise*
Palmer was twice married : first, June 15, 1871,
to Ellen Margaret Wellmun of Hrookline, a Swe-
denborgian, somewhat his senior, a woman of
marked social and intellectual gifts* The eight
years of their marriage, until her death in 1879,
did much to facilitate his intercourse with his
students : to her he dedicated his Odyssey. Some
eight years after her death, Dec, 23, 1887, he
married Alice Freeman, then president of Wel-
lesley [see Alice Freeman Palmer], Both mar-
riages were childless* He was widely honored
as a scholar, receiving numerous honorary doc-
torates. In addition to the writings previously
mentioned he published The New Education
(1885), Sclf-cttltivatwn in English (1897), A
Study of Sclf^Sacrifice (1902), T&e Teacher:
Essays and Addresses by George Herbert Palmer
and Alice Freeman Palmer (1908), Ethical and
Moral Instruction in Schools (1909), The Ideal
Ttfoch&r (1910), A Herbert Bibliography (pri-
vately printed, 19x1), Trades and Professions
(1914), The Lord's Prayer (1920). It was fit-
ting that the last of his published works should
be a notable achievement in self-portrayal, The
Autobiography of a Philosopher (1930), which
remains the chief original source for his life,
[In addition to The AntoUog, of a PUhxopber, pub-
lished also a» the "Introduction" to G, P. Adams and
W, P, Montague, Contemporary Am, Philosophy (1930),
vol. I, see S» E, Morison, The Development of Hwv&rd
University Since the Inauguration of PreMent Eliot
(1930)* en. %, "Philosophy, 1870-1939," by George Her-
bert ralmer and Ralph Barton Perry : Benjamin Rand,
"Philosophical Instruction in Harvard University from
10*36 to 1906," no. III, Harvard Graduates' M&gousinG,
Mar. x&zo; Joslah Royce, "In Honor of Professor
Fainter/1 fbid<t Jtme 1911 ; R, C, Cabot, " George Her-
tert Palmer," Boston Trmscripfy JFafju £
Palmer
Transcript, May 8, 1933 ; N. F. Times, May 8, 1933.]
W.E.H.
PALMER, HENRY WILBUR (July 10,
i839-Pcb, 15, 1913), congressman and lawyer,
was born in Clifford, Susquehanna Comity, Pa.,
the eldest son of Gideon W. and Elizabeth (Bur-
dick) Palmer, both ol New England ancestry.
His father was a teacher, farmer, and a member
of the constitutional convention of 1872-73. The
boy received his education in the Wyoming Semi-
nary at Kingston, Pa*, the Fort Edward Col-
legiate Institute at Fort Edward, N. Y., and the
law school at Pouglikcepsie, N. Y. He was ad-
mitted to the bar at Peekskill in 1860 but shortly
afterward left that place to enter the office of
Garrick 3VT. Harding' at Wilkes-Barre, Pa., where
he was admitted to the bar in August 1861. A
few days later, on Sept, 12, he was married to
Ellen M. Webster of Plattsburg, N. Y., who bore
him eight children, and who became noted for
her social welfare work among the boys of the
coal region. He served under his father as a
deputy paymaster in the Union army in 1862
and 1863, but he did not see actual military serv-
ice. Returning to Wilkes-Barre, he entered a
lucrative law practice and became interested in
politics. In, 1872 he stood for an uncontested
seat in the constitutional convention, where he
became prominent in the debates as a champion
of woman's suffrage, prohibition, and the right
of railroads to own and operate coal mines, al-
though he declared himself opposed to the ex-
tension of corporate power.
In 1878 in the Republican state convention, he
nominated his townsman, Henry M. Hoyt [##.],
for governor. He stumped the state for Hoyt
and was appointed attorney-general when Hoyt
was elected. Both Hoyt and Palmer became un-
popular with the party leaders before the term
was over. Palmer conducted his office with in-
dependence, bringing suits for taxes against large
corporations and against the common carriers
for granting rebates to shippers. He antagonized
the legislature by declaring unconstitutional a
law granting members an increase in salary. In
1883 he resumed the practice of law at Wilkes-
Barre and became counsel for a number of large
coal and railroad companies. He amassed a con-
siderable fortune and became a capitalist in his
own right; his ardor against the extension of
corporate power was noticeably lessened thereaf-
ter. In 1889 he was selected by the state Pro-
hibition convention to conduct the campaign for
an amendment to the state constitution prohibit-
ing intoxicating liquors. In 1898 fee endeavored
Palmer
to gain the nomination for Congress in order to
help save the country from "crazy socialists,
populists, and silverites" (Fifty Years, post, p.
357). Refusing to engage in the usual conven-
tion methods, he failed to get the nomination.
In 1900, under a new primary system, he was
nominated and elected, and he was reflected in
1902 and in 1904. In 1909 he again entered Con-
gress for a term. During his incumbency he
spoke against trusts but did not join conspicu-
ously in the Rooseveltian attacks. As a trial law-
yer he had few superiors. He had a gift for gen-
uine eloquence, which was, however, often marred
by bitter invective and harsh personalities. Many
of his political doggerels, pungent with acrid
partisanship and personalities, are still repeated
in the locality. Of commanding presence, im-
perturbable, and somewhat cold, he was at once
a thorough individualist, a Puritan reformer, and
a devoted follower of the Republican party as
the guardian of the established order. A week
before he died, he finished his autobiography,
Fifty Years at the Bar and in Politics (1913),
which is in many ways a candid and often blunt
memoir.
C Autobiography, ante; G. B. Kulp, Families of the
Wyoming Valley, vol. I (1885) ; Wilkes-Barre Record,
Feb. 1 6, 1913.3 J.P.B.
PALMER, HORATIO RICHMOND (Apr.
26, i834~Nov. 15, 1907), composer, director of
music, author, was born in Sherburne, N. Y., and
died in Yonkers. He was the son of Anson B.
Palmer and Abbey Maria Knapp. His mother
died before he was three years old and he was
thrown upon his own resources at an early age.
At seven he was singing alto in the church choir
which his father led. He was educated at Rush-
ford (N. Y.) Academy, where after his gradua-
tion he taught for two years, and then became the
director of music there. In 1855 he was married
at Rushford to Lucia A. Chapman, a native of
Dryden, N. Y., and a daughter of Rockwell M.
and Susan Chapman. His wife was an artist, in
1900 a prize winner at the Paris Exposition. She
spent three years in travel and study in Europe,
putting the results of her observations into two
books, Grecian Days (1896) and Oriental Days
(1897).
While in Rushford Palmer directed the choir
and organized a cornet band. His first singing
school in a neighboring town was so successful
that requests came to him from many places to
teach singing Classes. He then removed to Chi-
cago where he became choir master in the Sec-
ond Baptist Church and also published a month-
ly magazine, Concordia. He soon began to write
music books for his classes and for tf'
Palmer
tions which were popular before the days of
the modern singing school. He returned to New
York in 1*873 att(l *n x^r organised the Church
Choral Union. From a membership of two hun-
dred and fifty the first season it increased to
forty-two hundred the third, and continued to
grow until it had enrolled some twenty thousand
singers. At one of his concerts, given in Madi-
son Square Garden, there were nearly four thou-
sand in the choir. Like the singing schools in the
country, and the conventions in the larger towns,
the idea of the Choral Union became popular and
Palmer was called upon to organise similar
groups in Brooklyn, Buffalo, Philadelphia, and
Washington, A little later the establishment of
the Chautattqua Movement offered an oppor-
tunity to develop the idea of a few weeks of in-
tensive training in music, and in 1877 the Sum-
mer School of Music at Chautauqua was found-
ed, and Palmer served as its clean for fourteen
years* For seventeen successive years he con-
ducted a musical festival at Courtland, N, Y,,
and for eleven years he was choir master of the
Broome Street tabernacle in New York City.
Palmer's contributions to church music were
extensive. Perhaps his most popular tunes were
those written for "Just for today" and "Yield
not to Temptation/' The latter, for which he
wrote both the words and the music, appeared in
The Sony King (1872) under the title "Look-
ing to Jesus." "Just for today," copyrighted 1887,
appeared in his Rook of Gems for the Sunday
School (1887) under the name Oras. While he
was on one of his visits to Palestine he wrote
both words and music of "Galilee, blue Galilee."
His "Master, the tempest 5s raging," is also rem-
iniscent of the Holy Land. He was awarded the
degree of Doctor of Music by the University of
Chicago in 1880, and by Alfred University in
i88t. He gave frequent lectures on astronomy,
talks on his visits to the Holy Land and the
Orient, and after he had become converted to
the Baconian origin of the works of Shakespeare,
he prepared a lecture setting forth his views,
His writings include The Song Queen (1867) ;
The Elements of Musical Composition (1867) ;
Palmer's Sabbath School Songs (1868) ; Palm-
er's Theory of Music (1876) j Palmer's Music
Catechism (1881); Palmes Piano Primer
(1885) ; Palmer's Class Method of Teaching the
Rudiments of Music (1892) ; Choral Union
(1884); Life-Time Hymns (1896); Palmers
B0ok of Classical Choruses (1898); and The
tU ( 1904) .
Who w America, 1906-07 j J. & Hall, &iog.
<yf Gosfrl Song and Hywn Www (1914) \ O^Qraia H.
Jones, article in the MwMm> Nov. i$00 % H J* W-
Palmer
Gilbert, Rush/ord and Ritshford People (1910) ; AT. Y.
Daily Tribune Nov. 17, 1907-] F.J.M.
PALMER, INNIS NEWTON (Mar, 30,
i824~Sept. 9, 1900), soldier, was born at Buf-
falo, N. Y., the son of Innis Bromley and Susan
(Candee) Palmer, and a descendant of Lieut,
William Palmer who came to America on the
Fortune in 1621* He received a common-school
education and graduated from the United States
Military Academy in 1846 as a brevet second
lieutenant. His extended service in the Mexican
War included the sie^e of Vera Cruz, the bat-
tles of Gerro Gortlo, Contreras, Owrubusco,
Ohapultepee, and the assault and capture of the
city of Mexico, He was wounded at Chapulte-
pec and was made a brevet captain for gallant
conduct during that battle. Following the Mex-
ican War, he served in various western posts al-
most without a break until the Civil War. His
activities included the march to Oregon in 1849
and service in Oregon, Washington, Texas, and
Indian Territory, with both the Mounted Rifles
and the 2nd Cavalry, During this period he rose
to be a major of cavalry (Apr* 25, i8fir). In
1853 he married Catharine Jones* (laughter of
Col, Llewellyn Jones, of the United States Army,
and by this marriage there were three daugh-
ters and a son.
In the first few months of the Civil War he
served in the defenses of Washington, and as
the Confederate armies approached the city in
June he wan placed in command of the Regular
cavalry in the Manassas campaign, He was
made a brevet lieutenant-colonel for gallantry at
the battle of Bull Run, and was promoted to
brigadier-general of volunteers on Sept 23, 1861,
He remained on duty in the defenses of Wash-
ington until March i86af when he was given
command of a brigade in the IV Corps, Army of
the Potomac, and participated in the Virginia
Peninsular campaign, taking part 5n the siege of
Yorktown and the battles of WilHamsburg, Fair
Oaks, Glendale, and Malvern Hill In the fall
of 1862 he organized New Jersey and Delaware
volunteers and superintended camps of drafted
men at Philadelphia. The remainder of his war
service was in North Carolina, where he served
from December i860 until July 1865, In this
period he held various department and district
commands, and a portion of the time commanded
a division in the XVIII Corps. On Mar, 13, 1865,
he was made brevet colonel, 2nd Cavalry, and
major-general of volunteers, the latter for long
and meritorious service. The following1 January
he was mustered out of the voteiteer service and
as brevet colonel took command of the sznd Cav-
alry, which he had joined in 1855 as a captain.
184
Palmer
After the war, promotion was very slow, and
he did not become a full colonel until June 1868.
For the most part the remainder of his service
was in command of the 2nd Cavalry in the ex-
panding1 West. He performed important duties,
frequently commanding important frontier posts
as well as his regiment. On Mar. 20, 1879, he
retired as a colonel, after more than thirty years'
service. He died at Chevy Chase, Md.
[Army and Navy lour,, Sept. 15, 1900; Army and
Navy Rcg.f Sept. 15, 1900; G. W, Cullum, Biog. Reg.
Officers and Grads. U. S. Mil, Acad. (ard ed., 1891) ;
Evening Star (Washington, D. C.)» Sept. 10, 1900;
information as to certain facts from a son-in-law, Maj.-
Gen. Eben Swift.] D.Y.
PALMER, JAMES CROXALL (June 29,
i8ii-Apr. 24, 1883), naval surgeon, was born
in Baltimore, Md., one of four sons of Edward
Palmer, Baltimore merchant and commissioner
of insolvency, and Catherine (Croxall) Palmer.
He was a grandson of John and Mary (Preston)
Palmer and James and Eleanor (Gittings) Crox-
all, all of Maryland, and a descendant of Edward
Palmer, an Oxford scholar and relative of Sir
Thomas Overbury, who secured a grant of Palm-
er's Island at the mouth of the Susquehanna in
1622 and projected there a college and school of
arts, James Croxall Palmer graduated from
Dickinson College in 1829 and was able to com-
plete the medical course at the University of
Maryland in 1833, although he received his di-
ploma with the class of 1834. In March of the
latter year he was commissioned assistant sur-
geon in the navy, standing first among the can-
didates then appointed.
His initial service was in the Brandywine of
the Pacific Squadron and then in the Vinccwnes
on a cruise around the world. After duty at the
Baltimore naval rendezvous, he was in the
Wilkes exploring expedition, 1838-42, first in
the storeship Relief and later in the Peacock, be-
ing in the wreck of the latter at the mouth of the
Columbia River, and subsequently in charge of
the shore party at Astoria. The product of this
cruise was a small volume of poems, Thidia: a
Tale of the Antarctic (1843), republished in
1868 as Antarctic Mariner's Song, descriptive
of the author's experiences in the south polar
seas. In 1842 he was promoted to surgeon, and
was in charge of the hospital at the Washington
Navy Yard when the wounded from the Prince-
ton explosion were brought there. He was in
the St. Mary's in the Gulf during the Mexican
War; in the Vandalitt of the Pacific Squadron,
1850-53 ; and after service in the receiving ship
Baltimore, in the steam frigate Niagara f 1857,
when she was employed in laying the first Atlan-
tic cable. After two years on the Mediterranean
Palmer
in the Macedonian, he was in charge of the med-
ical service of the Naval Academy, then located
at Newport, R. L, during the first two years of
the Civil War; and from 1863 to 1865 he was
fleet surgeon of the West Gulf Blockading
Squadron under Farragut In the battle of Mo-
bile Bay, after the passing of the forts, Palmer,
who was using the admiral's launch Loyall to
visit the wounded in the fleet, was requested to
carry orders to the scattered monitors to attack
the Tennessee, and executed this hazardous duty,
in Farragufs words, ''with cheerfulness and
alacrity" (Loyall Farragut, The Life of David
Glasgow Farragut, 1879, p. 425) . After the bat-
tle he went aboard the surrendered Tennessee,
where he was chiefly instrumental in saving Ad-
miral Franklin Buchanan [q.v.~\ from the ampu-
tation of a shattered leg. Through Palmer's ef-
forts at this time an agreement was reached by
which naval surgeons were not to be treated as
prisoners of war.
He was in charge of the naval hospital at
Brooklyn, 1866-69; was promoted to medical
director Mar. 3, 1871 ; and was surgeon general
of the navy from June 1872 until his retirement
in June 1873. His death, from a complication of
malaria and other diseases contracted during the
Civil War, occurred ten years later at Washing-
ton, D. C. He was survived by his wife, Juliet
Gittings, daughter of James Gittings of Long
Green, Baltimore County, Md., whom he mar-
ried May 22, 1837, and by two children. His
contemporaries regarded him as an attractive
and scholarly man, of notable gifts as a writer,
skilled in his profession, and faithful to every ob-
ligation during nearly fifty years in the naval
service. John Williamson Palmer [q.vJ], the au-
thor, was his brother.
[Charles Wilkes, Narrative of the U. S. Exploring
Expedition, during the Years 1838 . . . 1842 (s vols.,
1845) ; L. R. Hamersly, The Records of Living Officers
of the U. S. Navy and Marine Corps (3rd ed., 1878) ;
War of the Rebellion : Official Records (Navy} ; W. B.
Atkinson, The Physicians and Surgeons of the U. S,
(1878); Sun (Baltimore), Apr. 25, 1883; Army and
Navy Jour., Apr. 28, 1883; information from family
sources]. A.W.
PALMER, JAMES SHEDDEN (Oct. 13,
i8io~Dec. 7, 1867), naval officer, was born in
New Jersey, and was the naval officer of highest
rank from that state in the Civil War. After be-
coming a midshipman on Jan. I, 1825, he served
as a lieutenant on the Colmnbia in 1838 during
her cruise around the world, and took part in the
attack on Quallah Battoo, Sumatra,, in retalia-
tion for outrages on American traders. In the
Mexican War he commanded the schooner IVLwt
and was engaged in blockade duty. At the out*
break of the Civil War he was in tlie Me<Eto?-
185
Palmer
rancan in command of the steamship Iroqiwis
but wasS soon ordered to the blockade of Savan-
nah. In September his ship was sent to the West
Indies to capture the Swntcr, which under
Senmies had escaped from New Orleans and
was seizing Union merchantmen.
Palmer found the Stwnter in the harbor of St.
Pierre, Martinique, and blockaded her, but was
unable to prevent her escape one moonless night,
for the harbor entrance was some fifteen miles
wide and had two opening's. As a result of the
disappointment of the North, Palmer was de-
prived of his command, though later a court of
inquiry exonerated him. By the time he was re-
stored to the command of the Iroqnois, in May
1862, Far rag-tit had already captured New Or-
leans. He sent Palmer, however, to take pos-
session of Baton Rouge and Natchez. Palmer
also led the Union fleet in the first passage by
Vicksburg", and secured the respect of Farra^tit
by remaining- under the fire of the batteries to
relieve what he thought was a dangerous con-
centration of fire on the Hartford. Farragut,
not understanding the move, shouted through
his trumpet, "Captain Palmer, what do you mean
by disobeying my orders ?" An explanation was
given and Farragut never forgot the gallant act.
Later he made Palmer commander of the Hart~
ford and the latter piloted it past Port Hudson
when the Mississippi grounded and had to be
burned. According to Loyall Farragut (post),
Palmer was brave and cool under fire, and was
accustomed to go into battle dressed with scru-
pulous neatness and buttoning on his kid gloves
as if he were entering a ballroom. Palmer suc-
ceeded Farragut in command of the Union forces
on the Mississippi and so missed taking part in
the battle of Mobile Bay* Even in command of
the West Gulf Squadron, where he also followed
Farragut in the fall of 1864, he had IMS usual
bad luck, for before the attack on Mobile City
could take place he was superseded by Henry K.
Thatcher [gw.]. The latter, however, gave of-
ficial credit to Palmer for the efficiency of the
naval forces, and Palmer himself was in com-
mand of the ironclads.
In December 1865, Palmer was assigned the
command of the West India Squadron in the
Susquehww, and was present at St Thomas,
Virgin Islands, when it was devastated by an
earthgtiaJce a&d tidal wave* Probably as a re-
suit of his exertions for the stricken inhabitants,
he contracted yellow fever and died within a few
4&F * His remaiits ware brought to New York,
wi!ch he had <p0nsl4eredi hie home, aad foneral
$erv{ces were held at the V&avy y^rd, on &Q&*&I,
His promotion to refer i
Palmer
on July 25, 1866, He died unmarried ; his broth-
er, William R. Palmer, who had risen from a
lieutenancy in the topographical engineers to a
brevet colonelcy, died in 1862. According to
Loyall Farragut, Palmer, in spite of a reserve
of manner and a dignified bearing which amount-
ed almost tt> pomposity, possessed a warm and
generous nature.
[The only authority for the month and clay of birth
as a notation in a Navy Register of 1863 in the office
of the Bureau of Navigation. Source* include ; Army
and Navy Jour.. Dee, Ji, 28, 11867; J. S. Henshaw,
Around tk$ World; A Narmtiw of a y&yagc in- th&
East India Squadron (1840) ; Official AWor<& of th$
Union and Con fed? fat? Nmncs, i m*r. I (1804) ; Raph-
ael Semmes, Memoirs of Service Afloat During the
War Between the States (1869) ; Loyull Kurrugut, The
Lifti of David CStasy&tv Farragut (1879), PP. 291, 324,
364 : New*linff> fltst, and tewaf. Keffn Oct. 1868; J.
086?) ; M V. Times, Dec. ^j, 1867.] WJE^N^
PALMER, JOEL (Oct. 4, ifiio-June 9, 1881),
pioneer and author, was born in Ontario, Can-
ada, the son of Quaker parents, Rphraim and
Hannah (Phelps) Palmer, who had moved
across the line from the state of New York. He
was a descendant of Walter Palmer who in 1630
emigrated from Nottingham, England, to Plym-
outh colony and died in Stonington, Conn., then
in the province of Massachusetts Bay, Through
his mother he was a descendant of William
Phelps, one of the founders of Windsor, Conn,
Taken back to New York state with his family
at the outbreak of the War of 1812, he lived in
Lewis and Jefferson counties until he WES about
sixteen. Then he want to Bucks County, Pa,,
where he worked on canals and other public
works and where he was married, first in 1830 to
Catherine Caffee and second, after her death, to
Sarah Ann Derbyshire on Jan, 21, 1836, That
year he removed to Indiana, where he was a con-
tractor for the Whitewater canal, settled at Lau-
rel in Franklin County, and bought land He
was a representative in the state legislature for
two terms, from 1843 to 1845, and in the spring"
of 1845 started across the plains to Oregon, On
the way he kept a day-to-day journal that was
published in 1847 as Journal of Tr®v®U owr the
Rocky Mountains* With only such literary charm
as inheres in the sincerity and drama of his rec-
ord, the Journal was for a decade an important
guidebook to overland immigrants for informa-
tion concerning equipment for the journey and
such details of the route as the location of suit-
able camping1 places, springs, and grassy oases.
It remains the most complete record of pioneer-
ing along the old Oregon trail The next year
he returned to Indiana aad in the spring of 1847,
with his family, started cm hit second Journey
to the Pacific Northwest ,
1*6
Palmer
Shortly after his second arrival in Oregon, he
served as commissary-general of the volunteer
forces in the Cayuse War and was a member of a
commission to persuade neighboring tribes not
to join the Cay use. In the autumn of 1848 he
went to California. On his return to Oregon he
laid out the town of Dayton on his land claim in
what is now Yamhill County, built a gristmill,
and settled down to improve his holdings. In
1853 he became superintendent of Indian affairs
for the Oregon Territory and bent his enormous
energy and personal magnetism to the difficult
task of obtaining all their lands from the Indians
without creating enough dissatisfaction among
them to cause a war. lie was a negotiator of nine
of the fifteen treaties of cession made between
Nov. 29, 1854, and Dec. 21, 1855, and he carried
on his duties during the Yakima War led by Ka~
maiakin and Leschi [qq.v.]* In 1857 he was re-
moved from office, not so much because his nego-
tiations had not; prevented an Indian uprising as
because the settlers resented his restraint and
his consideration for the Indians in carrying out
his reservation policy. He was active in proj-
ects for the development of the community,
opened one of the routes to Br it ish^ Columbia
gold mines, was a director and, for a time, presi-
dent of the Oregon City Manufacturing Com-
pany, and was one of the promoters of the Clack-
amas Railroad Company and of the Oregon Cen-
tral Railroad Company. He was speaker of the
state House of Representatives in 1862 and a
member of the state Senate from 1864 to 1866.
In 1870 he was defeated as the Republican can-
didate for governor, lie died at his home in
Dayton, survived by his wife and seven children.
[Information from Palmer'* niece, Mrs. Felix Eman-
Uel Schellin*, Philadelphia; transcript ; of P^J
manuscript narrative in the Bancroft Lib., ^niv. of
Cal., and other materials from hi$ g r,eat"^a^"d^;
ter, Mrs. John G. Flynn, Caldwell, Idaho j H. W. Scott,
Hut, of the Oregon Country (6 vola,, X9«4), comp. by
L. M. Scott ; H. H, Bancroft, Hut, of the Pacific States,
vols. XXIV XXV (t8«*-88) ! R. G. Thwato, Bar**
Western Travels, vol. XXX (1906) ; Ore. Hut. Soc,
Quart., Sept 1907, Mar, 192^ Sept *930i Sept. 193* ;
Hist, of the Willamette Valley (1885), ed. by H. O.
Lang; Morning Or&gomm (Portland), June 10, i88x,J
K.E.C,
PALMER, JOHN McAULEY (Sept. 13,
i8x7-<Sept 25, 1900), governor of Illinois, sen-
ator, was bom in Scott County, Ky,, the son of
Louis D. and Ann Hansford (Tutt) Palmer, and
the great-grandson of Thomas Palmer who
emigrated to Virginia from England early in
the eighteenth century. His father was a farmer
and a Jacksonian Democrat with decided anti-
slavery tendencies that led him to leave Ken-
tucky for Illinois in 1831. He settled near Al-
Palmer
ton, and in 1834 the boy entered Shurtleff Col-
lege at Upper Alton, 111., where he stayed for
two years, financing himself by doing odd jobs
around the college and town. Then he peddled
clocks and taught in a country school before
moving to Carlinville in 1839, where he began
reading law in the office of John S. Greathouse.
In December of that year he was admitted to
the bar. His political career started in 1840,
when he gave ardent support to Van Bur en. On
Dec. 20, 1842, he was married to Malinda Ann,
the daughter of James Neely of Carlinville, who
died in 1885. They had ten children. In 1847 he
was elected as a delegate to the Illinois constitu-
tional convention and was later elected county
judge under the new constitution. He was elect-
ed to the state Senate in 1851 and in 1854 op-
posed Douglas' Kansas-Nebraska Bill. When
a resolution was offered to indorse the bill, he
offered a substitute resolution condemning the
bill and favoring the Missouri Compromise and
the compromise measures of 1850. Although his
resolution was rejected, he ran for state senator
as an independent Democrat on a platform of
opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Bill and was
elected.
He played an important part in the formation
of the Republican party in Illinois, serving as
president of the Bloomington convention in May
1856 and as delegate to the Republican National
Convention at Philadelphia in June. In 1859 he
was defeated as a Republican candidate for rep-
resentative to Congress ; in 1860 he was a dele-
gate to the Republican National Convention that
nominated Lincoln; and in 1861 he was a dele-
gate to the peace convention at Washington. He
began his military career in May 1861 as colonel
of the I4th Illinois Infantry. He served in Mis-
souri and at the engagements of New Madrid,
Point Pleasant, and Island No. 10, and he re-
ceived the rank of brigadier-general in Decem-
ber 1861. In 1862 he was made commander of
the ist Division in the Army of the Mississippi,
fought gallantly at Stone River and Chicka-
mauga, and was rewarded by the rank of major-
general. In August 1864 he asked to be relieved
of his command, owing to an altercation with
General Sherman concerning his refusal to take
orders from General Schofield, who, he claimed,
was his junior in rank. The request was grant-
ed. Later he was given command of the Depart-
ment of Kentucky but was relieved by request
in 1866. The summer of 1867 found him in
Springfield practising law with Milton Hay.
He reentered public life, however, in 1868, when
he was elected governor of Illinois on Hie Re-
publican ticket In his inaugural address ,$$,
Palmer
alienated many Republicans and pleased most
Democrats by taking1 a definite stand for state
rights, deprecating* the extension of power by
the federal government. His administration
was a difficult one. Monopolists, lobbyists, and
various "rings'* all sought special legislation.
He did all lie could to check hasty and unscru-
pulous legislation by the use of his veto power,
but his efforts were largely unavailing, In all,
some 1700 bills were passed. When the people of
Chicago were left destitute by the disastrous
fire of 1871, he quickly sent money and supplies.
However, when Mayor Mason asked for federal
troops to maintain order in the city, ami Grant
provided them, Palmer displayed his state-rights
position by protesting that state troops could
handle the situation and that the use of federal
troops was unconstitutional lie was later sus-
tained by the legislature.
In 1872, disgusted with the corruption of the
Grant regime, he joined the Liberal Republicans
in support of Gredey and soon thereafter re-
joined the Democratic party. In 1884 he was a
delegate to the National Democratic Convention
that nominated Cleveland for president, and in
1888 he was defeated as Democratic candidate
for governor, On Apr. 4 of that year he was
married to Hannah (Lamb) Kimball, the daugh-
ter of James Lamb and the widow of L, R, Kim-
ball Three years later he entered the United
States Senate as a Democrat As senator he
served on the committees of military affairs,
pensions, and railroads. He advocated a consti-
tutional amendment to provide for the popular
election of senators and urged the repeal of the
Sherman Act of 1890, In i8g6 he was the pres-
idential candidate of the National or Gold Dem-
ocrats on a platform denouncing protection and
the free coinage of silver. He polled only 130,-
ooo votes. He returned to his profession in 1897
but spent most of his time in editing The Bench
and Bar of Illinois (2 vols,, 1899) and in writing
his memoirs, Personal Recollections of John M.
Palmer: The Story of an Earnest Life (1901)*
He died in Springfield, III
I Autobiography, ant* ; Th@ Bioff, Bncyc. of III,
(t875) { Joseph Wallace, Past and Present of tht City
of SprinafiM (1904), vol. I; John Moses, Illinois,
Hwf. md Statistical, vol. II (1803) ; A, C. Cole, Tht
Bra of tht CM War (1919) ; E. L, Bogirt, Tht In-
dustrial State (x0«o) ? III. State Register (Springfield),
Sept. #6, l^OO,] Tp t>
PALMER, JOHN WILLIAMSON (Apr. 4,
iSs^Feb, 26, 1906), author, son of Edward and
Catherine (Croxall) Pataer, and a brother of
James Croxall Palmer £f*t/.]> was born and edu-
cated In Baltimore, Md. He completed a medical
course at the Uimref aity of Ma^liwi in
Palmer
and sailed for California in the gold rush, reach-
ing San Francisco, in the summer of 1849. Here
ho became the first city physician and in this po-
sition he wrote later, "between the day when I
first entered San Francisco without a clime, and
the day 1 left it, also without a dime, I was in-
troduced to more of the pathos and tragedy
than any other person on the spot" (The New
and the Old, pp. 31, 32), In 1850 he drifted on
to Hawaii and thence to the Far Hast, where he
served as surgeon in the small East India steam-
er Phtst/etJwn through the Second Burmese War,
1851-5*.
^ Returning to America, after further travel in
China and India, he definitely gave up medicine,
and settletl in New York as a writer, contrib-
uting to Harper's AVw Monthly Magazine, Put*
ntun's A/wi////hv A/«//(Wi'w<», and the Atlantic
Mtmthly, and publishing his travel sketches in
two entertaining volumes, 77u* Golden Dagon;
or Up and Aww //a* IrniwaMi (1856), wnAThe
New and the Old: or, California and India in
Romantic Aspects ( 1850), In 1856 he published
a collodion entitled Folk Sonys* His comedy,
The Queen 'j? Heart ( 1858), was acted with some
success by James I?, Owens, and in 1850-60 he
published translations of Jules Michelet's come-
dies L'Ammir and La Pemme and Ernest Le-
grove's Hisliriw Morale de$ Fetnmcs, On the
staff of the Arw Kor* Times at the opening of
the Civil War, he proposed, as a Southern sym-
pathizer, a series of letters picturing- conditions
in the South, His first article, from Richmond,
the Times was unwilling to publish, but he later
became a correspondent from the Southern side
for the New York Tribune, In the latter part of
the war he entered the Confederate service and
was on the staff of Gen, J» C, Breckinrid^e
[tf.r.l. His poem "Stonewall Jackson's Way/1 a
spirited war ballad written within sound of the
firing at Antietam, attained considerable popu-
larity.
About 1870 he resumed literary work in New
York, serving- for many years on the editorial
staffs of the Century and Standard dictionaries
and as a reviewer for the Literary Digest. He
wrote a book on Epidemic Cholera ( 1866), edit-
ed The Poetry of Compliment and Courtship
( 1868), and prepared two books on art, Beauties
and Curiosities of Engraving (2 vols,, 1878-79)
and A Portfolio of Autograph Etchings (1882),
His only novel, After His Kind, appeared tmder
the pseudonym John Coventry in 1886, In later
years he showed a special interest in the social
life of colonial Maryland and the old Soatb, and
published articles on this theme in &e Cmtwy
Mogatiiut, 1893-97, tod t tufosegwtttly Jn the New
Palmer
York Home Journal. A slender verse collection,
For Charlie's Sake, and Other Lyrics and Bal-
lads, appeared in 1901, notable chiefly for the
martial poems "Stonewall Jackson's Way,"
"Ned Braddock," which he considered his best,
and "The Maryland Battalion." From 1904 un-
til his death from the infirmities of age he lived
in Baltimore, loved by a wide circle of friends
for his genial charm of manner and remarkable
gifts of memory, and as a last though minor
figure among the writers who voiced the South-
ern spirit in the Civil War. He was survived by
his wife, Henrietta Lee, whom he married in
1855, and by a son, their only child.
[Who's Who in America, 1 006-07; Sun (Balti-
more), Feb. 27, 1906 ; H. A. Kelly and W. L. Burrage,
Am. Medic. Biogs. (1920) ; Old Maryland, Mar. 1906.]
A.W.
PALMER, JOSEPH (Mar. 31, I7i6-Dec. 25,
1788), manufacturer, soldier, was born at
Higher Abbotsrow, Shaugh Prior, Devon, the
son of John and Joan (Pearse) Palmer. His
mother came from Fardle Mill in the Parish of
Cornwood, Devon. He was educated in his na-
tive county and spent a few years near Liver-
pool, where it is believed he learned the tech-
nique of salt manufacture. In 1746 he emigrated
to America in company with his brother-in-law,
Richard Cranch, later a judge on the Massachu-
setts bench. They first engaged in business in
Boston as card-makers for wool-carding. In 1752
they erected a glass manufactory in Germantown
(now a part of Quincy, Mass.) where there were
settled some Germans skilled in the craft. Frag-
ments of glass bottles made at their works have
been found, and they are thick, rough, and of a
greenish hue. The two also erected chocolate
mills and spermaceti and salt factories at Ger-
mantown. Palmer was successful in some of his
business pursuits and bought large tracts of land
at Pornfret, Conn. In 1770 he made a trip to
England for his health and the next year he re-
turned to Quincy.
On Sept. 6, 1774, a delegation from nineteen
towns and districts on the south shore of Mas-
sachusetts Bay met at Milton to discuss the im-
pending crisis between the colony and the moth-
er country. Of this delegation "Deacon Joseph
Palmer of Germantown" was chosen moderator.
He was present at the battle of Lexington, and
though not wounded, was so exhausted that it
took him some days to recover. He served^ in
the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts during
1774-75 and was made a member of the Com-
mittee of Safety at Cambridge. On Feb. 7, 1776,
he was commissioned colonel in the 5th Suffolk
County Regiment in the Massachusetts militia
Palmer
for the defense of Boston. Three months later
he was chosen brigadier for Suffolk County. On
Aug. 21, 1777, he and John Taylor were granted
the sum of one hundred pounds sterling, "to re-
pair to Bennington in the Grants [Vermont] to
obtain the most authentic Intelligence of the Cer-
cumstan[ces] of the American Forces" (Mas-
sachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolu-
tionary War, XI, 1903, p. 803). On Sept 19,
1777, he was appointed brigadier-general to re-
place Gen. Timothy Damelson, to command the
forces on a "secret expedition" to Rhode Island
to attack the enemy at Newport., He proceeded
to Tiverton on the 22nd, arriving there in about
ten days. He took over the command of two
regiments from Plymouth and Bristol counties,
but the expedition proved to be a failure and
Palmer and Brig.-Gen. Solomon Lovell were no-
tified to attend a court of inquiry at Providence
on Nov. 12, 1777, to give information regarding
the failure (Ibid., p. 803).
In 1783 Palmer returned to his factories at
Germantown, but his health was shattered and
he was in financial straits brought about by the
depreciation of Continental money. He was
greatly indebted to John Hancock for reasons
not made clear; and after a disastrous quarrel
with Hancock, he was forced to quit German-
town in 1784. He started a salt factory at Bos-
ton Neck and moved his family to Dorchester.
Although his new factories were fairly success-
ful, they failed to bring the old General health
and peace. He died on Christmas day in 1788
at his own home. A year or two before his ar-
rival in America, he had married Mary Cranch
of Brood in the parish of Ermington, Devon.
By her he had three children. One of his grand-
children was Elizabeth Palmer Peabody \_q.v. "\.
[The best sketch of Palmer appears in the New Eng-
lander for Jan. 1845. See also : Grandmother Tyler's
Book : The Recollections of Mary Palmer Tyler (1925),
ed. by Frederick Tupper and H. T. Brown ; W. S. Pat-
tee. A Hist, of Old Braintree and Quincy (1878) ; Al-
den Bradford, Hist, of Mass., vol. II (1825) ; The
Jours, of Each Provincial Cong, of Mass, in 1774 QM&
1775 and of the Committee of Safety (1838) ; E. A.
Barber, Am. Glassware (1900) ; Mass. Centinel (Bos-
ton), Dec 27, 1788.] E.L.W.H.
PALMER, NATHANIEL BROWN (Aug.
8, 1799-June 21, 1877), sea captain, explorer,
not only received early prominence for discov-
eries in the Antarctic, where a region still bears
his name, but was also in the forefront of the
packet and clipper captains. He was born in
Stonington, Conn., the son of Nathaniel and
Mercy (Brown) Palmer, and was descended
from Walter Palmer who had settled in Stoning-
ton in 1653. The father was a lawyer and a
shipbuilder. Young Palmer went to sea at four-
Palmer
teen for four years on a coaster plying- between
Maine and New York. Like many other Ston-
ington mariners, he became involved in the
south-sea explorations stimulated by Edmund
Fanning [<p'.]. The search for fresh vSeal rook-
eries, rather than pure geographical curiosity,
stimulated the unusually fruitful activity of this
little Sound port. Palmer went as second mate
in 1819 on the brig Hcrsitia, Capt. James P.
Sheffield, which brought back 10,000 sealskins
from the newly discovered South Shetland Isl-
ands, south of Cape Horn, The next year, six
Stonington vessels tinder Capt, Benjamin Pen-
dleton returned to the South Shetlands. Pendle-
ton, sighting mountains to the southward, sent
Palmer in the little sloop Hera of about forty
tons to explore. Palmer discovered an archi-
pelago of barren, sterile, snowclad mountainous
islands some 700 miles southwest of Cape Horn,
just above the Antarctic Circle. There were sea
leopards and birds but no seals. Fogbound on
his return, he encountered the Russian explor-
ing squadron of Bellingshausen who suggested
that the region be called Palmer Land, the name
it still bears. A year later, in the James Monroe,
Palmer explored the new region more thor-
oughly* He and Pendleton returned to the
scene in 1829 in the Seraph and Anmimn with
several scientists but their search for new isl-
ands to the westward of Palmer Land was un-
successful.
In the meantime, Palmer had made several
voyages to the Spanish Main in the Cadet and
Tampico, helping, incidentally, to transport
troops and supplies for Bolivar; then he made
some trips to Europe in the Francis. In 1833 he
became a packet captain, one of the mast desir-
able maritime posts of that day. His first com-
mand was the New York-New Orleans packet
Hwtfsv$ltt belonging to Edward Knight Col-
lins [#.#,] who soon promoted him to the G&r-
rick and then to the Siddom of his "Dramatic
Line" to Liverpool, Soon clipper commands In
the China trade became more desirable than
packets, and Palmer again secured some of the
best assignments. He became associated with
A. A. Low & Brothers, important New York
Ckiua merchants who had the celebrated early
clippers Hoi&qw, Swwel Rw$$ett> and Orimtd
built by Jacofe Bell [#,%]« Palmer not only com-
manded these Tessds in tuna, making several
very last runs between China and New York,
but is ako said to fe&ve given raltiaMe advice
concerning their d&sJgn iod eonsteieticm, Many-
prominent skipper®^ , iscWiog his* yowger
brothers Alexander and Ttwodotei, had tfefeir fi«
training- under him. Hfe bad * etir ^ $®m *rtfr%
Palmer
sea service by 1850, after taking the steamship
United States to Bremen.
He apparently divided the rest of his years
between New York and Stonington. When
Donald McKay's masterpiece, the (treat Repub-
lic, was burned in 185^ Palmer superintended
her rebuilding. He was a director of the Fall
River Line and took a special interest in the con-
struction of its steamers. lie corrected the offi-
cial survey of Ktonington harbor. He was a
thorough sportsman, "beintf a skilful yachts-
man, excellent shot, and truthful fisherman/1 He
was one of the earliest members of the New
York Yacht Club in 1845, owned some seven-
teen yachts, and was an energetic duck-hunter
until his death, "Captain Nat/* as he was uni-
versally known, was more than six feet tall and
was a man of great physical strength and en-
durance, "Though rugged in appearance,0
writes Captain Chirk, 'Ins roughness was all on
the outside1* (/w?P p, 86), On Dec, 7, 1826, he
married Klissa Thompson Babcock, They had
no children, He died in San Francisco on his
return from a vain attempt to restore his neph-
ew's health by a sailing voyage to China,
[Tlie bent nccmmt In in A. H. Clark, TV Clipper Ship
Rfd (1910), S«f Jtl»u i Edituuut Knnttinjfi yoyagts
Round the Wvrld (i8j,0; K. S. IlwUth, Antarctic*
(190^) j J, N, Reynold*, Atltlrtw, on th? Subject of a
Surveying and Kjcptttrinf? Ji,vp#tlititn\ t& thi* Pacific
Ocean and South SMS (1836) ; <ica. i*a\v<?ll, Notes on
Smth Shetland (iflw) ; J, R, Spears, Cafit* Nathaniel
j R, A.
Brown Palmfr (»Q«J)J R, A. Wheckr ///!>*, &f th®
Town &f St&ning^n, Cvmty «/ Wtw London t Conn,
(1900) ; HOUS& Doc, 6rt a«s Cong,, i S«?tm. j Swatf Doc,
TO, #3 Cow, t SCM, ; Hmw hoc, to* » 33 Conn., a
Seas,: Daily Morning Call (San Francisco), Jane AJ,
l877<3 R.G.A,
PALMER, POTTER (May 20, i8s6~May 4,
1902), Chicago merchant, real-estate promoter,
was born in Albany County, N, Y,, the fourth
son of Benjamin and Rebecca (Potter) Palmer,
both Quakers. His formal education was con-
fined to the elementary school. At eighteen years
of age he became a clerk in a general store at
Durham, N, Y* After three years he opened a
dry-foods store for himself 5n the neighboring
community of Oneida, from which, a little later,
he removed his bustaess to Lockport When he
looked about for greater merchandising oppor-
tunities, Chicago attracted his attention* As-
sisted by his father, he opened, in 185$, a dry-
goods store on Lake Street, which was then
the commercial center of the dty» His methods
of carrying on his business were so mit of the or-
dinary as to surprise his competitors He per-
mitted customers to inspect merchandise fn their
owttliotneft before buying* and to e^htotgd |^r-*
chases aliwcfy made for #ter m&thAft&M? or
for the price paJ4 TMs
Palmer
finally prevailed among the larger stores in Chi-
cago and came to be known as the "Palmer sys-
tem." He led the way also in other business in-
novations, especially in laying increased stress
on advertising and on attractiveness in display-
ing goods for sale. In the fifteen years following
his arrival in Chicago he amassed a large for-
tune, as fortunes were measured at the time in
the Central West, This he did, however, at the
expense of his health. On the advice of his physi-
cians he retired, in 1867, from active partici-
pation in business, turning over the manage-
ment and control of his store to his partners,
Marshall Field and Levi Z. Leiter [qq.v.].
After three years of rest and travel abroad he
returned to Chicago as an active business man,
now directing his interest to real-estate develop-
ment His most notable achievement in this re-
spect was the transformation of what is now
State Street from little more than a country road
into a wide and attractive business thoroughfare.
There he built the first Palmer House and some
thirty-two other buildings. These improvements
caused the removal of the retail business of the
city to State Street from Lake Street, where it
had been established for years. When the great
fire of 1871 swept away a large portion of his
fortune, he bravely began to recoup his losses.
He built even larger and more permanent build-
ings than before. On a new site on State Street,
at the corner of Monroe, he erected the second
Palmer House, a hostelry that was to become
internationally famous* During these years of
struggle, he enjoyed the active sympathy and
support of his brilliant wife, Bertha (Honor6)
Palmer [#.r/.], the eldest daughter of a promi-
nent capitalist and real estate owner of Chicago,
to whom he was married in 1871 just before the
great fire. They had two sons. He spent large
sums of money in transforming waste lands along
the lake shore, north of the Chicago River, into
beautiful building" sites and drives. There he
built a magnificent home, still a monument to
the dominant taste of the day.
He was not too much engaged in his own af-
fairs to give attention to the needs of his com-
munity; he was a vice-president of the first
board of local directors of the World's Colum-
bian Exposition, the first president of the Chi-
cago Baseball Club, a commissioner during the
early years of the South Side park system, one
of the original incoiporators of the Chicago As-
sociation of Commerce and of the Chicago Board
of Trade, and an early supporter of the Chicago
Youug Men's Christian Association. During the
Civil War he supported the government by buy-
ing heavily of bonds and by cooperating with
Palmer
his fellow townsmen in meeting the require-
ments for soldiers. He believed in young men,
and many were the times that he helped them
most generously in business and social ventures.
He died in his home in Chicago.
[Newton Bateraan, Paul Selby, and J. S. Currey,
Hist. Encyc. of III. (2 vols., 1925) ; D. W. Wood, Chi-
cago and its Distinguished Citizens (1881) ; J. S. Cur-
rey, Chicago (1912), vols, I, III; Chicago Daily Trib-
une, May 5, 7, 1902.] C.M.T.
PALMER, MRS. POTTER [See PALMER,
BERTHA HONOR&, 1849-1918],
PALMER, RAY (Nov. 12, i8o8-Mar. 29,
1887), Congregational clergyman, hymn-writer,
was born in Little Compton, R. L, and died in
Newark, N. J. The son of Judge Thomas Palm-
er and Susanna (Palmer) Palmer, he traced
his descent back to William Palmer who came
to Plymouth Colony in 1621. When only thir-
teen years old, he became a clerk in a drygoods
store in Boston, and attended Park Street Con-
gregational Church, where he was under the
influence of Rev. Sereno E. Dwight [q.v.].
Having decided to enter the ministry, he spent
three years preparing for college at Phillips
Academy, Andover, and then entered Yale,
where he was graduated in the class of 1830. He
taught for several hours a day in a select school
for girls in New York City (1830-31), and then
at a seminary for girls in New Haven. On Oct.
3, 1832, he married Ann Maria, daughter of
Marmaduke and Maria (Ogden) Waud of New-
ark, N. J. Having studied theology privately, he
was ordained and installed as pastor of the Con-
gregational Church in Bath, Me., July 22, 1835,
where he remained for fifteen years. In 1847 ^e
made a trip to Europe, sending back letters of
travel which were published in the Christian
Mirror, Portland. From 1850 to 1866 he was
the first pastor of the First Congregational
Church in Albany, N. Y., and for the twelve
years following, 1866-78, he was the correspond-
ing secretary of the American Congregational
Union, later the Congregational Church Build-
ing Society. One of the principal objects of this
organization was to give assistance in the build-
ing of meeting houses and parsonages, and dur-
ing Palmer's incumbency more than six hundred
of the former were erected. After 1870 he re-
sided m Newark, and from 1881 to 1884 he was
one of the associate pastors of the Bellevue Ave-
nue Church.
He was a man of transparent sincerity, sim-
plicity of faith, and the cheerfulness and confi-
dence which are rooted in untroubled 'religious
convictions. Methodical and of tireless itidtfs-
try, he found time in the midst of parish' and sec-
191
Palmer
retarial duties to do much writing. Among his
published prose works arc Spiritual Imfiwc*
went, or Aids to Growth in Grace (1839), re-
printed as Closet Hours (i#Si); Doctrinal
Text-book (1839); Hints on the Pormatwu of
Religious Opinions (1860); Remember Me
(1865) ; Earnest Words on Trite Success in
Life (1873), He also contributed nnicb to re-
ligious periodicals. A long pown, Home: or the
Unlost Paradise, appeared in 1872. Tt is as a
hymn-writer, however, that he is best known.
His compositions in this field were numerous
and arc rated by hynmologists as superior to
most hymns of American origin (John Julian,
A Dictionary of Hyinnology, 1891). "My Faith
Looks tip to Thee," which has been translated
into many languages, was written soon after he
graduated from college and included in Spir«
ihtalSottffs for Social JfV,?/i//>1>y Thomas Has-
tings and Lowell Mason in 1832. Some of the
other popular hymns which he wrote are "Away
from Earth my Spirit Turns/' "And Is There,
Lord, a Rest?", "0 Sweetly Breathe the Lyres
Above," and "Take Me, 0 My Father ; Take Me."
He published Hymns and Sacred Pieces (1865)1
Hymns of My Holy Hours (1867), The Poetical
Works of Ray Palmer (1876), and Voices of
Hope and Gladness (1881). His death occurred
at Newark from cerebral hemorrhage when he
was in his seventy-ninth year*
r0&fc. Record Gratis. Yalr Unw.t , „ . /##0~oo
(1800) j Tha Congregational Year-Book (1888) ; S. W.
Dum^Itl. P.Kfi //nit»iHf' TJWuV jitttl**** HUM** rr,*-*
Palmer
. Hymns: Their Authors and .
(1886); The Independent, Apr, 7, 14, 1887; Musical
Herald, Apr. iB8j; Choir Herald, Dec, igtgi E. F-
Hatfieid, Poets of the Church (1884) ; I, F, Benson,
Studies of Familiar Hymns (1903); Charles S, Rol>-
i??°2» Annotations upon Popular Hymns (copr. i8ot) ;
W, F. Tillett and C S. Nutter, The Hymns ami Hymn
Wnttrfof the Church (copr, 1911) ; E, S, Ninde, The
Story of tht Am, Hymn (1931) ; C M, Fum, Men of
Andover (2928),] F J M
PALMER, THOMAS WITHERELL (Jan*
*5i iSao-June x, 1913), senator, minister to
Spain, was bom in Detroit, Mich. His father,
Thomas Palmer, removed from Connecticut to
Detroit, opened a store, acquired a sawmill, and
afterward became interested in the mining in-
dustry in the upper peninsula. His mother was
Mary Amy (Witherell) Palmer, the daughter
of James Witherell, a judge of the supreme
court and later secretary of Michigan Territory.
In memory of this grandfather Palmer changed
his middle name from James to Witherell in
1850. He received his early education In De-
troit At the age of twelve he was sent to Palm*
er (now Saiut Glair), where he entered the pri-
vate school of <X C Thompson, a Presbyte-
rian minister, and studied for ttaree-ywt* In
tgo7 he published a description of these school
days, Mr. Tlunn-pwn's School at St. Clair m
1842.^ In 1845 he matriculated at the University
of Michigan, but on account of illness and poor
eyesight his studies were twice interrupted, and
in 1848 he left Ann Arbor. Sailing with five of
his college friends for Spain, he arrived nt Cadiz
on Dec, i, 1848, and departed for South America
four weeks later, In the summer of 1840 he re-
turned to Detroit. Inspired by the phenomenal
success of his father as a merchant, he opened
a business office and later a store at Appleton,
Wis.» but a fire destroyed most of his posses-
sions in January 1852, From 1853 to 1860 he
was his father's partner in Detroit Having
married on Get, t<>, 1855, I.iwu'e Pitts Merrill,
the daughter of Charles Merrill, he gradually
grew more involved in his father-in-law's exten*
»ive lumber interests, and in 1863 he became
Merrill's partner, The next year he moved to a
suburban home* where he maintained a small
farm. When his father died in 1868, he took up
the management of the estate's larger tract of
land, part of which he donated to the city of De*
troit in 1895 for Palmer Park.
In 1873 he was elected a member of the first
board of estimates of Detroit, Five years later
he won the election for state senator, and in
1883 he became federal senator, Noteworthy are
his speeches on woman's suffrage, government
regulation of the railroads, and the restriction
of immigration. He wns chairman of the com*
mittee on agriculture* As a debater he waa sur-
passed by few, am! he was one of the most popu-
lar orators in Michigan* When m 1889 he was
appointed minister to Spain, prominent citizens
in Detroit honored him with many tokens of es-
teem. After two years, however, he resigned
and soon after his return from Spain was chosen
by President Harrison to be a commissioner far
the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago*
The board elected him president After the fair
he sustained a nervous collapse, which necessi*
tated a long rest. He withdrew from the polit-
ical arena, although on many occasions he de-
livered stirring speeches and witty toasts. He
also devoted much time to philanthropy, and he
was one of the founders of the Detroit Museum
of Art Among the pamphlets and articles writ-
ten by him may be noted the following: Detroit
Sixty Yews Ago: An Address before the Unity
CM.., 1S9T (act), "Sketch of Life and Times
of James Witherell" in the Michigtm Pioneer
<md Historical Society Collections (voi IV,
1906), and "Detroit in its Relation to tfot North*
west" in The B&Centewry of the &om<Httff oj
** City of Detroit ( 1902). He died i» r "
192
Palmer
vived by his wife. They had no children but had
adopted a son and a daughter.
[M. A. f Burton, Thomas W. Palmer (1914), later
published in Mich. Pioneer and Hist. Soc. Colls., vol.
XXXIX (1915) '» Friend Palmer, Early Days in De-
troit (1906) ; The City of Detroit, ed. by C. M. Bur-
ton (1922), vol. IV; C. McElroy, Souvenir Hist, of
Palmer Park and Sketch of Hon. Thomas W. Palmer ,
(1908) ; Detroit Free Press and Detroit Newsf June 2,
*9*3-3 A.H.
PALMER, WALTER LAUNT (Aug. i,
i8S4-Apr. 16, 1932), landscape, figure, and still-
life painter, born in Albany, N. Y., was the son
o£ Erastus Dow Palmer [^.^.], the sculptor, and
Mary Jane Seaman. He received his first les-
sons in drawing" from his father ; later he studied
painting for two years (1870-72) under Fred-
erick K. Church [#.r.] at Hudson, N. Y. ; and
in 1873 he went to Paris, where he was a pupil
of Carolus-Duran for a year (1876-77). Upon
his return to the United States in 1877 he opened
a studio in New York, where he devoted himself
to landscape painting. He made his debut a
year later, sending to the National Academy ex-
hibition "An Interior" and "Montigny-sur-
Loing" (1878), He then concentrated upon win-
ter scenes, in the depiction of which he was emi-
nently successful. He was elected an associate of
the National Academy in 1887, on the occasion
of his taking* the second Hallgarten prize, and
he became a member of the American Water-
Color Society and of the Society of American
Artists. In 1891 he moved from New York to
Albany, where the greater part of his profes-
sional life was passed thereafter. One of his
earliest winter landscapes, "January," was
bought by Thomas B. Clarke.
Although landscapes were his most popular
subjects, he produced from time to time equally
excellent figure pieces and interiors. An in-
terior which was at the Academy in 1878, ^and
which was also hung in one of the exhibitions
of the Union League Club, New York, was high-
ly praised by a critic for the New York Evening
Post (Mar. 15, 1878, p. 2). He sent three of his
pictures to the Chicago Exposition of 1893 — an
"Early Snow," "Autumn Morning Mist Clear-
ing Away" (lent by John G, Myers of Albany),
and the early "January" which belonged to
Clarke's collection. He was awarded a medal at
this exhibition. At the St. Louis exhibition of
1904 he was represented by "Evening Lights"
and "Across the Fields/1 and received a bronze
medal for his oil paintings and a silver medal
for his four water-colors. Among the other hon-
ors which came to him may be mentioned the
gold medal of the Art Club, Philadelphia, 1894;
the Evans prize at the exhibition of the Ameri-
Palmer
can Water-Color Society, 1895; the first prize
at the exhibition of the Boston Art Club, 1895 ;
the second prize at the Nashville exhibition of
1897; silver medals for water-colors at the Buf-
falo Exposition of 1901 and at the Charleston
Exposition of 1902 ; a silver medal at the Phila-
delphia exhibition in 1907; a bronze medal at
the Buenos Aires Exposition of 1910; the But-
ler prize, Chicago, 1919; and the DuPont prize,
Wilmington, Del., 1926.
Palmer's landscapes are characterized by the
keen and luminous effects of the winter season,
the forcible contrasts of light and shade which
are the results of sharp frosts and unclouded
sunlight. He made the winter with its snows
his particular province. "It is not," says Isham,
"the snow of Europe, damply evaporating into a
leaden sky, but the New England article, crisp
and dry in the keen cold and shining dazzling
white against the blue horizon" (post, p. 440).
Palmer was twice married : first to Georgianna
Myers, and on Dec. 26, 1895, some years after
the death of his first wife, to Zoe de V. Wynd-
ham of England. He died at his birthplace, Al-
bany, survived by his widow and a daughter.
[Who's Who in America, 1930-31; Samuel Isham,
Hist, of Am. Painting (1905) ; Catalogue Official Illus-
tr£, Exposition des Beaux Arts, £tats-Unis d'Ame-
rique, Exposition Universelle de Paris (1900) ; Cat. of
the Thos. B, Clarke Collection of Am. Pictures (1891) ;
Illustrations of Selected Works . . . Universal Expo-
sition, St. Louis, 1904. (1904);^^ News, Apr. 23,
1932; Am. Art Annual, 1923-24; Biog. Sketches of
Am. Artists (1924), pub. by Mich. State Lib.; N. Y.
Times, Apr. 17, 1932.] w.H. D.
PALMER, WILLIAM ADAMS (Sept. 12,
i78i~Dec. 3, 1860), lawyer, farmer, and politi-
cian, was born at Hebron, Conn., the fourth son
in the family of eight children of Stephen and
Susannah (Sawyer) Palmer. He was descended
from Walter Palmer who settled in Stonington,
Conn., in 1653. According to tradition an acci-
dent to one hand in his youth unfitted him for
farm work and turned him toward a professional
career. After a public-school education he en-
tered a law office in Hebron, continuing his
studies later at Chelsea, Vt. Admitted to the
bar in 1802, he practised law during the next
few years in one Vermont village after another.
He was living in St. Johnsbury when in 1807
he was elected judge of probate for Caledonia
County, To perform the duties of this office he
moved to the county seat at Danville where he
lived on a farm for the rest of his life except
for absences on judicial or political service.
While serving as probate judge (1807-081 1811-
17) he was also clerk of his county court from
1807 to 1815, In 1811-12, as well as in 1818,
1825-26, and 1829, he was a member of die
193
Palmer
lower house of the state legislature. In the
meantime he sat for one year (1816) as a justice
of the supreme court of the state. He became a
leader in the Democratic party. In October 1818
he xvas electee! to fill the vacancy in the United
States Senate caused by the resignation of James
Fisk, 1763-1844 | f/.r/I, and at the same time was
elected for the full term beginning1 in 1819. At
Washington he acquired a temporary unpopu-
larity among- Vermonters by voting for the ad-
mission in 1819 of Missouri with her pro-slavery
constitution, He disclaimed any friendship for
slavery but insisted stanchly upon the mainte-
nance of state rights.
Palmer was serving1 in his state legislature
when the anti-Masonic storm broke. He needed
no new political stalking horse; he joined the
growing movement from conviction, for his
democratic sentiments had always clashed with
secret societies, As the anti-Masonic candidate
he therefore stood for the governorship in 1830.
In a three-cornered contest he ran second in the
popular vote, his Masonic rival winning when
the election was thrown into the legislature* The
same legislature refused him election to the
United States Senate that year (1830), For the
next two years as the anti- Masonic candidate,
he was elected by the legislature to the gov-
ernorship ; in 1833 he won by popular vote ; in
1834 again by legislative action. In 1835 even
the legislature failed after sixty-three attempts
to elect a governor. Palmer was forced to re-
tire while his running mate, the lieutenant-gov-
ernor, carried on the state administration. When
in 1836 the Whig element won control of the
anti-Masonic councils. Palmer consented to be-
come the candidate of the Democratic bolters.
He was defeated but was elected in that year
and in 1837 *° *e state Senate. His retirement
the following year ended his political career save
for service in the constitutional convention of
1850,
In spite of the bitterness of party passions at
the titne Palmer appears to have commanded the
respect of his opponents. His opposition to the
Masonic organization was prompted by an hon-
est and sincere conviction rather than by a de-
sire for political preferment. His appointments
white governor showed no discrimination ag airmt
the Maaoui for tm detested the spoils system*
His kof public c&reet proved him, if not a brH~
Itet two* at least at>le, honest, and courageous*
In private life Us simplicity and his generosity
wo® the dfftottd aff^ctikm el Ws motors. Be
bad married k September 1813 Sarah Blandbard
of Danville* They had sewn children tjf wfeoto
five sons grew to maturity*
Palmer
[T. G, UHcry, Men of IV, ( 1804) ; J, M, Comstock,
A List of . , . Civil t^/ii'm- o/ n, /Vow i;;/ to jyj#
(1918); A, M, Homrmvay, 7V lftt ifi$t» (Zawtttw
vol. I (iK(>H) ; /Cow*/,? of //»«• (/DT*. tttui Cmtncil of thi>
State of Ff,. vol. VIII uMo) ; K, W, Levitt, Palmer
Groups; John M?lri» •»/ < Vmr/»',if«»,TH am/ Concord
Mass., and his /V,ftvw/«wf,v ( rooi u*, ) ; R. A. Wheeler'
Hist* of tk& Town t>/ *SV*tmnjj/tm» Ctwnly of AV?tr /,OWI
ti&n, Owrt* (2900); /fuw, /JiV. Am, C\*;i|/, (19,38),]
1UXE,
PALMER, WILLIAM HENRY (r, 1830-
Nov. 28, 1878), entertainer, known on the stage
as Robert I feller, was horn in Kntfluntl. His
father was a musician and is said to have served
as an organist in CanU'rtmry Cathedral The
hoy was given a thorough musical training-. In
1848 he saw the Freneh magician, Kohert-
Hoiulin, uiul was fasetnated hy his performances,
When he discovered that Ins years of practice on
the piano had given his fingers a suppleness and
dexterity that assisted him in duplicating the
tricks of the magician, his interest in music he*
came secondary to an interest in stage magic.
Two of the greatest magicians of history played
in London in the succeeding peritxl, Compnrs
Herrmann and John Henry Anderson, Study-
ing the performances of these men and imitating
their technique he twldty hired the Strand Thea-
tre in London and advertised his program in
1851 or 1852. He hid his youthfnlm%H and Eng-
lish hlondness behind a hlaek wig and beard that
copied the appearance of Herrmann. He fol-
lowed the metropolitan performances with a tour
of the provinces with some success but compe~
tition wan strong and he turned to America.
His first New York appearance wan in the base-
ment of the Chinese Assembly Hall on Broad-
way near Spring Street* later he hired the hall
above and played for several months. A tour of
rural New England and New York state fol-
lowed.
Palmer wan a poor busmen® man and by 185$
he found himself heavily in debt. He reluctantly
turned back to music for a living, played the
organ for a church in Washington, D. C, and
taught music. In 1855 he married Annie Maria
Kieckhoefer of Washington* Three children
were born to the couple but the marria&e was
broken In 1862. Freed from family ties Palmer
returned to the stagt. For a time h!i shew was
backed by an enthusiastic young man who wished
to have the privilege of appearing with him.
Later he hired a handsome young woman to aa*
a!$t him who was billed as Miss Haidet Heller*
la 1864 h® took as his manager Kingston, the
nutn who had managed the tours of Artemis
Ward, and from that tirn© he was most •000*9**
fui He opened a Sdb DMoUq®$ at s§5 Br0$4»
York City; Ittor .tea •wwt -<m ;;l0ur It
Palmer
the United States ; and in 1867 he reported that
he had taken in $22,400 in fifteen nights in San
Francisco. In 1868 he played in England. On
a later tour he went to Australia. In 1876 he
returned to America, opening at the Globe Thea-
tre in New York City. From the Globe he went
to the Fifth Avenue Hall. In 1878 he played in
Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. In
Philadelphia he developed pneumonia and died
within two days.
After his first New York engagement Palmer
abandoned the awesome wig and beard and the
French accent, but he did not learn to utilize his
natural charm until he came under the influence
of Kingston. After his earliest performances he
varied his programs by the use of puppets and
piano numbers. He first offered classical music
but the taste of his audiences, as well as his own
prankishness, caused him to substitute comedy
numbers. His most famous act in the field of
magic was in "second-sight." Although the trick
was not new he developed it to an unusual degree.
He used both the oral and silent codes and par-
ticularly mystified his audiences by using elec-
trical devices. Had he chosen to give his mum-
mery a religious cast his following might have
been spectacular, but his lack of seriousness kept
the impressionable from believing that his per-
formances entailed anything beyond skilful de-
ception. Dion Boucicault considered him a
comedian of the first rank.
[Sources include: Harry Houdini, The Unmasking
of Robcrt-Houdin (1908), pp. 205-07 ; David Devant,
My Magic Life (1931) J H. R. Evans, Hist, of Conjur-
ing and Magic (1928) ; Conjurers' Monthly Mag., Dec.
IS, 1906; &.UM., Aug. 1917, May 1919; N. F, Daily
Tribune, Nov. 29, 1878; Times (London), Dec. 14,
1878. There are a number of Palmer's playbills in the
Houdini Collection in the Lib, of Cong. The year of
Palmer's birth is variously given. The exact date re-
mains undetermined.] K.H. A.
PALMER, WILLIAM JACKSON (Sept. 18,
i8s6-Mar. 13, 1909). Civil War soldier and
railroad executive, was born near Leipsic, Kent
County, Del., of Quaker parents, John and Ma-
tilda (Jackson) Palmer. In 1842 the family
moved to Philadelphia where William was sent
to a private school and later to the public gram-
mar and high school He then worked as a
rodman on the Hempfield Railroad (1853),
traveled and possibly studied in England (1856),
acted as secretary and treasurer of the West-
moreland Coal Company, and from then until the
Civil War (1858-61). was private secretary to
J, Edgar Thomson, president of the Pennsyl-
vania Railroad. With the coming of the war
Palmer followed his conscience in foregoing his
Quaker principles. He organized and became
.captain of the xsth Pennsylvania cavalry in
Palmer
September 1861 and a year later was commis-
sioned colonel. By the end of the war he was
a brevet brigadier-general of volunteers. His
record was excellent, in spite of a serious de-
fection among his troops while he was a prisoner
in 1862-63, and he was cited for conspicuous
service several times, receiving in 1894 the Con-
gressional Medal of Honor. His engagements
included Antietam, Missionary Ridge, Chicka-
mauga, the Atlanta campaign, and the final pur-
suit of Jefferson Davis.
After the war Palmer became treasurer of the
Eastern Division of the Union Pacific Railroad,
which became the Kansas Pacific in 1869 and
later merged into the Union Pacific. He helped
further the road's transcontinental ambitions by
supervising surveys west of the Rio Grande
along the 35th and 32nd parallels to the coast
(W. J. Palmer, Report of Surveys across the
Continent, in 1867-68, 1869). He also took
charge of construction between Sheridan and
Denver, Colo. With the completion of the road
in 1870 he left it for the new and promising Den-
ver & Rio Grande Railroad, designed to give
Denver southern and western connections. As
first president of the road he prosecuted the work
in spite of the depression of the seventies. A long
struggle with the Santa Fe resulted in the loss
of a southern outlet and the acquisition of a
western route through the Royal Gorge of the
Arkansas. A through line to Salt Lake City was
opened in 1883. Again Palmer thought his work
done; in 1883 he resigned the presidency and
the next year his directorship. He found it un-
desirable, however, to dispose of the Denver &
Rio Grande Western (the western part of the
through line), for its lease in 1882 was stopped
by injunction, a mile of track destroyed, and a
receiver appointed. Palmer retained control
through the reorganization as the Rio Grande
Western in 1889, and finally sold his interest to
the parent company in 1901.
Palmer was identified during the eighties with
Mexican railroads. A trip through Mexico in
1872 laid the basis for the Palmer-Sullivan con-
cession (1880), which provided monetary aid
for the Mexican National Railway, of which he
was president from 1881 to 1888. One main line
was to run from Mexico city to Laredo, Tex.,
with a branch to Manzanillo, and another main
line was to extend from Mexico city to El Salto.
A line to El Paso was lost to the Nickerson in-
terests, but work on the other lines was prose-
cuted by the Mexican National Construction
Company, especially between 1880 an4 18^3.
Active work ended by the late eighties, aijd a
financial reorganization was n^cessairy*
I9S
Pal more
sold his Mexican National interests in the late
nineties and retired from nil business interests
in 1901. He died at his homo near Colorado
Springs, iu 1009. He had married, in October
1870, Mary Lincoln ("Queen") Mellon, Their
three daughters survived him. Palmer was a
cultured, intelligent; likable man, with wide
business and philanthropic interests. He was a
prime mover in the founding (1871) and de-
velopment of Colorado Springs, He helped
found Colorado College (1874) and \vns one of
the first trustees. His philanthropies extended
also to Hampton Institute. He xvas an organiser
and first president of the Colorado Coal and Iron
Company (1879) «*uwl laid out Bessemer, now
part of Pueblo,
fS«; Mary G, Slocnm, etl, "Tributes to the Late
G?n, Wm, J. Pahner," Colo. O>//, Pub,, Social Set, Srf.f
vol. II, no. 3 (xgoo) ; Jeannctte Ttirpin, etL, 6V». Ifm.
/, l*almcr <n,d,) ; W, K Stone, e«l., Hist, of Colo*, vol.
Ill (i<>iH) ; Frank Hall, Mist, of the State of Coto,,
vol. III (i«ji) ; Who's Who in America, igoH-og; J.
C, Smiley, Semi-Centennial Hist, of tin* State of Cofo,
(a vols,, 1913) ; II. IL Bancroft, //wf, of //m, (*ofa,t
and W$on /54<>-rMM (1890) ; I, H. Clothier, e<L, Let"
ter$t i^5,?»-dtV, 6Vn. f^w, /, Palmer (1906) ; War of tht*
JJtfM/teiK OJficiixt fa'conte (Army) ; *Thc GrneruV*
Story/ in Httrptr'jt New Monthly Af«//., June jH(>7j
Southern Workman, July igjg; 7<<Mr «/ /#/w I).
Pot^y^ President of th& Ionian J*&ci/i€ A*$tYwwv (thiJtt"*
cm Dwision} (iBftB)j Hoc/ty Jbtoitnt&.in News (Den*"
ver), Mar. 14, 1909.] 3R.B.3R,
PALMORE, WILLIAM BEVERLY (Feb.
24, x844-J«Iy S. 1914)* clergyman of the Meth-
odist Episcopal Church South, editor, was horn in
Fayotte County, Tenn,, the son of William Pledge
and Elizabeth Ann (Ilohson) Palmore. When
William was only six weeks old his father died,
and the boy's early years were a struggle with
poverty, suffering and heartache. When he was
fourteen his mother, hoping to improve their
living conditions, moved the family to a farm
near Malta Bend in Saline County, Mo, Wil-
liam's educational advantages were only such as
the simple country schools of Missouri offered.
When he was seventeen years of age he joined
the Confederate army, serving under General
Marmadufce until his surrender at Shreveport,
La., in 1865, During much of his service he
was standard bearer, but though he was exposed
to the enemy's fire constantly, he came through
the war without wounds or Injuries. Upon be-
ing mustered out, he returned to Missouri and
entered into business at Waverly, a few miles
from the farm at Malta Bend, Here he was con-
verted, joined the Methodist Episcopal Church
South, and began to teach in the Sunday school
This experience, coupled with his early religious
training, convinced hirrt that he ought to give his
life to the ministry. Kndtrtng that hfc timgt «db-
Paldu
cate himself for the work, he went in the early
seventies to Nashville, Tenn,, and entered the
new Vanderhilt University, Returning to Mis-
souri upon the completion of his theological edu-
cation, he was admitted to the Southwest Mis-
souri Conference of the Methodist Episcopal
Church South, and after being licensed to preach,
served churches in Kansas City, Springfield, In-
dependence, Marshall Jefferson City, and the
Boonville District,
In i8<?o he purchased the M, t.twis Christian
//</•; wri/<* and became the editor awl manager.
Successful in the pastorate, In* was even more
successful as an editor, becoming recognised as
one of the leaders of bis denomination. He was
a member of the Kemwnical Methodist Confer*
eneesat Washington < 1891) and London (1901)
and was u member of four General Conferences
of his church. In 1908 he was nominated for
vice-president of the United States on the Pro-
hibition ticket, but declined to be a candidate,
fie was for some time president of the board of
Central College for Women, Lexington, Mo. He
traveled widely, going to every section of the
world and bringing hack interesting accounts of
Ins ^experiences. Lands in West Virginia which
he inherited, though poor ami infertile from the
point of view of agriculture, turned out to be
rich in coal This wealth he used for the ad-
vancement of his church, establishing the Pal-
more Institute at Kobe, Japan, and the Collegia
Palmorc at Chihuahua, Mexico, In addition, he
aided many individual hoys nnd girls in secur-
ing education, He never married, and when he
died, in Richmond, Va,( at the home of a niece,
he left to the church all the property he pos-
sessed.
ICmtml Chmtim Afaowt& (Km*m City, Mo,)»
July 13, 10*4 ; Christian Mv&xatff (Nashville), July 10
Aug. a8» IQU; Who'* Who in Awiea. 1014-15; M.
Jgite. Ch. South («pp7> ; n«f^Jb<i*fl*cX"(Ri"ASwidI
Vft.), July 6» 1914; M y> r«Wj, July 6, 1914,]
I.L.H.
PAL6U, FRANCISCO (c. iy»-e. 1789),
Franciscan missionary and historian in Mexico
and California, was born in Mallorca, entered
the monastery of San Francisco it Palma, and
in the Lullian University there in 1740 became
a pupil of the famous JunSpero Serra [q&J\*
Paldti studied and taught at Palma till 1749,
when he accompanied Serra to Mexico. After
living for five months at the College of San Per*
na&do, the two went in 1750 to serve as nusiion-
arles in the Sierra Gorda, northeast of Quer&*
taro. Here, at Jalpan, they spent nine yws,
Serra as president and Pal6tt m his compuriotu
At the end of this time ttasy wera ttsJp^d to Hie
Pal6u
mission of San Saba, in Texas. But the plans
were changed, Serra returned to Mexico city,
Palou succeeded him as president for a year, and
then followed him to the capital, where he
worked for seven years. In 1767, when the
Jesuits were expelled from Baja California,
Serra was head and Palou a member of the band
of Franciscans who replaced them. Leaving the
capital in July, they crossed Mexico to the Gulf,
and on Apr. I, 1768, reached Loreto, the capital
of California,
For a year Palou was missionary at San
Xavier. When in 1769 Serra went to Alta Cali-
fornia with the Portola expedition, Palou suc-
ceeded him as president in the Peninsula. Four
years he held this office, showing great energy
both in spiritual administration and in raising
and sending supplies to San Diego and Monte-
rey. Meanwhile the Franciscans were replaced
in the Peninsula by Dominicans, and Palou suc-
cessfully supervised the transfer. This task fin-
ished, in May 1773 he started north for San
Diego. On the way he set up a cross marking
the boundary between Upper and Lower Cali-
fornia, at a point which helped fix the boundary
between Mexico and the United States seventy-
five years later. When he reached Monterey
(November 1773), Serra was absent in Mexico
and Palou served as acting president till his re-
turn. The next year he explored the San Fran-
cisco peninsula, and in 1776 he founded the mis-
sion of San Francisco (Dolores), which still
stands in the heart of the city of San Francisco.
For nine years he was head of this mission and
the leading figure in the community. In 1784
Serra called him to Monterey (Carmel) and
ordered him to go to Mexico on an urgent er-
rand, but just as he was about to sail, Serra sud-
denly died and Palou a third time succeeded him
as president. In the next year he became presi-
dent of the College of San Fernando, in Mexico,
where he died about 1789,
Pal6u is best known for his writings. His let-
ters and reports are voluminous. While in Cali-
fornia he compiled his monumental chronicle of
the Franciscans in, Old and New California, still
the best authority on the subject. After ^Serra's
death Palou wrote at San Francisco his more
widely known Relacidn Historia de la Vida y
Apostolicas Tareas del Venerable Padre Fray
Junipero Serra (Mexico, 1787), on which Ser-
ra's fame has chiefly rested till recent times.
[Pal6u's life of Serra, translated by C. S. Williams
and G. W. James, is published as Francisco Paldu's
Life and Apostolic Labors of the Venerable Father
Juniper "o Serra (1913) ; his chronicle of Calif ornia was
first printed in Documentos para la Historiti de Mexico,
4ser. VI-VII (1857), reprinte
Pammel
California (4 vols., 1874), ed. by James T. Doyle, and
translated in H. E. Bolton, Historical Memoirs of New
California by Fray Francisco Palou 9 0. F. M. (4 vols.,
1926). For biographical accounts of Palou, see H. H.
Bancroft, Hist, of Cal., vol. I (1884); C. A. Engel-
hardt (Fr. Zephyrin), The Missions and Missionaries of
Cal. (4 vols., 1908-15), and San Francisco, or Mission
Dolores (1924) ; H. E. Bolton, Palou and His Writings
(1926) and Anza's California Expeditions (5 vols.,
1930).] H.E.B.
PAMMEL, LOUIS HERMANN (Apr. 19,
i862-Mar. 23, 1931), botanist and conservation-
ist, the son of Louis C. and Sophie (Freise)
Pammel, natives of Germany, was born in
LaCrosse, Wis., and died on board a transcon-
tinental train in eastern Nevada. When a young
lad he moved with his parents to a farm
near LaCrosse, where he lived in a log house
and attended a country school. Later he en-
tered a business college and took private lessons
in mathematics, the languages, and other sub-
jects, preparatory to entering the University
of Wisconsin, which he did in 1881, graduating
in an agricultural course four years later.
Deciding to study medicine, he entered Hahne-
mann Medical College, Chicago, in October
1885, but in December following went to Cam-
bridge, Mass., to become private assistant to
Prof. William Gilson Farlow [#.£>.]. There he
remained until September 1886, when he went
to St. Louis, Mo., to become assistant to Dr.
William Trelease in the Shaw School of Botany,
Washington University. In February 1889, in
which year he received the degree of M.S. from
his alma mater, he moved from St. Louis to
Ames, Iowa, to become head of the department
of botany of the Iowa State College of Agricul-
ture and Mechanic Arts, a position which he
held for forty years. In 1898 Washington Uni-
versity, St. Louis, awarded him the doctorate of
philosophy.
During the summer of 1888 and 1889 he did
special work on the cotton root rot at the Texas
Experiment Station, and at various times he
served on special commissions for the United
States Department of Agriculture and the Iowa
Geological Survey. He also was botanist for
the Experiment Station at Ames. From his
youth he was intensely interested in all forms of
plant life, and the herbarium of Iowa State Col-
lege contains many thousands of specimens col-
lected by him on his numerous vacation trips.
As a conservationist he embraced every oppor-
tunity to increase public sentiment in favor pf
wild life preservation and of establishing Iowa's
extensive system of state parks, one of winch,
in Madison County, was in 1930 renamed
mel State Park in his honor.
197
PancoavSt
As an author his larger works were The
Grasses of Iowa (2 vols,, 1901); Ecology
(1903) ; A Manual of Poisonous Plants (1910) ;
Weeds of the Farm and Garden (1911); Th$
Weed Flora of Iowa (1913; revised 1926);
"Prominent Men I Have Met/' a series of arti-
cles published in the Ames Daily Tribune over
a number of years and reprinted in several
pamphlets; and Honey Plants of lorn (1930),
with Charlotte M, King1. He also wrote nu-
merous Park ancl Experiment Station bulletins,
and a great number of papers published in the
proceedings of learned societies, scientific jour-
nals, and the daily press* A set — almost complete
— of Ins books and papers, specially bound, fills
about six feet of shelf space in the Iowa State
College Library. In his later years he gave
many talks and lectures on weeds and conser-
vation, also travelogues illustrated with lantern
slides,
He was married in Chicago, June 39, 1888, to
Augusta Emmel, and to them were born five
daughters and one son. In politics he was in
early life a Democrat, but later a Republican,
and in religion a member of the Episcopal
Church, in which he was a lay reader. He was
a member of numerous scientific societies, was
president of the Iowa State Board of Conserva-
tion (1918-27) and was secretary general (1911-
33) and president general (1933-27) of Phi
Kappa Phi,
[Who's Who in Amtriea, 10,10-31 ; Am, M®n of Sti*
eye (4th eel, 1937) J F. C, Pellrtt, in Am. Bee Journal,
May 103 1 ; #«'* Mmncs Register, Mar, 34, 1031 ;
autobiographical note* left with the Department* of
Botany, Iowa State College.] & I C
PANCOAST, JOSEPH (Nov. 23, iRos-Man
7, 1882), anatomist and surgeon, was horn near
Burlington, N, J., the son of John and Ann (Ab-
bott) Pancoast His family was English, and
had come to America with William Penn, He
received his medical education at the University
of Pennsylvania, from which he was graduated
M.D. in 1828, and began to practise in Philadel-
phia, specializing in surgery. There was at that
time an organization known as the Philadelphia
Association for Medical Instruction— « kind of
quitting body^compoted of young men of prom-
ise, many of whom became distinguished in later
life, and with if 'Paocoost was identiaed for a
short tta& Lifer (1831) he was appointed to
contact ,$* ,mthMpk$®< School of Aaateixm
founded It* x$sa0 by Dr. Jason Vatattat O'Brien
' *Qto4.fM<4w to
§838
tattoo, returning
Pancoast
1838, also, he retired from the School of Anat-
omy and succeeded Dr. George McCIcllan [7.?..]
in the chair of surgery in the Jefferson Medical
College, In 1841 he was transferred from the
chair of surgery to that of anatomy, which he
held until 1874, when he resigned, Thus for
thirty-six years he filled one or another of the
most important chains in the Jefferson Medical
College* In 1854 he was elected to the staff of
the Pennsylvania Hospital, roHigning in 1864,
Among his principal achievements in surgery
were an operation far the remediation of ex-
strophy of the bladder by plastic abdominal flaps
with which to replace the missing anterior vesi-
cal wall; an operation for soft and mixed cata-
racts by passing a hook through the front part
of the vitreous humor between the margin of the
dilated iris and lens without touching the ciliary
body, the soft part of the lens being deeply cut
and the hardened nucleus withdrawn by a hori-
zontal displacement along the line of entrance
of the needle and the fragment being left in the
outer border of the vitreous; an operation for
cmpyema in which a semicircular flap of skin
over the ribs was raised* the pleura punctured
near the base of the flap, a short catheter intro-
duced— fastened with a strong string so as to
make a ft*tula~~«n<! then the flap turned down
to serve as a valve after the removal of the
catheter; an operation for the correction of
occlusion of the nasal duct by puncturing the
lachrymal sac and introducing a tiny hollow
ivory tube that had been previously decalcified,
leaving the tute in situ to become absorbed ; a
strabismus operation for the relief of bad cases
m which the tendon of the oblique muscle, being
surrounded by rigid connective tissue, must be
drawn out with a hook before being cut
His literary work, which was rather volumi-
nous, began with t translation of J, P. Lobstein's
De mm sympathetic* human* fabric® ?t morbus
(Paris, 1823) published as Treatise m the Str&c*
ture. Function and Disease* of the Sympathetic
Nerve (1831). This was followed by his edition
of P. J. Manec'a Great Sympath&tic Nerves
(n.d) and ManeS* Cerebro-Spinal Axis of Man
(n,d). He issued three editions (1839, 1843,
and 1846) of Caaptr Wlstar and William Hor-
ner's System of Amtomy and contrifitited nu-
merous tniicdlaaeotts papers to medical jotir-
nais. His greatest achievement, however, was
his own Treatise on Operative Swrgtrfr of which
the first edition appeared to 1844 &&d the third
and last in 1852,
Cfe Jrfy ^ i80& he married RAeoeaf <Jtt*ffc-
ter of Ttedthy Abbott He 4W to PMWfel-
pitk, *1»dk)wd tad toiowl fcy *& wte toww
Pancoast
him." A son, William Henry Pancoast, was also
a physician.
[W, S. Miller in Surgery, Gynccology and Obstetrics,
May 1930; T. H. Shastid in the Am, Encyc. and Diet
of Ophthalmology, vol. XII (1918); H. A. Kelly and
W. L. Burrage, Am. Medic. Biogs. (1920) ; J. W. Cros-
key, Hist, of Blockley (1929) ; S. D, Gross, Autobiog
(1887), vol. II ; J. W. Holland, The Jefferson Medical
Coll. of Phila. (1909) ; Boston Medic, and Surgic Jour..
Mar. 1 6, 1882; Medic. News, Mar. 18, 1882; Phila.
Medic. Times, Mar. 25, 1882; Pub. Ledger ( Phila.) j
Mar. 8, 1882; for data concerning parents and mar-
riage, The Friend, Dec. 31, 1831, and Paulson's Am.
Daily Advertiser ( Phila.) , July 4, 1 829. ]
PANCOAST, SETH (July 28, i&a-Dec. 16,
1889), physician, anatomist, and cabalist, de-
scended from one of the settlers who came to
America with William Perm, was born in Darby,
Pa., the son of Stephen Pancoast, a paper manu-
facturer, and Anna (Stroucl) Pancoast His
preliminary education was gained probably in
the local schools. The first few years of his adult
life he spent in business, but when he was twen-
ty-seven years of age, in October 1850, he began
the study of medicine at the University of Penn-
sylvania, from which he was graduated M.D. in
1852. The next year he was made professor of
anatomy in the Female Medical College of Penn-
sylvania (now the Woman's Medical College of
Pennsylvania). At the end of his first year, how-
ever, he resigned to become professor of anatomy
in the Pennsylvania Medical College (now non-
existent), in which position he continued until
1859 when he became professor emeritus. In
1855 he wrote An Original Treatise on the Cur-
ability of Consumption by Medical Inhalation
and Adjunct Remedies; in 1858, Onanism-Sper-
matorrhoca; Porneio-Kalogynomia-Pathology;
the next year Ladies" Medical Guide and Mar-
riage Friend (copr. 1859," subsequent editions,
1864, 1876) ; and in 1873 The Cholera: Its His-
tory, Cause, Symptoms and Treatment.
He conducted private practice and continued
to teach in the positions mentioned above for
only six years ; then interested himself in caba-
listic literature, in which field he became a noted
scholar and built up probably the largest library
of books dealing with the occult sciences ever
assembled upon the American continents. The
ideas gleaned from his cabalistic reading curi-
ously mingled with his medical and scientific
knowledge and led to the production of a few
extraordinary books. The first of these was The
Kabbda; or the True Science of Light; an In-
troduction to the Philosophy and Theosophy of
the Ancient Sages (1877), said to be the first
book ever written in the English language that
attempted to explain the 'Ten Sepheroth" and
give the mystical interpretation of the Holy
Panton
Scriptures as contained therein. This was fol-
lowed by Blue and Red Light: or, Light and Its
Rays^as Medicine; Showing that Light is the
Original and Sole Source of Life, as It Is the
Source of All the Physical and Vital Forces of
Nature, and that Light is Nature's Own and Only
Remedy for Disease, and Explaining How to Ap-
ply the Red and Blue Rays in Curing the Sick
and Feeble (1877) . The title of this work is sug-
gestive of some new and dominating therapeutic
idea, but upon examination the book proves to
be a cabalistic writing in which mystery, sci-
ence, religion, and medicine are curiously, and
to the average modern reader, incomprehensibly
confused.
Pancoast was married three times: first, to
Sarah Saunders Osborn; second, to Susan
George Osborn; third, to Carrie Almena Fer-
nald. His family included children by all three
wives. He died in Philadelphia.
[A Supplcmcn^ to Allibone's Critical Diet, of Eng-
lish Lit. and British and Am. Authors (1891), vol. II;
H. A. Kelly and W. L. Burrage, Am. Medic. Biogs.
(1920); Public Ledger (Phila.), Dec. 17, 1889.]
J.McF.
PANTON, WILLIAM (i742?-Feb.26, 1801),
Indian trader, the son of John and Barbara
(Wemys) Panton, was born in Aberdeenshire,
Scotland, and emigrated to Charlestown, now
Charleston, S. C. His life after his emigration
falls naturally into three periods. During at
least a part of the first period, from about 1770
to 1775, he resided in Charlestown, obtained a
South Carolina land grant, and was for sev-
eral years a member of the firm of Moore & Pan-
ton of Savannah. From 1775 to 1784 he spent
most of his time in East Florida, where he or-
ganized, with Thomas Forbes as his chief asso-
ciate, the firm, Panton, Forbes & Company, and
built up trade and influence with the Creek In-
dians, His consistently Loyalist attitude, which
brought him into conflict with the South Caro-
lina and Georgia Revolutionary authorities early
in the Revolution, culminated in his permanent
outlawry by two acts of the Georgia Provincial
Congress, in 1778 and 1782, and -the confiscation
of his property.
In the third period, from 1784 to 1801, the
most important historically, he lived mostly in
West Florida. After the British evacuation of
East Florida, in July 1784, it became evident
that Sp&in needed the friendship of the southern
Indians for protection against the aggressive
Anglo-American backwoodsmen to the north.
Convinced that a well-conducted trade offered
the best way to get and hold that friendship and
finding no Spanish house available, the Spanish
199
Panton
government temporarily allowed Panton's firm,
r Parn' L,eslie1& crr^to- -ontTe
their trade without loss of British citizenship
or freedom of worship. As no Spanish house
ever teaae available, Panton Leslie & Com-
pany and their successors kept up the Indian
trade and allied activities until the close of
tte.Spanish repme At its greatest extent the
business combed the trade of the Creek, Choc-
taw, Chickasaw, and Cherokee Indians, conduct-
ed by Panton at the Pensacola headquarters
through a chain of branches, agencies, and trad-
ing posts ranging from Havana and Nassau to
New Orleans and from Mobile to the Chicka-
saw Bluffs, with a "concern" in London to fur-
nish trade goods and to market the peltries and
other commodities received from the Indians.
He claimed a monopoly under his royal grants ;
for only a part of the time, however, was he able
to make good his claim. To the difficulties com-
mon to mercantile undertakings of the time and
those that weighed even more heavily In the
affairs of the firm after its reorganization by
John Forbes, 1769-1823 [g.z/.], was added the
competition of the American trade made possi-
ble^by the liberal Indian trade policy of the
United States, which in Panton's later years al-
most drove the firm into bankruptcy. None the
less, he was able, in spite of his heavy losses in
Georgia and in the Florida Indian trade, to keep
the business going and to leave his family and
friends more than £10,000. He was able, more-
over, for the most part to hold his own in the
face of international complications.
. Seriously ill, he sailed for Havana on the ad-
vice of his physician in January 1801. Because
1 Pr0gS betW6en Great Brit-
Pardee
ington; Am. State Papers: Indian Affairs, vols I IT
4
lutionary Records of Ga,t vol. 1 (1908), cd. by AD"
Candler, pp. 90, 146, 216, 330, 378; $.' c. 'llist Soc
I<
- .,
Spain in the Florida* (1931) and The Spanish A
*yn Frontier ( 1927) ; Lorenzo Sabine, Biog Sketch*
ton, Colonial Mobile (1897); R. L Campbell 5r V"
^to^/ gf Colonial Fla. (1893) ; C M. Brcvard *
Jjf f ySS^N /r9^ iAA Piotet. /W
(i88o)~; date and circumstaicei of ! deSh "fVo
de uba' Icajo 303, Arcliivo dc imlias, Sevilla
of Mi. Marie
who also famished other information.] £ H W
pAptyiri? * ' '
-^ARDEE, ARID (Nov. 19, l8to«Mar. 26
l892)> e^«eer, coal operator, philanthropist'
son of Al'iovistus Pardee and Eliza (Platt) was
^'n at Chatham, N. Y. Tlio family genealogy
VD> Lt Jacobus» post) gives his name as Ario-
vistus> but elsewhere it appears as Aria The
^rdees, according- to the family tradition' were
of Huguenot extraction, but they had lived in
En£la*id for at least two generations before
George Pardee emigrated to New Haven about
l644- Soon after Ado's birth his father moved
to a fa™ in Stephentown, Rensselaer Countv
N- Y-, where the boy grew up. He attended t S
district school until he reached the are of fit
teen, and thereafter continued to study at home
*nder the direction of Rev, Moses Hunter
In 1830 he began training as an enS neer bv
becoming a rodman for the furvwrT^wS
locating the Delaware & Rarito?cSI in New
' He continued work
T «!,• t. /-* 1 * *. J'vj-Cauc>w; Jra., witn the
Lehigh Canal at Mauch Chunk His employers
Z? recf°f™zed his ability by placin* u™ **•
charge of the construction of this road. In 1836
the Hazkton Railroad & Coal Company was
organized to «ploit the rich vein of anthracite
L PP? Hazleton- An outlet was needed
and Pardee was employed as chief engineer to
SI/ raik0,ad fr these mines to th« B!V °
tbuer Ti Af-6r its comPlet!^ he con-
tmued as_chef engmeer of the company.
™,£;SIg,rf in,l84°' he be^an busin«s as an
Parl M- coal °Perator' foundine the finn of
Pardee, Miner & Company, later known as A.
v, which in time became the
200
Pardee
tercsts until they included mines in various an-
thracite and bituminous fields* locomotive and
car works at llrwloton, iron works at Allentown,
in New York state, and in Virginia, and lumber
holdings in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, the
Carolinas, and in Canada, lie also became a di-
rector of the Lehigh Valley and other railroads.
He first became interested in Lafayette College,
Easton, .Pa., in 1864. This institution was in
financial difficulties, and in 1863 the trustees
commissioned the newly elected president, Wil-
liam G Cattell I<pr. |» to raise $30,000 in a year
as the price of saving the college. After eleven
months, having raised only a third of that sum,
he preached at Ha/let on in the Presbyterian
church which Pardee attended, and was the rich
man's guest After hearing of the college's finan-
cial embarrassments. Pardee said to Cattell;
"Why don't you throw it up if it doesn't pay?
That's what; we do when we strike a vein of coal
that doesn't pay us to work." Cattell then ven-
tured to explain his views of the difference be-
tween education and coal mining', and asked Par-
dee for $20,000. To his anwsseincnt, Pardee
promptly wrote his note for that amount-— said
to have been the largest single gift from an in-
dividual to an educational institution that had
then been made in Pennsylvania* The capitalist,
now interested, followed up his investment with
larger gifts, AH an engineer and businessman
he was most interested in the practical type of
education. He endowed the "Pardee Scientific
Course" in 1866, and in 1871 lie offered to erect
and equip a building to house It, his total gifts
amounting to more than half a million dollars,
In 1865 he became *a trustee and from 1882 to
his death he was president of the board In this
capacity he was noted for his business-like ap-
plication to the affairs of the institution, for his
regular attendance at commencements, for his
quiet modesty, and for his consistent refusal to
make a long speech on any public occasion- He
was reputed to have bestowed many charities
so quietly that they were known only to the re-
cipients, In Harietcm he was known as "the
silent man"-* -a familiar but elusive figure, en-
gaged in grand and far-flung business schemes,
driving" quietly and persistently toward his ob-
jectives, and disclosing little of his purposes or
personality to any but a few close friends — a
little group of financial magnates— and perhaps
to President Cattell. He was a presidential elec-
tor in 1876, and chairman of the board of com-
missioners for the second Pennsylvania Geolog-
ical Survey, He was married in 1838 to Eliza-
beth Jacobs of Butler Valley, who died in 1847,
and on Aug. 29, 1848, to Anna Maria Robison
Pardee
of Rloomsburg. He died suddenly at Ormond,
FL%, survived by ten of his fourteen children.
[IX L. Jacobus, The Pardee Genealogy (1927) ; W.
U Cattell, Memorial Address Delivered at Lafayette
Coll . . , (i8pa) ; H. C. Bradsby, Hist, of Luzerne
County, Pa,, with Biog. Selections (1893) ; W. H. Egle,
An Illustrated Hist, of the Commonwealth of Pa.
5!2?72; t^«SA,?*enry' Hist' °f the Lthigh Valley
(1860) ; D. B. Slallman, The Biog. of a Coll. Being the
Hist, of the First Century of the Life of Lafayette Coll
(2 vols,, 1933) ; Public Ledger (Phila.), Mar. 28, 1892.]
D.L.M.
PARDEE, DON ALBERT (Mar. 29, 1837-
Sept 26, 1919), Union soldier, Southern jurist,
was born in Wadsworth, Medina County, Ohio.
His parents were Aaron Pardee, a native of that
part of Marcellus which became Skaneateles,
N. Y.t and Eveline (Eyles) Pardee, of Kent,
Litch field County, Conn. The boy attended the
public schools of Medina County, Ohio, and the
United States Naval Academy (1854-57) at
Annapolis. Resigning before graduation he en-
tered upon the study of law in his father's of-
fice at Wadsworth, Ohio, and was there admit-
ted to the bar of Ohio in 1859. He was married,
Feb. 3, r86i, to Julia E. Hard, of Wadsworth,
who died some years later, He practised law in
his native county from 1859 to 1861, when he
volunteered in the 42nd Ohio Volunteers. He
was commissioned major on Oct. 27, 1861. In
1862 his regiment was transferred to the Army
of the Mississippi, where he won distinction at
Vicksburg and Port Gibson. In 1863 he was
made provost-marshal of Baton Rouge. He re-
mained with his original unit until it was mus-
tered out in Arkansas late in 1864, and in March
1865 'he was brevetted brigadier-general.
In January 1865 Pardee moved to New Or-
leans to practise law. His success was immedi-
ate* In 1867 he was made register in bankruptcy
and in 1868 he was elected judge of the second
judicial district of Louisiana, which embraced
the parishes of Jefferson, St. Bernard, and
Plaquemincs. He held this judgeship for twelve
years, being reflected in 1872 and 1876. He was
a delegate in 1879 to the Louisiana constitu-
tional convention, and was Republican candidate
for attorney-general of Louisiana in 1880. On
May 3, 1881, President Garfield, under whom he
had served in the war, appointed him United
States circuit judge of the fifth circuit, and from
1891, when the circuit courts of appeals were
created, until his death in 1919, he was senior
judge of the circuit court of appeals for the
fifth circuit He removed to Atlanta in 1898 and
maintained his residence there for the remainder
of his life, spending a good part of each winter
in New Orleans and a few weeks each summer
on his farm in Medina County, Ohio. On June
2O I
Pardow
14, 1898, he was married to Frances (Cunning-
ham) Wells of Atlanta,
Pardee was tall and of massive proportions.
He enjoyed riding and presented a striking fig-
ure on horseback. He was an expert at chess
and a constant reader. Although always digni-
fied and outwardly austere he gave to a few
intimate associates a warm friendship. Many
anecdotes survive to illustrate his kindly sympa-
thy, his subtle sense of humor, his modest dis-
like of the limelight On one occasion he re-
fused to see a pistol fall to the floor of the court-
room from the pocket of a lawyer addressing
the court The attorney, hitherto hostile to the
Judge, was completely won over by the incident.
It is remarkable how quickly Pardee ^over-
came the handicaps attendant upon his going to
live in the South at the close of the war. That
he was no Carpet-bagger was immediately ap-
parent, and he quickly won the respect of his
late enemies as he practised his profession in
their midst Within three years he was elected
judge of an Important state court, retaining that
position for three terms, then for thirty-eight
years he graced the bench of the federal circuit
court, achieving distinction as an admiralty judge
and as a fair and able judicial administrator of
railroads. A Union army officer become Southern
jurist, he was able, courageous, and just, a stanch
Republican who believed in the results of the war
as written into the Constitution, and yet so un-
derstanding conditions in the South as to be able
to give no offense. After his death his wife dis-
covered in his billfold a small piece of paper on
which he had written that the thing he prized
most highly, in the long span of his judicial ca-
reer, was the fact that he had never in all those
years had to rebuke or punish an attorney for
contempt
[Sources include: Who's Who in America, 1918-
19; "Memorial of Don A. Pardee," Report of the
Thirty-Seventh Ann. Session of the Ga. Bar Asso.t
1920; A. D. Candler and C. A. Evans, Georgia (1906),
vol. Ill; D. L. Jacobus, The Pardee Geneal. (1927) ;
F. B. Heitman, Hist. Reg. and Diet, of the U. S. Army
(1903), voL I; the Atlanta Jour., Sept. 26, 1919; a
manttscript biography of Pardee by his associate, the
Hon. A. G. Brice; and supplementary information
from the Hon. Rufus E. Foster, New Orleans, La.*
the Rev. C. B. Wilmer, Atlanta, Ga.; the Hon, John M.
^atoa; and Mrs. Frances C. Pardee.] P.E B
PARDOW, WILLIAM O'BRIEN (June 13,
i&f/Kfaa^ J9O9)> Jesuit provincial, educator,
and preacher, son of Robert and Augusta Gar-
net* (O'Briea) Pardow, was born in New York
C%, BispafefBal grandfather, George Pardow,
was of an old Lancashire family and came to
Hew^York in 1772, where he.marped Elizabeth
and later, with William Denrpan, pnb-
Pardow
lished The Truth Teller. His maternal grand-
father was William O'Brien, an heir of the Earl
of Inchiquin, who as a United Irishman was
forced into exile, and coming to New York in
1800 established a successful banking business
with his brother John. As good Irish rebels, the
O'Briens refused the New York agency of the
Bank of England, thus sacrificing financial re-
ward for an impractical ideal. On both sides,
there was a deep Catholic tradition which perse-
cution had enlivened.
Trained in a home of refinement, William
was educated in St. Peter's school and in the
College of St. Francis Xavier, New York, from
which he was graduated in 1864 with the expec-
tation of entering the banking house. Refused
as a volunteer on account of his youth, he sor-
rowfully faced separation from his brother,
Robert, who joined a New York regiment and
who, incidentally, on the death of his wife joined
the Society of Jesus, which he served loyally
until his death in 1884 from a contagious disease
contracted while attending a hospital on Black-
well's Island. William was inspired with a long-
ing for a religious life and finally made up his
mind to become a Jesuit, Two sisters, later
known as Mother Augusta and Mother Pauline,
soon took vows as nuns of the Society of the Sa-
cred Heart, in which they became mothers supe-
rior in Manhattanville and Philadelphia. A nov-
ice at Sault-au-Recollet, near Montreal, in 1865,
William was influenced permanently by his mili-
tant master, James Perron, S. J., an aristocrat
and ex-officer of the French army. On Sept, i,
1866, he entered the juniorate in Quebec, from
which he was advanced to Fordham, N. Y., for
philosophy, and to Woodstock, Md., for theology
(1869-71). In the latter year he was assigned
as a teacher of Latin and Greek at the College
of St. Francis Xavier, New York, prior to a
four years' course in theology at Laval, France,
where, in the meantime, he was ordained a priest
(Sept 9, 1877). As a result of the law excluding
Jesuits from France, his tertianship at Paray-le-
Monial was interrupted when the retreat-villa
was seized at the point of the bayonet.
Recalled to the United States, he became in
1880 professor at the college of St. Francis Xav-
ier, socius to the provincial (1884), instructor
of tertians at Frederick, Md. (1888), and rec-
tor of St. Francis Xavier's (1891). In 1893 he
was awarded the provincialship of the New
York-Maryland province, in which position he
served until 1897. Under his administration the
spiritual care of Catholics in Jamaica was trans-
ferred from England to the United States. Be-
coming again a humble member of the Society,
20?
Paris
he was a teacher at Gonzaga College, Washing-
ton (1897-1901), pastor of St. Ignatius Church,
New York (1901-03), master of tertians at St.
Andrew-on-the-Hudson (1903-06). In the lat-
ter year he was a delegate to a general congre-
gation in Rome for the election of the general of
the order and associated with the Church of
Gesu in Philadelphia. "In 1907 he became pas-
tor of the Church of St. Ignatius, New York.
His request for missionary service in China
(1900) and his offer to go to Tokio when the
Jesuits opened their Japanese University did
not meet with the approval of superiors.
Pardow was widely known from coast to coast
as a preacher of fiery eloquence, clear diction,
and magnetic presence, despite a frail, under-
sized body. Constant appeals came to him to
preach in numerous cities, to give retreats for re-
ligious and diocesan priests, to deliver missions
to non-Catholics, and to explain the church's at-
titude on marriage, education, divorce, and au-
thority. Ill, but struggling on to complete a mis-
sion, he fell a victim to pneumonia and was bur-
ied in the characteristic pine box — a final lesson
in humility to the crowds who viewed his re-
mains and attended his requiem mass. In 1916,
appeared Searchlights of Eternity, compiled
from notes which he left.
[Justine Ward, William Pardow of the Company of
Jesus (1914, 1915) ; Records Am. Cath. Hist* Soc,f
Mar. 1915; Who's Who in America, 1908-09; N. Y.
Times, Jan. 24, 27, 1909.] R, J. P.
PARIS, WALTER (Feb. 28, i842-Nov. 26,
1906), painter1, was born in London, England,
and studied in the Royal Academy there, and
under T. L. Robotham, Paul Naftel, and Joseph
Nash. From about 1866 to 1870 he was an archi-
tect in the service of the British government in
India. About 1872 he came to the United States
and in 1894 became a naturalized citizen. He
was known in this country as a painter of water
colors rather than as an architect, and as an ama-
teur violinist. For the first few years after ar-
rival in America he lived in New York, occupy-
ing a studio in Union Square, then made his
home in Washington, D. C., for the rest of his
life. It was in his New York studio that the fa-
mous Tile Club was organized. This club, pic-
turesquely described by F. Hopkinson Smith in
his novel, The Fortunes of Oliver Horn (1902),
was fashioned after artist clubs in Germany and
Austria and numbered among its members such
men of later fame as Edwin A. Abbey, Frank D.
Millet, Augustus Salnt-Gaudens, Elihu Vedder,
and Alden Weir.
Walter Paris was a large man, broad-shoul-
dered, well-built, and wore moustache and full
Parish
beard squarely cut He had a dignity which
verged on pomposity and was slow and heavy in
movement and speech, the latter distinctly Brit-
ish in accent. But his paintings were exquisitely
dainty, and although he prided himself on his
breadth of style, his work was done painstak-
ingly with minute attention to detail. His sub-
jects to a great extent were rural English scenes
painted, doubtless, from his own early sketches
and memory, showing picturesque thatched cot-
tages with flowery dooryards or well-kept kit-
chen gardens, blossoming hedgerows, and neat
roadways. Possibly because of popular demand,
he painted these over and over again. A notable
exception, however, was a picture painted in
gouache (which he seldom used) of the great
blizzard of 1899, showing the State, War, and
Navy Department Building on Pennsylvania
Avenue, Washington, in a whirl of snow — &
very difficult theme, most skilfully rendered.
This painting is now in the permanent collection
of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, which also owns
Walter Paris' picture of Marcia Burns's cot-
tage, an historical Washington landmark. Per-
haps his most important work, however, was a
series of flower studies in water color made
from nature as aids to design. These were paint-
ed with the accuracy of the scientist and the skill
and perception of the trained artist
Walter Paris played on the violin with taste
and intelligence, evidencing thorough training
and sensitiveness of feeling, the latter again con-
tradicting the impression given by his stiff man-
ner. Of his own work and attainments he held
high opinion, not infrequently frankly expressed,
and he was intolerant of criticism, but this charac-
teristic also may have been only the armor worn
to protect a supersensitive nature. On moving to
Washington he purchased land and built an im-
posing house as a future home, but he did not
marry, and the house— never occupied— was
eventually sold. He was a member of the Wash-
ington Water Color Club and other professional
organizations, and exhibited regularly, but he
always held himself somewhat aloof from his
professional colleagues. He died Nov. 26, 1906,
in a hospital in Washington, as the result of a
stroke which occurred ten days earlier.
[Am. Art Annual, 1907-08 ; Am. Art News, Dec. r,
1906; Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, Allgemeines
Lexikon der Bildenden Kunstler, vol. XXVI (1932) ;
K M Roof, The Life and Art of William Memtt
Chase (1917) r Evening Star (Washington), Nov. 26,
1006 • catalogues of the annual exhibitions of the
Washington Water Color Club ; personal acquaintance.]
L. M!.
PARISH, ELIJAH (Nov. 7,'i7fo-Oct 15,
1825), Congregational clergyman, author, was
203
Parish
born in Lebanon, Conn., the son of Elijah and
Eunice (Foster) Parish, his mother being de-
scended from the Standish family. He prepared
for college at Plainfield Academy and entered
Dartmouth with the class of 1785, graduating
with high honors. Three years later, perhaps
upon his return to Hanover for his master of arts
degree, he was admitted to the newly organized
chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. Having chosen the
ministry as a profession, he studied theology un-
der the Rev. Ephraim Judson of Taunton, Mass.
On Dec. 20, 1787, he was installed as pastor of
the Congregational church at Byfield, Mass,,
where he remained until his death.
In his theological views Parish was Hopkin-
sian and therefore of the strictest Congregation-
al orthodoxy. As a pastor, he was unusually suc-
cessful and at his death there was not a more unit-
ed parish in the state. Indeed, he appears to have
quite dominated the life of his people, for "it is in
no respect an exaggeration to say that any opin-
ion expressed in opposition to their pastor, polit-
ical, religious, or regarding measures of policy,
would have had little chance of finding favour
among his people" (Sprague, post, II, 270). His
preaching had vividness and power. His conver-
sational gifts were also exceptional, and he was
noted for his quickness in repartee. In person he
was somewhat below middle stature, of a piercing
eye, and rapid in his motions. In addition to his
parish concerns, he took a warm interest in the
political affairs of the country, and, like most
of the New England clergy, was a Federalist.
Asked to preach the annual election sermon of
1810 before the legislature, he attacked the na-
tional administration so acrimoniously that the
legislature, gravely offended, refused him the
usual compliment of requesting a copy of the
sermon for publication. It was published, how-
ever, by subscription and widely read (A Ser-
mon, Preached at Boston, Before his Excellency
Christopher Gore . . . May 30, 1810). Equally
vigorous were his published sermons denounc-
ing the War of 1812. In later years, however,
his interest in politics waned, and he finally re-
marked to a friend that "Politics is like the vari-
olus contagion, no man catches it a second time"
(Sermons, post, p. ix). Eighteen of his sermons
and three occasional addresses were published.
He also assisted the Rev. Jedidiah Morse [q.v.~\
m Iiis geographical and historical works, pub-
lishing- in collaboration, A New Gazetteer of the
Eastern Continent (1802) and A Compendious
History oj New England (1804). In 1810 he
published his own New System of Modern Geog-
raphy for schools, and three years later, Sacred
; or, A Gazetteer of the Bible He
Park
also wrote, with the Rev. David McClure, Mem-
oirs of the Rev. Eleazar Whe clock, D.D., Pound-
er and President of Dartmouth College and
Moor's Charity School (1811). A posthumous
volume of his sermons with a brief sketch of his
life appeared in 1826. On Nov. 7, 1796, he mar-
ried Mary Hale, daughter of Deacon Joseph
Hale of Byfield ; they had five children.
[The best sketch of Parish is in Sermons, Practical
and Doctrinal, By the Late Elijah Parish, D.D. With
a Biographical Sketch of the Author (1826) ; see also
Roswell Parish, Jr., "John Parish of Groton, Mass.,
and Some of His Descendants," in New England Hist,
and Geneal. Reg,, Oct. 1909; W. B. Sprague, Annals
Am. Pulpit, vol. II (1857) ; G. T. Chapman, Sketches
of the Alumni of Dartmouth College (1867); Boston
Daily Advertiser, Oct. 21, 1825.] W. R W
PARK, EDWARDS AMASA (Dec. 29, 1808-
June 4, 1900), theologian, a descendant of Rich-
ard Parke who came to America on the Defence,
in 1635, was the son of Calvin and Abigail
(Ware) Park. He was born in Providence, R.
L, and brought up in a home of refinement ; his
father was a professor in Brown University, his
mother, distinguished for her character and cul-
ture. His education began early at home; he
loved sports, was full of vigor, much given to
mischief, and blessed with wit and humor. Grow-
ing up under strong religious influence, he
reached maturity without the customary con-
version crisis, though inclined to gloomy thought
He entered Brown University before he was
fourteen years of age, the youngest member of
his class ; ranked high as a scholar ; was assigned
the Valedictory Oration, which, however, he de-
clined; and was graduated in 1826. He then
taught in the classical schools of Braintree and
Weymouth Landing. He was undecided for a
time as to his profession; once thought he would
be a physician, then was inclined to study law,
but finally chose the Christian ministry. In 1828
he entered Andover Theological Seminary,
where he distinguished himself as a student and
was graduated in 1831. His services were sought
by Bangor Theological Seminary and by Con-
gregational churches in Boston and Lowell,
Mass., but he declined these offers and became
pastor of the Braintree church, being ordained
Dec, 21, 1831. As minister he studied hard,
preached thoughtful and moving sermons, wrote
much, mingled with his people, observed world
events, and gained a marked influence.
In 1835 he became professor of mental and
moral philosophy and instructor in Hebrew in
Amherst College. In 1836 he was called to the
Bartlet Professorship of Sacred Rhetoric in An-
dover Theological Seminary and in the same
year, Sept 21, married Ann Maria Edwards, a
great-grand-daughter, of Jonathan Edwards. As
204
Park
a preacher and teacher of the art of preaching
he had few peers; he ranked with the greatest
preachers and orators of his time. His instruc-
tion was marked for its learning, skill, eloquence,
and influence. He was himself the best example
of his own teaching in respect to speaking, read-
ing the Bible, prayers, and manner. His ser-
mons were events in the lives of his hearers, and
some became historic in the annals of the Ameri-
can pulpit; noteworthy examples are "Judas,"
"Peter's Denials of His Lord," The Theology of
the Intellect and of the Feelings (1850), and an
election sermon, The Indebtedness of the State
to the Clergy (1851).
In 1847, he was transferred to the Abbot Chair
of Christian Theology which he occupied for
thirty-four years. He was in the "Hopkinsian
succession" and was the last outstanding expo-
nent and champion of the "New England Theol-
ogy," the aim of which, in his own words, was
"to exalt God as a Sovereign and to glorify the
eternal plan on which He governs the universe."
He remained an eager student, was aware of new
developments of thought, familiar with the work
of scholars in Germany and elsewhere — he trans-
lated and edited German theological treatises —
and was cognizant of but uninfluenced by new
scientific thought. He was distinguished as a
teacher of theology by his power of analysis and
his skill in presentation, but was more concerned
to make his students convinced holders of his
system than independent thinkers. He published
several pamphlets and was editor and translator,
with Bela Bates Edwards [#.#.], of Selections
from German Literature (1839). In 1844 he be-
came co-editor with Edwards of Bibliotheca
Sacra, founded the year previous by Dr. Edward
Robinson [q.v."\. He was editor in chief from
1852 until the removal of the quarterly to Ober-
lin in 1884, an<i associate editor thereafter until
his death. He wrote several memoirs, including
brief biographies prefixed to collected works of
his colleague B. B, Edwards, of Samuel Hop-
kins, and of Nathaniel Emmons [qq.v,']. In 1859
he edited The Atonement: Discourses and Trea-
tises by Edwards, Sinalley, Maxcy, Emmons,
Griffin, Purge, and Weeks, for which he wrote
the introductory essay; in 1858 he collaborated
with Austin Phelps and Lowell Mason in com-
piling" and editing The Sabbath Hymn Book ; in
1885 he issued his Discourses on Some Theo-
logical Doctrines, while after his death a Me-
morial Collection of Sermons (1902) was com-
piled and published by his daughter.
In 1881 he resigned his professorship. The
remainder of his life he spent in Andover, la-
boring to perfect his system of theology and
Park
viewing with alarm the new developments in
the Seminary and in the world. His mind was
eclectic rather than constructive, dialectical
rather than philosophical, apologetic rather than
critical, defensive rather than creative, and did
not range beyond the narrow confines of the
"New England Theology." He lived to see his
best students reject his theology and the move-
ment of thought pass beyond him; he recognized
that his system of theology upon which he had
worked so hard and so long was out of date, and
it was never published.
Park was an impressive figure. A former pu-
pil, describing from memory his appearance in
the decade of the forties, mentioned "his slight,
tall form, his chiselled features, fine, then, as if
wrought in marble, his piercing eyes, and his
impressive and animating voice" (Storrs, post}.
He was a delightful companion, a great story
teller, a remarkable conversationalist, friendly
in his personal relations, with some strong preju-
dices, essentially unworldly, and almost ascetic
in personal habits; his mind dwelt on high
themes, and his religious life centered on God.
He died at Andover in his ninety-second year
and was buried in the Chapel Cemetery.
[R. S. Storrs, Memorial Address (1900) ; Alexander
Mackenzie, Memoir of Prof. E. A. Park (1901) j F. H.
Foster, A Genetic Hist, of the New England Theology
(1907), cli. xiii; Who's Who in America, 1899-1900;
F. L. Mott, Hist, of Am. Mags. (1930) ; F. S. Parks,
Geneal of the Parke Families of Mass. (1909) ; W. H.
Edwards, Timothy and Rhoda Ogden Edwards of
Stockbridge, Mass., and Their Descendants (1903).]
D.E.
PARK, JAMES (Jan. 11, i82o-Apr. 21, 1883),
iron and steel manufacturer, was bom in Pitts-
burgh, Pa., of Scotch-Irish parentage. His fa-
ther, James Park, was a native of Ireland who
probably emigrated to the United States in 1812,
and his mother, Margaret (McCurdy), was the
daughter of a Scotch-Irish physician resident in
Pittsburgh at the time of her marriage. Park's
early education was obtained in the Pittsburgh
elementary schools, and at seventeen he began
his business career in his father's china and
metal store, rising to partnership in 1840 with
a younger brother, David E. Park. The firm,
which later achieved national prominence as
Park, Brother & Company, became James Park,
Jr. & Company on the father's death in 1843,
and gradually expanded its personnel and inter-
ests under the leadership of the elder brother.
John McCurdy and James B. Scott were at dif-
ferent times members of the firm; an interest
was acquired in a cotton-goods factory in Alle-
gheny, Pa., and the Lake Superior Copper
Works were founded in 1857 for the manufap-
205
Park
Park, McCurdy & Company at their coppe
works on Aug. 14, 1863, was operated success-
fully. A second one, built later in the same year
to heat steel, was not a success. Both these fur-
naces were constructed from published draw-
ings, and without securing a license from the
Siemens brothers. The first licensee! introduc-
tion of the regenerative gas furnace was not
until 1867, at Troy, N. Y. Another experiment
was undertaken in 1877 by Park, Brother &
Company when, in conjunction with Miller,
Metcalf & Parkin, they tried out a process in-
vented by C. W. Siemens for making- refined iron
directly from the ore. The results were not en-
couraging, and the attempt was abandoned in
1879.
In September 1882 Park, a vice-president of
the American Iron and Steel Association from
1873 to 1883, presided over a convention of the
trade, and was authorized to lay its views before
the tariff commission created that year with a
view to tariff reduction. He testified effectively
in defence of the policy which had made his
fortune, and after the hearings were over spent
much time in Washington lobbying for the tariff
bill. He is said to have had great influence in
securing the final result as embodied in the bill
approved Mar, 3, 1883. It was a cleverly con-
trived victory for the protectionists, increases
in steel duties being concealed under ostensible
changes in classification. It is possible that
Park's tariff activities in 1882 and the early
months of 1883 hastened his death, which oc-
curred at his home in Allegheny, Pa,, following
an apoplectic stroke. He was survived by his
widow, Sarah (Gray) Park, and their five sons
and two daughters.
Typically the entrepreneur, Park sincerely
believed that what benefited the manufacturer
must inevitably also benefit the workingtnan and
the consumer. One eulogist said of him : "We
wonder if the manufacturers of this country and
its workingmen fully realize the sacrifices that
a few willing and earnest men like James Park,
Jr., have always made to secure to them the
benefits and the blessings of a Protective tariff.
... Mr. Park leaves a large estate, estimated at
from two to five million dollars" (The Bulletin
of the American Iron and Sted Association
May 2, 1883, p. 116).
fiia^ i r?r?^' $*Sr>' °f Pittsburgh and Environs
_ ,__„„ ^, ivjj j.iAVrfLell ^UH- 't^r*1 ^' -^ * > J- N« Boucher A CsntuvM /i/nd /» ffnt-f
i WWW Md patented in England by &£? Jfe, and F? p£?*l° UoS), vol Tl ; j. $
^^S^^^^S^lM
Park
ture of sheathing copper from Lake Superior
ore.
Park retained partial control of these and
other varied enterprises throughout his life, but
it was not until shortly before the Civil War
that he entered upon the most significant activ-
ity of his career. At that time he became inter-
ested in the iron industry and from 1860 to 1883
he had a prominent part in its development. To
this he contributed along two distinct lines: he
encouraged the introduction of new industrial
processes, although not of an inventive type of
mind himself; and he was instrumental in in-
creasing the tariff schedules which entrenched
steel in its position of special privilege.
The first real impetus to steel-making was due
to a political maneuver, for the framers of the
Morrill tariff act of 1861, in the hope of making
Pennsylvania safe for the Republican party, in-
creased the duties on iron and steel. Before 1860
many attempts had been made on a small scale at
Pittsburgh to produce crucible cast steel, but the
first to be commercially practicable was that of
Hussey, Wells & Company in 1860. Park's firm
followed this in 1862 with the establishment of
the Black Diamond Steel Works. After pre-
liminary failures, this plant achieved a product
of high quality with American iron, and was said
in 1883 to have a greater capacity for crucible
steel than any other plant in the world. Park
was also connected with the development in the
United States of the "pneumatic" process of
steel making. Although permanently linked
with the name of Sir Henry Bessemer, priority
of invention of this process has now been gen-
erally conceded to William Kelly [q.v.]. E. B.
Ward of Detroit and Z. S. Durfee [q.v.'] of New
Bedford, Mass., bought control of Kelly's proc-
ess after experiments had convinced them of its
practicability, and in May 1863 they, together
with Daniel J. Morrell of Johnstown, Pa., Wil-
liam M. Lyon of Detroit, and James Park Jr
incorporated the Kelly Pneumatic Process Com-
pany. Experimental works were established at
Wyandotte, MicL, and there, in the autumn of
1864, the first steel made in the United States
P jr complete Bessemer process was blown.
ParTs connection with this enterprise (finally
^doBed in 1869) ceased with its purchase by
E, B. Ward in 1865.
j, -coo* ^iaas;, u, 3009-2094; Pinsb^rg Dispatch,
206
Park
Apr. 23, 1883 ; Bull. Am. Iron and Steel Asso., May 2,
l883'3 L.P.B— t
PARK, ROSWELL (Oct. i, i8o7-July 16,
1869), educator, Episcopal clergyman, was born
in Lebanon, New London County, Conn., the
son of A very and Betsey (Meech) Park, and a
descendant of Robert Parke, who came to Bos-
ton from England in 1630. His early childhood
was spent in his native town, but when he was
about twelve years of age his parents moved to
Burlington, Otsego County, N. Y. After a pe-
riod of preparatory study at the Oxford and
Hamilton academies, he matriculated at Hamil-
ton College as a sophomore in 1826, but with-
drew in 1827 upon receiving an appointment
to the United States Military Academy at West
Point. He graduated as highest ranking man in
the class of 1831, and was commissioned brevet
second lieutenant in the corps of engineers of
the United States army. In the same summer,
he passed the senior examinations at Union Col-
lege, and received the degree of A.B. His first
military duty was in connection with the con-
struction of Fort Adams, at Newport, R. I.,
1831. Two years later he was transferred to
Fort Warren, Boston, Mass. In 1836 he took
charge of the Delaware Breakwater. Deciding
to seek a larger field for the expression of his
ambitions and talents, he resigned from the
army, Sept. 30, 1836, and for the next six years
served as professor of chemistry and natural
philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania.
While here he decided to enter the ministry of
the Protestant Episcopal Church, and resigned
his professorship in July 1842.
Removing to Burlington, Vt, he prepared for
holy orders under the guidance of Bishop George
W. Doane [#.#.]. Admission to the diaconate
was granted Sept. 10, 1843, a^d he was ordained
priest on May 28, 1844. In 1843 he was appoint-
ed rector of Christ Church at Pomfret, Conn.
From 1845 to 1852, while fulfilling his pastoral
duties, he conducted the Christ Church Hall
preparatory school, and as its headmaster be-
came well known throughout New England.
Norwich University, in 1850, invited him to be-
come president, but he declined, Late in the
spring of 1852 he resigned from his charges in
Pomfret and traveled in Europe for six months.
Upon his return, he accepted an invitation to
establish and become the first president of Ra-
cine College, at Racine, Wis. He opened the
institution in November 1852, with a program
which included scientific studies, leading to the
B.Sc. degree, for those who did not wish to de-
vote themselves exclusively to the usual classical
course. Many innovations in administration and
Park
instruction were introduced by him. He strength-
ened the college substantially by uniting with it,
in 1859, the St. John's School at Delafield, Wis.
His title was then changed to that of chancellor,
the former headmaster of St. John's becoming
warden. In the enlarged college, the scientific
course was discontinued and the elective system
established From 1856 to 1863 Park served,
also, as rector of St. Luke's Church, in Racine.
In the latter year, he withdrew from the col-
lege and the pulpit, and removed to Chicago, 111.
Here he founded Immanuel Hall, a classical and
scientific school, which he conducted as a pri-
vate venture until his death. He was an original
member of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, and was affiliated with
many other scientific and literary societies. His
published writings include Selections of Juvenile
and Miscellaneous Poems (1836), a second edi-
tion of which appeared in 1856 under the title
Jerusalem and Other Poems; A Sketch of the
History and Topography of West Point and of
the United States Military Academy (1840) ;
Pantology: or a Systematic Survey of Human
Knowledge (1841) ; Handbook for American
Travelers in Europe (1853). He was married,
Dec. 28, 1836, to Mary Brewster, daughter of
Benjamin Franklin and Mary Carter Brewster
(Coolidge) Baldwin, of Woburn, Mass. After
her death, he married, Apr. 25, 1860, Eunice
Elizabeth, daughter of Gardner and Elizabeth
(Ward) Niles of Waukegan, 111.
[F. S. Parks, Geneal. of the Parko Families of Conn.
(1906) ; 0. F. Adams, A Diet, of Am. Authors and
Others (1899) ; G. W. Culhim, Biog. Reg. Officers and
Grads. U. S. Military Acad. (srd ed., 1891) ; The Asso.
Grads. U. S. Mil. Acad. Ann. Reunion, 1870 ; Church
Reg., Aug. 1869; Chicago Republican, July 18, 1869.]
R.F.S.
PARK, ROSWELL (May 4, iSss-Feb. 15,
1914), surgeon, was born at Pomfret, Conn.,
the son of the Rev. Roswell Park [#.*>.]. His
mother was Mary Brewster Baldwin, a descend-
ant of Elder Brewster of the Plymouth colony.
Roswell Park obtained his academic education
in Connecticut and in Racine, Wis., where he
attended Racine College (founded by his fa-
ther), receiving the degree of B.A. in 1872,
and that of M.A. in 1875 ; his medical course he
pursued at Northwestern University (M.D-,
1876). The following year he became demon-
strator of anatomy in the Woman's Medical
College, Chicago, serving as such until 1879,
when he was appointed adjunct professor of
anatomy in Northwestern Medical School. In
1882 he was lecturer on surgery at Rush Medi-
cal College, Chicago, and in 1883 he; became pro-
fessor of surgery in the School of Medicine of
207
Park
Park
the University of Buffalo, which position he dent McKinley after the latter was shot at the
II^M ««+n ln'c rlpatfi- TIP was also surp-eon-in- Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo in IOOT.
held until his death; he was also surgeon-in-
chief at the Buffalo General Hospital. He re-
ceived various honorary degrees, was president
of the Medical Society of the State of New
York and of the American Surgical Association
(1900), and was a member of various foreign
societies.
At a time when skilful operators were not
common, Park was a great surgeon. His prin-
cipal service, however, was in assimilating and
then teaching and making popular new discov-
eries in pathology and bacteriology. The period
between the years 1880 and 1890 was marked by
amazingly rapid advances in these branches of
science. Practitioners in the United States
were somewhat slow in understanding and ap-
plying the antiseptic technique of Lister for sur-
gical operations, and Park played an important
part in making it — and the later modifications
of it — known, and in securing its adoption. He
devoted himself especially to surgical pathology,
in which he pursued studies both in America and
Europe. From these studies various lectures
and papers resulted, which had a wide influence
in making surgeons realize the importance of
pathology. In 1890-91 he gave the Mutter lec-
tures at the College of Physicians and Surgeons,
Philadelphia, published under the title, The Mut-
ter Lectures on Surgical Pathology (1892), a
valuable book at that time. Later, he promul-
gated certain original views with regard to in-
flammation, that did not meet with general ac-
ceptance. He edited, and largely wrote, a text-
book, Surgery by American Authors (1896),
and in 1907 published a large work, The Princi-
ples and Practice of Modern Surgery. In sub-
sequent years he was greatly interested in tu-
mors, wrote many papers on the subject, and
was instrumental in having founded an institu-
tion for the study of malignant tumors, first
known as the Gratwick Laboratory, which later
became the New York State Institute for the
Study of Malignant Diseases. In spite of his
having- come from a long line of Puritan ances-
tors, Park's interests were broad and the tend-
ooes of his mind liberal. He was attracted by
Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo in 1901.
In 1880 he married Martha Prudence Durkee
of Chicago, and of this marriage two sons were
born.
[Memoirs by C. G. Stockton, in Roswell Park, Se-
lected Papers f Surgical and Scientific (1914), ed. by
Julian Park, and in Buffalo Mist. Soc. Pubs,, vol. XXII
(1918) ; H. A. Kelly and W. L. Burrage, Am. Medic.
Biogs. (1920) ; Trans. Am. Surgic. Soc., vol. XXXII
(1914); N. Y. Times, Feb. 16, 1914; Whtfs Who in
America, 1912-13.] H. U. W.
PARK, TRENOR WILLIAM (Dec. 8, 1823-
Dec. 13, 1882), lawyer, financier, was born at
Woodford, Vt, near Bennington, to which city
his parents, Luther and Cynthia (Pratt) Park,
removed three years later. The Park family
was descended from Richard Parke who emi-
grated from England to Cambridge, Mass., in
1635. William Park, the grandfather of Trenor,
was a quartermaster of Massachusetts troops in
the Revolutionary army. During the boy's child-
hood his family lived in poverty, and as a con-
sequence his educational opportunities were
meager and irregular. At the age of sixteen he
entered the law office of A, P. Lyman, was ad-
mitted to the Vermont bar soon after he had at-
tained his majority, and began to practise in
Bennington. On Dec. 15, 1846, he married
Laura V. S. Hall.
When his wife's father, Gov. Hiland Hall
.z>.], was appointed on the federal commis-
sion to settle land titles in California, Park and
his family followed him, in 1852, to that state.
Here he became junior partner in the firm of
Halleck, Peachy, Billings & Park, which in-
cluded Henry W. Halleck and Frederick Billings
[qq.v.]. Park is credited with doing "a very
large share of the business created by the con-
troversies on land titles in California" (New
York Tribune, Dec. 21, 1882). The close rela-
tion of the firm to commissioner Hall is suggest-
ed by the fact that after Hall was displaced by
President Pierce he remained for a time as its
'general adviser." With such connections the
firm and its junior partner reaped their full
share of the profits accruing to the lawyers in
the tortuous land title business of that period.
the cdteal, as well as by fte strictivTXf-fi T • ™ , ^ business of that
sMe of his ^rofessi He wrot SS5 A """^ ^f fa Park'S busin6SS career'
ike Hist^of Medicine (^7) and SlT/^l v V considerable factor » the building up of
a oqlte&i of "border line"^ 2L« Jw S M °ftUne' WSS Ws connecti°n with the famous
Bye, r^o^r JTo !*? P p "Wl ^ °f Gen" John C F«mont C^-]-
> fee styfe of JLT^Sb^E' ?fihadtaf T!? lar?e SUmS °n the security
fe«8agoodfeetBter.»goKiS« eLfeh 2? % / m0'tga8re C0verin? one-
ishediraisidii wom^S-V^! g « ' and was in Possession as local
g™gr eaorts to bring good m^o Buff X ^^f 'i, " lheJCState Was offered for sale
Bewaso.ofthes^eonswhoattended^: =S1^S5 t^SSTt^!
208
Park
company was organized and took over the es-
tate at a valuation of $10,000,000, based almost
entirely on the showing1 made by gold mines in
operation. Park returned to the East in that
year and had a major role in forming the com-
pany. It was shortly discovered that the output
of the mines, which reached $100,000 a month
at the maximum, had been achieved by the famil-
iar expedient of exploiting the richest seams to
the full and neglecting development and explora-
tion work. The company, not being provided
with adequate working capital to meet the ac-
tual conditions, shortly collapsed with disas-
trous loss to its shareholders.
During the remainder of his life Park made
his home in Bennington, where he built a hand-
some residence. He established the First Na-
tional Bank of Bennington and became inter-
ested In Vermont railroads, assisting in the re-
organization of the Vermont Central, purchas-
ing the Western Vermont Railroad, and com-
mencing construction of the Lebanon Central.
He seems to have had visions of a system of
lines centering in Bennington ; but the project
failed and he lost heavily. He had narrowly
failed of election as United States senator from
California in 1862, and he now became active
in Vermont politics, serving four terms in the
legislature (1865-68). He was a delegate to the
Republican National Convention in 1868, aiding
in the nomination of General Grant, and serv-
ing as a member of the national committee.
Going to Utah in April 1871, Park acquired
a controlling interest in the famous Emma mine.
By his own statement he "worked it vigorously."
In early September he went to London, accom-
panied by Senator William M. Stewart [#.#.],
and, succeeding in forming an English company
to take over the mine, received as his share half
the stock. In connection with the sale he had in-
duced Gen. Robert C. Schenck, then ambassador
to the Court of St. James's, to become a direc-
tor in the new company. Park loaned Schenck
$50,000, without interest, to invest in shares of
the new corporation, guaranteeing him by writ-
ten contract one and one half per cent, a month
return on his investment. At the time of the
sale the mine was producing $75,000 in silver
monthly. Park sold out his remaining interests
at a large profit in the fall of that year, and re-
turned to the United States in July 1872. It
speedily became evident that the Emma mine
had been exploited and its possibilities grossly
overstated. Park was sued for fraud and after
a five months' trial acquitted. The caustic com-
ment of the judge in later litigation correctly
characterizes these transactions: "In conclu-
Parke
sion, it is proper to say, that the evidence dis-
closes many circumstances connected with the
sale of the Emma mine, which strongly impeach
the honor and morality of the transaction, but
which are to be eliminated from the case, except
so far as they bear upon the question of fraud in
law" (14 Blatchford, 420). Later Park was in-
terested in the Pacific Mail Steamship lines, of
which he was a director from 1875 to X8&2. He
bought a controlling interest in the Panama
Railroad, administered its affairs, and held the
position of president from 1875 to his death. In
1881 he sold it to the De Lesseps Panama Canal
Company at $300 per share, having stimulated
the purchaser by judicious firmness in maintain-
ing the extremely high passenger and freight
rates on the shipment of canal building ma-
chinery, labor force, and supplies.
Park's first wife having died in 1875, ^e mar-
ried Ella F. Nichols of San Francisco on May
30, 1882. His death occurred on the steamship
San Bias, while he was making a voyage to the
Pacific. His benefactions to his home city in-
cluded $5,000 toward the establishment of the
Bennington Public Library, to the maintenance
of which he made liberal gifts later. He donated
an art gallery to the University of Vermont, of
which institution he was a trustee. When the
Civil War broke out he sent a check for $1,000
from California as his contribution to the out-
fitting of Vermont troops. He was greatly in-
terested in the New York Tribune fresh air fund
for city children, entertaining over a hundred
children at his country home. He was modest
and unobtrusive but thoughtful, an inveterate
reader and possessed of great mental power. In
his career he made many enemies but had the
capacity also of maintaining firm friendships.
Three children by his first wife survived him.
[F. S. Parks, Geneal of the Parke Families of Mass.
(1909) ; Hiram Carleton, Geneal. and Family Hist, of
the State of Vt. (1903), vol. II; N. F. Tribune, Dec.
22, 1864, Feb. 5, Apr. 16, 1875, Dec. 21, 1882; A. M.
Hemenway, Vt. Hist. Gazetteer, vol. V (1891) ; The
Mariposa Estate. . . . Its Mineral Wealth and Resources
(1873) ; Benjamin Silliman, Jr., Review of the Nature,
Resources and Plan of Development . . . of the North-
ern Division of the Mariposa Estate (1873) ; L. E.
Chittenden, The Emma Mine. A Statement . . . Pre-
pared for . . . The Committee of Foreign Affairs of the
House of Representatives (1876).] C.E.P.
PARKE, BENJAMIN (Sept. 2, 1777-July 12,
1835), soldier, jurist, was born in New Jersey
and grew up there on a farm, acquiring during
his youth such education as the common-schools
of the time and place afforded. When about
twenty years old he migrated to the West, set-
tling first at Lexington, Ky., where he took tip
the study of law in the office of James Brown
After his admission to the bar he re-
209
Parke
moved, in 1801, to the newly organized terri-
tory of Indiana, residing first at Vincennes and
then at Salem. Vincennes, the first territorial
capdtal, was the scene of rather violent local pol-
itics in which Parke participated as the friend
and supporter of the governor, William Henry
Harrison [q.v.]. This allegiance to the most
powerful personage in the territory may have
paved the way to subsequent preferments. At
any rate, in 1804 Parke was made attorney gen-
eral, and throughout the Harrison regime in In-
diana he was from time to time appointed to
offices of a military character. While serving
as attorney general (1804-08) he was elected in
1805 to the first territorial legislature, and in
December of the same year was sent as dele-
gate to Congress, where he served for two
terms, resigning in 1808 to accept appointment
as territorial judge. In 1816, when delegates
were elected to frame a state constitution, he
was sent to the convention as a Knox County
member, and is credited with being instrumental
in securing the adoption of certain educational
provisions which became the foundation of the
state school system.
Meanwhile, his activity in the local militia at
a time when that organization was an arm of
real importance in frontier defense was some-
thing1 more than the gratification of a passing
ambition for glory. For at least ten years he was
in this service, and when the troubles with the
Indians culminated in 1811 in the Tippecanoe
campaign he raised a company of dragoons and
joined the expedition. He participated in the
bloody battle of Tippecanoe following Harri-
son's march, and after that engagement was
made commander of the cavalry with the rank
of major. The knowledge he acquired of the
Indian character made him valuable in a civil
as well as a military capacity, and he served as
an Indian agent and as a commissioner repre-
senting the United States in negotiating various
land treaties. The most noteworthy of these
treaties was that signed at St. Mary's, Ohio, in
i«i8, by which the whole central part of Indiana
Z^ tt0thewhltes' ^representatives
I tLa^f ^overni^ent on this occasion were
ws Cass lqq.v.i and Benjamin Parke. ^^
Parke
as a territorial judge, to which office he was
appointed by President Jefferson in 1808, then
as United States district judge, under a com-
mission dated Mar. 6, 1817, soon after Indi-
ana was admitted to the Union. In the latter
office he served until his death. This long serv-
ice was the more notable by reason of the ardu-
ous character of his duties in the days of large
circuits and hard traveling. A story survives
of his riding horseback from Vincennes to
Wayne County, across the state, to try a man
for stealing a twenty-five cent pocket knife.
Educationally Parke was a self-made man,
yet he attained to a reputation for learning- and
is said to have acquired one of the largest pri-
vate libraries in Indiana Territory. He was
a promoter of the first public library in the ter-
ritory, established at Vincennes, and of a later
one^at Corydon which was the forerunner of the
Indiana State Library. He was also connected
with the territory's first school of higher learn-
ing^ Vincennes University, being- at one time
chairman of its board of trustees. Historical and
antiquarian interests also claimed his attention
and he was one of the organizers of a society
of that character at Vincennes, and afterwards
first president of the Indiana Historical Society
founded in 1830. Throughout his latter years he
made unceasing efforts to repay money losses
due to unfortunate business reverses caused by
others. Through frugal living and work, made
harder by the handicap of partial paralysis, he
managed before his death to free himself of debts
for which others were to blame. He has been
described as tall and spare in person, of rather
frail physique, dignified in appearance, but af-
fable He married Eliza Barton at Lexington,
Ky., before moving to Indiana, and they had
two children, a son and a daughter, both of
whom died before their parents.
Bioa. and Hist. Sketches of Early
i ayior, Biog, Sketches and Review
ar of Ind. (1895) ; 0. H. Smith
and Sketches fv&tsi} • Charles
\oc. Pubs.,
3 and Letters/'
, XII (1924);
*4, iSsS.J
ook
K
soldier and
at
I, the
h ' ec n
house at Dover indicate that Thomas
dtizen of that
f Kent
21 a
Parke
him, at least three children. John Parke attend-
ed Newark Academy and Newark College, which
became the University of Delaware, and then
was a student at the College of Philadelphia,
forerunner of the University of Pennsylvania,
where he received the degree of A.B. in 1771 and
that of A.M. in 1775. After graduation he stud-
ied law with Thomas McKean [q.v.] for some
four years. In August 1775, recommended by
McKean and Caesar Rodney [q.v.~\, he was ap-
pointed assistant quartermaster-general of the
Continental Army at Cambridge, Mass., and on
June 29, 1776, in New York, was appointed lieu-
tenant-colonel of artificers. He resigned from
the army, Oct. 29, 1778, and died on his estate,
"Poplar Grove," in Kent County, Del, eleven
years later.
Parke is remembered chiefly for a work which
he published anonymously in Philadelphia in
1786, entitled The Lyric Works of Horace,
Translated into English Verse: to Which Are
Added, a Number of Original Poems > by a
Native of America. The printer of this work,
Eleazer Oswald, was one of Parke' s comrades in
the army, also a lieutenant-colonel, who had set
up as a bookseller "at the Coffee House" in 1786.
In the volume Parke included translations from
other classical poets than Horace and bath orig-
inal poems and translations by other hands than
his own. Some of the versions of Horace are
really paraphrases which adapt the subject mat-
ter to the circumstances of American history,
substituting George Washington for the Em-
peror Augustus. Most of the poems are sup-
plied with dedications and notes of the date and
place of writing. These notations indicate that
some of the translations were made in 1769-70
at college, that in 1772 Parke had made a jour-
ney to Hartford, Conn., and that he was at Val-
ley Forge. Together with land records in which
he is mentioned they show that his residence
after his retirement from the arrny was Arundel
in Murderkill Hundred, a few miles from Dover.
The poet included in his volume, besides a life
of Horace, which he addressed to Benjamin
Franklin, and his own version of the odes, a
pastoral by John Wilcocks, whom he described
as "late an officer of the British Arrny, my most
intimate friend and acquaintance," and whose
death in 1772 he commemorated in an elegy;
poems by Mr. John Pryor, "a young gentleman
of Dover"; and translations written between
1720 and 1730 by David French, Esquire, late of
the Delaware Counties. The versification is in
the manner of Pope, whom Parke greatly ad-
mired, and whose translations he sometimes
adopted, with acknowledgment, when his own
Parke
seemed inadequate. Bound in the same volume
is Virginia: a Pastoral Drama, on the Birthday
of an Illustrious Personage and the Return of
Peace, February 11, 1784, addressed to John
Dickinson. The illustrious personage is obvious-
ly Washington, and the scene of the action
Mount Vernon. Parke is said to have written
original poems and satires, including a comedy
representing the petty administration of justice,
but these are not extant. The dedication of an
ode "To my German Flute, Dover, 1770" and
another "On hearing Miss Kitty Smith play and
sing to the guitar, Philadelphia, 1771" would
seem to indicate in the poet at least some taste
for music ; and the range of his dedications testi-
fies to a wide circle of friends. Deeds in which
his name occurs imply that he was unmarried
and prove that in 1784 he was the only surviving
son of Thomas Parke.
[E. D. Neill in New-Eng. Hist, attd Geneal Reg.,
July 1876; J. T. Scharf, Hist, of Del (2 vols., 1888),
pp. 1039, 1046, and 1163 ; Mag. of Hist., Extra No. 91
(1923) ; J. F. Fisher, in Memoirs of the Hist. Soc. of
Pa., vol. II, pt. II (1830) ; G. H. Ryden, Letters to and
from Casar Rodney (1933), p. 62; three unpublished
letters by Parke in the library of the Hist, Soc. of Pa. ;
the guardians' account of Bertles and Cecilia Shee,
Dover, Del.] J C F
PARKE, JOHN GRUBB (Sept. 22, 1827-
Dec. 1 6, 1900), soldier, son of Francis and Sarah
(Gardner) Parke, was born near Coatesville,
Chester County, Pa. In 1835 his family moved
to Philadelphia, where he attended Samuel
Crawford's preparatory academy and the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania. He entered West Point
in 1845 and graduated in 1849, second in a class
of forty-three. Brevetted second lieutenant,
corps of topographical engineers, he was sent
to determine the boundary between Iowa and
Minnesota. In 1852-53 he was secretary of the
board for improvement of lake harbors, and
Western rivers and surveyed for the Pacific
Railroad route. On Apr. 18, 1854, he was pro-
moted second lieutenant, and on July I, 1856,
first lieutenant. In 1857-61 he was chief astron-
omer and surveyor for the determination of the
northwest boundary between the United States
and Canada. The outbreak of the Civil War in-
terrupted this work
Parke was promoted captain of engineers,
Sept 9, 1861, and moved from the Pacific Coast
to Washington early in October. He was made
brigadier-general of volunteers, Nov. 23, 1861,
and assigned to command the 3rd Brigade in
Burnside's North Carolina expedition, which
sailed from Annapolis on Jan. 9, 1862. Roanoke
Island and Fort Forest were captured, Feb. 8,
and Parke's brigade next helped to capture New
Bern, N. C. It then invested Fort Maoo% which,
211
Parke
by skilful use of his batteries, Parke forced to
surrender. For this achievement he was bre-
vetted lieutenant-colonel, United States Army,
Apr. 26, 1862, and major-general of volunteers,
July 18, 1862. When the order came from Burn-
side to join McClellan in Virginia, Parke be-
came Burnside's chief of staff. He fought at
South Mountain, at Antietam, at Fredericks-
burg, and, when Burnside took command of the
Ohio Department, Mar. 25, 1863, Parke became
commander of the IX Corps at Cincinnati. Early
in June he went to reinforce Grant at Vicks-
burg, his corps holding the extreme right flank
until Vicksburg surrendered. The corps next
participated in Sherman's capture of Jackson
City with its subsequent railway destruction.
For meritorious conduct, Parke was brevetted
colonel in the Regular Army.
Ill health now incapacitated him until Sept.
15, when the IX Corps marched to reinforce
Burnside at Knoxville and operated against
General Longstreet until Dec. 4, The Confed-
erates withdrew northward and Parke's com-
mand, IX and XXIII Corps, followed. Long-
street turned and forced Parke back to Blain's
Crossroads, whereupon both sides went into win-
ter quarters. On Jan. 26, 1864, Parke again took
station at Knoxville and was ordered, Mar. 16,
1864, to report to Burnside, who was reorganiz-
ing and recruiting the IX Corps at Annapolis.
The corps was ordered, Apr. 23, in support of
the Army of the Potomac, being constituted a
separate unit responsible to Grant until May 24,
when it was assigned to Meade. As chief of
staff of the IX Corps, Parke fought in the battle
of the Wilderness, in battles around Spotsyl-
vania, in the James River campaign, and in the
advance against Petersburg. On June 17, 1864,
he was promoted major in the engineer corps.
From July 4 to Aug. 13, he was prostrated by
malaria. Rejoining his command, he engaged
in all subsequent operations against Petersburg,
fought at Peeble's Farm, Oct. 2, 1864, Hatcher's
Run, Oct 27, 1864, and Fort Steadman, Mar.
25, 1865. For this latter action he was brevetted
brigadier-general, United States Army. The IX
Corps fought and won its last action at Fort
Sedgwkk, Apr. 2, 1865, Parke receiving his
brevet as major-general When Meade was ab-
sent* Parke commanded the Army of the Po-
tomac.
After hostilities, lie commanded the District
of Alpeaudrk as4 in July 1865, the Southern
Bisfcrkt of Mew York. He was mustered out
of tte volunteers, Jan. 15, 1866, ahd resumed
i
he was again
Parker
with the Northwest Boundary Commission. In
the meantime, June 5, 1867, he married Ellen
Blight of Philadelphia; they had one child, a
daughter. On June i, 1868, he was detailed as
assistant chief of engineers, serving until his
appointment as superintendent of the United
States Military Academy in August 1887. He
was promoted lieutenant-colonel in the engineer
corps Mar. 4, 1879, and colonel, Mar. 17, 1884.
Having served forty years, he was retired at his
own request on July 2, 1889. Thereafter he en-
gaged in business in Washington, D. C., as di-
rector of the Washington & Georgetown Street
Railway Company, and of the National Safe De-
posit Company. He was secretary of the Protes-
tant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation, manager
of the Columbia Hospital, and president of the
Society of the Army of the Potomac, He wrote
several valuable reports and compilations, of
which Laws of the United States Relating to the
Construction of Bridges over Navigable Waters
of the United States, from Mar. 2, 1805 1 to Mar.
3, 1887 (1887), and "Report of Explorations . . .
Near the 32d Parallel of Latitude, Lying Be-
tween Dona Ana, on the Rio Grande, and Pimas
Villages, on the Gila" (House Executive Docu-
ment 129, 33 Cong., i Sess., 1855) are the most
important. Parke died at Washington, and was
buried in the cemetery of the Church of St.
James the Less in Philadelphia.
[F. B. Heitman, Hist. Reff. and Diet. U. S. Army
(1903) ; T. H. S. Hamersly, Complete Regular Army
Reg. of the U. S. (1880) ; G. W. Cullum, Biog. Reff,
Officers and Grads. U. S. Mil. Acctd. (1891) ; War of
the Rebellion: Official Records (Army} ; Thirty-Third
Ann. Reunion, Asso. Grads. U. S. Mil. Acad. (1902) ;
Washington Post, Dec. 18, 1900.] C. C. B.
PARKER, ALTON BROOKS (May 14,
i852-May 10, 1926), jurist, was born at Cort-
land, N, Y., the son of John Brooks and Harriet
F. (Straton) Parker. He was of New England
descent, his grandfather, John Parker, having
moved from Massachusetts to Cortland County
about 1800. He received his early schooling at
the academy and the normal school at Cortland,
and at the age of sixteen began to teach. He
then studied law, at first in the office of Schoon-
maker and Hardenbergh, Kingston, N. Y., and
later at the Albany Law School, from which he
was graduated in 1873. He began the practice
of law at Kingston, N. Y. In his first important
case he represented Ulster County in a con-
troversy over assessments with the City of
Kingston and won at every point, incidentally
gaining much popularity in the rural districts.
He was elected surrogate in 1877, and was re-
elected by a large plurality in 1883. In both
elections he was the only successful Democratic
212
Parker
candidate on the county ticket. His success at-
tracted the attention of the state leaders and
made him a member of the National Democratic
Convention of 1884. The next year President
Cleveland offered him the position of first as-
sistant postmaster-general, which he declined
for financial reasons. As chairman of the Demo-
cratic state committee, shortly afterward he
managed the campaign of David B. Hill [g.z/.]
for governor so successfully that the entire state
ticket was elected. He was rewarded by ap-
pointment to a vacant justiceship of the supreme
court in the third district. He was appointed to
the second division of the court of appeals, 1889;
to the general term of the first department,
1892; and to the appellate division of the su-
preme court, 1896. In 1897, a 7ear when Demo-
cratic prospects were dark, he was elected chief
justice of the court of appeals by the astonishing
plurality of more than 60,000 votes.
After 1885 Parker showed a preference for
continuing his judicial career by several times
refusing to be considered as a candidate for gov-
ernor. As chief justice, the tendency of his de-
cisions in civil cases was to hold private litigants
to the strict letter of their contracts, and in
equity cases, to narrow the application of reme-
dies. In labor cases his attitude, expressed in
dissenting opinions or in decisions of a closely
divided court, was distinctly liberal. For ex-
ample, he upheld the right of labor unions to
obtain a closed shop by threatening to strike
(National Protective Association of Steamfitters
and Helpers vs. Cwnmng, 170 N. Y. Reports,
315) ; and the constitutionality of an act of 1897
limiting the hours of work in bakeries and con-
fectioneries to sixty a week (People vs. Lochner,
177 N. Y. Reports, 144)* In general his policy
was to uphold legislative acts unless they were
forbidden by specific constitutional provisions.
After Bryan's second defeat in 1900 most
Democratic leaders believed that the next presi-
dential candidate should be chosen from the
eastern wing of the party. Parker was regarded
as having exceptional qualifications. He was
popular in New York; he had voted for Bryan
in 1896 ; and he had not been embroiled in fac-
tional struggles within the party. Prior to the
convention of 1904 he refused to make any state-
ments on public questions, and when told that
his silence might cost him the nomination, he
expressed his willingness to do without it rather
than compromise his position as a judge or ap-
piear to seek the presidency. David B. Hill and
others obtained support for him among most of
the delegates and apparently controlled the con-
vention ; but they were unable to insert in the
Parker
platform a resolution expressing satisfaction with
the gold standard. Parker was nominated on
the first ballot. He immediately sent to a dele-
gate, William F. Sheehan, a telegram declaring
that he regarded the gold standard as "firmly
and irrevocably established," and offering the
convention an opportunity, if his opinion was
unsatisfactory to a majority, to choose another
candidate before adjournment (Proceedings, p.
277). The convention sent a reassuring reply.
During the campaign the party managers, in
order to contrast Parker sharply with their idea
of Roosevelt, neglected his liberal record and
presented him as safe and conservative. Parker's
activities seem to have been based upon much
the same principle. He remained at home in the
early months, speaking only when delegations
visited him. His addresses impressed the coun-
try as honest and sincere, but inspired little en-
thusiasm for him. Just before the election he
became more aggressive, and in the course of a
short speaking tour, declared that corporations
were making huge contributions to the Repub-
lican campaign fund in expectation of receiving
substantial favors from Roosevelt if he should
be elected. Challenged to furnish proofs, Parker
refused to reveal the source of his information,
which had been given him in confidence. Later
investigations proved his charges to have been,
In general, correct He was badly defeated, re-
ceiving only 140 electoral votes in a total of 476.
After the election Parker began practising
law in New York City. Among other clients, he
represented the American Federation of Labor,
before a subcommittee of the House of Repre-
sentatives (1915) concerning the Danbury Hat-
ters' judgment ; Samuel Gompers and other labor
leaders in contempt proceedings in the Buck's
Stove and Range case (33 Appeal Reports D. C.,
83, 516 ; 40 Appeal Reports D. C., 293) ; and the
prosecution in the impeachment of Gov. William
Sulzer of New York. In 1912 he was temporary
chairman of the Democratic National Conven-
tion, and is said to have been opposed to the
nomination of Wilson. He was twice married :
on Oct. 16, 1873, to Mary Louise Schoonmaker
of Accord, N. Y., who died in 1917 ; and on Jan.
16, 1923, to Amelia Day Campbell of New York
City (New York Times, Jan. 17, 1923) -^ He
died in New York City, survived by his widow
and a daughter by his first marriage.
[The campaign biography by J. R. Grady, The Lvoes
and Public Services of Parker and Davis (1904)* has
only a few pages devoted to Parker. His judicial de-
cisions are analyzed briefly by M'Cready Sykes, in the
Green Bag, Mar. 1904. Other sketches of his career
may be found in the World (N. Y.), Dec. 2, 1902;
the Sun (N. Y.), Feb. 8, 1903 ; Albany Law Jowrnal,
May 1904; Am. Monthly Review of Reviews*
213
Parker
1904 ; JV. Y. Times, May 1 1, ig?6 ; N. Y, Herald, N. Y.
Tribune, May u, 1926; memoir by M. J. O'Brien, in
N. Y. County Lawyers' Asso. Year Book, 1926, See
also: Official Report of the Proc. of the Democratic
Nat. Convention . . . 1004 (1904) I F. R. Kent, , The
Democratic Party, A History (1928); Proc. of the
Court for the Trial of Impeachments. The People of
the State ofN.Y against Wm. Sulser ... (2 vols.,
1913) ; D anbury Hatters' Judgment. Hearing before
Subcommittee of House Committee on Appropriations
. . ., 63 Cong., 3 Sess. (1915)-] E.G. S.
PARKER, ALVIN PIERSON (Aug. 7,
i85o-Sept. 10, 1924), missionary to China, was
born on a farm near Austin, Tex., the son of
Peter and Mary (Boyce) Parker. Both his fa-
ther and mother were recently from Virginia.
When he was still an infant the family moved
to Missouri, where on pioneer farms, first near
Hannibal and then in Rails County, he grew up,
sharing in the hard physical labor of frontier
agriculture. His parents were earnestly re-
ligious, his father having a local preacher's
license in the Methodist Church. Opportunities
for education were meager, but he had, probably
through his father, a passion for learning. He
attended country schools and Van Rassler Acad-
emy. The money he had saved for college ex-
penses was needed by the family. For a time he
taught school in Virginia. Then, after a deep
religious experience, he decided to enter the
ministry and served several charges.
In 1875 he went to China as a missionary of
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. For
several years he was stationed at Soochow,
where he was largely responsible for the found-
ing of the strong Methodist Church of which he
was long the pastor, He also established and
was for years at the head of the Buffington
School, later the Buffington Institute, one of the
forerunners of Soochow University. At least
(Mice he was in charge of his mission's hospital
in Soochow. He was transferred to Shanghai
in 1896 and there became president of the Anglo-
Chinese College, serving in that capacity until
1906. For a time he was presiding elder of the
Shanghai Conference of his Church. He was a
mail of scholarly tastes, and, in spite of the de-
ficiencies in his early formal education, he taught
himself enough Greek and Hebrew to enable
Mai to use the Bible in the original, and he
achieved a remarkable command of the Chinese
language. Mudi of his time was given to the
preparation <* Stetatae. He assisted in the
tan^toi^%Bafc into the Soochow and
SfcqgfeM.agteti /translated i
Parker
had a part in compiling a vocabulary of the
Shanghai dialect and in the revision of the trans-
lation of the Old Testament into classical Chi-
nese. Among his other translations were the
Methodist Discipline, several books of The E.r-
positors' Bible, The American Statesman Series,
and The Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics.
He was long editor of the Chinese Christian Ad-
vocate and prepared material for both the Eng-
lish and Chinese editions of that periodical. He
served as editorial secretary of the China Sun-
day School Union, and he was book editor of
the China Conference. For many of his later
years he gave his main strength to the Christian
Literature Society for China and for a time was
chairman of the editorial staff of that organiza-
tion. His Southern Methodism in China (1924)
was going through the press at his death.
In addition to all these literary labors he found
time to serve on many of the organizations which
had to do with local and national policies of
Protestant missions in China, among" them the
(Christian) Educational Association of China
and the National Committee of the Young Men's
Christian Association. He preached Almost every
Sunday of his long career. His counsel was
sought by diplomats and other officials and he
was offered but declined an advisorship to the
Emperor of Korea and a high post in the Chi-
nese ministry of education. In 1923 he returned
to the United States on what he hoped was to be
merely a furlough but while there died, in Oak-
land, Cal. In accordance with his wish, he was
buried in China. He was twice married, first in
December 1878, to Alice Scudder Cooley; and
in February 1903, to Susan Williams.
*-£""«• feP°rts of the Board of Foreign Missions
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South ; Chinese
Recorder, Nov. 1924; Christian Advocate (Nashville,
JLennO, Oct. 3, 1924; manuscript life prepared by Mrs.
Parker; information from his friends.] K S L
PARKER, AMASA JUNIUS (June 2, 1807-
May 13, 1890), lawyer, jurist, educator, was
bora in Sharon, Litchfield County, Conn. He
was a son of Daniel Parker, a Congregational
minister, and Anna Fenn, and a descendant of
William Parker, one of the first settlers of Con-
necticut. In 1816 his parents moved to New
York. He was educated by private tutors under
the supervision of his father. At the age of six-
teen he became principal of Hudson Academy in
Hudson, N. Yf He never attended college, but
, awl
214
Parker
office of his uncle, Amasa Parker. In 1828 he
was admitted to the bar. In August 1834 he was
married to Harriet Langdon Roberts of Ports-
mouth, N. H., the daughter of Edmund Roberts
[g.-^.]. Their four children survived him.
Shortly after his admission to the bar he en-
gaged actively in politics as a Democrat. He was
a representative in the Assembly, 1834; district
attorney of Delaware County, 1834-36 ; regent of
the University of the State of New York, 1835-
44; and member of Congress, 1837-39. In 1844
he was appointed circuit judge and vice-chancel-
lor of the third circuit and won general approval
during the anti-rent episode by disposing of 240
cases against persons accused of rioting within
a period of three weeks. In 1847, after the adop-
tion of ?L new constitution had abolished the cir-
cuit judgeships, he was elected justice of the su-
preme court for the third district for a term of
eight years, the last two of which he sat on the
court of appeals. Seeking reelection, he was de-
feated by a candidate of the Know-Nothing par-
ty. In 1856, when his party was weakened by a
division between "Hards" and "Softs," he was
nominated for the governorship. He was re-
garded as a strong" candidate because he had
taken no part in the party dissensions, and he
had won a certain degree of popularity through
a decision questioning the constitutionality of
the state prohibition law. He was defeated by a
plurality of 65,000. He was again nominated for
the office in 1858 and was defeated by a plurality
of 17,000. Early in 1861 he was chairman of
the Democratic and Constitutional Unionist con-
vention at Albany which proposed compromise
and conciliation as measures to settle the differ-
ences between the North and the South. After
the firing on Fort Sumter he supported the fed-
eral government in prosecuting the war, pro-
testing, however, against arbitrary arrests which
appeared to be chiefly for partisan purposes.
Though he was an aspirant for the Democratic
gubernatorial nomination against Tilden in 1874,
and chairman of an anti-Tilden convention in
1880, his political career may be said to have
ended with the Civil War. His only later public
office was as a member of the constitutional con-
vention of 1867, *n which he served on the im-
portant committee on the judiciary.
Continuing" his early interest in education,
Parker became one of the founders of the Al-
bany Law School, 1851, in which he was a lec-
turer for nineteen years and special lecturer for
ten years longer. He was also a member of the
board of trustees of the Albany Female Acad-
emy and of Union and Cornell universities. As
a lawyer, he was highly regarded. He appeared
Parker
as counsel in cases involving the national bank
taxes, the title to the Trinity Church property,
and the boundary between New York and New
Jersey. He edited Reports of Decisions in Crimi-
nal Cases . . . State of New York, 1823-68 (6
voJs., 1855-68) and was one of the editors of the
fifth edition of The Revised Statutes of the State
of New York (1859).
iBiog Dir Am. Cong. (1928); A. J. Parker, ed,
Landmarks of Albany County, N. Y. (1897) ; D. A.
Harsha, Noted Living Albanians and State Officials
(1891); Martha J. Lamb, "Judge Amasa J. Parker,"
Mag. of Am. Hist., Sept. 1890; "Ainasa Junius Par-
ker, Report of the Thirteenth Ann. Meeting of the Am.
Bar Asso., 1890; "Amasa Junius Parker/' Proc. N. Y.
State Bar Asso.: Fourteenth Ann. Meeting, 1891 ; Jay
Gould, Hist, of Delaware County . . . and a Hist, of
the Late Anti-Rent Difficulties in Delaware (1856);
D. S. Alexander, A Pol. Hist, of the State of N. Y.
vol. II (1906) ; N. Y. Herald, Aug.-Oct 1856.]
E.C.S.
PARKER, CARLETON HUBBELL (Mar.
31, i878~Mar. 17, 1918), economist, labor con-
ciliator, was born in Red Bluff , CaL, the son of
William Boyd and Frances (Fairchild) Parker.
He grew up in Vacaville, CaL, where he attend-
ed public school. Between 1896 and 1913 he
studied at the universities of California (B.S.
1904), London, Harvard, Leipzig, Berlin, Hei-
delberg (Ph.D., summa cum laude, 1912), and
Munich. Early interested in engineering and
mining, he later became absorbed in economics,
and attended the seminars of Alfred ^Weber,
Eberhard Gothein, and Lujo Brentano. His
studies were repeatedly interrupted by the need
to earn a living. He worked as miner in Cali-
fornia and British Columbia, newspaper reporter
in Spokane, Wash., administrative officer in the
University of California, and bond salesman in
Seattle, Wash. In 1913 he became assistant pro-
fessor of industrial economics in the University
of California, and in 1917 head of the department
of economics and dean of the College of Com-
merce at the University of Washington.
While in Germany, Parker became interested
in the problem of conflict between employers and
labor and he later specialized in the study of
casual or migratory workers. He sought in
psychological maladjustment an explanation for
the militant tactics of the I. W. W. and migra-
tory labor in general, and in his psychological
analysis of the discontented worker borrowed
from such diverse sources as the psychoanalytic
school, the behaviorists, Dewey, Veblen, Me-
Dougall, and Adler. His principal writings were
"The California Casual and His Revolt" (@w-
terly Journal of Economics, November 1915) ,
and "The I. W. W." (Atlantic Monthly, Novem-
ber 1917). These papers are indtidfed In The
Casual Laborer and Other Essays (1920)., His
215
Parker
doctoral dissertation on the labor policy of the
American trust, completed in 1914, was not pub-
lished, owing to the interruption of communi-
cations with the Heidelberg authorities.
In November 1913, while retaining his con-
nection with the University of California, Par-
ker became executive secretary of the California
State Immigration and Housing Commission.
The salary of $4,000 represented his first finan-
cial success, but he resigned the post after a
year, feeling that political influences were ham-
pering his work. It was while he held this post
that he made his report on the Wheatland hop-
field riot of Aug. 3, 1913, a report which became
a model for many investigators of labor mili-
tancy. Late in 1914 he conducted a similar in-
vestigation for the United States government
in Phoenix, Ariz. During the World War, he
served repeatedly as United States government
labor conciliator and succeeded in preventing or
terminating more than a score of important
strikes. In October 1917 his analysis of the rise
in living costs was adopted by the Shipbuilding
Labor Adjustment Board of the United States
Fleet Corporation as the basis of awards in Pa-
cific shipyards.
The main factors in his success as a labor
conciliator were an intimate practical knowledge
of the migratory worker gained during his youth,
conviction of his own disinterestedness, and a
rare personal charm which disarmed all but the
most uncompromising-. He was for a time an out-
standing practitioner of a method hailed by
many as a contribution toward the definitive al-
laying of labor "unrest." He dealt with specific
cases rather than with general principles and his
technique was that of compromise. He tried to
teach employers to make concessions (shorter
hours, better living quarters, opportunities for
recreation, etc.), while teaching workers to ab-
jure militant tactics and to be content with limit-
ed gains. He skilfully utilized the stirring ap-
peal lent by the war situation to such phrases as
"the public interest," and in effect gave an Amer-
ican translation of the "civil peace" doctrine and
practice which his German teachers had devel-
oped out of their older policies of social reform.
His work was a striking illustration of the role
of the academic expert in public affairs, a war-
time development which excited much interest
among younger progressive political thinkers
aad is part of the background of subsequent de-
^ek^meots in personnel management and "wel-
fare capitalism'* in general.
of his life he began to
to raise the question of a new eco
Parker
nomic order as opposed to the patching of "a
rotten system/' His analysis of the key-problem
of the state, however, never transcended condem-
nation of the thieving, vulgar, stupid, or "stand-
pat" politician, and death prevented a flexible
and inquiring mind from pushing its investiga-
tions further. At the height of his career he con-
tracted pneumonia and died after a brief illness.
He was survived by his wife, Cornelia (Strat-
ton) Parker, whom he had married Sept. 7, 1907,
and by three children. His body was cremated
and the ashes scattered on the waters of Puget
Sound.
[Cornelia Stratton Parker, An American Idyll: The
Life of Carleton H. Parker (1919) ; R. W. Bruere,
"Carleton Huhbell Parker," New Republic, May 18,
1918 ; H. E. Cory, "Carleton H. Parker," Univ. of Cal.
Chronicle, Apr. 1918; Post-Intelligencer (Seattle,
Wash.), Mar. 18, 1918; information from Cornelia
Stratton Parker.] jj. S.
PARKER, CORTLANDT [See PARKER,
JOHN CORTLANDT, 1818-1907].
PARKER, EDWIN BREWINGTON (Sept.
7, i868-Oct 30, 1929), international jurist, was
born in Shelbina, Shelby County, Mo. His
grandfather, a substantial Maryland physician,
had liberated his 200 slaves some years before
the Civil War, but his father, George John Par-
ker, a resident of Missouri, fought in the Con-
federate army until captured and paroled under
oath not to take up arms again. His mother,
Emrette (Faulkner) Parker, had been a teacher
in Virginia and was a member of the faculty of
the college at Fayette, Mo., that later became
Howard-Payne College. For a time the boy at-
tended Central College, at Fayette, Mo., but did
not graduate. Through the influence of his moth-
er's brother, Alsdorf Faulkner, then a prosperous
citizen of Texas, he began the study of law at
the University of Texas and received the LL.B.
degree in June 1889. Being in debt for his edu-
cation, he entered the employ of the Missouri,
Kansas & Texas Railway and at the end of four
years had become assistant general passenger
agent He began the practice of the law in 1893
at Houston, Tex., with the firm of Baker, Botts,
Baker & Lovett, one of the largest law firms in
the Southwest. On Dec. 27, 1894, he was mar-
ried to Katherine Putman Blunt, the daughter
of Gen. James G. Blunt [q,v]. In ten years he
became a member of his firm, the name of which
became Baker, Botts, Parker & Garwood. In
ten years more he was recognized as a leader not
as director for a number of successful business
corporations.
When the United States entered the World
War, he became a member of the War Indus-
2l6
Parker
tries Board and was appointed priorities com-
missioner. In this latter position he did an enor-
mous amount of work, and in thirteen months
his office handled 211,000 applications for pri-
ority and issued 192,000 orders. When the war
closed, he was made chairman of the Liquida-
tion Commission, and either returned to the
United States or sold, principally to France,
more than $3,000,000,000 worth of munitions and
supplies that had been shipped to France for
the use of the United States army. This work
finished, he returned to his law practice, as gen-
eral counsel for one of the great oil companies,
the Texas Company, but in 1923 he was again
called into the service of the government, this
time as umpire of the Mixed Claims Commis-
sion, United States and Germany, a position he
held until his death. Some 12,400 claims, aggre-
gating $1,480,000,000 were filed with this com-
mission, involving many questions entirely new
in international law, such as the use of subma-
rines, airplanes, and poison gas. The published
reports of his opinions show a grasp of interna-
tional law that challenged the admiration of states-
men and experts in international affairs (see
especially, United States and Germany Mixed
Claims Commission, Consolidated Edition of De-
cisions and Opinions, 2 vols,, 1925-26). Before
this work was finished, the United States, Aus-
tria, and Hungary, with Parker in mind, had
drawn a treaty providing for a single commis-
sioner to settle the claims of American citizens
against these two parts of the old Austro-Hun-
garian monarchy. He was selected for this work
and before his death had completed the task, dis-
posing of claims aggregating about $41,000,000
(Tripartite Claims Commission, United States,
Austria, and Hungary, Final Report of Com-
missioner and Decisions and Opinions, 1933).
One other service he was called to render to his
country. In 1928 he was named arbiter to deter-
mine claims against the United States growing
out of the seizure of the German and Austrian
vessels that were in American harbors when war
was declared. This work was well under way
but was not completed at the time of his death
in Washington. For his services in these vari-
ous positions, he was decorated by the United
States, France, Belgium, Italy, and Poland. In
his will he gave the residue of his estate for a
school of international affairs and named a board
of advisory trustees, who decided to establish the
school at Columbia University.
["Memorial to Edwin Brewington Parker," Tex.
Law Review, Oct. 1930; Wilhelra Kiesselbach, Prob-
lems of the German-American Claims Commission,
trans, by E. H. Zeydel (1930), esp. p. 2 ; Who's Who in
America, 1929-30 ; N. Y. Times, Oct. 31, Nov. i, Nov.
Parker
12, 1929 ; information from Oswald S. Parker, Beau-
mont, Tex., and Clarence R. Wharton, Houston, Tex.]
as. P.
PARKER, EDWIN POND (Jan, 13, 1836-
May 28, 1920), Congregational clergyman, pas-
tor or pastor emeritus of the Second Church of
Christ, Hartford, Conn,, for sixty years, though
born in Castine, Me., was of Connecticut ances-
try. He was a descendant in the seventh genera-
tion of William Parker who came to Hartford
from England in 1636 and in 1649 settled in Say-
brook. In entering the ministry he followed the
family tradition, for he was the son of the Rev.
Wooster Parker whose father, born in Say-
brook, was Rev. James Parker, and whose wife,
Wealthy Ann, was the daughter of Rev. Enoch
Pond [<?.#.]. Edwin prepared for college in the
academy at Foxcroft, Me., graduated from Bow-
doin in 1856, and from Bangor Theological Sem-
inary in 1859. While in college he supported
himself in part by teaching winters, giving in-
struction in music in various Maine towns, and
in 1856-57 teaching the classics in Auburn
Academy. On Nov. I of the year he finished his
theological course he married Lucy M. Harris,
the adopted daughter of one of his professors,
Rev. Samuel Harris [#.#.]. Called to the Sec-
ond Church, Hartford, about this time, he was
ordained and installed on Jan. n, 1860. Cir-
cumstances connected with this event occasioned
a rather acrimonious controversy. The council
had ordained him in spite of the fact that his
statement of theological belief was not quite sat-
isfactory to a few of the conservative members.
In the New York 01 server for Feb. 23, 1860,
appeared an editorial, inspired by a letter to the
editor from a Presbyterian minister present at
the council, entitled : "New Gospel m New Eng-
land. False doctrines taught: boldly encour-
aged : the reformation demanded." A refutation
of the charges, by Rev. Joel Hawes and Rev.
Samuel Spring, was printed in the issue of Mar.
8, and another by the same clergymen in the In-
dependent of Mar. 22. The Cowgregationalist
and the Recorder also entered the fray. The
whole affair was simply a skirmish in the bitter
theological warfare which had long been going
on in Connecticut, for which Parker had inno-
cently furnished the occasion, but it gave to the
opening of his career an unpleasant notoriety.
During his ministry covering more than lialf
a century, Parker became one of the most dis-
tinguished citizens of Hartford and one of the
leading Protestant clergymen of the state. A
friend of Rev. Nathaniel J. Burton, Rev. Joseph
H. Twichell, and Samuel L. Clemens [#g.zf.],
he was associated with the coterie which gave fo
217
Parker
the Hartford of this period its literary reputa-
tion. Parker himself frequently lectured on lit-
erary subjects. His general influence, quietly
exerted, was varied and substantial. He took
little active part in political affairs but his saga-
cious counsel was a positive, if unobtrusive, fac-
tor in matters of civic importance. His minis-
try, while maintaining the best traditions of
New England Congregationalism, had a liber-
ating and broadening effect both locally and out-
side his own city and state. Theologically he
was tolerant and reasonable but not radical.
Having1 an inclination for ritual and a consider-
able knowledge of music, he contributed to
the enrichment of worship in Congregational
churches. His own church was perhaps the first
of its order in New England to celebrate the
Christmas season with a religious service.
Many other similar innovations followed. With
N. J. Burton and J. H. Twichell he prepared
The Christian Hymnal (1877). A number of
hymns written by himself have come into gen-
eral use, among them the widely known "Mas-
ter, no offering." His published addresses in-
clude Biographical Sketch of Horace Bushnell
(1885) ; and Historical Discourse in Commem-
oration of the One Hundredth Anniversary of
the Missionary Society of Connecticut (1898).
In 1892 he published History of the Second
Church of Christ in Hartford, a carefully pre-
pared work of more than four hundred pages,
which contains much about the life of Hartford
from 1670 to 1892. He also prepared Family
Records, Parker-Pond-Peck (1892). In 1912
he became pastor emeritus. The following year
the Hartford Courant began to issue a Sunday
edition, to which Parker contributed regularly
under the title "Optimus." He was long an in-
fluential member of the corporation of Yale Col-
lege. His first wife died in 1894 and on July 19,
1895, he married Mrs. Lucy A. Gilbert.
[Gen. Cat. Bowdoin Coll., 1794-1912 (1912) ; Who's
Who in America, 1918-19; The Congreg. Year-Book:
Statistics -for 1920 (1921) ; Obit. Record Grads. Bow-
doin CoU. for Year Ending i June 1920 (1921) ; Con-
ffreffatiwalist and Advance, June 17, 1920; Hartford
Courant, May 29, 1920; Hartford Times, May 28,
1920.]
H.E.S.
PARKER, EDWIN WALLACE (Jan. 21,
i%3r-Ju®er 4r 1901), bishop of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, fo* more than forty years a
^s^onary M India, was born in St Johnsbury,
•VL, tite SOB rf-Qoiacr B. and Eleeta (McGaffy)
Bjifte?, H&vas'a grandson of Nathan Parker
tear fc dose of &e eighteenth century,
d frtim Massachusetts to Yermont Edwin
reared in a Meftodist k>pe amd declared
sooe as he knew a$pthta& fe faew ,tbat
2l8
Parker
there was a heaven and a hell and that he was
free to choose whether he would go to one or
to the other. He attended school winters, worked
on his father's farm, and for two terms was a
student in St. Johnsbury Plain Academy. Con-
verted at twenty, he determined to enter the
ministry. After preparatory work in the acade-
mies at Newbury and St Johnsbury, during
which he supported himself by farm labor and
teaching, in March 1856, with his wife, Lois
Lee, whom he had recently married, he entered
the Methodist Biblical Institute, Concord, N. H.
Completing the three years' course there in two,
he graduated in 1858. In the meantime, April
1857, he had been admitted to the Vermont Con-
ference on trial, and in April 1858 he was ap-
pointed to the church in Lunenburg, Vt.
The Sepoy Mutiny was an impetus to greater
missionary activity in India, New workers were
called for, and among the first to respond were
Parker and his wife. The former was appointed
missionary Feb. 22, 1859, and ordained Apr* 10,
at Lynn, Mass., where the New England Confer-
ence of the Methodist Church was in session. Six
days later the Parkers sailed on the merchant
vessel Boston, which was bound for Calcutta
with a cargo of ice. They arrived at that port on
Aug. 21, and reached the mission at Lucknow on
Sept 3. For the remainder of his life Parker
was a potent agency in the development of Meth-
odist missionary enterprises in Northern India,
much of the time with Moradabad as his base,
He was active in almost every branch of the
service—preaching and evangelistic work, build-
ing operations, management of the press, edu-
cation, and administration. When the India Con-
ference was organized in 1864, he was appointed
presiding elder, and officiated as such, with the
exception of some three years, until 1900. While
in the United States because of ill health in
1868-70, he and his wife were instrumental in
organizing the Woman's Foreign Missionary
Society in Tremont Street Church, Boston, and
in arranging for the formation of coordinate so-
cieties in other great centers of the country, Af-
ter his return to India he raised funds for the
building in Moradabad of a structure combin-
ing church and school house, which, after his
death, was named the Bishop Parker Memorial
High School. With J. M. Thoburn [<?.*/.] he
took the lead in establishing the Central Confer-
ence of India. In 1884 he was a delegate from
the North India Conference to the General Con-
ference, held at Philadelphia. He advised with
John F. Goucher [q.v,] regarding the village
schools in India which this philanthropist
financed, and for years gave them his attention.
Parker
Always deeply interested in Sunday school work
and the training of the young, he formed at
Moradabad a young people's society which be-
came the model for many others; and after the
Epworth League organization was adopted in
India, he served as president of the national so-
ciety. He was a delegate to the General Confer-
ences of 1892, 1896, and 1900. At the last of
these he was elected missionary bishop. Soon
after his return to India, however, he became ill
and on June 4, 1901, he died at Naini Tal.
[J. H. Messmore, The Life of Edwin Wallace Par-
ker, D.D, (1903) ; Christian Advocate, June 13, 1901 ;
Zion'$ Herald, June 12, 1901.] H.E. S.
PARKER, ELY SAMUEL (iS28-Aug. 31,
1895), Seneca sachem, engineer and soldier, was
born at Indian Falls, Town of Pembroke, Gene-
see County, N. Y., the son of William and Eliz-
abeth Parker. The English patronymic was
adopted from a white friend, but the father,
known as Jo-no-es-do-wa to the Seneca, was
a Tonawanda Seneca chief and a veteran of the
War of 1812. The mother, Ga-ont-gwut-twus,
was descended from Skaniaclariio, a great Iro-
quois prophet
Parker was reared as a reservation Indian,
but received liberal schooling at the Baptist mis-
sion school of Tonawanda, and at Yates and
Cayuga academies. He quit school at eighteen,
and for the next twenty years was frequently the
representative of his people in prosecuting In-
dian claims in Washington, where he was re-
ceived with interest by the most distinguished,
becoming the dinner companion of President
Polk. In 1852 he became a sachem of his tribe,
with the name Do-ne-ho-ga-wa, or Keeper of
the Western Door of the Long House of the
Iroquois. Throughout his life he was the cham-
pion of his people, defending them from dis-
honest land schemes of the whites. His associa-
tion with Lewis H. Morgan [q.v.] was of par-
ticular interest, for he gave Morgan important
aid in preparing what was perhaps the first sci-
entific study of an Indian tribe, published as
League of the Ho-de~no-sau-nee or Iroquois
( 1851 ) . Parker read law but was refused admis-
sion to the bar on the grounds that he was not
a citizen. He then turned to civil engineering,
taking a course at Rensselaer Polytechnic Insti-
tute. As an engineer he was conspicuously suc-
cessful, holding various important p'osts until
1857, when he became superintendent of con-
struction for various government works at Ga-
lena, 111. Here he became the friend of a clerk
and ex-soldier, Ulysses S. Grant During this
period he held many high offices in the Masonic
order.
Parker
When the Civil War broke out he could not,
at first, obtain release from his duties in Galena,
but in 1862 he resigned, and in accordance with
tribal custom returned to the reservation to se-
cure his father's permission to go to war. Nei-
ther the governor of New York nor the secre-
tary of war would commission him on account
of his race, and Seward even went so far as to
tell him that the war would be won by the whites
without the aid of the Indians. Finally, in the
early summer of 1863, he succeeded in getting
commissioned as captain of engineers, and joined
Gen. J. E. Smith as division engineer of the 7th
Division, XVII Corps. On Sept 18 he joined
his old friend Grant at Vicksburg as a staff of-
ficer, and on Aug. 30, 1864, he was appointed
lieutenant-colonel and Grant's military secre-
tary. He was present when Lee surrendered at
Appomattox Court House, Apr. 9, 1865, and his
huge swarthiness was noted by Lee with uplift-
ed brows, but when it came time to draw up the
terms of capitulation, the senior adjutant-gen-
eral, Col. Theodore S. Bowers [q.v.~\, was so
nervous he could not write, and it was the In-
dian, Parker, who at Grant's orders made inter-
lineations in the penciled original and then tran-
scribed in a fair hand the official copies of the
document that ended the Civil War.
Following the war he remained as Grant's
military secretary, being commissioned a briga-
dier-general of volunteers as of the date of Ap-
pomattox. He was appointed first and second
lieutenant In the cavalry of the Regular Army,
but his most signal military distinctions were
his brevet appointments in the Regular Army,
as captain, major, lieutenant-colonel, colonel,
and brigadier-general, all on Mar. 2, 1867, and
all for gallant and meritorious services. On
Dec. 25, 1867, he married Minnie Sackett of
Washington, from which marriage a daughter
was born. He resigned from the army on Apr.
26, 1869, for by one of Grant's first appoint-
ments as president, Apr. 13, 1869, he had been
made commissioner of Indian affairs. His many
changes in the existing system, designed to give
justice to the Indians, earned him enemies, and
in February 1871 he was tried by a committee of
the House of Representatives for defrauding the
government. Although entirely cleared of the
charges, he was heart-broken, and resigned soon
after to go into business. He made a small for-
tune in Wall Street, but lost it by paying the
bond of a defaulter. Later business ventures
likewise proved unfortunate, and in his latter
years he held positions with the police depart-
ment of New York City. He died at Ms country
home at Fairfield, Conn. In 1897, wi* inipres-
219
Parker
sive ceremonies, his remains were reinterred in
the Red Jacket lot of Forest Lawn Cemetery,
Buffalo, N. Y., on land that formerly belonged
to his tribe,
[A, C. Parker, The Life of Gen. Ely S. Parker
(1919) ; biog. data, including an unfinished autobiog.
in Buffalo Hist. Soc. Pubs., vol. VIII (1905) ; Per-
sonal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, vol. II (1886) ; Army
and Navy Jour., Sept. 7 and Dec. 7, 1895 ; F. B. Heit-
man, Hist. Reg. and Diet. U. S. Army (1903), vol. I,
which gives day of death as Aug. 30 ; Horace Porter,
Campaigning with Grant (1897) ; Polytechnic (Rens-
selaer Polytechnic Institute), Sept. 28, 1895 ; obitu-
aries, giving Aug. 31 as day of death, in N. Y. Times
and N. Y. Tribune, Sept i, 1895, and Hartford Cou-
ranit Sept. 2, 1895.!
D.Y.
PARKER, FOXHALL ALEXANDER
(Aug. 5, i82i-June 10, 1879), naval officer, was
born in New York City, the son of Foxhall Alex-
ander and Sara Jay (Bogardus) Parker, and the
nephew of Richard Elliot Parker [g.z/.]. Wil-
liam Harwar Parker \_q.vJ\ was a younger
brother. His mother was a daughter of Gen.
Robert Bogardus, a New York lawyer and in-
fantry officer in the War of 1812. His father,
a native Virginian and descendant of George
Parker who settled in Accomac County, Va., in
1650, was a distinguished naval officer who
served through the War of 1812, rose to com-
mand rank, and in 1848 was sent on an impor-
tant mission to the German Confederation. He
died a captain in 1857. The younger Foxhall
Alexander was appointed midshipman from Vir-
ginia on Mar. u, 1839. After service in the
West Indies and against the Florida Indians, he
studied at the naval school in Philadelphia and
was made passed midshipman June 29, 1843.
He then served in the Michigan on the Great
Lakes; in coast survey work, 1848; in the St.
Lawrence on a Mediterranean cruise, 1849-50;
in the Susquehanna in the East Indies; and
again in the coast survey, 1854-55. In the mean-
time, Sept. 21, 1850, he was commissioned lieu-
tenant After four years on the reserved list, he
was in the Pacific Squadron, 1859-61. As exec-
utive officer of the Washington Navy Yard dur-
ing the first year of the Civil War, he took ac-
tive part in the naval campaign on the Potomac,
and in July 1861, after the battle c
sailorsandnHrinesforthedefenseofWashine.
ton. He was promoted to commander July £
fcews Cornt Hoase, Nov. 22, 1862, being com-
mewM by Gen. Erasm«s D. Keyes for his "ad-
Parker
in Washington, and at work on tactical prob-
lems, first set forth in his Squadron Tactics un-
der Steam (1864) and later in his Fleet Tactics
under Steam (1870) ; this latter book attracted
attention at home and abroad for its advocacy of
"obliquing into line" to avoid exposure of broad-
sides and facilitate use of the ram. He also wrote
The Navd Howitzer Ashore (1865) and The
Naval Howitzer Afloat (1866), both of which
were used as Naval Academy textbooks. In
June 1863 he took command of the Wabash in
Admiral J. A. B. Dahlgren's squadron off
Charleston, but during the bombardment of Fort
Sumter, Aug. 17-23, 1863, he had charge of the
four-gun naval battery on Morris Island. From
Jan. i, 1864, until the end of the war he com-
manded the Potomac Flotilla, which was then
chiefly engaged in patrol, reduction of shore bat-
teries, and small combined operations with the
army.
Following promotion to captain, July 25, 1866,
he commanded the Franklin , European Squad-
ron, 1870-71; served as chief of staff in the
North Atlantic Fleet, 1872 ; and in September of
that year drew up a new code of signals for
steam tactics. He was made commodore, Nov.
25, 1872, was chief signal officer, 1873-76, and
in December 1874 acted as chief of staff in the
fleet assembled under Admiral A. L. Case for
practice in Florida waters just after the Vir-
ginia affair. From 1876 to 1878 he had charge
of the Boston Navy Yard. His death occurred
suddenly from enlargement of the heart at An-
napolis, Md., where for a year he had been su-
perintendent of the Naval Academy. At his
death bed were gathered all of his ten children.
He was married, first, Feb. 10, 1846, to Mary
Eliza Greene of Centerville, R. I., who died in
1849; second, Nov. 2, 1853, to Lydia Anna,
daughter of Capt. H. S. Mallory, U. S. A., who
died in 1862; and third, Oct. 20, 1863, to Caro-
line, daughter of Thomas Donaldson, a Balti-
more lawyer. Parker was an able and highly re-
spected officer, keenly Interested in the science
of his profession and a prominent writer on
naval themes. He was chairman of the commit-
j United States
**
[The Parker Family of Essex . . ./' in Va. Mag. of
t. and Bug., Oct. 1898 ; M. S. B. Gray, A Geneal.
mkl£ £m«3* < • - ^CyeS 1Qr *1S ad' «rt. «* ***., Oct 1898 ; M.S: B ' Gray AGeveat
sizable iTO-r" of exerastng command. Bur- Hist, of the Ancestors Ld Descendants If GenRot
ntg i*e following winter he was OUL special duty f?r ?°-oar%£ (l92? i Lr-y R- Hamersly, The Records
^ y °T Lvovng Officers of the U. S. Navy and M0rwe Corps
220
Parker
(3rd ed. 1878) ; War of the Rebellion: Official Records
(Navy) ; Army and Navy four, (editorial), June 14,
1879; Washington Post, June n, 1879.] A. W.
PARKER, FRANCIS WAYLAND (Oct. 9,
i837-Mar. 2, 1902), educator, son of Robert
Parker, a cabinet maker, and Milly (Rand)
Parker, a teacher before her marriage, was born
in the township of Bedford, N. H. His father
died when he was six years of age, and he was
bound out by his uncle to a farmer by the name
of Moore, who provided him with a home and
allowed him to attend district school eight weeks
each winter. Parker records in some biograph-
ical notes that the best part of his early educa-
tion was secured from his contacts with nature
on the farm and from his reading of the few
books available at the Moore house — the Bible,
The Pilgrim's Progress, Wayland' s Life of Jud-
son, and some almanacs. At thirteen years of age
he went to Mount Vernon, N. H., where he at-
tended a good school. Here he earned his living
by working at odd jobs until he was sixteen,
when he began teaching.
He taught in New Hampshire until 1859 and
was then called to a school in Illinois. Return-
ing to New Hampshire at the beginning of the
Civil War, he enlisted in Company E, 4th New
Hampshire Volunteers, being commissioned lieu-
tenant, Sept 20, 1861. He rose to the rank of
lieutenant-colonel, and was wounded, Aug. 16,
1864, at the battle of Deep Bottom. During his
convalescence he married Phenie E. Hall of
Bennington, N. H. After his marriage he re-
turned to his regiment at Port Royal and served
to the end of the war. Later, he taught school in
several New Hampshire towns and in Dayton,
Ohio, where he was put in charge of the normal
school. He experimented with new and radical
methods of teaching, following the lines sug-
gested by the work of Dr. Edward A. Sheldon
[<?-^«] °£ Oswego, whose book entitled Object
Lessons seemed to him to show how to over-
come the formalism then common in American
schools. His wife and an only child died while
he was at Dayton.
In 1872 he went to Europe and studied in Ger-
many, coming into contact with the new meth-
ods of teaching geography developed by Ritter
and Guyot He was also inspired by the devel-
opments in natural science, by the new methods
of the Herbartians, and by what he observed in
the kindergartens. Returning to the United
States in 1875, he secured an appointment as su-
perintendent of schools at Quincy, Mass. The
community and the superintendent were enthu-
siastic about the introduction of science into the
curriculum, the cultivation of freedom and in-
Parker
formality in classroom methods, and the com-
plete elimination of the rigid discipline tradi-
tional in New England schools. In 1880 he was
called to Boston as one of the supervisors of the
school system, and in 1883 he was appointed
principal of the Cook County Normal School,
Chicago, Illinois, which afterwards became a
part of the city school system. Here Parker in-
troduced the new ideas and methods which had
made him famous in Quincy and Boston. He
imported teachers sympathetic with his views and
displaced the conservatives whom he found on
the faculty. This action brought down a storm of
protest, and for years a continuous battle raged
between the reformer and his opponents. In the
meantime, the Cook County Normal School be-
came a widely recognized center for vigorous,
liberal movements in elementary education. In
1883 he married Mrs. Frances Stuart, first as-
sistant in the Boston School of Oratory. She
sympathized fully with the reforms which
Parker advocated and greatly reinforced him in
his work.
In 1899 he was offered the opportunity to es-
tablish an independent normal school by Mrs.
Emmons Blaine, who gave him a generous en-
dowment for the new Chicago Institute. In
1901 the Institute was transferred to the Uni-
versity of Chicago and Parker became the first
director of the School of Education of the Uni-
versity. This transfer was effected in part be-
cause of the cordial sympathy between Parker
and Prof. John Dewey, and also because of
President Harper's conviction that education as
a technical field should be cultivated in the Uni-
versity. Parker did not serve long in his new
position, however, since he died in 1902. His
publications include How to Study Geography
(1889) ; Talks on Pedagogics (1894) ; and in
collaboration with Nellie L. Helm, Uncle Rob-
ert's Geography (4vols., 1897-1904).
[William M. Griffin, School Days in ike Fifties
(1906) ; "In Memoriam," Elementary School Teacher,
June 1902 ; W. S. Jackman, "In Memoriam, Col. Fran-
cis Wayland Parker," National Education Associa-
tion, Jour, of Proc. 1902 (1902) ; F. A. Fitzpatrick,
"Francis Wayland Parker," Educational Rev., June
1902; I. F. Hall, In School from Three to Eighty
(copr. 1927) ; Who's Who in America, 1901-02; Chi-
cago Daily Tribune, Mar. 3, 1902.] C.H. J.
PARKER, HORATIO WILLIAM (Sept.
15, i863~Dec. 18, 1919), composer, was born in
Auburndale, Mass., of American ancestry. Both
his parents had artistic tastes. His father,
Charles Edward Parker, was an architect of
good reputation. The Boston Post-Office build-
ing was constructed under his supervision, aiid
several large buildings in Boston and elsewhere
in New England were planned by him.
221
Parker
the office of superintendent of construction of
government buildings in New England. Hora-
tio's mother, Isabella Graham (Jennings) Par-
ker, daughter of a Baptist minister, took a live-
ly interest in literary matters and had a good
command of Latin and Greek. She supplied sev-
eral original poems and verse translations as
libretti for her son's music. There were besides
Horatio a brother, Edward, who later became a
surgeon in the navy, and two sisters. Until he
was sixteen he attended a private school in New-
ton, not far from Auburndale. Though this was
his only schooling apart from the study of music,
his home training and later scholastic environ-
ment, from which his unusually alert mind ab-
sorbed a full measure of culture, more than made
up for the absence of class-room drill. His case
is not unlike that of many other artists whose
bias towards their chosen art tips the scales
against the enthusiastic pursuit of ordinary sub-
jects of study. But like the best of the artists of
this class, lack of training made little practical
difference, for Parker was exceptionally culti-
vated in his speech and choice of words, both in
English and German, and especially in his ma-
ture years had a wide knowledge of matters re-
mote from his profession.
There is no record of musical precocity in
Parker. Indeed he did not show much interest in
music until after his fourteenth year. His moth-
er, whose tastes embraced music as well as litera-
ture, gave him lessons on the piano and organ.
When the passion for music once sprang up in
him he made up for lost time and at the age of
sixteen became organist in a small church at
Dedham, Mass., and later at St. John's church
in Roxbury, now part of Boston. Not having
acquired the ability to read music quickly at
sight, he was obliged to commit to memory the
whole service of music. During his early period
he made studies in theoretical music under vari-
ous teachers, Stephen A. Emery, the author of
a well-known textbook on harmony, John Orth,
and George W. Chadwick, all of whom stood
high among Boston musicians. In 1882 Parker
left Auburndale for study abroad. He was in-
tending to study with the famous composer Joa-
chim Raff, but, owing to the death of Raff, the
pfeB had to be abandoned. Instead Parker went
to Mandt and enrolled himself in the Hoch-
scWe fir Mmik He remained there until 1885.
He was one <tf fee most prominent and sue-
sfedeite in the school and was admired
W ®e ^sft^iBsiied organist and comfjoset
Josef GatMiel HeWbe^er, taAr whom he stttd-
^^^©eilioM »i Orgam^feyinr ^ who
e»W a stra^r Wfe^ce ba P&rte% ^titoA*;
Parker
Rheinberger himself was a natural descendant
of the line of classic German composers, and in
composition and teaching1 showed a devotion to
contrapuntal and structural perfection that was
only slightly weakened by the softer influence of
the Romanticism of his time. It is not difficult
to account for the peculiar style that Horatio
Parker developed during these formative days.
Conservatism and a natural feeling for religion,
together with the respect for tradition and va-
lidity of technique inculcated by Rheinberger's
example, tended to crystallize his manner of ex-
pression as well as his point of view. In later
years, after much experience in conducting
choirs, Parker's style received a third element,
the simple seriousness of the English choral
style.
Parker graduated from the Hochschule in
Munich in 1885, his second essay in elaborate
composition, King Trojan (opus 8), being per-
formed by a chorus and orchestra, with soloists,
at the graduation exercises. (His first large
composition had been a setting- of the Twenty-
third Psalm, opus 3, for women's chorus and or-
gan, written during his Auburndale-Boston pe-
riod, and later extensively revised.) At this time
he became engaged to Anna Plossl, daughter of
a bank official at Munich, but he was obliged to
teach for a time before he could gather funds
enough to return to Munich and marry, and for
a year he was at the Cathedral School, Garden
City, Long Island. Soon after the marriage,
which took place on Aug. 9, 1886, the couple
left Germany and settled in New York. Parker
resumed his teaching at Garden City and also
held a position at the National Conservatory in
New York, then enjoying a prestige because of
the presence on the faculty of Antonin Dvorak,
the Bohemian composer. During this period
Parker acted as organist successfully m three
churches, St. Luke's in Brooklyn, St. Andrew's
in Harlem, and the Church of the Holy Trinity,
which stood at the corner of Madison Avenue
and Forty-second Street, New York. Most of
his smaller compositions for practical use by
church choirs date from this time. Many of them
are still in current use.
Parker first became known through perform-
ances of his Hora Novissima (opus 30) for
chorus, solos, and orchestra, generally regarded
as his masterpiece. He made this beautiful
musical setting of the Latin poem of Bernard de
Morlaix in 1891 and 1892. His mother supplied
an English translation. It was first given on
May 3, 1893, by the Church Choral Society of
New York at the Church of the Holy Trinity.
Productions on a larger scale by the Handel and
Parker
Haydn Society of Boston and at the Springfield
Festival soon followed. This work and the good
reports of Parker's record at Munich made him
suddenly famous, as fame went in those days.
The two most important positions of his career
soon fell to him, the post of organist and choir
director at Trinity Church, Boston (1893), and
the professorship of music at Yale University
(1894). The inconvenience of holding positions
in two cities geographically so far apart as Bos-
ton and New Haven was offset by the pleasure he
got from his association with his many friends
among the musicians in Boston, notably Arthur
Foote, George W. Chadwick, and Arthur Whit-
ing, who with Parker made an interesting and
influential group. Even so, the weekly journeys
became irksome, and in 1900 Parker resigned
from Trinity Church. As Battell Professor of
Music at Yale he was virtually organizer of the
system of instruction in music that still (1934)
is in force in the School of Music. In 1904 he
was made dean of the school. But teaching com-
position and lecturing on music history ^was far
from being his only contribution to music in his
community. Soon after his arrival at Yale he
was asked to become conductor of the then re-
cently organized New Haven Symphony Or-
chestra. Through his efforts the orchestra was
taken over by the University. With this guar-
antee of permanence and the building of the
fine concert auditorium Woolsey Hall (1901),
the orchestra became a useful laboratory for the
Department of Music and an important element
in the musical life of New Haven.
In addition to his duties at the University,
in 1901 he became organist at the Collegiate
Church of St. Nicholas, at the corner of Fifth
Avenue and Forty-eighth Street, New York.
Also, some years later he became conductor of
two singing societies in Philadelphia, the Euryd-
ice Club, a chorus of women, and the men's or-
ganization, the Orpheus Club. By arranging his
various appointments in such a way as to meet
the demands of rehearsals and classes he was
able to add to his routine the direction of still
another out-of-town organization, the Derby
(Connecticut) Choral Club. With the conduc-
torship of the Oratorio Society and of the Sym-
phony Orchestra in New Haven itself complet-
ing the list, Parker carried a burden of respon-
sibility hardly equaled in the case of any other
American composer. In 1902 he received from
Cambridge, England, the honorary degree of
Doctor of Music. This was the culmination of
Parker
1899 at Worcester had included Hora Novis-
sima, with Parker conducting. The success was
so great that the authorities at Hereford invited
him to compose a work for their festival. Par-
ker quickly responded, and the beautiful Wan-
derer's Psalm (opus 50) was performed. Other
large works of this period were A Star Song
(opus 54), given at the Norwich Festival
(1902), and The Legend of St. Christopher
(opus 43), given at Bristol. Parker's mother
supplied the poetic text for St. Christopher.
This work is the most elaborate of his oratorios
and contains some of his finest pages. Yet it
has not caught the imagination of either English
or American audiences as has Hora Novissima,
upon which his reputation mainly rests. On ac-
count of its naturalness and the freshness and
beauty of its expression, new and attractive in
a dull period of transition in the world's music
just after the passing of Brahms and Wagner,
this oratorio received the impetus of general ap-
proval that still carries it forward.
Parker took a year's leave of absence from
Yale in 1901-02, and another in 1912-13. With
these exceptions his work at the University went
on uninterruptedly from 1894 until his death in
1919. They were busy years, for with all his
other duties he composed music incessantly.
Throughout his professional life he was honored
by one invitation after another to write works
for special occasions, and he always filled these
commissions promptly. His later period of pro-
duction is marked by the composition of several
large works. His mother, to whom he^was at-
tached by especially strong ties of affection, died
in 1903. He was from that time on obliged to
turn to another writer for texts for his choral
compositions. In collaboration with the poet
Brian Hooker he produced in 1911 the large and
imposing opera Mona (opus 71)- This won a
prize (April 1911) offered by the Metropolitan
Opera Company, New York, and was lavishly
presented the following year. Its austerity and
complexity were such as to win for it hardly
more than a succes d'estime. The composer had
grafted upon his earlier and normal manner cer-
tain new modes of thought, in which the influ-
ence of Richard Strauss may be detected, with
the result that his style took on a glamour and
harmonic richness which were appropriate to
opera but which, with equal appropriateness, had
been to some extent excluded from his religious
compositions. Yet Parker, with his antecedents
and classic training, could not suddenly become
second opera, Fair^.. ^
and brilliantly colored than Mom, Tms tee we
223
Parker
National Federation of Musical Clubs bestowed
the prize and sponsored a performance at Los
Angeles. Though the operas have not found a
permanent place in the repertory of opera they
stand as splendid monuments of the genius of
Parker. The orchestration is so skilful and ef-
fective as to arouse regret that Parker never
found time nor occasion to write pure symphonic
music. He seems rather to have been destined
to be a master of choral composition, and his
most enduring work is in this field. It should
be said, however, that no small part of the inter-
est of the oratorios lies in the facile and effective
orchestral accompaniment.
Parker spent the long college vacations at his
summer home at Blue Hill, Me. He could there
compose without interruption, and each year he
returned to New Haven with a new work. The
wear and tear of composing during the summer
after an exhausting season at New Haven broke
down his health. For many years he suffered
from rheumatism and was occasionally actually
incapacitated. The end came in 1919. He had
composed an exceptionally beautiful ode, again
with Brian Hooker's collaboration, A.D. 1919
(opus 84) which was performed at a ceremony
in honor of the Yale men who had fallen in the
Great War. This was his final composition.
Some of his most poignant and spontaneous
music is in this score. He died in December 1919
at the home of his daughter Isabel Parker Sem-
ler at Cedarhurst, Long Island. His burial place
is in the churchyard of Newton Lower Falls,
Mass., near his native village of Auburndale.
He was survived by his wife and his three daugh-
ters. A memorial service was held at Yale Uni-
versity on Feb. 15, 1920, at which several of his
works were performed. Parker had led many
classes of Yale men into an appreciation of fine
music, and had been of service to the University
hi a tangible way by composing music for special
functions. As early as 1895 he wrote an "Ode
for Commencement Day" (opus 42), the text by
Edmund Clarence Stedman, and in 1901 dedi-
cated a fine setting of Professor Thomas Dwight
amd Psyche (opus 80), a masque with text by
Jote Jay Chapman, was performed in the School
of the Flue Arts (1916), and, finally, AJD. 1919,
wtefe ussy be regarded as his own memorial.
Two of Parker's choral works were composed
ior tie Norfolk (Connecticut) Festival The
Drwm of Mary (opus 82), a Morality, with text
^ Jebo Jay Chapm, and King Gorm the Grim
(4** 64). «~ *«•- *•*-- - - —
Parker
posed the oratorio Morven and the Grail (opus
79), to a poem of Brian Hooker. He wrote also
a large amount of music for organ, the most im-
portant being the Concerto in F major (opus 55)
which he as soloist performed with the sym-
phony orchestras of Boston and of Chicago, and
the Sonata in E flat (opus 65). In these works
the influence of his former master Rheinberger
is strong.
Parker's work began in the pioneer days of
American music. By the time of his death the
pioneer days may be said to have come to an end.
His influence was especially valuable during his
earlier period when America had just started to
educate herself in music. In appearance Parker
was notably dignified and commanding, and his
features were clean-cut and handsome. He was
impatient, but devoted to his friends. In 1905
he was elected to the American Academy of Arts
and Letters. He was also a fellow of the Ameri-
can Guild of Organists, and a member of many
clubs.
[The most complete and accurate list of Parker's
works is that compiled by W. O. Strunk and published
in the Musical Quart., Apr. 1930. The library of the
School of Music, Yale Univ., has a collection includ-
ing a nearly complete list of the published works, and
all of the manuscripts which were in the composer's
possession at the time of his death. The Lib. of Cong,
also has an extensive collection of published compo-
sitions and a few manuscripts, including the full score
of Hora Novissima. In each of these libraries are a
few works not included in the other. The manuscript
full scores of some of the works for chorus and or-
chestra are in the hands of the publishers of the vocal
score. The fullest biographical and critical accounts
"e G. W. Chad wick, Horatio Parker (1021), being
the address delivered before the Am. Acad. of Arts and
Letters, July 25, 1920; and D. S. Smith, "A Study of
Horatio Parker," m the Musical Quart., Apr. 1030. An
illustrated article in the Musical Times (London), Sept.
i, 1902, gives some additional information. The article
m Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians (3rd
ed., 1928) vol. IV, gives the facts of Parker's pro-
fessional life and a list of the works to which opus
numbers are assigned. Brief notices in various his-
tories of music in America repeat the facts contained
m the works listed, adding some critical comment. The
library of the Yale School of Music has a collection of
memorabilia including newspaper clippings, contempo-
rary notices or the performance of Hora Novissima
Mona and Fairyland, programs, obituary notices, cor'
S^TiiT1* of published and unpublished
JD. S. S.
17, 1768-July 25,
~ , , w - ., r. „„ ^^ston, Mass., the son
of Daniel Parker, a goldsmith, and Margaret
(Jarvis) Parker. He was descended from John
Parker, of Biddeford, Devon, who emigrated to
America in 1629 and whose children settled in
Charlestown, Mass. After preparation at the
Latin Grammar School, he entered Harvard at
224
Parker
law practice. On June 19, 1794, he married Re-
becca Hall, daughter of Joseph Hall of Medford,
a descendant of John Hall who settled in Con-
cord in 1658. They had eight children. In 1796,
when he was twenty-eight, he was elected to
Congress, but after one term of which little rec-
ord of activity is available he retired voluntarily
to become United States marshal for the Maine
district. He was displaced upon Jefferson's ac-
cession to the presidency and returned to his law
practice. He had made his impression, however,
and in 1806 he was appointed a judge of the su-
preme court of Massachusetts. He was shortly
called upon to sit in the trial of T. O. Selfridge,
charged with shooting the son of Benjamin Aus-
tin [#.£>.] in a political quarrel. Feeling ran high
and Parker won a great reputation for impar-
tiality. In 1814 he was elevated to the chief jus-
ticeship, which post he held till his death. In
1816 he was inaugurated as first Royall Profes-
sor of Law at Harvard. It was not a teaching
chair, and in May 1817 he laid before the Cor-
poration a plan for a law school. The plan was
adopted and the school established, with Asahel
Stearns as first instructor. Parker continued to
lecture until 1827. He was also an overseer of
Harvard and a trustee of Bowdoin and served as
president of the Massachusetts constitutional con-
vention of 1820. His published works were con-
fined to his judicial decisions and to a few ora-
tions, revealing a somewhat less florid style than
that which characterized the times.
Parker's decisions illuminate both the man's
character and the jurisprudence of the period.
They indicate a mind of exceptional clarity and
penetration, albeit with a sensitivity to the needs
of changing times. In the words of Justice Story:
"It was a critical moment in the progress of our
jurisprudence. . . . We wanted a mind to do in
some good degree what Lord Mansfield had done
in England, to breathe into our common law an
energy suited to the wants, the commercial inter-
ests and the enterprise of the age" (Palfrey, post,
p. 28) . It was a time when equity was more im-
portant than law. Parker rendered this kind of
service, and many of his decisions came to be
recognized as authoritative generally through the
state and federal courts. "He felt that the rules,
not of evidence merely, but of all substantial law
must widen with the wants of society" (Ibid.).
In addition he rendered no small service by skil-
fully consolidating the reforms in the Massachu-
setts judicial system, instituted in the early years
of the century. His character was eminently
suited to his role. Above the pettinesses of party
strife, free from affectation, at the same time both
patient and gay, he carried into his public life
Parker
the rectitude of an active and sincere religious
conviction.
[See: J. G. Palfrey, A Sermon Preached . . . After
the Decease <?/ the Hon. Isaac Parker (1830) ; Lemuel
Shaw, address m Am. Jurist, Jan. 1831 ; G. A. Wheeler,
Hut. of Castine, Penobscot, and Brooksville, Me.
(1875) ; New-Eng. Hist, and Geneal Reg., Oct. 1852:
Charles Warren, Hist, of the Harvard Law School
(1908), vol. I ; Jurisprudent, July 10, 1830 ; Boston Ad-
vertiser, July 27, 31, 1830. Parker's decisions appear
in 2-17 Mass. Reports and 1-9 Pickering Reports. I
E. S. G.
PARKER, ISAAC CHARLES (Oct. 15,
iSsS-Nov. 17, 1896), congressman, judge, was
born in Belmont County, Ohio, the son of Joseph
and Jane (Shannon) Parker. His mother was
a niece of Gov. Wilson Shannon [#.z>.], and Isaac
attributed his success largely to her. He attend-
ed a country school and then taught and attended
Barnesville Academy alternately. By the time
he was twenty-one he had picked up enough law
to begin to practise and had opened an office in
St. Joseph, Mo. He served successively as city
attorney, 1860-64, presidential elector in 1864
(voting for Lincoln), corporal in the local mili-
tia, judge of the twelfth circuit 1868-70, and
member of Congress, 1871-75. In Congress he
was a member of the committee on territories
of which James A. Garfield was chairman. Here
he showed a great deal of interest in the Indians
and sought to improve their condition. Dur-
ing his first term he introduced a bill designed
to give them civil government in a territory to
be called Oklahoma (Congressional Globe, 42
Cong., 2 Sess., p. 2954) and he continued to urge
the adoption of such a measure as long as he was
in Washington. He also favored woman's suf-
frage in the territories (Ibid., 681). He intro-
duced a resolution calling for an amendment to
the Constitution making members of Congress
ineligible for the presidency while members and
for two years thereafter.
In 1875 President Grant appointed him chief
justice of Utah and the nomination was con-
firmed, but at the request of the President he re-
signed to accept appointment as judge of the
western district of Arkansas. Probably no ap-
pointment ever gave more satisfaction. His
jurisdiction extended over the Indian Territory,
a country infested by "criminal intruders/' rene-
gades and fugitives from justice in other states
and foreign countries. His predecessor was a
weak man, who had allowed the court to fall into
disrepute. On taking office (May 10, 1875) one
of Judge Parker's first acts was to appoint 200
deputy marshals. He was to need many fearless
men : sixty-five deputies were slain while he was
in office. In his first term he tried eighteen mur-
der cases and fifteen convictions were secured*
225
Parker
This record struck terror to the hearts of evil
doers and raised the hopes of law-abiding citi-
zens. It is said that he passed sentence of death
upon 162, in the course of twenty-one years, of
whom eighty were hanged (Harman, post, pp.
170-80). Very few judges have a like record.
Because of his great number of executions he
won a reputation — outside the state, among those
who did not know him or the conditions in his
district — for great severity, but he was neither
harsh nor cruel ; his sympathies went out to the
victim and his family rather than to the murder-
He was well versed in the English common
er.
law, but treated the law as a growing organism
and believed that the safeguards thrown around
the accused to protect him from savage judges
should not be used to protect murderers. Some
of his decisions were reversed because he had
brushed technicalities aside; one murderer was
convicted three times and, after Parker's death,
escaped with a prison sentence.
Parker had a keen sense of humor and some-
times yielded to it in the court room. He gave
freely to charity and never accumulated much
property. He was intensely interested in edu-
cation and served as president of the school board
at Fort Smith, Ark., for several years. He is
said to have drawn up the bill, passage of which
was secured by John H. Rogers, representative
for the district, providing for the donation of
the United States Reservation in Fort Smith to
the schools of the city instead of to a railroad.
He married Mary OToole, in St. Joseph, Mo.,
Dec. 12, 1861, and they had two sons. He was
buried in the National Cemetery in Fort Smith.
EW. S. Speer, The Encyc. of the New West (1881) ;
Fay Hempstead, Hist. Review of Ark. (2 vols., 1911) ;
S. W. Harman, Hell on the Border (1898), an interest-
ing account of criminals and criminal trials, which must
be used with caution; Arkansas Gazette (Little Rock),
Nov. 18, 1896; conversation with Judge J. M. Hill,
who knew Parker intimately.] D Y T
PARKER, JAMES (c. 1714-July 2, 1770),
printer, journalist, born at Woodbridge, N. J.,
was the grandson of Elisha Parker of Barnstable)
Mass., who moved to New Jersey, and Elizabeth
Hinddey, sister of Gov. Thomas Hinckley. His
father was Samuel Parker, a cooper, who prob-
ably married Janet Ford. James married Mary
BaHarean and they Had two children: Samuel
Fraiidin, who followed his father's business, and
Jane Balareaa, who was married to Judge Gun-
w*g Bedford, Jr. for.], Of Delaware. When
janies was eleven hi© father died and on Jan. i,
1727, fee was apfjreotlced for eight years to Wil-
vS Bl?*rf;fr** PH>totypographer of New
yoA, la April 1733, wi^ t*tenty-one months
of fas indenture roaained, ..'Btttlted a<!^erti$ed
Parker
his time for sale; but on May 17, Parker ran
away. His master offered a reward for his ap-
prehension, describing the boy in this advertise-
ment as being "of a fresh Compaction, with short
yellowish Hair." He probably "wandered to
Philadelphia and found employment with Benja-
min Franklin" (Nelson, post, p. 18). On Feb.
26, 1742, Franklin formed a silent partnership
with him for carrying on a printing business in
New York City for six years, furnishing a press,
type, and other appurtenances. Later, while
Franklin was abroad, Parker acted as his finan-
cial auditor in the business of Franklin & Hall
of Philadelphia. On Dec. i, 1743, Parker suc-
ceeded Bradford as public printer of New York,
a post he held till about 1760. He had several
difficulties with the government. He was cen-
sured in 1747 f°r printing a remonstrance of the
Assembly to the governor's message. He was
brought before the grand jury for printing on
Apr. 27, 1752, a "Speech of an Indian," for
which he apologized in an interesting article on
the circumstances of printers (New York Ga-
zette, Revived in the Weekly Post-Boyf Aug. 3).
For printing an article in March 1756 on affairs
in Ulster and Orange counties, he and his part-
ner were put under arrest, but discharged on
revealing the writer's name, apologizing, and
paying fees. Again, in 1770, he printed a paper
by "A Son of Liberty," who proved to be Alex-
ander McDougall, 1732-1786 [q.v.~\t for which
Parker was arrested; but he died before the case
was settled. During the Stamp Act troubles of
1765, his New York newspaper appeared in
mourning.
Besides his several printing businesses, Par-
ker had varied public interests. In Woodbridge
he was captain of a troop of horse, a lay reader
in Trinity Church (Episcopal), and postmaster
in 1754. This year he was also made postmaster
at New Haven, operating through John Holt, his
partner. In 1756 he became comptroller and sec-
retary of the general post-offices of the British
colonies, and in 1765, when the territory was
divided, he had charge of the northern district,
operating from Woodbridge. He was made libra-
rian of the library of the corporation of the City
of New York in the autumn of 1746, instituted
a system of circulating and fines, and prepared
and printed a catalogue of the books under his
care (New-York Weekly Post-Boy, Oct. 13,
1746). On June 2, 1764, he became judge of the
court of common pleas of Middlesex County, N.
J., and in that year he compiled and printed a
work setting forth the duties and powers of jus-
tices, entitled Conductor Generdis, which for
many years had a vogue with public officials,
226
Parker
He was identified with printing- and journalism
in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. In
the first two he was public printer, and in Con-
necticut he was printer to Yale College. Besides
public documents, newspapers, and magazines,
he printed poetry, fiction, history, science, alma-
nacs, chap books, and works on religion and
husbandry. In his day he was in eminence and
efficiency the equal of any printer in English-
America. He was a better printer than Bradford
or Franklin. Among his apprentices and jour-
neymen were those who afterward established
themselves near and far. In January 1753 ^ar-
ker took William Weyman into partnership at
New York, and their relations continued until
dissolved with acrimony in January 1759. Wey-
man managed the New York office while Parker
was busy at Woodbridge. The New York pirint-
ery was assigned in February 1759 to his nephew,
Samuel Parker, and so continued till John Holt
[q.v."] took over the plant in the summer of 1760.
On Apr. 12, 1755, Parker established at New
Haven the Connecticut Gazette, with Holt as
manager and silent partner. The New Haven
printery had been set up by Franklin for his
nephew, Benjamin Mecom [g.i'.]. Holt had come
to work for Parker at New York in 1754, and
when Parker relinquished this office in the sum-
mer of 1760, Holt left New Haven to conduct the
New York establishment, where he remained a
partner till 1762, when he leased the plant for
himself, conducting it till Parker resumed con-
trol in the autumn of 1766. At Woodbridge, in
1751, Parker set up the first permanent printing
office of New Jersey. He gave this plant ex-
clusive attention from 1753. From 1765, when
he went to Burlington, it was managed by his
son. At Woodbridge he printed more than seven-
ty-five items, consisting of orations, sermons,
discourses, and the public documents of the prov-
ince. His press issued the first newspaper of
New Jersey, really a waif, on Sept 21, 1765, en-
titled the Constitutional Courant, as a protest
against the obnoxious Stamp Act. It was in
1765, while business was slack at Woodbridge,
that Parker planned to set up a printing office at
Burlington, in part to print for Judge Samuel
Smith of that city a History of New Jersey, and
to do the public printing requested by Gov. Wil-
liam Franklin. For this purpose he borrowed
from Benjamin Franklin a press and outfit that
Mecom had used in Antigua, Boston, and New
York. In New York Parker printed four differ-
ent periodicals, the Independent Reflector^ edited
by William Livingston, from Nov. 20, 1752, to
Nov. 22, 1753, fifty-two weekly numbers; the
Occasional Reverberator, a folio weekly of four
Parker
issues, Sept. 7 to Oct. 5, 1753 ; John Englishman,
a folio weekly of ten numbers, Apr. 9 to July 5,
1755 5 and the Instructor, a quarto weekly of ten
numbers, Mar. 6 to May 8, 1755. But his great-
est venture in periodical literature was printed
at Woodbridge, the New American Magazine,
edited by Samuel Nevill, which ran through twen-
ty-seven numbers from January 1758 through
March 1760. This monthly was a financial fail-
ure, as all ten predecessors in that field in the
colonies had been. In December 1768 Parker
offered the remainder for sale at bargain prices
to "induce the Curious to preserve some of them
from Oblivion" (New York Gazette, or the
Weekly Post-Boy, Dec. 12, 1768). It was prob-
ably on Jan. 4, 1743, that he began the third
newspaper of New York, first called the New-
York Weekly Post-Boy, then the New York Ga-
zette, Revived in the Weekly Post-Boy,, and
finally the New York Gazette, or the Weekly
Post-Boy. It underwent many vicissitudes till it
expired in 1773. Parker suffered greatly for sev-
eral years from the gout, and death came to him
at a friend's house at Burlington on July 2, 1770.
He was buried beside his parents in the Presby-
terian churchyard at Woodbridge, though he was
an Episcopalian. His former partner Holt in an
obituary stated that he "was eminent in his Pro-
fession"; "possessed a sound judgment & ex-
tensive Knowledge" ; "was industrious in Busi-
ness, upright in his Dealings, charitable to the
Distressed," and that he "left a fair Character"
(Holt's New York Journal, July 5, 1770). His
estate was executed by his wife (New York Ga-
zette, Aug. 6, 1770).
[Parker's newspapers are primary sources for Ms
biography. Family data are best given by W. H. Bene-
dict, in Proc. N. J. Hist. Soc., 4 ser. VIII (1923) and
extended in his New Brunswick in Hist. (1925). See
also J. W. Dally, Woodbridge and Vicinity (1873).
The best account of Parker's career as a New Jersey
printer is Win. Nelson, "Some N. J. Printers and Print-
ing in the Eighteenth Century/' Proc. Am. Antiquarian
Soc., n.s. vol. XXVI (1911) and reprinted separately.
Pertinent, though not always correct, are Isaiah Thomas,
Hist, of Printing in America (2 vols., 1874) and C R.
Hildeburn, Sketches of Printers and Printing in Colo-
nial N. Y. (1895). For Parker's relations with Franklin
see Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., 2 ser. XVI (1903) and Wil-
berforce Eames, "The Antigua Press and Benj. Me-
com," Proc. Am. Antiquarian Soc., n.s. vol. XXXVIII
(1929), also issued separately. On Parker's newspa-
pers see C. S. Brigham, "Bibliog. of Am. Newspapers,"
in Proc. Am. Antiquarian Soc., especially n.s. vol.
XXVII (1917). The history and bibliography of his
magazine ventures are best in L. N. Richardson, A. Hist,
of Early Am. Mags. (i93r)- The history of his first
political trouble is related from records by the present
writer in the Lit. Collector, Nov. 1903.] V. H. P.
PARKER, JAMES (Mar. 3, i776-Aprv i,
1868) , legislator, was born in Bethlehem town-
ship, Hunterdon County, N. J., the son of James
and Gertrude (Skinner) Parker, His father was
227
Parker
a member of the Provincial Council and of the
Board of Proprietors of the colony. The family
had taken refuge in Hunterdon County during
the Revolutionary struggle but returned in 1783
to the ancestral home in Perth Amboy. Here
James Parker was educated by the Rev. Joseph
I. Bend, Rector of St Peter's Church, before
going to a preparatory school at Amwell, Hun-
terdon County. He entered Columbia College,
New York, in 1790 and was graduated second in
the class of 1793. He was placed in the counting
house of John Murray, then a leading merchant
in New York, but the death of his father in 1797
obliged him to return home to take up the man-
agement of the family estate. In 1806 he was
elected to the New Jersey Assembly from Mid-
dlesex County. He was reflected annually until
1811, and again in 1812, 1813, 1815, 1816, and
1818. During his legislative career he was par-
ticularly interested in the act of 1817 establish-
ing free schools in the state, the act authorizing
aliens to purchase and hold real estate in New
Jersey, and the act passed in 1820 prohibiting,
under the severest penalties, the exportation of
slaves from the state.
Parker returned to the legislature in 1827
chiefly for the purpose of promoting the con-
struction of a canal between the Delaware and
Raritan rivers. Although the bill which he re-
ported did not pass in the legislative session of
1827-28, he had the satisfaction a few years later
of witnessing the actual construction of a canal
essentially the same as that which he had pro-
posed. When the Delaware and Raritan Canal
Company was organized, he became a director
and held this post until his death. His interest
in the boundary question between New York and
New Jersey led him to serve on the different
boundary commissions until a settlement was
reached in 1829. In 1815 and again in 1850 he
was chosen mayor of Perth Amboy. Although
he had always been a Federalist, he supported
the candidacy of Andrew Jackson for the presi-
dency and served as presidential elector in 1824.
When Jackson became president in 1829, Parker
was appointed collector of the port at Perth Am-
boy, which at that time had considerable foreign
trade. While serving in this office, he was elected
to the House of Representatives in 1832 and was
rejected in 1834. His distrust of Martin Van
Buren fed him to align himself with the Whig
party in 1840 and to support its candidates until
Parker
interest in education was recognized by his elec-
tion to the boards of trustees of Rutgers College
and of the College of New Jersey. He was
elected vice-president of the New Jersey His-
torical Society at its formation and subsequently
became its president. For many years he was a
vestryman of St. Peter's Church, Perth Amboy,
and usually represented that parish in the Protes-
tant Episcopal Convention of New Jersey. Freed
from the necessity of earning his own living by
a generous patrimony, he was always willing to
answer the call to public service. He was twice
married: on Jan. 5, 1803, to Penelope Butler,
daughter of a once wealthy Philadelphia mer-
chant, who died in 1823, and on Sept. 20, 1827,
to Catherine Morris Ogden, sister of David B.
Ogden [q.v.~\. John Cortlandt Parker [q.v.] was
a son by the first marriage.
[R. S. Field, "Address on the Life and Character of
the Hon. Jas. Parker," Proc. N, /. Hist. Soc.t 2 ser. I
(1869); K. M. Beekman, "A Colonial Capital: Perth
Amboy and Its Church Warden, Jas. Parker," lUd.,
n.s. Ill (1918) ; Jas. Parker, The Parker and Kearney
Families of N. /. (Perth Amboy, 1925) ; W. N. Jones,
The Hist, of St. Peter's Church in Perth Amboy f N. /.
(1923) ; Daily State Gazette (Trenton), Apr. 3, 1868.]
W. S. C
PARKER, JAMES CUTLER DUNN (June
2, i828-Nov. 27, 1916), composer, organist,
teacher of music, was a son of Samuel Hale
Parker and Sarah Parker of Boston and a nephew
of Richard Green Parker [<?.*>.]. His grandfather
was successively rector of Trinity Church and
bishop of Massachusetts. His father was long
senior warden of Trinity. James attended the
Boston Latin School and Harvard College. Grad-
uated in 1848, he studied law for three years,
but a taste for music, pronounced in boyhood, led
him to become as his friend John S. Dwight
phrased it, "the first son of Harvard to forsake
a dry profession [the law] and follow the ruling
passion of his life" (post, p. 442).
Parker went to Leipzig, Germany, in 1851 to
pursue academic musical studies with Plaidy,
Hauptmann, Richter, and Moscheles. His organ
teacher was Johann Gottlob Schneider, II, whose
virtuosity on a stiff old organ, at which "one had
almost to sit on the keys," greatly impressed him.
In September 1854 Parker returned to Boston
for a life-time of playing, composing, and teach-
ing for which his thorough professional training
and social standing admirably fitted him. He was
always the gentleman, courteous, unassuming,
scholarly. In 1864 he was chosen organist of
rf th. «»»*« OT u, bill * .igk*. His ta.nl ta
228
Bb
Parker
conservative, as were his own compositions. The
latter began with occasional hymns and anthems.
His first essay in a large form was the "Redemp-
tion Hymn/' 1887. In 1890 for the seventy-fifth
anniversary of the Handel and Hayden Society
Parker wrote a cantata, "St. John." His ora-
torio, The Life of Man (1894) was first sung at
the Easter concert of this society in 1895. "The
Blind King," his only secular composition of im-
portance, was written for the Apollo Club of
Boston. These works were untouched by mod-
ernism. One of Parker's younger colleagues
wrote of him : "Much . . . that is being done to-
day he had no use for ; but his knowledge of the
classical composers was something to be envied."
Parker's reputation as a teacher brought him
many private pupils, several of whom formed in
1862 the Parker Club, devoted to giving choral
and instrumental concerts. Early invited by Dr.
Eben Tourjee to teach at the New England Con-
servatory of Music, Parker was a member of its
faculty for thirty-seven years, teaching piano-
forte and theory. He gave a notable performance
at the school's thousandth concert, May 17, 1882.
In his later years at the Conservatory he held the
position of examiner, listening with patience to
the performances of thousands of pupils whom
he regarded with impartiality and discernment.
At his death he was the oldest member of the
Harvard Musical Association. Resolutions of
the New England Conservatory faculty, adopted
shortly after his death and signed by Louis C.
Elson, Wallace Goodrich, and E. Charlton Black,
stressed his honorable share in creating a pro-
fessional and public regard for the great masters
of music. Parker's wife was Maria Derby of
Andover, Mass., whom he married on Sept 6,
1859. He died at his home in Brookline.
[The New England Conservatory Mag -Rev., Dec.
n. 1917, has an extended obituary article. See
jQj-. , .
also: biographical notes by J. S. Dwight in Justin
Winsor's The Memorial Hist, of Boston, vol. IV
(1883) ; Who's Who in America, 1916-17? Boston Eve-
ning Transcript, Nov. 28, 1916.] p. W. C.
PARKER, JANE MARSH (June 16, 1836-
Mar. 13, 1913), author, was born in Milan,
Dutchess County, N. Y., the youngest and third
daughter of Joseph and Sarah (Adams) Marsh,
who were both descended from native families
prominent in the American Revolution. She was
christened Permelia Jenny but she later adopted
the name Jane. At the time of her birth her fa-
ther was pastor of the Christian (Campbellite)
Church in Milan, and when she was two years
old the family moved to Union Mills, Fulton
County, N. Y., where Elder Marsh served as
pastor of the Campbellite church, editor of the
Christian Publishing Association, and of the
Parker
Christian Palladium, the weekly paper of the
sect, and was also the local postmaster. In 1843
her parents became followers of William Miller
[#.£>.] and early in 1844 the family moved to
Rochester, where her father edited the weekly
journal and numerous other publications of the
Millerite movement. This experience with re-
ligious hysteria and fanaticism injured the spirit
of the young girl whose childhood was oppressed
by a sense of impending doom. When old enough
to be liberated from her father's religious vaga-
ries, she swung to ritualism and orthodoxy and
even contemplated entering an Episcopalian sis-
terhood. She remained for many years a devout
Episcopalian, devoting much energy to church
work and religious writing. She attended sev-
eral private schools in Rochester, among which
were the Collegiate Institute and the Clover
Street Seminary.
In 1854 she began to write for the lay periodi-
cals of the day. Her stories and poems appeared
in various publications, including the Waverley
and Knickerbocker magazines, and friendly criti-
cism encouraged her literary ambitions. More
than twenty-five articles, tales, poems, and sto-
ries were produced during her eighteenth year
alone. On Aug. 26, 1856, she was married to
George Tann Parker, a lawyer of Rochester.
Several volumes, including stories for boys and
Sunday-school books, appeared in the next dec-
ade. The most important in this group is Barley
Wood (1860), which deals with a girl's conver-
sion from sectarianism and is significant for im-
plied personal attitude and autobiographical
incident. For a few years her writing was in-
terrupted by her care of her children, but after
this interlude she applied her pen with renewed
activity. She wrote several volumes and articles
on the history of Rochester and central New
York state. A novel, The Midnight Cry (1886),
which utilized the events of the Millerite delusion,
material to which she returned frequently for
later articles and stories, is disappointing in its
failure to capitalize her own personal experi-
ence. It was, however, considerably altered by
her publisher.
Her long life was comparatively uneventful.
In the fall of 1889 she accompanied Frederick
Douglass and his party to Haiti and wrote sev-
eral articles on its problems. The work produced
after the death of her husband in 1895 was almost
completely in the essay form. She became asso-
ciated with the editor of Burrow's Jesuit Rela-
tions and was a frequent contributor to Harper's,
the Outlook, and the Atlantic Monthly. Her pa-
pers in the "Contributor's dub" of the Owtlook
and the "Spectator" columns of the Atlantic, are
229
Parker
among her best work. In the fall of 1905 she
moved to Escondido, CaL, to live with her daugh-
ter. In 1911 they moved to Los Angeles and
there she died on Mar. 13, 1913. She was a
woman of great personal energy and in addition
to her many religious activities engaged herself
in women's clubs, patriotic societies, and civic
movements. She was particularly interested in
the problem of delinquent children and was hos-
tile to woman's suffrage.
[Sources include: Marcelle LeMenager, "The Life
and Work of Jane Marsh Parker, 1836-1913," a mono-
graph in the library of Geo. Washington Univ. ; Who s
Who in America, 1910-11 ; E. R. Foreman, Centennial
Hist, of Rochester, N. Y., vol. II (1932) ; Los Angeles
Times, Mar. 14, 1913 ; information as to certain facts
from members of Mrs. Parker's family.] R. W. B.
PARKER, JOEL (Jan. 25, i795-Aug. 17,
1875), jurist, was born in JafTrey, N. H. He
was descended from Abraham Parker, a native
o£ Wiltshire, England, who had settled in Wo-
burn, Mass., by 1645. His father, Abel Parker,
a Revolutionary soldier, was married in 1777 to
Edith Jewett of Pepperell and three years later
moved from Massachusetts to New Hampshire
and cleared a farm. Joel Parker studied at Gro-
ton Academy and at Dartmouth, graduating in
181 1. He read law in Keene, N. H., and was ad-
mitted to the bar in 1817. In 1821 he went to
Ohio with a view to opening an office, but he
returned in 1822 to resume his practice at Keene.
He followed the law with singleness of purpose
and achieved a success which was substantial but
not sudden. In 1833 he was appointed to the
superior court — the highest court in the state —
and five years later was promoted to be chief jus-
tice. As a trial judge he inspired juries with
courage. Lawyers might call him obstinate, but
as a colleague explained, this was excusable in a
judge who was almost always right In decid-
ing cases he reasoned to his own conclusions.
Upon declining to follow a multitude of de-
cisions sustaining a certain rule, he said : "they
are so many that their very number furnishes
cause of suspicion that the rule is not quite
sotmL ... It would seem, if the rule had a solid
foundation, that one fifth, or one tenth, of the
nratar might have settled the question. Its
numerical strength^ therefore, is weakness" (14
N. H^ #15, 228). This independence came to
irfice through Ms dash with Justice Story. The
New Han^Mre cerart gave erne construction to
tiie worst &# fe tfe Baafartrptcy Act of 1841,
wliHe Story Cw$o3p3 fraw^l the act) enforced
a contrary TTW '"«& tte lederal circuit court.
Neifer wo«M peqefe the
Parker
In November 1847 Parker was appointed
Royall Professor of Law at Harvard. On Jan.
20, 1848, he was married to Mary Morse Parker,
of Keene. In June he resigned from the bench
after having moved to Cambridge. In his new
position he was ill at ease and was tempted to go
back to New Hampshire. The moot court was a
pleasure, but lecturing required a painful adap-
tation, and he had to begin with unfamiliar sub-
jects. His method was formal and thorough
rather than vivid. The poorer men could not fol-
low. "His law . . . was . . . exasperatingly
sound ; but he could no more give a comprehen-
sive view of a whole topic than an oyster, busy
in perfecting its single pearl, can range over the
ocean floor" (Batchelder, post, p. 223). Yet such
men as Joseph Choate and Henry Billings Brown
[qq.v.] found him a fountain of knowledge, and
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, another pupil,
referred to him as "one of the greatest of Ameri-
can judges, . . . who showed in the chair the
same qualities that made him famous on the
bench" (Speeches by Oliver Wendell Holmes,
Jr., 1891, p. 35). In 1868 he resigned his pro-
fessorship. For years the great triumvirate,
Parker, Theophilus Parsons, and Emory Wash-
burn, had reported that "there have been no new
arrangements in relation to the organization of
the School or the course of instruction." Unlike
Langdell who presently came to invigorate the
school, Parker in his methods had not been ahead
of his time.
He served in the New Hampshire legislature
for three years (1824, 1825, 1826) ; as delegate
from Cambridge to the constitutional convention
of 1853, and as commissioner to revise the stat-
utes of Massachusetts. In politics he was Whig,
then Republican, When Sumner was attacked he
made a speech of protest which, according to a
correspondent to the Edinburgh Review (Oc-
tober 1856, p. 595), "for earnestness and solem-
nity of denunciation has not been anywhere sur-
passed." He opposed the doctrine that secession
was constitutional and criticised Taney's opinion
in the Merryman case ( J. D. Lawson, American
State Trials, IV, 1918, p. 880). He defended
the capture of Mason and Slidell. But as the
drama of war and Reconstruction unfolded, his
conservative nature recoiled. The Republicans
had "dug the grave of the Constitution" (To the
People of Massachusetts, 1862, p. 10). When
Parker's conduct or opinions were impeached,
he retaliated. "A good stand-up fight was meat
and drink to him" (Batchelder, p. 225 ) . He was
especially irritated by clergymen who argued that
the president might abojish slavery, saying that
their "impudent assumption" that they had a
Parker
greater knowledge of constitutional law than
men trained to the profession was a "nuisance."
"If any of them have D.D. attached to their
names, that does not disqualify them from being
also ASS, and mischief-makers besides" (Con-
stitutional Law and Unconstitutional Divinity,
1863, pp. 6, 10) . But he had a more genial side.
He read poetry and loved flowers. At home and
among friends he was affectionate. Students In-
vited to dine were surprised to find he could re-
gard a glass of wine with real enjoyment, and
that he was witty. He published more than a
score of articles and pamphlets, among which
may be mentioned Daniel Webster as a Jurist
(1852) ; Non-Extension of Slavery, and Con-
stitutional Representation (1856) ; Personal Lib-
erty Laws (Statutes of Massachusetts) and Slav-
ery in the Territories (1861); Habeas Corpus
and Martial Law (1862); International Law
(1862) ; The War Powers of Congress, and of
the President (1863); Revolution and Recon-
struction (1866) ; and The Three Powers of Gov-
ernment . . . The Origin of the United States, and
the Status of Southern States (1869).
[G. S. Hale, "Joel Parker," Am. Law Rev,, Jan.
1876; Emory Wasliburn, memoir in Proc. Mass. Hist.
Soc.. vol. XIV (1876), and in Albany Law Jour., Aug.
zB, 1875 ; C. H. Bell, The Bench and Bar of N. H.
(1894) ; Charles Warren, Hist, of the Harvard Law
School (1908), vol. II; The Centennial Hist, of the
Harvard Law School (1918) ; S. F. Batchelder, Bits of
Harvard Hist. (1924) ; New Eng. Ma>g.t July 1912 ; F.
C. Jewett, Hist, and Geneal. of the Jewetts of America
(1908), vol. I; Boston Transcript, Aug. 19, 1875.]
C.F.
PARKER, JOEL (Aug. 27, i799-May 2,
1873), Presbyterian clergyman, was born at
Bethel, Vt. Before entering Hamilton College,
from which he graduated in 1824, he had been a
district school teacher at Livonia, N. Y. A mem-
ber of the Presbyterian church there, he organ-
ized, under the name of the Catechetical Society
of Livonia, what ultimately became a Sunday
school. Following two years of study at Au-
burn Theological Seminary, late in 1826, at the
request of several Presbyterian residents of
Brighton, near Rochester, N. Y., he undertook
to form a new church. This was organized early
in 1827 as the Third Presbyterian Church of
Rochester, and Parker was installed as pastor.
In 1830 the "free-church movement" drew Mm
to New York City, where he became leader of a
group of Christians whose aim was to extend
church privileges to the poorer people of the
city, particularly to those whom they considered
excluded from the Reformed Dutch and Presby-
terian churches by high pew rents. The First
Free Presbyterian Church of New York was or-
ganized that year with sixteen members, and
Parker
with Parker as pastor. So marked was the growth
of the movement that within six years four other
free churches had been formed, including Taber-
nacle Church. After using the Masonic Hall on
Broadway for a time, the First Free Church
erected on Dey Street a building, the first floor
of which was given over to stores, and the sec-
ond to an auditorium; all seats were free. Near-
ly seven hundred members were received during
Parker's three-year pastorate.
In 1833 he left New York for New Orleans,
where he was pastor of the First Presbyterian
Church, but in 1838 he was recalled to New York
by Tabernacle Church, with which his Dey
Street parishioners had united. For two years,
beginning in 1840, Parker was the president of
Union Theological Seminary, then in its fifth
year, and was also its professor of sacred rhetoric
and its financial agent. For a long period the
institution's financial condition was precarious,
largely owing to the business crisis of 1837, and
professors' salaries could be paid only in part and
irregularly. Accordingly, when, in 1842, Parker
received a call to the pastorate of Clinton Street
Presbyterian Church at Philadelphia, he accept-
ed, and the office of president remained vacant
until 1873. He retained a deep interest in the
institution, however, and was one of its directors
from 1857 to 1869. I*1 l&$2 he became pastor of
Bleecker Street Church, New York. This, his
third pastorate in that city, was followed by one
of six years at Park Street Church, Newark, N.
J., 1862-68. Ill health compelled him to resign
and his death occurred five years later in New
York.
Three factors seem mainly responsible for
Parker's renown — the prominence of his four po-
sitions in the country's metropolis, the successes
in making converts that marked his pastorates ;
and his own strong individuality, decided con-
victions, and aggressive methods. In the famous
revivals of his time he was a leader. Particularly
in the first half of his ministry he was an un-
usually vigorous, popular, and effective preacher.
During his career he published many pamphlets
and several bound volumes, including Lectures
on Unwersdism (1830) zndThe Pastors Initia-
tory Catechism ( 1855 ) . He also edited Sermons
on Various Subjects (1851), by John Watson
Adams. On May 9, 1826, he married Harriet
Phelps of Lenox, N. Y.
[Gen. Biog. Cat. of Auburn Theol Sew. (1918) ; F.
DeW. Ward, Churches of Rochester (1871) ; Htrf. of
Rochester Presbytery (1889) ; Jonathan Greenleai \, A
Hist of the Churches of All Denominations w the City
of N. Y. (1846) ; E. F. Hatfield, The Early Annals of
Union Theol. Sem. in the City of N. F. (1876) ; G, L.
Prentiss, The Union Theol. Sem. in the City of N. Y,
231
Parker
(1889); Atomni Cat. of the Union Theol. Sem. . . .
(1926) ; N. Y. Tribune, May 6, 1873-] P.P.F.
PARKER, JOEL (Nov. 24, i8i6-Jan. 2,
1888), jurist, statesman, was born near Free-
hold, N. J., the son of Charles and Sarah (Cow-
ard) Parker. His father was state treasurer,
1821-32, 1833-36, and state librarian, 1823-36.
The son received his early education at Trenton
and at Lawrenceville High School, after which
he entered the College of New Jersey^ (later
Princeton) , graduating in 1839. He studied law
under Henry Woodhull Green [g.z/.] and was
called to the bar in 1842, establishing himself at
Freehold. His practice became increasingly lu-
crative. From the first he played an active part
in politics. In 1844 he campaigned for Polk and
in 1847 ne was elected as Democratic assembly-
man for Monmouth County. For one term ( 1852-
57), he was Monmouth County prosecutor and
conducted trials of state and semi-national inter-
est. His activity in the local militia which he
reorganized, and in which he attained the rank
of major general (1861), helped to bring him to
the front in state politics at the outbreak of the
Civil War.
Parker voted for Douglas in 1860 and was a
Democratic presidential elector. In the autumn
of 1862 he was elected governor and served for
a three-year term, beginning in January 1863.
The chief problems of his first administration
arose out of the Civil War. He was a free and
outspoken critic of the federal government for
he believed that the seceding states had been
driven to resistance by the agitation of misguided
Northern abolitionists. He was hostile to the
Emancipation Proclamation, believing that it
would make peace more difficult But while ap-
proving the New Jersey legislature's proposal of
a peace conference, he agreed with Lincoln that
secession could not be permitted and that the
Union must be preserved, with force if need be.
He was careful not to surrender any of the state's
rights and he regarded any encroachment by the
federal government upon the state as intolerable,
even when tinder cover of "war power" or "mili-
tary necessity/1 He opposed the move in Con-
gress to secure the use of the roadway of the
Rarttan and Delaware Bay Railroad for the War
Department, after the Department had been re-
strained from such use by an injunction, and for
this be was praised in New Jersey but censured
outside "fee state for supporting state rights
against the general good
At the same traae Patter gave prompt aid in
supplying troop iot military service. By propa-
ganda and a system of bounties1 he was able to
secore volunteers for tire New Jersey <pota for
Parker
nearly a year after conscripts were being drafted
in other states. His action in caring for the
wounded, for soldiers' families, and for the mili-
tary cemeteries made him very popular in the
state. In the matter of state administration he
advocated the change in the dates of the fiscal
year in order to make it coincide with the ses-
sions of the legislature. He also sponsored the
establishment of a sinking fund for the redemp-
tion of the war loans. Being ineligible for a sec-
ond term immediately, he resumed his private
law practice in 1866. His name was placed in
nomination for president by the New Jersey dele-
gations at the Democratic conventions of 1868
and 1876. In 1871 he was reflected governor
for another three-year term. Although faced with
a Republican legislature with which he occa-
sionally clashed, he retained his popularity. From
January to April 1875 he served as attorney-gen-
eral of the state but resigned to return to private
practice. In 1880 he was appointed to the state
supreme court, which office he was holding by a
second appointment at the time of his death. He
died suddenly in Philadelphia of an apoplectic
stroke.
Parker was an impressive man, very tall and
dignified, and courteous in bearing. But he was
neither quick of wit nor original of thought. As
a governor he was openly partisan, though never
mischievously so. As a judge his conduct was
marked by caution. He was married in 1843 *°
Maria M. Gunimere, the daughter of Samuel R.
Gummere of Burlington. She with two sons and
one daughter survived him.
[The memorial of Parker by J. S. Yard, "Joel Park-
er, the War Gov. of N. J.," in Proc. N. J. Hist. Soc.,
2 ser. X (1890), is included in the Memorial of Joel
Parker (1889), containing sketches and tributes. Other
sources include : Wm. Nelson, ed., Nelson's Biog. Cyc.
of N. J. (1913), vol. I ; The Biog. Encyc. of N. J. of
the Nineteenth Century (1877) ; F. B. Lee, JV. J. as a
Colony and as a State (1902), vol. IV, and Geneal. and
Memorial Hist, of the State of N. J. (1910), vol. Ill ;
W. E. Sackett, Modern Battles of Trenton, vol. I
(1895) ; chapters by C. M. Knapp in I. S. Kull, N. J.f
A Hist. (1930), vol. Ill; Parker's messages as gov-
ernor in Docs, of the Legislatures of the State of N. J.,
1863-66, 1872-75 ; Pub. Ledger (Phila.), Jan. 2, 1888;
Daily True American (Trenton), Jan. 3, 1888.]
H.M.C.
PARKER, JOHN (July 13, 1729-Sept. 17,
1775), Revolutionary soldier, captain of minute-
men, was a native of Lexington, Mass. His par-
ents were Josiah and Anna (Stone) Parker, and
he was descended from Thomas Parker who was
in New England as early as 1635. He served his
military apprenticeship in the French and Indian
War, and fought at Louisburg and Quebec. At
one period he was probably a member of Roger's
noted corps of rangers. On May 25, 1755, he mar-
ried Lydia Moore, by whom he had seven chil-
232
Parker
dren. In time of peace he was a farmer and me-
chanic, and held various town offices. On the
eve of the Revolution he was captain of a com-
pany of minute-men, and he became one of the
foremost figures in the opening event of the war
at Lexington, Apr. 19, 1775. As the British de-
tachment under Major John Pitcairn [q.v.~\ ap-
proached Lexington on the night of Apr. 18,
Parker placed a guard around the house which
sheltered John Hancock and Samuel Adams,
and collected about 130 men. This force he soon
dismissed, but as the British column neared the
town, he again assembled his men — from forty
to perhaps seventy in number. Apparently he
had no definite plans ; a suggestion has been of-
fered that he was acting under orders from
Samuel Adams (Murdock, post, p. 24). Modern
historians have cast a doubt on the authenticity
of the famous words with which Parker is said
to have harangued his men, and which are
carved upon the modest stone in the green:
"Stand your ground. Don't fire unless fired
upon. But if they mean to have a war, let it be-
gin here." The events which followed are in-
volved in controversy, but in the skirmish on the
green eight Americans were killed and ten were
wounded (French, post, p. m). Following the
skirmish Parker assembled as many militiamen
as possible, marched in the direction of Concord,
and had a share in the fighting during the Brit-
ish retreat. As the provincials gathered for the
siege of Boston, he conducted a small body to
Cambridge, but was too ill to have a part in the
battle of Bunker Hill. Nothing further is re-
corded of his career, and he died in the follow-
ing autumn.
[A. G. Parker, Parker in America (1911), PP- 8l»
117; Theodore Parker, Geneal. and Biog. Notes of John
Parker of Lexington and His Descendants (1893);
De Forest Van Slyck, "Who Fired the First Shot?"
(MS.) : Harold Murdock, The Nineteenth of April,
1775, (1923) ; Allen French, The Day of Concord and
Lexington (1925).] E.K.A.
PARKER, JOHN CORTLANDT (June 27,
i8i8-July 29, 1907), lawyer, better known as
Cortlandt Parker, was born in Perth Amboy,
N. J., the son of James [q.v.~\ and Penelope
(Butler) Parker. When he was five years old
his mother died, and he was brought up by his
step-mother, Catherine Morris Ogden. He at-
tended the Perth Amboy Military Academy, and
was expected to go into engineering, which at
that time did not involve a college education.
But by study he prepared for the college entrance
examinations and passed them without the
knowledge of his father. He entered Rutgers
College with the class of 1836 where he led his
class and was valedictorian at graduation. The
Parker
next three years he spent in reading law, first in
the office of Theodore Frelinghuysen of Newark,
and, upon the retirement of Frelinghuysen, in the
office of Amzi Armstrong. He was admitted to
the bar as attorney in September 1839, an<l as
counselor in September 1842, continuing in the
practice of law until his death. His first public
service was as prosecutor of the pleas in Essex
County, which office he held from 1857 to 1867.
Parker entered politics in the campaign, of
1840 as a Whig, and the Clay-Frelinghuysen
campaign of 1844 brought him out in support
of his mentor. Although an opponent of the
slave trade and the extension of slave territory,
he was in favor of the rigid enforcement of the
Fugitive Slave Law. He took a prominent part
in the organization of the Republican party in
New Jersey. Originally a Seward man, he sup-
ported enthusiastically the candidacy of Lincoln
in 1860 and not only presided at a Lincoln rati-
fication meeting in Newark but also served on a
committee to welcome the president-elect when
he stopped at Trenton on his way to the inaugu-
ration. Meanwhile, on Sept. 15, 1847, Parker
married Elizabeth Wolcott Stites, daughter of
Richard W. Stites, of Morristown, N. J., thus
uniting two well-known families of the state.
His interest in the success of Lincoln's adminis-
tration led him many times to the White House.
As president of the state convention in 1864 he
worked for the renomination of Lincoln and
used his influence to force reconsideration of
the Fourteenth Amendment after its first rejec-
tion by the New Jersey legislature. He several
times declined appointment to the supreme court
of New Jersey but in 1871 served with Chief
Justice Mercer Beasley and Justice David A.
Depue on a commission to revise the laws of the
state and in 1873 served on a commission to set-
tle the boundaries between New Jersey and Del-
aware. In 1872 he declined Grant's offer of a
judgeship on the Court of Claims to determine
the proper distribution of the Alabama award,
but in 1876 he accepted an appointment by the
President to investigate the Louisiana vote in the
Hayes-Tilden election. President Hayes in 1877
sought to name him as minister to Russia and
in 1882 President Arthur requested him to repi-
resent the United States as minister to Austria,
but both offers were declined. He again declined
public office when Gov. Foster M. Voorhees in
1902 offered him the United States senatorship
made vacant by the death of William Joyce
Sewell.
Throughout his life Parker was a devout mem-
ber of the Episcopal Church, serving for twenty-
five years as junior warden of Trinity Church,
233
Parker
Newark, and many times as deputy from his
diocese to its general convention. He was al-
ways interested in religious and philanthropic
work and became president of the board of trus-
tees of the City Hospital in Newark. He served
unselfishly the bar associations of his county and
state and was in 1883-84 president of the Amer-
ican Bar Association. It is said that he was am-
bitious for a place on the United States Supreme
Court but relinquished his aspirations in favor
of his friend Joseph P. Bradley, upon whose
life and services he pronounced a eulogy before
the Supreme Court at his death. Parker's influ-
ence upon the development of law in New Jer-
sey can hardly be overestimated. His work as
advisory master of the court of chancery result-
ed in opinions which have become landmarks in
corporate law of the state. For many years be-
fore his death in Newark, he was the acknowl-
edged leader of the bar in New Jersey.
[Sources include: E. M. Colie, "Cortlandt Parker,
1818-1907," Proc. N. J. Hist. Soc., 4 ser. V (1920),
with a partial bibliography of Parker's addresses ; W,
M. Magie, "The Life and Services of the Late Cort-
landt Parker," N. /. State Bar Asso.: Year Book, 1908-
09 ; "Cortlandt Parker/' Report of the Thirtieth Ann.
Meeting of the Am. Bar Asso., 1907; Whets Who in
America, 1906^)7 ; N. J. Law Jour., Jan. 1908 ; and
Newark Evening News, July 30, 1907. A memorial
volume containing Colic's account of ( Parker's Life
and commemorative addresses was published under the
title: Cortlandt Parker, Citizen, Lawyer and Church-
man (1908).] W.S.C.
PARKER, JOSIAH (May n, i75i-Mar. 14,
1810), Revolutionary soldier and politician, was
the son of Nicholas and Ann (Copeland) Par-
ker and descended from Thomas Parker, who
obtained land grants in Virginia as early as 1647.
This ancestor was a member of a landed family
of Cheshire, and the family seat in Isle of Wight
County, Va., Josiah's birthplace, bore the name
"Macclesfield." In 1773 Josiah Parker married
Mary (Pierce) Bridger, widow of Col. Joseph
Bridger, and they had one daughter. At the be-
ginning of the Revolutionary War, Parker en-
tered the army and also became a member of the
local committee of safety and of the Virginia
revolutionary convention. He served in Virginia
tinder Lee, and later was attached to the north-
ern army under Washington. He attained the
rank of major in 1776 and that of colonel the
following year, and at the battle of Trenton he
was Hentenant-coiond of the 5th Virginia Reg-
iment In that battle, as well as at Princeton and
Brandywine, he received the commendation of
the Commander-in-cMrf. His figure is included
in the group of soldiers in Tranbtffl's painting,
"Capture of the Hessians," and it has been stated
that he received the sword of Col Johann Gott-
lieb Rail at Trenton. His temper was hasty and
Parker
impulsive, and in consequence of a controversy
he resigned from the army in 1778. Near the
close of the war, when his native state became
the scene of operations, he was appointed by
Governor Jefferson to command the Virginia
militia south of the James River, and cooperated
with Lafayette. He received large grants of land
after the war, was a member of the House of
Delegates, and from 1786 to 1788 was naval of-
ficer for the port of Norfolk.
Parker was an Anti-Federalist and a strong
supporter of Patrick Henry. He presented him-
self as a candidate for delegate to the Virginia
ratifying convention of 1788, but was defeated.
He was a member of the First Congress, and
with his colleagues he gave his vote for a future
capital on the Potomac River. His career in
Congress extended from 1789 to 1801, and he
was at one time chairman of the naval commit-
tee. His death occurred on the family estate in
Isle of Wight County.
[A. G. Parker, Parker in America (1911), pp. 257-
6 1 ; W. T. Parker, Gleanings -from Parker Records
(1894), pp. 38-41; F. B. Heitman, Hist. Reg. of Of-
ficers of the Continental Army (1893) ; Riog. Dir. Am.
Cong. (1928) ; Norfolk Gazette and Public Ledger,
Mar. 19, 1 8 10, which gives day of death as Wednes-
day, Mar. 14,] E.K.A.
PARKER, PETER (June 18, i8o4~Jan, 10,
1888), medical missionary and diplomat in
China, was born at Framingham, Mass,, the son
of Nathan and Catherine (Murdock) Parker,
and a descendant of Thomas Parker who came
to Massachusetts in 1635. Peter's father was a
farmer and his mother, a farmer's daughter. On
both sides of the house his family, in the lan-
guage of the time, was "pious," and he was care-
fully reared in the orthodox Congregational
faith. In adolescence he passed through the ex-
perience of deep despondency followed by joyous
conversion which was regarded as desirable in
the religious circles with which he was familiar,
and soon afterward he felt that he should pre-
pare for the Christian ministry. His parents
needed his help on the farm, and he was delayed
in acquiring an education. For a time he both
went to school and taught school in Framing-
ham. In 1826-27 he was a student in Day's
Academy, Wrentham, and from 1827 to 1830
he was in Amherst College. Dissatisfied with
the somewhat meager facilities in that young in-
stitution, he went to Yale in 1830, and, gradu-
ating from the college in 1831, continued in New
Haven the study of medicine and theology, re-
ceiving the degree of M.D. in 1834. While in
New Haven he devoted much time and energy to
assisting in the religious life of the community
and the college.
234
Parker
Before entering Yale, Parker had thought se-
riously of becoming a foreign missionary. In
1831 he formally applied to the American Board
of Commissioners for Foreign Missions for an
appointment, and in clue course was accepted and
assigned to China. He was ordained to the Pres-
byterian ministry in Philadelphia on May 10,
1834, and the f ollowng month sailed for Canton,
the first Protestant medical missionary to China.
Protestant missionaries there were still greatly
restricted in their activities, and could pursue
their vocation only in Macao and in foreign "fac-
tories" at Canton, and even in these places they
had to act with circumspectness. Within a few
weeks Parker found it advisable to go to Singa-
pore, where there were Chinese and where mis-
sionaries had more freedom ; here he spent sev-
eral months studying the language and main-
taining a dispensary. By the autumn of 1835
he was back in Canton, and in November of that
year, assisted by British and American mer-
chants, he opened the hospital where he was to
conduct the practice which became his chief
claim to distinction. He specialized on diseases
of the eye, particularly on the removal of cata-
racts, but also performed other operations, in-
cluding the removal of tumors, and began giv-
ing instruction in medicine to Chinese. In 1837
he accompanied to Japan the well-known Mor-
rison expedition which tried unsuccessfully to
repatriate seven shipwrecked Japanese sailors.
In February 1838 there was organized, largely
at the instance of Parker, the Medical Mission-
ary Society in China, an organization support-
ed chiefly by the foreign residents in Canton.
This soon gave substantial aid to Parker's hos-
pital in Canton, and aided by it, he also opened,
for a few months in 1838, a hospital in Macao.
In July 1840, because of the interruption of his
work by the war between Great Britain and
China, Parker returned to the United States.
Here he interviewed members of the adminis-
tration about developments in China— but prob-
ably with little if any effect upon American pol-
icy— and here, Mar. 29, 1841, he married Har-
riet Colby Webster, a relative of Daniel Web-
ster. He visited Europe and both there and in
America sought financial support for his hospi-
tal. He also attended medical lectures in Phila-
delphia.
In June 1842 he sailed again for China, where
he resumed his medical practice in the Canton
hospital. More and more he was drawn into the
diplomatic service of the United States. In 1844
he served as one of the secretaries to Caleb Gash-
ing [#.#.] in the negotiation of the first treaty
between the United States and China. In 1845
Parker
he was appointed secretary to the American le-
gation and in interims between commissioners
was charge d'affaires, continuing, at the same
time, his medical practice. In 1855, ill, he re-
turned to the United States, but that same year
he became American Commissioner and Min-
ister to China and was in China until 1857. His
tenure of office fell in the particularly difficult
years immediately before and in the early part
of the second Anglo-Chinese war. In some re-
spects, notably in his desire to occupy Formosa
and to join with England and France in a vig-
orous assertion of foreign claims, his policy was
more aggressive than Washington would sanc-
tion. Returning to the United States in 1857, he
thenceforward made his home in Washington,
interesting himself in such enterprises as the
American Evangelical Alliance and the Smith-
sonian Institution.
[Theodore Parker, Geneal. and Biog. Nates of John
Parker of Lexington and His Descendants (1893);
G. B. Stevens, The Life, Letters, and Jours, of the Rev.
and Hon. Peter Parker, M.D. (1896) ; Chinese Repos-
itory, 1836—44, passim; Tyler Dennett, Americans in
Eastern Asia (1922) ; Sen. Exec. Doc. 22 , 35 Cong., z
Sess. ; reports of the American Board of Commission-
ers for Foreign Missions, 1836-47 ; letters of Parker
in the files of the American Board; S. W. Williams,
The Middle Kingdom (rev. ed., 1883), vol. II ; C. T.
Downing, The Stranger in China (Phila,, 1838), vol.
II ; Alexander Wylie, Memorials of Protestant Mis-
sionaries to the Chinese (Shanghai, 1867) ; Evening
Star (Washington), Jan. u, 1888.] K.S.L.
PARKER, QUANAH [See QUANAH, 1845?-
1911].
PARKER, RICHARD ELLIOT (Dec. 27,
1783-Sept. 10, 1840), soldier, statesman, and
jurist, the eldest of five children of Captain Wil-
liam Harwar and Mary (Sturman) Parker, was
born at "Rock Spring," Westmoreland County,
Va. He received his elementary education in the
local schools and in 1800, at the age of seventeen,
entered Washington College (now Washington
and Lee University) where he remained for
three years. In 1803 he began the study of law
under his distinguished grandfather, Judge
Richard Parker, of "Lawfield," Westmoreland
County. He was admitted to the bar shortly
after reaching his majority and a few years later
was chosen to represent his native county in the
Virginia House of Delegates. The outbreak of
the War of 1812 found him already an officer in
the Virginia militia and on Aug. i, 1812, he was
commissioned lieutenant-colonel of the nith
Regiment, composed of troops from Westmore-
land and other counties of the Northern Neck,
later serving as colonel. He was aroused by
General Hull's surrender of Detroit and in an
eloquent appeal to Governor Barbour he request-
ed that he be included in any troops sent from
235
Parker
Virginia to the West in order to contribute his
"mite of service to retrieve the national honor."
Even after it became apparent that no Virginia
forces would be ordered to Western duty he con-
tinued his pleas, pointing out that the greatest
weakness of the militia was lack of training, and
that a few officers at least should be sent to the
front for experience so that they might return
as military instructors, thus anticipating the
method of training employed during the World
War. But Parker had to rest content with home
service, defending the Potomac and Chesapeake
regions against British attacks during 1813 and
1814. With the advent of peace he returned to
the law which he had abandoned temporarily for
the profession of arms but in which he was to
gain his greatest recognition.
In 1817 Parker was made a judge of the Gen-
eral Court of Virginia and was a member of that
body until 1836. Meanwhile, in 1831, the legis-
lature established the Court of Law and Chan-
cery for Frederick County and he was chosen as
its first judge. This necessitated his removal to
the Shenandoah Valley and he established his
home at Winchester. In 1833 ^e was recom-
mended by Martin Van Buren for the post of
attorney-general in Jackson's cabinet, and in
1836 was chosen to succeed Benjamin Watkins
Leigh as senator from Virginia. His senatorial
experience was brief, however, for the next year
he resigned to become a member of the Supreme
Court of Appeals of Virginia, an office which he
held until his death in 1840. Although Parker
was not a brilliant jurist he was steady and ca-
pable, usually in agreement with the majority of
the court but not hesitating to dissent when he
deemed that circumstances demanded it His
opinions, clear and in general concise, indicate
sound scholarship, humanitarianism, and a high
sense of judicial responsibility. A member of a
prominent family of the planter aristocracy of
the Northern Neck of Virginia, he was an Epis-
copalian by inheritance and by choice. He mar-
ried Elizabeth, daughter of Dr. William Fou-
shee, the first mayor of Richmond. Parker died
at "Soldier's Retreat" in Clarke County, Va.,
kit the legal heritage of his family lived on in
Parker
(Washington, D. C.)» Sept. 17, 1840; records in the
Adj.-General's office of the War Dept,] T. S C
PARKER, RICHARD GREEN (Dec. 25,
1798-Sept. 25, 1869), teacher, writer of text-
books, was the youngest son of the Rev. Samuel
Parker, rector of Trinity Church, Boston, and
later bishop of Massachusetts, and his wife Anne
(Cutler) Parker. He was educated at the Bos-
ton Public Latin School and Harvard College,
where he was graduated A.B. in 1817. He prob-
ably began his long teaching career at once, and
by 1825 was established in the Boston public
school system. He was grammar master suc-
cessively of the East Roxbury Grammar School
(1825-28), the Boylston School for girls and
boys (1828), the Mayhew School (1828-29),
the Franklin School (1830-36), the Johnson
School, organized in 1836 for girls only (1836-
48), and the Northern Department of the John-
son School (1848-53). Records of the School
Board show that his schools maintained excel-
lent standing. When in 1836 he was transferred
from the Franklin to the Hancock School, his
former students petitioned the School Board for
his return. ^ When he retired, the School Board
accorded him the unusual honor of continuation
of salary for six months, in consideration of his
"long, faithful, and efficient labors." After his
retirement from the public schools, he conduct-
ed a private school for girls.
Parker is best known as a writer of textbooks
of great popularity in their day, some of which
passed through many editions. Like most early
school-book writers, he covered many fields.
His The Boston School Compendium of Natural
and Experimental Philosophy (1837) was the
first of a series of revisions, abridgments, and
elaborations which gave an introductory survey
of the sciences ; while in the field of English
composition he published Progressive Exercises
in English Composition (1832), which had
gone through forty-five editions by the end of
1845, Progressive Exercises in English Gram-
mar (1834), in which he collaborated with
Charles Fox, and Progressive Exercises in Rhe-
torical Reading (1835). The National Series of
&
especially The National Fifth Reader (copr!
1858), He also published Questions Adapted to
Hedge's Logick (1823), sets of questions in ge-
ography for use with the textbooks of other writ-
ers, A Sketch of the History of the Grammar
School m the Easterly Park of Roxbwry (1826),
236
Parker
larity of his books, he had his troubles : the man-
uscript records of the Boston School Committee
reveal a controversy over the use of his text-
books in the Boston schools, and a vituperative
pamphlet, A Review of Parker and Fox's Gram-
mar, Part I, Published by Several Friends of
Real Improvement (1839), attacked the book
and charged the exercise of undue influence in
its adoption.
Though Parker was indefatigably industrious,
his labors never amassed for him a fortune. He
was fond of music, and contributed critiques
to the Boston newspapers on operas and con*
certs. He was also of a mechanical turn, and
amused himself by constructing or reconstruct-
ing hand-organs and like instruments. On Apr.
20, 1820, he married Mary Ann Moore Davis,
daughter of Amasa Davis and his wife Sarah
Moore. They had three daughters and two sons.
After his wife's death (Aug. 22, 1848) he mar-
ried her cousin, Catherine (Hall) Pay son, who
survived him several years. He was buried in
the crypt of Old Trinity Church.
[Sources include Boston School Committee Records
(MS.) ; J. B. Pratt, Seventy-five Years of Book Pub-
lishing (A. S. Barnes & Company, 1913) ; The Necrol-
ogy of Harvard College, 1869-72 (1872) ; Boston
Transcript, Sept. 27, 1869. The Harvard College
Library Textbook Collection possesses most of Park-
er's textbooks, but not all editions.]
PARKER, SAMUEL (Apr. 23, i779~Mar. 21,
1866), Congregational clergyman, missionary,
explorer, was born at Ashfield, Mass., a son of
Elisha Parker, a Revolutionary soldier, and of
Thankful (Marchant) Parker. He was gradu-
ated from Williams College in 1806, served for
a time as principal of an academy in Vermont,
entered Andover Theological Seminary, and
graduated in 1810. Home missionary work in
western New York then occupied him until 1812,
when he became pastor of the Congregational
Church of Danby, N. Y., being ordained Dec.
23. Here he continued till 1827. Thereafter, he
acted as agent for the Auburn Theological Sem-
inary, preached at Apulia, N. Y., 1830-32, and
at Middlefield, Mass., 1832-33, and taught a
girls' school at Ithaca, N. Y.
The venture which forms his chief claim to
remembrance was his exploring trip to Oregon
for the purpose of selecting sites for Indian mis-
sions. His decision to become a missionary was
evoked by an account, published in the Christian
Advocate of Mar. I, 1833, of four "wise men
from the West" who had come to St. Louis seek-
ing for their people the white man's religion.
Illustrated with the picture of a monstrous flat-
headed Indian, this story called forth volunteers
for the missionary cause, among whom were
Parker
Parker and Dr. Marcus Whitman [q.v.]. Since
Parker was fifty-four years old, and not in robust
health, his first offer of his services to the Ameri-
can Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis-
sions proved fruitless, but later, having secured
assurances of financial support from a local or-
ganization at Ithaca, he succeeded in obtaining
a commission. Prepared to start for Oregon as
early as Apr. 10, 1833 (see letter to A.B.C.F.M.),
he actually went to St. Louis in the early sum-
mer of 1834, but arrived after the fur-trade cara-
van for the Rockies had departed. He thereupon
returned to the East and spent the next few
months in an attempt to enlist missionaries for
Oregon.
In the spring of 1835, the Board gave him
Marcus Whitman as an associate and the two set
out, joining at Liberty, Mo., the caravan of the
American Fur Company, with whom they con-
tinued, from May 15 to Aug. 12, when they
reached the rendezvous on Green River. Find-
ing the Flatheads and Nez Perces assembled
there eager for missionaries, Parker went for-
ward alone, under their escort, while Whitman
returned to the East with the trading caravan
to organize a missionary party. Parker spent
the winter of 1835-36 at Fort Vancouver. He
then explored the interior, selecting sites for
proposed mission stations, and in September, be-
fore the arrival of Whitman's party, sailed to
the Hawaiian Islands and thence, on a whaler,
around the Horn. He reached New London in
May 1837. The following year his book, Journal
of an Exploring Tour Beyond the Rocky Moun-
tains (1838), was published at Ithaca. Several
later editions were brought out in America and
it was also published in Great Britain. The
Whitman Mission was fitted into the scheme re-
sulting from Parker's survey.
Parker seems to have been vigorous, but dog-
matic and somewhat arrogant, ill-fitted to con-
ciliate men's opposition or to gain their eager
cooperation. He displayed good judgment of the
Indian character, however, and wisdom in the
selection of sites for missionary labors among
the tribes. His Yankee shrewdness also guided
him in estimating the agricultural, commercial,
and manufacturing possibilities of the Oregon
country. His first wife was a Miss N, Sears of
Ashfield, Mass.; in 1815 he married Jerusha
Lord, of Salisbury, Conn., a niece of Noah Web-
ster. By her he had a daughter and two sons,
the youngest being Henry Webster Parker, cler-
gyman, scientist, and author.
[H. W. Parker, "Rev. Samuel Parker, Missionary
to Oregon," The Church at Home and Abroad, Mar.
1895; Gen. Cat. Theol Sem. Andover, Mass,, 1808-
237
Parker
1908 (n.d,) ; W. H. and M. R. Webster, Hist, and
Geneal. of the Webster Family of Conn. (1915) J A. B.
Hulbert, "Undeveloped Factors in the Life of Marcus
Wliitman," in J. F. "Willard and C. B. Goodykoontz,
The Trans-Mississippi West (1930); references listed
in C. W. Smith, A Contribution toward a Bibliog. of
Marcus Whitman (1909) ; Myron Eells, Marcus Whit-
man, Pathfinder and Patriot (1909); manuscript rec-
ords, including Parker's tender of his services to the
Missionary -Board, dated Middlefield, Apr. 10, 1833,
and his later correspondence and report, in A.B.C.F.M.
collection, Cambridge, Mass.] jt 5 Tf
PARKER, SAMUEL CHESTER (May 31,
i88o-July 21, 1924), educator, was born in Cin-
cinnati, Ohio, one of the large family of Samuel
B. and Elizabeth Helen (Chappell) Parker. His
father was an Ohio-River pilot, whose boat had
been in several of the engagements of the Civil
War. His mother was a woman of exceptional
mental qualities and exercised a large influence
over him, guiding his training until he reached
mature years. His education began in the public
schools. He attended the technical high school,
where he came in contact with T. L. Feeney, the
principal, who became his life-long friend and
model as a teacher. Later the two were asso-
ciated as members of the faculty at Miami Uni-
versity in Oxford, Ohio. After completing high
school, the boy went to the University of Cin-
cinnati, where he graduated in 1901. He took
an active part in undergraduate life and was
president of the senior class. He first specialized
in chemistry, but during his senior year he be-
came interested in the theory and practice of
teaching, to which he devoted his career. He
pursued graduate courses in education at the
University of Cincinnati in 1902 and later at the
University of Chicago and at Teachers College,
Columbia University, where he received the M. A.
degree in 1903. He came in contact during his
graduate work with John Dewey and Edward
influence over his thinking. In 1903 he became
professor of the history of education at Miami
University and, with some interruptions due to
absence for graduate work, continued at that in-
stitution until 1909. In that year he was called
to the University of Chicago, where he became
dean of the College of Education in 1911. He
served as professor of education until the time
Parker
tion. He wrote for both elementary teachers and
high-school teachers. His books are character-
ized by lucidity of style and directness of attack.
He showed extraordinary ability to assimilate
and interpret the results of scientific and histori-
cal studies in the field of education. His two
most important books are Methods of Teaching
in High Schools (1915) and General Methods of
Teaching in Elementary Schools (1919). As an
administrator, he was the embodiment of sys-
tematic procedure. He organized every detail
of the work of his clerical staff and of his asso-
ciates. The impress of his organizing genius is
still strong on the department of education in the
University of Chicago and on the National So-
ciety for the Study of Education, of which he
was secretary from 1911 to 1915. He formulated
a program for the activities of this society, which
is still followed and which has made it one of the
most influential educational organizations in the
country. As a teacher, he was exacting in his
demands on his students and concrete and vivid
in his presentations. As a teacher of teachers,
he had no tolerance for mediocrity. He held to
the philosophy, which he had learned from
Dewey, that education must formulate its meth-
ods so as to meet the requirements of a changing
civilization. He drew his fundamental psychol-
ogy from Thorndike. He recognized inherited
ability as the chief factor in human life. With
him, teaching was a means of bringing to full
expression the best powers of an individual.
[Elementary School four., Sept. 1924; Who's Who
in America, 1924-25 ; Chicago Daily Tribune, July 22
1924 J N. Y. Times, July 23, 1924.] C. H. J.
PARKER, THEODORE (Aug. 24, 1810-
May 10, 1860), theologian, Unitarian clergy-
man, publicist, born in Lexington, Mass., was a
descendant of Thomas Parker of Norton, Derby-
shire, England, who settled in Lynn, Mass., in
1635, and in 1640 was one of the founders of the
town and church of Reading. A grandson re-
moved to Lexington in 1712 and had for grand-
child the Capt. John Parker [q.v.] who led the
Lexington minute-men, Apr, 19, 1775. John
(1761-1836), son of the Revolutionary captain,
238
Parker
loud and clear, "It is wrong." In advance of all
instruction, religious awareness began in a form
which in his learned maturity he identified with
the tmrationalized experience of primitive man.
When his New England Primer taught him the
doctrine of eternal damnation he wept with ter-
ror, but vanquished the distress by trusting the
divinations of his own kinder heart. In very
early years he had an intense passion for beauty
in every f orm. A child of seven years, he inferred
from graduations of lichen, moss, grass, bush,
and tree, a hierarchy of ascending forms through-
out nature. In growing boyhood his historical
lore claimed attention in the political discussions
of his elders. These varied propensities, early
awakened, prefigured his career.
His schooling was limited to four months of
two summers, three months of ten winters in a
district school taught by college students, and a
few months in Lexington Academy. All other
weeks were given to farm work and carpentry,
but in leisure hours he read borrowed books with
voracious appetite and a phenomenally retentive
memory. Discerning teachers taught him Latin
and Greek and he undertook modern languages
by himself. At ten years he made a botanical
catalogue of all vegetables, plants, trees, and
shrubs that grew by his home, and when not yet
twelve he turned to astronomy and metaphysics.
At seventeen he began four years of teaching in
neighboring district schools. He walked to Cam-
bridge Aug. 23, 1830, and passed the examina-
tion for entrance to Harvard College. Too poor
to enroll, he was allowed to take the examina-
tions throughout the course and in 1840 was
made an honorary master of arts. In March
1831 he became assistant in a private school in
Boston and a year later opened his own school
in Watertown. He now gained the friendship
of Watertown's learned pastor, Convers Francis
[#.#.], steeped in German thought, and won the
tender love of Lydia Cabot, daughter of John
Cabot of Newton. Long hours of teaching, of
studying for Harvard examinations, of acquiring
Semitic languages and poring over Cousin and
Coleridge made a life without play or exercise;
they also deprived him of the give-and-take fel-
lowship with other youths that might have trained
him to more sustained good humor and more
tolerant indifference to praise and blame.
In April 1834 he entered the Harvard Divinity
School, where he lived ascetically on scant sav-
ings, meager earnings, and a bursary, but prod-
igally in the expenditure of mental energy— "an
athlete in his studies," said his fellow student
Christopher P. Cranch [q.v.]. His journal shows
a knowledge of twenty languages, and of the
Parker
most necessary, the knowledge was exact. In
Prof. John Gorham Palfrey's absence, he gave
the instruction in Hebrew. Echoing the thought
of the faculty, he believed in an inspired Bible, a
revelation evidenced by miracles, in Christ as the
Son of God supernaturally conceived. Neverthe-
less, in editing with two classmates The Scrip-
tural Interpreter he made use of mild German
criticism that brought protests from the readers,
and when he graduated, July 1836, he had some
doubt of miracles and the virgin birth. A month
later he began to translate De Wette's Einleitung
in das Alte Testament, a work for which Amer-
ica was not yet ready.
Half a dozen churches offered Mm a settle-
ment, but because of its proximity to libraries he
chose the modest parish of West Roxbury, a
suburb of Boston, and there, after marriage with
Lydia Cabot, Apr. 20, he was ordained June 21,
1837. In his sermons he avoided controversial
matters and presented religion only in terms of
his inward experience, but this habit led him, in
his private reflections, away from dependence on
miraculous revelation to a main reliance on the
direct, intuitive religious functioning of man's
spirit, "the felt and perceived presence of Ab-
solute Being infusing itself in me." Further-
more, the friendships now made were with the
progressive spirits of the New England renais-
sance—Dr. William Ellery Channing and his
nephew W. H. Channing, Charles Follen, Fred-
eric H. Hedge, Wendell Phillips, George Ripley,
Emerson, and Alcott Iqq.v."]. He hailed Emer-
son's Divinity School Address (1838) as "the
noblest, the most inspiring strain I ever listened
to ... [though] a little exaggerated, with some
philosophical untruths" (Frothingham, post, p.
106) . To the controversy that followed he con-
tributed a pamphlet under the pseudonym of
Levi Blodgett, arguing that an intuitive religious
faculty makes external props like miracles un-
necessary. Difference of opinion on this ques-
tion was then creating division in Unitarian
circles and rumors of Parker's attitude cost him
the customary exchanges with the Boston pas-
tors. From such disfavor, in spite of a militant
disposition, he suffered abnormally, and the more
keenly since his intense studies were now often
interrupted by physical depression and despond-
ent moods. German thought and sympathy with
Coleridge, Carlyle, and Emerson, however, were
surely developing his native reliance on intuition
intoa systematic intellectual form. An undesigned
rupture came with a sermon on The Transient
and Permanent in Christianity, preached at an
ordination in South Boston, May 19, 1841. In it
he demanded that "we worship, as Jesus did, with
239
Parker
no mediator, with nothing between us and the
father of all." This was Emerson's lyrical de-
liverance done with a ruder prose, and a com-
munity already irritated by controversy reacted
violently. The orthodox denounced him in the
press; the liberal clergy withheld all tokens of
fellowship; nevertheless, the following winter
laymen in Boston arranged for Parker to deliver
a series of lectures, which were published under
the title A Discourse of Matters Pertaining to
Religion (1842). In this remarkable work, ill
received in America but of large circulation in
English editions and German translation, Par-
ker's vast erudition fortifies an eloquent appraise-
ment of Christianity as the highest evolutionary
ascent of the universal and direct human experi-
ence of divine reality. He demanded a new theol-
ogy, which should be a science of religion and
interpret its data by the immanence of God in
nature and human experience.
The Boston Association of Ministers, to which
Parker belonged, was disquieted. Its members
had relaxed inherited doctrine, but they rested
truth on supernatural revelation. Feeling be-
came acute when they read an article by Parker
in The Dial of October 1842. Some of them had
served on a council called to consider the con-
flict of the Rev. John Pierpont with his church
over a sermon on traffic in liquor, and now they
found their decision denounced as a Jesuitical
document in the interest of the liquor trade. In
January 1843 the Association suggested that
Parker resign his membership, but he refused on
the ground that the right of free inquiry was at
stake. Soon after, he published his translation
of De Wette's Einleitung, and then, to secure
needed rest, he spent a year in European travel
(September ^-September 1844). It was a
year of rich experience for a mind stored with
knowledge of history and literature, and signifi-
cant m Parker's life since conferences with the
^hdars of many lands made him confident in his
£W J°?** ?*d c™** of a mission
cre-
Parker
and in January, definitely resigning the West
Roxbury pastorate, he was installed as minister
of the new Twenty-Eighth Congregational So-
ciety of Boston, which in November 1852 found
nobler quarters in the new Music Hall. Parker
defined this church as a union to cultivate love
of God and man with a common regard for Jesus
as the highest known representative of God. It
was to be active in all possible ways for human
welfare, and Parker's devotion to its enterprises
entailed the sacrifice of a cherished plan to elab-
orate a true science of religion with its own spe-
cific scientific method.
While in Rome in 1844, reflecting on Amer-
ica's historic task, he judged that popular igno-
rance and corrupt leadership required a campaign
of intellectual, moral, and religious education.
In his new pulpit and on lecture tours over a
wide area, as well as in frequent publications, he
discussed problems of war, temperance, prisons,
divorce, education, human rights, the' careers of
American statesmen, always with a wealth of
knowledge and a sober practical judgment His
faith was that social wrong would be righted as
men attained consciousness of the infinite per-
fection of God, of the eternal right, of immortal
life. Inevitably, the national situation involved
him in the agitating discussion of slavery and
thus of political parties and political leaders.
Bold speech and bold courage gave him enthusi-
astic followers and bitter enemies, his frequent
harsh invectives and ascription of rapacious mo-
tives intensifying the social division.
The results of his intensive study of the his-
tory and economic aspects of slavery were pre-
sented in A Letter to the People of the United
States Touching the Matter of Slavery (1848)
and in articles in the Massachusetts Quarterly
Review (1847-1850). Webster's Seventh of
March speech and the Fugitive Slave Law
(1850) created a crisis, and Parker made pas-
sionate speeches in Faneuil Hall (Mar. 25, Oct.
14) and as leader of a vigilance committee was
dramatically active in the escape of the fugitive
slaves William and Ellen Craft (November
1850) and in the foiled plot to rescue Thomas
Sims (April 1851). On Oct. 3 1,1852, a week after
Webster s death, Parker preached a sermon an
the statesman s career, re
"that A*
anes
m
i^ht to secede ™* ** averse
° * Separati°n °f North and South> Pari<er failed
to
' 24°
Parker
another fugitive slave (May 24, 1854), Parker
incited Faneuil Hall hearers to rescue the pris-
oner by an attack on the court house, but the plan
miscarried and Burns was deported. With six
others, Parker was indicted by the grand jury,
but on Apr. 3, 1855, the indictment was dismissed
as ill framed. This fact did not hinder Parker
from publishing an elaborate Defence, valuable
for its accounts of the fugitive slave episodes but
marred by invectives against the responsible au-
thorities. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854 oc-
casioned a fresh outburst of sermons and ad-
dresses, some passionately rhetorical, others with
forceful economic argument. He now foresaw
and predicted civil war. With voice and purse he
supported the New England Emigrant Aid So-
ciety, the Massachusetts Kansas Committee, and
as one of a secret committee abetted John Brown's
project of a foray in the mountains of Virginia.
At Parker's invitation Brown disclosed his plans
at a secret meeting in Boston, Mar. 4, 1858, and
though Parker predicted failure, he favored the
project as likely to precipitate the now inevitable
conflict. His political influence is evidenced by
his immense correspondence with Sumner, Sew-
ard, Chase, John P. Hale, and Charles Francis
Adams. Through the mediation of William H.
Herndon [q.vJ] he influenced Abraham Lincoln,
who probably derived from him the formula "gov-
ernment of the people, by the people, for the peo-
ple" (see Chadwick, post, p. 323)-
Parker's life was strenuous and exciting;
sermons, voluminous correspondence, journeys,
lectures — in one year as many as ninety-eight —
pastoral labor, and publications crowded full each
hour. After exposure on a lecture tour in the
spring of 1857 he became ill ; an operation for
fistula, a laming accident, and symptoms of tuber-
culosis followed. A violent hemorrhage, Jan. 9,
1859, ended all public activity. With wife and
friends he sailed for Vera Cruz, Feb. 3, and,
much improved, journeyed in June to London
and Paris and then on to the home of his friend
Edward Desor in Combes Varin, Switzerland.
After a winter in Rome, he died in Florence on
May 10, 1860, and was buried in the Protestant
cemetery outside the Pinto Gate. At a great
memorial meeting in Boston, June 17, he was
eulogized by Emerson and Phillips. His rich
library of nearly 16,000 volumes, bequeathed to
the Boston Public Library, is a noble memorial
of his far-ranging mind.
Parker's inability to forget social ostracism
measures an affectionate man's craving for love.
To humble folk and the unworldly great who
were his friends, he abounded in beneficence and
delightful discourse. Lacking distinguished pres-
Parker
ence, ungraceful in bearing, unmusical in voice,
with little animation of manner, he yet domi-
nated audiences by reasoning power, by full
knowledge of facts, by the thrill of his moral
idealism, his poetic joy m the world's ineffable
beauty, and the glowing ardor of his disclosures
of the mystery of communion with God. The ser-
mons of this religious genius have lost none of
their kindling power and claim the attention of
students of religious experience. The theologi-
cal views which disturbed his contemporaries
have become characteristic of their descendants.
His writings are collected in Theodore Parker's
Works (14 vols., 1863-70), edited by Frances P.
Cobbe and published in London ; also in the Cen-
tenary Edition (15 vols., 1907-11), published by
the American Unitarian Association, which in-
cludes a valuable introduction and critical notes.
A German edition of his writings, Theodor Par-
kers Saemmtliche Werke (5 vols., 1854-61) was
prepared "by Johannes Ziethen.
[John Weiss, Life and Correspondence of Theodore
Parker (1864) ; O. B. Frothingham, Theodore Parker,
A Biog. (1874) ; J. W. Chadwick, Theodore Parker,
Preacher and Reformer (1900) ; Albert Reville, Th6o-
dore Parker, Sa Vie et Ses (Euvres (Paris, 1865 ; Eng-
lish ed., London, 1865) ; Alfred Altherr, Theodor
Parker in seinem Leben und Wirken (St. Gallen, 1894).
Detailed bibliogs. are in Chadwick's Life and in vol.
XV of the Centenary Edition of Parker's works.]
F.A.C.
PARKER, THOMAS (June 8, 1595-Apr. 24,
1677), pioneer minister, was born at Stanton St.
Bernard, Wilts., the only son of the Rev. Robert
Parker, a leading nonconformist (see Dictionary
of National Biography) who was forced to take
refuge in the Netherlands in 1607, and Dorothy
(Stevens) Parker. Thomas matriculated at Trin-
ity College, Dublin, in 1610 ; he proceeded thence
to Magdalen College, Oxford, and in 1614 to the
University of Leyden, where he studied theology
under William Ames. His formal education was
completed under Johannes Maccovius at the Uni-
versity of Franeker, where he received the de-
gree of M.Phil, in 1617. There Parker published
seventy theses, supralapsanan in. character,
which precipitated a violent controversy between
his teachers and other continental divines. After
the Synod of Dort had acquitted Parker of
heresy, he settled in Newbury, Wilts., became
assistant master of the Free Grammar School
there (The Victoria History of Berkshire, II,
1907, p. 274), and assistant to the minister. In
1634, with numerous friends and relatives, he
emigrated to Massachusetts. The company, after
wintering at Ipswich, where Parker assisted the
Rev. Nathaniel Ward [g.<], obtained the grant
of a nearby township which they named Newr-
241
Parker
bury, and promptly organized a church of which
Parker and his cousin James Noyes were or-
dained ministers. "So unshaken was their friend-
ship, nothing but death was able to part them.
They taught in one school; came over in one
ship; were pastor and teacher of one church;
and Mr. Parker continuing always in celibacy,
they lived in one house, till death separated them
for a time . . ." (Magnalia, 1855, 1, 4&5 ) - In New
England, Parker was an orthodox Calvinist in
doctrine, walking forty miles to vote against Gov-
ernor Vane in 1637 and later hounding the
Quakers (J. J. Currier, History of Newbury,
Mass., 1902, pp. 41-42, 149) ; but in matters of
ecclesiastical polity, although the son of an emi-
nent English Congregationalist, and the pupil of
another, he persuaded himself that Presbyterian-
ism was necessary to restrain the democratic
pretensions of the laity, and keep order in the
New England churches. He wrote to the West-
minster Assembly showing up the weak points of
Congregationalism (The true Copy of a Letter
written by Mr. T. Parker . . . declaring his judge-
ment touching the Government practised in the
Churches of New England^ London, 1644), and
in person argued for Presbyterianism at the New
England church synods of 1643 and 1662 (J. G.
Palfrey, History of New England, II, 1865, pp.
171-72; T. Hutchinson, History of Massachu*-
setts Bay, 1795 ed., 1, 206 note). Although these
decided against him, Parker and his colleagues
(Noyes until his death in 1656, and afterward
Parker's nephew John Woodbridge) continued
to rule the Newbury church in a Presbyterian
manner, taking the consent of the congregation
"in a silential way." The flock was not always
silent: a strong section persistently demanded
their rights and privileges under the Congrega-
tional dispensation, and frequently appealed to
church councils and civil courts ; but the Bay au-
thorities consistently declined to discipline Par-
ker, who eventually wore out and outlived his op-
ponents, dying on Apr. 24, 1677. He further
departed from majority practice and prejudice
in admitting the unconverted to communion
(Thomas LecHord, Plain Dealing, 1867, p. 56),
in denouncing the execution of Charles I, and
welcoming the royalist restoration (Dedication
and Preface to James Noyes's Moses and Aaron,
London, 1661). "Mr. Parker excelled ... in
praying, preaching, and singing, having a most
«leEicate sweet voice" (Magnate, 1855, I, 4^6) ;
he condticted a free school to prepare boys for
Harvard (Samuel Sewall was a pupil); and
wrote interpretations of Bible prophecies, only
one of which, The Visions md Prophecies of
Dornd expounded (London, 1646), was printed.
Parker
[Cotton Mather's Magnolia Christi Americana (1855),
I, 480-88, including a memoir by Parker's nephew and
pupil, Nicholas Noyes ; S. E. Morison, "The Education
of Thomas Parker of Newbury," Pubs. Colonial Soc. of
Mass., Apr. 1932, 261-67 J J- B- Felt, The Ecclesiastical
Hist, of New England (2 vols., 1855-62) ; "Diary of
Samuel Sewall," Colls. Mass. Hist. Soc., 5 ser., vol. V
(1878) ; J. J. Currier, Hist, of Newbury, Mass. (1902).
The church controversy is related at length in Joshua
Coffin, A Sketch of the Hist, of Newbury (1845).
Parker's Theses, originally printed at Franeker in 1617,
were reprinted in London in 1657 and at Amsterdam
(in Ames's Disceptatio and Opera) in 1658, calling
forth several pamphlets in reply, for titles of which
see the Catalogue of the British Museum. The Copy of
a Letter . . . to His Sister, Mrs. Elisabeth Avery, who
had embraced Quakerism, printed in London in 1650,
has been reproduced in the American photostat series
of the Mass. Hist Soc. Parker's will is printed in The
Probate Records of Essex County, Mass., Ill (1920),
I33-35-] S.E.M.
PARKER, WILLARD (Sept. 2, i8oo-Apr.
25, 1884), surgeon, was born at Lyndeborough,
Hillsborough County, N. H., the son of a farmer,
Jonathan Parker (b. June 10, 1764) by his wife,
Hannah Clark (b. May 8, 1770). His paternal
ancestor, Joseph Parker, had settled in Middle-
sex County, Mass., in 1640. Willard was named
for his grandfather, Willard Parker, a descendant
of Maj. Simon Willard. His great-uncle, Col.
Moses Parker, was fatally wounded at Bunker
Hill, and his maternal grandfather, Rev. Peter
Clark, fought in the War of the Revolution.
Willard Parker received his primary educa-
tion in a rural school, and obtained the degree
of A.B. at Harvard in 1826, having supported
himself during his years at college. Through a
chance contact with John Collins Warren, he was
diverted from the ministry and took up the study
of medicine. He was apprenticed to Dr. Warren
and Dr. S. D. Townsend in Boston, attended
medical lectures at Cambridge, and graduated
M.D. from Harvard in 1830, presenting an in-
augural dissertation entitled "A Thesis on Nerv-
ous Respiration" (unpublished). During the
next eight years he held a succession of titles in
various schools: professor of anatomy and sur-
gery, Clinical School of Medicine, Woodstock,
Vt, a part of Waterville College, Me. ( 1830-33 ) ,
professor of surgery, Berkshire Medical Insti-
tution (1833-36), professor of anatomy, Geneva,
N. Y. ( 1834-36) , professor of surgery, Cincinnati
(1836-37) ; and he obtained a second doctorate
of medicine from the Berkshire Medical Insti-
tution. In 1839 he was appointed professor of
principles and practice of surgery in the College
of Physicians and Surgeons, New York City,
and held this post until 1870.
In 1837 Parker went abroad and had a year at
Paris, "walking" the wards of the great hos-
pitals in contact with Chomel, Louis, and other
stimulating French clinicians of that period. His
excellent diary of this trip has been preserved
242
Parker
by his descendants and was published by Ruhrah
(post) in the Annals of Medical History, May-
September 1933 ; it gives an intimate picture of
his experiences, and illustrates his personal char-
acteristics. On returning to New York he de-
veloped a large practice in the field of general
surgery and became influential in public affairs.
In surgery he was courageous and successful.
He is credited with having performed cystotomy
for irritable bladder ( 1850), with having tied the
subclavian artery for aneurysm on five occasions
(1864), and with having been the first in Amer-
ica to operate successfully upon an abscessed ap-
pendix (three of four cases survived, Medical
Record, New York, Mar. i, 1867). Though Han-
cock had operated for appendicitis in London in
1848, Parker was unaware of the fact; his con-
tribution was bold and original and it received
the enthusiastic commendation of Reginald
Heber Fitz [g.z>.] who first established appen-
dicitis as a clinical and pathological entity.
Parker was also an inspiring teacher, lecturing
for many years before crowded classrooms on the
principles of surgery. He was president of the
New York Academy of Medicine in 1856, and
was affiliated with the New York, St. Luke's,
Roosevelt, and Mount Sinai hospitals. In 1870
he resigned from official responsibilities and be-
came emeritus professor of surgery. The Wil-
lard Parker Hospital for Infectious Diseases in
New York was named in his honor.
In public life Parker was an active promoter
of the temperance movement, despite the fact that
he drank in moderation himself. He was also
active in public health. Personally he had a com-
manding but kindly presence which won the
confidence and sympathy of both students and
patients. He married June 21, 1831, Caroline
Sarah, daughter of Dr. Luther Allen of Stirling,
Mass. There were two children by this marriage.
His second wife was Mary Ann (Bissell) Coit,
daughter of Josiah and Henrietta Perkins Bis-
sell, whom he married May 25, 1844, and by
whom he had one son and two daughters. His
large library was left to the Medical Society of
the County of Kings in Brooklyn.
[John Ruhrah, "Willard Parker," Annals Medic.
Hist. (N. Y.), May-Sept. 1933; S. W. Francis, Bioff.
Sketches of Distinguished Living New York Surgeons
(1866) ; W. H. Draper, in Trans. Medic. Soc., State of
N. Y.t 1885; H. A. Kelly and W. L. Burrage, Am.
Medic. Biocfs. (1920) ; J. P. Warbasse, "Willard Par-
ker and His Medical Library," L. L Medic. Tour., Mar.
1907 ; New-Eng. Hist, and Geneal. Reg., July 1884; N.
Y. Tribune, Apr. 26, 1884; information about certain
facts from a great-grand-daughter.] J.F.F.
PARKER, WILLIAM HARWAR (Oct. 8,
i826-Dec. 30, 1896), naval officer, author, was
born in New York City, the son of Foxhall Alex-
Parker
ander and Sara Jay (Bogardus) Parker and
the nephew of Richard Elliot Parker [g.vj. On
Oct. 19, 1841, he was appointed midshipman,
and made his first cruise in the Columbus to the
Mediterranean and Brazil, 1842-44. In the Po-
tomac through the Mexican War, he saw active
fighting with the naval battery at Vera Cruz and
at the capture of Tabasco. In 1847-48 he was
at the Naval Academy, graduating first in his
class. Subsequent service included an African
cruise in the Yorktoivn, ending in shipwreck off
the Cape Verde Islands; an instructorship at
Annapolis, 1853-57; and duty on the Pacific
station in the Merrimac. An excellent student
and a clear, facile writer, Parker while return-
ing from this station wrote Instructions for
Naval Light Artillery (1862) and translated a
French work, Tactique Navale, both used sub-
sequently at the Naval Academy, where he was
again instructor, 1860-61. By the time of the
Civil War he had been promoted through the
various grades to lieutenant.
Unlike his brother, Foxhall Alexander Par-
ker [q.v.], he joined the Southern navy, and in
command of the gunboat Beaufort fought in
Lynch's flotilla at Roanoke Island, Feb. 7, 1862,
and below Elizabeth City, Feb. 10. In the lat-
ter action Parker was ordered to leave his boat,
which escaped to Norfolk, and man a battery on
shore. He again commanded the Beaufort in
the battle of Hampton Roads, Mar. 8, 1862,
where his ship's force came under heavy fire
from shore while alongside the surrendered Con-
gress. Parker was an active participant in the
post-bellum controversy over the Monitor-Mer~>
rimac action, of which a valuable record appears
in his Recollections (post). During the winter
of 1862-63 he was executive of the ironclad Pal-
metto State at Charleston, took part in the at-
tack on the Union blockading force Jan. 31, and
in April-May had charge of two projected tor-
pedo expeditions which were thwarted, once by
the withdrawal of the Federal monitors, and
again by a deserter's warning. Made captain in
1863, Parker that autumn organized and became
superintendent of the Confederate Naval Acad-
emy, which consisted of about fifty midshipmen,
quartered aboard the gunboat Patrick Henry f the
ship still remaining part of the James River de-
fense forces. Though commanding the ironclad
Richmond during the summer of 1864, he con-
tinued superintendent of the academy until the
close of the war, taking justifiable pride in the
quality of its training. In 1863 he published
Questions on Practical Seamanship: Together
•with Harbor Routine and Evolutions, and in
1864, Elements of Seamanship. On the evacua-
243
Parkhurst
tion of Richmond, he and his cadets were given
charge of the government archives and treasure
(about $500,000), and guarded them inviolate
during the month's retreat southward.
After the war, Parker was captain of a Pacific
Mail steamer between Panama and San Fran-
cisco, 1865-74, publishing in 1871, Remarks on
the Navigation of the Coasts Between San Fran-
cisco and Panama; president of the Maryland
Agricultural College, 1875-83; and minister to
Korea in Cleveland's first administration, 1886.
His wide reading, charm as a raconteur, and
fair-mindedness appear in his Recollections of a
Naval Officer 1841-1865 (1883), one of the most
enjoyable books of its type. He also wrote Fa-
miliar Talks on Astronomy (1889). He died
suddenly in Washington, D. C., and was buried
at Norfolk, Va. His wife, Margaret Griffin,
daughter of Burwell Mosely of Princess Anne
County, Va., whom he married Dec. 14, 1853,
survived him; he had no children.
[M. S. B. Gray, A Geneal. Hist, of the Ancestors
and Descendants of Gen. Robert Bogardus (1927) ;
"The Parker Family of Essex . . .," in Va. Mag. of
Hist, and Biog.t Oct. 1898 ; J. T. Scharf, Hist, of the
Confederate States Navy (1887) ; War of the Rebel-
lion : Official Records (Navy) ; Army and Navy Jour.,
Jan. 9, 1897; Washington Post and Evening Star
(Washington), Dec. 31, 1896.] A.W.
PARKHURST, CHARLES (Oct. 29, 1845-
Feb. 27, 1921), Methodist Episcopal clergyman,
editor, was a native of Sharon, Vt, and was a
son of Chester and Sarah Ann (Barnard) Park-
hurst. After preliminary education in the coun-
try schools he began the study of the law at an
early age, was admitted to the bar, and practised
for five years at Claremont, N. H. Becoming
convinced that his proper vocation was the Meth-
odist ministry, he began his preparation for col-
lege at Kimball Union Academy, Meriden,
N. H., being- at the same time actively engaged
in preaching. He received his first preacher's li-
cense in 1873, joined the Vermont Conference
in 1875, was ordained deacon in 1877, and in
1879, the year after his graduation from Dart-
mouth College, was advanced to elder's orders.
After two years spent in the study of Theology
at Andover Seminary he transferred to Boston
University and supplied the Methodist Church
at At&trradaie wHk a student in the theological
defjartafiat Tfie next ten years he spent in
proraii^it apftointments in the Vermont and
New Stampdiire conferences. In 1888 he was
caled from his pastorate in Dover, N. H., to the
edfersfeip of Z*M/$ ffitrald, a weekly newspaper
€3Fwne<f a&d eottedtef %y tile Westeyan Associa-
tion of Boston arf demoted fe tfjie promotion of
the interests of fe MeAo^Sst Cfeurdb in New
England Attefcioii to Wliteaty aWity had
Parkhurst
been attracted by his articles in the religious
papers, especially by those written during a tour
in Europe.
He entered upon his editorship at the age of
forty-three, in the prime of his physical and men-
tal maturity, and maintained the paper as one of
the foremost religious journals of the entire
country for thirty-one years — until April 1919,
when he resigned. During the major part of his
term of office he had no associate editor and his
paper, whose leading articles he always wrote,
became largely his personal organ. He took few
vacations and set strict limits to his outside ap-
pointments, so that Zioris Herald was in a
peculiar sense his life work. He had the courage
of his convictions, marked qualities of religious
and intellectual leadership, and a rare dis-
cernment of the vital issues of the day. His suc-
cessor, in an article occasioned by Parkhurst's
death, enumerated five outstanding issues of his
editorship (Zion's Herald, Mar. 9, 1921). These
were the vigorous espousal of the temperance
cause; social and industrial reforms; the area
plan for episcopal supervision within the Meth-
odist Church ; the rights of colored members of
that communion, with the appointment of col-
ored bishops; and the reunion of Methodism
North and South. All these questions, highly con-
troversial in their nature, he handled with such
wisdom that much advance was made. To these
at least one other issue of great importance should
be added. The period of his editorship was a
time of theological transition resulting from the
advance of science and the application of histori-
cal and critical methods to the study of the Bible.
Parkhurst presented to his readers the sure re-
sults of modern scholarship and interpreted them
in such a way that those questions which caused
turmoil in other communions were to a con-
siderable degree avoided. With him the essence
of religion was moral and spiritual rather than
dogmatic. He was fearless in his discussion of
Methodist doctrine and discipline, his view of
the church was broad, and under his editorial
leadership Zioris Herald became more cosmo-
politan than most denominational journals.
On Jan. 2, 1868, Parkhurst married Lucia A.
Tyler of Sharon, Vt, who survived him with one
son and one daughter.
[The issues of Zion's Herald for Mar. 2 and 9, 1921,
contain much biographical material. The former has
a portrait and the latter, memorial contributions from
many sources. Further material is found in Who's Who
in America, 1920-21 ; Boston Transcript, Feb. 28 and
Mar. 8, 1921; Congregationalist, Mar. 10, 1921.]
F. T. P.
PARKHURST, CHARLES HENRY (Apr.
17, i842-Sept.8, 1933), Presbyterian clergyman,
reformer, was born in Framingham, Mass., the
244
Parkhurst
son of Charles F. W. and Mary (Goodale)
Parkhurst. "My earlier life," he writes In his
autobiography, "was that of the ordinary farm-
er's boy. A single family living half a mile dis-
tant made for us our only society" (My Forty
Years in New York, p. 11). He was not sent to
public school until he was twelve years old, and
"was thus saved," he says, "the fundamental dis-
advantage of having cultivated in me a distaste
for knowledge." When he was sixteen, he was
placed by his father in a grocery store "to sell
sugar, molasses and codfish, an experience that
was distasteful." His interests were scholarly;
and therefore, after a period of special prepara-
tion at a local institute, he went to Amherst Col-
lege, where he was graduated in 1866. In the
early fall of this year, he took charge as principal
of the Amherst High School. Three years later
he went abroad for a year's travel and theological
study at Halle, and on his return in 1870 ac-
cepted a position as teacher of Greek and Latin
at Williston Seminary, Easthampton, Mass. An-
other trip to Europe took him to Leipzig for a
second period of foreign study (1872-73). In
1874 he was ordained by the South Berkshire
Association of Congregational Ministers and in-
stalled pastor of the Congregational Church in
Lenox, Mass. Six years later he was called to
the Madison Square Presbyterian Church, New
York, where he preached his first sermon on
Feb. 29, 1880.
Parkhurst was at this time a studious, sturdy
cleric of the distinctly Puritan type. His inter-
ests were predominantly scholarly and pastoral.
His sermons, read carefully from manuscript,
were terse and forceful, but bore little trace of
wide popular appeal. In appearance, manner,
and habits, he was inconspicuous. Yet in a ser-
mon preached on Feb. 14, 1892, he threw a bomb
the detonation of which was heard to the far
borders of the land. An unsparing denunciation
of "the polluted harpies that, under the pretense
of governing this city, are feeding day and night
on its quivering vitals ... a lying, perjured, rum-
soaked, libidinous lot," this sermon must ever
rank as one of the most famous and effective pul-
pit utterances in American history (printed in
Our Fight with Tammany, pp. 8-25)- Jt sprang
from years of growing outrage at the alliance of
organized politics with vice in New York, and
the public indifference to this situation; and
more immediately from Parkhursfs work as.
president of the Society for the Prevention of
Crime, to which office he was elected in 1891.
"No one was less suspicious than the preacher
himself of the disturbing effect it would pro-
duce" (Ibid., p. 8). No notice had been given of
Parkhurst
its delivery, and it became public only through
the enterprise of a roving reporter, W. E. Car-
son, who chanced to be in the congregation on
the fateful Sunday. Furthermore, when the at-
tack unexpectedly swept the city with excite-
ment, and not only cynical politicians but press
and public demanded proof of the charges pre-
sented, Parkhurst found himself with nothing
that could stand the test of a court of law. Un-
prepared for what had occurred, he was face to
face with the prospect of failure and humilia-
tion. Resourceful and dauntless, however, he
promptly set about securing the proof required.
In his own person, and with the help of friends
and detectives, he hunted out the haunts of vice
— the saloons and dance halls, the gambling dens
and houses of prostitution — to get his evidence ;
and on Mar. 13, 1892, he preached a second ser-
mon, this time with affidavits as his text. He
now became the center of furious attack. He
was ridiculed, insulted, threatened; he became
the butt of ribald songs and indecent jests. Many
of his parishioners questioned the wisdom of his
activities, and not a few of his professional
brethren lamented his "sensationalism." He was
armed with facts, however, and the courage to
use them. Slowly but surely an aroused public
swung to his support, and in due course, as so
many results from a single cause, there came
the Lexow Investigation (1894), the defeat of
Tammany at the polls, and the sweeping reforms
of the Strong administration.
This conflict marked the climax of Park-
hurst's career. It was the peak to which every-
thing before had swiftly climbed, and from
which everything after slowly fell away. The
momentum of his great fame held him as one of
New York's popular and effective preachers for
two decades. Never again in the forefront of
civic affairs, he remained always a caustic critic
of official corruption. In 1918, on the consoli-
dation of his church with the Old First Presby-
terian Church, he retired as active pastor, and
entered upon a serene and prolonged period of
old age. His last public utterance, on his nine-
tieth birthday, was an appeal to the people to
overthrow the "new Tammany" (New York
Times, Apr. 17, 1932). He died suddenly of in-
juries sustained when he walked off the roof of
the porch of his home in his sleep.
He was the author of Analysis of the Latin
Verb Illustrated by the Forms of the Sanskrit
(1870) , What Would the World le Without Re-
ligion? (copr. 1882), The Blind Man's Creed and
Other Sermons (1883), The Pattern in the
Mount (1885), The Swiss Guide (copr. 1890),
Three Gates on a Side and Other Sermons (copr.
245
Parkhurst
1891), Our Fight with Tammany (i8g$), Talks
to Young Men (1897), Talks to Young Women
(1897), The Sunny Side of Christianity (1901),
A Brief History of the Madison Square Presby-
terian Church and Its Activities (1906), A Lit-
tle Lower Than the Angels (copr. 1908), The
Pulpit and the Pew (1913), and My Forty Years
in New York (1923). Parkhurst was twice
married: first, Nov. 23, 1870, to Ellen Bodman,
of Williamsburg, Mass., who had been a pupil of
his in the Amherst High School; and, second,
Apr. 19, 1927, to Mrs. Eleanor Marx, of New
York. From 1892 to 1902 he was a trustee of
Amherst College.
[In addition to My Forty Years in N. Y., and Our
Fight with Tammany, see his Brief Hist, of Madison
Square Presbyt. Ch. ; also Who's Who in America,
1932-33, and N. Y. Times, Dec. 15, 1931. Apr. 17, 18,
2, Sept. 9, 1933-1 J. H. H.
PARKHURST, JOHN ADELBERT (Sept.
24, i86i-Mar. i, 1925), astronomer, was born at
Dixon, 111. His parents were Sanford Britton
and Clarissa J. (Hubbard) Parkhurst. After the
death of his mother, when he was five, he was
adopted by Dr. and Mrs. Abner Hagar, his uncle
and aunt, of Marengo, 111. He attended the pub-
lic schools at Marengo and entered Wheaton
College in 1880. At the end of his sophomore
year he left college and taught in the public
school of Lombard, 111., for a year, then entered
the Rose Polytechnic Institute, Terre Haute,
Ind., where he graduated in 1886 with the de-
gree of B.S. in mechanical engineering. In 1897
the degree of M.S. was conferred on him by the
same institution, and in 1906 Wheaton College
gave him the degree of A.B. as of the class of
1885. After graduation he spent two years as
instructor of mathematics at Rose. The death
of his uncle made it necessary for him to return
to Marengo, where he was engaged in business
for the next ten years.
His interest in astronomy had been stimulated
by reading the works of Thomas Dick, and while
in Terre Haute he had bought a small lens and
fashioned his own telescope. As soon as possible
after returning to Marengo he bought and set up
a modern 6-inch reflector by J. A. Brashear
Eg.tx], and during bis ten years there contributed
some fifty articles to astronomical periodicals,
chiefly on variable stars. During a part of this
time he acted as a non-resident computer for the
Washfeura Observatory. The opening in 1897
of tlie Yerkes Observatory of the University of
Chicago at Williams Bay, Wis., within thirty
mSes of his home, was an important event in his
career. He was a fretpent visitor there, and
during tbe summer of 1898 lie was a votateer
Parkhurst
research assistant, assigned to the 12-inch tele-
scope. In 1900 he was appointed assistant and
from then on devoted his entire time to astron-
omy. He was made instructor in 1905, assistant
professor in 1912, and associate professor in 1919.
His first piece of work at the Yerkes Observa-
tory was The Spectra of Stars of Secchi's Fourth
Type (1903; also in Publications of the Yerkes
Observatory, vol. II, 1904), in collaboration with
George E. Hale and Ferdinand Ellerman. His
chief work, however, was in photometric re-
search—the measurement of the brightness of
stars, both visually and photographically. In
1906 the Carnegie Institution of Washington,
which had made special grants toward his salary
during his first five years at Yerkes, published
his Researches in Stellar Photometry During the
Years 1894 to 1906 f Made Chiefly at the Yerkes
Observatory. His "Yerkes Actinometry," pub-
lished in the Astrophysical Journal, October 1912,
contained the results of many years of painstak-
ing work in determining the visual and photo-
graphic brightness, color indices, and spectral
types of all stars not fainter than magnitude 7.5,
located within seventeen degrees of the north
pole. Parkhurst, for Yerkes, also cooperated
with the Harvard, McCormick, and Lick ob-
servatories in a campaign to extend the scale of
brightness of the bright stars to the faint ones
(Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, vol. XIV, no. 4, August 1923) . He also
collaborated with Father J. G. Hagen, of the
Vatican Observatory, on the latter 's Atlas Stel-
larum Variabilium (ser. 1-5, 1899-1908). An-
other important piece of work was his post-
humously published determination of magnitudes
in one of the zones of Kapteyn's "Plan of Se-
lected Areas" (Publications of the Yerkes Ob-
servatory, vol. IV, pt. VI, 1927). Other photo-
metric researches of importance were carried on
by his many graduate students. He took part in
three eclipse expeditions with the chief object of
measuring the brightness of the corona.
Although exceedingly modest, he had unusual
ability in imparting his knowledge to his stu-
dents. Never physically strong, he adhered to
a strict discipline of body and mind which en-
abled him, in spite of bodily ills, to accomplish a
full lifetime of work. His longest vacation was
one of six months in Europe with his wife, Anna
Greenleaf of Terre Haute, Ind., whom he mar-
ried Nov. 21, 1888. He was an active member
of the Congregational Church and Sunday School
of Williams Bay, and was elected the first su-
pervisor of the Village of Williams Bay,
** ' - - Frost' in Pubs- Astron. Soc.
of the Pacific, Apr. 1925 : E. B. Frost, in Astrovomische
246
Parkman
Nachrichten, Mar. 1925 ; S. B. Barrett, in Pop. Astron.,
May 1925; Astrophysical Jour.t June 1925; Observa-
tory, Apr. 1925 ; Who's Who in America, 1924-25 ; N.
Y. Times, Mar. 3, 1925.] R.S.D.
PARKMAN, FRANCIS (Sept. 16, i823-Nov.
8, i&93)> historian, was born in Boston, Mass.
He came of old New England stock ; his father,
the Rev. Francis Parkman, was descended from
Elias Parkman who had settled at Dorchester by
1633 ; his mother, Caroline (Hall), was descend-
ed from the Rev. John Cotton. The family had
wealth, social standing, and a long tradition of
culture. Parkman's father was for thirty-six years
the pastor of the New North Church in Bos-
ton. The historian's grandfather, Samuel Park-
man, had become one of the richest merchants
in Boston, and it was the share of this fortune
which came to Francis that enabled him, in spite
of years of invalidism, to carry on his historical
writing.
At about eight years of age he was sent to live
with his maternal grandfather, Nathaniel Hall,
at Medford, and there attended the school kept
by John Angier. He does not seem to have got
much from his early schooling, but he had some
six or seven square miles of wild forest in which
to play, and in tramping, exploring, and trapping
the small wild animals, he developed his outdoor
tastes to the full. When about twelve years old
he was taken back to Boston to live with his own
family and attended a private school kept by
Gideon Thayer, where he was fortunate in hav-
ing particularly good instruction in English lit-
erature and composition. He was greatly inter-
ested in experimental chemistry and amateur
theatricals. In 1840 he entered Harvard, where
he became a member of various college societies
and president of the Hasty Pudding Club. His
scholarship record was excellent in the subjects
that appealed to him but he paid little attention
to the others, although he succeeded in being
made a member of Phi Beta Kappa. His out-
side reading probably had more permanent influ-
ence upon him than his strictly collegiate courses.
His life work was already beginning to take
shape in his mind and as one of his classmates
wrote long afterward, he "even then showed
symptoms of 'Injuns' on the brain" (Wheel-
wright, post, p. 322). During the vacations he
made long excursions, partly on foot and partly
by canoe, through the White Mountains, up the
Magalloway River, about Lakes George and
Champlain, and in other directions wherever
there were woods and wilderness. He was a
sportsman and a good shot. In attempting to
train himself for this outdoor life, he over-
strained himself in the new Harvard gymnasium,
Parkman
and, in his senior year, had to leave college for
a while. In November 1843 he crossed to Eu-
rope in a sailing vessel. He visited Sicily and
Italy, and while in Rome spent some days in re-
treat at a convent of Passionist Fathers, an illumi-
nating episode which he recounted in an article
written at the time but not published for many
years (Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Au-
gust 1890). From Italy he continued rambling
for seven months through Switzerland, France,
and Great Britain, returning to Cambridge in
June in ample time to take his degree at Com-
mencement in August. Immediately after grad-
uation he entered the Law School — though with
no intention of practising — for the sake of the
mental training it offered. He continued until
January 1846, by which time he had done suf-
ficient work to qualify him for the degree of
LL.B. and admittance to the bar, though he never
applied for the latter. Meanwhile he had made
his first appearance in print by publishing during
1845 in the Knickerbocker, or New-York Month-
ly Magazine five sketches based on his earlier
vacation rambles and adventures.
On Apr. 28, 1846, he set out from St. Louis on
the one really great physical adventure of his
life, his journey along the Oregon Trail. It is
certain that by now he had formed a more or less
definite idea of what his work in life was to be,
although, perhaps from his natural reserve and
modesty, he had persistently denied that he had
any literary ambitions. The expedition was un-
dertaken with two distinct ends in view, to study
the Indians and to improve his health. Not long
after leaving St. Louis he fell in with a band of
Sioux and lived with them for some weeks,
observing their habits, customs, and ways of
thought. He also had an opportunity to study
the life of the white men on the edge of civiliza-
tion, which was much like the frontier life of two
centuries before. He hobnobbed with hunters,
trappers, voyageurs, half-breeds, and all the types
with which he was to deal in developing his his-
torical themes. In accomplishing the second ob-
ject of his journey, however, he was not so suc-
cessful. His eyesight had begun to trouble him
and though his constitution was fundamentally
strong, he suffered all his life from having over-
taxed it. The strenuous exercise with which he
sought to cure his maladies seems to have been
the worst method he could have chosen. The
physical effort of the trip and especially the poor
food, told on him severely, and he returned to
Boston in October 1846 much worse in body than
he had left, though with invaluable knowledge
and experience. He now suffered a complete
breakdown, and went to a cure at Brattleboro,
247
Parkman
Vt. There he dictated to his cousin, Quincy A.
Shaw, who had accompanied him on the trip, an
account of their adventures. Under the title,
"The Oregon Trail" it was published serially in
the Knickerbocker beginning with the issue of
February 1847. The first instalment was signed
"A Bostonian/' but in those that followed Park-
man used his own name. The work was published
in book form in 1849 as The California and Ore-
gon Trail, and, better known under the shorter
title, which was resumed in subsequent editions,
has always been one of his most popular writ-
ings,
In 1848 he began to write his History of the
Conspiracy of Pontiac, first of the long series of
volumes, on the struggle of French and English
for the possession of the continent, that was to
be his magnum opus. In an autobiographical
fragment found among his papers he stated that
even in his sophomore year in college he had
formed the plan of writing a history of the Old
French War. That plan had gradually broad-
ened, and the task which he had now set himself
would take, he calculated, about twenty years for
its completion. At the very outset, however, an
obstacle arose on which he had not counted, and
the Pontiac was begun under what would seem
almost insuperable difficulties. The chief ailment
from which Parkman suffered had an obscure
origin but it appears to have been some weakness
of the nervous system. He was later told by one
of the most eminent specialists in Paris that he
might go insane. When he began the Pontiac,
"the light of the sun became insupportable, and
a wild whirl possessed his brain, joined to a uni-
versal turmoil of the nervous system which put
his philosophy to the sharpest test it had hitherto
known" (Farnham, post, p. 324). The difficul-
ties under which he began "were threefold : an
extreme weakness of sight, disabling him even
from writing his name except with eyes closed;
a condition of the brain prohibiting fixed atten-
tion except at occasional and brief intervals ; and
an exhaustion and total derangement of the nerv-
ous system, producing of necessity a mood of
mind iBest unfavorable to effort*' (Ibid., p. 325).
He felt, iowever, that it was essential that he
slsotidi feaw oax$atlon and a motive in life. He
was sferyiag ^tfi friends on Staten Island at the
time, a&d tter^ were iBany oth^r friends, mostly
ienaiiTO, in $ie aeastp' city who willingly helped
Inn. He feM & firafee buSt in which parallel
wires TO3?£ sfe^rt^f ac^o^s Ws writing paper,
and <M ills, witu ^ <&&&, fee iastie hjs notes
from Ifee volumes feMt »a«8C!ipts read- alemd to
hta. For a white ife imdinfes 3ptf3'!a& My
a half tiow, agd'ftere wem «%$ %lieirti eoiii
Parkman
do nothing. The average rate of progress of his
book during this period was six lines a day. Af-
ter six months he could do better, and was able
to complete the part of the work that could be
done in Boston. His research had to be con-
tinued among books and manuscripts scattered
in libraries in Europe as well as in America, the
greater part of the material being in French.
Still utterly unable to use his eyes for reading,
he had as his regular reader a girl from the pub-
lic schools who did not understand a word of the
language. Nevertheless, almost incredible as it
may seem, he completed the History of the Con-
spiracy of Pontiac in less than two and a half
years, and it was published, in two volumes, in
1851. Considering the difficulties there had been
to overcome, it was a marvelous intellectual
achievement. In the same year Parkman de-
veloped an effusion on the knee which confined
him for two years, permanently weakened the
joint, and hindered his exercise for the balance
of his life.
Meanwhile, on May 13, 1850, he had married
Catherine Scollay Bigelow, daughter of Dr. Jacob
Bigelow of Boston. In 1853 ne nad a crisis in
his nervous disorder, and, compelled to lay aside
his historical work for a while, wrote his only
novel, V assail Morton f which was published in
1856. It was probably written for relaxation and
to give him occupation while he was unable to do
more serious work. It had no great success and
he himself regarded it slightingly. In these years
he also wrote a few book reviews, but his real
work suffered a severe interruption. It was al-
ways necessary for him to have some object on
which to fasten his interest, and after the publi-
cation of his novel he took up the study of horti-
culture. He became so deeply interested in rais-
ing new varieties of flowers, especially lilies and
roses, that he never gave up the hobby afterward.
His great success in this new and unexpected
field resulted in his election as president of the
Massachusetts Horticultural Society and, much
later, in his appointment as a professor of horti-
culture at Harvard (1871).
A renewed nervous crisis in 1858 following the
death, within a year of each other, of his only
son and of his wife, determined him to go to
Paris to consult a specialist there, Brown Se-
quard. He remained in Paris for some months
but without any gain to his health, and at the be-
ginning of 1859 he returned to Boston by way
of Nice and Genoa. It was "about four years/'
he wrote later, "before the power of mental ap-
plication was in the smallest degree restored"
("Autobiography," in Farnham, "p. 329). His
two small daughters had gone to live with their
Parkman
mother's sister, and he himself lived with his
mother and sisters in Boston in the winters and
at his own house at Jamaica Pond, in the sum-
mers. Here, in his three acres of garden, he
carried on his horticultural studies, often in a
wheeled chair. In 1862 he formed a partnership
to sell the flowers he raised, but the firm did not
prosper and lasted only a year. In 1866 he pub-
lished The Book of Roses.
Meanwhile, determined to go on with his his-
tories, as soon as he was slightly better he began
once more by sheer will power. In 1865 he pub-
lished Pioneers of France in the New World. By
this time, he had also written parts of other vol-
umes and had gathered notes for more. The Pio-
neers at once established his popularity and also
his reputation as a historian. Two years later,
The Jesuits in North America was published,
and in 1869 came The -Discovery of the Great
West, better known by the title of the eleventh
edition (1879), La Salle and the Discovery of
the Great West. In 1874 he published The Old
Regime in Canada and in 1877 Count Front enac
and New France under Louis XIV. It was now
twenty-eight years since he had begun the nar-
rative and he had long been anxious to write of
the final scene. Fearing that if he delayed fur-
ther he might not live to do so, he broke the
sequence at this point and in 1884 published
Montcalm and Wolfe (2 vols.) . In 1892 he final-
ly completed the series with A Half-Century of
Conflict (2 vols.). During these years he had
also been a fairly frequent contributor to maga-
zines: twenty articles, many of them chapters
from his books, had appeared in the Atlantic
Monthly, eleven in the North American Review,
and many shorter papers elsewhere. By this time
his fame was well established as the leading
American historian. Only a few months after he
had successfully brought to conclusion his in-
comparable task of over forty years, he suffered
a severe attack of pleurisy and was not expected
to recover. He did so but died less than a year
later from an attack of peritonitis.
In spite of Parkman's constant suffering and
the great difficulties under which his work and
the social intercourse which he so greatly en-
joyed were carried on, there was never anything
morbid about him. He had wide interests, loved
out-door life, plants and animals, poetry and peo-
ple, as well as history. He had a sense of humor,
and the verdict of those who knew him was that
he was a delightful companion. He possessed a
wide circle of friends. Almost isolated from the
world as he had to be at intervals, he always
maintained his outside contacts. In 1868 he was
elected Overseer of Harvard; he resigned in
Parkman
1871 but was reflected in 1874 and held the of-
fice until his second resignation in 1876. In 1875
he was chosen a fellow of the Corporation and
served until 1888, when he resigned. He attend-
ed the meetings whenever possible. He dedi-
cated his La Salle to his college class, that of
1844, and his Mont calm and Wolfe to the Col-
lege itself. He was one of the founders of the
Archeological Institute of America in 1879, and
later a member of the executive committee ; as-
sisted financially in establishing the American
School of Classical Studies at Athens ; and was
a member or honorary member of a score of so-
cieties.
In the conception and execution of his work
Parkman was primarily an artist, with the re-
sult that his history has an enduring place in
literature. He chose to depict the contest of two
rival civilizations for the control of a continent,
against one of the most picturesque of settings
— a background of wilderness and savage man
contrasting with the civilization of the nations
wrestling for supremacy. Furthermore, he was
able to visualize from his own experience the
people and scenes he portrayed. When he was
preparing himself for his task, the primeval wil-
derness and the primitive men of the earlier days
could still be studied through personal contact,
and Parkman, instead of confining himself to
books, was wise enough to seize the fast disap-
pearing opportunity. "Faithfulness to the truth
of history," he wrote, "involves far more than a
research, however patient and scrupulous, into
special facts. . . . The narrator must seek to im-
bue himself with the life and spirit of the time"
(Pioneers of France, p. xii). By moving geo-
graphically westward, he moved historically
backward, and his work gained immensely there-
by in vividness and authenticity. But he placed
his chief reliance upon the study of the original
sources as they are to be found in British, French,
Canadian, and American depositories. He was
one of the first of American historians to insist
upon a critical use of original manuscript mate-
rial, and he brought together an extensive and
thoroughly representative collection (now in the
possession of the Massachusetts Historical So-
ciety) of transcripts of the essential documents.
He also was instrumental in bringing about the
publication (1876-86) of the monumental series
of documents edited by Pierre Margry, Decou-
vertes et etablissements des Frangais dans I'ouest
et dans le sud de I'Ameriqw septentrionale, Those
who have followed Parkman's trail through the
sources have been impressed by the scholarly use
that he made of them and by the accuracy of Ms
statements. The long series of systematic archival
249
Parks
investigations that have been carried on since
the completion of his work have supplemented it
and have corrected it at certain points but have
not impaired its substantial validity. While his
history is pure narrative — inimitable narrative
— it is not without philosophical implications.
Constantly he contrasts the social and political
systems of the contending civilizations and seems
to find in that contrast a principal cause of the
final outcome. He falls short of complete com-
prehension of the part that the church and the
Jesuits had in the contest; neither does he suf-
ficiently take into account the economic and
geographic factors, or the vast discrepancy —
nearly twenty to one at the close of the struggle
— between the compact population of the English
colonies and the widely scattered settlements of
the French in North America. Finally, he treats
his subject as a series of dramatic episodes, each
centering around a different group of characters,
rather than as the complete story of the struggle
lasting for a century and a half between England
and France, for the domination of North Amer-
ica and the Caribbean. Nevertheless, the main
design of his work is not likely to be superseded,
and his fame is secure among the great American
historians.
[Collected editions of Parkman's works are The
Works of Francis Parkman (20 vols., 1897-98) and
Francis Parkman's Works (12 vols., 1903). C. H.
Farnham, A Life of Francis Parkman (1900) contains
extracts from Parkman's autobiography and a bibli-
ography of his hooks and articles. See also H. D.
Sedgwick, Francis Parkman (1904) ; Edward Wheel-
wright, "Memoir of Francis Parkman," in Col. Soc.
Mass., Pubs., vol. I ( 1895) ; Letters from Francis Park-
man toE. G. Squier (1911) ; "Letters of Francis Park-
man to Pierre Margry " with introductory note by J.
S. Bassett, in Smith College Studies in History t vol.
VIII (Apr.-July 1923) ; E. F. Wyatt, in North Am.
Rev., Oct. 1923 ; Joseph Schafer, in Miss. Valley Hist.
Rev. and Wis. Mag. of Hist., both Mar. 1924; C. W.
Alvord, in Nation (N. Y.), Oct. 10, 1923 ; G. M. Wrong,
in Canadian Hist. Rev., Dec. 1923 ; Waldo G. Leland,
in Ex Libris (American Library in Paris), Feb. 1924;
O. B. Frothingham and others, in Proc. Mass. Hist.
Sw.f 2 ser. VIII (1894) j Boston Transcript, Nov. 9,
l893'3 J.T.A.
PARKS, WILLIAM (c. i698-Apr. i, 1750),
printer and newspaper publisher, was in all prob-
ability a native of Shropshire. He established
the first presses o£ Ludlow, Hereford, and Read-
ing in England, and began his unusual record as
a pioeeer of newspaper publication by establish-
ing, at Ludow and Reading respectively, the
Lmdfaw Post-Man (1719) and the Reading Mer-
cwy (1723), Hie earliest journals to be published
in those towns. After six years of printing activ-
ity in England, he appeared in Annapolis, Md.,
in March 1725/26, making proposals to the As-
sembly for the printing of its laws and journals.
By an act of October 1727 he was appointed
Parks
public printer, and from then until 1737 he con-
tinued to serve the province of Maryland in that
capacity. In the year 1730 he enlarged his busi-
ness by the establishment of a press in Williams-
burg, the first printing office to be put in opera-
tion in Virginia since the inhibition in 1683 of
the Jamestown press of William Nuthead \_q.v. "\.
Appointed public printer of Virginia in 1732, he
devoted his principal efforts thereafter to his
Virginia business, and five years later gave up
entirely his Maryland connection. In 1733 ap-
peared from his Williamsburg press A Collection
of All the Acts of Assembly Now in Force in the
Colony of Virginia, a work of historical impor-
tance, which ranks also as one of the typographi-
cal monuments of colonial America. He main-
tained his position as public printer of Virginia
until his death, which occurred Apr. i, 1750, in
the course of a voyage to England. His widow,
Eleanor, and a married daughter, the wife of
John Shelton, survived him.
Parks's accomplishment in his two colonial
offices places him high in the rank of American
printers. In 1727, he established the Maryland
Gazette, the first newspaper to appear in the
country south of Pennsylvania. In 1736, the
Virginia Gazette began publication under his
able editorship. In addition to his government
work and his newspapers, he gave attention to
the publication of numerous works of historical
or political character, and of many handbooks
and compilations of daily utility. But the point
of special interest is that, consistently, he made
definite and successful effort to encourage local
men of letters by the publication of works of
purely literary intention. Through his publica-
tion in Maryland of poems by Richard Lewis and
Ebenezer Cooke, and in Virginia of poems by
John Markland, a "Gentleman of Virginia,"
"Several Gentlemen of this Country," and others,
he nurtured a native literary product in those
colonies at a time when most other American
printers were devoting themselves to the pro-
duction of works of the strictest utility, He pub-
lished in 1747 William Stith's The History of the
First Discovery and Settlement of Virginia] he
published also in different years original medical
works by Dr. John Tennent ; political and eco-
nomic tracts by various writers; the earliest
American sporting book, Edward Blackwell's A
Compleat System of Fencing (1734) ; and the
first American cook book, E. Smith's The Cow-
pleat Housewife ( 1742 ) . The typographical qual-
ity of his work was superior to that of most of
his American contemporaries, and his decorated
bookbindings were unsurpassed by those of other
binders of colonial America. About the year
250
Parley — Parmly
1743, he built, with the encouragement and active
aid of Benjamin Franklin, the first paper-mill to
be established south of Pennsylvania. He was
one of the earliest printers to urge, in his "Ad-
vertisement, Concerning Advertisements" (Vir-
ginia Gazette, Oct. 8, 1736), the efficacy of news-
paper advertising, and in general his activities
indicated the possession of qualities of business
enterprise, public spirit, and literary taste unu-
sual among the printers of his time. The print-
ers of Virginia have placed a tablet to his mem-
ory in Williamsburg.
[Original sources of information concerning William
Parks are: Archives of Maryland, vols. XXXIV-
XXXVI (1914-16), XL (1921) ; Land Office Records,
Annapolis, Md. ; Jours, of the House of Burgesses of
Fa., 1727-40 (1910), 1742-49 (1909), 1752-58 (1909) ;
Wills and Inventories, XX: 183, Court House, York-
town, Va. Information is found also in Wm. and Mary
Coll. Quart., July 1898, Apr., July 1922 ; Wm. Clayton-
Torrence, A Trial Bibliog. of Colonial Va. (1908), pt.
i. His life, and a bibliography of books, newspapers,
etc. printed by him, are found in L. C Wroth, William
Parks, Printer and Journalist of England and Colonial
America (1926), being William Parks Club Pubs., no.
3-3 L.CW.
PARLEY, PETER [See GOODRICH, SAMUEL
GRISWOLD, 1793-1860].
PARMLY, ELEAZAR (Mar. 13, i797-Dec.
13, 1874), one of the founders of dentistry as an
organized profession, was born on a farm in the
Town of Braintree, Orange County, Vt, a son
of Eleazar and Hannah (Spear) Parmly and a
descendant of John Parmelee, an early settler of
Guilford, Conn. When he was ten years old, his
parents removed to northwestern Vermont. He
began his education in the rural schools and from
1810 to 1812 attended a first-class school in Mon-
treal, in which city he became a compositor and
reporter for the Canadian Courant. In 1814 he
taught in his home district ; and in the following
year, as student assistant to his eldest brother
Levi S. Parmly first in Boston and then in Que-
bec, he began his long dental career. His parents
removed to a farm in the town of Perry, Ohio,
in 1817, and from that year until 1819, Eleazar
practised independently as an itinerant dentist,
floating down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers on
an "ark" and stopping at the principal settle-
ments. He then proceeded to New York City,
and shortly sailed for Europe with a view to per-
fecting himself in his vocation. He paid for a
course of instruction with J. F. C. Maury, a
prominent dentist in Paris, and late in 1819 en-
tered a partnership with his brother Levi in Lon-
don. The latter returned to the United States
early in 1820, but Eleazar remained in successful
practice in London for a year and a half longer,
publishing An Essay on the Disorders and Treat-
ment of the Teeth (1821; 3rd ed., 1822).
Parmly
Late in 1821 he returned to the United States,
intending to make only a short visit for the re-
covery of his health, which had been seriously
impaired, but for some forty-five years thereaf-
ter, though visiting Europe several times, he
practised dentistry in New York City exclusive-
ly, rapidly rising to preeminence in his profes-
sion. In 1823 he became engaged to marry Eliza,
youngest daughter of John Jacob Astor [g.^.],
but her father opposed the match, and she mar-
ried Count Vincent Rumpfl. After this experi-
ence, Parmly kept bachelors' hall for over a year
with his brother Samuel W. Parmly and his in-
timate friend Solyman Brown \_q.v.] ; and on
June 17, 1827, married Anna Maria Valk Smith,
an heiress whose deceased foster father had been
a wealthy broker. Eleazar Parmly then estab-
lished himself at II Park Place, where he was
joined in 1829 by his cousins Jahial and Ludolph
Parmly as student assistants. Jahial continued
his association with Eleazar for the next ten
years as prosthetic specialist, while Eleazar de-
voted himself to operative dentistry. In 1832
Solyman Brown began his dental career with
Eleazar and the next year published his Den-
tologia with notes by the latter. In 1834 Eleazar
and Jahial were joined by David R. Parmly as
student assistant, and several other members of
the family subsequently had the benefit of
Eleazar's instruction.
Eleazar Parmly was a leader in the early op-
position to the use of amalgam for filling teeth —
an issue which seems to have precipitated the
organization (Dec. 3, 1834) of the first dental
association, the Society of Surgeon Dentists of
the City and State of New York, with Parmly as
its first president and Solyman Brown as its first
corresponding secretary. In 1839 both were as-
sociated with Chapin A. Harris [q.v.] and others
in the establishment of the first dental periodical,
the American Journal of Dental Science , of which
Parmly was one of the first nominal editors. In
the same year he supplied the notes to a new
edition of John Hunter's Natural History of the
Human Teeth. When the American Society of
Dental Surgeons was organized in 1840, he was
its second vice-president, and received from it
one of the original degrees of D.D.S. The de-
gree of M.D. was conferred upon him by some
university medical school at about the same time,
He was first vice-president of the society, 1841-
44, and president, 1844-53. In 1842 he was one
of the first to receive the honorary D.D.S. of the
Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, of which
he was provost from 1848 to 1852. His son
Ehrich (born with a twin sister in 1830) grad-
uated from the Baltimore College and began
251
Parr
practice with his father in 1851. Eleazar Fami-
ly's wife died in 1857. They had nine children;
four sons (three died in infancy), and five daugh-
ters. One of the latter married Frederick Billings
[#.£>.], best known as the president of the North-
ern Pacific Railroad. For many years Parmly was
a lay preacher in the Chnrch of the Disciples in
New York, and in 1861 he published The Babe
of Bethlehem, in free -verse, a harmony o! the
Gospel stories of Christ. In that year he opened
a hotel, the Parmly House (still in operation,
I934)» which he built at Painesville, Ohio, near
the farm where his parents had finally settled.
In 1867 he published Thoughts in Rhyme } a col-
lection of verses written by him between 1818
and 1862 which contain much autobiographical
material. During- his declining years he spent a
large part of his time at his estate, "Bingham
Place," at Rumson, N. J, He retired from active
practice in 1866, but in the same year became
the first president of the New York College of
Dentistry, and held the position of emeritus pro-
fessor of the institutes of dentistry in that col-
lege until 1869. He died of pneumonia at his
New York City residence, and was interred in
his family vault in the Rumson Burying Ground.
With the most successful practice in the United
States, a fortune from his wife and many profit-
able^ real-estate investments, he had become a
millionaire. He was an affable gentleman, a
forceful public speaker, an interesting writer,
and a skilful practitioner, and stood in the fore-
front of his profession for some thirty years.
Greates* Cental Family
reprinted from Denial Cosmos Mar -May
?' numer?us ^rences to original
Cosmos> Jan- I8?5 ; N. y. Times, Dec.
L. P. B — n.
, SAMUEL WILSON (Jan. 21, 1857-
May 16, 1931), chemist, inventor, and teacher,
was born in Gnmville, 111., the son of James and
Elizabeth Fidelia (Moore) Parr. After prelimi-
nary taming- in the academy at Granville, he
entered the University of Illinois. Here he was
a leader in both literary and athletic activities
?* dtmted wi& the de£ree of B.S. in iS&t
orian of his class. The following year he
Come11 Univers^ f™m which he re-
the degree of M.S. On Dec. 27 1887 he
jnicd Luck A. Hall of Champaig£ 111. ; two
children were bom to them.
IJpon completing his work at Cornell, he went
*>»Cafce, Jacksonville, wheVe, after
for a year, he became pro-
position he fcdd tmtii 1926 when
Parr
he became professor emeritus, thereafter devot-
ing his time to research and to a number of
business enterprises. During the years 1900-01
he studied in Berlin and Zurich. At the Uni-
versity of Illinois he took a keen interest in the
various activities of student life. He furthered
outdoor sports, was for some years leader of the
university glee club, and was chairman of the
board of directors of the university Young Men's
Christian Association. An effective teacher, he
inspired many students >to become diligent in-
vestigators and good citizens. He was influential
in the organization of the curriculum of chemi-
cal engineering and of the chemical club, and in
the establishment of the chemical library, the
first departmental library of the university. His
activities extended outside the institution, and
he had a part in organizing the state water sur-
vey, of which he was a director (1904-05), and
served as consulting chemist for the Illinois geo-
logical survey, and as consulting engineer for
the United States bureau of mines.
Among his scientific accomplishments was his
calorimeter for determining the heat value of
coal and other solids, invented in 1900 and used
in the scientific laboratories of the world. His
peroxide bomb (1912) was also a valuable ad-
dition to analytical laboratories. Later, he per-
fected a third type of calorimeter, by which the
heat value of gaseous fuels can be determined
continuously and accurately. In carrying out the
investigations which led to the perfection of these
important inventions he was compelled to take
up research in related lines. The tables of con-
stants which he needed to use in calorimetry were
inaccurate, so he compiled the data for making
better tables. The metals available for use in the
bomb calorimeter were easily corroded or ex-
pensive; accordingly, he set to work to find an
alloy which would resist both acid and alkaline
corrosion, and would at the same time possess
desirable casting and machining properties.
Nearly one hundred mixtures of metals were
carefully studied before he found the mixture to
which he gave the name "illium" after his native
state. This alloy is better than platinum as a lin-
ing in the bomb calorimeter, and its use as a
general corrosion-resisting metal is increasing
daily. He studied boiler waters and their treat-
ment and developed a valuable method for the
modification of permanently hard water. His
study of the embrittlement of boiler plate is a
monument to his patience, perseverance, and
skill. For thirty years he investigated the origin,
physical and chemical properties, classification,
and utilization of coal, and he became an inter-
national authority upon all coal and fuel prob-
252
Parrington
lems. In spite of the general feeling that Illinois
coal could not be used for the production of coke,
he worked out a method of low temperature cok-
ing, which won the admiration of fuel experts at
home and abroad.
He was a member of numerous scientific and
engineering organizations and served on many
of their technical committees. He was president
of the American Chemical Society in 1928 and
was reflected for a second term, but was unable
to serve. In 1926 he was awarded the Chandler
Medal by Columbia University "in recognition
of outstanding achievements in science." He
was the author of a well-known book, The Chemi-
cal Examination of Water, Fuel, Flue Gases and
Lubricants (1911), and his contributions to sci-
entific magazines were numerous and covered a
wide field. His system of classifying coal is used
in the International Critical Tables. He wrote
seventeen of the bulletins published by the Uni-
versity of Illinois Engineering Experiment Sta-
tion, and was American editor of Fuel in Science
and Practice. He died in Urbana, 111.
[Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, Sept. 1925 ;
Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering,, May 1926,
June 1931 ; Science, July 3, 1931 ; Chemical Bull. (Chi-
cago), June 1931 ; Who's Who in America, 1930—31 ;
Time, Mar. 3, 1930 ; Chicago Sunday Tribune, May 17,
1931 ; Fuel in Science and Practice, June 1925.]
B.S.H.
PARRINGTON, VERNON LOUIS (Aug.
3, iS7i-June 16, 1929), teacher, philologist, his-
torian, was born at Aurora, 111., of Scotch and
English ancestry, the son of John William and
Louise (McClellan) Parrington. His father, a
native of New Hampshire, graduated from Col-
by College in 1855, became a principal of public
schools in New York and Illinois, was a Union
captain in the Civil War, and finally practised
law in Kansas and was a judge of probate. Par-
rington attended the College of Emporia, a Pres-
byterian institution, for several years, was ad-
mitted as a junior to the class of 1893 at Harvard
College and, after graduating, returned home to
teach. A Westerner not only by birth but by
conviction, he had been unhappy at Harvard and
did not revisit Cambridge and Boston for thirty
years. He was instructor in English and French
at the College of Emporia, 1893-97; instructor
in English and modern languages, 1897-98, and
professor of English, 1898-1908, at the Univer-
sity of Oklahoma, losing his post as the result
of what he called a "political cyclone" ; assistant
professor of English, 1908-12, and professor of
English from 1912 until his death at the Uni-
versity of Washington. On July 31, 1901, he
married Julia Rochester Williams, of Norman,
Okla., who with two daughters and a son sur-
Parrington
vived him. His esthetic nature was rich and
well disciplined. He was an enthusiastic stu-
dent of architecture; wrote excellent verse, es-
pecially in his younger years; and took infinite
pains with his prose style, which became a per-
fect expression of the man himself. He spent
fourteen months of 1903-04 in England and
France and visited Europe again in 1923 and
1929. He taught in the summer sessions of the
University of California in 1922, of Columbia
University in 1923, and of the University of
Michigan in 1927. As a teacher of literature he
was extraordinarily effective. At the University
of Washington, where he developed a notable
series of courses in the history of American lit-
erature and thought, he was worshipped by his
pupils, but official recognition of his work came
slowly and grudgingly. Outside the University
he was little known until the first two volumes
of his Main Currents in American Thought were
published in the spring of 1927. The work was
recognized at once as the most scholarly and
original study of American literature since Moses
Coit Tyler's spacious survey of the Colonial and
Revolutionary periods, and for two brief, busy
years, Parrington enjoyed his renown. Death
overtook him unannounced on a Sunday morn-
ing at Winchcomb, Gloucestershire, only a few
minutes after he had written a last tribute to
his friend, James Allen Smith [g.z>.], to whose
memory he had dedicated the Main Currents.
Parrington's publications were : "The Puritan
Divines, 1620-1720," The Cambridge History of
American Literature, vol. I ( 1917) ; The Con-
necticut Wits (1926) ; Sinclair Lewis, Our Own
Diogenes (1927) ; Main Currents in American
Thought: An Interpretation of American Litera-
ture from the Beginning to 1920 (3 vols,, 1927-
30), the volumes bearing the subtitles of The
Colonial Mind (1927), The Romantic Revolu-
tion in America (1927), and The Beginnings of
Critical Realism in America (1930), which was
published as he left it, incomplete and some of it
not in its final form ; articles entitled, "American
Literature to the End of the Nineteenth Cen-
tury" and "Nathaniel Hawthorne" in the En-
cyclopaedia Britannica (i4th ed., 1929) ; the
article on Brook Farm in the Encyclopaedia of
the Social Sciences; the chapter, "The Develop-
ment of Realism," in The Reinterpretation of
American Literature (1928), edited by Norman
Foerster ; the introduction to James Allen Smith's
The Growth and Decadence of Constitutional
Government (1930) ; and a number of book re-
views in the Nation, the Saturday Review of Lit-
erature, Books, and other periodicals.
His fame depends on the Main Currents w
253
Parris
American Thought. The publication of the first
two volumes marked a fresh beginning in the
study of American literature in its relation to
the life of the nation : every work written since
has felt its influence. Yet the book did not pre-
tend to be a history of American literature, and
as a history of American thought it confines it-
self pretty strictly to the rise of the idea of demo-
cratic idealism and to the struggle to make that
idea prevail in the political and economic or-
der. As a work of scholarship! the Main Currents
has already fulfilled its mission, but it continues
to display the inexhaustible suggestiveness and
vitality of a classic. As an account — shrewd,
well informed, witty, and understanding — of a
great procession of significant Americans in
their relation to the ideas prevailing in their
time, the book will not easily be superseded, but
it is the personal, artistic quality of it, rather
than its scholarship, that makes it one of the
landmarks of American literature.
{Who's Who in America, 1928-29 ; Gen. Cat. Officers,
Grads., and Former Students of Colby Coll. (1920) ;
Harvard Coll., Class of 1893, Secretary's Report, 1899,
1910, 1918, 1923 1933 ; Nation, July 10, 1929 ; Russell
Jjlankenship, "Vernon Louis Parrington," Ibid., Aug.
7; 1929; J. B. Harrison, Vernon Louis Parrington
American Scholar (1929); Seattle Daily Times, June
J7* 19, 1929. For illuminating criticism of Parrmir-
ton's work see Charles A. Beard, "Fresh Air in Ameri-
can Letters, Nation, May 18, 1927, and Morris R.
Cohen, Parnngton's America," New Republic, Jan.
*8'I93I*] G.H.G.
PARRIS, ALBION KEITH (Jan. 19, 1788*
Feb. u, 1857), senator, governor of Maine, the
only child of Samuel and Sarah (Pratt) Parris,
was born at Hebron, in what is now the state of
Maine, where his father, one time judge of the
court of common pleas for Oxford County was
one of the first settlers. His ancestor, Thomas
Parris, the son of a dissenting minister near
Plymouth, England, emigrated to Long Island
and later removed to Pembroke, Mass. Albion's
boyhood was spent on his father's farm He en-
tered Dartmouth College in 1803 with advanced
«!*«*«£ was gradated in 1806, and immediate-
— ' tiie^ study of law with Ezekiel
~r *T-_ Gloucester. He was
Tft™ , A ^ „ nd bar in September
1*09 and started practice in Paris. In 1810 he
was named to Sarah Whitman, the daughter
of I** ww™n rf wdlfleet, Mass., who wiS
i survived him.
^^^-—y^r^esent^d Paris in the Mas-
s^«te Bow of Rep^mtatives in 1813-14
£2fSi? Sof^t counties in the Massat
cteetts Senate of 18^-15. In November of
to year he was elected a representativTb the
Parris
Fourteenth Congress and reflected in 1816, serv-
ing until Feb. 3, 1818, when he resigned to ac-
cept appointment as judge of the federal district
court for Maine. He was active in the Maine
convention of 1819, serving- on the committee
that drafted the new constitution and as treas-
urer of the convention. The following- year he
succeeded Samuel Freeman as judge of probate
for Cumberland County. When William King
\_q.v.~] resigned as governor of Maine in 1821,
Parris was elected, after an interim, in a tri-
angular contest that almost split the Democratic
party in Maine. He was annually reflected un-
til 1826, when he refused to be a candidate. His
terms as governor were uneventful ones, in
which the lands held in common with Massachu-
setts and the northeastern boundary were the
most prominent matters for discussion. On his
recommendation the legislature authorized him
to collect materials on the boundary question,
which was rapidly becoming serious. In 1827
he succeeded John Holmes [q.u] as United
States senator but resigned on Aug. 26, 1828, to
become associate justice of the supreme court of
Maine. Although long absence from legal work
forced him to intensive study, he filled this of-
fice intelligently though not brilliantly. This
post he gave up in 1836 to become second comp-
troller of the federal treasury, a position he held
for thirteen years. He returned to private law
practice in Portland, but in 1852 he was elected
mayor with the support of the faction opposed
to the Maine liquor law. His only defeat at the
polls and his last venture into politics came in
1854, when he was the Democratic candidate
for governor. Distinguished for common sense
more than for brilliance, he was a politician
rather than a jurist or statesman. Guided large-
ly by expediency he advanced from office to of-
fice, each more highly salaried than the one be-
fore; he sacrificed a senatorship for the safety
of a judgeship. He was not a fighter and could
not face abuse. Urbane, courteous, shrewd, he
built up a great following. He wrote skilful
and well-placed political letters. He avoided re-
sponsibility on momentous issues, In life he was
a practical success.
254
Parns
broke, Mass. Alexander's father, Matthew, mar-
ried Mercy Thompson of Halifax, Mass., in Feb-
ruary 1780, and the couple moved at once to
Hebron, Me., where Alexander was born. Other
families from Pembroke settled in this portion
of Maine at about the same time ; Paris Hill takes
its name from the Parris family, and Alexander's
cousin Albion K. Parris [#.£/.] in time became a
United States senator and governor of Maine.
Alexander's father died when his son was only
three and apparently the widowed mother re-
turned to Pembroke, for the boy was educated in
the school there and there apprenticed to a car-
penter and builder. He is said at this time to
have studied especially Peter Nicholson's Prin-
ciples of Architecture. He married Silvina (or
Sylvina) Stetson, Apr. 19, 1801, and for a time
was teacher of a common-school.
Between the time of his marriage and the War
of 1812 he worked for a while in Portland; the
Richard Hunnewell (Shepley) house in Port-
land, of which his drawings are preserved, dates
from 1805. During the War of 1812 he was
captain of a company of artificers (engineers)
stationed at Plattsburg, N. Y. ; and after its close
he settled in Boston. Here his most important
work was done. The David Sears House, on
Beacon Street, now altered and used as the Som-
erset Club, is dated by a stone in the basement
as 1816; Parris' name appears as architect. In
1819, he was the architect of St. Paul's Church
on Tremont Street (still extant), which was
built by Solomon Willard, the architect of Bunk-
er Hill Monument; this church, the first large
classic-revival church of temple type in Boston,
marked the end of the colonial tradition and the
beginning of the age of revivalism.
During the next decade, Parris' marked engi-
neering skill found scope in his work with Col.
Loarmm Baldwin [g.z/.] as consulting engineer
in building the masonry dry dock at the Charles-
town Navy Yard ; at the same time he built vari-
ous sea walls in Boston Harbor. He appears to
have served as superintendent for Charles Bui-
finch \_q.v.] in the construction of the Massachu-
setts General Hospital (completed in 1823), and
in 1825 he was the architect for the market hall
and the surrounding buildings of Faneuil Hall
Market, a scheme of civic betterment remarkable
for its day in its combination of broad practical
and esthetic ideals. It was much praised at the
time, and its continuing usefulness today bears
witness to the soundness of his design and exe-
cution. During this period he is also credited
with the design of the Marine Hospital in Chel-
sea, and the arsenal at Watertown ; it is possible
also that he superintended the erection of the
Parris
Boston Customs House, though the plans are
known to be the work of Ammi B. Young. Be-
tween 1834 and 1836, Richard Upjohn [q.v.']
was one of Parris' draftsmen; his diary (in the
possession of his grandson, Hobart B, Upjohn)
shows that in that period he was working on
the Boston Court House (usually attributed to
Bulfinch), on a fire-engine house, and on further
work at the Massachusetts General Hospital and
the navy yard in Charlestown. In 1847 (Fen-
tress, post) or 1848 (Preble, post), Parris was
appointed civil engineer of the navy yard at
Portsmouth, N. H., a post which he held until
his death. Under his direction much levelling
was done, the sea wall was completed, and many
buildings were enlarged and repaired.
In 1840 Parris had bought the Elisha Briggs
estate in the north part of Pembroke, his child-
hood home. Taken ill in Washington, in the
spring of 1852, he was removed to his estate and
died there June 16. He was buried in the Briggs
cemetery, North Pembroke. His widow died
Oct. 3, 1853. Many of his drawings are pre-
served in the Boston Athenaeum Library ; among
them "Plans and Elevations of the Massachu-
setts General Hospital erected under the superin-
tendance of Alexander Parris, 1823" ; plans of the
Hunnewell House, of a house for Mr. Preble,
and of "Pr'th church" (possibly St. John's, Ports-
mouth, N, H., still standing). The Massachu-
setts Historical Society owns his competition
designs for the Bunker Hill Monument
[Columbian Centinel (Boston), Apr. 30, 1825 ; W. E.
H. Fentress, 1775-1875 : Centennial Hist, of the U. S.
Navy Yard at Portsmouth, N. H. (1876) ; Justin Win-
sor, The Memorial Hist, of Boston, vol. IV (1881) ; G.
H. Preble, Hist, of the U. S. Navy-Yard, Portsmouth,
N. H. (1892) ; A. E. Brown, Faneuil Hall and Faneuil
Hall Market (1900) ; S. A, Drake, Old Landmarks and
Historic Personages of Boston (1873) ; M. V. Tilson,
The Tilson Geneal. (1911) ; Vital Records of F 'em-
broke, Mass, to the Year 1850 (1911) ,* Fiske Kimball,
Domestic Architecture of the American Colonies and
of the Early Republic (1922) ; C. A. Place, Charles
Bulfinch, Architect and Citizen (1925) ; Commonwealth
(Boston), June 19, 1852.] T.F.H.
PARRIS, SAMUEL (i653-Feb. 27, 1719/20),
clergyman, prominently identified with the Salem
witchcraft delusion, was born in London, the son
of a merchant, Thomas Parris, but probably lived
for a time in Barbados, where his father and his
uncle owned extensive plantations. Although it
has been asserted that he attended Harvard Col-
lege, he was certainly not a graduate. As early
as 1674 he was engaged in mercantile business
in Boston. In April 1686 he attended a council
of Boston clergymen (Collections of the Massa-
chusetts Historical Society, 5 ser. VI, 1879, p.
21*) and in November 1688 a committee from
Salem Village (now Danvers) interviewed him
255
Parris
"about taking ministerial office" with them. Since
1672, Avhen after nearly a decade of wrangling,
Salem Village had been separated from Salem,
three ministers had left because of parish dis-
sensions. Consequently, Parris insisted on an
unusually explicit contract before accepting.
On Nov. 19, 1689, he took charge, and trouble
soon arose over the execution of the contract.
Less than three years later further trouble
came to him. In February 1692 his daughter and
his niece became subject to curious attacks which
physicians and ministers both attributed to "an
evil hand." Parris believed that Satan was at-
tacking his flock and that as a faithful pastor he
must fight back. Like Cotton Mather \_q,v.~\, he
was convinced that his best weapons were fast-
ing and prayer (Hale, post, p. 23), but the situ-
ation got out of his hands when Mary Sibley, a
member of his church, gave his West Indian
slaves instructions as to how to discover the
"witches" and soon the jails were filled with the
accused. In the witch trials Parris, like Judge
William Stoughton [#.?/.], accepted "spectral
evidence" contrary to the advice of the Boston
ministers (cf. Mather, post, I, 211). He often
acted as^court clerk and sometimes as a witness.
His testimony against several condemned mem-
bers of his parish caused disaffection among their
relatives, who refused to attend church and drew
up a list of grievances against the minister. Par-
ris replied to the charges in his "Meditations for
Peace," read to the congregation in November
1694 in which lie acknowledged his error in
countenancing "spectral evidence'' and begged
forgiveness. A church council presided over by
Increase Mather [g.z/J vindicated him, but ad-
vised him to leave the village— advice which he
aid not follow.
In the meantime, another dispute had arisen.
Ibe village had set aside some parsonage land in
1691 which Parris soon claimed as his own in
Parrish
1696 at Danvers ; the second, Dorothy, in 1719 at
Sudbury. They bore him five children.
[Essex Inst. Hist. Colls., vol. XLTX (1913) ; H F
Waters, Gcneal. Gleanings in England (1901) I 14*-
44 ; J. W. Hanson, Hist, of the Town of 'n'anvcr*
(1848); C. W. Upham, Salem Witchcraft (f vols
1867) ; Mass. Hist. Sac. Colls., 3 ser. Ill (1833) • Pubs
Col Soc of Mass., XXIV (19*3), 168 ; John ? Hale A
Modest Enquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft (1703) •
Cotton Mather, Magnolia Christi Americana (1702 :
4 °f ^53) ; Robert Calef, Uorc Wonders of the In-
visible World (1700; repr, 18*3) ; Proc. Essex Inst
VJW'86$ > A r^?W'6' Rccord Commissioners
of Boston, Mass., IX (1883), 155, 158; Vital Records
of Sudbury, Mass. (1903).] R p ^
PARRISH, ANNE (Oct. 17, i76o-Dec. 26
1800), philanthropist, was the eldest of eleven
children of Isaac and Sarah (Mitch-ell) Parrish
of Philadelphia, Pa. As early as 1637 the Par-
rish name is on record in Maryland, Capt. Ed-
ward Parrish of Yorkshire having- emigrated to
Anne Arundel County. A branch of the family
moved to Philadelphia, for John Parrish (1702-
1745), grandfather of Anne, married Elizabeth
Roberts of that city and is recorded a citizen
The community into which Anne was born was
a Quaker group, known for its good works and
for a faith which, while lacking the force of the
earlier Society of Friends, was steeped in reli-
gious and charitable interests. Anne's youngest
brother Joseph Parrish [^.], became one of
Philadelphia's leaders in medical and philan-
thropic circles, and Anne is remembered chiefly
as a pioneer in two important chanties.
On an occasion when her parents were ill with
yellow fever, she vowed that if they should re-
cover she would devote the remainder of her life
to benevolence and charity. Accordingly she
founded in 1796 a school for girls in necessitous
circumstances (later called the Airnwell School)
and held the first sessions at a private house at
the corner of Second Street and Pewter Platter
Alley (now 17 North Second Street). The num-
n^fC Orr/at»r «m,J i~. j.1^ ^ /- _ /
^^^s&K3i
j^^w^tteStopa^aiSi
X£rf^1S IS88 bandling of *« cha*ic
a&» of Safem V.Hage had tnade him odious to
H£»£ *f.** Bathers, Judge Sewall,
Srf?&Jf ^rr*6 Ws friendship ^
««!?££** ^""fr * Burned *» busi-
vwed feoth be «nw, ft, fir^ Jfi,^ ^ ^
?Ch°01 °f fifty- The
a
school
256
Parrish
keener annual impetus, though she herself died
after its fourth year of existence.
The second institution founded by Anne Par-
rish was the House of Industry, for the employ-
ment of poor women in Philadelphia. This was
established in 1795, incorporated in 1815, carried
on for a number of years in Ranstead Court, and
is still (1934) in active operation. It was the
first charitable organization for women in Amer-
ica. Anne Parrish died in 1800 at the age of
forty. The only likeness of her is a family sil-
houette.
[Susanna P. Wharton, ed., The Parrish Family
(1925) ; reports of the Corporation of Aimwell School,
Philadelphia, 1874, 1902, 1916; original minutes of the
Board ; Thomas Woody, A Hist, of Women's Educ. in
the U. S. (1929) ; Report of the Female Soc. of Phila.
(1871) ; Louise G. Walsh and Matthew J. Walsh, Hist,
and Organisation of Educ. in Pa. (1930) ; J. T. Scharf
and Thompson Westcott, Hist, of Phila. (1884), vol.
K-] R. M. G.
PARRISH, CELESTIA SUSANNAH
(Sept 12, i8s3-Sept. 7, 1918), educator, was
born on her father's plantation near Swanson-
ville, Pittsylvania County, Va., the daughter of
William Perkins Parrish, a country gentleman
owning a large estate in both land and slaves,
and his second wife, Lucinda Jane (Walker)
Parrish. She began at the age of five years to
attend a private school on her father's plantation.
In 1862 her father died and in 1863 her mother
also. There were no schools in Pittsylvania
County during the Civil War, but the aunts with
whom the three children lived had a library in
which Celestia read every book, and she memo-
rized much from Byron and Shakespeare. In
the autumn of 1865, when a private school was
opened at Callands, she enrolled and walked
every day two and a half miles back and forth
over a rough mountain road. There she memo-
rized textbooks on botany, biology, and chemis-
try, along with the limited curriculum of the
"three r's." When in 1867 her uncle and guard-
ian, William B. Walker, died, it was discovered
that there was left only a very small legacy.
Therefore, she became a teacher in a private
school and later in the public school at Swanson-
ville with a salary of $40 a month. Teaching and
studying wherever the possibility opened, she not
only supported herself, her brother, and iher sis-
ter, but, when her half-brother died leaving five
dependent children, assumed part of the expense
of their maintenance.
In 1885 she entered the State Female Normal
School at Farmville, Va., was graduated in 1886,
and was appointed to teach mathematics. In
1891-92 she took special work in mathematics
and astronomy at the University of Michigan.
In the autumn of 1893 she went to the newly
Parrish
established Randolph-Macon Woman's College
to teach mathematics, psychology, and pedagogy.
There is abundant testimony to her rare gifts as
a teacher and to her unusual and striking per-
sonality. She was able to obtain meager equip-
ment for the course in psychology, to improve
apparatus, devise experiments, and establish
laboratory work as an essential part of the re-
quired course in psychology. During these years
she attended several summer sessions, took cor-
respondence work, and, after a few months of
residence, received the Ph.B. degree from Cor-
nell University in 1896. In January 1895 she had
published in the American Journal of Psychology
an article "The Cutaneous Estimation of Open
and Filled Space," the result of some of her work
in the laboratory at Cornell. A little later she
studied with John Dewey at the University of
Chicago. In 1902 she became professor of peda-
gogic psychology at the State Normal School in
Athens, Ga. There she obtained, through funds
furnished by George Foster Peabody, the estab-
lishment of what was probably the first practice
school for normal students in the South. In 1903
she was one of the organizers and became the
first president of the Southern Association of
College Women. She began the agitation for a
more practical expression of industrial and agri-
cultural training in connection with the common-
schools. She was interested in the pre-school
child long before the importance of that aspect
of education was generally recognized. She
touched the educational life of the state of Geor-
gia through her teaching and lecturing, but she
also touched the educational life of the entire
South through her presidency of the Southern
Association of College Women. The last po-
sition she held was that of supervisor of rural
schools of Georgia. From county to county she
went on her visits to schools, giving help and
inspiration. Her greatest work in her last years
was the establishing of schools for adult illiter-
ates. When she died at Clayton, Ga., the Georgia
legislature adjourned for her funeral, and on her
monument at Clayton are these words : "Geor-
gia's Greatest Woman."
[A brief autobiographical pamphlet published by J.
O. Martin, Atlanta, Ga., The Early Life Story of Miss
Celeste Parrish (1925) ; material from Miss Mary A.
Bacon, Athens, Ga., and from Miss Gillie Larew, Ran-
dolph-Macon Woman's College, Lynchburg, Va. ; At-
lanta Journal, Sept. 9, 23, 1918; date of birth from
Who's Who in America^ 1918-19, and from records of
the registrar of the University of Chicago.]
L.K.M.R.
PARRISH, CHARLES (Aug. 27, i82<5-Dec.
27, 1896), coal operator, was born in DtmdafT,
Pa., the son of Archippus and Phebe (Miller)
Parrish. Shortly after the birth of the child the
Parrish
family moved to Wilkes-Barre, where the father
was proprietor of a hotel. Charles attended the
Wilkes-Barre Academy and at fifteen became a
clerk In the store of Ziba Bennett of Wilkes-
Barre. At twenty-one he became a partner in the
firm, but in 1856 he withdrew and began to specu-
late in coal lands. He founded the Kembleton
Coal Company and for years originated and de-
veloped important and far-reaching business
schemes in the fields of mining and transporta-
tion. He was president of the Philadelphia Coal
Company, which operated the Empire mine, and
was one of the organizers and for twenty years
president of the Lehigh & Wilkes-Barre Coal
Company. He was also one of the organizers of
the Lehigh & Susquehanna Railroad ; the Sun-
bury & Wilkes-Barre Railroad, and the Lehigh
Coal and Navigation Company, of which he was
a director for thirty years. He was also a direc-
tor of the Jersey Central Railroad. The Sugar
Notch and Pine Ridge mines in the Wyoming
Valley coal region were operated by the Parrish
& Annora Coal Company. For twenty years
Parrish was president of the First National Bank
of Wilkes-Barre. He was interested in a num-
ber of manufacturing concerns and served as
president of the Hazard Manufacturing Com-
pany which made wire rope. During the early
part of the Civil War he organized troops and
made generous contributions of money for the
prosecution of the war.
Parrish's name is closely associated with the
growth of the Wyoming Valley region of Penn-
sylvania and with the development of its re-
sources. He had the instinct of the speculator
and made and lost large sums of money. He was
friendly toward the laboring class and estab-
lished a system of workingmen's insurance in all
his companies. In 1885 he was elected to the
Wyoming Historical and Geological Society and
m 1889 he became a life member. He was mar-
ried on June 21, 1864, to Mary Conyngham, the
daughter of John Nesbit Conyngham. They had
tour children, three of whom survived him He
d^ suddenly at Philadelphia, Pa., although he
bad been m ill health for some years
Parrish
Dillwyn, who conducted a drug store on the
southwest corner of Eighth and Arch streets.
During the term of his apprenticeship he attend-
ed the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and
graduated from that institution in 1842. A year
later he purchased a drug store at the northwest
corner of Ninth and Chestnut streets adjoining
the building which housed the University of
Pennsylvania. This close proximity to the Uni-
versity brought him into intimate contact with
the medical students in particular, and no doubt
gave him his first desire to teach. He concluded
that the medical students were not sufficiently
versed in the practical work of pharmacy to en-
able them to practise medicine to the best advan-
tage, especially in rural communities where there
were no drug stores. To overcome this deficiency
in their education and training, he decided to be-
gin a school in the rear of his store for the teach-
ing of practical pharmacy, and opened this school
in 1849.
The following year he entered into partner-
ship with his brother and moved to Eighth and
Arch streets, where he continued to conduct his
school until 1864. In the latter year, he was
elected to fill the chair of materia medica in the
Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, which po-
sition he gave up in 1867 to take over the profes-
sorship of theory and practice of pharmacy, the
duties of which were more to his liking-. This
chair he held until his death. In the same year
m which he entered upon his duties at the Phila-
delphia College of Pharmacy, he secured the pas-
sage of the act of incorporation of Swarthmore
College, and the subsequent founding- of this in-
stitution was largely the result of his efforts
He served as secretary of the board of managers
from 1864 to 1868 and as president of the college
from 1868 to the spring of 1871.
•Di,3? ^f' he married Margaret Hunt of
Philadelphia. Four sons and a daughter were
the fruits of this union. His writings were
many. In addition to a textbook, An Introduc-
tion to Practical Pharmacy (copyrighted 1855,
revised editions 1859, 1864) .and a volume en-
J.H.F.
PAKRISH, EDWAKD
these were printed in the rroceedtngs of the
American Pharmaceutical Association and the
^™ '" J of Pharmacy, others in the
w and elsewhere. He was
of the Philadelphia
258
Parrish
member of the American Pharmaceutical Asso-
ciation at its first meeting in 1852, was elected
recording secretary in 1853, first vice-president
in 1866, and president in 1868. He was a dele-
gate to the Pharmacop'oeal Convention in 1860.
He was appointed by the mayor of Philadelphia
as one of a commission of five to carry into effect
the Pharmacy Act of 1872. In August of the
same year, he accepted an appointment from the
federal government to visit certain Indian tribes
in the present Oklahoma that had been placed
under the supervision of the Society of Friends,
of which he was a member, and while engaged
in performing this service, he contracted malarial
fever and died, at Fort Sill, Indian Territory.
[Am. Jour. Pharmacy, Oct. i, 1872, May i, 1873;
The First Century of the Phila. College of Pharmacy
and Science (1022), ed. by J. W. England ; S. P. Whar-
ton, The Parrish Family (1925) ; E. H. Magill, Sixty-
five Years in the Life of a Teacher (1907) ; The Reg. of
Swarthmore Coll. (1914) ; Druggists' Circular and
Chem. Gazette, Oct. 1872; Press (Phila.), Sept. 16,
1872.] A.G.D— M.
PARRISH, JOSEPH (Sept. 2, i779~Mar. 18,
1840), physician, teacher, born in Philadelphia,
Pa., was the youngest child of Isaac Parrish and
his wife, Sarah Mitchell, and a brother of Anne
Parrish [#.£'.]. The first American ancestor of
the Parrish family, Edward, came out from Eng-
land as surveyor-general of the province of
Maryland under Lord Baltimore. He and his
immediate descendants became the owners of
large tracts of land in Maryland and were re-
garded as wealthy until John Parrish, Joseph's
grandfather, lost practically all he owned as the
result of guaranteeing a note for a friend. As a
consequence Isaac Parrish, Joseph's father, was
apprenticed to a hatter and remained in that busi-
ness throughout his life. He acquired means and
gave his eleven children excellent educations.
Joseph went to the Friends' School, gained a
knowledge of Latin and French, and in his later
years studied Hebrew and Greek. After leaving
school he served an apprenticeship with his fa-
ther but in 1802 commenced studying medicine
as a pupil of Caspar Wistar [#.?/.]. He received
the degree of M.D. from the University of Penn-
sylvania in 1805, submitting a thesis which was
published under the title, On the Influence of the
Passions upon the Body in the Production and
Cure of Disease (1805). In the same year yel-
low fever appeared in epidemic form in Phila-
delphia, and Parrish was appointed resident phy-
sician to the emergency hospital which was
established by the Board of Health. In 1808 he
gave a course of popular lectures on chemistry.
He became one of the staff of the Philadelphia
Dispensary, and later served that institution as
Parrish
a manager. From 1807 to 1811 he was physician
to the Philadelphia Almshouse; in 1811 he was
transferred to the surgical staff on which he
served until 1821 ; and from 1816 to 1829 he was
a member of the staff of the Pennsylvania Hos-
pital. He was president of the board of managers
of the Wills Eye Hospital, 1833-40, and served
as vice-president of the College of Physicians of
Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Medical So-
ciety. When the professorship of anatomy in the
University of Pennsylvania was rendered vacant
by the death of John Syng Dorsey in 1818, the
trustees are said to have chosen Parrish as his
successor, but he declined the honor as he deemed
it would interfere with his performance of his
religious duties. During the cholera epidemic
of 1832 he had charge of a cholera hospital, and
in recognition of his services was presented by
the city authorities with a suitably inscribed
silver pitcher.
An interesting episode in his career was his
attendance upon John Randolph of Roanoke,
when the latter died in Philadelphia in 1833.
Parrish was with the dying man almost continu-
ously for four days before his death, during which
time Randolph made a will in which he manu-
mitted his slaves. In order that the will might
be validated it was necessary for Parrish to make
a deposition concerning his patient's mental and
physical condition. Parrish was a strong ad-
vocate of abolition — served for a time as presi-
dent of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society — and
it is needless to say was only too glad to further
Randolph's last wishes. Another object in which
Parrish took a deep interest was the abolition of
capital punishment. All his life he was a strictly
observant member of the Society of Friends.
Parrish made a number of contributions to
medical periodicals, chiefly to the North Ameri-
can Medical and Surgical Journal and the Eclec-
tic Repertory and Analytical Review, of which
he was for some time an editor. He edited an
American edition of William Lawrence's work
on hernia (A Treatise on Ruptures, 1811), and
in 1836 published Practical Observations on
Strangulated Hernia, and Some of the Diseases
of the Urinary Organs. On Oct. 20, 1808, he mar-
ried Susanna Cox, daughter of John and Ann
Cox, of Burlington, N. J. They had eleven chil-
dren, all of whom survived their father. Two of
them, Isaac and Joseph, became physicians, while
Edward [g.fc>.] was a noted teacher of pharmacy.
[S. P. Wharton and Dillwyn Parrish, The Parrish
Family (1925) ', G. B. Wood, A Memoir of the Life and
Character of the Late Joseph Parrish f M.D. (1840) ;
The Deposition of Dr. Joseph Parrish in John Ran-
dolph's Case (reprinted from the court records for
private circulation) ; H. A. Kelly and W. L. Burrage,
259
Parrott
1 IT. 1W.U1 t-Uii, •» «"> ***--• - ; — - . - .
(1895) ; North American and Daily Advertiser
Mar. 19, 1840.] F.R.P.
PARROTT, ENOCH GREENLEAFE
(Nov. 27, i8i5-May 10, 1879), naval officer, was
born at Portsmouth, N. H., the son of Susan
(Parker) and Enoch Greenleafe Parrott, a
prominent merchant and naval agent. He was
the cousin of Robert Parker Parrott [q.v.]. He
was appointed midshipman on Dec. 10, 1831,
went to sea in the Brazil Squadron, and after
several years in coast survey work was made
lieutenant on Sept. 8, 1841. A cruise in the Sara-
toga of the African Squadron, from 1841 to 1843*
brought experience in punitive expeditions
against coast settlements. In the Mexican War,
while attached to the Congress of the Pacific
Squadron, he was in the naval force accompany-
ing Fremont's march from Monterey to Los
Angeles, and he was present at the capture of
Guaymas and Mazatlan on the Mexican west
coast In 1852-53 he was in the Mediterranean
on the St. Louis, celebrated for her rescue in
July 1853 of the Hungarian patriot, Martin
Koszta, from an Austrian brig of war at Smyrna.
A cruise followed in the St. Mary's of the Pacific
Squadron, then duty at the naval observatory in
Washington, 1857-58, and subsequent special
work in Washington. He was in the expedition
that evacuated the Norfolk navy yard on Apr. 20
and 21, 1861, and was promoted to commander
in this month. His first wartime distinction
came with his capture, while commanding the
brig Perry, of the privateer schooner Savannah,
on June 3, 1861, sixty miles off Charleston. The
Savamah had a pivot-gun and made some slight
resistance. For this first capture of a Southern
privateer, Secretary Welles officially commended
the ability and energy of captain, officers, and
crew. Shortly afterward Parrott was transferred
to the steamer Augusta, in which he took part in
tie attack on Port Royal on Nov. 7, 1861, and
was later engaged in arduous blockade duty,
mueit of the time as senior officer off Charleston.
Tie Ang^sta went north in August 1862 but was
back oa the blockade in December and was one
of i^ slips engaged with Confederate rams off
Cteteteon: J^a, 31, 1863, when she was struck
% a Bine-incfe sfaelL When Admiral Samuel
FiamsAt 7a«tt$eJ| left tiie blockading squad-
ron m Ji$^ ioiw^'fe sailed north with Par-
rot! fe tfe Aw@&s$a$ Sf^d^^of her at the time
as one of Jfee &ap$ tfefc lM seea longest and
fewest service. Hext year Paraott comteaiided
1 Cammed kt the James River, ''par-
Parrott
ticipating in the action on June 21, 1864, with
Southern gunboats and battery near Hewlett's.
Commanding the monitor Monadnock, he was in
the two attacks on Fort Fisher in the winter of
!864-65 and in the blockade of Charleston until
the surrender. Admiral David D. Porter paid
high tribute to the personnel of the monitors in
this service, "riding out heavy gales on an open
coast," and of their commanders declared, "I
hope I shall ever keep them under my command"
(Official Records, post, I ser., XT, 259). Parrott
in particular seems to have liked monitor duty,
remarking of his craft that he "did not see any
difference between her and anything else" (Ibid.,
p. 602). After the war he was made captain on
July 25, 1866, commodore on Apr. 22, 1870, and
rear admiral on Nov. 8, 1873, He had duty as
commander of the receiving* ship at Boston from
1865 to 1868, at the Portsmouth navy yard in
1869, as commandant at Mare Island yard from
1871 to 1872, and in command of the Asiatic
Squadron until his retirement on Apr. 4, 1874.
Being unmarried, he spent subsequent summers
with relatives in Portsmouth and winters at the
Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York. For some
years his health and mind were affected by para-
lytic strokes, which finally caused his death. He
was buried in the graveyard of Saint John's
Episcopal Church at Portsmouth.
[Spelling of middle name and names of parents from
records of Saint John's Episcopal Church, Portsmouth,
N, H. ; L. R. Hamersly, The Records of Living Officers
of the U. S. Navy (3rd cd., 1878) ; War of the Rebel-
lion: Official Records (Navy), i ser., I, II, V, X-XIII ;
Army and Navy Journal, May 17, 1879 »" -AT- Y. Herald,
May ii, 1879-] A.W.
PARROTT, ROBERT PARKER (Oct. 5,
:8o4-Dec. 24, 1877), ordnance inventor, manu-
facturer, was born in Lee, N. H. He was of
English descent and was the eldest son of a
prominent ship-owner of Portsmouth, N, H,,
who served one term as United States senator,
John Fabyan Parrott. His mother, Hannah
Skilling1 (Parker) Parrott, was the daughter of
Robert Parker of Kittery, Me., a ship-builder
and commander of privateers during the Revo-
lution. Parrott attended the Daniel Austin school
in Portsmouth and on July I, 1820, entered the
United States Military Academy at West Point,
from which he graduated in 1824, third in a
class of thirty-one. He was appointed second
lieutenant and assigned to the 3rd Artillery,
Ordered immediately to duty at the Military
Academy, he served there for five years as as-
sistant professor of natural philosophy. Follow-
ing two years of garrison duty at Fort Consti-
tution, near Portsmouth, N. H., he was promoted
to first 'lieutenant and transferred to Fort In-
Parrott
dependence, Boston Harbor, Mass., remaining
on duty there until 1834, when he was assigned
to ordnance duty. After a short staff service in
military operations in the Creek Nation, he was
promoted to captain of ordnance Jan. 13, 1836,
and ordered to Washington as assistant to the
chief of the bureau of ordnance. Not long after
beginning the duties of this assignment he was
detailed as inspector of ordnance in construction
at the West Point Foundry, Cold Spring, N. Y.
His ability and expert knowledge attracted the
attention of Gouverneur Kemble [#.^.], presi-
dent of the West Point Foundry Association,
who induced Parrott to resign from the army
and become superintendent of the foundry. His
resignation went into effect Oct. 31, 1836. Three
years later he succeeded Kemble as lessee of the
foundry. In order to supply it with charcoal
pig-iron, he purchased a tract of 7,000 acres in
Orange County, N. Y., and the Greenwood iron
furnace, which he operated in partnership with
his brother Peter. For almost forty years there-
after Parrott directed these enterprises and at
the same time continued his studies of ordnance.
He kept himself well informed on the world's
activities in this field and, in addition, prose-
cuted a course of research and experiment of his
own. This work covered a rather wide range at
first, but upon learning of the secret production
in 1849 of a serviceable rifled cannon by Krtipp
in Germany, he concentrated his attention on
rifled ordnance. For upwards of ten years he
continued his experiments, his aim being to pro-
duce an efficient rifled cannon, simple in con-
struction and cheap. Eventually he patented,
Oct. i, 1861, a design for strengthening a cast-
iron cannon with a wrought-iron hoop shrunken
on the breech. The unique feature of the in-
vention was the hoop, which was formed of a
wrought-iron bar of rectangular section coiled
into a spiral and welded into a solid ring. He
also devised and patented, Aug. 20, 1861, an im-
proved expanding projectile for rifled ordnance.
The expanding device was a brass ring cast
upon and secured to the projectile but susceptible
of being expanded into the cannon grooves by
the action of the explosive gases. These inven-
tions Parrott offered to the government at cost
price, and with the beginning of the Civil War
he received large orders for both guns and pro-
jectiles. "Parrott guns" were present in the field
at the first battle of Bull Run and thereafter in
every important engagement both on land and
sea. They were made by the thousands and in
many calibers, and threw "Parrott projectiles"
of from 10 to 300 pounds. It is recorded that
"the 200 and 300 pounder Parrott guns were the
Parry
most formidable service guns extant in their
time" (Padding, post). Furthermore, their
endurance was far in excess of that required of
the contemporary rifled cannon of Europe.
With the termination of hostilities, Parrott
ceased gun manufacture at the West Point
Foundry and in 1867 withdrew from active con-
nection with it. He and his brother continued,
however, the operation of the Greenwood fur-
naces and property until 1877, when Parrott sold
his share to his brother and retired. During this
latter period he continued his experimental work
and invented several improvements in projectiles
and fuses. He and his brother also began in
1875, the first commercial production of slag
wool in the United States. Parrott held one pub-
lic office, that of first judge of the court of com-
mon pleas for Putnam County, N. Y. (1844-47),
an appointment made, no doubt, because of his
widely recognized uprightness and sagacity. In
1839 he married Mary Kemble, sister of Gou-
verneur Kemble and sister-in-law of James K.
Paulding [q.v.~\. At the time of his death, in
Cold Spring, he was survived by his widow and
an adopted son.
EG. W. Cullum, Biog. Reg. Officers and Grads. U. S.
Mil. A cad. (srd ed., 1891) ; Ninth Ann. Reunion Asso.
Grads., U. S, Mil. Acad. (1878) ; J. N. Paulding, The
Cannon and Projectiles Invented by Robert Parker
Parrott (1879); E. C. Kretitzberg, "Orange County
Iron Making," Iron Trade Rev., July 17, 31, 1924;
Frederic De Peyster, Memoir of Robert Parker Parrot*
(1878) ; N. Y. Times, Dec. 25, 1877 ; data from family;
patent office records.] £ w. M _ n.
PARRY, CHARLES CHRISTOPHER
(Aug. 28, i823-Feb. 20, 1890), botanist, born in
Admington, Gloucestershire, the son of Joseph
and Eliza (Elliott) Parry, carne of a line of cler-
gymen of the Established Church. His family
moved from England when he was nine years of
age to a farm in Washington County, N. Y. The
lad showed promise in the schools and an eager
interest in the native plants. He attended Union
College (A.B. 1842) and then went as a graduate
student to Columbia College, where he came un-
der the influence of the botanist, John Torrey
[#.£>.], and took the degree of M.D. in 1846. In
the same year he settled at Davenport, Iowa, and
began practice, but the unspoiled flowering
prairies led him year by year further and further
from what he considered the vexations of a phy-
sician's life to an ever-increasing absorption in
botanical work. In 1848 he served under David
Dale Owen [g.^.] in the geological survey of
Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, and in the
next year was appointed botanist to the United
States and Mexican boundary survey. In this
connection he gave the greater part of the next
three years to geological and botanical field work
26l
Parry
along the boundary from Texas to San Diego,
and consequently was well fitted to furnish the
introduction, "Botany of the Boundary," to the
Survey's report on botany written by John Tor-
rey (Report on the United States and Mexican
Boundary Survey, 2 vols, in 3, 1857-59)- Tllis
first-hand experience with the remarkable vegeta-
tion of the southwestern deserts, still largely un-
known to botanists, confirmed his natural bent.
After 1849, for nearly forty years, he devoted
his summers chiefly to botanical exploration of
the little-known western states and territories,
either on his own initiative or as botanist to some
surveying expedition or special mission. He was
the first to hold the post of botanist in the United
States Department of Agriculture and spent
three years (1869-71) in Washington at the
Smithsonian Institution, organizing the plant
collections brought back by government scien-
tific or surveying expeditions.
The alpine flora of the Rocky Mountains in
Colorado attracted him, and in his explorations
he discovered the Colorado Blue Spruce (Picea
Engelmannii) and named Gray Peak and Torrey
Peak for Asa Gray and John Torrey who visited
him in his cabin on Pike's Peak, In 1874, he
took up the old trail of John C. Fremont [q.v.]
in southern Utah, making discoveries that
brought his name to the notice of plant geog-
raphers. As the years passed he visited Cali-
fornia more and more frequently in connection
with his studies of the chaparral. Thorough,
cautious, and conscientious, he journeyed in the
winter of 1884-85 to the Royal Botanic Gardens
at Kew, England, in order to compare his Cali-
fornia specimens with types there before pub-
lishing his revisions of California manzanitas
(Bulletin of the California Academy of Sciences,
voL II, 1887) and the species of Ceanothus (Pro-
ceedings of the Davenport Academy of Natural
Sciences, vol. V, 1893). This region was so new
to collectors that he turned up many new species,
but, what is more important, he was the first in-
vestigator of these groups to study living plants
In the field in connection with specimens in the
herbarium. His many botanical papers were
rather brief and mainly of a special character,
but Ms numerous contributions to the newspaper
press of Chicago, St Louis, Davenport, and San
Francisco* continued for many years, covered a
wider field, diealing with the natural resources
of the new West and the general features of the
native vegetation of mountains and valleys.
^ Genial and unaffected in manner and affec-
tionate in disposition, Parry had a capacity for
cultivating warm and enduring friendships that
stood the tests of camping trips and htmdred- or
Parry
thousand-mile botanical journeys. In the Rocky
Mountains of Colorado he had the company of
Edward Lee Greene [#•?'•] j and on a wide circuit
through the forests of the Pacific Coast that of
George Engelmann [#.£>.]. John Gill Lemmon
[q.v,~] was his companion in a survey of the un-
touched San Bernardino Mountains, the western
Mohave Desert, and the broad plain of the San
Joaquin in California, while for two trips into
Lower California he chose as a helper Charles
Russell Orcutt, whom he brought up to be a
notable collector. The wide and easy range of
his personal relations furthered his botanical ac-
tivities in numberless ways. Through J. D. B.
Stillman, "forty-niner" and Leland Stanford's
personal physician, who had been a fellow stu-
dent at the medical school, Parry obtained a rail-
way pass on all the Stanford lines, a favor which
greatly facilitated his field work. A zest for
scraping acquaintance made the little man with
the short quick step and delightful ways a wel-
come figure along routes of travel. Though gen-
erally tolerant, Parry coulcl speak boldly at need,
as when he printed a sharp denunciation of
Katharine Curran, a botanical free lance pos-
sessed of talents for personal abuse. The beau-
tiful Lilium Parryi of the Southern California
mountains, the Lote Bush (Zisyphus Parryi)
of the Colorado Desert, the Ensenada Buckeye
(Aesculus Parryi) are but a few of the hundreds
of new plant forms — trees, shrubs, and flowers
— discovered by Parry in western America. He
did his work chiefly at a time when danger of
the Indian was largely past, and before herds,
the plow, and industrialism had changed or ob-
literated the native plant societies. His happy
personality is, therefore, associated with the most
romantic and fruitful period of botanical ex-
ploration in the Far West
In 1853 he married Sarah M. Dalzell, who
died in 1858. In 1859 he married a widow,
Emily R. Preston, who survived him. During
his frequent and prolonged journeys through
four decades, the home at Davenport had been
steadily maintained and here he died early in
1890.
[Sources include sketch by C. H. Preston, with por-
trait and bibliography of Parry's writings comp. by his
widow, in Proc. Davenport Acad. Nat, Sci., vol. VI
(1897); autobiographical letter on. early expeditions,
Und., vol. II, pt. 2 (1880) ; The U. S. Biog, Diet
Iowa Vol. (1878) ; Bull Phil. Sac, of Wash., vol. XII
(1895); Botanical Gazette Mar. 1890; Iowa State
Register (Des Koines), Feb. 21, 1890; W. L. Jepson,
"Old-time Western Letters" (MS.). Many of Parry's
letters are preserved in the herbaria at St. Louis, Ames,
and Notre Dame; his large herbarium belongs to the
Iowa State College,] W L I.
262
Parry
born In Philadelphia, the son of Samuel and
Mary (Hoffline) Parry. At the age of fifteen he
was employed as an apprentice in the pattern
shop of the Baldwin Locomotive Works, and
after completing his apprenticeship spent several
years in the drawing room. He was then ad-
vanced through every grade of mechanical labor
until 1855, when he was appointed the company's
general superintendent in charge of locomotive
construction. In 1867 he became a member of
M. Baird & Company, the firm that succeeded
Matthias W. Baldwin \_q.v, .] in the ownership of
the locomotive works. Upon the retirement of
Matthew Baird [q.v.] in 1873, the firm became
known as Burnham, Parry, Williams & Com-
pany, which remained its title until after Parry's
death.
Parry grew up with the locomotive industry,
for the Baldwin Locomotive Works had scarcely
produced fifty locomotives when he commenced
his apprenticeship. His abilities attracted the
attention of his superior officers and his promo-
tion was rapid. Nineteen years after entering
upon his apprenticeship, he had become the
plant's chief executive in charge of locomotive
construction. His first major problem in this
position involved the installation of a system
of scientific management to replace the rule-
of-thumb production methods that prevailed
throughout industry in that period. He installed
labor-saving devices, commenced having com-
plete drawings of locomotives prepared in ad-
vance of their construction, and in general
brought the shop methods under which locomo-
tive production was conducted to a much higher
level of efficiency. One of his partners attributed
"a good deal of the prosperity of the works" to
Parry's individual efforts. He was very suc-
cessful in adjusting his employees' grievances
and always endeavored to better their working
conditions. He was primarily responsible for
the introduction of the piece-work system which
was well established prior to his death and more
than fifty years later was still In operation in its
original form. This wage-payment method, in
the opinion of an official of the company, "has
been mainly responsible through all these years
for the lack of labor troubles for which The
Baldwin Locomotive Works has been noted"
(Church, post). Parry's labor policies were ap-
preciated by the employees, who joined heartily
in celebrating the semi-centennial of his connec-
tion with the concern.
Parry had few outside interests. He was one
of the original founders of Beach Haven, N. J.,
and paid certain of the village development costs,
such as the construction of the Protestant Epis-
Pany
copal Church. He traveled in Europe exten-
sively and about ten years prior to his death
was engaged by the Russian government to su-
pervise its locomotive construction program;
forty locomotives for Russia were built at the
Baldwin Works. Parry was a member of the
Franklin Institute and for one year a member of
the board of managers, a director of the National
Bank of the Republic, and a life subscriber to the
publication fund of the Pennsylvania Historical
Society. He died at Beach Haven In his sixty-
sixth year, survived by his widow, a son, and two
daughters.
[Baldwin Locomotive Works, Illustrated Catalogue
(n.d., 1871 ?) ; Hist, of the Baldwin Locomotive Works,
1831-1923 (n.d.) ; Railway Age, May 16, 1931 ; Press
(Phila.), July 19, 1887; Public Ledger (Phila.), July
19, 22, 1887 ; Phila. Register of Wills and Phila. Reg-
ister of Deaths (MSS.), in Phila. City Hall; corre-
spondence with Arthur L. Church of the Baldwin Loco-
motive Works and with Mrs. Romer Lee, Parry's grand-
daughter.] jj 5^ p^
PARRY, JOHN STUBBS (Jan. 4,
II, 1876), obstetrician and gynecologist, was
born on a farm in Drumore Township, Lancas-
ter County, Pa. His parents belonged to the So-
ciety of Friends. His father, Seneca Parry, died
when John was only six years old, but his mother,
Priscilla S., continued successfully the manage-
ment of the farm and the boy received his pri-
mary education in the country schools, then
spent a few months at the Gwynedd Boarding
School. At seventeen, he commenced the study
of medicine in the office of the family doctor, J.
M. Deaver, with whom he worked for three
years. In 1863, he entered the medical depart-
ment of the University of Pennsylvania and re-
ceived his doctorate in medicine two years later.
During the next year he held the post of resident
physician to the Philadelphia General Hospital.
At the completion of this practical internate, he
married, Apr. 5, 1866, Rachel P. Sharpless of
Philadelphia, and commenced his independent
practice. His appointment as district physician
to the Philadelphia Dispensary enabled him to
make a further study of hospital cases ; his first
paper, "Vesico-abdominal Fistula," appeared In
the Medical and Surgical Reporter, Sept. 30,
1865.
In 1867 he became visiting obstetrician to the
Philadelphia Hospital, where he reorganized the
obstetrical and gynecological departments, pre-
sented a wealth of material in this field at Block-
ley before medical students, and soon earned a
considerable reputation as a clinical lecturer.
His second paper, "Observations on Relapsing
Fever as it Occurred in Philadelphia in the Win-
ter of 1869 and 1870," appeared in the American
Journal of the Medical Sciences, Octobef 1870.
263
Parsons
During the next five years he published twenty-
eight papers in various medical journals; these
were mainly on obstetrics and children's diseases.
His contributions on rachitis (e.g., those in Pro-
ceedings of the Pathological Society of Phila-
delphia, 1870, and American Journal of the Medi-
cal Sciences, January 1872) were especially
important and proved the prevalence of this
"disease" in Philadelphia, although it had previ-
ously been considered rare in the New World.
In 1872 he was chosen one of the physicians for
diseases peculiar to women at the new Presby-
terian Hospital and in the same year assisted in
founding the State Hospital for Women and In-
fants. In the spring of 1873, he suffered a pul-
monary hemorrhage and was compelled to spend
the subsequent winters in Florida. Always men-
tally active, he there became interested in con-
chology and botany and also collected data on
the possibilities of a subtropical health-resort.
He returned to his work in Philadelphia in the
spring1 of 1874, and once more in 1875, but broke
down again each time. Despite his failing health,
he finished his additions to the second American
edition (1875) °* William Irishman's System of
Midwifery, and his own pioneer work, Extra-
Uterine Pregnancy (copyrighted 1875 ; published
1876). He died, when only thirty-three years
old, at Jacksonville, Fla. At the time, he was
one of the council of the College of Physicians,
the president of the Obstetrical Society, and vice-
president of the Pathological Society of Phila-
delphia.
[J. V. Ingham, memoir in Trans . Coll. of Physicians
of Phila., 3 ser. II (1876) ; H. A. Kelly and W. L. Bur-
rage, Am. Medic. Biogs. (1920); Medic. News and
Library, Apr. 1876 ; Medic, and Surgic. Reporter t Apr.
i, 1876 ; Phila. Inquirer, Mar. 16, 1876.] j^ "Bm"B.
PARSONS, ALBERT RICHARD (June 24
iS45-Nov. n, 1887), anarchist, one of the ten
children of Samuel and Elizabeth (Tompkins)
Parsons, was born in Montgomery, Ala. His
parents, both of whom were born and reared in
the North, were of colonial ancestry. The mother
died when the boy was two years old, and three
years later the father. An elder brother, William
Henry Parsons, took Albert to his home in Tyler,
Tex After some schooling, the boy became a
^prater's devIT in the composing room of the
Bmly News. At the outbreak of the
War, flHXjgii small of size and but thirteen
old, her joined a local military company,
bfer serving in the cavalry brigade commanded
by his brother. After ike war, he studied for six
months at Waco (now Baylor) University, and
tnen returned to fine printing trade. In 1868 he
started a weekly newspaper, Ihe Waco Spectator,
Parsons
which soon expired, and in the following year he
became a traveling correspondent for the Hous-
ton Daily Telegraph. He was for several years
in the service of the internal revenue bureau and
at one time was the reading secretary of the state
Senate. On June 10, 1871, at Austin, he married
Lucy Eldine Gonzalez, and in the fall of 1873 he
settled in Chicago.
Here he joined the Typographical Union and
was soon active in labor and radical circles. He
became a Socialist, and in the spring of 1881 was
the candidate of a Socialist faction for mayor.
Already, however, he had come to reject politi-
cal action, and by 1883 he considered himself an
anarchist. On Oct. I, 1884, the International
Working People's Association founded, in Chi-
cago, a weekly newspaper, The Alarm, and Par-
sons was chosen as editor. While occupying this
post he made many speaking" tours and became
widely known as an exponent of extreme radical-
ism. The movement for the eight-hour day, in
which he took a leading part, came to a dramatic
climax in front of the McCormick harvester
works on May 3, 1886, when police fired into a
crowd of strikers. Parsons, who was absent
from the city, returned in time to speak at a
protest meeting in front of the Haymarket on
the following evening. It was a peaceable gath-
ering; the tone of the speakers, according to
Mayor Carter Henry Harrison [#.?/.], who was
present, was temperate ; and Parsons, with hun-
dreds of others, had left the place when a force
of 200 policemen appeared and ordered the re-
mainder of the crowd to disperse. Some one
threw a bomb, which exploded, killing1 or mortally
wounding seven of the police and injuring about
fifty others. A round-up of radical agitators fol-
lowed. Though the thrower of the bomb was
never identified, eight persons were brought to
trial (June 15), charged with being- accessories
to the murder of one of the policemen. Parsons,
who had been indicted but not apprehended, vol-
untarily joined his seven comrades as the case
was called. On Aug. 20, a verdict of guilty was
rendered, and Parsons, with six others, was sen-
tenced to death. On Sept. 14, 1887, the state su-
preme court affirmed the verdict, and on Nov. 2,
the federal Supreme Court denied an application
for a writ of error.
From the beginning the case had aroused an
excited interest throughout the country. The
complicity of the defendants in the bomb-throw-
ing was denied, the methods employed in the
trial were hotly denounced, and efforts were
made by citizens in all walks of life to save the
prisoners from death. Parsons, by reason of his
general reputation, his voluntary surrender, his
264
Parsons
eloquent defense at the trial, and the fact that he
was the only native American in the group, won
an especial degree of sympathy. Appeals were
made to Gov. Richard J. Oglesby to commute the
sentences, and it is certain that had Parsons con-
sented to apply for clemency, it would have been
granted. On the ground, however, that the act
would imperil the lives of his comrades he re-
fused. The Governor finally commuted to life
imprisonment the sentences of Samuel Fielden
and Michael Schwab; Louis Lingg committed
suicide in his cell, and Parsons, August Spies,
Adolph Fischer and George Engel were hanged.
On June 26, 1893, Gov. John P. Altgeld [g.z>.]
made public a severely condemnatory review of
the trial and at the same time pardoned the three
surviving prisoners.
Parsons' social philosophy was unf ormulated ;
usually he employed the terms socialism and
anarchism interchangeably ; his expressed views
on the use of violence were contradictory, and
he nursed the fantastic notion that the invention
of dynamite had rendered armies and police
bodies powerless. He is remembered rather for
his part as the central figure in a great social
tragedy than for the validity of his doctrines. He
was brave, upright, truthful, and passionately
devoted to the cause of freedom and justice. He
was, moreover, a friendly man, greatly beloved
by his intimates. He left a wife and two children.
[Names of mother and wife and date of marriage
have been supplied by Mrs. Parsons. Criticisms of the
trial from the legal standpoint are given in M. M.
Trumbull, The Trial of the Judgment (1888) and in
J. P.^Altgeld, Live Questions (ed. of 1899) ; the police
view is given in M. J. Schaack, Anarchy and Anarchists
(1889) ; see also L. E. Parsons, Life of Albert R. Par-
sons (1889) ; Chicago Tribune, Nov. u, 12, 1887.]
W.J.G.
PARSONS, ALBERT ROSS (Sept. 16, 1847-
June 14, 1933), musician, teacher, was born in
Sandusky, Ohio, the son of John Jehiel and
Sarah (Averill) Parsons. He was descended
from Joseph Parsons who was in Springfield,
Mass., in 1636. The boy was unusually musical
and in 1860 he was regularly engaged as organist
of a church in Indianapolis. His first instruc-
tion in piano was received from teachers in Buf-
falo. In 1863 he went to New York, where he
studied with Frederic Louis Ritter. In 1867 he
went abroad and for two years studied in Leip-
zig with Moscheles, Wenzel, Reinecke, Papperitz,
and Richter. From 1870 to 1872 he was in Ber-
lin, acting as secretary to the American minis-
ter, George Bancroft, and studying with Tausig,
Kullak, and Weitzmann. During his years in
Germany he became acquainted with Richard
Wagner and as a result of this association
Parsons
prepared an English translation of Wagner's
Beethoven which he published in 1872. He later
became an ardent advocate of Wagner's music
and philosophy in the United States.
In 1872 Parsons returned to the United States,
and for the rest of his long life made his home
in the environs of New York. He established
himself as a piano teacher in Steinway Hall on
Fourteenth Street, New York, where he re-
mained until the building was torn down in 1926.
Then he moved to the new Steinway Hall on
Fifty-seventh Street, where he had a studio un-
til the time of his death. He lived to become the
dean of New York piano teachers. From 1885
he was head of the piano department of the Met-
ropolitan Conservatory of Music (from 1891 to
1900 the Metropolitan College of Music), New
York, and continued in this capacity when the
institution became the American Institute of Ap-
plied Music in 1900. During his early years in
New York he was also active as an organist —
for four years at Holy Trinity and for nine years
at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. In
1890 he was president of the Music Teachers'
National Association, and from 1893 to 1914
president of the American College of Musicians
of the State of New York.
Parsons' writings touched various subjects.
His most important work on music was The Sci-
ence of Pianoforte Practice (1886). He wrote
a number of songs and piano compositions and
in 1917 published The Virtuoso Handling of the
Pianoforte . . . Exercises in Advanced Technic.
As a student of philosophy he sought to examine
the spiritual significance of Wagner's work in
Parsifal; the Finding of Christ through Art
(1890). He added a supplementary genealogy
to H. M. Hurt's Cornet Joseph Parsons, A. D.
1636-1655 (1901) and published The Garrard-
Spencers of London, England, and Cambridge,
Mass. (1897). Others of his works included The
Road Map of the Stars (1911), Surf Lines
(1912), a volume of verse, and An Evening
Prayer (1917), a poem. He often lectured on
Dante and gave readings of the Italian poet's
writings, and also lectured on the Shakespeare-
Bacon controversy. He designed the symbolic
pyramid mausoleum in Greenwood Cemetery,
Brooklyn. His wife was Alice Eva Van Ness
of New York, whom he married Apr. 23, 1874.
They had five children. His death occurred at
Mount Kisco, N. Y.
[Articles on Parsons may be found in Who's Who in
America, 1928-29, and in the American Supplement to
Grove's Diet, of Music and Musicians (1930). See also
Henry Parsons, Parsons Family (1912), vol. I; tne
N. Y. Herald Tribune and N. Y. Times, June 15, 1933.]
J.T.H.
265
Parsons
PARSONS, FRANK (Nov. 14, i854-Sept. 26,
1908), political scientist, was born at Mount
Holly, N. J., the son of Edward and Alice
(Rhees) Parsons. His ancestry on his father's
side was English and on his mother's, Scotch
and Welsh. After graduating with the degree of
B.C.E. from Cornell University in 1873, he went
to work on a railroad. From 1874 to 1881 he
lived in Southbridge, Mass., where, after the rail-
road became bankrupt, he taught a variety of
subjects in the district schools and in the high
school. Meanwhile he studied law and in 1881
was admitted to the Massachusetts bar. In 1885
he became chief clerk in a Boston law firm. These
were critical years in his career. He discovered
a talent for writing that was not satisfied with
the humdrum task of editing legal textbooks and
a talent for public speaking that needed a larger
audience than the classes he taught in the law
school of Boston University. The social and
economic unrest then agitating the whole coun-
try stirred him profoundly. In 1895 he was
nominated for mayor of Boston on a platform of
municipal reform by the Prohibition, Populist,
and Socialist parties. Two years later he re-
signed his position in the law firm and took leave
of absence from Boston University to accept the
professorship of history and political science at
the State College of Agriculture and Applied
Science at Manhattan, Kan. While in Kansas he
formulated a plan for a college to be devoted
entirely to economic and social studies. At a con-
vention in Buffalo in June 1899 the plan was
launched and funds were obtained to found the
Ruskin College of Social Science at Trenton,
Mo, He was made dean of the lecture extension
department and professor of history and eco-
nomics. The venture seems not to have been suc-
cessful, for shortly afterward he returned east
and resumed his teaching at Boston University.
His western experience focused his attention
on two problems, currency and the railroads. In
October and November 1896 he published articles
on currency in the Arena. These were followed
in 1898 by a book, Rational Money, in which he
advocated abandoning both gold and silver as
standard money and establishing a managed cur-
rency with a commodity dollar of constant pur-
chasing power. The arguments were set forth
wi& remarkable clearness and thorough acquaint-
ance with the scientific literature of the subject
The publisher was Charles Fremont Taylor, a
Philadelphia physician and editor of The Medical
World ^fho had become deeply interested in eco-
nomic and social reform. With Taylor's backing,
-> now plunged into study; of municipal
^ of public utilities, both in the United
Parsons
States and abroad, and published the results in
a substantial volume, The City for the People
(1900). A part of the book was devoted to the
advocacy of direct legislation, since it was his
theory that municipal ownership must be accom-
panied by reform in city government. The Story
of New Zealand (1904) treated comprehensively
the history and economic origins of the country
as a background for the description of its ex-
periments in state socialism. In 1901 he was
sent by the National Civic Federation to Eng-
land as a member of a commission to study mu-
nicipal trading. His observations are recorded in
part in his chapter, "British Tramway History,"
in Municipal and Private Operation of Public
Utilities: Report of the National Civic Federa-
tion Commission on Public Ownership and Op-
eration (1907, vol. II). In 1905 he resigned his
position at Boston University to devote himself
entirely to the study of American railroads. Af-
ter much traveling and interviewing of railway
officials and other interested persons, he pub-
lished The Heart of the Railroad Problem
(1906), which was criticized as lacking discrimi-
nation and constructive suggestions.
He was now suffering from Bright's disease
and, although he had undergone a serious opera-
tion, refused to modify his habits of strenuous
work. He became associated with Meyer Bloom-
field in settlement work in Boston, and with his
intimate friend, Ralph Albertson, he founded the
Bread-winners' College. With the financial aid
of Mrs. Quincy A. Shaw, he established the Vo-
cation Bureau, and as its director he did valuable
pioneer work in the field of vocational guidance.
His posthumous book, Choosing a Vocation
(1909), summarizes his methods. Another post-
humous publication was Legal Doctrine and $o~
cial Progress (1911). He died in the solitary
bachelor quarters in Saint James Street, where
most of his work had been done. A friend, Ed-
win D. Mead, described his career as an "at-
tempt to make the world over . . . into some sort
of reflection ... of the Kingdom of God" (Letter
to the Public, Oct. 16, 1908, p, 683 ) , He brought
to bear on certain political and social problems
to which most of his countrymen were indifferent
a logical mind and a passion for justice, truth,
and fairness, Simple and unassuming in man-
ner he was an inspiring teacher and an effective
public speaker. Although in general lacking in
humor, he proved on occasion a spirited and en-
tertaining companion. Scholars respected him,
and the poor loved him.
^nrl' >N?£*7 X?°8J P*.WfV (Chicago), Oct. 2, 16,
266
Parsons
PARSONS, JOHN EDWARD (Oct. 24,
i829-Jan. 16, 1915), lawyer, was born in New
York City, the son of Edward Lamb and Matilda
(Clark) Parsons. His father was English; his
mother a member of a prominent family of Wal-
lingford, Conn. He received his early education
at a private school at Rye, N. Y., and at the Uni-
versity of the City of New York (now New
York University) , from which he was graduated,
third in his class, in 1848. His ambition on leav-
ing college was to become a banker, but he was
unable to find a suitable position. To employ his
time he read law in the office of James W. Gerard
and James N. Platt and fulfilled the requirements
for the degree of M.A. at New York University.
Shortly after reaching his majority he invested
nearly all of a considerable inheritance in stock
of a Nicaragua canal company, which soon after-
ward became worthless. Realizing that he must
earn his living he obtained admission to the bar
in 1852 and began to practise law. At first he
intended to devote his attention to abstracting
titles and other routine work, but when offered
an appointment as assistant district attorney
about 1854 he accepted it after some hesitation.
In this position, which required that he draw all
the indictments and try nearly all the cases which
arose in the county, he gained experience of great
value in his subsequent career. At the height of
the power of the "Tweed ring" he became one of
the original members of the city bar association,
formed to combat corruption in the courts. He
was of counsel for the association in its proceed-
ings against Justices Barnard, Cardozo, and Mc-
Ginn, and lawyer for the managers of the im-
peachment of Barnard. His activities in this
period established him as a leading member of
the New York bar.
Parsons was an ardent champion of the prin-
ciple of industrial combination. In 1887 he drew
up the trustee agreement which formed the
Sugar Refineries Company, and after a state
court decision had declared the charter of one of
the participating companies forfeited, he origi-
nated the American Sugar Refining Company,
in 1891, which soon controlled ninety-eight per
cent, of the refining of sugar in the United States.
He successfully defended the company in anti-
trust proceedings before the Supreme Court of
the United States ( United States vs. E. C. Knight
Company, 156 U. 6*., i) which held that manufac-
turing is not commerce and hence not within the
scope of federal powers. In 1903 the American
company acquired a controlling interest in the
Pennsylvania Sugar Refining Company. Since
it was not dissimilar to earlier acquisitions up-
held in the Knight case, successive attorneys-
Parsons
general took no action upon it. But in 1909, dur-
ing the excitement which followed the exposure
of frauds in the industry, Parsons and other di-
rectors of the company were indicted by a fed-
eral grand jury for having made the contract of
1903. After three years the case was brought to
trial. It resulted in a disagreement of the jury
and was not retried.
Parsons had an almost unerring memory, keen
intelligence which enabled him to seize at once
upon the essential facts of every case, and the
ability to make almost flawlessly logical presen-
tations of cases in the courtroom; but he was
somewhat lacking in imagination. In his rela-
tions with others he was cold and formal He
was interested in many philanthropic enterprises,
including hospitals, civic reform, and Bible and
tract societies. In some years he is said to have
given more than half his large income to charity.
He was twice married : on Nov. 5, 1856, to Mary
Dumesnil Mcllvaine, who died in 1896, and on
Mar. 12, 1901, to Florence (Field) Bishop. By
his first wife he had five daughters and a son,
Herbert, who became a member of Congress.
EJos. H. Choate, Memorial of John Edward Parsons
(pamphlet, 1916) ; Gen. Alumni Cat. of N. Y. Univ.,
1833-1905, vol. I (1906); Who's Who in America,
1914-15 ; Hearings Held before the Special Committee1
on the Investigation of the Am. Sugar Refining Com-
pany . . . House of Representatives (1911), vols. II and
III ; JV. Y. Herald, July 21-22, 1911 ; Mar. 12-31, 1912;
Jan. 17, 1915 ; N. Y. Times, Jan. 17, 1915.]
PARSONS, LEWIS BALDWIN (Apr. 5,
i8i8-Mar. 16, 1907), lawyer, railroad president,
Union soldier, was descended from Joseph Par-
sons, an emigrant from England, who settled in
Springfield, Mass., in 1636, and later moved to
Northampton. Lewis was born in Perry, Genesee
County, N. Y., the son of Lewis Baldwin and
Lucina (Hoar) Parsons. Christened simply
Lewis, he later assumed the full name of his fa-
ther at the latter's request His early boyhood
was spent in Homer, N. Y. At the age of ten, he
moved with his family to St Lawrence County,
N. Y. He attended local schools, at sixteen be-
gan to teach country school, and two years later
entered Yale College. After his graduation in
1840, he took charge of a classical school in
Noxubee County, Miss., remaining some two
years, then returned to the North and began the
study of law in Cambridge, Mass. Receiving the
degree of LL.B. from the Harvard Law School
in 1844, he went West and began to practise at
Alton, 111., first in partnership with Newton D.
Strong and then with Henry W. Billings. From
1846 to 1849 he was city attorney of Alton, On
Sept 21, 1847, in St Louis, Mo., he martied
Sarah Green Edwards, a niece of Ninian Ed-
267
Parsons
wards [<^.], former governor of Illinois. She
died May 28, 1850, leaving two children, both of
whom died before their father. On July 5, 1852,
Parsons married her younger sister, Julia Maria
Edwards, who died June 9, i857- There were
two children by this marriage, both of whom sur-
vived their parents.
Moving to St. Louis in 1854, Parsons was per-
suaded by clients who had acquired a controlling
interest in the Ohio & Mississippi Railroad to
devote himself to its affairs. After a temporary
sojourn in Cincinnati, first as attorney and finan-
cial agent and subsequently as treasurer, direc-
tor, and president, he returned to St. Louis and
in 1860 retired from active connection with the
railroad. In May 1861 he served as volunteer
aid to Francis Preston Blair [q.v.] at the capture
of Camp Jackson. Recognizing the inevitability
of war, he wrote to his personal friend, General
McClellan, and offered his services. He went to
Washington, was commissioned captain and as-
signed to duty in the quartermaster's department.
Despite his ardent desire to join the fighting
forces in the field, he was kept throughout the
war in non-combatant positions in which because
of his previous experience he was able to render
exceptional service. He was ordered back to St.
Louis and in December 1861 was given charge
of all transportation by river and rail pertaining
to the Department of the Mississippi, including
a territory which extended from the Yellowstone
to Pittsburgh and New Orleans. For the first
time in history, railroad transportation was a
major factor in the prosecution of a great war.
Parsons brought a semblance of order out of the
existing chaos, drafting a set of regulations for
rail transportation that became the basis of the
general rules for army transportation adopted
later, then turned his attention to systematizing
river transportation. Promoted colonel of vol-
unteers in February 1862, he was assigned as
aide to General Halleck in April, and continued
in charge of transportation in the Department
until August 1864, when he was ordered to
Washington and given charge of all rail and
river transportation of the armies of the United
States. In 1865, he was promoted to brigadier-
general. One of his most striking achievements
as chief of transportation of the armies was the
Bloving of General Schofield's army and all its
equipment from Mississippi to the Potomac
within a period of seventeen days.
After Lee's stirrender, Parsons was retained
in charge of the transportation of discharged
soldiers. He was made a brevet major-general
and mustered out on Apr. 50, 1866. He spent
two years abroad in an effort to regain his health,
Parsons
broken down by overwork, then returned to St.
Louis in 1869, and on Dec. 28 of that year mar-
ried Elizabeth Darrah of New York City, who
died in 1887, without issue. In 1875, Parsons
settled on a farm in Flora, 111., which was his
home for the rest of his life. He served as direc-
tor of several railroads and other corporations
and for a time was president of a St. Louis bank.
In 1880 he was candidate for lieutenant-governor
of Illinois on the unsuccessful Democratic ticket.
He was active in the affairs of the Presbyterian
Church and a trustee and patron of Parsons Col-
lege, Fairfield, Iowa, the establishment of which
had been made possible by a bequest of $37,000
from his father. In 1900 he published Genealogy
of the Family of Lewis B. Parsons (Second) ;
Parsons-Hoar. He died in Flora, 111., and was
buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery, St. Louis.
Un Memoriam General Lewis Baldwin Parsons (pri-
vately printed, 1908) ; H, M. Burt and A. R. Parsons,
Cornet Joseph Parsons (1901) ; Henry Parsons, Par-
sons Family (1912), vol. I; War Dept records; War
of the Rebellion : Official Records (Army} ; F. B. Heit-
man, Hist. Reg. and Diet. U. S. Army (1903), vol. I;
OUt. Record Grads, Yale Univ., 1907; Who's Who1 in
America, 1906-07 ; St. Louis Globe'-Democrat, Mar. 17,
1907.] K. C. C— n.
PARSONS, LEWIS ELIPHALET (Apr.
28, 1817- June 8, 1895), provisional governor of
Alabama, was born at Lisle, N. Y., the eldest son
of Erastus Bellamy and Jennett (Hepburn) Par-
sons. His father was a farmer and was asso-
ciated with Gov. DeWitt Clinton in the agitation
for the building of the Erie Canal. The boy was
educated in the public schools of New York and
read law in that state and in Pennsylvania. About
1840 he removed to Alabama and settled in Tal~
ladega, where he formed a law partnership with
Alexander White. On Sept 16, 1841, he was
married to Jane Ann Boyd McCullough Chris-
man, who bore him seven children. He was
earnest in the practice of his profession and was
a methodical, hard-working, but never a brilliant
lawyer. The guiding principle of his life during
the stormy decade before the Civil War was his
ardent belief in the Union. He was much criti-
cized for his political wavering through the peri-
od, but every political act seems to have been
determined by his hope that some way could be
found to preserve the Union. In 1856 he voted
for Fillmore. In 1859 he was elected on the
American ticket to represent Talladega County
in the state legislature, where he attracted atten-
tion by his efforts to obtain state aid for internal
improvements. In 1860 he was a delegate to the
Democratic convention and supported Douglas
at Baltimore because he believed that the elec-
tion of Douglas was the only way to save the
country.
268
Parsons
While outwardly he submitted to the will of
the majority he never gave undivided allegiance
to the Confederacy. He was reputed to be the
head of the Peace Society during the war, al-
though he had two sons in the Confederate
Army. In spite of his Union views he seems to
have kept the respect of his neighbors and, when
President Johnson appointed him provisional
governor of Alabama on June 21, 1865, the ap-
pointment was generally approved in the state.
He was in hearty sympathy with the president's
program of conciliation and made every effort to
carry it into effect. He recognized all local and
judicial officials who had been in office during
the Confederacy and permitted them to perform
the duties of their offices if they took the oath of
allegiance required by the president. He used
his influence in Washington to obtain pardons
for those who were exempted from the general
amnesty. In spite of the interference of the
Freedmen's Bureau and the army officers in the
state he was able to reorganize the civil govern-
ment Under his supervision a new constitution
was framed and on Dec. 20, 1865, he retired from
office and handed the government over to a suc-
cessor chosen by the people. He was elected to
the United States Senate in 1865 without oppo-
sition but was denied his seat by the Republican
majority. He supported Johnson in his fight
against Congress and was a delegate to the Na-
tional Union convention in Philadelphia in 1866.
In his own state he was the leader of the move-
ment that resulted in the rejection of the Four-
teenth Amendment and was said to have origi-
nated "the white man's movement" against the
ratification of the constitution of 1867. The con-
stitution failed of adoption by 13,550 votes but
was put into effect by an act of Congress. He
adapted himself to the situation, and in the ses-
sion of the Alabama legislature of 1872-73 he
was the speaker of the Republican House. That
act was political suicide, and he never again held
office in the state. He practised his profession
in Talladega until his death in 1895.
[T. M. Owen, Hist, of Ala. and Diet, of Ala. Biag.
(1921), vol. IV ; Win. Garrett, Reminiscences of Public
Men in Ala. (1872) ; Willis Brewer, Alabama (1872) ;
W. L. Fleming, Civil War and Reconstruction (1905).]
H.F.
PARSONS, SAMUEL BOWNE (Feb. 14,
1819- Jan. 4, 1906), horticulturist, nurseryman,
and landscape gardener, son of Samuel and Mary
(Bowne) Parsons, was born at Flushing, Long
Island, in a house which had been the home of
his family for 150 years. He was educated in a
private school and began his career as a clerk in
New York City. In 1839 he became infected
Parsons
with the mulberry craze and set out 25,000 mul-
berry buds. That same year, in partnership with
his brother Robert, he established on the ances-
tral farm in Flushing the nurseries of Parsons &
Company. In 1840 he traveled extensively in
the West Indies and in 1845 made a voyage to
Europe to study the horticulture of the Old
World. The following year he added to his ex-
periences by exploring Florida, at a time when
most of the state was still a wilderness. En-
couraged by what he saw, he bought 160 acres of
land near Palatka for $160 and began a citrus
plantation and nursery. In 1859, the United
States government commissioned him to investi-
gate the horticulture and agriculture of Sicily
and the Ionian Islands. The most important con-
sequence of this trip was his importation in 1860
of ten colonies of Italian honey bees, the first to
arrive safely and live throughout the winter in
the United States. These were turned over to
the Rev. L. L. Langstroth [g.'Z'.], the noted bee
authority, and to the apiary of W. W. Cary &
Sons at Colerain, Mass., where the sale of Italian
queens began in 1861 ( Gleanings in Bee Culture,
Jan. 15, 1907, p. 106; E. F. Phillips, Beekeeping,
1928, pp. 210-13). On Mar. 20, 1862, the nursery
firm of Parsons & Company bought from Dr.
George R. Hall of Bristol, R. L, a collection he
had made representing most of the interesting
trees and plants found in Japan, including the
first Japanese maples ever brought into the
United States. Parsons & Company announced :
"A collection so rich and so varied [has] never
been obtained from any country, even by the best
English collectors" (Horticulturist, April 1862).
Japanese maples remained one of the Parsons
specialties, together with the Asiatic rhododen-
drons, which they were the first to propagate. In
1870, Samuel Parsons imported the first Valencia
oranges from Thomas Rivers, an English nur-
seryman. These were sent to his Florida nursery,
after a few years in his Flushing greenhouses,
and were introduced in the early 1870*5, especial-
ly by Edmund Hall Hart [q.v."] of Florida, In
1871, Samuel succeeded to the whole nursery
business of Parsons & Company, which was
continued as the Kissena Nurseries until within
a short time of his death.
Not only was Parsons prominent as an horti-
culturist, landscape gardener, and nurseryman,
but also as a participant in civic activities in
Flushing. He was identified with the Flushing
school system for twenty-five years and with
library work. "In religion, he was a Quaker
and in the troublous times previous to the Civil
War, he was a staunch abolitionist and took an
active part in assisting slaves to liberty" (JVo~
269
Parsons
tiond Nurseryman, Feb. 1906, p. 49). He was
a charter member of the American Pomological
Society and a member of the Massachusetts Hor-
ticultural Society from 1856. He was well known
as a writer of essays and as a speaker on land-
scape gardening and horticulture and was offered
but declined the editorship of The Horticulturist,
which had been left vacant by the death of A. J.
Downing [q.vJ\ in 1852. His book, The Rose:
Its History, Poetry, Culture, and Classification
(1847 afld subsequent editions), is one of the
classics of horticulture. In 1869 a new abridged
edition appeared, under the title of Parsons on
the Rose, with much of the poetry and sentiment
cut out at the editor's advice. A number of
editions of the abridgment were issued, one ap-
pearing as late as 1912. Parsons married Susan
R. Howland, Nov. 3, 1842, and four children
were born to them, one of whom, Samuel B., Jr.,
became a well-known landscape gardener, at one
time superintendent of parks in New York City.
The mother died in 1855, and in 1862 Parsons
married Mrs. Clara E. Weyman, by whom he
had one child.
[L. H. Bailey, Cyc. of Am. Agric. (1909), vol. IV and
The Standard Cyc. of Horticulture (1915), vol. Ill;
Portrait and Biog. Record of Queens County, N. Y.
(1896); Gardeners' Monthly and Horticulturist, Dec.
1887; Gardening, Jan. 15, 1906; N. Y. Tribune, Jan.
5, 1906; Florists' Exchange, Sept. i, 1900, Jan 13
1906, Jan. 27, 1906 ; W. M. Emery, The Rowland Heirs
(1919) ; Trans. Mass. Hort. Soc.f 1906, pt. II (1907).]
R.H.S.
PARSONS, SAMUEL HOLDEN (May 14,
1737-Nov. 17, 1789), Revolutionary patriot and
soldier, was born in Lyme, Conn. His father,
Jonathan Parsons, was a strong-minded and able
preacher, a follower and close friend of White-
field. His mother, Phebe (Griswold) Parsons,
was related to the influential Griswold and Wol-
cott families. When the theology of Whitefield
proved unpopular with the Lyme congregation,
the family moved in 1746 to Newburyport, Mass.
Ten years later, however, Samuel, a Harvard
graduate of 1756, returned to Lyme to study law
under his uncle, Matthew Griswold [g.z/] In
1759 he received his master's degree from Har-
vard, was admitted to the bar, and settled in
Lyme to practise. There, in September 1761, he
mmedMehetable Mather. Eight children were
born to ibem, one of whom died young
men only twenty-five Parsons was elected to
the Coroecticiit General Assembly, where he
served tmtfl 1774. la that year he moved to New
i-ofcdon, Ttaoqgfc af>ility a* well as inHuence
he was more than opce cfcseu far Important of-
fices and, when the RevoMofi impended was
active in the
Parsons
spondence. He was among the first to favor in-
dependence and one of the earliest to suggest a
colonial congress (Parsons to Samuel Adams,
Mar. 3, 1773, Hall, post, pp. 20-21). Meanwhile
he had enlisted in the militia and on May i, 1775,
he became colonel of the 6th Connecticut Regi-
ment. Before joining the troops at Boston, he
shared in the taking of Fort Ticonderoga. Acting
on information from Benedict Arnold, he pro-
moted the northern expedition in Connecticut
and with some friends raised funds for sending
Ethan Allen and his men. After the siege of
Boston he was transferred to New York and on
Aug. 9, 1776, was commissioned brigadier-gen-
eral in the Continental Army. At the battle of
Long Island he tasted real fighting and barely
escaped capture, but for the remainder of the war
skirmishes and foraging expeditions were his
lot Stationed almost continuously on the Hud-
son River or on the Connecticut shore, with little
opportunity for brilliance, he was nevertheless
an intelligent and conscientious officer. Wash-
ington depended upon him for the defense of
Connecticut and the arduous work of raising men,
procuring supplies, and maintaining the morale
of his troops. Because of his position on the
Connecticut shore, he also had charge of an im-
portant part of the secret service. In December
1779, when General Putnam was incapacitated,
Parsons became commander of the Connecticut
division, having been the virtual head for over
a year. Not until Oct. 23, 1780, however, did
an "ungrateful" Congress commission him ma-
jor-general, a rank suiting his command.
Parsons' chagrin over the failure of Congress
to recognize his services only added to a discon-
tent that had been growing since the early years
of the Revolution. On quitting his practice to
enter the army he had invested his small fortune
in government securities the value of which had
rapidly decreased. With protraction of the war
and depreciation of the currency, he became
alarmed concerning his large family and as early
as December 1777 considered returning to civil
life. As his fears were increased by a steady de-
cline in his health, he frequently applied for leave
to resign. He was outspoken in his discontent
and did not conceal his intolerance of Congres-
sional inefficiency. Although Parsons' feelings
were no different from those entertained by prac-
tically every other Continental officer, William
Heron [q.v.'] made the most of them at British
headquarters when he offered to "bring Parsons
«7er*i» Heron> who fotm<3 it advantageous to be
loyal to both sides, was one of Parsons' spies,
but there is no evidence to show that Parsons
knew anything of his more intricate and lucra-
Parsons
tive dealings with the enemy. Moreover, despite
his dissatisfaction, Parsons* zeal in serving the
Revolutionary cause did not slacken, and Con-
gress showed itself not wholly unappreciative
of his services by refusing to accept his resigna-
tion until hostilities were over (July 22, 1782).
After the war Parsons settled in Middletown,
whence he was sent to the legislature more than
once. His later years are chiefly notable, how-
ever, for his share in the development of the
Northwest Territory. He had early seen the ad-
vantage of receiving land in exchange for his
government pay-certificates. With this in mind
he used his influence to secure an appointment
that would give him an opportunity to examine
government lands to the westward, and on Sept.
22, 1785, Congress named him a commissioner
to extinguish Indian claims to the territory
northwest of the Ohio. When the Ohio Company
was formed to secure lands for the Revolutionary
soldiers in exchange for their certificates, Par-
sons was one of the promoters and on Mar. 8,
1787, was chosen one of three directors. In Oc-
tober of that year he became first judge of the
Northwest Territory and the following April left
for Adelphia, now Marietta, Ohio. So eager was
he to provide for his children that at the age of
fifty-one he began the life of a frontiersman, never
expecting to return to the East and doubtful
whether he would see his family again. Doubts
which have been raised as to his honesty when
in the Ohio Company, although not substantiated,
leave a faint suspicion that he may have been too
eager for profits.
Returning from a trip to Connecticut's West-
ern Reserve where he also had an interest, Par-
sons was drowned when his canoe overturned in
the rapids of Big Beaver River. He died too
soon to realize the fortune he had anticipated
from his lands and left his wife and seven chil-
dren in needy circumstances.
[MSS. in Wm. L. Clements Library and Conn. State
Library ; C. S. Hall, Life and Letters of Samuel Holden
Parsons (1905); G. B. Loring1, A Vindication of Gen.
Samuel Holden Parsons (1888), reprinted with revi-
sions from Mag. of Am. Hist., Oct. 1888; Jonathan
Trunibull and J. G. Woodward, Vindications of Patriots
of the Am. Rev. (1896), containing address of vindi-
cation by J. G. Woodward to Conn. Hist. Soc., May 5,
1896; S. P. Hildreth, Biog. and Hist. Memoirs of the
Early Pioneer Settlers of Ohio (1852), containing let-
ters and sketch by Parsons' grandson, S. H. Parsons j
Justin Winsor, The Westward Movement (1897) ; Am.
Hist. Rev.f July 1904, p. 766 ; Douglas Brymner, Report
on Canadian Archives, 1800 (1891), p. 100 ; W. P. and
J. P. Cutler, Life, Journals and Correspondence of Rev.
Manasseh Cutler (2 vols., 1888), esp. I, 196-97.]
J.C.
PARSONS, THEOPHILUS (Feb. 24, 1750-
Oct 30, 1813), jurist, was born in Byfield,
Mass., the son of Moses Parsons> the parish min-
Parsons
ister, and Susan (Davis) Parsons, and a de-
scendant of Jeffrey Parsons who settled in
Gloucester, Mass., in 1654. At Dummer Acad-
emy he was always playing harder or studying
harder than any other boy, and at Harvard he
continued an insatiable student. After gradu-
ating in 1769 he taught school at Falmouth (now
Portland), Me., reading law meanwhile with
Theophilus Bradbury. He began practice in
July 1774, but in October 1775 the destruction
of Falmouth by British warships sent him home
to Byfield disheartened. What seemed a calam-
ity proved the beginning of his professional suc-
cess, for in his father's house he found Judge Ed-
mund Trowbridge \_q.vJ], a learned lawyer who
had prudently retired there from Cambridge be-
cause of his Loyalist sympathies. Trowbridge
sent for his whole law library, then much the
largest in New England. Thus Parsons ac-
quired an exhaustive knowledge of important
English reports and treatises which were inac-
cessible to most colonial lawyers. His assiduous
studies brought on consumption, but he regained
his health by a long horseback trip and began
practice afresh In Newburyport
While others were fighting for independence,
he was considering what sort of permanent gov-
ernment should follow victory. At the age of
twenty-seven he became the dominant member
of the Essex County convention opposed to the
proposed Massachusetts constitution of 1778
and wrote the convention report, called The Es-
sex Result, a pamphlet which not only exposed
the weakness of the executive under the abor-
tive constitution, but also outlined the main
principles for a republican government which
were later adopted by the Federalists. As Par-
sons was influenced by the writings of John
Adams, so his plan was in turn largely followed
by Adams in drafting the Massachusetts consti-
tution of 1780. At the Cambridge convention of
1779 which formulated this constitution, Par-
sons was equally prominent. He and his asso-
ciates, called by Hancock the Essex Junto, in-
sisted upon strong powers for the governor, a
property basis for the Senate, and the virtual
establishment of Congregationalism as a state
religion. In 1788 Parsons was a delegate to the
state convention which ratified the federal Con-
stitution. Although a majority was at first op-
posed to ratification, sufficient votes were won
over by a conciliatory address of the chairman,
Hancock, which Parsons wrote, recommending
as a condition of ratification several constitu-
tional amendments, some of which were adopted
in the federal bill of rights of 1791. Except for
a brief service in the legislature ( 1787-91, 1805),
271
Parsons
he held no further political office, published
nothing on politics under his own name, and
never spoke in public unless required to do so
by official duties.
His law practice soon became large, extend-
ing to all the New England states and occasion-
ally to New York and the United States Su-
preme Court In 1800 he left Newburyport for
Boston. In learning and intellect he easily led
the bar of his time. He knew all the law and the
facts about any case he undertook, particularly
the technical details of any trade or business
involved. And despite his scholarly attributes,
he was very successful before a jury. His law
office was crowded with pupils until the jealousy
of -other lawyers was aroused and a rule was es-
tablished limiting a lawyer's pupils to three. The
volume of precedents, of pleadings and other
forms, afterward published by Story and other
writers, were largely compiled from forms pre-
pared or adopted by Parsons and copied by his
students.
In 1806 Parsons was appointed by Governor
Strong to succeed Francis Dana as chief justice
of the supreme judicial court of Massachusetts.
Parsons was then at the head of his profession in
the opinion of all lawyers, and the existing judges
wished to have a strongman to clear the dockets,
then three years behind. Parsons accepted the
office at great pecuniary sacrifice. He imme-
diately insisted upon speedy trials, allowing no
delays except for genuine reasons. He required
lawyers to state their points before beginning
and permitted no argument on points which he
thought untenable or which were not based on
evidence. Thus the dockets were rapidly cleared.
But his most important judicial service lay in
forming the law of the new Commonwealth of
Massachusetts, and indirectly that of other states.
In ^1806 there were almost no American reports
of judicial decisions, and few copies of the Eng-
lish reports were available to American lawyers.
Parsons found the law administered by the Mas-
sachusetts courts in a chaotic condition and took
the opportunity afforded by each case not only
to decide that case but to establish rules of gen-
eral application. These rules he drew from three
sources. The first was the English law, which
he had absorbed early in his career. Secondly, he
combined the English doctrines with his profound
knowledge of the unwritten colonial law, for he
believed in establishing a system of law in Mas-
sachusetts founded upon the institutions and
usages of the state, Finally, he shaped the older
English and colonial law to meet the new prob-
lems presented by rapidly growing commerce
His decisions were particularly useful in the field
272
Parsons
of shipping and insurance, where he had the
good sense to follow Lord Mansfield's example
in learning from merchants what were their
usages and establishing the principles embodied
in those usages as rules of law. Thus although
his opinions lack a philosophical insight or far-
reaching analysis of legal principles which would
make them interesting to lawyers of a later gen-
eration, their learning and sure-footedness gave
them great value for his own time. During this
critical period when the hostility to British in-
stitutions might have led to a rejection of the
English common law, probably no man except
Story did more than Parsons to carry on the
common law and restate it in intelligible form
to suit American needs.
Outside working hours, Parsons put the law
completely aside and turned to other activities.
From boyhood he dipped into mathematics and
astronomy. The only composition he ever pub-
lished under his own name was an "Astronomi-
cal Problem" (Memoirs of the American Acad-
emy of Arts and Sciences t vol. II, pt. 2, 1793, pp.
12-20) . His surviving mathematical papers show
much interest in the subject, and his improved
method of lunar observations was adopted in
Nathaniel Bowditch's New American Practical
Navigator (1802). He possessed extensive
chemical, electrical, and optical equipment, and
frightened his servants by his experiments. At
thirty he began a lifelong devotion to Greek,
reading it for relaxation and insisting that it
should be taught before Latin. He wrote a Greek
grammar, unpublished only because a similar
work was reprinted from England. He was a
principal founder of the Boston Athenaeum and
the Social Law Library. Chosen a fellow of
Harvard College in 1806, he was influential in
securing the appointment of John Thornton
Kirkland, his pastor, as president, and shaped
the legislation altering the board of overseers. A
political opponent on the faculty wrote : "Our
college ... is under the absolute direction of the
Essex Junto, at the head of which stands Chief
Justice Parsons, ... a man as cunning as Lucifer
and about half as good. This man is at the head
of the Corporation. ... He is not only the soul
of that body, but ... the evil councellor, the
Ahithophel of the high federal party" (S. E.
Morison, "The Great Rebellion in Harvard Col-
lege," Publications of the Colonial Society of
Massachusetts, vol. XXVII, 1932, p. 59).
^ Whenever he was thrown by business or ac-
cident into the company of any person with spe-
cial information, Parsons never rested until he
had learned all that he could. Blacksmiths, car-
penters, and painters, not knowing who he was,
Parsons
were convinced by his conversation that he had
learned their trades. He kept a large stock of
carpenters' tools near his office, making- furni-
ture and toys for his children. He was devoted
to his family and never remained a day from
home if he could avoid it. Although he rarely
dined out, he delighted in entertaining in his own
home and built a dining room holding thirty
persons, which was often filled to the limit. A
large proportion of his guests were usually young
men. In appearance he was tall and of a large
build, with penetrating eyes. Becoming bald
about thirty, he afterward wore a wig which was
usually in disorder, and his complete inattention
to his dress gave rise to many anecdotes. His
wife usually traveled with him on circuit, saying
that otherwise he would not be dressed fit to be
seen. After a year of failing health, he died in
Boston after a short final illness in 1813. His
last words were: "Gentlemen of the jury, the
case is closed and in your hands. You will please
retire and agree upon your verdict." Parsons
had married, on Jan. 13, 1780, Elizabeth Green-
leaf, a descendant of Charles Chauncy [g.^.].
They had twelve children, one of whom was
Theophilus [q.v.~\.
[The main source is Memoir of Theophilus Parsons
(1859), by his son, Theophilus Parsons. It contains
the portrait of Parsons hy Gilbert Stuart, and reprints
of The Essex Remit, two mathematical papers, the
obituary address of Chief Justice Isaac Parker (also
in 10 Mass. Reports, 521), and the obituary notice from
New-England Palladium (Boston), Nov. 2, 1813 (also
reprinted in Boston Gazette, Nov. 4, 1813, and Boston
Columbian Centinel, Nov. 6, 1813). Other sources in-
clude : F. G. Cook, "Theophilus Parsons," in Great Am.
Lawyers, vol. II (1907), ed. by W. D. Lewis; S. E.
Morison, The Life and Letters of Harrison Gray Otis,
Federalist, 1765-1848 (2 vols., 1913), A Hist, of the
Constitution of Mass. (1917), and "The Struggle over
the Adoption of the Constitution of Mass., 1780," Proc.
Mass. Hist. Soc., vol. L (1917) ; A. L. Morse, The Fed-
eralist Party in MOLSS, to the Year 1800 (1909) ; S. B.
Harding, The Contest over the Ratification of the Fed-
eral Constitution in the State of Mass. (1896). The
opinions of Parsons appear in 2-10 Mass. Reports; the
most important were reprinted in his Commentaries on
Am. Law (1836).] Z.CJr.
PARSONS, THEOPHILUS (May 17, 1797-
Jan. 26, 1882), professor in the Harvard Law
School, was born in Newtmryport, Mass., whence
at the age of three he moved with his family to
Boston. He was the son of Theophilus Parsons
[#.#.] and Elizabeth Greenleaf. Entering Har-
vard College in 1811, he graduated four years
later and then read law in the office of William
Prescott, father of the historian and friend of
the Parsons family. On account of ill health he
made a trip to Europe in 1817, where he lived
for some months in the family of William Pink-
ney, then minister to Russia. On his return to
Massachusetts he took up the practice of law,
Parsons
from 1822 to 1827 in Taunton, thereafter in Bos-
ton. During his earlier years he was also an
active journalist, as editor of the United States
Literary Gazette and joint editor of the Taunton
Free Press and of the New-England Galaxy.
During the Jacksonian period he was apprehen-
sive that numbers would rise against property
and warned that "the body politic [must be in-
vigorated] with the principle that right is not
their creation, and depends not on their will, but
on His will who made them free" (An Address,
Delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of
Harvard University, 1835, P« 22)-
In July 1848 Parsons was appointed a profes-
sor in the Harvard Law School, At the bar he
had built up a large practice, especially in ad-
miralty, patent, and insurance law. During his
first year as a teacher he had to lecture on con-
tracts and real property, with which he was less
familiar. After a short period of adjustment he
became the most interesting of the memorable
triumvirate which included Professors Joel Par-
ker and Emory Washburn. His pleasing diction,
a fund of anecdote, and his social grace made
his instruction entertaining if not profound. In
addition to their lectures and Socratic discus-
sions the professors on occasion addressed the
entire school on subjects of legal and political
interest. Parsons' oft-repeated anecdotes at these
times became traditional. After going to the law
school he became one of the most prolific of
legal writers. His work on contracts ran through
nine editions. The treatise derived much of its
merit from the careful notes prepared by Chris-
topher Columbus Langdell, then an impecunious
student whose fees were remitted in exchange
for this assistance.
To Parsons, who believed that the work of the
constitutional fathers was "near to the perfec-
tion of republican government," secession came
as a severe shock. Throughout the war he was
an ardent supporter of the President's military
authority : "In my judgment, [the] Constitution
has not yet been violated, in any way or to any
extent, greater or less. . . . But, if [the] choice
must be made [between sacrificing nationality
or sacrificing the Constitution], I should still say,
our nationality must not be lost, and rebellion
must not prevail. ... I can discern no limits to
a nation's right of self-salvation" (Slavery, pp.
21-23). Parsons had a son in the army and a
daughter who rendered outstanding service as
an army nurse. In the Reconstruction period
he took the position, notably in presiding at a
mass meeting in Faneuil Hall, that "as we are
victorious in war, we have a right to impose
upon the defeated party any terms necessary for
273
Parsons
our security" (Boston Morning Journal, June
22, 1865, p. 4). This included negro suffrage;
and until this innovation was established he be-
lieved that the Southern states should be held in
military occupation.
The year 1869 saw a sweeping change at the
law school. There was a growing feeling, shared
by the new president, Eliot, that the method of
instruction, stabilized for the past twenty years,
should be invigorated. Parsons felt it was time
to retire. He was succeeded by Langdell, who
promptly introduced the case method of instruc-
tion. In private life Parsons was a man of warm
friendship and lively conversation. In 1823 he
espoused the Swedenborgian faith and was deep-
ly concerned with the study and exposition of its
philosophy. He took an interest in natural his-
tory and in reconciling a view of the origin of
species with his religious creed. After his retire-
ment he continued to live in Cambridge where
he occupied himself with the revision of his vari-
ous textbooks and in writing religious essays.
He enjoyed the society of his friends, the philo-
sophical discourse of the Magazine Club, and his
speculations of the nature of the heavenly king-
dom. He had married in 1823 Catherine Amory
Chandler, by whom he had three sons and four
daughters. His legal works include: The Law
of Contracts (2 vols., 1853-55) J The Elements
of Mercantile Law (1856, 1862) ; The Laws of
Business (1857) ; A Treatise on Maritime Law
(2 vols., 1859); The Constitution (1861) ; A
Treatise on the Law of Promissory Notes and
Bills of Exchange (2 vols., 1863, 1876) ; A Trea-
tise on the Law of Partnership (1867 and later
editions) ; A Treatise on the Law of Marine In-
surance and General Average (2 vols., 1868) ;
A Treatise on the Law of Shipping (2 vols.,
1869) ; The Political, Personal, and Property
Rights of a Citizen (1874). He also prepared
a Memoir of Theophilus Parsons ( 1859) , an Ad-
dress Commemorative of Rufus Choate (1859),
and memoirs of Charles Folsom and Charles
Greely Loring for the Massachusetts Historical
Society. His miscellaneous writings include:
three series of Essays (1845, 1856, 1862), The
Law of Conscience (1853) ; Slavery (1863) J
Deus Homo (1867) ; The Infinite and the Finite
( 1872) ; and Outlines of the Religion and Philos-
ophy of Swedenborg (1875).
. of the Harvard Law School
Jennial Hist, of the Harvard
"Yr Ay*0<A * mcui0nals of Parsons in the New
*~«j**^i&T!S££j£%'i*!
; *
C F
PARSONS, THOMAS WILLIAM (Aug.
18, iSip-Sept 3, 1892), dentist, poet, translator
Parsons
of Dante, was born in Boston, the son of Thomas
William and Asenath (Read) Parsons, His fa-
ther, a native of Bristol, England, received the
degree of M.D. from Harvard in 1818 and prac-
tised medicine and dentistry in Boston. The son
attended the Boston Public Latin School for six
years, but did not graduate. In 1836 he made
his first trip to Italy and other European coun-
tries, and upon returning to Boston in 1837, en-
tered the Harvard Medical School. Although he
received no medical degree, he practised dentis-
try intermittently in Boston and afterwards in
London, and was commonly called Dr. Parsons.
In 1857 he married Anna (or Hannah) M. Allen
(1821-1881) of Boston. The last twenty years
of his life were devoted to literary pursuits, chief-
ly in Boston, Scituate, and Wayland. After a
period of failing health, he died while visiting
his younger sister in Scituate; his body was
found in a well into which he had fallen while
suffering, apparently, from a stroke of apoplexy.
He was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery,
Cambridge.
By nature reserved, sensitive, and deeply re-
ligious, Parsons felt himself out of sympathy
with the times, and he seldom appeared in gen-
eral society. T. B. Aldrich (post, p. 323) said
of him : "He carried his solitude with him into
the street." His original poetry is frequently
contemplative in tone, dwelling on religion and
death, and at times rising to ecstatic fervor, but
at other times he could be humorous, personal,
and playful. He wrote verses on the death of
prominent men and for public occasions such
as the opening of the Boston Theatre in 1854,
the opening of the Players' Club in New York in
1888. His style was influenced by his study of
Dante, an absorbing pursuit with him for more
than fifty years. He shared with Dante a horror
of slovenly work, and devoted infinite care to
perfecting his verses, often rewriting them after
they had appeared in print. Nevertheless, he
seemed indifferent to the ultimate fate of his
poems, which usually appeared in newspapers or
magazines, or in small, privately printed vol-
umes.
During his first stay in Italy Parsons started
to commit the Divina Commedia to memory and
to translate it into English. In 1841 he pub-
lished in the Boston Daily Advertiser and Patriot
(Oct. 7) the most frequently quoted of his orig-
inal poems, "On a Bust of Dante," called by
Stedman (post, p. 55) "the peer of any modern
lyric in our tongue." In revised form these verses
appeared in a little volume which Parsons print-
ed anonymously in Boston in 1843 : The First
Ten Cantos of the Inferno of Dante Alighieri:
274
Parsons
Newly Translated into English Verse. This was
the earliest published American translation of
any considerable portion of Dante. In 1865
seventeen translated cantos were privately print-
ed by Parsons, and the entire Inferno, with
Dore's illustrations, was published in Boston in
1867, the year in which Longfellow's version of
the entire Divine Comedy appeared. Parsons
published about two-thirds of the Purgatorio be-
tween 1870 and 1883 in the Catholic World. In
1893, after his death, the whole Inferno, all that
could be found of the Purgatorio, and fragments
of the Paradiso were issued in one volume. The
translation aims to reproduce the spirit rather
than the letter of the original ; being in rhymed
quatrains which correspond to Dante's tercets,
the wording is necessarily sometimes extended,
yet on the whole the meaning is reproduced with
remarkable fidelity. Among rhymed English ren-
derings of Dante's poem, that of Parsons, in-
complete though it is, takes high rank for its
nobility of style and its verbal felicity. Only his
own fastidiousness and desire for perfection pre-
vented him from completing it. Much of Par-
sons' original verse was inspired by the pictur-
esqueness of the Italian scene ; but he had by nature
something of Dante's detachment from the world
and dwelt, as Louise Imogen Guiney said of
him, "in a joyous cloister of the imagination."
Among his most finished lyrics are particularly
those of religious feeling, like "Paradisi Gloria/'
which has been called "one of the few faultless
lyrics in the language" (Hovey, post). Parsons
was taken by Longfellow as the model for "the
Poet" in his "Tales of a Wayside Inn" ; he has
been compared to the English writers Gray, Col-
lins, and Landor, and has been called "a poet for
poets" (Stedman, post).
The poetry of Parsons was collected in two
volumes in 1893 : The Divine Comedy of Dante
Alighieri, with a preface by Charles Eliot Nor-
ton and a memorial sketch by Louise Imogen
Guiney (cf. Atlantic Monthly, June 1894) ; and
Poems, containing most of his original verse.
Smaller volumes of verse had appeared during
his lifetime, including: Ghetto di Rowt (1854) ;
Poems (1854) J The Magnolia (1866) ; The Old
House at Sudbury (1870) ; The Shadow of the
Obelisk (London, 1872) ; The Willey House, and
Sonnets (1875).
[Sources include Critic, Sept. 10, 17, 1892; Boston
Transcript, Sept. 6, 1892 ; Richard Hovey, Seaward: an
Elegy on the Death of Thomas William Parsons (1893),
which includes a paper reprinted from the Atlantic
Monthly, Feb. 1893 ; T. B. Aldrich, "A Portrait of
Thomas William Parsons," Century Magazine, July
1894; Maria S. Porter, "Thomas William Parsons;
with Unpublished Poems by Dr. Parsons, and Letters
by Dr. Holmes," Ibid., Oct. 1901 ; R. W. Griswold, The
Parsons
Poets and Poetry of America (1874) ; E. C. Stedman,
Poets of America (1885); T. W. Koch, "Dante in
America," Fifteenth Ann. Report of the Dante Soc.
(1896). The name of Parsons' wife appears in the
vital records of Boston and Cambridge both as Hannah
and as Anna ; the latter name is used on her tombstone
in Mount Auburn Cemetery.]
PARSONS, USHER (Aug. 18, i788~Dec. 19,
1868), physician and surgeon, was born in Al-
fred, Me., the youngest of nine children. His
father was William Parsons, farmer, trader, and
lumberman, three of whose brothers were Har-
vard graduates; his grandfather was the Rev.
Joseph Parsons, whose immigrant ancestor of
that name was one of the first settlers in Spring-
field, Mass., in the seventeenth century. His
mother, Abigail Frost ( Blunt) Parsons, was the
daughter of the Rev. John Blunt of New Castle,
N. H., and a blood connection of Sir William
Pepperell, hero of Louisburg.
Usher Parsons' formal education was meager
and desultory, but included one year (i 800-01)
at Berwick Academy. As a lad he worked in re-
tail stores in Portland and Wells. In 1807 he
began the study of medicine under Dr. Abiel
Hall of Alfred. In 1809 he attended anatomical
lectures at Fryeburg under Dr. Alexander Ram-
say and later was in the office of the eminent Dr.
John Warren of Boston. He was licensed to
practise by the Massachusetts Medical Society,
Feb. 7, 1812, when war with England was im-
minent. He was commissioned surgeon's mate,
July 6, 1812. Finding that the John Adams,
which he had been ordered to join in August, had
sailed when he reached New York, he volun-
teered for service on the Great Lakes. Arriving
at Buffalo, he did yeoman service during an epi-
demic of pleuro-pneumonia, and wrote exten-
sively for the press on the cause and treatment
of that disease. In 1812-13 ^e was i*1 charge of
the sick and wounded at Black Rock and, after
the arrival upon the scene of Commodore Oliver
H. Perry in June 1813, sprang into great promi-
nence for his brilliant surgical work. At the bat-
tle of Lake Erie, owing to the disability of his
associate surgeons on the Lawrence, the whole
duty of dressing and attending nearly a hundred
wounded, and as many sick, devolved upon young
Parsons. In a letter to the Secretary of the
Navy, Commodore Perry is said to have written :
"It must "be pleasant to you, Sir, to reflect that,
of the whole number wounded, only three have
died. I can only say that, in the event of my
having another command, I should consider my-
self particularly fortunate in having him [Par-
sons] with me as a surgeon" (Abiel Holmes,
The Annals of America, 1829, II, 455). On the
day of the battle and the following' day, tihe
275
Parsons
wounded from the entire fleet having been
brought to his ship, he performed six thigh am-
putations. For this extraordinary service a grate-
ful country awarded him not only prize-money
but a silver medal.
After the war, he served under Perry on board
the Java, and on Jan. 22, 1816, in view of the
threatening attitude of Algiers, sailed in the Java
for the Mediterranean. Returning to Narra-
gansett Bay, Mar. 3, 1817, he proceeded to Provi-
dence with letters of introduction from Com-
modore Perry. After practising in that city for
four months, he attended lectures in Boston, and
in March 1818 received the degree of M.D. from
Harvard Medical College. In October of that
year he published "Surgical Account of the Naval
Battle of Lake Erie," in the New England Jour-
nal of Medicine and Surgery. In July, he had
sailed as surgeon on the frigate Gucrrttre. On
this cruise he came into profitable contact with
the leading physicians and surgeons of Paris and
London, among whom were Dupuytren, Baron
Larrey, Louis, Laennec, and Abernethy. In Lon-
don, too, he made the acquaintance of Sir Rich-
ard Owen, naturalist and anatomist, with whom
he kept up a lifelong friendship and correspond-
ence.
In August 1820, he was chosen professor of
anatomy and surgery in Dartmouth College, lec-
turing there one year, At this time he published
The Sailor's Physician (1820), a medical guide
for use on merchant vessels, of which a second
edition appeared in 1824, and a third and a fourth
in 1842 and 1851 under the title, Physician for
Ships. In 1822 Parsons was appointed professor
of anatomy and surgery in Brown University,
and in this year began his continued residence in
Rhode Island. On Sept. 23, 1822, he married
Mary Jackson Holmes of Cambridge, daughter
of Abiel and sister of Oliver Wendell Holmes
[qq.v.]. She died June 14, 1825, leaving one son
who became a physician and survived his father.
In April 1823 Parsons resigned his commission
in the navy. In 1831 he was appointed profes-
sor of obstetrics in Jefferson Medical College,
Philadelphia, and lectured there the following
winter. He was several times president of the
Rhode Island Medical Society, was one of the
organizers of the American Medical Association,
and its vice-president in 1853, and was active in
founding the Rhode Island Hospital.
Parsons wrote voluminously, his bibliography
(1809-67) embracing fifty-six titles. He won
the Boylston Prize four times; the prize-win-
ning papers were collected and published as
Boylston Prize Dictations (1839). A second
edition (1849) included a paper which won the
Parsons
Fiske Fund prize in 1842. Another notable pub-
lication was Parsons' summary of his larger
surgical operations in the American Journal of
the Medical Sciences, April 1848. Among his lay
writings were Life of Sir William Pepperell,
Bart (1855), Indian Names of Places in Rhode
Island (1861), and "Brief Sketches of the Of-
ficers Who Were in the Battle of Lake Erie"
(New-England Historical and Genealogical Reg-
ister, January 1863). One of his biographers
(Spakling, post, p. 893) says of Usher Parsons:
"Taking him all in all it would be difficult to find
a man of greater merit in American medicine,
for he gave of liis entire mind for over fifty years
to the advance of medical science," Deservedly his
memory, as of one who never worshipped medi-
cine as a milch-cow, but always as a goddess, is
cherished with pride by the profession of Rhode
Island, lie died in Providence*
[C. W. Parsons, Memoir of Usher Parsons (1870),
containing bibliog. ; J, A. SpnUlintf, ia H, A, Kelly and
W. L. Ihirratfc, Am, Medic. lUotts. (19.20); J. "W,
Keefc, "Traditions of Medicine in Rhode Island/' Bos-
ton MfiHe, and ,,Y/ov;/V. Jaitr., Nov. izt 1925 ; F, L.
Pleadwell, "Usher Parsons/' with complete bibliog.. in
U. $. Ncwal Medic, Hull., Sept. 1922; S. G. Arnold,
Grccnc-Staples-Parsonst An Address X)dwcred before
the R. L Hist. Soc, (1^69) ; Providence Journal. Dec.
«.'«8.] G.A.B-HT.
PARSONS, WILLIAM BARCLAY (Apr.
15, x859-May 9, 1932) , engineer, the son of Wil-
liam Barclay Parsons and Kliza Glass (Living-
ston), was born in New York City of old New
York stock. He was a great-grandson of Henry
Barclay, second rector of Trinity Church, In
1871 he went to school in Torquay, England, and
for the four years following studied under private
tutors while traveling in France, Germany, and
Italy, Returning1 to the United States in 1875,
he entered Columbia College. Graduating in 1879
with the degree of A.B., he continued in the En-
gineering School, then the School of Mines, and
received the degree of C.E, in 1882. During
the summer of 1881, he had been engaged as
engineer for the Blossburg (Pa,) Coal Company,
but upon graduation he turned to railroad work
and from 1882 to the end of 1885 he was in the
maintenance-of-way department of the New
York, Lake Erie & Western Railroad, His first
books had to do with railroad problems (Turn-
outs; Exact Formulae for Their Determination
1884, and Track; a Complete Manual of Maiw*-
tenance of Way, 1886), and this interest in rail
transportation continued throughout his life. In
1886 he began practice as a consulting engineer
in New York and for the following years devoted
much time to studying plans for an underground
railway in the city, although he also engaged in
other railroad and water-supply work, notably
276
Parsons
that of building, as chief engineer, the Fort
Worth & Rio Grande railroad in Texas.
In 1891 the legislature of New York created
a Rapid Transit Commission and Parsons was
appointed deputy chief engineer under William
E. Worthen. Three years later, upon the ap-
pointment of a new commission with broader
powers, tinder the chairmanship of Alexander
Ector Orr [q.v.~\, Parsons became chief engineer,
but adverse political pressure and other difficul-
ties caused the commission to suspend its activi-
ties in 1898. Thereupon Parsons, acting for an
American syndicate, accepted the direction of a
survey for some 1000 miles of railway in China,
primarily on the line from Hankow to Canton.
The party passed through the then "closed prov-
ince" of Hu-nan, and the success of the entire
venture depended not alone on engineering skill
but primarily upon the ability of the leader of
the expedition to meet the extremely difficult
diplomatic problems involved. Nevertheless, the
mission was accomplished and the small group
of American engineers, to the surprise of many
of their friends, returned in safety. Parsons
told the story of this adventure in An American
Engineer in China (1900).
Late in 1899 he was recalled by the Transit
Commission, since an opportunity to begin sub-
way construction in New York seemed at last at
hand. Construction actually started in March
1900. The first subway, extending from Atlantic
Avenue, Brooklyn, to Van Cortlandt Park on the
West Side and to Bronx Park on the East, for
which Parsons had prepared the plans and which
is popularly considered his greatest engineering
achievement, was at last under way. Writing of
the undertaking later, Parsons said: "Some of
my friends spoke pityingly of my wasting time
on what they considered a dream. They said I
could go ahead making plans, but never could
build a practical, underground railroad. This
skepticism was so prevalent that it seriously
handicapped the work" (Walker, post, p. 188).
Parsons not only overcame the obstacles involved
in this pioneer construction, but in doing so, de-
veloped standards of design which have been
adopted wherever subways have been built and
still remain standard after more than a quarter
century of almost continuous subway construc-
tion.
After the success of the enterprise had been
assured by completion of the first section in 1904,
Parsons resigned as chief engineer to devote his
energies to his consulting practice. He was ap-
pointed to the Isthmian Canal Commission in
1904, and early in 1905 went to Panama as a
member of the committee of engineers which sub-
Parsons
sequently reported in favor of a sea-level canal.
Later, appointed to the international Board of
Consulting Engineers, he joined the majority of
the board in advocating this type of construction,
although in 1906 President Roosevelt approved
a lock canal. In 1904 Parsons was also appoint-
ed, together with the famous British engineers,
Sir Benjamin Baker and Sir John Wolfe Wolfe-
Barry, to membership on a board to pass on the
plans of the Royal Commission on London Traf-
fic. He always considered his selection for the
post one of the greatest of the many honors
which came to him. Among Ms other engineer-
ing activities in these years were work as con-
sulting engineer to the Massachusetts Railroad
Commission, advisory engineer on traffic prob-
lems to Cambridge, San Francisco, Toronto, De-
troit, and other cities, and consultant on large
hydraulic works such as the Salmon River, Mac-
Call Ferry (now Holtwood), and Mohawk hy-
droelectric developments. In 1905 he undertook
to carry through the construction of the Stein-
way Tunnel under the East River in New York.
In order to hold the franchise this work had to
be completed in a very short time and Parsons,
by building an artificial island near the south end
of BlackwelFs Island and working from four
headings, accomplished the difficult task. In
1905, he had also been appointed chief engineer
of the Cape Cod Canal. Completed in 1914, it
joined Massachusetts and Buzzard's bays and
demonstrated that a canal without locks could
be built between two bodies of water where con-
siderable tidal differences existed.
In 1916 Parsons was acting as chairman of the
Chicago Transit Commission, but upon the en-
try of the United States into the World War, he
became senior member of the first group of
American officers to go to France — a board of
engineers appointed to report on the military
engineering problems and requirements for en-
gineer troops there. In July 1917 he joined his
regiment, the nth United States Engineers, in
England, and he served with them as major,
lieutenant-colonel, and colonel until the end of
the war. He participated in the engagement at
Cambrai, where, suddenly attacked by the Ger-
mans while making railroad repairs, the engi-
neers fought with picks and shovels, also in the
Lys defensive, and the Saint-Mihiel and Ar-
gonne-Meuse campaigns. His book, The Ameri-
can Engineers in France (1920), is a valuable
and interesting record of these activities. He
was cited for "specially meritorious services"
and received decorations not only from the
United States but also from Great Britain,
France, Belgium, and the State of New York
2/7
Partington
After the war, he was transferred to the Engi-
neers Reserve Corps with the rank of brigadier-
general, and again took up his engineering prac-
tice. One of the last great works of his firm
(Parsons, Klapp, Brinkerhoff & Douglas of New
York) was the international vehicular tunnel
passing under the Detroit River and joining De-
troit with Windsor, Ont. Opened in 1930, it was
the third great vehicular tube in America. In
its design and construction older methods were
used in new ways, and a new design for tunnel
lining was developed.
In connection with a trip to Yucatan in the
early 1900*5, Parsons became interested in the
Maya ruins, and later, when he was appointed a
trustee of the Carnegie Institution, he encouraged
the undertaking of archeological exploration and
preservation of these remarkable remains. He
also found time to make an exhaustive study of
engineering history. Although he published a
book entitled Robert Fulton and the Submarine
(1922), his historical interest centered particu-
larly on engineers and engineering of the Renais-
sance, and he gathered a remarkable collection
of early books and prints relating to this period.
A loyal alumnus of Columbia, Parsons became
a member in 1897 and chairman in 1917 of the
board of trustees of his alma mater. He took an
active part in establishing the University on
Morningside Heights. Holding that "it is not
the technical excellence of a design which gov-
erns, but the completeness with which it meets
the economic and social needs of the day," he in-
sisted that the duties of the engineer demanded a
broad, rather than a narrowly technical type of
training, and his influence had much to do with
placing engineering education at Columbia on a
higher professional plane. Parsons naturally re-
ceived many honors and was a member of many
engineering organizations. He was a trustee of
the New York Public Library and of the Car-
negie Institution of Washington, and chairman
of the administrative board of the Columbia-
Presbyterian Medical Center in New York,
where his sudden death occurred. On May 20,
1884, he had married Anna De Witt Reed, daugh-
ter of the Rev. Sylvanus and Caroline (Gallup)
Reed of New York. She, with a son and a
daughter, survived him.
H^K Af:J^ ?** Z«$™eers, vol. LIX (1933) ;
Par ton
-.*,,», w,n* ^n,*., VUA. LXVIII (lO^O t
Who's Who m America, 1930-31 ; J. B. Walker, Fifty
Years of Raprf Transit (1918) ; N. Y. Herald Tribune
fES^^V^ ^ furnished by General Parsons'
family and by his office.] J K. F
PARTINGTON, MRS. [See SHILIABES,
BENJAMIN PENHALLOW, 1814-1890].
PARTON, ARTHUR (Mar. 26, i842-Mar. 7,
1914), landscape painter, born in Hudson, N. Y.,
was the fourth of the twelve children of George
Parton of Birmingham, England, who settled,
quite by chance, in Hudson, and of Elizabeth
Woodbridge Parton of Mystic (now Old Mys-
tic), Conn. His father, from whom he undoubt-
edly inherited his artistic talents, was a cabinet-
maker by trade. His mother came from a distin-
guished Massachusetts and Connecticut family,
being a descendant of the eighth generation from
Rev. John Woodbridge of Stanton, Wiltshire,
whose son, Rev. John Woodbridge of Newbury,
Mass., married Mercy Dudley, the daughter of
Governor Dudley of Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Young Parton began to draw and paint while
still a schoolboy. From 1859 to 1861 he studied
with William T. Richards of Philadelphia and
later at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine
Arts at that city. His first picture was exhibited
there in 1862. Three years later he removed to
New York, established a studio, and became a
regular exhibitor at the National Academy of
Design. In 1869 he left for Europe, studying a
short while in Paris, but receiving most of his
inspiration direct from English and Scottish
scenery and from the contemporary landscape
painters of those countries. A year after his re-
turn to New York in 1871 he was elected an as-
sociate of the National Academy of Design, be-
coming a full academician in 1884. He was also
a member of the American Water Color and the
Artists' Fund societies. He was an indefatigable
worker and his production of landscapes — all of
them easel pictures — correspondingly great. He
spent his summers in the Adirondacks and later
in the Catskills, where he had a small cottage.
Something of the character of his work may be
derived from typical titles of his canvases : "No-
vember"; "A Mountain Brook"; "Delaware
River, near Milford"; "Loch Lomond" (Indian-
apolis Museum); "Nightfall"; "Evening, Har-
lem River" and "A Night in the Catskills" (both
in the Metropolitan) ; "Misty Morning," "Coast
of Maine" (Brooklyn Museum); "Catskill
Pines" ("diploma picture," 1884, National Acad-
emy of Design) ; "Buttonball Trees on the Hou-
satonic"; and "June Day in the Catskills."
Parton followed the traditional English land-
scape practices as modified by the Hudson River
school. His work falls below that of his friends
Alexander H. Wyant and J. Francis Murphy.
In his more romantic aspects it recalls, at times,
that of Blakelock and Innis; but for the most
part his work is realistic, objective, and, to a
later generation, quite out of fashion. The Yon-
kers Statesman describes it as "wholesome, sane,
278
Parton
serene and beautiful," which is just. It is al-
ways sound and competent, occasionally genuine-
ly poetic, but sometimes uninspired. He was a
typical academic product of his time. His life
was devoid of colorful incident. He was ex-
tremely modest and hated publicity of any kind.
He worked hard and exhibited regularly, being
represented in most of the larger exhibitions from
the Centennial in Philadelphia of 1876 to that of
St. Louis twenty-eight years later. Trout fish-
ing was one of his few recreations. On June 7?
1877, he was married to Anna Taylor of Mystic,
Conn. He settled in Yonkers, N. Y., where he
lived for some thirty years. He died there, sur-
vived by his four children, and was buried at
Mystic, Conn. His awards include the follow-
ing: gold medal, Competitive Prize Fund Ex-
hibition, New York, 1878 ; gold medal, American
Art Association, 1886; Temple silver medal,
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Phila-
delphia, 1889; honorable mention, Exposition
Universelle, Paris, 1889 ; Lotos Club Fund pur-
chase, National Academy, New York, 1896; hon-
orable mention, Paris Exhibition, 1900; and
bronze medal, "Louisiana Purchase" Exposition,
St. Louis, 1904.
[Sources include : C. E. Clement and Laurence Hut-
ton, Artists of the Nineteenth Century (1879) >* J- £>•
Champlin and C. C. Perkins, Cyc. of Painters and
Paintings (ed. 1887), vol. Ill; Mich. State Lib., Biog.
Sketches of Am. Artists (1924) ; Gilbert Cranmer, "An
Am. Landscape Painter, Arthur Parton/' Monthly I Hits-
strator, May 1896 ; Paintings in the Metropolitan Mu-
seum of Art (1905) ; Bryson Burroughs, The Metro-
politan Museum of Art, Cat. of Paintings (1914) ; The
Woodbridge Record (1883), ed. by D. G. and Alfred
Mitchell ; the Am. Art Annual, vol. XI (1914) ; the N.
Y. Times, Mar. 8, 1914; Yonkers Statesman, Mar. 14,
1914; the Am. Art News, Mar. 14, 1914 ; art exhibition
catalogues, records of the Nat. Acad. of Design, the
Pa. Acad. of the Fine Arts, the Brooklyn Museum, the
John Herron Art Inst., Indianapolis, lad., and family
records in the possession of Parton's son, George F.
Parton, Bronxville, N. Y.] T. $ r.
PARTON, JAMES (Feb. 9, i822-Oct. 17,
1891), biographer, miscellaneous writer, was
born at Canterbury, England, the third of the
four children of James and Ann (Leach) Par-
ton, and was descended from a Huguenot family
of farmers and millers who had settled in Kent
after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. In
1827 his widowed mother emigrated to New
York with her children. James attended an acad-
emy at White Plains, where he acquired an en-
thusiasm for Homer and a distaste for orthodox
Christianity, and, after graduating, stayed on as
an assistant teacher. In 1842 he went to Eng-
land to collect a legacy, which he invested in a
year of travel. For the next four years he taught
in a private school in Philadelphia. In 1848 he
sent to the New York Home Journal an essay
Parton
demonstrating the feminine authorship of Jane
Eyre, and Nathaniel Parker Willis, the editor,
gave him a place on the staff at ten dollars a
week.
He was still drudging for Willis in 1854 when
a chance conversation in a restaurant made him
a biographer. To Daniel Gregory Mason and
Lowell Mason, Jr., who constituted the pub-
lishing firm of Mason Brothers, he happened to
remark that a life of Horace Greeley would be
as interesting and as popular as Franklin's Auto-
'biography. Asked why he did not write it, he
replied that the job would require a year's time
and an outlay of $1000. Two weeks later the
Masons advanced the money, and Parton went
to the Tribune office to meet his subject for the
first time. After eleven arduous months in the
field and with the files of Greeley's papers, the
manuscript was ready. Before publication The
Life of Horace Greeley (1855) sold 7,000 copies
and, within a few months thereafter, 23,000
more. No other living American had been ex-
hibited to the public so realistically, with such an
abundance of amusing and intimate detail. Deli-
cate literary palates could detect a Barnum-like
flavor in the work, but its vogue was well earned,
and it remains a landmark in the history of
American biography. Parton, with $2,000 of
clear profit from his royalties, and with his
reputation established, saw his course straight
ahead of him. For the next thirty-five years, he
was one of the most industrious, prolific, popu-
lar, and well-paid writers in the United States.
His principal separate publications were : The
Humorous Poetry of the English Language from
Chaucer to Saxe (1856) ; The Life and Times
of Aaron Burr (copyright 1857 ; enlarged edition,
2 vols., 1864) ; Life of Andrew Jackson (3 vols.,
1859-60) ; General Butler in New Orleans
(1863) ; Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin
(2 vols., 1864) ; Life of John Jacob Astor
(1865) ; Manual for the Instruction of " Rings/'
Railroad and Political (1866) ; How New York
Is Governed (1866) ; Famous Americans of Re-
cent Times (1867) ; People's Book of Biography
(1868); Smoking and Drinking (1868); The
Danish Islands : Are We Bound in Honor to Pay
for Them? (1869) ; Topics of the Time (1871) ;
Triumphs of Enterprise, Ingenuity, and Public
Spirit (1871); Words of Washington (1872);
Fanny Fern: A Memorial Volume (1873) ; Life
of Thomas Jefferson (1874) J Caricature and
Other Comic Art in All Times and Many Lands
(1877) ; Le Parnasse Frangais (1877) ; Life of
Voltaire (2 vols., 1881) ; Noted Women of En-
rope and America (1883) ; Captains of Industry
(2 series, 1884, 1891) ; and Some Noted Princes,
279
Parton
Parton
Authors, and Statesmen of Our Time (1885).
He was a steady, life-long contributor to Robert
Bonner's New York Ledger and to Daniel Sharp
Ford's Youth's Companion and wrote a great
deal also for the North American Review and the
Atlantic Monthly.
Until 1875 he continued to live in New York.
of fact that, in less skilful hands, would have
remained inert and stodgy. His great achieve-
ments are the lives of Burr, Jackson, Franklin,
Jefferson, and Voltaire. None of these is quite
obsolete, in spite of the advances made by recent
scholarship, and the lives of Franklin and Jeffer-
„,„ son are still the best for the general reader.
While writing the life of Greeley he was debat- Parton failed occasionally to understand the
;««• -nn'tti Wi'iiic tv.^ Ktprarw m^ritc nf wniiV thought and intellectual background of his heroes,
ing with Willis the literary merits of Willis
sister [see Sara Payson Willis Parton], whose
work her brother had no desire to publish or to
pay for. As a result, Parton left the Home Jour-
nal and on Jan. 5, 1856, at Hoboken, he married
the woman whom he had championed. She was
eleven years his senior and hopelessly neuras-
thenic, and though outward decorum was kept
up till the end, Parton was thoroughly unhappy
in his marriage. His pent-up affections were
lavished on his wife's grand-daughter, Ethel,
who had been left an orphan and was reared in
the Parton household. They spent their sum-
mers in New England, latterly at Newport. Mrs.
Parton died in 1872 after six years of painful
illness. The next two summers Parton spent at
Newburyport, where in 1875 he bought a house
of his own. On Feb. 3, 1876, he was married
there to his step -daughter, Ellen Willis Eldredge.
Two days after the wedding he discovered that
the marriage was void under Massachusetts law,
and they were remarried in New York on Feb.
10 by the Rev. Stephen Higginson Tyng. A bill
to legalize the marriage was passed by the Mas-
sachusetts legislature but was vetoed by Gov.
Alexander Hamilton Rice. This second marriage
brought him the happiness so long denied him.
Besides the adopted daughter, Ethel, he had two
children, a daughter and a son. Parton himself
was a man of great amiability and good sense.
Though robust in appearance he was compelled
to guard his health and was something of a
crank on the subjects of diet, smoking, and
drinking. At Newburyport he took an active in-
terest in civic affairs and enjoyed the local so-
ciety. In his latter years he was seldom in New
York. He died at his home after an illness of
several weeks.
^ Parton was the most successful biographer of
his generation and a master of the reconstruc-
tional method. Writing for a living, he some-
times worked with a haste that made for error
and superficiality; yet his errors, such as they
are, are seldom misleading, and the superficiality
is not often apparent His preparation for his
major undertakings was thorough and elaborate ;
he was undeviatingly honest, fair, and charitable
m his judgments; and he had a positive genius
for imparting order and motion to great masses
280
but in presenting them in their habit as they lived
he has had no superior.
[C. E. Norton, "Parton's Biog. Writings," North
Am. Rev., Apr. 1867 ; James Parton, autobiog. essay in
Triumphs of Enterprise, Ingenuity, and Public Spirit
(1871); J. C. Derby, Fifty Years among Authors,
Books, and Publishers (1884) ; H. A, Beers, Nathaniel
Parker Willis (1885); N. Y. Tribune, Oct. 18, 1891;
Henry Bruce, "Mr. James Parton/' Boston Transcript
Oct. 20, 1891 ; C. E. L. Wingate, "Boston Letter," and
editorial, Critic, Oct. 24, 1891 ; H. P. Spofford, "James
Parton," Writer, Nov. 1891 ; J. H. Ward, "James Par-
ton," NewEng. Mag., Jan. 1893 ; "James Parton's Rules
of Biography," McClure's Mag., June 1893 ; J. J Cur-
rier, "Oiild Newbury" (1896) ; Ethel Parton "A De-
fense of James Parton," Outlook, Sept. 16", 1911.]
G.H.G.
PARTON, SARA PAYSON WILLIS (July
9, i8n-Oct 10, 1872), author, known to the
reading public as Fanny Fern, was born in Port-
land, Me., the daughter of Nathaniel Willis
[q.v.] and Hannah (Parker) Willis. Her fa-
ther, the pugnacious editor of an anti-Federalist
newspaper, was sixth in descent from an English
ancestor who settled in Massachusetts about
1630; her mother was a woman of intellect and
personal attraction. They were parishioners of
the Rev. Edward Payson [g.z/.], and, for his
mother, they first named their daughter Grata
Payscn, but the name was later changed to Sara.
While she was a small child the family removed
to Boston. A robust little girl, she attended
Catharine Beecher's school at Hartford, where
Harriet Beecher was a pupil-teacher. Her nick-
name in school was "Sal- Volatile" and her repu-
tation was not for studiousness but for thought-
lessness and a tendency to incur bills at local
stores. Though the Willis home was frequented
by clergymen, Sara never acquired great piety.
She was a "natural Universalist" and her teach-
er wrote regarding her interests, "I fear the
world has first place" (Parton, memoir, post, p.
37). After school days were over, she contributed
occasionally to the Youth's Companion, then
published by her father.
In 1837 she was married to Charles H. El-
dredge, cashier of a Boston bank, and for nine
years led a happy life, except for the death of her
first child. Her grief over this loss is reflected
in many of her essays. After her husband's
death, she was obliged to earn a living for her-
Parton
self and two children and attempted sewing and
teaching without success. The editor of a Bos-
ton home magazine paid her fifty cents for a
paragraph called "The Model Minister/' signed
"Fanny Fern." The paragraph was copied in
several Boston papers and thereafter she found
a ready market for her life essays. On Jan. 15,
1849, she was married to Samuel P. Farrington,
a Boston merchant. Their marriage was prob-
ably terminated by divorce, since both remarried.
Her first volume of collected essays, Fern Leaves
from Fanny's Portfolio (1853), had a sale of
80,000 copies and established her popularity.
James Parton \_q.v.~\, on the staff of the Home
Journal, one of whose publishers was Nathaniel
P. Willis [#.^.], Sara's brother, wrote to her,
not knowing her identity, urging her to come to
New York. She went and on Jan. 5, 1856, mar-
ried Parton. At about the same time she began
her connection with the New York Ledger,
which lasted until her death. For the Ledger she
wrote a weekly article, and this, together with
her contributions to other papers, made her work
amount to a story or sketch a day. She thought
out her articles while engaged in other occupa-
tions and then wrote them rapidly; they show
neither deep reflection nor intellectual quality.
She wrote spontaneously, from experience and
observation, on every-day subjects of human ap-
peal, and was popular because her combination
of common sense, sentiment, and occasional re-
ligious teaching met the demands of her age.
She caustically satirized pretentiousness, cant,
snobbery, and heartlessness displayed by wealth
toward poverty, but never tired of eulogizing
family life, children, old homes, gardens, and
country beauties. Her published volumes in-
clude: Ruth Hall (1855), a novel, severely crit-
icized because of its personal character — her
brother N. P. Willis figures in it in a most unfa-
vorable light ; Fern Leaves from Fanny's Port-
folio (second series, 1854) ; Little Ferns for
Fawiy's Little Friends (1854); Rose Clark
(1856), a novel; Fresh Leaves (1857); The
Play-Day Book: New Stories for Little Folks
(1857); A New Story Book for Children
(1864) ; Folly as It Flies (1868) ; Ginger-Snaps
(1870); Caper-Sauce: a Volume of Chit-Chat
about Men, Women, and Things (1872). Dur-
ing her last six years she fought a fatal disease.
She continued her articles by dictation when she
could no longer use her hands; her last, written
a month before her death, was a farewell to
Newport, where she had spent the summer.
[Fanny Fern: A Memorial Volume: Containing her
Select Writings and a Memoir t by James Parton (1873) ;
F. E. Willard and M. A. Livermore, Am. Women
Partridge
(1897) ; New-England Hist, and Geneal. Reg., Apr.
1849, P. 195; H. A. Beers, Nathaniel Parker Willis
(1885) ; N. Y. Evening Post, Oct. 11,1872; N. Y. Daily
Tribune, Oct. u, 1875.] S G B.
PARTRIDGE, ALDEN (Feb. 12, I78s-Jan.
17, 1854), military educator, was born at Nor-
wich, Vt, the son of Samuel, a farmer and sol-
dier of the Revolution, and Elizabeth (Wright)
Partridge. He was a descendant of George Par-
tridge who came to America about 1636. After
early education in the district schools, he entered
Dartmouth College in 1802, but did not graduate,
for on Dec. 14, 1805, he was appointed a cadet
In the army and sent to West Point. The United
States Military Academy had been established
there in 1802, for the reception and training of
cadets, but it had no definite course of instruc-
tion, no requirements for admission or gradu-
ation, and no fixed period of residence. Cadets
were received whenever appointed, taught as
seemed expedient to the faculty, and sent from
the academy at any time. On Oct. 30, 1806,
Partridge was commissioned first lieutenant of
engineers. He did not leave West Point, how-
ever, for he was immediately assigned to duty
as an instructor, and there he was stationed
throughout his service in the army. He was
promoted to captain, July 23, 1810; appointed
professor of mathematics, Apr. 13, 1813 ; and of
engineering, Sept. I, 1813. For more than two
years he was acting superintendent of the acad-
emy. His administration was lax and unsatis-
factory, and he was superseded by Maj. Sylvanus
Thayer. Returning from leave, he assumed com-
mand over Thayer and attempted to regain his
quarters. The struggle between the two was end-
ed by an order from Washington for Partridge's
arrest, and he was tried by court martial on nu-
merous charges of neglect of duty and insub-
ordination, and sentenced, Nov. 27, 1817, to be
cashiered. The punishment was remitted by the
President, however, and Partridge's resignation
from the army followed, Apr. 15, 1818.
For a time he was engaged on the survey of
the northeastern boundary of the United States,
but in 1819 he established the "American Lit-
erary, Scientific and Military Academy" at Nor-
wich, Vt. It was removed in 1825 to Middle-
town, Conn,, but in 1829 its buildings there were
sold to Wesleyan University and it was moved
back to Norwich. In 1834 it was chartered as
Norwich University, tinder which name it still
operates although now located at Northfield, Vt
In 1827 Partridge opened a military preparatory
school at Norwich, which existed until the re-
turn of the principal institution to that place;
and in 1835 ^e established a "young ladies' semi-
281
Partridge
nary," likewise at Norwich. He had always
hoped to spread the military academy idea
throughout the country ; with the help of grad-
uates of Norwich University, now becoming nu-
merous, he established such schools — more or
less short-lived— at Portsmouth, Va., in 1839,
Bristol, Pa., in 1842, Harrisburg, Pa., in 1845,
Wilmington, Del., in 1846, Reading, Pa., in 1850,
Pembroke, N. H., in 1850, and Brandywine
Springs, Del, in 1853. Meanwhile, he had
severed his connection with Norwich Univer-
sity, though he retained ownership of its prop-
erty, the university leasing it from him when he
surrendered the presidency in 1843. He resumed
possession in 1845 — forcing the University to
move to another site near by — and opened his
own "American Literary, Scientific and Military
University," which, however, he discontinued
the next year, selling the property to the Nor-
wich University corporation.
In the establishment of these schools Par-
tridge's primary interest was in national defense.
In the War of 1812 he had witnessed the appal-
ling results of neglect of military training, and
was convinced that for a nation relying upon
citizen soldiers it is vitally important that some
of these citizens should be imbued with discipline
and trained for command. The military training
given in his schools was rudimentary, it is true,
but in his day the military art was comparative-
ly simple, and the forces which the United States
had put, or expected to put, in the field, were
very small. Under the conditions of the time
the training given in his schools was distinctly
valuable. Partridge may fairly be regarded as
the founder of the system of military academies
of elementary and secondary grade which have
since become so numerous. The present Reserve
Officers* Training Corps has a different ances-
try, but even in this, Partridge's influence may
be traced. In other respects his educational ideas
were in advance of his age. Norwich University
was an engineering school from the first, and so
continued through a long period when engineer-
ing, in the United States, was treated rather as
a trade to be picked up casually than as a pro-
fession to be studied in an institution of learning.
This university, too, was among the first to of-
fer collegiate instruction in agriculture. Aside
from his educational work, Partridge's activities
were varied. He served as surveyor general of
Vermont in 1822-23, was elected to the legisla-
ture in 1833, 1834, 1837, and 1839, and was three
times an unsuccessful candidate for Congress.
He died at Norwich, His wife, whom he mar-
ried in 1837, was Ann Elizabeth, daughter of
John Swasey of Claremont, N. H. She survived
282
Partridge
him half a century, dying in October 1902. He
had two sons.
[G. H. Partridge, Partridge Geneal. (1915), inac-
curate in some details; G. M. Dodge and W. A. Ellis,
Norwich Univ., 1819-1911 (1911), vol. I ; The Memoirs
of Gen. Joseph Gardner Swift, LL.D., U. S. A. (1890) ;
G. W. Cullum, Biog. Reg. Officers and Grads. U. S. Mil.
Acad. (srd ed., 1891) ; unpublished records in the War
Department; A. C. True, A Hist, of Agric. Education
in the U. S., 1785-1925 (1929) ; M. E. Goddard and
H. V. Partridge, A Hist, of Norwich, Vt. (1905) ; Vt.
Patriot (Montpelier), Jan. 21, 1854; N. Y. Daily
Times, Jan. 23, 1854.] T. M. S.
PARTRIDGE, JAMES RUDOLPH (c.
iS23-Feb. 24, 1884), diplomat and Maryland
politician, was the son of the well-to-do merchant
Eaton R. Partridge and of Susan (Crook) Part-
ridge, his wife, who had come from Cecil Coun-
ty, Md., to Baltimore, where James Rudolph was
born. He received the degree of A.B. from Har-
vard in 1841 and that of LL.B. from the Harvard
Law School in 1843. He appears to have been
a capable lawyer, a man of culture and of some
literary ability, and the master of four foreign
languages. In Baltimore, whjch remained his
home throughout his life, he entered active poli-
tics in 1856, when he was elected to the legis-
lature on the American ticket Gov. Thomas H.
Hicks [q.v.~\, in 1858, made Partridge his secre-
tary of state and in 1861, according to Henry
Winter Davis [q.v.], Secretary Partridge kept
Governor Hicks loyal to the Union (undated let-
ter to Lincoln, Department of State). He re-
mained a strong Union man, and his name is
to be found upon Governor Bradford's personal
list of the prominent Union men of Baltimore in
1861 (Maryland Historical Magazine, March
1912, p. 85). Indeed, if his plan for distributing
arms from the arsenals and forts within Mary-
land to loyal men for use against secessionist
trouble makers (Andrews, post, I, 884, footnote)
is^any criterion, he ranked with the extremists
within the Republican Party.
After declining appointment as consul at
Shanghai in 1861, Partridge was appointed in
September 1862 commissioner to the Exhibition
of the Industries of All Nations to be held in
London the next year. Shortly afterwards, Feb.
10, 1862, he received appointment as minister
resident to Honduras. In spite of his failure to
bring Honduras to ratify a treaty negotiated in
1860 and to prevent the outbreak of war between
Salvador and Guatemala, his work in Honduras
seems to have won the approval of Secretary
Seward. He was commissioned minister resi-
dent to Salvador in April 1863, where he served
until ill health caused his resignation in March
1866. Meanwhile, the Salvadorean government
Partridge
had been overthrown and a new regime recog-
nized in due course by the United States.
After an interval of three years he was ap-
pointed Apr. 21, 1869, minister, not to the Argen-
tine as he had wished, but to Venezuela. Here
he was chiefly concerned with persuading Vene-
zuela to meet the payments which had been
awarded by a mixed claims commission. His
handling of the claims question received the com-
mendation of Secretary Hamilton Fish. After
the death of one of his daughters he returned to
Baltimore in the fall of 1870. Less than a year
later, May 23, 1871, he was appointed minister
at Rio de Janeiro, then known as Petropolis.
Here he was called upon in his official capacity
to act with the Italian minister as arbitrator of
the claims of Lord Dundonald against the gov-
ernment of Brazil. The arbitrators* award (1873)
of £38,675 to the British claimant was apparent-
ly more satisfactory to Brazil than to the British.
Partridge returned to the United States in the
summer of 1877. 33^ last diplomatic mission
was to Peru (appointed Apr. 12, 1882), which
had recently faced both civil and foreign war.
He was instructed to cooperate with Cornelius
A. Logan [q.v.~\, minister to Chile, in bringing
about a peace between Peru and Chile. Par-
tridge seems to have exceeded his instructions
in this matter and to have returned to the United
States under a cloud. Ill health provided the
ostensible reason for his resignation in 1883. His
wife, Mary, daughter of Jacob Baltzell, whom he
had married Oct. 21, 1847, had died seven years
later, and he had lost both his children. These
circumstances were perhaps responsible for his
suicide at Alicante, Spain, early in 1884 (Balti-
more Sun, Mar. I, 1884).
[The account of Partridge's diplomatic career is
based upon materials in the archives of the Department
of State, especially upon the manuscript volumes of the
department's instructions to the Central American
States for 1858-65, to Brazil for 1862-75, to Peru for
1863-83, to Salvador for 1865-73, to Venezuela for
1866-76 and to Brazil for 1872-74, and upon the manu-
script volumes of dispatches from Partridge to the De-
partment. The department's records and letters relat-
ing to the appointment of Partridge contain considerable
biographical information. Names of wife and mother
were obtained from church records through the courtesy
of Louis H. Dielman, librarian, Peabody Inst., Balti-
more. See also S. F. Bemis, The Am. Secretaries of
State, VIII (1928), 13!, for the mission to Peru ; James
Wingate, The Md. Reg., 1857-60; M. P. Andrews,
Tercentenary Hist, of Md. (1925) ; Sun (Baltimore),
Feb. 26, 1884.] E.W.S.
PARTRIDGE, RICHARD (Dec. 9, 1681-
Mar. 6, 1759) , merchant, colonial agent, the eld-
est child of William and Mary (Brown) Par-
tridge, was born in Portsmouth, N. H. His father,
a wealthy merchant and ship-builder, served
as council member, treasurer of the province,
Partridge
and as lieutenant-governor from 1697 to 1703.
Quarrels with the representative of the proprietor
led him to send his son, Richard, to plead his
cause before the Board of Trade. The young
man, twenty-one years old, made the voyage
across the Atlantic in the summer of 1701 and
was destined to marry and remain in England
for the rest of his life. Gradually he built up a
wide circle of acquaintances. By trade a mer-
chant, by faith a Quaker, and brother-in-law of
Jonathan Belcher, who was somewhat of a cour-
tier, Partridge had friends in all walks of life.
In 1715 he was appointed agent for Rhode Island,
which important post he held for forty-four
years. He was also employed at various times
as agent for other colonies: for New York in
1731 ; for the Jerseys in 1733 ; for Massachusetts
in 1737 ; for the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1740 ;
and for Connecticut from 1750 to 1759. In the
course of his work he acted as a clearing house
of information for the colonial assemblies, con-
ducted lengthy appeals to the Crown, fought det-
rimental imperial legislation, and kept in check
as far as possible the plans of aggressive neigh-
boring colonies.
For many years he was occupied with bound-
ary controversies which arose from the network
of conflicting grants in New England. As a re-
sult of his labors, which included formal peti-
tions, hearings before the Board of Trade, and
almost daily conferences with men of influence,
he succeeded in getting established for Rhode
Island boundaries which brought the fertile Nar-
ragansett Country and Narragansett Bay with
its excellent harbor within her borders. Other
controversies which engaged his attention were
the Massachusetts-New Hampshire boundary,
the Connecticut-Massachusetts line, and Con-
necticut's litigation over the claims of the Mo-
hegan Indians. From 1730 to 1733 he played an
active part in the struggle over the Molasses
Act, which, though of much less importance, was
not unlike that over the Stamp Act By inter-
views, by hearings, and by floods of propaganda,
both the West Indian merchants and the agents
of the American colonies worked frantically to
influence the votes of Parliament. When the Act
was finally passed, Partridge was credited by his
friends with having been responsible for soften-
ing some of the features objectionable to the
northern colonies. In addition to his official busi-
ness, he acted as representative for Governor
Belcher, an arduous task because of that gentle-
man's highly irascible nature, and as Parliamen-
tary agent for the London Meeting for Suffer-
ings the purpose of which was to ameliorate the
disabilities of the Quakers. In 1759, while en-
283
Partridge
grossed in negotiations arising from the Seven
Years' War, he died after a slight illness. His
long and full life was occupied almost entirely
with protecting the many-sided interests of
American colonies in the mother country. On
account of his birth and upbringing he under-
stood thoroughly colonial ideals ; on account of
his long association with men of affairs he un-
derstood equally well English traits of character
and English habits of thought. Shrewd, re-
sourceful, and genial, he did much to facilitate
colonial administration.
[Biographical material on Partridge is scarce. A brief
sketch by Marguerite Appleton, "Richard Partridge-
Colonial Agent/' appears in the New Eng. Quart., Apr.
1932. See also : Rufus M. Jones, assisted by Isaac
Shartleff and Amelia Gummere, The Quakers in the Am.
Colonies (London, 1911) ; The Correspondence of Colo-
nial Governors of R. I. (2 vols., 1902-03), ed. by Ger-
trude S. Kimball, containing many of his letters to
Rhode Island magistrates, and "The Wolcott Papers,"
Conn. Hist. Soc. Colls., vol. XVI (1916), including some
of his letters to Gov. Wolcott ; Gentleman's Mag., Mar.
1759.] M.A.
PARTRIDGE, WILLIAM ORDWAY
(Apr. u, i86i-May 22, 1930), sculptor and
writer, son of George Sidney Partridge, Jr., and
Helen Derby (Catlin) Partridge, was of New
England colonial ancestry but was born in Paris,
France, where his father was at that time for-
eign representative of A. T. Stewart. The family
returned to the United States and the boy studied
at Cheshire Military Academy, then at Adelphi
Academy, Brooklyn, N. Y., and in 1885 at Co-
lumbia College, New York. At the age of
twenty-one he was sent abroad for three years
and studied art in Florence, Rome, and Paris.
When he returned he was interested chiefly in
sculpture, but he was always versatile. In youth
he appeared for a brief time on the New York
stage, playing at Wallack's as Steerforth in
David Copperfield. At one period, encouraged
by Phillips Brooks and Edward Everett Hale,
he gave public readings from Shelley and Keats.
A studio portrait in his middle years shows him
with* brush and palette. His pen never rusted,
and he published both prose and poetry.
In 1887 Partridge was married to Mrs. Au-
gusta Merriam of Milton, Mass., and took her
with him to Rome, where he worked with the
Polish sculptor, Pio WelonskL After his return
in 1889, his knowledge of art and his ability as
a speaker were widely recognized. He gave
lectures on esthetics in various places and carried
OG his work in sddpttire in his well-equipped
studio at Milton, Mass., and later in New York
City. In 1892 he made a character study of an
aged ^woman, a bust called "Nearing Home,"
now in the Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.
Partridge
C. The same year found him in London, im-
mersed in Shakespearian lore, and making a
bas-relief of Sir Henry Irving, shown at the
Royal Academy Exhibition. His first large work
was the standing bronze statue of Alexander
Hamilton, erected in Brooklyn by the Hamilton
Club in 1893. In this figure he sought to ex-
press the orator's passion, balanced by restraint.
It won high praise from certain critics, notably
William H. Goodyear, who in 1894 (Renaissance
and Modern Art, pp. 264-66) printed an ex-
travagant tribute but withdrew it from the 1908
edition of the work. Other statues are the seated
bronze Shakespeare in Lincoln Park (1894), a
work of refinement and dignity, without great
force; the equestrian statue of General Grant,
presented to the city by the Union League Club
of Brooklyn in 1896 ; the Nathan Hale, St. Paul,
Minn. ; the Samuel Tilden, Riverside Drive, New
York, 1926; the Horace Greeley, Chappaqua,
N. Y. ; and the Pocahontas, erected on James-
town Island, Va., in 1921. His statues of Jef-
ferson and of Hamilton, as well as his Schermer-
horn Memorial, are at Columbia University. Of
these works, the Gen. Grant is probably the most
successful, both in characterization and in effect.
Partridge was no animalier and rightly sup-
plemented his modeling from the living horse by
studies of numerous anatomical casts. His
modeling was always fluent. It had a certain im-
pressionistic quality which at its best was vivid
and poetic but at its worst was slipshod. In his
last statue, the Lyon Gardiner for Saybrook,
Conn., about to be erected at the time of his
death, he apparently departed from methods
which had been criticized as giving too sketchy
results. His poetic sensitiveness is revealed in
the Kauffmann Memorial, Rock Creek Cemetery,
Washington (1897), an exedra with seated fig-
ure; in his memorial to Joseph Pulitzer, Wood-
lawn, N. Y., as well as in many religious sculp-
tures, such as the marble Pieta in St. Patrick's
Cathedral, New York; the elaborate baptismal
font in the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul,
Washington ; Christ and St. John, Brooklyn Mu-
seum; and heads of the Madonna and of Christ,
two versions of each. The Metropolitan Mu-
seum has his well-known marble head called
"Peace/' Among his portrait busts are those of
Chief Justice Fuller, United States Supreme
Court; Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, Philadelphia,
Robert Peary, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Me.,
the poet Whittier, Boston Public Library. He
modeled also a series of imaginative heads —
Tennyson, Milton, Burns, Scott, Keats, Shelley,
Bryon, Longfellow, Wagner, Beethoven, Carlyle,
Velasquez, and Goya. His magazine articles on
284
Parvin
sculpture are sound and informative. His long-
er works include : Art for America (1894) ; The
Song-Life of a Sculptor (1894) ; Technique of
Sculpture (1895) ; The Angel of Clay (1900) ;
and The Czar's Gift (1906). He was a member
of many clubs and societies, was a frequent ex-
hibitor both in the United States and abroad, and
is represented in many collections. His second
wife was Margaret R. Schott whom he married
on June 14, 1905, in Venice. He spent his later
years in New York City, where he died, sur-
vived by his widow and two children, one the
daughter of his first wife.
[Lorado Taft, Hist, of Am. Sculpture (1904, 1924,
1930) ; Chas. E. Fairman, Art and Artists of the Capi-
tol (1927); New Eng, Mag., June 1900; Internet.
Studio, May 1907 ; Munsey's Mag., June 1898 ; Cat. of
the Works of Art Belonging to the City of N. Y. (1909)*
vol. I ; The Works in Sculpture of Wm. Ordvuay Par-
tridge (1914) ; Am. Art Annual, 1930 ; Who's Who in
America, 1928-29; N. Y. Times, May 24, 1930.]
A. A.
PARVIN, THEODORE SUTTON (Jan. 15,
1817— June 28, 1901), lawyer, university profes-
sor, librarian, was born at Cedarville, Cumber-
land County, N. J., the eldest of thirteen children.
His mother, Lydia Harris, was of Scotch de-
scent; his father was Josiah Parvin, of Scotch-
Irish forbears. In 1829 the family moved to
Cincinnati, Ohio. Theodore Parvin's formal edu-
cation, begun at the hands of an elderly widow,
was supplemented with independent and exten-
sive reading. He attended the public schools of
Cincinnati, and thereafter, with a scholarship
from William Woodward, he was admitted to
Woodward High School (later Woodward Col-
lege) in 1831 and remained for two and a half
years. In 1835 he was given a teaching position
in the public schools of the city. In the same
year he began to study law under the Hon. Tim-
othy Walker, and in 1837 he graduated from the
law school of Cincinnati College. He then read
law in the office of Judge John C. Wright and
on Apr. 14, 1838, was admitted to practise as
attorney and counselor-at-law in the courts of
Ohio. In August of that year he was granted a
certificate to practise in the Territory of Iowa.
His diary for Nov. 28, 1838, notes his admission
to practise before the supreme court of the Ter-
ritory. His first criminal case was tried on the
day after his admission. Though his client was
found guilty, Parvin succeeded in reducing the
sentence from "ten years' imprisonment and $i,-
ooo fine" to "seven days* imprisonment and $10
fine." In 1839, as district prosecutor for the
second judicial district of the Territory, he took
part in the first term of court in Johnson County,
held in a one-story cabin, with the grand jury
assembled upon the prairie. In October he ac-
Parvin
cepted an appointment as United States district
attorney. He was probate judge for three terms
beginning in 1841, and clerk of the United States
district court from 1847 to I&57. He had gone
to Iowa in 1838 as private secretary to Gov.
Robert Lucas and was soon thereafter appointed
by the Governor territorial librarian, acting in
that capacity until provision for the office was
made by the legislative council. In 1840 he
served as secretary of the legislative council, and
in 1857 he became register of the state Land Of-
fice, serving for two years.
Early in his career Parvin urged the necessity
of establishing an adequate system of common
schools for Iowa. In 1841 he was offered the
position of territorial superintendent of public
instruction, which appointment, however, he de-
clined. He was one of the organizers of the
Iowa State Teachers' Association and its presi-
dent in 1867. His connection with the State
University of Iowa began at the time of its or-
ganization in 1854, when he was made a trustee.
He resigned this position in 1859 to become
"curator and librarian," which title he exchanged
a year later for that of professor of natural his-
tory. Upon leaving the University in 1870 he
devoted himself wholly to his duties as secretary
of the Grand Lodge of Iowa Masons and Grand
Recorder of the Grand Encampment Knights.
Templar of the United States. He instigated the
building at Cedar Rapids of "the only great
Masonic Library in the world." He was among
the first curators of the State Historical Society
of Iowa and from his collections he contributed
to it as well as to other historical institutions.
His meteorological records, the only accurate
and available data of their kind in the region of
the Territory of Iowa, led to the decision on the
part of the federal government to establish the
United States arsenal at Rock Island, III His
attendance at pioneer reunions and at the meet-
ings of the Old Settlers' Association of Johnson
County is indicative of the interest he took in
history, especially in the pioneer history of Iowa.
From 1864 to 1866 he was secretary of the State
Historical Society of Iowa and editor of the An-
nals of Iowa, the first quarterly magazine of his-
tory in the United States devoted to state and
local history. Parvin was married in 1843 to
Agnes McCully. At his death he was survived
by four children.
[Joseph E. Morcombe, The Life and Labors of Theo-
dore Sutton Parvin (1906) ; "Old Woodward" (1884) ;
Iowa Hist. Record, July 1901 ; Annals of Iowa, esper
daily Apr. 1872 and Oct. 1901 ; manuscript collection
relating to Parvin, State Hist. Soc. of Iowa ; Hist* of
Johnson County, Iowa (1883) ; Jonn C Parish, Robert
Lucas (Iowa Biog. Sen, 1907.] B.F.S;
285
Parvin
PARVIN, THEOPHILUS (Jan. 9, i829-Jan.
29, 1898), obstetrician and gynecologist, was
bora in Buenos Aires, Argentine, where his fa-
ther, of the same name, was a Presbyterian mis-
sionary. His mother, Mary Rodney, was a
daughter of Caesar Augustus Rodney [0.0.]. The
boy was sent to Philadelphia for education at an
early age and, when eleven, entered the prepara-
tory department of Lafayette College. In 1847
he graduated from Indiana University; during
the next three years he taught in the high school
of Lawrenceville, N. J., and also studied Hebrew
in the Princeton Theological Seminary. In 1852
he finished the two years' medical course at the
University of Pennsylvania and received his
doctorate in medicine. For a time he was resi-
dent physician at the Wills Eye Hospital in
Philadelphia. He then began independent prac-
tice in Indianapolis and in 1861 he was elected
president of the Indiana Medical Society. Three
years later he accepted the professorship in. ma-
teria medica at the Medical College of Ohio,
where he taught five years. In 1869 he became
professor of obstetrics at Louisville University
but, in 1872, transferred to a similar chair in the
Indiana Medical College. In 1879 ^e was presi-
dent of the American Medical Association and
delivered the presidential address at the meeting
in Atlanta, Ga. He returned to Philadelphia in
1883 as professor of obstetrics and gynecology
at Jefferson Medical College and was with the
institution until his death.
Parvin gained an international reputation as
an authority on obstetrics. His knowledge of
the science and literature of the subject was pro-
digious. As a practical obstetrician, however, he
was without manual dexterity and had less ex-
perience as an operator than many of his con-
temporaries. His Science and Art of Obstetrics
appeared in 1886, and the following year he ed-
ited A Handbook of Diseases of Women, trans-
lated under his supervision from the original
work of von WinkeL He was coeditor of the
Cincinnati Journal of Medicine, 1866-67 ; editor
of the Western Journal of Medicine, 1867-0*9;
and coeditor of the American Practitioner, 1869-
83. At various times he served as president of
the American Medical Journalists' Association,
of the American Academy of Medicine, of the
Asaerican Gynecological Society, and of the
Philadelphia Obstetrical Society. He often spent
his summer vacations: in Europe and was ap-
pointed an honorary president of the obstetrical
section of the latematicmal Medical Congress at
Berlin (1890) and of the Periodic International
Congress of Gynaecology and Obstetrics at Brus-
sels (1892). Among other honors, he was a
Pascalis-Ouvriere
member of the American Philosophical Society,
an honorary member of the Washington Obstet-
rical and Gynecological Society, and honorary
fellow of the Edinburgh Obstetrical Society. He
died in Philadelphia of cardiac asthma. His wife
was Rachel Butler, of Hanover, Ind., whom he
married in 1853 and by whom he had two sons
and a daughter.
[W. H. Parish, "In Memoriam, Theophilus Parvin,
M.D., LL.D.," Trans, Am, Gynecol. Soc., vol. XXIV
(1899) ; J. W. Holland, The Jefferson Medic. Coll. of
Phila., 1825-1908 (1909) ; A Biog. Hist, of Eminent
and Self-Made Men . . . of Ind, (1880), vol. II ; Am.
four. Obstetrics, Oct. 1918; Pub. Ledger (Phila.), Jan.
H.B.B.
PASCALIS-OUVRlfiRE, FELIX (c. 1750-
July 29, 1833), physician, was a native of the
South of France. After receiving his degree of
M.D. at Montpellier, he practised medicine
among the French colonists in Santo Domingo
for a number of years, until the slave insurrec-
tion in 1793, under Toussaint TOuverture, forced
him to flee. With many other refugees, he em-
barked for Philadelphia, where he practised for
the next seventeen years. He wrote much on
medical subjects. In 1798 he signed his writing
Pascalis-Ouvriere, but in 1801 and later called
himself Felix Pascalis. He had had experience
with yellow fever in the West Indies and was
therefore qualified to write on that disease, of
which there were several severe outbreaks in
Philadelphia during his residence there. In 1796
he published Medico-Chymical Dissertations on
the Causes of the Epidemic Called Yellow Fever,
and on the Best Antimonial Preparations for the
Use of Medicine, by a Physician, Practitioner in
Philadelphia, and followed this in 1798 by An
Account of the Contagious Epidemic Yellow
Fever, Which Prevailed in Philadelphia in the
Summer and Autumn of 1797, to which he signed
his name. He was at this time a follower of
Benjamin Rush in his belief in the domestic ori-
gin of the disease, but later, after a trip to Cadiz
and Gibraltar in 1805 to study the diseases of hot
climates, he changed his views and held that yel-
low fever was imported by fomites carried in
ships. In 1801 he was vice-president of the
Chemical Society of Philadelphia and delivered
the annual oration. Two letters by him were pub-
lished in the first volume (1805) of the Phila-
delphia Medical Museum: "Account of an Ab-
scess of the Liver Terminating Favorably by
Evacuation through the Lungs," describing a
case in which he himself was the patient, and
"On the Nature and Effects of Syphilitic Agon-
orrhoea."
About 1810 he left Philadelphia and moved to
New York, where he lived until his death in
286
Paschal
1833. He became a close associate of Dr. Sam-
uel L. Mitchill [q.v.~\ and was one of his co-
;editors on the staff of the Medical Repository
from 1813 to 1820. He was greatly interested
in botany and was one of the founders and at one
time president of the New York Branch of the
Linnaean Society of Paris. Another subject
which greatly absorbed him was the danger of
urban burials; in 1823 he published a book en-
titled An Exposition of the Dangers of Interment
in Cities, in which he advocated the construction
at a distance from every large city of a "Poly-
andrum" or general cemetery, where all the dead
of the city should be interred in hermetically
sealed vaults. The grounds were to be surround-
ed by high stone walls with deep-laid founda-
tions. As the Polyandrum would be situated at a
considerable distance from the city, a series of
stations, which Pascalis called "luctuaries," were
to be built at suitable intervals to afford oppor-
tunities for the mourning cortege to rest. la his
book he stated that a company was being or-
ganized to carry his ideas into effect.
[Letters (MSS.) in the Coll. of Phys. of Phila.;
Trans. Medic. Soc. of the Stats of N. Y., 1834-3$ ; H.
A. Kelly and W. L. Burrage, Am. Medic. Biogs.
(1920).] F.R.P.
PASCHAL, GEORGE WASHINGTON
(Nov. 23, i8i2-Feb. 16, 1878), jurist, author,
journalist, was born at Skull Shoals, Greene
County, Ga., the son of George Paschal and
Agnes Brewer. His father was of French
Huguenot descent. Though unsuccessful in busi-
ness, he had an uncommonly good classical edu-
cation. Agnes Paschal, a woman of the pioneer
type, was a descendant of one of the earliest Eng-
lish families settling in North Carolina. She
had a wide reputation in northern Georgia as a
sick nurse and practical physician and lived to
the age of ninety-four. Paschal was educated at
home and in the state academy at Athens, where
he earned his way by teaching in the preparatory
course and by keeping the books of his landlord.
He showed an early taste for the law and in 1832
passed an examination for admission to the bar
before the superior court of Walker County.
About this time a gold rush had begun in Lump-
kin County, which together with the land lottery
speculation arising from the seizure of the Chero-
kee lands, seemed to offer a bonanza to the young
and briefless barrister. And so to Lumpkin he
went to hang out his shingle. After the treaty of
1835 which was repudiated by the great bulk of
the Cherokees, Paschal, who had joined a vol-
unteer company of militia, was ordered to New
Echota to serve as aide-de-camp under Gen. John
E. Wool in the forcible removal of the Cherokees
Paschal
to Indian Territory. It was on this expedition
that he married Sarah, a full-blooded Cherokee,
the daughter of Maj. John Ridge, one of the
chiefs of the nation.
In 1837 Paschal emigrated to Arkansas and
opened a law office, being later joined by his
brother. His legal talents soon placed him at the
top of his profession and at the age of thirty he
was elected by the legislature a justice of the
supreme court of Arkansas, for the term of eight
years. It was the only office he ever held. A
number of his opinions appear in 5 Arkansas Re-
ports which are noteworthy for their conciseness,
clarity, and learning. Within less than a year
on the bench he resigned and returned to the
bar of Van Buren, Benton County, just in time
to take charge at a critical moment of the Chero-
kee claims against the United States. Through
the efforts of Paschal and his associate counsel
the treaty of amnesty of 1846 was adopted. In
1848 he took up his residence in Galveston, Tex.,
and shortly thereafter moved to Austin where he
soon attained first rank at the Texas bar. He
was an intense partisan at all times, believing
with the faith of a zealot in the right and capac-
ity of the people to govern themselves, but dis-
union was abhorrent to his conception of state
rights. For several years just prior to the war
he edited the semi-weekly Southern Intelligencer,
at Austin, through which he fulminated brilliant-
ly against the Know-Nothings, Free-Soilism,
Black-Republicanism, and the abolition of slav-
ery. The crisis of 1860 found him at the head of
the Union party of Texas ardently supporting
Douglas for the presidency. When the Union
party was crushed in the avalanche of secession
he retired to his home and devoted the years of
the Civil War to writing. During this period,
subjected though he was to ostracism and con-
stant danger, he prepared for publication his
Digest of the Laws of Texas (1866) and The
Constitution of the United States Defined and
Carefully Annotated (1868) both of which
works, for their originality and exhaustiveness,
added greatly to his fame. Both were repub-
lished and the work on the Constitution was
translated into Spanish by Nicolas Antonio
Calvo, the Argentine jurist
Impoverished by the war and saddened by the
loss of relatives and friends, he left for New
York in 1866 to attempt to retrieve his fortunes.
In 1869 he opened a law office with his son,
George W. Paschal, Jr., in Washington, where
his reputation as a jurist and political writer had
already been firmly established. He became iden-
tified with the Republican party after the war,
but in 1872 he supported Greeley for the fdresi-
287
Pasco
dency. He waged a steady fight in the press in
favor of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amend-
ment to the Constitution. During the last few
years of his life he edited as reporter 28-31
Texas Reports and compiled A Digest of De-
cisions Comprising Decisions of the Supreme
Courts of Texas and of the United States upon
Texas Law (3 vols., 1872-75). The latter is a
notable accomplishment in American jurispru-
dence by reason of the complexity of Texas law,
with its fusion of the civil and the common law.
During" his remaining years in Washington Pas-
chal also lectured at the law school of George-
town University. In addition to his legal works
he was the author of Ninety-Four Years, Agnes
Paschal (1871), and many political pamphlets
and magazine articles. He died in Washington
and was buried in the Rock Creek Cemetery.
Brilliant of mind and facile of pen, he used his
talents to the advancement of his profession and
his country. He was married three times. His
second wife was Marcia Duval, by whom he had
a daughter, Betty, who became well known in
English political and literary life as Mrs. T. P.
O'Connor. His third wife, a widow, Mrs. Mary
Scoville Harper, was intellectually most con-
genial and helpful, often assisting him in his in-
dexing- and editing.
[J. H. Davenport, The Hist, of the Supreme Court
of the State of Tex. (1917) ; J. S. Easby-Smith, George-
town Univ. (1907), vol. II ; H. S. Foote, The Bench and
Bar of the South and Southwest (1876) ; Fay Hemp-
stead, Hist. Rev. of Ark. (1911), vol. I ; C. R. Wtarton,
ed, Tex. under Many Flags (1930), vol. II ; In Memo-
riatn, Hon. Geo. W. Paschal (n.d.) ; Mrs. T. P. O'Con-
nor, I Myself (1910) ; Legal Gazette, Feb. 9, 1872 ; N.
Y. Tribune _, Washington Port, Feb. 18, 1878.] J T V.
PASCO, SAMUEL (June 28, i834-Mar. 13,
1917), senator from Florida, was born in Lon-
don, England, the son of John and Amelia
(Nash) Pasco. In 1842 his parents emigrated
to Prince Edward Island and in 1846 settled in
Charlestown, Mass. He attended the public
schools and then entered Harvard College, from
which lie received the A.B. degree in 1858. Early
the next year he went to Jefferson County, Fla.,
to take charge of the newly organized academy
at Waukeenah. Two years in Florida made him
an ardent Southerner, and at the outbreak of the
Civil War he enlisted as a private in Company
H of the 3rd Florida Infantry. He rose to the
rank of sergeant and, although his duties were
largely of a clerical nature, saw heavy fighting.
He was wounded and taken prisoner at the bat-
tle of Missionary Ridge. Released on parole
after almost a year and a half of confinement in
hospitals and at Camp Morton, Ind, he was a
convalescent at his home in Florida at the end
of the war.
288
Pasco
The fifty years of his life after the Civil War
were devoted almost entirely to politics, in which
he proved himself an adroit leader of the Demo-
cratic party. After the resumption of his teach-
ing at Waukeenah for a year, he served for two
years as clerk of the circuit court of Jefferson
County, until removed from office by the Carpet-
bag regime in 1868. He then entered the law
office of his old regimental commander, W. S.
Dilworth, with whom he shortly afterward
formed a partnership. On Oct. 28, 1869, he was
married to Jessie, the daughter of William Den-
ham of Monticello. They had five children. He
practised law at Monticello, the county seat of
Jefferson County, until his election to the United
States Senate in 1887. From 1872 to 1878 he
was a member of the state Democratic commit-
tee, and as its chairman in 1876 he was influ-
ential in the compromise that restored home rule
to Florida. He was a member of the Democratic
national committee from 1880 to 1900 and was
elector-at-large in 1880 and in 1908. He was
president of the Florida constitutional conven-
tion in 1885, was elected a member of the state
House of Representatives in 1886, and became
speaker of the House when it was organized in
1887. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the
Democratic nomination for governor in 1884.
He served in the United States Senate from May
20, 1887, to Apr. 19, 1899. A fair estimate of his
service in the Senate would seem to be that he
was a useful senator but not a distinguished one.
During his first term his most important com-
mittee assignments were those of claims and of
public lands, to the latter of which he was ap-
pointed in 1891. With the beginning of his sec-
ond term in 1893, when his party controlled the
Senate, he became chairman of the committee
on claims and the next year was appointed to a
vacancy on military affairs. His work was chief-
ly of a routine and local character, and he spoke
infrequently on the larger issues then agitating
the nation. He was defeated for the nomination
for a third term in 1899 but was appointed a
member of the Isthmian canal commission, in
which capacity he served until 1904. Through-
out his life he spoke frequently on various sub-
jects and published occasional pamphlets. He
wrote the chapter on Florida in H. A. Herbert's
Why the Solid South? (1890) and in 1910 wrote
"Jefferson County, Fla.," which after his death
was published in the Florida Historical Society
Quarterly (Oct. 1928, Jan. 1929).
[Harvard Class of 1858. First Triennial Report
(1861) ; Report of the Class of 1858 of Harvard Col-
lege . . . Fortieth Anniversary (1898) ; Who's Who in
America, 1916-17; Samuel Pasco, Jr., "Samuel Pasco/1
Hist. Soc. Quart., Oct. 1928; Soldiers of Fla
Pasquin — Passavant
prepared and Published by the Board of State Insti-
tutions (n.d.) ; N, Y. Times, Mar. 14, 1917.]
R. S. C.
PASQUIN, ANTHONY [See WILLIAMS,
JOHN, 1761-1818].
PASSAVANT, WILLIAM ALFRED (Oct.
9, i82i-June 3, 1894), Lutheran clergyman,
editor, philanthropist, was born at Zelienople,
Butler County, Pa., of Huguenot and German
ancestry, the youngest of the five children of
Philip Louis and Zelie (Basse) Passavant. His
parents were natives of Frankfurt-am-Main.
His grandfather, Detmar Basse, came to the
United States in 1802 to retrieve his fortune,
bought 10,000 acres of land in the Conoquenes-
sing Valley, but returned to Germany in 1817.
On "Bassenheim," his estate at Zelienople, the
transplanted comforts and elegance of an older
society continued to flourish amidst a primitive
environment. Passavant owed much to the wis-
dom, culture, and unassuming- piety of his moth-
er, who drew the reins cautiously on his more
rampant enthusiasms, supplied him with money
when money was most needed, and taught him
to rely on his own judgment and intuitions. Af-
ter graduating in 1840 from Jefferson College
at Canonsburg, he studied for two years under
S. S. Schmucker at the Gettysburg Theological
Seminary, was licensed by the Maryland Synod
in 1842 and ordained in 1843, an<3 was pastor
1842-43 of a small church at Canton, a water-
front suburb of Baltimore. While at Gettysburg
he did much missionary work in the adjacent hill
country and published a Lutheran Almanac for
the years 1842 and 1843. He was on the staff of
Benjamin Kurtz's Lutheran Observer, 1842-48.
Early in his career he established friendships,
destined to endure for life, with Charles Porter-
field Krauth, John Gottlieb Morris, and Joseph
Augustus Seiss. He began his ministry as a
New Lutheran of Schmucker's school and was
a successful practitioner of the revivalistic tech-
nique then in vogue, but under Krauth's influ-
ence he discarded his old beliefs and methods
and became a champion of Old Lutheranism and
one of the founders in 1867 of the conservative
General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in North America.
For the last fifty years of his life he lived in
Pittsburgh and devoted his inexhaustible ener-
gies and enthusiasm to the home missionary
movement and to the establishment of institutions
of mercy. Until 1855 he was pastor of the first
English Lutheran Church of Pittsburgh. Through
his travels and his extensive correspondence he
became the most widely known and influential
Passavant
clergyman of his denomination in the Middle
West Though his primary object was the work
among English-speaking Lutherans, he early
came in contact with German and Swedish
Lutheran missionaries, gave them substantial aid
and advice, and communicated to them his own
sustaining faith in the work. In January 1848
he issued the first number of a monthly periodi-
cal, the Missionary, which he established both to
strengthen the missionary movement and to coun-
teract the tendencies of the Lutheran Observer.
For several years it gave Charles Porterfield
Krauth a medium for the propagation of his
theology. In January 1856 Passavant enlarged
the format of his paper and made it a weekly,
and in 1861 it was incorporated with the Lutheran
of Philadelphia. In 1881 he established another
paper, the Workman, which he edited, in co-
operation with his son, until his death. He was
the dominant influence in the Pittsburgh Synod,
which he helped to found in 1845.
His interest in Christian philanthropy, always
strong, was greatly stimulated by his visit in
1846 to Theodor Fliedner's famous deaconess in-
stitute at Kaiser swerth. Two years later Passa-
vant opened a small hospital in Pittsburgh, and
in August 1849 FHedner visited Pittsburgh,
bringing with him four deaconesses, who thus
introduced the order into the United States.
Passavant and William Augustus Muhlenberg
\_q.v J\ were friends, and it is likely that in estab-
lishing the American branch of the Lutheran
order of deaconesses and the Episcopal Sister-
hood of the Holy Communion they influenced
each other. Subsequently Passavant founded
hospitals in Milwaukee, Chicago, and Jackson-
ville, 111., and orphan asylums at Rochester and
Zelienople, Pa. He took an active part also in
founding orphanages at Mt. Vernon, N. Y., Ger-
mantown, Pa,, and Boston (West Roxbury),
Mass. During the Civil War his deaconesses
worked under the direction of Dorothea Dix in
military hospitals. He may also be regarded as
the founder of the Chicago Lutheran Theologi-
cal Seminary and of Thiel College at Greenville,
Pa., but neither of these institutions fulfilled his
expectations. Though he was generous with his
own money and successful in persuading others
to give, his institutions all suffered from their
restricted income, but his business acumen and
personal devotion sustained them on their meager
resources until they became permanently estab-
lished. His own capacity for work was pro-
digious. He never employed a secretary, arid
those closest to him often found it difficult to re-
lieve him of minor responsibilities that he in-
sisted on shouldering* alone.
289
Pastor
On May i, 1845, he married Eliza Walter, of
Baltimore, who bore him five children and sur-
vived him. He died in Pittsburgh after a brief
illness. The management of his institutions was
carried on by his son, William Alfred Passavant,
Jr., who outlived his father, however, by only
seven years.
Workman, Nov. 22, 1894 (memorial number) ; G.
H Gerberding, Life and Letters of W. A. Passavant,
DJ). (Greenville, Pa., 1906) ; Zelie Jennings, Some Ac-
count of Dettmar Basse and the Passavant Family
(privately printed, n.d.) ; G. H. ^ Trabert, English
Lutheranism in the Northwest (1914) ; G. M. btepnen-
son, The Founding of the Augustana Synod, 1850-60
(1927) and The Religious Aspects of Swedish Immi-
gration (1932).] G.H.G.
PASTOR, ANTONIO (May 28, i837-Aug.
26, 1908), theatre manager, actor, better known
as Tony Pastor, was born in a house on Green-
wich Street, New York. His father was a vio-
linist in Mitchell's Opera House. His brothers,
William and Frank, were acrobats and fancy
riders in small circuses, and Tony himself spent
his youth in the shadow of public performance.
He began at the age of six singing comedy duets
with Christian B. Woodruff, afterward state
senator, at a temperance meeting at the old Dey
Street Church, and was kept busy for two years
thereafter singing at such meetings which were
a highly popular form of diversion. In 1846 he
made his first stage appearance at Barnum's Mu-
seum, singing in "blackface" to the accompani-
ment of a tambourine. In 1847 he joined Ray-
mond & Waring's Menagerie, in a long tour,
during- which he learned to know at first hand
many of the local types he afterward portrayed
and In which he had a varied experience as
clown, minstrel, ballad singer, low comedian, and
general performer. At fifteen he was ringmaster
of John J. Nathan's circus and subsequently he
was with Mabie's circus as a singing clown. He
opened his own Music Hall at 444 Broadway in
the early sixties, singing comic songs with great
success, and during the Civil War he developed
a form of historical topical song, dealing chiefly
with the events of the war, which made some one
say of him that he "sang history into the thea-
tre." In 1865 he went into partnership with Sam
Sharpley, an old minstrel man, and opened at 201
Bowery, Tony Pastor's Opera House. Here he
worked to perfect the form of entertainment later
known as legitimate vaudeville. In 1875 he moved
to 585 Broadway, a house of many names, best
known as the Metropolitan Theatre. In 1881 he
acquired the Fourteenth Street Theatre, neighbor
to Tammany Hall, which became famous as
Tony Pastor's and which he Of crated as a variety
house until 1908.
Pastorius
Tony Pastor was not only a shrewd theatre
manager and an actor of many talents, but a good
producer and an idealist within his understand-
ing of the theatre's ideals. His performances
were intended to be "unexceptionable entertain-
ment, where heads of families can bring their
ladies and children," in distinct contrast to most
of the music halls of the day. In spite of his own
great popularity as a performer and as a song
writer (he wrote over two thousand songs), he
never absorbed the first place on his programs
but was proud to develop other players and give
them a leading chance. Many of the most im-
portant comedians and comic singers in Ameri-
can theatre history had their first, or their best,
opportunity in Tony Pastor's theatre and under
his direction. Among the names of those who
were at some time in their career closely asso-
ciated with him are : Nat Goodwin, Billy Emer-
son, Francis Wilson, Gus Williams, Denman
Thompson, Weber and Fields, Lillian Russell,
Evans and Hoey, Lettie Gilson, May and Flo
Irwin, Maggie Cline, and Marie Lloyd. Pastor
died in Elmhurst, L. L, at the age of seventy-one.
Josephine Foley, his wife, whom he married in
1877, died Oct. 5, 1923. They had no children.
["Tony Pastor, the Father of Vaudeville/' Harper's
Weekly, Sept. 5, 1908 ; Montrose Moses, article in Thea-
tre Guild Mag., Apr. 1931 ; T. A. Brown, Hist, of the
Am. Stage (n.d.) and A Hist, of the N. K. Stage (3
vols., 1903) ; G. C. D. Odell, Annals of the N. Y. Stage,
vol. VII (1931) ; Who's Who on the Stage, 1908; N.
Y. Dramatic Mirror, July 27, 1895; N, Y. Times, Aug.
27, 1908.] E.J.R.L
PASTORIUS, FRANCIS DANIEL (Sept.
26, i65i~c. Jan. 1, 1720), lawyer, author, founder
of Germantown, Pa,, was born in Germany at
Sommerhausen, Franconia, the only child of
Melchior Adam Pastorius by his first wife, Mag-
dalena Dietz. The Pastorius family was of West-
phalian origin, their surname having been origi-
nally Scepers (Low German for Schafer), and
for several generations had been prosperous, cul-
tured, and well connected. Pastorius' father
(1624-1702) was himself a man of distinction.
Educated at the University of Wiirzburg and the
German College at Rome, he embraced the
Lutheran faith in 1649, spent ten years as legal
counselor to Count Georg Friedrich von Limpurg
at Sommerhausen, and later rose to be burgo-
master of the Imperial City of Wmdsheim. He
was a prolific writer both in German and Latin,
much of his work remaining unpublished. Pro-
found religious feeling elevates some of his verse
above the dead level of mere Gelehrtenpoesie.
Common tastes and aspirations as well as family
affection made the relations of father and son
unusually sympathetic.
£90
Pastorius
Frantz attended the Windsheim Gymnasium,
then under the rectorship of the Hungarian hu-
manist, Tobias Schumberg, and matriculated July
31, 1668, at the University of Altdorf as a student
of law and philosophy. He studied also at the
universities of Strassburg, Basel, and Jena ; was
present at the sessions of the Imperial Diet at
Regensburg in 1674-75 ; and returned to Altdorf
to take the degree of J.D. under the celebrated
jurist, Heinrich Linck, in 1676. He began the
practice of law at Windsheim, but at the insti-
g^.tion of his friend, Dr. Johann Heinrich Horbe,
a brother-in-law of Philipp Jacob Spener, he re-
moved in 1679 to Frankfurt-am-Main, where he
was at once received into Spener's circle and be-
came intimate also with some friends of William
Penn. From June 1680 till November 1682 he
traveled, as tutor to a young nobleman, in Hol-
land, England, France, Switzerland, and Upper
Germany. Religion had, by this time, become his
preoccupation ; he was dissatisfied with his pro-
fession and apprehensive for the future of Euro-
pean society, and was thinking of Pennsylvania
as a refuge from the world. In April 1 683 a group
of Frankfurt Quakers who proposed to buy land
in Penn's domain appointed him their agent, and
Pastorius set out for America by way of Rotter-
dam and London. Crossing the Atlantic on the
same ship with Thomas Lloyd [#.#.], he arrived
at Philadelphia Aug. 20, 1683; completed nego-
tiation with Penn for some 15,000 acres; and in
October laid out the settlement of Germantown.
Until his death thirty-six years later Pastorius
was the chief citizen of the town. He was the
first mayor (bailiff) and served continuously as
mayor, clerk, or keeper of records until 1707,
when Germantown lost its charter. He was the
agent of the Frankfort Land Company until
1700, being succeeded by Johann Jawert and
Daniel Falckner [#.#.] . He was a member of the
provincial Assembly in 1687 and 1691. He was
in constant demand as a scrivener, taught in the
Friends' school at Philadelphia from 1698 to 1700,
and was master of a school in Germantown from
1702 till shortly before his death. He allied him-
self from the beginning with the Quakers, but
his Quakerism retained more than a tinge of
Lutheranism. In 1688 a protest against the prac-
tice of keeping slaves, signed by Pastorius, Gar-
ret Hendericks, Dirck Op den GraefT, and Abra-
ham Op den Graeff, was sent to the Monthly
Meeting of Friends at Lower Dublin. It was
the first protest of the kind ever made in the Eng-
lish colonies, but it had no effect. The Friends
at Lower Dublin forwarded it to the Quarterly
Meeting at Philadelphia, the Quarterly Meeting
at Philadelphia forwarded it to the Yearly Meet-
Patch
ing at Burlington, and the Yearly Meeting at
Burlington quietly suppressed it. On Nov. 6,
1688, Pastorius married Ennecke Klostermanns
(1658-1723) of Mulheim-am-Ruhr, by whom he
had two sons. Despite his many activities he led
an almost idyllic life, with abundant leisure for
his garden, his bees, and his study. His pub-
lished writings consist of only six books or pam-
phlets, but he was a diligent writer and left to
his descendants an immense quantity of manu-
script works. The largest and most famous is his
"Beehive," a commonplace-book of encyclopedic
proportions and scope. Of the published works
the most important was the Umstdndige Geo-
graphische Beschreibung Derzu Allerletzt erfun-
denen Provintz Pensylvani® (Frankfurt and
Leipzig, 1700) . Four Boasting Disputers of This
World Briefly Rebuked (New York, William
Bradford, 11597) was aimed chiefly at Heinrich
Bernhard Koster and was Pastorius' contribution
to the Keithian controversy ; A New Primmer or
Methodical Directions to Attain the True Spell-
ing, Reading & Writing of English (New York,
William Bradford, n.d.) is probably the first
schoolbook written in Pennsylvania. Pastorius
read and wrote seven languages, owned a con-
siderable library, and was one of the most learned
men in the English colonies, his knowledge in-
cluding not only law and theology but science,
medicine, agriculture, and history. He wrote
verse in German and Latin, like his father, and
also in English. The best of his German verse
is direct, sincere, and melodious. He died some-
time between Dec. 26, 1719, and Jan. 13, 1720.
[M. D. Learned, The Life of Francis Daniel Pas-
torius (in Ger.-Am. Annals, vols. IX-X, 1907-^08 ; sep.
pub., 1908) is the fullest biog. ; but two earlier treat-
ments are still useful : Oswald Seidensticker, Die Erste
Deutsche Einwanderung in Amerika und die Grundung
von Germantown im Jahre 1683 (in Der Deutsche
Pianier, Cincinnati, July iSyo-May 1871 ; sep. pub.,
1883 ; in Bilder aus der Deutsch-pennsylvanischen
Geschichte, 1885); and S. W. Pennypacker, The Set-
tlement of Germantown (in Proc. Pa.-Ger. Soc., vol.
IX, 1899, and sep. pub., 1899). The Umstdndige
Geographische Beschreibung is translated, with an in-
troduction by J. F. Jameson, in Narratives of Early Pa.f
West N. J., and Del. (1912), ed. by A. C. Myers; M.
D. Le_arned published extracts from the "Beehive" in
Americana Germanica, vols. I— II (1897—98). See also
Oswald Seidensticker, The First Century of German
Printing in America, 1728-1830 (1893) for his manu-
scripts and published works.] Q jj (^
PATCH, SAM (c. i8o7-Nov. 13, 1829), famous
for his spectacular diving feats, was born in
Rhode Island, followed the sea for a few years,
and then became a cotton-spinner in the Hamil-
ton Mills at Paterson, N. J. There he was the
mainstay of his widowed mother and was looked
upon as a good workman and likable young man.
In the fall of 1827 he announced that he was
going to jump into the Passaic River from tlie
291
Patch
Chasm Bridge, which was then building. The
police interfered, but on the day the span was
dropped into place Sam appeared on an adjacent
precipice, made a short speech — Mr. Crane, the
bridge engineer, had done a great feat, and he,
Sam Patch, was about to do another — and jumped
seventy-five feet into the stream. Later he
jumped from the bridge.
Warmed by the notoriety, he then went from
town to town diving from cliffs, bridges, and
masts. People flocked to witness his perform-
ances and contributed satisfactorily when the hat
was passed. On his wanderings he picked up a
fox and a small bear, and on some of his dives
the bear was his forlorn companion. He was
generally taciturn but when in his cups would
parrot his two apothegms, "There's no mistake
in Sam Patch" and "Some things can be done as
well as others." To most observers he seemed to
be a good-natured automaton. By the time he
reached Buffalo in October 1829 and dived into
the Niagara River from a shelving rock on Goat
Island he was a national celebrity. Returning to
Rochester, N. Y., where he had established tem-
porary headquarters, he advertised that "being
determined to 'astonish the natives' of the west
before he returns to the Jarseys," he would jump
125 feet from a scaffold erected on the brink of
the Genesee Falls. For this feat he prepared care-
fully, taking soundings of the pool below the falls
and even making a practice dive without acci-
dent On the scheduled day, Friday, Nov. 13, all
western New York lined the banks of the Gen-
esee, and excursionists came by schooner from
Oswego and Canada. Sam made his speech and
jumped, but in mid-air the arrow-like dive be-
came a fall; he struck the water sidewise and
disappeared. For months the newspapers were
filled with stories of his last dive and rumors of
his reappearance. On Mar. 17, 1830, his body
was found broken and frozen in a cake of ice at
the mouth of the river and was buried at Char-
lotte. His mother came to weep at the grave,
was kindly received, and provided with trans-
portation home. Sam Patch himself passed into
the speech and folklore of the nation. For years
Danforth Marble [q.v.~\ played the title role in
two Yankee comedies, Sam Patch and Sam Patch
ti* Frtmce. Of various dare-devil jumpers who
have carried oe the tradition the best remem-
bered is Steve Brody.
[The best account is in J. M. Parker, Rochester
(1884) ; typical newspa|>er stories and advertisements
appear in Mass. Spy (Worcester), Oct. 17, 1827, Nov.
18, 25, 1829; Bv$a£o Rep&bKcan, Oct. 24, Nov. 21,
1829; JV". Y. Evening Post for tike Comtry, Nov. 20,
Dec. i, 1829; Rochester DaUy Advertiser and Tele-
graph, Oct 30, Nov. 2, 12, 1829. For tihe Sam Patch
plays see: Falconbridge (J, F. Kelly), DOM Morale; A
Paterson
Biog. Sketch (1851) and G. C. D. Odell, Annals of the
N. Y. Stage, vols. IV-VII (1928-31) ; for literary
allusions, Robt. C. Sands, "A Monody made on the late
Mr. Samuel Patch," Writings, vol. II (1835) ; Na-
thaniel Hawthorne, "Rochester" (Autograph ed., 1900,
vol. XVII) ; W. D. Howells, Their Wedding Journey
(187*).] G.H.G.
PATERSON, JOHN (i744-July 19, 1808),
Revolutionary soldier, public official, was born
in Newington Parish, Wethersfield, Conn, (now
New Britain), the son of Col. John Paterson and
his wife, Ruth Bird, and a grandson of James
Paterson who emigrated from Scotland to New
England some time prior to 1704. John Pater-
son's taste for military life was doubtless derived
from his father who served in the provincial
forces during King George's War and the French
and Indian War. He graduated from Yale Col-
lege in 1762, and after teaching school in New
Britain for several seasons began the practice of
law. On June 2, 1766, he married Elizabeth Lee
of Farmington. In 1774, in company with his
family and his wife's father, he moved to Lenox,
Mass. His gifts for leadership were at once
recognized. He was a member of the Berkshire
county convention in July 1774 at which the
"Solemn League and Covenant" was adopted,
whereby the people promised to refrain from con-
sumption of English goods; and he represented
Lenox in the first and second provincial con-
gresses in 1774 and 1775.
In the meantime he was engaged in raising a
regiment from the middle and southern parts of
the county in anticipation of hostilities with Eng-
land. When the news of the battles of Lexington
and Concord arrived, he marched at once to
Cambridge, his men being armed and almost com-
pletely uniformed. He was commissioned colo-
nel on May 27, 1775, and his regiment, after be-
ing reorganized and enlarged, presently became
the 1 5th Continental Infantry. He built and
garrisoned Fort No. 3, near Prospect Hill, and
during the battle of Bunker Hill protected the
American forces from attack in the rear. Dur-
ing the siege of Boston his men had several
brushes with the enemy and were complimented
by Washington for their alacrity in meeting the
foe. In March 1776 he accompanied the army to
New York. He was presently ordered to the
relief of the American troops in Canada, and af-
ter participating in the battle of "The Cedars,"
retreated by way of Crown Point to Ticonderoga
where for a time he was engaged in fortifying
Mount Independence. He rejoined Washington's
army on the Delaware and participated in the
battles of Trenton and Princeton. On Feb. 21,
1777, he was commissioned brigadier-general and
in that capacity took part in the operations which
292
Paterson
resulted in the capture of Burgoyne. He came
near to losing his life when his horse was shot
under him by a cannon ball. He wintered at Val-
ley Forge, 1777-78, and was engaged in the op-
erations culminating in the battle of Monmouth.
Thereafter till the end of the war he was sta-
tioned for the most part in the highlands of the
Hudson, commanding West Point at various
times, and during these years he formed a close
friendship with Kosciuszko. He was a member
of the court martial appointed to try Major
Andre. On Sept. 30, 1783, he was brevetted ma-
jor-general, and shortly afterwards retired from
the army.
Resuming the practice of law at Lenox, he was
elected to various civil offices, including those of
moderator, selectman, collector of taxes, member
of the school board, and representative in the
general court. He helped to organize the Society
of the Cincinnati and the Ohio Company. As
commander of the Berkshire militia, he assisted
in the suppression of Shays's rebellion. He had
in the meantime become one of the proprietors of
the "Boston Purchase," comprising 230,400 acres
in Broome and Tioga counties, New York. In
1791 he emigrated with his family to Broome
County. Here, as in Lenox, his talent for public
service was soon acknowledged. Besides being
chosen to several town offices, he was elected to-
represent his district in the state legislature
(1792-93), in the constitutional convention of
1801, and in Congress (1803-05). In 1798 he
was appointed to the bench and served as judge
of Broome and Tioga counties. He died at Lisle,
N.Y.
Paterson was a man of commanding presence,
being over six feet tall and of athletic build.
When a county judge, he would often walk eigh-
teen miles to court rather than go to the pasture
and catch a horse to ride. His success in both
military and civil life was due to the confidence
which his probity, ability, and good judgment
everywhere inspired.
[Centennial Celebration at Lenox, Mass. (1876) ;
E. A. Werner, Civil List and Constitutional Hist, of N.
Y. (1884) ; Hist, of Berkshire County, Mass. (2 vols.,
1885); D. N. Camp, Hist, of New Britain (1889);
Mass. Soldiers and Sailors of the Rev. War (16 vols.,
1896-1907) ; Thomas Egleston, The Life of John Pater-
son (1898) ; F. B. Heitman, Hist. Reg. of the Officers
of the Continental Army (1914) ; N. Y. Geneal. and
Biog. Record, July 1890 ; F. B. Dexter, Bioa. Sketches
Grads. Yale Coll., vol. II (1896) ; Biog. Dir. Am. Cong.
<X938).J E.E.C
PATERSON, WILLIAM (Dec. 24, 1745-
Sept 9, 1806) , jurist, was born in County An-
trim, Ireland, the son of Richard and Mary Pater-
son. The family emigrated to America, landing:
at New Castle on the Delaware in October 1747.
Paterson
The father spent some time in travel — perhaps
as a peddler of tinware made by his uncles in
Berlin, Conn.—before settling in Princeton, N,
J., where he engaged in the manufacture of tin
plate and general merchandising from May 1750
until his removal to Raritan (now Somerville)
in 1779. The family fortunes were augmented
through real-estate transactions, and William
was enabled to enter the College of New Jersey,
where he graduated with the Class of 1763. He
began the study of law in the office of Richard
Stockton [#.-£>.] in the following year. In 1766
he received the degree of master of arts from his
college, delivering an oration on "Patriotism"
at the annual commencement. With others he
founded the "Well-Meaning Society," 1765-68,
which in 1769 was revived as the Cliosophic
Society, one of the literary societies still active
at Princeton, Although he passed the bar ex-
aminations in 1768, Paterson could not be ad-
mitted to practice until February 1769 because
of the absence of Governor Franklin from the
colony. He began the practice of law at New
Bromley, Hunter don County, but in 1772 re-
turned to Princeton. His view of the life of the
time and place is recorded in Glimpses of Colonial
Society and the Life at Princeton College, 1766-
1773, by One of the Class of 1763 (1903), edited
by W. J. Mills. Within a short time he removed
to South Branch in Somerset County but later
(1779) purchased a farm on the north bank of
the Raritan River. His residence was generally
described as "the Raritan/' a name bestowed
upon the entire region lying immediately west of
New Brunswick.
On May n, 1775, he attended the New Jersey
Provincial Congress as a deputy from Somerset
County ; he was reelected the following year and
was chosen successively assistant secretary and
secretary. In 1776 also he was a member of the
convention that formed the state constitution. In
the same year he was chosen attorney general and
in 1776 and 1777 was a member of the legislative
council of the state of New Jersey. He was an
officer in the Somerset County battalion of min-
ute men and a member of the council of safety in
1777. While attorney general his work required
him to attend the criminal courts in the counties,
although to do so he had to make long journeys
on horseback "It unavoidably occupies the far
greater part of my time/' he wrote, declining to
serve in the Continental Congress after he had
been elected in 1780; "I feel its weight, and have
more than once been ready to sink under It"
(Somerset County Historical Quarterly, July
1912, p. 176). He continued to act as attorney
general of New Jersey until 1783, when he ce~
293
Paterson
signed to resume the practice of law. At this
time he removed to New Brunswick. Meanwhile,
he married, Feb. 9, 1779, Cornelia Bell, daugh-
ter of John Bell, at Union Farm, Hunterdon
County. Three children were born to them.
Four days after the birth of the youngest, in
November 1783, Mrs. Paterson died. Two years
later Paterson married Euphemia White, daugh-
ter of Anthony White, in whose house at Union
Farm his first marriage had taken place.
Public service again claimed his attention when
he was chosen a delegate to the Federal Conven-
tion at Philadelphia in May 1787. When the de-
bates on the "Virginia Plan" reached the ques-
tion of representation, Paterson objected to the
preponderance of the large states in the proposed
government. "The idea of a national Govt. as
contradistinguished from a federal one, never en-
tered into the mind of any of them," he declared,
"and to the public mind we must accommodate
ourselves. We have no power to go beyond the
federal scheme, and if we had the people are not
ripe for any other" (Farrand, post, I, 178).
Pointing1 to the disadvantages which a scheme of
representation on the basis of population gave to
the small states, he took the leadership, June 15,
1787, in introducing the "New Jersey Plan,"
which proposed a federal government consisting
of legislature, executive, and judiciary. But the
federal legislature, unicameral, was to represent
states, and not individuals, and the states were
to vote equally, without regard to wealth or popu-
lation. The result was the compromise whereby
the states secured an equal representation in the
Senate while the members of the House of Rep-
resentatives were to be apportioned according to
population.
Paterson not only signed the completed Con-
stitution but also advocated its adoption in New
Jersey. At the inauguration of the new govern-
ment he was chosen senator from New Jersey
and arrived at New York on Mar. 19, 1789, to
await the coming of Washington. He served on
the committee to count the returns of the presi-
dential election and was placed on the judiciary
committee of the Senate. In the original copy
of the Judiciary Act of 1789, the first nine sec-
dons are in the handwriting of Paterson and the
bulk of the remainder in the hand of Oliver Ells-
worth lq&3. Paterson did not remain long in
the Senate. Upon the death of Gov. William
Livingston [g.^.J in 1790 he was chosen by the
New Jersey legislature to succeed him, and be-
came governor and chancellor of the state. In
1792 he was authorized to collect and reduce to
proper form all the statutes of England which be-
fore the Revolution were in force In the colony
Paterson
of New Jersey, together with all the public acts
before and subsequent to the Revolution which
remained in force. For his work in preparing
the Laws of the State of New Jersey ( 1800), he
received the sum of $2,500. He also remodeled
the rules of practice and procedure in the common
law and chancery courts, drafting what are known
as "Paterson's Practice Laws," adopted by act of
the legislature in 1799. About 1790 plans were
laid for the founding of an industrial town at the
falls of the Passaic, and to that end in 1791 the
Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures
was chartered. In the supplement to the charter
the town is referred to as "Paterson."
In 1793 Paterson was appointed associate jus-
tice of the United States Supreme Court and
thereafter was absent from home the greater part
of the year "riding the circuits." A number of
his opinions are contained in the report of Dallas
and Cranch. He presided over the trials of sev-
eral of the individuals indicted for treason in the
Whiskey Rebellion (Francis Wharton, State
Trials of the United States,, 1849, PP'- 102-84),
and notably over that of Matthew Lyon [q.v!],
accused of violation of the Sedition Law of 1798
(Ibid., pp. 333-44) - His last appearance in court
was in New York, in the summer of 1806, at the
trial of Samuel G. Ogden and William S. Smith
for violation of the federal neutrality laws, in
giving aid to the South American patriot Miranda
(Thomas Lloyd, The Trials of William Smith
and Samuel G. Ogden, 1807). Paterson's health
had begun to decline, and he determined to go to
Ballston Springs, N. Y., in September 1806, to
seek a cure, but stopped at Albany en route and
died there in the home of his daughter Cornelia,
second wife of Stephen van Rensselaer [g.v.].
He was buried in the vault of the Manor House,
at Albany. During the time of the Federal Con-
vention, Paterson's colleague William Pierce
wrote of him (Farrand, III, 90) : "M. Patterson
[sic] is one of those kind of Men whose powers
break in upon you, and create wonder and as-
tonishment. He is a Man of great modesty, with
looks that bespeak talents of no great extent, but
he is a Classic, a Lawyer, and an Orator, — and
of a disposition so favorable to his advancement
that every one seemed ready to exalt him with
their praises."
[A few Paterson MSS. are in the Lib. of Cong. ; there
are copies of some among the Bancroft papers at N. Y.
Pub. Lib. ; some have been printed in Somerset County
Hist* Quart., Jan., Oct. 1913, Jan., Apr. 1914, in Am.
Hist. Rev., Jan.. 1904, and in Max Farrand, The Records
of the Federal Convention of 1787 (3 vols., 1911). For
biographical material see Gertrude S. Wood, William
Paterson of N. /,, 1745-1806 (1933), Ph.D. thesis, Co-
lumbia Univ. ; F. R. North, Life of William Paterson
(1930), first pub. in Paterson Morning Call; Somerset
County Hist. Quart., July, Oct. 1912 ;#. Y, Geneal and
294
Patillo
Kioa Record, Apr. 1892; Joseph Clark, A Sermon on
f^ Death of the Hon. Wm. Paterson (1806). See also
HL Carson, The Supreme Court of the U. S. (1891) ;
L O C Elmer, The Constitution and G&vt. of the
Province and State of N. J. (1872) ; American Citizen
(New York), Sept. 15, 1806.] W. S. C
PATILLO, HENRY (1726-1801), Presby-
terian clergyman, was born in Scotland. At the
age of nine, accompanied by an elder brother, he
emigrated to Virginia and found employment as
a merchant's clerk Soon, however, he began to
devote himself to teaching and study. Experi-
encing conversion, he felt called to the ministry,
and in 1751 put himself under the instruction of
Rev. Samuel Davies [#.<!, who was then at Han-
over, Va. On Sept. 28, 1757, he was licensed to
preach by the Presbytery of Hanover, and on
July 12, 1758, he was ordained at Cumberland.
Three years earlier he had married Mary An-
derson. Until October 1762 he was in charge of
the churches of Willis Creek, Byrd, and Buck
Island, and for two years or more, beginning
May 1763, he supplied the churches of Cumber-
land, Harris Creek, and Deep Creek.
In October 1765 he removed to North Carolina,
serving first, 1764 to 1774, at Hawkfields, Eno,
and Little River, and later as pastor of the con-
gregations at Nutbush and Grassy Creek, made
up largely of emigrants from Virginia, who gave
him 300 acres of land on condition that he would
remain with them for the rest of his life. He was
one of the early members of the Orange Presby-
tery and when the Synod of the Carolinas was
organized, acted as presiding officer. He was a
good classical scholar— Hampden-Sidney Col-
lege conferred the degree of A.M. upon him in
3-787— and engaged in teaching along with his
pastoral duties. He also made the religious guid-
ance of the negroes one of his special^ concerns.
In political as well as ecclesiastical affairs he took
a prominent part. When, in 1768, Governor Try-
on's forces were called upon to put down the
"Regulators" who were causing disorder in the
state, Patillo and Rev. George Micklejohn, rec-
tor of St. Matthew's Church, Hillsboro, were
appointed to preach to the troops. They also
joined in a pastoral letter, having as its text the
first two verses of the thirteenth chapter of Ro-
mans. Patillo was a delegate to the provincial
congress of North Carolina in 1775, an^ when
the congress resolved itself into a committee of
the whole to consider joining the confederation
of united colonies, was unanimously chosen
chairman.
He is described by one in whose father's home
he was a frequent visitor as "of large frame and
considerably more than ordinary flesh ... his
features were rather large and coarse, though
Paton
his face easily lighted up with a smile of good-
will. ... It seemed natural for him to say
droll things; and he would frequently keep a
whole company convulsed, apparently without
being conscious he was doing it" (Anne E. Rice,
in Sprague, post, p. 198). He was, however, an
eminently devout man. As a preacher he spoke
with a loud voice and much earnestness, the at-
tention of his audience being held by the orig-
inal matter of his discourse. In 1788 he pub-
lished Sermons . . . J. On the Divisions among
Christians: II. On the Necessity of Regenera-
tion to Future Happiness: III. The Scripture
Doctrine of Election: IV. Extract of a Letter
from Mr. White field to Mr. Wesley: V. An Ad-
dress to the Deists. He was also the author of
A Geographical Catechism . . . (1796), reprinted
in 1909 with a biographical sketch. He died in
Dinwiddie County, Va., while on a missionary
journey.
[The Colonial Records of N. C., vols. V (1887),
VIII (1890), X (1890) ; S. A. Ashe, Hist, of N. C.
(1908) ; J. W. Moore, Hist, of N. C. (1880); A. J.
Morrison, Coll. of Hampden Sidney Diet, of Biog.
(n.d.) ; W. B. Sprague, Annals of the Am. Pulpit, vol.
Ill (1859) ; Richard Webster, A Hist, of the Presbyf.
Church (1857) ; Alfred Nevin, Encyc. of the Presbyt.
Church in the U.S.A. (1884).] C.L. W.
PATON, LEWIS BAYLES (June 27, 1864-
Jan. 24, 1932), Old Testament scholar, and
archaeologist, was born in New York City, the
son of Robert Leighton Stuart and Henrietta
(Bayles) Paton. He was graduated from the
University of the City of New York (now New
York University) in 1884, ranking high in his
class. For one year he was teacher in a boys'
school, and for nearly two years traveled widely
in Europe, studying German, French, and Italian.
From 1887 to 1890 he was a student at Prince-
ton Theological Seminary, winning at his gradu-
ation a fellowship in Old Testament Five
semesters were then spent at the University of
Berlin. In 1892 he became a member of the
faculty of Hartford Theological Seminary, where
he remained for the rest of his life, being instruc-
tor one year, associate professor seven years, and
from 1900 on, professor of Old Testament exe-
gesis and criticism. During the earlier jpart of
his teaching career he completed a thesis, pub-
lished under the title The Original Form of the
Holiness-Code (1897), for which he received the
degree of doctor of philosophy from the Uni-
versity of Marburg. On Apr. 13, 1890, he was
ordained by the Presbytery of Morris and
Orange, but transferred to the Congregational
Church in 1892. He was married three times:
first, in 1896, to Suvia Davison of Hartford,
who died in 1904; second, in 1915, to Mrs,
295
Paton
Loraine Seymour (Brown) Calhoun of Hart-
ford, who died in 1924; and third, in 1925, to
Katharine Hazeltine of Vassar College.
Paton's paternal ancestors were Scotch Cove-
nanters, while on his mother's side he was de-
scended from English Puritans and early Dutch
settlers. In view of this ancestry, it is not sur-
prising, he once wrote, that he was temperamen-
tally a modernist Despite his conservative in-
struction at Princeton, he became convinced of
the truth of the critical view of the Old Testa-
ment before graduation, largely as a result of
preparing a thesis on "The Historical Character
of the Book of Chronicles." While many insti-
tutions in America suffered grievously from the
controversies which raged over the Old Testa-
ment, Hartford escaped ; for although Paton was
frank and straightforward in expressing his criti-
cal opinions, his thoroughly Christian spirit and
attitude were evident to all. It was character-
istic of him that when asked to contribute to a
series called "Modern Sermons by World Schol-
ars," he should write upon Jesus Christ rather
than upon some Old Testament therne.
The chief characteristics of Paton's work as
teacher and writer were his keenly logical mind,
his determination to get at all the facts and to
arrange his treatment in the most orderly fash-
ion. His class-room lectures, as well as his more
public utterances and his writings, were marvels
of comprehensiveness and lucidity. Students and
fellow scholars alike saw in his work an object
lesson of scholarly method. He served as direc-
tor of the American School at Jerusalem in 1903-
04, and thereafter kept in close touch with all the
new discoveries which bore even remotely upon
his work, making much use of this material in
his teaching and writing. For many years he
was connected with the American Journal of
Archaeology in an editorial capacity. Much of
his literary work appeared in scholarly periodi-
cals and in encyclopedias. He dealt with the
background of Hebrew life and religion in many
articles contributed to James Hastings' Encyclo-
paedia of Religion awd Ethics ( 1908-26) , notably
in those entitled "Baal" and "Canaanites." In
the New Standard Bible Dictionary (2nd ed.,
1926) his most important articles were "Exca-
vation and Exploration," "Social Development
of Israel/* and "Jerusalem." He also published
anmeroBS articles in the Journal of Biblical Lit-
eraiwre and American Journal of Theology. His
Ixxfc ittdnde The Early History of Syria and
Pttiejtfme (1901); Jerusalem in Bible Times
(1908) ; A Critical m$ ExegcticdL Commentary
(190$) in tfee International
; The Bazdy Rd^ion
Patrick
of Israel (1910) ; Spiritism and Cult of the Dead
in Antiquity (1921) ; and he was the editor of
Recent Christian Progress (1909).
[Unpublished autobiog. in possession of family; biog.
sketch appended to doctor's thesis, Marburg 1897;
Who's Who in America, 1930—31 ; memorial addresses
in Hartford Sew. Bull., May-June, 1932 ; N. Y. Times,
Jan. 25, 1932.] E.C.L.
PATRICK, MARSENA RUDOLPH (Mar.
u, iSn-July 27, 1888), soldier and agriculturist,
was born near Watertown, in Jefferson County,
N. Y., of Scotch-Irish and English colonial and
revolutionary stock, the tenth and youngest child
of John and Miriam (White) Patrick. His fa-
ther's family, originally Kil Patrick, had dropped
the prefix soon after reaching New England
early in the eighteenth century. Running away
from home, where his mother's excessive Puri-
tanism dominated, Patrick became a driver on
the Erie Canal, taught school, and in 1831 was
studying medicine. Entering West Point the
same year, as the protege of Gen. Stephen van
Rensselaer \_q.v.~], he graduated in 1835, forty-
eighth in a class of fifty-one, and was brevetted
second lieutenant of infantry. In 1836, while
stationed at Fort Mackinac, he married Mary
Madeline McGulpin, niece of an agent employed
in the Astor fur trade. The Seminole War, staff
duty, General Wool's Mexican expedition, and
military routine occupied his life from 1837 to
1850, when (though a captain and brevet major)
he resigned and engaged in scientific agriculture
at Geneva, N. Y.
In 1859 he became president of the New York
State Agricultural College, at Ovid. An ante-
cedent of Cornell University, the institution was
chartered in 1853, and the cornerstone of its first
building was laid in 1859. The following year,
with one wing of the building completed and with
a faculty of five, the college opened. At the out-
break of the Civil War, Patrick resigned. Pre-
ferring service with volunteers, he declined re-
appointment in the regular army but was
persuaded by Governor Morgan to become in-
spector general of New York volunteers in May
1861. In March 1862, at McClellan's request, he
was commissioned brigadier-general of volun-
teers. As a part of King's Division, McDowell's
Corps (recalled to protect Washington), Pat-
rick's brigade saw no service on the Peninsula
but participated in the second Manassas and
Antietam campaigns, during" which the volun-
teers learned the value of his stern discipline.
His tactical skill was recognized by officers of
both armies but, to his regret, staff duty again
took him from the line, his capacity for great
combat leadership tintested. With the Army of
$ne Potomac disorganized by battfe and change
Patten
of leaders, McClellan, in October 1862, appointed
him provost marshal-general. Although charged
with a host of duties — from maintaining order to
securing military information — he was consci-
entious, vigorous, and capable. Successive com-
manders in turn found him almost indispensable.
In 1864 Grant designated him provost marshal-
general of all the armies operating against Rich-
mond, and on Mar. 13, 1865, he was brevetted
major-general of volunteers for "faithful and
meritorious service/' a tardy recognition. The
rank and file respected and loved him ; the Sani-
tary and Christian Commissions found him a
faithful supporter ; while the Southern citizenry
counted him a friend albeit a conquering invader.
Following: Appomattox, he commanded the dis-
trict of Henrico (including Richmond), but In
June 1865 Grant suggested to Halleck that Pat-
rick be relieved lest his kindheartedness "inter-
fere with the proper government of the city."
Relieved shortly afterward, at his own request,
he resigned from the army, June 12, 1865, and
went home.
Disgust for Republican policies now led him
momentarily Into politics as the unsuccessful
Democratic candidate for state treasurer. A few
years later, as president of the New York State
Agricultural Society (1867-68), he pioneered for
conservation and reforestation ; to check the mi-
gration from country to city, he advocated a cot-
tage system for farm workers. His last years,
following his wife's death in 1880, were spent In
Ohio as governor of the Central Branch, Na-
tional Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers,
Dayton. Ever the disciplinarian, he was de-
nounced as a tyrant but, swayed neither by poli-
tics nor expediency, gradually gained the respect
and love of veterans and townspeople alike. Of
commanding presence, with patriarchal beard
and thunderous voice, a self-disciplined Presby-
terian fearing God only, he had the air of an Old
Testament prophet with a dash of the Pharisee,
[Copy of Gen. Patrick's private Journal, 1862-65,
together with fragments for other years and genealogi-
cal and biographical notes by his son, I. N. Patrick, in
the writer's possession ; G. W. Cullum, Biog. Reg. Offi-
cers and Gratis., U. S. Mil. Acad. (1891); Diedrich
Willers, The N. Y. State Agricultural Coll., at Ovid
(1907) ; J. H. Mills, Chronicles of the Twenty-first Regi-
ment, N. Y. State Volunteers (1887) ; W. P. Maxson,
Camp fires of the Twenty-third (1863) ; Lemuel Moss,
Annals of the U. S. Christian Commission (1868) ; C.
W. Bardeen, A Little Fifer's War Diary (1910) ; D. B.
Parker, A Chcrntauqua Boy in '61 and Afterward
(1912) ; M. R. Patrick, Address Delivered at the Ann.
Meeting of the N. Y. State Agricultural Soc., Albany,
Feb. 12, 1868 (1868) ; Twentieth Ann. Reunion, Asso.
Grads. U. S. Mil Acad. (1889) ; JV. Y. Times, July a8,
T.S.C.
PATTEN, JAMES A. (May 8, i852-Dec. 8,
1928), grain merchant, capitalist, and philan-
Patten
thropist, a first cousin of Simon Nelson Patten
\_q.v.~], was born on a farm at Freeland Corners,
De Kalb County, 111. He had no middle name,
but used the Initial "A" for purpose of euphony.
His father, Alexander Robertson Patten, a de-
scendant of William Patten who emigrated to
the United States In 1794, was one of a group of
hardy Scotch-Irish Presbyterians who moved
from Washington County, N. Y., to Illinois In
the i84o's; his mother, Agnes (Beveridge), be-
longed to this same pioneer community, having
come to Illinois in 1842, at the age of thirteen,
with her father. Abandoning farming, Alex-
ander Patten took charge of a general store at
Sandwich, III., which he ran successfully until
his death in 1863. His widow, left to care for a
family of five boys of whom James was the eldest,
shortly removed to her father's farm. Here James
lived until he was seventeen. During the next
two years he attended the preparatory depart-
ment of Northwestern University at Evanston.
Returning to Sandwich, he worked for a time
as clerk in the country store which had been his
father's, and then spent a year on the farm of an
uncle, John L. Beveridge, at that time governor
of Illinois. In 1874 ne received an appointment
as clerk In the state grain inspection department
at Chicago. Here he remained until 1878, when,
not wanting to continue longer as a political office
holder, he went to work for G. P. Comstock &
Company, Chicago grain brokers. He speedily
won the confidence of his employers by his ability
and his probity, but within two years the firm
failed. Patten now went into the cash grain busi-
ness for himself, taking as partners his brother
George and Hiram J. Coon. Soon, however, he
joined with his brother in establishing the firm
of Patten Brothers. The association of the two
in the grain commission business remained un-
broken until George Patten's death in 1910. In
1903 both brothers became members of the firm
of Bartlett, Frazier & Carrington, grain brokers,
later Bartlett, Patten & Company.
As a member of the Chicago board of trade
Patten became widely known. He joined the
board In 1882, was elected a director in 1897,
president In 1918, and remained a member until
his death. His early experience as a cash grain
dealer laid the foundation of his success as a
speculator in the grain futures market. On sev-
eral occasions, notably in 1908 and 1909, he suc-
ceeded in anticipating crop conditions in com,
oats, and wheat so surely that he held virtual
"corners" In all three grains successively. Later
he was successful in cornering the cotton market
In connection with this venture he and three
others were indicted in 1912 by the fedora!
297
Patten
eminent for conspiracy. Patten elected to pay a
fine of $4,000, but the other three fought the case
and were acquitted. He always maintained that
he did not speculate and that his "corners" were
not responsible for unusual increases in the price
of grain. He never took a position in the market
without first having made a thorough study of
supply and demand conditions. In addition to
his other responsibilities, he was a director of
the Continental and Commercial National Bank,
the Chicago Title & Trust Company, Chicago,
Rock Island & Pacific Railway, Peoples Gas,
and Commonwealth Edison companies.
Patten had a keen sense of the responsibility
that goes with wealth. Impressed by the fact
that both his father and his brother had died pre-
maturely because of tuberculosis, he gave $500,-
ooo to promote the work of the Tuberculosis
Institute and founded the Chicago Fresh Air
Hospital. He made numerous gifts to small col-
leges in the middle West, was a generous bene-
factor of Northwestern University at Evanston,
where he made his home, and provided that half
of his estate, estimated at fifteen million, should
go to charitable institutions upon the death of his
widow. He was a Republican and took a keen
interest in local and national politics. From 1901
to 1903 he was mayor of Evanston. Always clean-
living and essentially religious, he enjoyed a
reputation for integrity and good citizenship in
his business and social life. His sound judgment,
courage, and common sense made him one of the
most capable and successful speculators of his
time. On Apr. 9, 1885, he married Amanda
Buchanan of Chicago; three children were born
to them.
[J. M. Patten and Andrew Graham, Hist, of the
Somonauk United Presbyt. Church Near Sandwich, De
Kalb County, III., -with Ancestral Lives of the Early
Members (Chicago, 1928) ; J. A. Patten and Boyden
Sparkes, "In the Wheat Pit/' Saturday Evening Post,
Sept. 3, 17, Oct. i, 15, Nov. 5, 19, 1927; Chicago Sun-
day Tribune, Dec. 9, 1928; Chicago Daily News, Dec.
9, 1928; Who's Who in Chicago, 1926; Who's Who in
America, 1928-29.] E. A D
PATTEN, SIMON NELSON (May i, 1852-
July 24, 1922), economist, was of English and
Scotch-Irish stock, the son of William and Eliza-
beth Nelson (Pratt) Patten, a first cousin of
James A. Patten lq.v.], and a descendant of Wil-
liam and Martha (Nesbitt) Patten, who came to
Argyle, Washington County, N. Y., in June 1794,
from Stonebridge, County Monaghan, Ireland.
Two years after their marriage, Simon's parents
settled on a homestead in what is now Sandwich
township, De Kalb County, 111., and here the boy
was. born. The father was an elder in the United
Presbyterian church, twice a member of the mi-
Patten
nois legislature, and during the Civil War was
captain in the is6th Illinois Volunteers. When
four years old, Simon had typhoid fever; his
mother contracted the disease and died. Soon
afterwards his father married Jane Somes, who
was an excellent step-mother.
The boy grew up on the Illinois prairie farm,
which in the decades of the fifties and sixties
typified in itself the bounteousness of nature when
directed by man's intelligence. In his teens he
had a ruminative turn of mind which detracted
from his father's satisfaction in him as a farm
hand. Those who knew Patten best, most of them
years later, after he had been transplanted to
Philadelphia, have been unanimous in attributing
much of the optimism which marked his mature
thought to his boyish observations of bursting
nature. As will appear later, this view omits
other and very different influences which helped
direct his mind. He passed through the district
school ; grew rapidly, being six feet, two inches
tall by the time he was fourteen ; and at seven-
teen, as preliminary preparation for the law, he
entered the nearby Jennings Seminary at Aurora.
Here he formed a lasting friendship with Joseph
French Johnson [q.v.], whose social gifts he (an
awkward and ungainly countryman) admired
and envied. He graduated in the spring of 1874
and spent the next year on the farm, during
which time his desire to study the law receded.
In the autumn of 1875 he entered Northwest-
ern University as a freshman, but his heart was
not in his work here, and within a few months,
drawn by Johnson's letters telling of study in
Germany, he followed his friend to the Univer-
sity of Halle, Besides Johnson, he was in inti-
mate association at Halle with Edmund J. James
[q.v.~\ and, most important, with Professor Jo-
hannes Conrad (1839-1915), the national econ-
omist, statistician, and official counselor who had
so large a hand in bringing Germany to indus-
trial maturity. Patten was impressed by the econ-
omy of the German people quite as much as by
anything he learned in the university. With
natural resources far less ample in proportion to
population than those of the United States, su-
perior intelligence was employed in their use. In-
stead of exploitation, there was conservation.
Power machinery was a major reliance. Con-
sumption was nicely articulated with production.
The mature society of Germany found delight
in social amenities, whereas the younger Amer-
ican population derived less pleasure from its
wasteful consumption of material things. These
lessons were afterwards to be reflected in Pat-
ten's teaching and writing, particularly in his
emphasis upon the theory of consumption. He
298
Patten
received the degree of Ph.D. at Halle in 1878 and
came home by way of England.
His American friends at Halle, on returning
to America, realized the expectations which their
education raised, but only disappointment and
dejection awaited Patten. He could find nothing
to turn his hand to except the plow, and this he
did for a year, to his disparagement in the eyes
of his father. It was concluded finally that he
must make another try at the law ; in the fall of
1879 he went to Chicago for study, but in a few
weeks developed eye trouble which compelled his
withdrawal, and for the next two and a half years
he was inactive, misunderstood, and miserable.
Successful treatment by an eye specialist while
he was visiting his friend James in Philadelphia
gave him renewed interest in life. He cheerfully
undertook to teach the same little district school
where he had learned his own letters ; the next
year he received a better position at Homewood,
111., and in 1888 was superintendent of schools at
Rhodes, Iowa. During these years he had been
working on a manuscript which, shorn of its
worst crudities by his friends Johnson and James,
was published in 1885 as The Premises of Politi-
cal Economy. This was a correction of the work
of John Stuart Mill in the light of American con-
ditions, with added dissent from the efficacy of
laissez-faire to discover and promote social in-
terest.
The book secured Patten's appointment as pro-
fessor of political economy in the University of
Pennsylvania in 1888. His work in Philadelphia
may be considered under the heads of his effect
upon institutions, his teaching, and his writing.
In all three capacities he was teleological ; to his
farthest speculations he sought to give issue in
social betterment. He gave form and spirit to
the Wharton School of Commerce and Finance,
which was the first effort to supply business
training in an academic institution. He invigo-
rated and dignified "social work" not only locally
but throughout the country. He was no organizer
in the accepted sense, and hated administrative
detail. He was a singularly gifted teacher, his
informal method being peculiarly his own. At
once imaginative and profound, he omitted many
steps of conventional reasoning, and pounced
upon the problems which invited exploration and
answer. He revealed most of himself in small
groups where a serious discussion excited his in-
terest His students were so attached to him by
admiration and personal loyalty that the desig-
nation "Patten men" has come to be perfectly
understood. Each of them captured and perpetu-
ated in himself a measure of his teacher's spirit
to a degree quite extraordinary in American
Patten
scholarship. Scott Nearing has said that "stu-
dents went from his classes as from a refreshing
bath" (post, p. 16), and that "one standard was
set up in these classes— the public welfare" (Ibid.,
p. 17). Patten wrote with difficulty, though he
published a considerable amount in the aggre-
gate. He was an economic optimist. He sought
to banish the gloomy forebodings which had been
inherited from the English classical writers. In
his eyes, it was not nature which was limited in
its capacities, but man who was wasteful and
bungling. Thus the necessity of resort to poorer
and poorer soils, which was an axiom of the
Ricardian school, seemed to Patten a fallacy
growing out of a wrong emphasis. If the land
were intelligently cultivated, if consumption hab-
its were so altered as to set up demand for a great
variety of food products, landlords would not be
enriched at the expense of capitalists and laborers.
The very increase of population which had been
viewed as the prime cause of rent, might give
rise to new techniques and new standards of con-
sumption which would counteract the crude tend-
ency toward diminishing returns. Abandoning
the older view of an unchanging man under dif-
fering environments, and not satisfied with the
conception, brought forward by the psychological
school, of a changing man in an unchanging en-
vironment, he preferred to think of "a solid
economics, where the problems of a changing
man can be treated in connection with changes
in the physical world in which the man lives and
through which he is conditioned." His thought
equations were filled with variables. He showed
how the pessimism of the English classical school
sprang from an exploitative economic environ-
ment, and in contrast set forth the limitless social
improvement which must follow economic con-
servation. This economic conservation involved
the releasing of normal human impulses, the no-
table raising of the standard of living, and so the
increase of man's power over nature. He was
fond of showing that society had passed from the
older deficit economy into the newer surplus econ-
omy, or from a pain economy to a pleasure econ-
omy. He thought that the saving which was
dictated by the former condition of insufficiency
should be replaced by spending in an era of grow-
ing abundance. Generous and wise consumption,
he believed, would do more to reduce economic
inequalities than would a more direct redistri-
bution of wealth. At the same time, he was alive
to the advantages of cooperative economic ac-
tion as opposed to competitive practice.
Patten's mind was mainly deductive, His use
of observed fact was often unsystematic, and gen-
erally for the purpose of illustration rather than
299
Patten
of induction. His thinking- process was a com-
pound of gropings and brilliant flashes of recog-
nition. He was apt to be either very inconclusive,
or to arrive at an accurate and original judgment
as by a stroke of genius. He raised many more
economic queries than he ever attempted to solve.
The writings of Henry C. Carey \_q.vJ\ and
others of the "Philadelphia school" were at least
of equal influence on his thought with his farm
background and his observation of German econ-
omy. Carey — nationalist, protectionist, optimist,
revolter from the classical tradition — had been
dead only a decade when Patten came to Phila-
delphia ; the similarity of Patten's beliefs to those
of Carey and of George Friedrich List [q.v.]r
not only in favor of protection, but generally, is
obvious. Patten's writing in the field of political
economy as such may be said to have closed in
1899 with The Development of English Thought.
Thereafter his interests expanded, and his specu-
lations showed infusions of sociology, psychol-
ogy, anthropology, and biology. Of his works in
this later period, The New Basis of Civilisation
(1907) has had widest reading. His attempts at
verse (for example, Folk Love, 1919) and a novel
(Mud Hollow} 1922, partly autobiographical)
were revealing but unsuccessful. After his death
a number of his papers were collected and pub-
lished under the title Essays in Economic Theory
(1924), edited by R. G. Tugwell.
Patten has not been adequately appraised. One
may hazard the guess that time will say he was
most of all an appealing and stimulating per-
sonality. His books are not a satisfactory record
of the man. Except here and there in eloquent
passages, they do not reveal the secret of his
power, which was communicated rather in per-
sonal contacts. He was one of the distinguished
company of young Americans who came back in
the seventies and eighties after study in Ger-
many. The field of economic teaching, investi-
gation, and application in America invited de-
velopment and organization. Patten with his
friend James proposed a "society for the Study
of National Economy/' which could "combat the
widespread view that our economic problems will
solve themselves, and that our laws and insti-
tuttoos, which at present favour individual in-
stead of collective action, can promote the best
utilization of ottr national resources, and secure
to eacfe incKvidtial the highest development of
all his faculties/* Tnis project gave way before
the less <ledaratwe Asiedcan Economic Asso-
datiQii, wfeicjb, towerej, owed much in its incep-
tion to- Patten's Ii^fcenoe^ amd of which, two de-
caxks later {1903-09), fee was president
Craving socki^, Patten utterly bcked social
Patten
graces, and lived much to himself. He looked
not unlike Lincoln; he was even more angular,
to the last he retained his country accent, and his
clothes were always ill-fitting. When he was
fifty-one, Sept. 2, 1903, he married, at Canton,
N. Y., Charlotte Kimball, much younger than
himself, and six years later they were divorced.
In 1917, precisely at the entrance of the United
States into the World War, Patten was notified
by the University of Pennsylvania that he would
be retired on account of having reached the age-
limit. He claimed that the real reason was to be
found in his liberal views, as just then illustrated
in pacifist advocacy. He died five years later at
Brown's-Mills-in-the-Pines, N. J., after two
paralytic strokes, his last days being marked by
extraordinary fortitude.
[Scott Nearing, Educational Frontiers. A Book About
Simon Nelson Patten and Other Teachers (1925) ; R.
G. Tugwell, "Notes on the Life and Work of Simon
Nelson Patten," in Jour, of Pol. Economy^ Apr. 1923;
"Memorial Addresses on the Life and Services of Simon
N. Patten," in Annals Am. Acad. of Pol. and Social Sci.,
May 1923, Supplement, containing- a full Patten bib-
Hog. ; "Memorial to Former President Simon N. Pat-
ten," in Am. Econ. Rev., Mar. 1923, Supplement; J. M.
Patten and Andrew Graham, Hist, of the Somonauk
United Presbyt. Church near Sandwich, De Kalb Coun-
ty, III. (privately printed, Chicago, 1928) ; Public
Ledger (Phila.), Apr. 6, 1917; Ibid., July 25, 1922;
Phila. Record, July 25, 1922; Ugo Rabbeno, The Am.
Commercial Policy (2nd ed., 1895), pp. 384—411 ; H. R.
Seager, "Professor Patten's Theory of Prosperity," in
Annals^ of the Am. Acad. of Pol. and Social Sci.} Mar.
1902; introduction by Seager to S. N. Patten, Essays in
Economic Theory (1924), ed. by R. G. Tugwell; R.
H. I. Palgrave, Diet, of Pol. Economy, ed. by Henry
Higgs, vol. Ill (1923) ; Who's Who in America, 1922-
*3-] B.M.
PATTEN, WILLIAM (Mar. 15, i86i-Oct
27, 1932), zoologist and paleontologist, was born
at Watertown, Mass., the youngest but one of
the fourteen children of Thomas and Mary Low
(Bradley) Patten. His father was a harness-
maker, in whose shop the son worked with little
satisfaction to himself. He acquired however a
keen interest in birds and aspired to become, like
Audubon, an artist-naturalist. Entering Law-
rence Scientific School of Harvard University,
he paid his own way, in part by taxidermy and
by illustrating scientific books. As a freshman he
won the Walker prize of the Boston Society of
Natural History by a paper, "Myology and Oste-
ology of the Cat," based on work done for the
most part before he had entered college. Under
Professor Edward L. Mark he studied zoology,
specializing in insect embryology; he was also
an enthusiastic disciple of the geologist Na-
thaniel S. Shaler. In 1883 he received the degree
of B.S. and a Parker traveling fellowship. After
a year with Professor Rudolf Leuckart at the
University of Leipzig he received the degree of
PfalX in 1884. He spent the next two years at
Patten
the zoological stations at Trieste and at Naples,
then returned to America and for three years was
assistant to Dr. C. O. Whitman at the Allis Lake
Laboratory at Milwaukee. He was professor of
biology at the University of North Dakota for
four years (1889-93) before his appointment to
the faculty of Dartmouth College, where for
twenty-five years he taught comparative anatomy,
embryology, and a course centering about organic
evolution. He also organized (1920-21) an ori-
entation course for freshmen, called "Evolution,"
of which he was director until his retirement In
June 1931.
Patten's earlier papers (1884-89) on the em-
bryology of caddice flies and of the limpet (Pa-
tetta) were followed by others upon the eyes of
molluscs and arthropods, illustrated by drawings
since widely copied by textbook writers. From
this earlier research he developed a theory of
color vision. His paper "On the origin of Verte-
brates from the Arachnids" (Quarterly Journal
of Microscopical Science, August 1890) was fol-
lowed by a series of brilliant studies ( 1893-1900)
on the anatomy and embryology of the king-crab
(Limulus), which with scorpions and other
arachnids he regarded as closely related to a
group of primitive fossil vertebrates (Ostraco-
derms) about which he published several papers
(1902-03). He elaborated the theory further in
a book, The Evolution of the Vertebrates and
their Kin (1912). In 1914 his attention was di-
rected to social philosophy by the idea that har-
monious cooperation is necessary for evolution-
ary progress ; this became the theme of The Grand
Strategy of Evolution; the Social Philosophy of
a Biologist (1920).
In search of fossil fishes (Ostracoderms), Pat-
ten spent seven summers between 1902 and 1914
in field work in northern New Brunswick, New-
foundland, and Labrador. For scorpions and
similar arachnids he traveled to Java, New
Guinea, Australia, and Japan (1912), to Costa
Rica and Cuba (1921). After reconnoiter ing for
fossil fishes in Sweden, Norway, and Spitzbergen
(1925), he made three expeditions to the Island
of Oesel, Esthonia (1928, 1930, 1932), where he
supervised the excavation of large collections of
Ostracoderms. His native talent for drawing
and plastic art gave distinction to all his illus-
trations. His research was always stimulated by
his vigorous imagination and his vision of ideal
links between great branches of the animal king-
dom. Proceeding not by slow processes of in-
duction toward a theory lightly held, lie was ani-
mated by his theory and pursued it indefatigably.
He was skilful at technique, and a keen observer
of structural details. The need of harmonious co-
Patterson
operative action in nature and human affairs was
to him not a tradition but a new discovery. He
was very sociable, an interesting comrade, fond
of outdoor and indoor sports, vigorous, robust,
and perennially young. He died at seventy-one,
the victim of coronary thrombosis. He married
on June 28, 1883, Mary Elizabeth Merrill of
Bradford, Mass. Their son Bradley Merrill Pat-
ten survived him.
[Who's Who in America, 1930-31 ; Science, Nov. 25,
1932; T. W. Baldwin, Patten Geneal. (1908) ; N. Y.
Times, Oct. 28, 1932; data from the Alumni Record
Office, Dartmouth Coll. ; information as to certain
facts from Mrs. William Patten.] J H G
PATTERSON, DANIEL TODD (Mar. 6,
1786-Aug. 25, 1839), naval officer, was born on
Long Island, N. Y., the son of John Patterson,
former collector of customs at Philadelphia, and
Catharine (Livingston) Patterson, great-grand-
daughter of Robert Livingston [g.#.]. On June
n, 1799, he joined the sloop Delaware as acting
midshipman and sailed in her on two West In-
dian cruises during the naval war with France.
He was warranted midshipman in August 1800,
after his first cruise, and was one of the 159 mid-
shipmen out of 352 retained in the peace estab-
lishment of May 1 80 1. He carried on nautical
studies till December. Until March 1803 he was
in the Constellation of the second squadron sent
against Tripoli. In May following he sailed
again for the Mediterranean in the Philadelphia
and was a prisoner for more than nineteen months
after she was stranded and captured by the
Tripolitans on Oct. 31, 1803. Under the excel-
lent tutelage of Capt William Bainbridge and
Lieut David Porter \_qq.v."], he was, however,
enabled "to profit by the seeming misfortune"
(manuscript memoir of his services, November
1813, in Navy Department Library). Upon his
return he was stationed at New Orleans from
January 1806 to June 1807. He was married In
1807 to George Ann Pollock, the daughter of
George Pollock of New Orleans. They had two
sons, Carlile Pollock and Thomas Hannan [#.#.],
and three daughters, one of whom, George Ann,
was married in 1839 1(> David D. Porter [q.v.].
In March 1808, after a visit to the North, and
promotion to the rank of lieutenant, he returned
to New Orleans where his friend Porter was in
charge. From January 1810 to February 1811
he had a semi-independent command of twelve
gunboats, that operated from a base at Natchez
and transported most of the troops for the occu-
pation of Baton Rouge in 1810. He was made
master commandant on July 24, 1813, and from
December following commanded the New Or-
leans station. Against the Gulf buccaneers Ms
most effective stroke was delivered oa Sept 16,
301
Patterson
1814, when, raiding the base of the pirate Jean
Laffite [qju.] at Barataria Bay, La., with the
schooner Carolina and six light gun vessels, he
captured six schooners and other small craft. Al-
though it was supported by twenty guns mounted
on shore, Laffite's band, about 1,000 strong, fled
without resistance, much to Patterson's disap-
pointment (C. R Goodrich, "Our Navy and the
West Indian Pirates," Naval Institute Proceed-
ings, Sept-Oct, 1916, p. 1471)- He foresaw
dearly the designs of the British against New
Orleans in 1814 and indicated the best lines of
defense. On Sept. 2, 1814, he refused Jackson's
request to send his naval forces to Mobile, and
maintained his position at New Orleans where
the delay he caused the enemy by the gunboat
action on Lake Borgne on Dec. 15 greatly
facilitated Jackson's final victory. He was
aboard the Carolina during her very effective
two-hour bombardment of the British camp on
the evening of Dec. 23, shouting at the first dis-
charge, "Give them this for the honor of Amer-
ica" (Niles' National Register, Sept 28, 1839,
p. 71 ) . The Carolina was destroyed by enemy fire
on, Dec. 27, but with his remaining vessel, the
Louisiana, he continued to render valuable artil-
lery service, and in the battle of Jan. 8 he com-
manded a battery of naval guns on the west bank
of the river. These had to be spiked and aban-
doned on the retreat of Morgan's militia but were
repaired and ready for action next day. His ex-
cellent cooperation throughout the campaign has
perhaps not been fully recognized, though he was
highly commended by Jackson, received a vote
of thanks from Congress, and was made captain
on Feb. 28, 1815. Patterson is described at this
time as a "stout, compact, gallant-bearing man
... his manner . . . slightly marked by hauteur"
(J. Parton, Life of Andrew Jackson, 1860, vol.
II, PL 28).
A welcome change from the isolated southern
station came finally in 1824 when he was appoint-
ed fleet captain and commander of the flagship
Constitution in Commodore Rodgers' Mediter-
ranean Squadron. Upon his return in 1828, part-
ly no doubt as a warm friend and supporter of
Jackson, he was given the important office of one
of the three navy commissioners. Afterward he
commanded the Mediterranean Squadron from
1832 to 1836, In negotiations to enforce claims
against Naples for commercial injuries during
the Napoleonic wars, his squadron gave effective
stipfKHt by entering the harior at Naples one ship
after another, tmtil aS six were assembled. His
death occurred at the Wash* ngton navy yard, of
wMch he was commandant, 18316-39, and he was
buried in the Congressional Cemetery.
Patterson
[Master Commandants' Letters, 1813, and Captains'
Letters, 1 8 14-24, in Navy Dept. Lib. ; E. N. McClellan
"The Navy at the Battle of New Orleans," U. S. Naval
Inst. Proc., Dec. iQ24; Daily National Intelligencer,
Jan. 30, Feb. 3, 22, 23, Mar. 6, Dec. 2, 1815, Aug. 26,
Sept. 23, 1839; E- B. Livingston, The Livingstons of
Livingston Manor (1910) ; information from family
sources.]
PATTERSON, JAMES KENNEDY (Mar.
26, i833-Aug. 15, 1922), educator, was the first
child of Andrew and Janet (Kennedy) Patterson,
of Glasgow, Scotland. The father was a calico
printer of limited earnings. At the age of four
Patterson injured his left knee in such a way as
to be lame ever after, a circumstance which
doubtless influenced his later choice of career.
In 1842 the family emigrated to America, set-
tling eventually in Madison County, Ind. There
as a result of his mother's contrivances he re-
ceived enough preliminary education to enable
him to teach a district school. Realizing that a
degree was indispensable to advancement, he
matriculated at Hanover College in 1851. He
was obliged to interrupt his studies and teach
again, but he returned to Hanover College and
graduated as valedictorian in 1856. In the same
year he became principal of the Presbyterian
Academy in Greenville, Ky. ; in 1859, principal
of the preparatory department of Stewart Col-
lege, Clarksville, Tenn. The closing of the col-
lege following the attack upon Fort Sumter left
him and his wife, Lucelia W. Wing, whom he
had married Dec. 25, 1859, without income, a
situation improved by his election as principal of
Transylvania Academy in Lexington, Ky., which
managed to keep open throughout the conflict.
When Kentucky University was organized un-
der John Bryan Bowman [g.-z/.] in 1865 Patter-
son was made professor of Latin, history, and
metaphysics, and in 1869 he became president of
the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Ken-
tucky which had been established in 1865 as an
adjunct of the University.
After a visit to England, Scotland, and France
in 1875 he returned to find the affairs of the uni-
versity so discordant as to make inevitable a
separation of the units representing respectively
denominational and state interests. After the
division Patterson remained in control of the for-
tunes of the Agricultural and Mechanical Col-
lege, an institution left by the separation without
buildings or a site for them, with an annual in-
come of only $9,900, and with a faculty of but
five members. Vigorously setting about organi-
zation he succeeded in having the campus estab-
lished in Lexington and in having the legislature
vote a yearly appropriation toward its support
This move, however, united most of the other
colleges of Kentucky in opposition to the State
302
Patterson
College and in a bitter campaign against the
principle of a state-supported institution. To add
to the seriousness of the situation the building
funds gave out before the completion of the pro-
jected dormitories and classrooms. In this crisis
Patterson contributed his greatest services to the
cause of education in Kentucky. He addressed
the General Assembly and a legislative commit-
tee in behalf of state aid to higher education and
pleaded his case so effectively as to win a full
triumph for the College and the law intended to
support it To meet the financial emergency he
hypothecated enough of his own securities to
assure the continuance of the building program.
From that time, despite the fact that Patterson
had a predilection for cultural schooling, the
evolution of the State College into the Univer-
sity of Kentucky was steady. After forty years
as head of the institution he retired, Jan. 15, 1910,
upon conditions which revealed his almost pos-
sessive interest in the university ; the partial nul-
lification of these conditions gave rise to quarrels
which darkened his closing years. By his will
he left to the University a sum of money to found
a school for the training of American diplo-
mats.
[Sources include : Mabel H. Pollitt, A Eiog. of Jas.
Kennedy Patterson (1925) ; a typewritten biography by
W. B. Smith (1925) in the library of the Univ. of Ky. ;
Memorial Exercises and Addresses in Honor of Jas.
Kennedy Patterson (1924) ; the Courier-four. (Louis-
ville), Aug. 1 6, 1922; information as to certain facts
from friends and relatives of Patterson.] Q< Q ]£t
PATTERSON, JAMES WILLIS (July 2,
i823-May 4, 1893), educator, politician, the sec-
ond child of William and Frances (Shepard)
Patterson, was born at Henniker, N. H. His
boyhood was spent for the most part in hard
work on his father's farm and in the mills at
Lowell, Mass., where the family resided for sev-
eral years. About 1838 he completed his early
schooling, which had been somewhat meager, at
the local academy in Henniker. After two years'
employment in Lowell, and four years as a teach-
er, he was able to complete his preparation for
college. He graduated from Dartmouth in 1848
with high honors. Planning a legal career, he
served as principal of Woodstock Academy in
Connecticut (1848-51), studying law in the
meantime. For a time he considered the minis-
try as a career and spent a year in the study of
theology at New Haven, but he had already made
a reputation as a successful teacher, and in 1852
he received and accepted the offer of a tutorship
at Dartmouth. In 1854 he was appointed pro-
fessor of mathematics and on Dec. 24 of the same
year married Sarah Parker Wilder of Laconia,
Patterson
N. H. Five years later he was appointed pro-
fessor of astronomy and meteorology and held
this chair until 1865.
From 1858 to 1862 Patterson was school com-
missioner of Grafton County. In the latter year
he served a term in the New Hampshire legis-
lature and in 1863 he was elected, a Republican,
to the national House of Representatives. His
House service covered the years 1863-67 and in
1866 he was elected to the United States Senate.
Throughout his ten years in Washington he was
especially interested in the District of Columbia
for which he drafted several education laws,
emancipation having created many new problems.
As chairman of the joint select committee on re-
trenchment he submitted notable reports on the
consular service (Senate Report 154, 40 Cong.,
2 Sess.) and on the excessive costs and abuses
m the collection of customs revenue (Senate Re-
port 38 0,41 Cong., 3 Sess.). His career in Wash-
ington closed under a cloud created by the Credit
Mobilier scandal, but historians have been puz-
zled to understand why he was recommended for
expulsion when no drastic action was taken in
the cases of other more serious offenders. That
his conduct had been indiscreet is unquestionable;
and his apparent attempt to conceal relevant facts
created a bad impression ; but many believed the
truth of his own statement that he had supposed
the stock purchased for him was Union Pacific
rather than Credit Mobilier. His term ended
within a few days after the Senate investigating
committee had submitted a report recommending
his expulsion, and without opportunity for dis-
cussion on the floor, a fact which led many to
believe that he had been unjustly dealt with.
His defense subsequently published, and reprint-
ed in a public document (Senate Report 519 > 42
Cong., 3 Sess.), is somewhat naive but strength-
ens the impression that he was innocent of cor-
rupt motives.
He had been defeated for renomination in 1872
and spent the years following his retirement in
Hanover. He traveled extensively and was in
frequent demand as a public speaker and lecturer,
He again represented Hanover in the legislature
for two terms, 1877-78. From 1881 to 1893 he
was state superintendent of public instruction,
He was largely instrumental in securing the pas-
sage of the Act of 1885 substituting the town for
the local district as the unit of public-school or-
ganization. He resigned in 1893 when again ap-
pointed to the Dartmouth faculty, this time as
professor of rhetoric and oratory. His reap-
pointment was considered a measure of vindica-
tion which he did not live to enjoy fully, his death
occurring unexpectedly a few weeks later.
3°3
Patterson
[Sources include : G. W. Patterson, Jas. W. Patter-
son as an Educator ( 1893), reprinted from Ann. Report
of Supt. of Pub. Instruction . . . of N. H.} 1893 ; L. W.
Cogswell, Hist, of the Town of Henniker (1880) ; j. 0*
Lyford, Life of Edw. H. Rollins (1906), containing
references to Patterson's political career; Biog. Dir.
Am. Cong. (1928) ; Granite Monthly, Oct. 1892, June
I893 ; J. K. Lord, A Hist, of Dartmouth Coll (1913) ;
obituary notices in New Hampshire newspapers. There
is manuscript material on Patterson in the archives of
Dartmouth Coll. and the Dartmouth Coll. Lib has a
large collection of Patterson's printed addresses and
miscellaneous pamphlets.] W A. R.
PATTERSON, JOHN HENRY (Dec. 13,
i844-May 7, 1922), promoter and manufacturer
of cash registers, was born near Dayton, Ohio,
the seventh of eleven children of Jefferson Pat-
terson and Julia Johnston, and a descendant of
John Patterson, of Scotch-Irish stock, who emi-
grated to Pennsylvania about 1700. Born on a
farm of well-to-do parents, and reared in rural
surroundings in the neighborhood of the then
small town of Dayton, Ohio, he attended the local
schools and the Central High School of Dayton,
Ohio, then spent a year, 1862-63, at Miami Uni-
versity. In 1864 he enlisted in the 1313! Ohio
but his regiment got only as far as Baltimore and
he saw no active service. Continuing his educa-
tion, he entered Dartmouth College and grad-
uated with the degree of B.A. in 1867. What he
regarded as an acquisition of much useless knowl-
edge at college was the foundation of a lifelong
suspicion and dislike of college methods and col-
lege men. Upon returning from Dartmouth as
a college graduate and veteran of the war, he
found nothing to do. He remained upon the
family farm for a time, then took a position in
1868 as a canal toll-gate keeper in Dayton. Later
he became a coal merchant with his brothers.
In 1884, at the age of forty, casting about for a
more profitable business than the coal business,
he acquired a controlling interest in the National
Manufacturing Company at Dayton which manu-
factured cash registers. The next day after its
purchase he was so greatly ridiculed for invest-
ing in such a failure that he offered $2,000 to the
seller to release him from his bargain, but his
offer was refused. The factory of the company,
which in December 1884 became the National
Cash Register Company, was situated in a dismal
slum section of the town of Dayton. There were
thirteen employees on the payroll. At an age
when most men are consolidating their successes,
Patterson started into business with a product
that nobody wanted, few knew how to use, and
one that met the violent opposition of all those
who had to employ it From this })eginning he
established eventually a plant whose product be-
came practically indispensable to tke commercial
Patterson
world and in a sense revolutionized commercial
transactions.
In the first four years of his control of the
company Patterson suggested many improve-
ments in the construction of the cash register
and took out several patents in his own name.
He was not a mechanic, however, and after 1888
left the development of the machine to experts.
He devoted his main efforts to the sale of his
product and in this field he developed advertising
practices which were new and unusual. Sales
conventions, sales schools for the education of
salesmen and customers, service to customers to
maintain the mechanism in operating condition,
the establishment of the closed quota territory
guaranteeing to salesmen their territory as theirs
exclusively, generous payments of large com-
missions for performance, were all evidences of
the new salesmanship that he introduced. At the
outset he began to use advertising circulars and
always stressed direct mail advertising.
In the factory, he converted the grime and
gloom of his original plant into pleasant sur-
roundings. He established an industrial welfare
organization to take care of the education, health,
and working conditions of his employees and
their families, he established a schoolhouse for
their education and entertainment, and he con-
verted his factory ground into an industrial gar-
den spot. But his lavish provisions for the health
and comfort of his employees were prompted as
much by materialistic as humanitarian motives,
for he often said: "It pays." His competitive
methods were so aggressive that he was left su-
preme in his field, but he was repeatedly subject
to the attacks of government agencies and of
other business men. He demanded a maximum
of efficiency from his employees and was often
merciless in his treatment of them. Physically
he was wiry and energetic, and he possessed a
highly erratic temperament. He had a genius
for management and a mind that retained every
detail of his business. Easily obsessed by an
idea, he was unhappy until he had converted it
into action. After he had been placed on a regi-
men which included callisthenics in the morning
he demanded that the executives in his factory
assemble at five o'clock every morning" for simi-
lar exercises. Good government, aviation, diet,
horticulture, horses, education, and invention
were but a few of his hobbies. Patterson died on
May 7, 1922, at seventy-eight, while he was on
his way to Atlantic City. He had retired from
the presidency of the company in 1921, but was
chairman of the board of directors at the time of
his death. He was survived by two children.
His wife, Katherine Dudley Beck, of Brookline,
304
Patterson
Mass., whom lie married on Dec. 18, 1888, died
in 1894-
[Sources include: Samuel Crowther, John H. Pat-
terson, Pioneer in Industrial Welfare (1923) ; C. R.
Conover, Concerning our Forefathers . . . Col. Robert
Patterson and Col. John Johnston (1902) ; R. W. John-
son and R. W. Lynch, The Sales Strategy of John H.
Patterson (1932) ; Fortune, Aug. 1930; Who's Who in
America, 1920-21 ; N. Y. Times, May 8, 1922.]
H.A.T.Jr.
PATTERSON, MORRIS (Oct. 26, i8o9-Oct
23, 1878), merchant, philanthropist, was born in
Philadelphia, Pa., the eldest son of John and
Rachel (Cauffman) Patterson. The father died
in 1819, leaving a family of seven children, and
the mother opened a grocery store in order to
support herself and the family. Morris worked
in the store until 1830, when he went into the
grocery business for himself. Shortly before this
time he had begun to operate a retail coal wharf
and in time he decided to engage in coal mining
on his own account. He became a pioneer in the
development of the anthracite coal trade of
Pennsylvania. His coal was brought to Phila-
delphia in his own boats on the Schuylkill Canal
and from there was shipped to other Eastern
cities. In Schuylkill County he built up a large
trade in groceries with Pottsville and the mining
region, shipping the goods in his canal boats
when they returned to the mines. He also en-
gaged in transalleghany trade, sending his
goods across the mountains in wagon trains.
When the Pennsylvania Railroad was first pro-
jected he was one of the canvassers for stock
subscriptions and was himself an original stock-
holder. On Jan. I, 1840, he turned his retail
grocery business over to his younger brothers
and formed a partnership with Benjamin S.
Janney, Jr., under the firm name of Morris Pat-
terson & Company, to conduct a wholesale gro-
cery business. This partnership continued until
Jan. i, 1857, when it was dissolved. In 1845 he
had become associated with Joseph Bailey in the
manufacture of plate iron at the Pine Rolling
Mill near Douglassville, Pa. A few years later
he also became associated with Charles L. Bailey
in the construction of the Central Rolling Mill at
Harrisburg, Pa., which was completed in 1852.
He was connected with this concern as a silent
partner until it was sold in 1866, at which time he
retired from all business activities.
Patterson was very active in church affairs and
was ruling elder of the West Spruce Street Pres-
byterian Church in Philadelphia, the erection of
which he largely financed, from 1856 until his
death. He also served as a member of the Presby-
tery of Philadelphia. He was one of the found-
ers and a member of the board of managers of
the Pennsylvania Working Home for Blind
Patterson
Men and was connected with many other
table and philanthropic institutions. In a
and unostentatious way he did a great deal of
good with the fortune which he had accumu-
lated. In addition to his other business activi-
ties he served as one of the directors of the
Western National Bank and of the Montgomery
Iron Company. He was also a member of the
Presbyterian Board of Education and a trustee
of Lafayette College to which he was a generous
contributor. On Apr. 8, 1846, he was married
to Mary Storm and they had three children. He
died suddenly in Philadelphia.
[There is a privately printed memorial of Patterson
entitled: Morris Patterson, Born Oct. 26, 1809, Died
Oct. 23, 1878 (n.d.). See also: the Presbyterian
(Phila.), Nov. 2, 1878; Phila. Inquirer, Oct. 24, 1878;
Pub. Ledger (PMla.), Oct. 25, 1878.] J.H.F.
PATTERSON, ROBERT (May 30, 1743-
July 22, 1824), mathematician, was born near
Hillsborough in the north of Ireland, the son of
Robert and Jane Patterson. His great-grand-
father had emigrated from Scotland to escape
the persecution of the Presbyterians by th,e
Stuarts. He was sent to school at an early age
and distinguished himself for his progress in
mathematics. During the wave of martial spirit
that spread over Ireland when the French de-
scended upon the coast, Patterson enlisted in a
militia company. He was offered a commission
in the British army but this he declined. After
finishing his education, he emigrated to Amer-
ica in October 1768 and landed in Philadelphia
practically penniless. He secured a position as
schoolmaster in Buckingham, Bucks County,
but left this position to return to Philadelphia,
where he taught many of the leading navigators
the computation of longitude by means of lunar
observations. In 1772, having accumulated the
sum of approximately five or six hundred
pounds, lie opened a country store in New Jer-
sey. He was unfitted for business, however, and
seized the first opportunity to close out the en-
terprise, resuming his former vocation as prin-
cipal of the academy at Wilmington, Del. His
early experiences in Ireland put him in a posi-
tion to render valuable services as a military in-
structor upon the outbreak of the Revolution.
Three companies were put under his charge.
Later he entered the army with the rank of bri-
gade major and served until the British evacu-
ated Philadelphia,
Upon the reorganization o£ the College and
Academy of Philadelphia as the University of
Pennsylvania, Patterson was appointed profes-
sor of mathematics. He entered the services o£
the University in December 1779 and served
3°5
Patterson
continuously until 1814 when he resigned and
was succeeded by his son, Robert M. Patterson.
For a period he was vice-provost of the Univer-
sity. He contributed several scientific papers
to the Transactions of the American Philosoph-
ical Society and was a frequent contributor of
problems and solutions to mathematical jour-
nals. He also published Lectures on Select Sub-
jects in Mechanics (2 vols., 1806), and Astron-
omy Explained upon Sir Isaac Newton's Prin-
ciples (1806, 1809), revised editions of the
works of James Ferguson, the Scotch scientist
In 1808 he published a small book entitled the
Newtonian System of Philosophy and in 1818 he
published A Treatise of Practical Arithmetic,
elaborated from his lectures on the same subject
at the University of Pennsylvania. Though the
exposition was clear, the book never reached the
circulation it deserved because it was difficult
for beginners. In the second volume of Robert
Adrair/s Analyst he set as the prize problem the
question as to how to correct the measurements
of a polygon whose sides are given in size and
direction but which when plotted do not close
up. The problem was renewed in Volume III
and was finally solved by Nathaniel Bowditch
in Volume IV.
In addition to his services at the University
Patterson found time for public service. He was
a member of Select Council of Philadelphia and
was elected its president in 1799. In 1805 he re-
ceived from President Jefferson the unsolicited
appointment as director of the mint He filled
this office with distinction and resigned only at
the time of his last illness. He was elected a
member of the American Philosophical Society
in 1783 and became its president in 1819. He
was richly endowed both in mind and body. His
especial mental inclination was for exact sci-
ence. He was not alone interested in the dis-
covery of a mathematical or physical truth but
was never satisfied until he could see its appli-
cation in the world of every-day life. Patterson
was married, on May 9, 1774, to Amy Hunter
Ewing of Greenwich, N. J. They had eight chil-
dren.
[Memoir of Patterson in Trans. Am. Phtt. Soc.t n.s.
wl II (1825) ; F. Cajori, The Teaching and Hist, of
Mathematics in the U. S. (1890) ; J. L. Chamberlain,
Umversities cmd Their Sons: Univ. of Pa vol I
Jgoi) ; £. B. Wood, The Hist, of the Univ. of Pa.
1834) ; W. E. Dta Bois, A Record of the Families of
obt. Patterson (1847) ; Paulson's Am. Daily Adver-
tiser, July 24, 18^4.1 J. R. K.
PATTERSON, ROBERT (Jan, 12, 1792-Aug.
7, 1881), soldier, industrialist, was born in
County Tyrone, Ireland, the eldest son of Fran-
cis and Arm (Graham) Patterson. His father
took part in the Irish Rebellion in 1798, was sen-
(1
R
Patterson
tenced to banishment, and came to America, set-
tling on a farm in Delaware County, Pa. Robert
received his early education in the public schools
and at fifteen entered the counting house of Ed-
ward Thompson in Philadelphia. In the War of
1812, he served successively as captain, lieuten-
ant-colonel, and colonel of Pennsylvania militia ;
lieutenant, 22nd United States Infantry; captain
and deputy quartermaster-general, 32nd Infan-
try; and captain, 32nd Infantry, being mustered
out m June 1815. He returned to Philadelphia
and established himself as a grocer, becoming
in time a commission merchant with connections
in the South. He was married in 1817 to Sarah
Ann Engle of Germantown, Pa., who died in
1875. They had eleven children, of whom five
died in infancy. In 1835 he visited the upper
Mississippi and Iowa, keeping a diary describing
the country he saw. Excerpts from this diary
were published under the title "Observations of
an Early American Capitalist" in the Journal of
American History, October-December 1907. At
first a disciple of Thomas Jefferson, he was one
of the five Colonel Pattersons (North American,
Philadelphia, Dec. 8, 1912) who sat in the state
convention of Democratic-Republicans that met
at Harrisburg, Mar. 4, 1824, and by acclamation
nominated Andrew Jackson for the presidency.
He was commissioner of internal improvements
in Pennsylvania in 1827 ; was twice a presiden-
tial elector ; continued to be a Democrat in poli-
tics, but was opposed to free trade.
At the beginning of the Mexican War, he be-
came a major-general of volunteers (July 7,
1846), commanded his division at Cerro Gordo,
led the cavalry and advance brigades in the pur-
suit, and took Jalapa, for which he was honor-
ably mentioned by General Scott. Upon his
discharge from the federal service in July 1848,
he returned to his business affairs, became prom-
inent in the development of the sugar industry in
Louisiana, acquired interests in sugar and cotton
plantations, and eventually the ownership of some
thirty cotton-mills in Pennsylvania. He was a
promoter of the Pennsylvania Railroad and of
steamship transportation between Philadelphia
and other ports. From 1833 to 1867 he com-
manded a division of Pennsylvania militia. He
was one of the original trustees of Lafayette
College from 1825 to 1835 and again from 1874
to 1881, being president of the board from 1876
until his death.
At the beginning of the Civil War he was
mustered into federal service, for three months,
as a major-general of volunteers, and assigned
to command the military department composed
of Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and the
306
Patterson
District of Columbia. He crossed the Potomac
on June 15, 1861, at Williamsport, Md. Again,
on July 2, he crossed the river, pursuing General
"Stonewall" Jackson, and on July 3, advanced
to Martinsburg, W. Va. In the middle of July
he was ordered to hold in check the forces under
Gen. Joseph E. Johnston in the neighborhood of
Winchester while General McDowell advanced
in Virginia. The reason he gave for his failure
to give battle to Johnston and to cooperate with
McDowell in the battle of Bull Run was that
General Scott did not send him the order to at-
tack (Narrative, pp. 74-75). At the expiration
of his commission, July 27, 1861, he was mus-
tered out of federal service and returned to his
business concerns in Philadelphia. After the
war he published A Narrative of the Campaign
in the Valley of the Shenandoah in 1861 (1865).
His son, Francis Engle Patterson, a brigadier-
general of Pennsylvania volunteers, participated
in the Peninsular campaign and was killed by the
accidental discharge of his own pistol at Fair-
fax Court-House, Nov. 22, 1862. Robert Patter-
son died in Philadelphia and was buried in Lau-
rel Hill Cemetery.
[M. V. Agnew, The Book of the Agnews (1926);
Mies' Weekly Reg., Mar.-Sept. 1824; Phila. Inquirer,
Aug. 8-12, 1 88 1 ; F. B. Heitman, Hist. Reg. and Diet.
U. S. Army (1903) ; War Department records; "Re-
port of Joint Committee on Conduct of the War," Sen.
Report No. 108 (vol. 3), 37 Cong., 3 Sess.; North
American (Phila.), Dec. 8, 1912.] R.C.C— n.
PATTERSON, ROBERT MAYNE (July 17,
i832-Apr. 5, 1911), Presbyterian clergyman,
editor, author, was born in Philadelphia and
spent practically all his life in or near that city.
His parents, John and Margaret (Mayne) Pat-
terson, were natives of the north of Ireland who
had come to America early in the eighteenth
century. Robert graduated from the Central
High School of Philadelphia in 1849, served as
official reporter for the United States Senate,
1850-55, and for a time studied law. Turned to
the ministry largely by the desire of his parents,
he attended Princeton Theological Seminary,
graduating in 1859. The same year he was or-
dained to the ministry by the Presbytery of Phil-
adelphia. In the next forty-seven years he served
only two churches as pastor — Great Valley
Presbyterian Church, Chester County, Pa.,
1859-67 and 1881-1906,- and South Presbyterian
Church, Philadelphia, 1867-81. His ministry
was marked by acceptable preaching and faith-
ful pastoral work. While he was in charge of
South Church the membership greatly increased,
a burdensome debt was paid, and the building
was remodeled. During his second pastorate in
Great Valley the church erected a new edifice.
Patterson
When, in 1906, ill health caused his retirement,
he was made pastor emeritus, a distinction which
he held until his death after a long illness, five
years later.
The activity which made him most widely
known was his editorship of two religious week-
lies, The Presbyterian, as associate editor, 1870-
80, and The Presbyterian Journal, as editor,
1880-93, each published at Philadelphia, His
increasing familiarity with church laws and
doctrines, which his articles and editorials dis-
closed, and the character of his many books led
to his being called to take a prominent part in
the deliberations of the Church throughout the
country. In presbyteries and synods and in the
General Assembly, his knowledge of ecclesias-
tical law was continually in demand. He was
sent by his presbytery to thirteen sessions of the
General Assembly. In 1880 he was a member
of a special committee appointed to prepare a
plan for consolidation of the synods and for en-
largement of their powers ; at different times he
also served on six other special committees and
commissions of the Assembly. He was a mem-
ber of the Pan-Presbyterian Council at London
in 1875 J at Philadelphia in 1880; and at Belfast
in 1884. For many years, also, he was one of the
members of the Presbyterian Board of Publica-
tion and Sabbath School Work.
Of his books, which totaled nearly thirty, sev-
eral were biographical, including The Charac-
ter of Abraham Lincoln (1865), Elijah, the Fa-
vored Man (1880), and William Blackwood
( 1894) ; four were local or general church his-
tories, culminating in American Presbyterianism
(1896) ; a number were polemic; and most of
the remainder dealt with Christian instruction
and church methods, of which Church Exten-
sion in Large Cities appeared in 1880 and The
Angels and Their Ministrations in 1900. He
also edited Withrow's Which Is the Apostolic
Church? (1874) and The Second General Coun-
cil of the Presbyterian Alliance ( 1880) . In 1861
he married Margaret Maclay Nourse, daughter
of Rev. James Nourse, of Washington, Pa. ; she
died in 1863. His second wife was Rebecca
Thomas Malin, daughter of Joseph Malin of
Chester Valley, Pa., whom he married in 1867.
[Necrological Reports cmd Ann. Proc. of the Alumni
Asso. of Princeton Theological Sem., vol. IV (1919) ;
W. S. Gamer, Biog. and Portrait Cyc. of Chester Coun-
ty, Pa. (1893); Who's Who in America, 1912-13;
Public Ledger (Phila.), Apr. 6, 1911 ; two manuscripts
in lib. of fiie hist. dept. of the Presbyterian Chtnrch,
Phila., recording the actions of tlie Presbytery of Ches-
ter on Patterson's retirement (1906) and death (191*)-!
RP.F.
PATTERSON, THOMAS HARMAN (May
10, i820-Apr. 9, 1889), naval officer, was
307
Patterson
in New Orleans, La., the son of Daniel Todd
Patterson [q.v.] and George Ann (Pollock)
Patterson. He was appointed midshipman Apr.
5, 1836, and served first for seven months in the
Porpoise, participating- in coast survey work,
and from 1837 to 1840 in the Fahnouth, Pacific
Squadron. Following a year at the naval school
in Philadelphia he was made passed midship-
man July i, 1842, standing sixth in his class
of thirty-six. He was at the Naval Observatory
in 1843, and then spent a year in the West In-
dies on board the Lawrence. He served again
in the coast survey from 1844 to 1848. Promo-
tion to the rank of lieutenant came on June 23,
1849, just before a long Pacific cruise in the
Vandalia. After his return in October 1852 he
was assigned to special duty in Washington.
Then followed a cruise in the Jamestown, Afri-
can Squadron, from 1854 to 1857; two years at
the Washington navy yard ; and another Afri-
can cruise in the Mohican. His Civil War serv-
ice began in October 1861 when he sailed from
Boston for Virginia waters in command of the
gunboat Chocura. The Chocura was in the naval
force which cooperated with McClellan during
the Peninsular Campaign in the spring of 1862.
It was the first gunboat to ascend the Pamunkey
River to Whitehouse after the evacuation of
Yorktown on May 4, and supported Gen. George
Stoneman's advance at that point Patterson was
made commander July 16, 1862, and from June
to October of that year he was senior officer in
the York and Pamunkey rivers. From Novem-
ber 1862 to June 1865 he commanded the side-
wheel gunboat James Adger on the southeast
coast blockade. His ship assisted in cutting out
the blockade-runner Kate under the Confederate
batteries at New Inlet, N. C, on Aug. i, 1863,
and on Aug. 23 came under heavy fire near this
point while destroying the beached vessel Hebe
(D. D. Porter, The Naval History of the Civil
War, 1886, p. 427). His captures of blockade-
runners in this year included the Comubia, on
Nov. 8, the steamer Robert E. Lee with valuable
arms and stores, on Nov. 9, and the schooner
Ella on Nov. 26. He was senior officer of the off-
shore blockade at Charleston from September
1864 to February 1865, and a month later oper-
ated with the convoy fleet in the Mariguana
Passage in the West Indies. He was made cap*-
tain July 22, 1866, commodore in 1871, and rear
admiral in 1877. He commanded the Brooklyn,
flagship of the Brazil Squadron from 1865 to
1867, and during the next ten years was as-
signed to various share duties, being comman-
dant of the Washington navy yard from 1873 to
1876. From 1878 to October *88o> he command-
Patterson
ed the Asiatic Squadron, and was subsequently
engaged in revising the naval regulations. Fol-
lowing his retirement on May 10. 1882, he made
his home in Washington where his death oc-
curred after more than three years of ill health.
A classmate, Rear Admiral T. H. Stevens, de-
scribed him as a man "of great dignity of man-
ner and reticent . . . but to those who knew the
warm heart beneath the cold exterior ... of lov-
able nature, a constant, unswerving friend." He
was married in Washington on Jan. 5, 1847, to
Maria Montresor Wainwright, daughter of Col
R. D. Wainwright, U. S. M. C, and had one
daughter and four sons.
[L. R. Hamersly, Records of Living Officers of the
U. S. Navy and Marine Corps Uth ed., 1890) : War of
the Rebellion: Official Records (Navy}, i ser VI-
XVI ; Washington Post, Apr. n, 1889 ; other material
from family sources.]
A.W.
308
PATTERSON, THOMAS MACDONALD
(Nov. 4, i839-July 23, 1916), lawyer, editor,
senator, the third child and second son of James
and Margaret (Mountjoy) Patterson, was born
in County Carlow, Ireland. After the removal
of the family to America when the boy was about
ten years of age, he attended school in New
York City and Astoria, L. I. In 1853 he went
with his family to Crawfordsville, Ind., where
he worked first in a printing office and then in
his father's jewelry store. After a short term of
service in the Civil War with the nth Indiana
Infantry, he enrolled, in 1862, in Indiana As-
bury University (now De Pauw University),
but transferred in the following year to Wabash
College at Crawfordsville. Leaving in his junior
year he began to study law in the office of M. D.
White of Crawfordsville and was admitted to
the bar in 1867. In 1872 he moved to Denver and
soon won the reputation of being one of the best
trial lawyers in the West In 1874 he was made
city attorney of Denver and later in the same
year was elected, as a Democrat, territorial dele-
gate from Colorado to the Forty-fourth Con-
gress. Although his term of office did not begin
until Mar. 4, 1875, he went to Washington in
time to use his influence, especially with the
Democratic members of Congress, to help se-
cure the passage of the Colorado Enabling Act
in the closing hours of the Forty-third Congress.
At an election held in October 1876, after Colo-
rado had been admitted to the Union, he was de-
feated^by James B. Belford, Republican, for the
unexpired term as representative in the Forty-
fourth Congress, and also for the full term of
the succeeding Congress. Denying the validity
of the latter vote, Patterson ran again, but with-
out opposition, at the regular time for Congres-
Patterson
sional elections in November. The certificate of
election was given to Belford, but Patterson
challenged his seat and after a contest that at-
tracted wide attention was seated by the House
of Representatives (Congressional Record^ 45
Cong., 2 Sess., pt. I, pp. 145 fL).
Patterson was active in state and national
councils of the Democratic party and was a dele-
gate to the Democratic National conventions in
1876, 1888, and 1892. As a member of the Com-
mittee on Resolutions in the last of those con-
ventions he brought in, singly, a minority report
in favor of free silver. Voted down, he bolted
the party and helped carry Colorado for the Pop-
ulist candidate, James B. Weaver. He was a
delegate to the Populist National Convention in
1896, and its permanent chairman in 1900. In
1901 he was elected to the United States Sen-
ate from Colorado by a combination of Demo-
cratic, Populist, and Silver-Republican votes.
Although he affiliated with the Democratic party
while in the Senate (1901-07), he refused to
be bound by the instructions of the party caucus
and vigorously asserted his right to independ-
ence of action as when, for example, he support-
ed President Roosevelt's policies in the Morocco
conference and the Santo Dominican treaty ( Con-
gressional Record, 59 Cong., I Sess., pt II, pp.
1801-06; Ibid., pt III, pp. 2207 ff.). He was
twice the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for
governor of Colorado ; in 1888 he was defeated
by Job A. Cooper, and in 1914 by George A.
Carlson. An important element in his political
influence in Colorado was the Rocky Mountain
News, in which he acquired an interest in 1890,
and over which he assumed full control in 1892.
Until he sold this newspaper in 1913 it was the
principal means through which he carried on his
crusades for such governmental reforms as the
initiative, the referendum, and the direct pri-
mary, and against the corporations that, in his
judgment, sought to exploit the public. Although
rated a millionaire on account of the fees earned
in a lucrative law practice and his shrewd pur-
chases of Denver real estate, he was one of La-
bor's most outspoken champions in the West. He
was versatile, dynamic, aggressive, militant, and
domineering. He had strong convictions and
expressed himself freely without regard to the
consequences or effects on friends and associates.
He had warm friends, ardent supporters, and
bitter enemies. He was not always sound in his
judgments or fair in his criticisms, but he was
honest and sincere. He did much to free Colo-
rado from corporate control and to put into the
hands of the people the means of direct political
action. His wife was Katherine Grafton of Wa-
Patterson
tertown, N. Y., to whom he was married in 1863.
He was survived by one daughter.
[Who's Who in America, 1916—17; Biog. Dir. Am.
Cong. (1928) ; J. C. Smiley, Semi-Centennial Hist, of
the State of Colo. (1913), vol. II; W. F. Stone, Hist,
of Colo., vol. II (1918); Cong. Record, 65 Cong., i
Sess., App., pp. 582-85 ; Rocky Mountain News and
Denver Post, July 24, 1916.] CBG
PATTERSON, WILLIAM (Nov. i, 1752-
July 7, 1835), merchant, was born at Fanad,
County Donegal, Ireland, of Scotch-Irish farm-
er parents, William and Elizabeth (Peoples)
Patterson. At the age of fourteen (1766) he
was sent to Philadelphia to enter the counting-
house of Samuel Jackson, an Irish shipping mer-
chant "This gave me," said Patterson sixty
years later, "an early knowledge and attachment
to that business, a passion that has followed me
through life" (Scharf, post, pp. 482-83). In
1775, foreseeing an excellent sale for munitions
in the rebellious colonies, he embarked all of his
property in two vessels which went to France
for these supplies, Patterson himself sailing in
one of them. A single vessel returned, and, ac-
cording to tradition, when it reached Philadel-
phia, the army of Washington, then before Bos-
ton, had not powder enough to fire one salute.
On his way home Patterson tarried two years in
the Dutch and French West Indies, which were
the principal places of purchase and sale for the
colonies. He was eighteen months at St Eus-
tatius, but finding the governor, Johannes de
Graaff, unable to protect American interests, he
moved to Martinique. He accumulated a for-
tune of more than $60,000, half of which he lost
by British captures in a month ; the remainder
he brought to Baltimore (July 1778) in goods
and gold.
He prospered from his first settlement in that
city. It was his invariable rule to put half of
his fortune into real estate, for he regarded
"commerce in the shipping line as a hazardous
and desperate game of chance" (Scharf, p. 483).
If he lost in his shipping ventures his family
(he had thirteen children, several of whom died
in infancy) would thus have something to fall
back upon, and heirs, furthermore, were not so
apt to part with land as with securities. He was
typical of the Baltimore merchant princes who
increasingly in the next fifty years, as the busi-
ness of American ports flourished, made the
clipper schooner and brig, and later the dipper
ship, famous around the world. He was one of
the Baltimore merchants who supplied Lafayette
with 10,000 guineas which were invested In sup-
plies for the Yorktown campaign, and himself,
as a member of the 1st Baltimore Cavalry, went
to the peninsula. He was the first president of
309
Pattie
the Bank of Maryland, established in 1790. In
1799 he was active in raising money to complete
the fortification of Whetstone Point (Fort Mc-
Henry), gathered supplies for the defense of
the place in 1814, and welcomed Lafayette there
on his visit in 1824, On Christmas Eve, 1803,
his daughter Elizabeth ("Betsey"), eighteen
years of age, was married to the nineteen-year-
old Jerome Bonaparte, young brother of the First
Consul of France [see Elizabeth Patterson
Bonaparte]. Her parents gave consent most re-
luctantly, and were prepared for the adamant
opposition of Napoleon, which resulted in Bet-
sey's abandonment by her husband at Lisbon in
1805, the annulment of the marriage by the
French Senate, and a divorce by Maryland stat-
ute in 1812. Patterson said of his daughter that
"she has caused me more anxiety . . . than all
my other children put together, and her folly
and misconduct has occasioned me a train of ex-
pense that first and last has cost me much
money" (Ibid., p. 488).
Patterson was one of the organizers of the
Merchants' Exchange in Baltimore in 1815, gave
two acres of land to the city for a park in 1827,
and was one of the incorporators and first direc-
tors of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in the
same year. He took delight in riding on the first
cars of the railroad, and was given the honor of
being the first to cross the Patapsco viaduct,
which was named for him. In 1828 he was one
of the incorporators of the Canton Company,
which has for a century been important in the
commercial and industrial life of the city. One
of his last public acts was to serve as vice-pres-
ident of a meeting of Baltimore citizens which
condemned the nullification ordinance of South
Carolina in 1832. His wife, who died in 1814,
was Dorcas Spear, a sister of the wife of Gen.
Samuel Smith.
[Autobiographical introduction to Patterson's will in
J, T. Scharf, The Chronicles of Baltimore (1874) ;
F. A. Richardson and W. A. Bennett, Baltimore: Past
and Present (1871) ; Baltimore American and Daily
Advertiser, July 9, 1835 ; original receipt book of Pat-
terson, most of the entries being for the decade 1780—
go, in lib. of Peabody Institute, Baltimore; E. L.
Didier, The Life and Letters of Madame Bonaparte
(1879) ; D. M. Henderson, The Golden Bees (1928).]
B.M.
PATTIE, JAMES OHIO (1804-1850?), trap-
per, author, was born in Bracken County, Ky.,
the son of Sylvester Pattie. The main source of
information regarding his father and himself is
his dubious Personal Narrative (1831), edited
(and perhaps largely written) by Timothy
Flint. From Kentucky, he says, the family
moved to Missouri in 1812. In July 1824, near
the present Omaha, father and son joined Sil-
Pattie
vestre Pratte's Santa Fe expedition, which
reached its destination Nov. 5. During- the next
three years the son, sometimes in company with
his father, took part in a number of hazardous
trapping journeys. Early in 1828, with his fa-
ther and six others, he reached Santa Catalina
Mission, in Lower California. All were arrested
and taken to San Diego, where, according to
Pattie, they were subjected to extreme brutali-
ties by Governor Echeandia. Here, on Apr. 24,
the elder Pattie died in prison. The son, with
his companions, was released early in the fol-
lowing year, and in August 1830, by way of
Mexico city, he arrived in Cincinnati. He is as-
sumed to have filed a claim for damages in the
Mexican capital, but a recent search (1933) of
the papers in the United States Embassy there,
as well as in the State Department in Washing-
ton, reveals no record of even a complaint by
him.
The Personal Narrative appeared in the fol-
lowing year, though most of the copies extant
bear the date of 1833. A plagiarized version,
with the title, The Hunters of Kentucky, and
purporting to record the adventures of one B.
Bilson, was published in New York in 1847.
The original text was reprinted as the eighteenth
volume (1905) of Early Western Travels, with
sparse and unsatisfactory annotations by R. G.
Thwaites. It was again reprinted, with scanty
annotations, by M. M. Quaife, in 1930.
From such knowledge as is available, the
elder Pattie appears an estimable person. It is
not unlikely, on the other hand, that the son was,
as Bancroft characterized him, a conceited and
quick-tempered boy with an exceptional capac-
ity for making himself disagreeable. His book,
an entertaining narrative of thrilling and pain-
ful adventures, has an assured place in frontier
literature. It is, however, to be classed as semi-
fiction rather than as history. On matters that
can be tested by authentic records it usually
proves inaccurate as to dates, names, and locali-
ties, and it is frequently erroneous, if not un-
truthful, as to events. Nathaniel M. Pryor, one
of Pattie's companions, pronounced it mostly
false. Of the later life of Pattie little is known.
He is said to have attended Augusta College and
to have made his home for many years in the
nearby town of Dover. In 1849 he joined the
gold rush and appears to have visited San Diego.
At some time in the following winter he was at
William Waldo's camp in the Sierra, and left
there during a spell of tempestuous weather. He
was never heard of again.
[See William Waldo, "Recollections of a Septuage-
arian," Mo, Hist. Colls., vols. II, III (1880); S. C
fcrto+-*f "A d-^f/sli f\f CA^»& ~£ 4.1.-. f__1.:__j. TT_ T5J-.
Foster, "A Sketch of Some of the Earliest Ky. Pio-
310
Pattison
neers of Los Angeles," Pubs. Hist. Soc. of Southern
CaL, vol. I, pt. 3 (1887) ; H. R. Wagner, The Plains and
the Rockies ( 1921) . The parts of the Personal Narrative
relating to California are summarized by H. H. Ban-
croft, Hist, of CaL, vol. Ill (1885), with critical com-
ment based on Mexican records. Fresh light on the
unveracity of Pattie is given by C. L. Camp, "The
Chronicles of Geo. C. Yount," Cal. Hist. Soc. Quart.,
Apr. 1923 ; and by J. J. Hill, "Ewing Young in the
Fur Trade of the Southwest," Ore. Hist. Soc. Quart.,
Mar. 1923. A more favorable view of Pattie appears
in R. G. Cleland, A Hist, of Cal. : The American Period
09**).] WJ.G.
PATTISON, GRANVILLE SHARP (c.
I79i-Nov. 12, 1851), anatomist, was the young-
est son of John Pattison of Kelvin Grove, Glas-
gow. He was probably educated at the Univer-
sity of Glasgow. At the age of eighteen he was
chosen assistant to Allan Burns, the well-known
Scotch anatomist, and later succeeded him in the
chair of anatomy, physiology, and surgery in the
Andersonian Institution. Here he made for him-
self a reputation as an interesting lecturer and
successful teacher. In 1819, on a hint of the pos-
sibility of his being called to the chair of anat-
omy in the medical department of the University
of Pennsylvania, he came to the United States.
Before sailing he was made a member of the
Medico-Chirurgical Society of London and a
fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. Disap^
pointed in his hope of obtaining the professor-
ship at the University of Pennsylvania, he gave
a series of private lectures on anatomy in Phil-
adelphia which attracted wide attention. He
also published, in 1820, Experimental Observa-
tions on the Operation of Lithotomy. This
brought him notoriety, arousing one of the bitter
controversies so often waged by anatomists at
that time. In the midst of the controversy he
challenged his opponent, Dr. Nathaniel Chap-
man, professor of the theory and practice of
medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, to
a duel. Chapman refused the challenge in a fa-
mous note. Pattison then posted him "as a liar, a
coward, and a scoundrel." Chapman's brother-
in-law, Gen. Thomas Cadwalader, accepted the
challenge and received a ball in his "pistol arm,"
which was disabled for the rest of his life. A
ball passed through the skirt of Pattison's coat
near the waistline. In 1821 he published A Refu-
tation of Certain Calumnies Published in a Pam-
phlet Entitled, "Correspondence between Mr.
Granmlle Sharp Pattison and Dr. Nathaniel
Chapman."
In the midst of the controversy, 1820, Patti-
son was invited to the chair of anatomy, physi-
ology, and surgery at the University of Mary-
land in Baltimore. While here, 1824, he edited
the second edition of Allan Burns's Observa-
tions on the Surgical Anatomy of the Head and
Pattison
Neck. In 1826 he resigned his professorship at
Baltimore and returned to England, where he
was appointed professor of anatomy in the newly
organized University of London, now University
College. There was serious lack of discipline in
the institution, and Pattison made the attempt
to control his class. The students rebelled and
Wakeley, the editor of the Lancet (London), in-
tervened. As a result, Pattison was dismissed
from the chair on July 23, 1831. The following
year he was invited to the professorship of
anatomy at the Jefferson Medical College, Phil-
adelphia, where he acquired the reputation of
being the most successful teacher in his subject
in the country. He brought great prestige to the
new school. Nine years later, on the reorgani-
zation of the medical department of the Univer-
sity of the City of New York, he was invited to
the chair of anatomy and continued to occupy
this position until his death. Gross, in his bio-
graphical sketch of him, remarks : "It is no exag-
geration to say that no anatomical teacher of
his day, either in Europe or in this country, en-
joyed a higher reputation" (post, II, 257). He
devoted himself faithfully to the demonstration
of visceral and surgical anatomy and gave very
practical lessons in applying knowledge of the
subject to the diagnosis and treatment of dis-
eases, accidents, and operations. He was a very
popular teacher, for the students felt that they
were always securing knowledge that could be
applied in the practice of medicine. He spared
no pains to arrange clever demonstrations and
his teaching produced a deep and lasting impres-
sion. He was an. editor of the Register and Li-
brary of Medical and Surgical Science (Wash-
ington, 1833-36) and co-editor of the American
Medical Library and Intelligencer (Philadel-
phia, 1836).
In addition to his professional work, he was
much interested in music and was a leader in the
group of music lovers who arranged the produc-
tion of grand opera in New York City. He was
very fond of hunting and fishing, and is said to
have been somewhat indolent, for which reason,
perhaps, he did not leave more definite remains
of his work behind Mm. He died in New York,
survived by his wife.
[S. D. Gross, Autobiog. (2 vols,» 1887) ; F. P. Henry,
Hist, of Medicine in Phtta. (1897) I Bardeen, Encyc. of
Am. Medic. Biog. (1912) ; J. J. Walsh, Hist, of Medi-
cine in N. Y. (5 vols., 1919) ; autobiographical mate-
rial in Refutation . . . (1821), mentioned above; IV. F.
Jour, of Medicine and the Collateral Sciences, Jan.
1852; Diet, of Nat. Biog. ; GentkmoM's Mag., London,
Jan. 1852; N. F. Herald, Nov. 13, 1851.] J.J.W.
PATTISON, JAMES WILLIAM (July 14,
i844-May 29, 1915), painter, writer, lecturer,
was born in Boston, Mass. His father was Hie
Pattison
Rev. Robert Everett Pattison, who taught in
various places and twice (1836-39, 1854-57)
held the presidency of Colby College at Water-
ville, Me, His mother was Frances Wilson, of
a well-known New England family. At nine-
teen he enlisted in the 57th Massachusetts Vol-
unteers and served until August 1865. He was
at Petersburg during the siege and sent from
there and elsewhere letters and illustrative
drawings to Harper's Weekly, thus beginning
his artistic career. After the war he studied art
in New York City under James M. Hart, R.
Swain Gifford, and George Inness, then he
joined his brother, Everett W. Pattison, in St.
Louis, where he opened a studio. He also taught
drawing (1868-69, 1872-73), at Mary Institute,
a school for girls at Washington University.
Here he met and married, in 1871, Elizabeth
Abbott Pennell, the daughter of the president of
the Institute, Calvin S. Pennell. For a time he
shared his studio with William M. Chase [4.^.],
who became his lifelong friend.
In St. Louis, Pattison began lecturing on art,
and the interest he aroused in this way and
through other channels bore fruit in the estab-
lishment of the City Museum of Art From 1873
to 1879 he was in Europe, first at Dtisseldorf,
where he studied with Albert Flamm, then in
Paris, where he worked under Luigi Chialiva.
In Diisseldorf his wife died, and in 1876 he mar-
ried Helen Searle, a well-known painter of
Rochester, N. Y. He and his artist wife both
exhibited in the Paris Salons of 1879, 1880, and
1881, and their home at Ecouen became a ren-
dezvous for painters, writers, and other inter-
esting persons. On account of the ill health of
his wife, Pattison returned to America and after
a brief sojourn in New York took up residence
in the flat country of Illinois. From 1884 to 1896
he was director of the School of Fine Arts at
Jacksonville, 111. In the latter year he became
faculty lecturer at the Art Institute of Chicago
and removed his home and studio to Park Ridge.
He was president of the Chicago Society of Art-
ists, and for many years secretary of the Munic-
ipal Art League, and a member of the Society
of Western Artists, Cliff Dwellers, and National
Arts dub. From 1910 to 1914 he edited the
Pine Arts Journal' of Chicago and for a much
longer time contributed weekly "Art Talks" to
the Chicago Journal. He was also the author
of a book, Painters Swce Leonardo (1904).
For several years he lectured on the history of
art at Rockf ord Colkga
His activities as secretary of the Municipal
Art League were oat only widespread but benefi-
cent. Through his writings in fee newspaper,
Pattison
his lectures in schools and clubs in Chicago and
other cities of the Middle West, through compe-
titions and the coordination of effort, he was in-
fluential in awakening the consciousness of the
public to beauty and civic improvement Believ-
ing that the best way to educate people was to
show them good things, he used extensively
stereopticon slides, made from photographs he
himself had taken or collected in Europe and
America for the purpose. He was a member of
the Chicago Plan Commission. His efforts were
appreciated keenly by his fellow workers. His
colleague, Walter Marshall Clute, said of him:
"The part he is playing in the cultivation of a
better art appreciation and civic pride, in mak-
ing Chicago a more beautiful place to live in, is
no small one," adding, "Mr. Pattison in the de-
velopment and exercise of his art has worked
in a great variety of mediums, handling with
equal facility water color or oils, pencil or
crayon or charcoal — even the witchery of the
etching needle has not escaped him."
At the same time that Pattison was teaching,
writing, and lecturing, he was also a productive
artist. His paintings were shown at the Na-
tional Academy of Design and in the annual ex-
hibitions of the American Water Color Society,
New York ; in the Pennsylvania Academy, Phil-
adelphia, and in the Art Institute of Chicago.
His awards included a medal from the Massa-
chusetts Charitable Mechanics* Association,
Boston, 1 88 1 ; and a bronze medal, St. Louis Ex-
position, 1904. One of his best works, a paint-
ing entitled "TranquiKty," is owned by the Mu-
nicipal Art League of Chicago, which includes
also in its permanent collection a portrait of him
by Louis Berts. Pattison as remembered by his
friends was tall, slender, and distinguished in
appearance, a charming conversationalist, and
an able speaker. In 1905 (his second wife hav-
ing died) he married Hortense Roberts of Co-
lumbia, Tenn. Two daughters were born of this
marriage. In 1914 because of his failing health
the family went to North Carolina to live. He
died at Asheville in 1915.
CW. M. Qute, "Jas. Wm. Pattison," Sketch Book,
May 1906 ; Biog. Record of the Alumni of Amherst
Coll., 1821-71 (1883) ; Who's Who in America, 1914-
15; Am. Art Annual, vol. XII (1915); Proc. First
Ann. Convention of the Am. Federation of Arts (1910);
Am. Art News, June 12, 1915; N. Y. Times, May 30,
1915; Charlotte Daily Observer, May 31, 1915; infor-
mation from Miss Lena McCauley of the Chicago
Herald and from members of Pattison's family.]
L.M.
PATTISON, JOHN M. (June 13, i847-Jtme
1 8, 1906), congressman, governor of Ohio, was
born near Owensville, Clermont County, Ohio,
the son of Mary (Duckwal) and William Patti-
Pattison
son, a country merchant. His middle initial,
which represented no name, was added by him-
self some time early in life. As a boy he became
a clerk in his father's store, and he worked on
neighboring farms. In 1864 he joined the I53rd
Ohio Volunteer Infantry. At the close of the
Civil War he entered Ohio Wesleyan Univer-
sity, from which he graduated in 1869. In order
to maintain himself while attending college he
taught school and worked in the harvest fields in
the summer. Upon graduation he took an agency
in Bloomington, 111., for the Union Central Life
Insurance Company, of which he afterward be-
came the head. As the insurance business did not
appeal to him at that time he returned to Ohio
and studied law in the office of Alfred Yaple of
Cincinnati. After his admission to the bar in 1872
he became a member of the law firm of Yaple,
Moos & Pattison. For a while he was attorney
for the Cincinnati & Marietta Railroad but
severed his connection with that corporation from
a sense of duty to his constituenc)'-, when he was
elected in 1873 to the state legislature. He de-
clined renomination and returned to the practice
of his profession. From 1874 to 1876 he was at-
torney for the committee of safety of Cincinnati,
a non-partisan organization for civic welfare. On
Dec. 10, 1879, he was married to Aletheia Wil-
liams of Delaware, Ohio. In 1881 he was elected
vice-president and manager of the Union Central
Life Insurance Company and in 1891 became
president of the company. Under his able man-
agement the business of the company was great-
ly increased owing to his compelling personality,
executive capacity, and ability as an organizer.
In 1890, against his personal wishes, he was
nominated to fill a vacancy in the state Senate
for the Clermont-Brown district. As the redis-
tribution of the congressional districts that was
about to be made would determine the complexion
of Ohio representation in Congress, his cam-
paign attracted national attention. He was elected
and received the largest vote ever given to a
candidate for state office in his own county of
Clermont From 1891 to 1893 he was a member
of Congress but was an unsuccessful candidate
for reelection. In Congress he helped to obtain
one of the first appropriations for rural free de-
livery. In 1905 he was nominated on the Demo-
cratic ticket for governor and after a spirited
campaign against Gov. Myron T. Herrick was
elected by a majority of 40,000, while the Re-
publican associates of the retiring governor were
elected by similar majorities. His victory was
a personal achievement, but the strain of the cam-
paign was too great for his health. He lived for
five months after his inauguration but was so ill
Pattison
the whole time that practically his only political
act was his inaugural address. He died at his
home in Milford, survived by his second wife,
Anna (Williams) Pattison, the sister of his first
wife.
iBiog. Directory Am. Cong. (1928) ; Who's Who in
America, 1906-07 ; Biog. Cyc. and Portrait Gallery of
. . . Ohio, vol. V (1895) ; T. E. Powell, The Democratic
Party in . . . Ohio (2 vols. 1913) ; Cincinnati Enquirer,
June 19, 1906 ; information concerning his middle initial
from his daughter, Aletheia Eliza Pattison, Cincinnati.]
R.C.MCG.
PATTISON, ROBERT EMORY (Dec. 8,
i8so~Aug. 1, 1904), lawyer, statesman, was born
at Quantico, Md., the son of the Rev. Robert H.
Pattison and Catherine (Woolford) Pattison.
Before 1860 the family moved to Philadelphia
as the elder Pattison had been appointed to the
Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church. The son
received his education in the public schools of
that city, graduating from the Central High
School as valedictorian of his class in 1870. He
immediately registered as a law student in the
office of Lewis C. Cassidy and on Sept. 28, 1872,
was admitted to the Philadelphia bar. After two
unsuccessful attempts to obtain office he was on
the point of surrendering his political ambitions
when Cassidy, who was the leader of a Demo-
cratic faction in Philadelphia, suggested that he
become the Democratic candidate for city con-
troller on a reform platform. He was elected to
this office on Nov. 7, 1877, and three years later
was reflected. On his record in this office he was
made Democratic nominee for governor of Penn-
sylvania in 1882 and was elected by a plurality of
40,202 over his Republican opponent, Gen. James
A. Beaver. He was inaugurated on Jan. 16, 1883.
His administration was committed to economy
and reform and to strong executive action in re-
ducing the state debt and in holding corporations,
particularly railroads and canal companies, to a
strict obedience to the constitution and the law.
Upon the expiration of his term as governor he
was ineligible for reelection and returned to
Philadelphia to resume his law practice. In July
1887 he was elected president of the Chestnut
Street National Bank and devoted a considerable
part of his time to the management of this in-
stitution.
In March 1887 President Cleveland tendered
Pattison the auditorship of the United States
Treasury but he declined the office. Shortly af-
terward, however, he accepted an appointment as
a member of the United States Pacific Railway
Commission, authorized by Congress to inves-
tigate the "books, accounts and methods of rail-
roads which have received aid from tfee United
States." He was made chairman of tfie coin-
Pattison
mission and entered upon his active duties on
Apr. 15, 1887. He wrote the minority report of
the commission which stands today as one of the
most valuable contributions to the financial his-
tory of the land-grant railroads (Report of the
Commission . . . of the United States Pacific Rail-
way Commission, 10 vols. in 5, 1887). In 1890,
after an aggressive campaign, he was again elect-
ed governor of Pennsylvania by a majority of
16,554 over his Republican opponent, George W.
Delamater, for the term extending from Jan. 20,
1891, to Jan. 15, 1895. ^n his second adminis-
tration he stressed the policies which had char-
acterized his first tenure of the office and urged
the reduction of taxation and reforms in muni-
cipal government. On retiring from office he re-
sumed the practice of law in Philadelphia and
shortly afterward was elected president of the
Security Trust and Life Insurance Company,
which position he held until his death. In 1902
he was again Democratic nominee for governor
but was defeated. He took an active interest in
church work, being a lay delegate to the General
Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church
in 1884 and in 1888; fraternal delegate to the
General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal
Church South in 1890 ; and delegate to the Second
Methodist Ecumenical Council in 1891. He was
a member of the board of trustees of American
University and of Dickinson College, On Dec.
28, 1872, he married Anna Barney Smith and
they had three children. He died in Philadel-
phia, Pa.
[H. M. Jenkins, ed., Pa. Colonial and Federal (1903),
vol. II; G. P. Donehoo, Pa., A Hist. (1926), vol. Ill;
A. K. McClure, Old Time Notes of Pa. (1905), vol. II ;
J. H. Martin, Martin's Bench and Bar of Phila. (1883) ;
the Press (Phila.), and Pub. Ledger (Phila.), Augr. 2,
1904.] J.H.F.
PATTISON, THOMAS (Feb. 8, i822-Dec.
17, 1891), naval officer, was born in Troy, N. Y.,
the son of Elias Pattison, who owned a large line
of freight steamers on the Hudson, and Olivia
(Gardiner) Pattison, On his father's side he was
descended from Robert Pattison, who came from
Ireland to Colerain, Mass., before the Revolu-
tion, and on his mother's side from George
Gardiner, who settled in Rhode Island in 1638.
He was appointed midshipman Mar. 2, 1839, and
shortly thereafter sailed in the St. Louis on a
Pacific cruise which lasted until December 1842.
After taking short leave at home, he was assigned
to a rigging loft in Boston, and then to the naval
school at Philadelphia where he remained until
he was promoted to passed midshipman in July
1845. During the Mexican War he served in the
steamers Scorpion and Princeton, the frigates
Rarifan and Cumberland,, the ordnance ship Elec-
Pattison
tra, and the gunboat Reefer. He was on coast
survey duty from 1850 to 1851, and then went to
the China station as sailing master in the sloop
Portsmouth, being promoted during the cruise to
the rank of lieutenant. From 1855 to 1857 he
was stationed at Boston on shore duty. While
doing service in the Far East on the side-wheel-
er Mississippi, Pattison witnessed the bombard-
ment of the Pei-ho River forts by the French and
British in May 1858. A few months later he had
occasion to escort from Simoda to Tokio the first
American minister to Japan, Townsend Harris
[g.z>.]. It is presumably on the basis of this visit
or some slightly earlier official entry that Patti-
son is said to have been the first American naval
officer to enter Tokio.
After duty at the Sacketts Harbor naval station,
N. Y., he began his service in the Civil War as
executive of the sloop Perry, which captured the
privateer Savannah off Charleston on June 3,
1861. As this was the first privateer taken, the
capture drew from Secretary Welles a com-
mendatory letter to officers and crew (War of
the Rebellion: Official Records, Navy} I ser. I,
30). During the next autumn he commanded
the steamer Philadelphia of the Potomac flotilla
and twice in October was engaged with Confed-
erate batteries along the river. From Dec. 17,
1861, he commanded the steamer Sumter on the
southeast coast blockade, and was senior officer
at Fernandina, Fla., during the summer and
autumn of 1862. Early in 1863 he was ordered
to the Clara Dolson of Porter's Mississippi
Squadron, and from Mar. 12, 1863, until July i,
1865, he was commandant of the naval station
established in the former Confederate base at
Memphis, Tenn. He had been made lieutenant
commander July 16, 1862, was advanced to com-
mander Mar. 3, 1865, and received subsequent
promotions to the rank of captain in 1870, com-
modore in 1877, and rear admiral Nov. i, 1883,
three months before his retirement. His sea
commands after the war were the Muscota of the
Atlantic Squadron from 1866 to 1867, the Rich-
mond, which he commanded in the West Indies
and then took to the Pacific coast in 1872, and
the Saranac of the Pacific Squadron in 1874. He
commanded the receiving ship Independence at
San Francisco from 1874 to 1877, the naval sta-
tion at Port Royal, S. C, 1878-80, and the Wash-
ington navy yard, 1880-83. He died at New
Brighton, Staten Island, N. Y., where he had
made his home after retirement His wife was
Serafina Catalina Webster of Cuba, whom he
married in Washington, D. C., July i, 1850. His
only child, Maria Webster, married John Randle
of New York.
3H
Patton
Rebellion: Official Records (Navy), i
L. R. Hamersly, Records of
and9GeleaLof the Gov John Welter
(1915) ; N. Y. Tines, Dec. 19,^891.]
PATTON, FRANCIS LANDEY (Jan. 22,
iS43-Nov. 25, 1932), president of Princeton
University, Presbyterian clergyman and theo-
logian, was born at "Carberry Hill," Warwick
Bermuda, the son of George John Bascombe and
Mary Jane (Steele) Patton. He learned to read
when he was three years old and commenced
Latin at the age of seven. After attending War-
wick Academy and a grammar school in Toronto
he continued his education at Knox College and
at the University of Toronto, and then entered
Princeton Theological Seminary, from which he
graduated in 1865. That same year he was or-
dained to the Presbyterian ministry, and on Oct.
married Rosa Antoinette, daughter of the
Rev. J. M. Stevenson, of New York.
During the next sixteen years he obtained a
wide experience as preacher, lecturer, and writer
for the religious press, and an acquaintance with
several chief centers of population in the United
States. He was pastor of the Eighty-fourth
Street Presbyterian Church in New York, 1865
to 1867; of a church in Nyack, N. Y,, 1867 to
1870; of South Church, Brooklyn, 1871 ; he was
Cyrus H. McCormick Professor of Didactic and
Polemical Theology at the Presbyterian Theo-
logical Seminary of the Northwest (now Mc-
Cormick Seminary), in Chicago, 1872 to 1881;
was pastor of the Jefferson Park Church, Chi-
cago, 1874 to 1881 ; and edited The Interior, a
Presbyterian paper, from 1873 to 1876. In 1878
he was chosen to represent America at the Pan-
Presbyterian Council in Edinburgh, and was
moderator of the General Assembly which met at
Saratoga. A year later he was offered a profes-
sorship at the Presbyterian Theological College
in London, but declined it. In 1881 he returned
to Princeton Theological Seminary to occupy a
chair founded specially for him by Robert L.
Stuart [g.z>.], which bore the comprehensive
name, Profesorship of the Relations of Philos-
ophy and Science to the Christian Religion. He
was also lecturer on ethics in the College of New
Jersey (1883-84), and gave a course on theism
to undergraduates. In 1884 he was elected to a
college professorship of ethics, and in^i886 was
appointed professor of ethics in the seminary also.
When, in 1888, Patton was chosen to follow
James McCosh [g.-z;.] as president of the college,
he was widely known as a witty and eloquent
Patton
speaker, a distinguished exponent of theism, and
an expert defender of Christian ethics. Whether,
in addition to these qualifications and his general
character as a man of delightful personal charm,
broad classical culture, extensive reading, and
humane sympathies, he possessed, or could ac-
quire, the business ability and the specific insight
into educational problems which were expected
of a college president was uncertain. In the
opinion of many of the alumni and friends of the
college, moreover, he was handicapped by the
fact that in his Chicago days he had been active
as prosecutor in the heresy trial which resulted
in the withdrawal of the Rev. David Swing [g.^.]
from the Presbyterian ministry. The college at
Princeton was not a sectarian institution, and
many felt that the long succession of ministerial
presidents should now be broken. Patton was
not, at that time, either by training or by repu-
tation the business man whom some desired, nor
the man of science or of political experience
whom others wished to see made president. He
soon demonstrated, however, that, as he declared
a college president ought, he knew "an interest-
coupon from a railway-ticket" and was "able to
understand a balance-sheet as well as to grade
an examination-paper" (Speech, post, p. 6).
From the start his administration was marked
by financial success. On the other hand he did
not give up for a moment his interest in theology
and his belief that education should include re-
ligious instruction. "Princeton is too big to be
sectarian," he said, ". . . but we mean that ... he
[the student] who comes to us shall have the
universe opened to his view and that he shall deal
with its facts and the problems of life tinder
theistic conceptions" (Ibid., p. 5)-
In no respect did Patton show more tact and
foresight than in the important and delicate task
of selecting teachers for appointment or promo-
tion. He acted upon the principle that a teacher s
personality is more important than the length of
his specific preparation and his possession of de-
erees With the able assistance of Dean James
O. Murray fo.v.], Dean Samuel R. Winans, and
a faculty devoted to the college's advancement,
he managed its internal affairs successfully, but
in a manner that would seem amazingly unsys-
tematic to the head of a great institution today.
He had no office except his private library; he
employed no secretary or stenographer. His
dealing with members of the faculty was direct
and personal, yet without secrecy or caballing.
He continued to lecture on ethics to the senior
class and preached in chapel on many Sundays
of the academic year, his sermons being of tot
original and vital kind which exhaust the speak-
3IS
Patton
er while refreshing the hearer. He also con-
ducted daily morning prayers when his other en-
gagements permitted. Thus were the fears of the
alumni allayed, and it was not long before he had
their enthusiastic support and affectionate re-
gard. His extraordinary felicity as an after-din-
ner speaker and as Princeton's representative on
public occasions awakened their pride and won
their loyalty. His figure was graceful, his coun-
tenance refined, his manner courteous and gen-
tle, characteristics which made the keenness of
his wit and his extraordinary command of legal
terms and logical distinctions to appear the more
remarkable. It was soon realized that he was a
worthy successor of those other British subjects,
John Witherspoon and James McCosh, who had
brought strength and honor to Princeton.
From the beginning of his administration the
requirements for admission to the faculty were
altered. Up to that time a large proportion of
the appointees had been ministers, without much
special training for the teaching profession;
thereafter, appointments were normally given to
men who had done graduate work in specific
fields, abroad or in America. To make room for
the teaching of new subjects and the activities of
new men, the curriculum of undergraduate stud-
ies was expanded by the introduction of elective
courses at the expense of those previously re-
quired. At Princeton, as at other colleges, the
evils inherent in the new system were experi-
enced, but before the end of Patton's term of of-
fice these were in some measure corrected, and
a plan of coordination of courses and of reason-
able restriction in the choice of electives was
formed.
In 1896, the 1 5oth anniversary of its founding,
the College of New Jersey changed its name to
Princeton University and marked the event by
a sesquicentennial celebration. One of the dele-
gates whispered, a little maliciously, that from
being the strongest American college, Princeton
had become the weakest university. During the
remaining years of Patton's administration much
was done to remove the sting of this remark.
He made it clear to trustees, faculty, and alumni
that the essential functions of the university were
to give instruction in the liberal arts and sciences
and to provide facilities for the increase of knowl-
edge, and with their cooperation he strengthened
and reorganized the graduate school and vastly
increased the instruments of research. Six new
dormitories, an auditorium, a new library build-
ing, and new houses for the literary societies
were erected in his administration, "From this
period/' writes Mr. V. L. Collins, "may be dated
the modern development of tfoe campus, the intro-
Patton
duction of the English collegiate gothic into
American university architecture, the opening of
the School of Electrical Engineering, the intro-
duction of new entrance requirements, and the
revision of the course of study along lines which
were to be perfected in the next administration,
the stiffening of the requirements for the higher
degrees, the adoption of the honor system in the
conduct of examinations . . . and the grant of
alumni representation on the board of trustees"
(post, p. 252). The number of undergraduates
rose from 603 to 1354, and of the faculty from 40
to 100.
Although so eminently successful, Patton was
not fond of administrative work, and in June
1902, he surprised even his intimate friends by
resigning the presidency and nominating Wood-
row Wilson to take his place, retaining, how-
ever, for twelve years longer the professorship
of ethics and the philosophy of religion. Almost
immediately after his resignation, in 1902, he was
made president of Princeton Theological Semi-
nary, which for nearly a century had had no for-
mal head. This position he held till 1913, when,
after a short interval, he withdrew to his old
home in Bermuda. He returned every year, how-
ever, until near the end of his life, to lecture in
Princeton and elsewhere. In his last years he
was blind.
He published in 1869 a book entitled The In-
spiration of the Scriptures, and in 1898 A Sum-
mary of Christian Doctrine. His chief literary
production is Fundamental Christianity, dedi-
cated to his wife and published in 1926, soon
after the sixtieth anniversary of their marriage.
In this volume can be found the substance of
many of his lectures, though one misses much of
the imaginative gleam and witty sword-play that
accompanied their delivery. He died in Bermuda
in his ninetieth year. His wife and three of their
seven children survived him.
[V. L. Collins, Princeton (1914) ; Proc. N. 7. Hist.
Soc., Jan. 1933 ; Biog Cat. Princeton Theol. Sem.
(I933) I Speech of Prof. Francis L. Patton . . . at the
Ann. Dinner of the Princeton Club of N. Y., on Mar.
15, 1888 (1888) ; Who's Who in America, 1932-33;
N. Y. Times, Nov. 27, 1932 ; Princeton Alumni Weekly,
Apr. 25, 1930, Feb. 13, 1931, Dec. 2, 1932.]
G.M.H.
PATTON, JOHN MERCER (Aug. 10, 1797-
Oct. 29, 1858), lawyer and statesman, was born
at Fredericksburg, Va., the third of eight chil-
dren of Robert and Anne Gordon (Mercer) Pat-
ton. His father, a Scotsman who had emigrated
to Virginia prior to the Revolution, made a com-
petent fortune in business. His maternal grand-
father, also Scotch, was Gen. Hugh Mercer
[g.«0- After studying a year at Princeton, Pat-
too entered the medical school of the University
Patton
of Pennsylvania from which he graduated in
1818. He did not practise, however, but returned
to Fredericksburg and studied law. Admitted to
the bar he began the practice of his second pro-
fession in which he soon achieved recognition.
On Jan. 8, 1824, he married Margaret French
Williams, daughter of Isaac Hite and Lucy Cole-
man (Slaughter) Williams of Frederick County.
Six years later he was sent to Congress to fill the
vacancy caused by the resignation of Philip P.
Barbour and was returned in 1831. Although
elected as a Democrat he pursued an independent
course. But in the controversy which raged over
Jackson's withdrawal of deposits from the Bank,
he vigorously supported the President. When a
copy of the resolutions of the Virginia Assembly
disapproving Jackson's action was transmitted
by Gov. John Floyd to Patton, he was unyielding
and rebuked the Governor for officially intimat-
ing the desirability of a different course.
Although successively reflected to Congress
without opposition, Patton resigned in 1838. Re-
moving to Richmond he resumed the practice of
law, but public service still claimed him and with
both Whig and Democratic support he was elect-
ed to the Executive Council or Council of State
of Virginia. Unopposed, he was reflected to this
office four times and in 1841, as senior councilor,
became acting governor for a brief period fol-
lowing the resignation of Gov. Thomas Walker
Gilmer. But the law proved a jealous mistress
and Patton's interest in politics waned. On sev-
eral occasions he declined to be a candidate for
public office, but in 1855 he allowed his name to
be presented to the electorate for the office of
attorney-general of Virginia on the American
or Know-Nothing ticket, not because he was
eager for the place but because of its relation to
his profession. Always independent politically he
was attracted strongly by the Know-Nothing
movement and in the campaign he declared his
firm opposition to the slightest control over
Americans by any foreign power, religious or
temporal. Defeated in the election he devoted his
remaining years to his work at the Richmond
bar, of which he was the acknowledged leader.
In 1854 he was appointed to the Board of Visitors
of the Medical College of Virginia, in Richmond,
on which he served as president until his death
in 1858. Patton's greatest achievement, perhaps,
was the revision of the Virginia code. With Con-
way Robinson he was appointed in 1846 to re-
vise and digest the civil code of Virginia; the
next year revision of the criminal code also was
placed in their hands. Systematically and thor-
oughly prepared, their Code of Virginia (1849)
was far superior to all previous revisions and,
Patton
modified only by constitutional and statutory
changes, it remained the code of Virginia until
1873. Although Patton died before the Civil War
he left six sons who served in the Confederate
army.
[H. W. Flournoy, ed., Calendar of Va. State Papers,
vol. X (1892); Biog. Dir. Am. Cong. (1928) ; R. A.
Brock, Va. and Virginians (1888), vol. I ; T. K. Cart-
mell, Shenandoah Valley Pioneers and Their Descend-
ants (1909) ; W. A. Christian, Richmond: Her Past end
Present (1912) ; J. T. Goolrick, The Life of Gen. Hugh
Mercer ' (1006) ; W. E. Ross, "Hist of Va. Codifica-
tion, ISa. Law Reg., June 1905 ; J. M. Patton, Speech
°J •"£??• / ohn Mwcer Patton at the African Ch. Tues-
day Night Apr. 3 (1855) ; Daily Richmond Enquirer,
Nov. i, 1858 ; Daily Nat. Intelligencer (Wash., D. C),
Nov. 3, 1858.] T S C
PATTON, WILLIAM (Aug. 23, i798~Sept.
9, 1879), clergyman and author, was the third son
of Col. Robert Patton, who was of Scotch-Irish
ancestry, and had come to America when a young-
man. He had served under Lafayette in the
American Revolution, and for more than twenty
years, until his death in 1814, was postmaster of
Philadelphia. William's mother was Cornelia
(Bridges) Patton, who traced her ancestry to the
Culpeper and Fairfax families of Virginia and
England. She died when William was eight
years old. He united at the age of eighteen with
the First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia,
his native city, graduated at Middlebury College
in 1818, and studied several months in Prince-
ton Theological Seminary (1819-20). In 1819
he married Mary Weston. After being ordained
to the ministry in 1820 by the Congregational
Association of Vermont, he removed to New
York City, the home of his wife. Impelled by a
missionary spirit, he gathered together the mem-
bers who constituted his first church, the Central
Presbyterian, and served it several years without
salary.
His pulpit and business ability led to his being
called in 1833 to the secretaryship of the Central
American Education Society. During the next
four years he recruited the ministry and raised
money for educational purposes, but in 1837 re-
turned to the pastorate. At Spring Street Pres-
byterian Church he won mtich success in revival
work, in persuading young men to enter the min-
istry, and particularly in influencing children.
Apparently the first to propose that a Presby-
terian theological seminary be established in New
York City, Patton in 1836 became one of the
four ministerial founders of Union Seminary,
and served as a director from the beginning tin-
til 1849, and as instructor or "professor extraor-
dinary" for three years. His last pastorate,
begun in 1848, was at Hammond Street Congre-
gational Church, New York, a new enterprise
initiated by some of his close friends. Financial
3'7
Patton
difficulties compelled the organization, in spite of
increasing membership, to surrender its property
in 1852.
During the remaining twenty-seven years of
his life his home was in or near New Haven, Conn.,
and his time was devoted largely to supplying
pulpits and to the literary work begun early in
his career. In 1834 he had recast a British com-
mentary, Thomas Williams' Cottage Bible and
Family Expositor, making it substantially a new
work. More than 170,000 copies of it were sold
in America. In collaboration with Thomas Hast-
ings, he published The Christian Psalmist
(1839), a hymn book which for a time had a
wide circulation, and he prepared British editions
of Edwards on Revivals (1839) and of C. G.
Finney's Lectures on Revivals of Religion
(1835). Between 1825 and 1879 he made four-
teen voyages to Europe, partly on account of his
health, which until middle age was precarious.
Ambitious to inform Britain of the true spirit of
America, in 1861 he wrote articles for English
dailies explaining the anti-slavery background
of the Civil War, and published in London a
pamphlet, The American Crisis; or, The True
Issue, Slavery or Liberty, In England, as in the
United States, he constantly attacked slavery
and the alcoholic traffic. He proposed and at-
tended the meeting at London in 1846 which or-
ganized the Evangelical Alliance for promoting
Christian union and religious liberty throughout
the world. During his New Haven days he pub-
lished additional books, including The Judgment
of Jerusalem Predicted in Scripture, Fulfilled in
History (1877) and Bible Principles Illustrated
by Bible Characters (1879).
From 1830 to 1870 he was a member of the
executive committee of the American Home Mis-
sionary Society, and at his death, in New Haven,
he left legacies to the American Board of Com-
missioners for Foreign Missions, to the Ameri-
can Missionary Association in Aid of the Freed-
men, and to Howard University, whose president
was his son, Rev. William Weston Patton. Of
his ten children, five died early, the survivors be-
ing two sons and three daughters. The mother
of them all was Mary (Weston) Patton, who
died in 1857. In 1860 he married Mrs. Mary
(Shaw) Bird of Philadelphia, whose death oc-
curred in 1863. His third wife, whom he married
in 1864, was Mrs. Emily (Trowbridge) Hayes.
EW. W. Patton, A Filial Tribute (1880) ; Jonathan
Greenleaf, A Hist, of the Churches of All Denomina-
tions in the City of N. Y. (1850) ; G. L. Prentiss, The
Union Theol. Sem. in the City of N. Y. (1889) ; Gen.
Cat. of the Union Theol. Sem. (1926) ; and Necrological
Reports and Ann. Proc. of the Alumni Asso. of Prince-
ton Theol .Sem., vol. I (1891) ; New Haven Evening
Register, Sept 10, 1879.] P P F
Pauger
PAUGER, ADRIEN de (d. June 9, 1726),
engineer of the French colony of Louisiana and
the first surveyor of the original town of New
Orleans, was a native of France. About all that
can be said definitely about him prior to his com-
ing to Louisiana is that he was appointed engi-
neer in 1707 and Chevalier of St. Louis in 1720
and had been captain of the Navarre regiment.
He was appointed assistant engineer of Louisiana
under Le Blond de la Tour [q.v.~\ in 1720, and
arrived in Biloxi, the capital of the colony, on
Nov. 24 (Lettres Edificantes Inedits, V, October
1818). La Tour arrived in the following month.
At the time the council of the colony was unde-
cided as to whether they would rebuild Biloxi,
which had been almost completely destroyed by
fire in 1719, or transfer the capital to some other
place. Bienville, the governor of the colony,
wished to move the capital to New Orleans, but
the council, under the advice of La Tour, decided
to reestablish it a short distance to the west of
Biloxi and give it the name of New Biloxi, and
in September 1721 the transfer was made.
In the meantime La Tour had been ordered to
send Pauger to New Orleans to make a thorough
examination of the site to determine whether the
settlement should remain there or be moved to
some other spot to avoid the dangers of inunda-
tion. Pauger went to New Orleans in March
1721, and deeming the site safe, he began at once
to lay out the town. He found that the settlers
had built their cabins here and there "among the
bushes and the clumps of trees" as they pleased
without any regard to alignments. (Dumont de
Montigny's drawing of the original settlement
has been reproduced in Villiers du Terrage, His-
toire de la Fondation de la Nouvelle Orleans.)
The situation was therefore very difficult for
Pauger, but he resolutely set to work and with
the assistance of about ten soldiers, whom the
commandant of the post had put at his service,
he was able to clear enough land within twelve
days to make possible the tracing of all the streets
on the river front. He drew up a plan for a town
of about one mile square, which constitutes the
French Quarter of the present city of New Or-
leans, and sent it to La Tour at Biloxi on Apr. 14.
Instead of forwarding the plan on to Paris, La
Tour is said to have pigeonholed it for fear the
capital of the colony would be moved. Bienville,
who was eager for that very thing, procured a
copy of the plan and sent it to Paris. Shortly
thereafter the capital was ordered moved to New
Orleans, and La Tour then officially approved of
Pauger's plan. (For a refutation of La Tour's
claim that he had drawn up the plan originally,
see the sketch of La Tour.)
318
Paul
In plotting the town of New Orleans, Pauger
aroused a great deal of opposition on the part of
some of the inhabitants, for he had to disarrange
existing property divisions. He also incurred
the enmity of De Lorme, the chief clerk of the
colony. In drawing up his plan of the town, he
had indicated on it "grants of a few plots to the
oldest inhabitants and those most capable of
building along the river bank/' De Lorme
claimed that he had the exclusive right to make
concessions and ordered all of Pauger's grants
annulled. The matter was finally adjusted after
La Tour had recalled Pauger to Biloxi, and with
only a few exceptions all of Pauger's concessions
were confirmed. One of the few exceptions was
the concession that Pauger had conferred upon
himself.
In June 1722 La Tour and Pauger left New
Biloxi for New Orleans, and after their arrival
in July, La Tour began to carry out Pauger's
plan for the development of the town. Pauger
was, however, soon replaced by Boispinel and
sent down the river to the Balize in January 1723.
The death of Boispinel in the following Sep-
tember and of La Tour in October advanced
Pauger to the position of chief engineer of the
colony. His troubles, however, continued. He
asked to sit on the colonial board, and though the
company granted his request in November 1724,
his enemies long prevented him from taking his
seat save for matters directly concerning his
work. He was, moreover, not able to get the con-
cession which he had made to himself confirmed
until September 1725, and in his disgust he be-
gan to think of returning to France. He was not
permitted, however, to do so. He was stricken
with fever and died in his house in New Orleans
on June 9, 1726, four days after he made his will,
disposing of his property to his friends in the
colony. In the founding of New Orleans, Pauger
had a very important part, second only to that of
Bienville.
[The cMef source of information concerning Patiger
is Baron Marc de Villiers du Terrage, Histdre de la
Fondation de la N ouvelle-Orleans (1717-22} (Paris,
191 7). . A translation of this monograph appeared in the
La. Hist. Quart., Apr. 1920. Scattered references to
mm are to be found in the Journal Historique de l'£tab-
lissement des Frangais a la Louisiane (New Orleans
and Paris, 1831), and Pierre Heinrich, La Louisiane
sous laCompagnie des Indies, 1717-31 (n.d.). Pierre
Margry s Decouvertes et Stdblissements des Francois
dans r Quest et dans le Sud de L'Amerique Septentri-
onale , . . Memoires et Documents Originaux, vol. V
(Fans, 1883), contains a number of official letters to
and from Pauger.] E M V
PAUL, HENRY MARTYN (June 25, 1851-
Mar. 15, 1931), astronomer, engineer, and teach-
er, the eldest of six children of Ebenezer and
Susan (Dresser) Paul, was born at Dedhatn,
Paul
Mass. His ancestry may be traced directly to
Richard Paul (1636), one of the first settlers of
Cohannet, now Taunton, Mass. By 1664 Rich-
ard's son, Samuel, had moved to Dorchester
where his son, another Samuel, acquired a large
estate including what was later known as the
"Paul Homestead." This was located near Paul's
Bridge on the Nepouset River in what later be-
came the town of Dedham and still more recently
Hyde Park. Here Henry Martyn Paul spent his
boyhood in work on his father's farm. He at-
tended the local public schools and after four
years at the Dedham High School entered Dart-
mouth College, from which he received the de-
gree of A.B. in 1873. He won the sophomore
prize in mathematics, acted as assistant to his
instructors in engineering courses, and during
the winter of his sophomore year taught a dis-
trict school at Waterford, Vt. His extra-curricu-
lar activities included editorship, rowing, and
music.
In the fall of 1873 he entered the Thayer School
of Engineering at Dartmouth and two years later
received the degrees of C.E. and A.M. During
this period he assisted in teaching astronomy and
meteorology in the New Hampshire College of
Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. Immediately
following his graduation from the Thayer School
he was for a few weeks assistant to Prof. Elihu
T. Quimby, then triangulating the state of New
Hampshire for the United States Coast Survey.
He was appointed junior assistant at the Naval
Observatory at Washington in August 1875 and
assigned to work with the transit circle under
Prof. John R. Eastman [g.vj. The telegram or-
dering him to Washington was relayed by helio-
trope from Hanover to the triangulation station
on Croydon Mountain. In 1878 he declined the
professorship of astronomy at Dartmouth, but
two years later (1880) resigned his position at
the Naval Observatory to become the first pro-
fessor of astronomy at the University of Tokio,
returning to the Naval Observatory in 1883. At
Washington he was chiefly occupied with the
time-consuming routine of the transit instrument,
the equatorial, the care of the library, the publi-
cations, and the time service, but he also took
part in observing and discussing observations of
the transit of Mercury of May 1878, the total
solar eclipse of 1878, the longitude of Princeton,
the semi-diameter of the moon, and observations
of variable stars, while occasionally contributing
to scientific journals. In 1897 he became profes-
sor of mathematics in the United States Navy
and in 1899 was transferred to the Bureau of
Yards and Docks with duties of engineer* In
this capacity he served until 1905, when lie was
3*9
Paul — Paulding
assigned to the Naval Academy at Annapolis as
teacher of mathematics. Here he remained un-
til 1912, and in the following year he retired from
the navy with the rank of captain.
He married, Aug. 27, 1878, Augusta Anna
Gray, daughter of Rev. Edgar H. Gray of Wash-
ington, and to them was born an only son, who
also became an engineer. Paul was a fellow of
the American Association for the Advancement
of Science, a member of the American As-
tronomical Society, the Washington Academy
of the Sciences, and the Philosophical Society of
Washington, His interest in music was lifelong
and for many years he was precentor in a Wash-
ington church and an officer of the Washington
choral society.
[Reports and publications of the United States Naval
Observatory, 1876-97; Gen. Cat. Dartmouth College
(1910-11) ; Dartmouth Alumni Mag. f May 1931 ; N. Y.
Times, Mar. 17, 1931 ; J. M. and Jaques Cattell, Am.
Men of Science (4th ed., 1927) ; E. C. Paul, "The Paul
Homestead in Dedham," Dedham Hist. Reg., Oct. 1899 ;
D. L. Paul, Fulton Paul, and M. C. Crane, Family Reg-
ister of Richard Paul (n.d.) ; personal letters and
genealogical material in the hands of Mrs. Oliver H.
Howe of Cohasset, Mass., Henry M. Paul's sister, who
kindly supplied certain information concerning family
affairs; information from acquaintances.]
J. M. P— r.
PAUL, JOHN [See WEBB, CHARLES HENRY,
1834-1905].
PAULDING, HIRAM (Dec. u, 1797-0 ct. 20,
1878), naval officer, was born on his father's
farm in Westchester County, N. Y. He was a de-
scendant of Joost Pauldinck who came from Hol-
land to New York before 1683, the seventh child
of John Pauldingv celebrated as a captor of Major
Andre in the Revolution, and his second wife,
Esther Ward. Country schooling1 ended with his
appointment as midshipman Sept. i, 1811, after
which he studied mathematics and navigation in
New York. In 1813 he was ordered to Lake On-
tario but^was transferred soon afterward to the
Cliamplain Squadron. In recognition of his gal-
lant services in the battle of Lake Champlain as
acting lieutenant in the Ticonderoga, he received
$1500 prize-money and a sword from Congress.
He served in the Constellation against the Bar-
bary powers, was promoted in 1816 to the rank
of lieutenant, and spent the next three years in
cruising in the Macedonian of the Pacific Squad-
ron. He then took advantage of an opportunity
to study at Capt Alden Partridge's military
academy at Norwich, Vermont, graduating with
the class of 1823, While on duty again in the
Pacific in the United States, he carried Admiral
Hull's dispatches from Callao to General Boli-
var's headquarters in the Andes— a commission
which entailed a journey of 1500 miles on horse-
back He volunteered the following year, 1825,
Paulding
for a long cruise in the South Seas as first lieu-
tenant of the Dolphin, pursuing mutineers from
the whaleship Globe. This voyage brought novel
and exciting experiences one of which was de-
scribed by Charles Henry Davis, 1807-1877
[?.z>.], as "the boldest act he ever witnessed" (C.
H. Davis, Life of Charles Henry Davis, 1899, P-
32). In the face of several hundred infuriated
savages, Paulding seized one mutineer and
marched him to a boat, using the body of his
captive as a shield. Descriptions of these activi-
ties appear in Paulding's Bolivar in his Camp
(1834) and his Journal of a Cruise of the United
States Schooner Dolphin (1831). Both narra-
tives reveal a gift for writing and a fondness for
poetry and reading.
In 1828 he married Ann Maria, the daughter
of Jonathan W. Kellogg of Flatbush, L. I., and
in 1837 purchased a farm on the Sound near
Huntington, L. I., where with his family of four
daughters and two sons, he enjoyed brief inter-
vals of home life. His sea duty, meanwhile, in-
cluded two Mediterranean cruises in the Constel-
lation, 1830-32, in the Shark, 1834-37, and, after
his promotion to the rank of captain, a China
cruise in the Vincennes from 1844 to 1847. His
sound judgment, conciliatory temper, and fine
presence made appropriate his next assignment
to command the new frigate St. Lawrence, the
first American warship to visit Bremen, and, ac-
cording to her captain, also the first to venture
the "experiment of social intercourse with the
people of any part of England" (R. P. Meade,
post, p. 1 1 1 ) . Paulding visited Frankfort during
the parliament of 1848, and was earnestly con-
sulted on the subject of building up a German
navy, in which, it appears, he was offered a high
command. In December 1848 his ship went to
Southampton, England, where for a month there
ensued cordial exchange of hospitalities. Four
years in charge of the Washington navy yard
were followed by the command of the Home
Squadron, 1855-58, operating mainly in the
Caribbean. The chief episode of this command
was Paulding's seizure of Gen. William Walker
[£.».] and about 150 filibusters who had landed
in defiance of the United States sloop Saratoga,
at Grey Town, Nicaragua. Upon his arrival
Paulding threw a force of 350 men ashore, com-
pelled Walker's surrender without bloodshed on
Dec. 8, 1857, and sent him and his followers
home. This bold action met with approval in the
North, but the Buchanan administration set
Walker free and soon relieved the commodore of
his command. The Nicaraguan government
demonstrated its gratitude by presenting Paul-
ding with a jewelled sword.
320
Paulding
Though above the age for active command, he
was appointed head of the Bureau of Detail in
March 1861, with the responsibility of selecting
dependable officers for wartime duties. Other
duties were added, notably that of leading the
expedition which on Apr. 21, 1861, evacuated the
Norfolk navy yard. In the complete demorali-
zation there — ships already scuttled and lifting
shears cut away, Paulding can hardly be blamed
for executing his orders, which were to evacuate
after removing or destroying whatever possible ;
but it meant leaving nearly 3,000 cannon in Con-
federate hands and subjecting himself to severe
criticism. On the board for the construction of
new ironclads, Paulding, along with Commander
Davis and Commodore Joseph Smith \_q.v.~\ met
his responsibilities creditably by the selection of
the Monitor and New Ironsides models for im-
mediate completion. John Ericsson [q.v.~], the
designer, wrote to Paulding, Nov. 26, 1862,
"Without your firm support the Monitor would
not have been built" (R. P. Meade, post, p. 291).
He referred chiefly to his advocacy of the design,
but commended also his energy in pushing its
construction and equipment while head of the
New York navy yard, to which he had been ap-
pointed in the autumn of 1861. He remained at
this post until April 1865, carrying out the im-
portant work of supply and repair for the block-
ading fleets. During the Draft Riots of July 1863,
naval forces under his direction aided effectively
in protecting lives and government property.
Though retired in December 1861 with promo-
tion to rear admiral (retired) the following July,
Paulding was thus actively employed throughout
the war. Afterwards, he served as governor of
the United States Naval Asylum at Philadelphia,
1866-69, and as port admiral at Boston, 1869-70.
Death from heart trouble at his Long Island
home ended a long and honorable career, at the
close of which he was senior on the retired list
and the last officer survivor of the engagement
on Lake Champlain.
[Rebecca Paulding Meade, Life of Hiram Paulding,
Rear Admiral U. S. N. (1910); Commander R W.
Meade "Admiral Paulding," Harper's Mag., Feb. 1879 »
J T Headley. in Farragut and Our Naval Leaders
(1880) ; L. N. Feipel, "The Navy and Filibustering in
the Fifties," E7. S. Naval Inst. Proc., Aug. 1918 ; Army
and Navy Jour., Oct. 26, 1878; N. Y. Times, Oct. 21,
1878,] A.W.
PAULDING, JAMES KIRKE (Aug. 22,
1778-Apr. 6, 1860), author and naval official,
the youngest son of William and Catharine
(Ogden) Paulding, was born at Great Nine
Partners, now Putnam County, N. Y., where the
family had taken refuge during the Revolution,
After commanding several ships, his father be-
Paulding
came a merchant at Tarrytown, an influential
patriot, and commissary of the New York militia.
To provide food for the soldiers, he assumed an
obligation of nearly $10,000, which through a
miscarriage of justice bankrupted and tempo-
rarily jailed him in 1785. In meeting this dis-
aster, the mother by her thrift and magic needle
supported and schooled the children so well that
Julia married William Irving and a son William
became congressman and mayor of New York
City. At Tarrytown, a quiet Dutch village over-
looking the Hudson, James, like Wordsworth, ac-
quired an early and enduring love for nature and
homespun people. There he received scanty
schooling, became dreamy and melancholy, hunt-
ed, fished, admired Goldsmith's prose, and met
Washington Irving. When about eighteen, he
joined his brother in New York and worked in a
public office. Living with the versatile William
Irving and forming pleasant associations, Paul-
ding became happy, read literature, and observed
politics. His acquaintance with Washington
Irving ripened into a lasting friendship. The city
of New York with its varied cultural and com-
mercial activities was his training school, and in
due time the shy boy, like Franklin, working out
his own scholastic salvation, became a well-bred
man, capable official, and popular writer.
In 1807-08 Paulding and Irving collaborated
in a whimsical periodical, Salmagundi, which en-
tertained the town and attracted widespread in-
terest Stimulated by the popularity of this ven-
ture and Irving's success in comic history,
Paulding next wrote The Diverting History of
John Bull and Brother Jonathan (1812), which
comically depicted the settlement, growth, and
revolt of the thirteen colonies. The next year he
parodied Scott's verse stories in The Lay of
the Scottish Fiddle, and, after five years, pub-
lished his ambitious poem, The Backwoodsman
(1818). Neither poem enhanced the author's
reputation appreciably. Meanwhile, for the Ana-
lectio Magazine he composed popular sketches
of the naval commanders in the War of 1812.
Continued British censure of America and a
savage review of his poetic parody in English
magazines precipitated his impressive defense,
The United States and England, which was pub-
lished in 1815. It brought Patdding an appoint-
ment by President Madison as secretary of the
newly created Board of Navy Commissioners,
and to fill this position, he lived from 1815 to
1823 in Washington. On Nov. 15, 1818, he was
married to Gertrude Kemble, the sister of Goti-
verneur Kemble [g.w.].
After the Revolution, scores of English travel-
ers visited the United States and returned to
321
Paulding
England with gossipy, prejudiced accounts of
the new nation. These critics provoked the so-
called literary war, to which Paulding con-
tributed five works. His environment explains
in part his excusable antipathy to England.
Born in exile, he grew tip in a region devastated
by the British ; nine of the Pauldings served in
the American army ; two of his relatives knew
the horrors of British prison ships ; his maternal
grandfather was cruelly cut across the head by
British soldiers, because he had refused to cry,
"God save the king!" Besides the two contro-
versial books already mentioned, Paulding wrote
Letters from the South (1817), which aimed to
depict one section truthfully; A Sketch of Old
England (1822), an unfavorable account based
wholly upon his reading; and John Bull in
America (1825), an effective burlesque. These
replies made him famous, and in 1824 President
Monroe appointed him navy agent for New
York, where with his wife and children he re-
sided till 1838.
Paulding now had adequate income and leisure
for writing. Purging his mind of the Anglo-
American controversy, he composed realistic
tales and novels in consonance with his theory
of "rational fiction" based upon Fielding's prac-
tice and expounded in 1820. He disliked the
inflated English then in fashion, and by his own
literary work won Poe's praise and a master's
degree from Columbia. Altogether, he published
more than seventy tales, six of which were in-
cluded in Mary Russell Mitford's English col-
lections of 1830 and 1832. Though frequently
marred by haste and loose construction, they have
distinct merits. They are satiric or witty, whole-
some, natural, and national. The best depict
Dutch characters and customs ; "The Dumb Girl"
(1830) resembles and may have influenced The
Scarlet Letter. Free from romantic extrava-
gance, Hawthorne's gloom, and Poe's melan-
choly, they exhibit Paulding's fine sense of hu-
man values and his love of humor and of life.
In a romantic and sentimental age, he wrote
five realistic novels, which appeared in Euro-
pean translations. Koningsmarke (1823), an
imitative^ effort, satirizing Scott's romances and
internal improvements, depicted the Indians and
colonial Swedes of Delaware. After composing
a score of tales and a prize-winning comedy, he
published his best novel, The Dutchman's Fire-
side (1831), a veracious account of the New
York Dutch before the Revolution, admirable
for style, description, and characterization.
Next came Westward Ho! (1832), recounting
the adventures of a Virginia family in Kentucky.
The Old Continental (1846) is a domestic pic-
Paulding
ture of the Revolution in New York, more con-
vincing than Cooper's The Spy. The Puritan
and His Daughter (1849) is a story of Crom-
well's England and Virginia.
In Letters from the South, A Sketch of Old
England, Salmagundi (Second Series, 1819-
20), A Life of Washington (1835), Slavery in
the United States (1836), and in magazine arti-
cles, Paulding treated nearly every phase of
American life, theorized on prose and poetry,
and commented on contemporary authors. He
shared Carlyle's adverse opinion of Byron, be-
wailed American imitation of foreign literature,
and denounced our want of confidence and self-
respect. His liberal Americanism recognized no
sectional bounds. While he sincerely revered
God and true religion, he was impatient of ser-
vility to a narrow ecclesiastical system. "High
rents and heavy taxes," he observed, "will spoil
even paradise."
Paulding, feeling like "a gentleman of leisure
metamorphosed into a pack horse," was secre-
tary of the navy in Van Buren's cabinet Strife
and intemperance in the service he tried to eradi-
cate by rigid discipline, and he sent the South
Sea Exploring Expedition on its four-year cruise
to the Oregon coast and the Antarctic Continent.
In 1841 his wife died, and the next year he ac-
companied Van Buren on a long western tour.
In 1846 he retired to a country estate near Hyde
Park, N. Y., where, surrounded by his children
and the beauties of the Hudson, he grew old
gracefully. Here he died at eighty-two, and was
buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn, leav-
ing considerable property to his children. His
son William described him as above medium
height, strongly built, with fine black hair in
youth and brown eyes, and a profile resembling
an ancient philosopher.
From 1807 to 1850 Paulding was a prominent
political and literary figure in American life,
but he has faded into the past. His once useful
political and satirical writings are almost for-
gotten. Much of his fiction may be discarded,
for, like his contemporaries, he wrote too much
and revised too little. He was, however, dis-
tinguished for his versatility and independence,
and for his contribution to the short story, and,
because of his tales and novels, he deserves to
be remembered as the chief Dutch interpreter of
the New York Dutch.
[E A. and G. L. Duycldnck, Cyc. of Am. Lit.
(1856), vol. II, contains a valuable sketch authorized
by Paulding. See also : W. I. Paulding, Lit. Life of Jos.
K. Paulding (1867) ; P. M. Irving, The Life and Let-
ters of Washington Irving (4 vols., 1862-64) ; The Let-
ters of Washington Irving to Henry Brevoort (2 vols.,
1915), ed. by G. S. Hellman; J. G. Wilson, Bryant
and Hw Friends (1886) ; Amos L. Herold, Jos. Kirke
322
Pavy
Paulding, Versatile American (1926), a critical estimate
with bibliography ; Oscar Wegelin, "A Bibliog. of the
Separate Publications of Jas. Kirke Paulding," The
Papers of the Bibliog. Soc. of America, vol. XII
(1918); V. L. Parrington, Main Currents in Am.
Thought, vol. II (1927).] A. L. H.
PAVY, OCTAVE (June 22, i844-June 6,
1884), Arctic explorer, physician, naturalist,
was born in New Orleans, La., but was educated
in France, studying science, art, and medicine at
the University of Paris, and giving considerable
time to travel on the continent of Europe. In his
later twenties he was appointed associate com-
mander with Gustave Lambert in an Arctic ex-
pedition projected by the French government
The outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war pre-
vented the departure of this expedition, and
Pavy, together with Lieutenant Beauregard, a
nephew of Gen. Pierre G. T. Beauregard of the
Confederate army, organized and equipped at
their own expense an independent Zouave corps
composed of veteran soldiers and sailors of
French parentage who had been residents of
North or South America. After the war, Pavy
returned to the United States and began prepara-
tions for a north-polar expedition by way of
Bering Strait In 1872, just before the expedi-
tion was to leave, the sudden death of a financial
supporter compelled the abandonment of the
project. Pavy then took a course of lectures at
the Missouri Medical College, to familiarize him-
self with English medical phraseology. In 1878
he married Lilla May Stone of Lebanon, 111. For
two and a half years he lived in St. Louis, serv-
ing as physician at the Meyer Iron Works and
lecturing on the Arctic regions.
In June 1880 he joined H. W. Howgate's ex-
pedition to Greenland as surgeon and naturalist,
sailing on the Gulnare. When the ship, proving
unfit for polar navigation, returned to the United
States, he remained in Greenland and for a year
explored the coast, studying the fauna and flora
of the country and becoming familiar with the
technique of Arctic exploration. In July 1881
the Lady Franklin Bay expedition under the
command of Lieut. A. W. Greely of the United
States Army arrived in Greenland, with a com-
mission for Pavy as surgeon of the expedition.
Until his death three years later he served in that
capacity and for a time acted also as naturalist.
He took part in a number of sledge journeys by
which this expedition extended the geographic
and meteorological knowledge of the region, and
in particular brought to light the fact that the
polar region is not the sea of solid immovable
ice which until then it had been considered. Un-
der the hardships which the party had to endure
it was but natural that friction should develop
Payne
between Pavy — cognizant of his own abilities
and with experience as physician, army officer,
and Arctic explorer — and Greely. Pavy ques-
tioned some of Greely's decisions, and Greely
considered Pavy insubordinate, at one time plac-
ing him under arrest (Greely, Three Years of
Arctic Service, II, 62, 66, 320; for Pavy's side
of the case, see North American Review, April
1886, pp. 371-80). The expedition comprised
twenty-five members and had been provisioned
for two years. A relief ship had been expected
in 1882, but neither that year nor the following
year did it appear, and in August 1883 Greely
led his party toward Smith Sound. Here they
were forced to winter on short rations, the last
ration being issued on May 24, The only food
remaining was sealskin thongs. One by one,
members of the party died of slow starvation,
and on June 6, 1884 — sixteen days before the
rescue of the six survivors — Pavy died at Cape
Sabine. In large part, the health of the party
during the three years of exposure and the pro-
longing of the life of a number of its members
at Cape Sabine may be ascribed to his services.
[The best biographical material is found in St. Louis
Courier of Medicine, Feb. 1886, and "Dr. Pavy and the
Polar Expedition" and "An Arctic Journal" published
by Pavy's widow, L. M. Pavy, in North Am. Rev.,
Mar .-Apr. 1886. See also, A. W. Greely, Three Years
of Arctic Service (2 vols., 1886) and International
Polar Expedition: Report on the Proc. of the V. S.
Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (1888), being House
Doc. 393, 49 Cong,, i Sess. The St. Louis Globe-Demo-
crat, July 1 8, 20, 1884, contains some information, not
altogether accurate.] jj^ A. M.
PAYNE, CHRISTOPHER HARRISON
(Sept 7, i848-Dec. 4, 1925), negro Baptist
clergyman, lawyer, United States official, was
born of free parents near Red Sulphur Springs,
Monroe County, Va. (now West Virginia). His
very intelligent mother was the daughter and
had been the slave of James Ellison, who taught
her to read and write. She in turn imparted the
rudiments of education to her son, who was her
only child. Her husband was Thomas Payne, a
cattle drover, who died when the boy was two
years old. From 1861 until 1864 Christopher
was compelled to serve as a body servant in the
Confederate army. During the next two years
he worked as a farm hand near Hinton, W. Va.
He next engaged in steamboating on the Ohio
River but soon moved to Charleston, W. Va.
Here he attended night school until 1868, when
he succeeded in passing the examination for a
teacher's certificate in Summers County. He
then returned to his old home near Hinton and
for a number of years taught school in the win-
ter and did farm work in the summer time.
In 1875 he became a convert to the Baptist
323
Payne
faith, was granted a license to preach in the fol-
lowing- year, and in 1877 was ordained. The bet-
ter to equip himself for his new calling he spent
the academic year 1877-78 at Richmond Insti-
tute (now Virginia Union University). Lack
of means then obliged him to return to West
Virginia, where he engaged in missionary work.
In 1880, however, he was called to the pastorate
of the Moore Street Baptist Church in Rich-
mond, and was able to complete his theological
course, supporting his family and mother in the
meantime. Graduating in 1883, he was appoint-
ed missionary for the eastern division of Vir-
ginia. In April of the following year he became
pastor of the First Baptist Church of Montgom-
ery, W. Va., and subsequently had charge of
Baptist churches in Norfolk, Va., and Hunting-
ton, W. Va,
For the purpose of disseminating correct in-
formation about the achievements of the colored
people he founded the West Virginia Enterprise.
Later on he started The Pioneer at Montgomery,
W. Va. His third and last weekly he called the
Mountain Eagle. His ventures in journalism led
to his dabbling in politics. He became an active
worker for the Republican party and was reward-
ed with the position of deputy collector of in-
ternal revenue at Charleston, W. Va. During
his incumbency of this post, 1889 to 1893, he
studied law and was admitted to practice in
West Virginia. In 1896 he was elected a mem-
ber of the state legislature, being the first negro
to be so honored. From 1898 till 1899 he was a
United States internal revenue agent, and on
May I, 1903, was made United States consul at
St. Thomas in the Danish West Indies. This
position he continued to 1511 until the purchase
of the islands by the United States in 1917.
Thereafter he continued to reside in St. Thomas
and served first as prosecuting attorney and
then, until his death, as police judge.
He was twice married and was survived by
six children. His first wife, whom he married
in 1866, was Delilah Ann Hargrove, and his
second, A. G. Viney of Gallipolis, Ohio. Payne
availed himself of every opportunity to improve
his mind and was an eloquent preacher and
speaker with a fine flow of language. He had
a broad forehead and a straight nose and would
easily have passed for a white man with dark
complexion.
[W. J. Simmons' Men of Mark (1887), The Crisis,
June 1917 ; Jour, of Negro Hist., Jan. 1926 ; Byrd Pril-
lennan, in Bapt. Sunday School Butt., Jan., Feb., Mar.
1926; Who's Who in, America, 1916—17; information
from Payne's daughter, Mrs. Martha Adeline Trent,
through the cotirtesy of the Rev, J, J. Turner, Mont-
gomery, W. Va,]
H.G.V.
Payne
PAYNE, DANIEL ALEXANDER (Feb. 24,
i8n-Nov. 29, 1893), bishop of the African
Methodist Episcopal Church, president of Wil-
berforce University, was born in Charleston,
S. C, the son of London and Martha Payne,
who were free persons of color. His parents
having died before he was ten years old, he was
cared for by relatives. For two years he attend-
ed a local Minor's Moralist Society School es-
tablished by free colored men. He next studied
under Thomas Bonneau, a private tutor, and
not only mastered English and mathematics but
made himself conversant with Greek, Latin, and
French. Apprenticed first to a shoemaker and
later to a tailor, Payne also worked for four
years in a carpenter's shop, of which his brother-
in-law was foreman. In 1826 he joined the
Methodist Episcopal Church and three years
later opened a school for colored children, which
in a short while became the most successful in-
stitution of its kind in Charleston. It flourished
until the South Carolina legislature passed a
law, on Dec. 17, 1834, imposing a fine and whip-
ping on free persons of color who kept schools to
teach slaves or free negroes to read or write.
Obliged to discontinue his school, Payne on May
9, 1835, left Charleston for Pennsylvania, where
he entered the Lutheran Theological Seminary
at Gettysburg. There he supported himself by
blacking boots, waiting at table, and doing other
menial tasks. In 1837 he was licensed to preach
and in 1839 was ordained by the Franckean Syn-
od of the Lutheran Church. He accepted a call
to a Presbyterian church in East Troy, N. Y.,
but in 1840 moved to Philadelphia, where he
opened a school. In 1841 he joined the African
Methodist Episcopal Church and in 1842 was
received as a preacher at the Philadelphia Con-
ference of that denomination. After serving as
a traveling preacher he was appointed to the
Israel Church in Washington, D. C. In 1845
he was transferred to Baltimore, Md., where he
was pastor of Bethel Church.
Chosen historiographer of the African Meth-
odist Episcopal Church in 1848, he traveled ex-
tensively in the United States searching for ma-
terials. In May 1852 he was elected bishop. As
such he exerted himself to raise the cultural
standard of the communicants of the denomina-
tion by promoting the formation of church lit-
erary societies and debating lyceums. During
the Civil War he pleaded with Lincoln and other
prominent men for the emancipation of the
slaves. Without a dollar in hand, on Mar. 10,
1863, he had the temerity to purchase Wilber-
force University, an Ohio institution established
by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1856 for
324
Payne
the education of colored youths, to which many
natural children of slave holders had been sent
prior to the War. He was its president for thir-
teen years. On the day Lincoln was assassinated
the main building of the institution was "burned.
This loss increased the financial burden he had
to assume, but during his administration he was
instrumental in securing more than $92,000.
The enrollment of students also increased great-
ly. In 1867 he visited Europe for the first time.
A delegate to the first Ecumenical Conference
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, held in Lon-
don, England, Payne on Sept. 13, 1881, read a
paper on Methodism and Temperance, impress-
ing all by his dignified manners. He also took
part in the Parliament of Religions, held in 1893
during the World's Columbian Exposition at
Chicago.
After his retirement from Wilberforce he de-
voted himself to writing and to a continuance of
his unrelenting fight against the illiteracy of the
colored Methodist ministers. He was of a light
brown complexion and below the average
height. Very thin and emaciated and weighing
only one hundred pounds, he looked like a con-
sumptive. He had sharp features, an intellec-
tual forehead, keen, penetrating eyes, and a
shrill voice. Among his publications were The
Semi-Centenary . . . of the African Methodist
Episcopal Church in the U. S. of America
(1866), A Treatise on Domestic Education
(1885), Recollections of Seventy Years (1888),
The History of the A. M. E. Church from 1816
to 1856 (1891). Payne was married in 1847 to
Mrs. Julia A. Ferris, daughter of William Be-
craft of Georgetown, D. C. ; she died within a
year thereafter, and in 1853 he married Mrs.
Eliza J. Clark.
[C. S. Smith, The Life of Daniel Alexander Payne
(1894) ; J- W. Cromwell, The Negro in Am. Hist.
(1914) ; G. F. Bragg, Men of Maryland (1925) J W. J.
Simmons, Men of Mark (1887) ; Wm. W. Brown, The
Rising Son (1874) ; A. R. Wentz, Hist, of Gettysburg
Theological Sem. . . . 1826-1926 (n.d.).] H.G. V.
PAYNE, HENRY B. (Nov. 30, i8io-Sept. 9,
1896), representative and senator from Ohio,
was the son of Elisha and Esther (Douglass)
Payne and the descendant of Thomas Paine (or
Payne) who settled in Yarmouth, Mass., and
was admitted freeman of Plymouth Colony in
1639. Both parents were natives of Connecticut.
In 1795 his father removed to Hamilton, N. Y.,
where Henry was born. His education was care-
fully directed, and in 1832 he was graduated
from Hamilton College at Clinton. Sometime
after he graduated from college he added the
middle initial "B" to his name to give what he
considered a more pleasing effect For a period
Payne
he studied law under John C. Spencer \_q.v.~\ of
Canandaigua, N. Y., at that time forming an
acquaintance with Stephen A. Douglas that
deepened into intimate friendship. In 1833 &Q
settled in Cleveland, Ohio, then a village of
3,000 people, continuing his law studies and,
after his admission to the bar in 1834, entering
a law partnership with his old classmate, Hiram
V. Willson, later a federal district judge. In
1836 he was married to Mary, the daughter of
Nathan Perry, a merchant of Cleveland. They
had five children, among them, Flora, who mar-
ried W. C. Whitney [g.z/.], and Oliver H. Payne
[#.z>.]. Sereno Elisha Payne [g.r.] was his neph-
ew. His success in the practice of law was
phenomenal, but in 1846 he began to have hem-
orrhages from his lungs, which necessitated his
retirement from active practice. During these
early years he held various municipal offices;
later, he was a member of Cleveland's first water-
works commission ; and as a sinking fund com-
missioner from 1862 to 1896 he rendered note-
worthy service in reforming the city's finances.
One of the founders of the Cleveland and Co-
lumbus railroad in 1849, ne served as its presi-
dent from 1851 to 1854, when he resigned and
became interested in the Cleveland, Painesville,
and Ashtabula railroad.
Serving in the Ohio Senate from 1849 to 1851,
he displayed such skill as a parliamentarian and
party leader that he became the Democratic
choice for United States senator in 1851. Pro-
tracted balloting resulted in a few Free-Soilers
eventually turning the balance in favor of Ben-
jamin Wade. In 1857 as Democratic candidate
for governor he lost the contest to the incum-
bent, Salmon P. Chase, by a narrow margin. He
helped nominate Buchanan in 1856 and at the
Democratic convention of 1860 reported the
platform which, when adopted, prompted the
withdrawal of delegates from the lower South.
During the war he was an ardent Unionist In
1872 a Greeley supporter, he was chairman of
the Ohio delegation to the Democratic conven-
tion at Baltimore. Elected to Congress in a nor-
mally Republican district two years later, he
served on the committees on banking and cur-
rency and on civil service reform, and he was
instrumental in preventing legislation to regu-
late interstate commerce. In 1876-77 he was
chairman of the House committee on the elec-
toral count at Tilden's request and was influen-
tial in the passage of legislation providing for
the electoral commission, of which he became a
member. Affable and courteous, with kindly
eyes, smooth-shaven face, gentle voice, and a
clerical-cut coat he appeared more like a minis-
325
Payne
ter than the shrewd, active man of affairs that
he was, a director in twenty corporations and a
politician devoted to the interests of business.
Although a leading presidential candidate at the
Democratic convention of 1880, progress in
his behalf was thwarted by the commitment of
the Ohio delegation to Allen G. Thurman.
Three years later a Payne movement for the
senatorship suddenly developed; he received a
majority vote in the Democratic legislative cau-
cus and was promptly elected. He served from
Mar. 4, 1885, to Mar. 3, 1891. It was asserted
that his son, Oliver H. Payne, treasurer of the
Standard Oil Company, had spent $100,000 to
obtain the election. The Republican lower house
of the next state legislature ordered an investi-
gation ; fifty-five witnesses were examined, and
the evidence was turned over to the federal Sen-
ate, which ultimately refused to act While the
charges were never absolutely proved, the ab-
sence of satisfactory denials in the face of reit-
erated accusations, convinced a large portion of
the country that Payne's promoters had prac-
tically bought his seat (see I. M. Tarbell, The
History of the Standard Oil Company, 1904,
II, 111-19). In the Senate his principal work
was as a committee member. Over eighty at the
end of his term, he retired to the Euclid Avenue
mansion in Cleveland that was his home for
sixty years and died of paralysis five years later.
[A few letters in Ohio Arch, and Hist. Quart., Oct.
1913 ; reference to existence of a valuable diary prob-
ably destroyed before Payne's death in J. F. Rhodes,
Hist, of the U. S., vol. VII (1906), p. 269 ; G. I. Reed,
Bench and Bar of Ohio (1897), vol. II ; A. F. P. White,
The Paynes of Hamilton (1912) ; Sen. Misc. Doc. 106,
49 Cong., i Sess. (1886) ; A. H. Walker, The Payne
Bribery Case (1886) ; John Sherman's Recollections
(1895), vol. II; J. G. Blaine, Twenty Years, vol. II
(1886); Murat Halstead, Caucuses of 1860 (1860);
Cleveland Plain Dealer, Cleveland Leader , and Cincin-
nati Commercial Tribune, Sept. 10, 1896 ; informa-
tion concerning1 his middle initial from his grand-
daughter, Mrs. Chester C. Bolton.] F.P.W.
PAYNE, HENRY CLAY (Nov. 23, 1843-
Oct 4, 1904), railroad executive and postmaster-
general, son of Orrin and Eliza (Ames) Payne,
was bora at Ashfield, Mass. He was educated
in the schools there and at the Shelburne Falls
academy from which he graduated in 1859. Af-
ter a short business experience in Northampton,
Mass., and after being rejected as a soldier, he
moved to Milwaukee, Wis., in 1863. Here he
entered the dry-goods house of Sherwin, No-
well & Pratt, and served as cashier until 1867.
He then entered the insurance business in which
he achieved considerable success. His first ap-
pearance in politics was in 1872, in the Grant-
Greeley campaign, when he organized the Young
Men's Republican Club, serving as its first sec-
Payne
retary and later as chairman. In 1876 he was
appointed postmaster of Milwaukee by Presi-
dent Grant and held that position for ten years,
during which time he brought the office to a
high state of efficiency, paying especial attention
to the money-order branch through which he
was able to serve the large foreign-born popu-
lation of the city. When the Democrats as-
sumed control of the national government in
1885 Payne left the post office and engaged in
a number of business enterprises, being espe-
cially interested in the development of local pub-
lic utilities. He was made vice-president of the
Wisconsin Telephone Company in 1886 and
president three years later. In the same year,
1889, he became interested in the possibility of
consolidating the street railways of Milwaukee.
In 1890, when the Cream City Railroad Com-
pany and the Milwaukee City Railroad were
merged, becoming the Milwaukee Street Rail-
way Company, Henry Villard of New York was
made president and Payne vice-president and
general manager. From 1892 to 1895 Payne
acted as president of the company. By the latter
year the consolidation of the city lines was com-
plete and the company had also absorbed the
electric lighting companies of the city. In 1896,
however, the company was in financial straits.
Payne was named receiver and then was made
vice-president of the reorganized Milwaukee
Electric Railway & Light Company. Shortly
after the reorganization, a serious strike broke
out among the employees of the company. Payne
was criticized for his unyielding attitude toward
the workmen, and although the strike was bro-
ken, public sympathy was with the strikers.
Payne also organized the Milwaukee Light,
Heat and Traction Company, which built and
operated the suburban electric lines running out
of Milwaukee, and was president of the Fox
River Electric Railway Company, an interurban
electric system. In 1890 he was elected presi-
dent of the Milwaukee & Northern Railroad
Company but resigned in 1893 when the road
was consolidated with the Chicago, Milwaukee
& St. Paul. When the Northern Pacific Rail-
road failed he was appointed one of the re-
ceivers and served from 1893 to I^95- From
1894 to 1896 he was president of the Chicago &
Calumet Terminal Railway. Meantime he had
continued his services in the Republican party
organization. He was secretary and chairman
of the Republican county committee of Milwau-
kee County and of the Republican State Central
Committee after 1872, and a member of the Re-
publican National Committee from 1880 until
his death in 1904. In 1888 and 1892 he served
326
Payne
c rfdeffate to the Republican National Conven-
Jfofl and during the McKinley-Bryan campaign
«f 1806 he was in charge of the western head-
Lrters in Chicago. Four years later he worked
successfully to have Roosevelt nominated as
^-president of the ticket with McKmley.
When Roosevelt became president the following
r he repaid his political debt by appointing
Payne postmaster-general in January 1902. Be-
fore he had been in office three years Payne died
suddenly in Washington. He had married, on
Oct 15, 1869, Lydia W. Van Dyke, daughter of
Richard and Mary (Thomas) Van Dyke of
Mount Holly, N. J. He died childless.
fSee W W Wight, Henry Clay Payne, A Life
doc;)- Who's Who in America, 1903-05; Ann Re-
torts of the Post-Office Dept. 1902-03 ; the Railway
Age, Oct. 7, 1904; Milwaukee Jour., Oct. 5, 1904.]
E. L. B.
PAYNE, JOHN HOWARD (June 9, 1791-
Apr 9, 1852), actor, dramatist, editor, diplomat,
was "born in New York City, the sixth child of
William and Sarah Isaacs Payne and a descend-
ant of Thomas Paine (or Payne) who settled
in Yarmouth, Mass., and was admitted freeman
of Plymouth Colony in 1639. At the age of thir-
teen he had already prefigured in his imagina-
tive mind his long association with the stage.
Though disciplined by the counsel of his family
and by hard toil in the New York counting house
of Grant and Bennet Forbes, the precocious boy
clung to his desire, and from Dec. 28, 1805, to
May 31, 1806, published anonymously the first
numbers of his Thespian Mirror, an eight-page
critical review of the New York theatre, which
aroused the interest of William Coleman [g.z>.],
editor of the Evening Post. He followed this
adventure a few weeks later by his first play,
Julia, or The Wanderer, acted at the Park The-
atre on Feb. 7, 1806. Such talents, coupled with
his personal charm, had already launched him
upon his career in New York society, in which
he was to know intimately Henry Brevoort,
James K. Paulding, Charles Brockden Brown,
and Washington Irving, when he was snatched
by friends from the temptations of the stage to
enroll in Union College. His father's bankruptcy,
two years later, offered him an excuse to go on
the stage and on Feb. 24, 1809, he made his debut
as an actor on the New York stage as Young
Norval in John Home's tragedy of Douglas.
Young Payne's triumph was instantaneous,
and during the first six months of this year he
was a theatrical sensation in both New York and
Boston, acting not only in standard popular
plays but in Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and
King Lear, and as Frederick, perhaps in his owa
Payne
version, in Lovers' Vows, But if Payne as an
a<*or rose with meteor-like speed, he fell almost
as swiftly, and though he played at the close of
fte year 1809 with enormous success in Balti-
more and Philadelphia, and with a total profit
of about $3,200, he found himself unbooked for
engagements for the season of 1810-11. The
reasons^for the dwindling of his fame are obvi-
ous. His beautiful face, his eyes, glowing with
animation and intelligence, and his melodious
voice could not counterbalance the hard facts
that, after all, he was on the stage a transient
novelty, that he lacked the depth of study which
distinguished the older favorites, that patriotic
appreciation of a local prodigy could not last
forever, and that he had quarreled with the pow-
erful manager, Stephen Price. Nevertheless,
Payne's essential talent on the stage cannot be
challenged. By 1811 he had overcome some of
the defects of his youth ; in its issue of December
1811 the Mirror of Taste declared: "That gen-
ius, which he unquestionably possesses in a de-
gree superior to any tragic actor on the Ameri-
can stage but Cooke, is now more controlled by
judgment and at the same time rendered more
active and efficient by study."
Payne, sensitive, petulant, and not yet aware
of his gifts as a playwright, suffered keenly from
these disappointments, and, as other misfor-
tunes thickened about him, displayed that in-
stability of spirits which was to handicap him
throughout his life. His plan to turn bookseller
and found in New York a literary exchange
failed ; he was, In spite of great profits from his
acting, heavily in debt; and In 1812 his father
died. Yet he still cherished his dream of suc-
cess on the London boards, and when his friends,
including Alexander Hanson, William Gwynn,
and Jonathan Meredith, collected a fund of
$2,000 to encourage him In an English career,
he was confident that he would conquer Drury
Lane and Covent Garden and return to America
as a renowned tragedian. With such hopes and
with numerous letters of Introduction he sailed,
on Jan. 17, 1813, for Liverpool. He was to re-
main in Europe for twenty years, a period in his
fortunes strangely interwoven with fame and
poverty. His friends In England, among them
Peter Irving" and Benjamin West, conspired for
a repetition of his early success. Billed as a
"Young Gentleman/* he again essayed the part
of Young Norval. His English audiences ac-
knowledged his gifts, but what Genest said of
the decline of "Master Betty" was also true of
Payne, the American Roscius : "the Public had
by this time recovered their senses.1' The ap-
plause was audible but not overwhelming, and
Payne
after a tour of the provinces in the spring1 and
summer of 1814 he was back in London, penni-
less and without prospects. He had gained little
save his friendship with Charles Kemble, and
the knowledge that to earn a living he must re-
turn to authorship. He realized apparently that
he was never to duplicate as an actor his early
attainments of 1809. He now began a long ca-
reer of dramatic hackwork, interrupted by at-
tempts to act, by quarrels with managers (no-
tably with Douglass Kinnaird, of Drury Lane),
and even by imprisonment for debt.
The story of these years reveals all the erratic
brilliance of Payne's mind and also his lovable
nature, for the sake of which his devoted friend
Washington Irving allowed himself to be tor-
mented in Paris and London by Payne's cred-
itors. In these two cities he now lived, writing
and adapting plays for the London and New
York theatres. In 1814 he sold to Henry Harris,
manager of Covent Garden, where it was acted
twenty-seven times, The Maid and the Magpie,
an adaptation of La Pie Voleuse by Caigniez and
Baudouin, and in the next year he composed
various musical pieces and plays which with one
exception never quite reached the footlights. For
two seasons (1818, 1819) he conducted the cor-
respondence for Harris' theatre, read manu-
scripts, wrote press notices, distributed orders
on the house, and in other ways helped to pro-
mote the fortunes of plays and actors. Occasion-
ally, in the midst of this drudgery, he struck fire,
as in the popular success, Brutus, or the Fall of
Tarquin, an historical tragedy in five acts ( Drury
Lane, Dec. 3, 1818), with Kean as Brutus and
Julia Glover as Tullia. Although by Payne's own
admission Brutus was in debt to seven other
dramatists, among them Hugh Downman and
Richard Cumberland, it was acted fifty-two times
in this season and passed through six editions.
The play showed Payne's skill in handling dra-
matic scenes, though Genest lamented that it "met
with success vastly beyond its merits" (John
Genest, Some Account of the English Stage, vol.
VIII, 1832, p. 679).
This curious admixture of achievement and
failure continued to characterize Payne's ca-
reer. In 1820 he leased Sadler's Wells Theatre,
but the collapse here of his own melodramas
landed him at the end of the year in Fleet Street
Prison, for debt From this predicament he ob-
tained release by his Therese, the Orphan of
Geneva, a profitable adaptation of a French mel-
odrama, which had its first English performance
at Drury Lane, Feb. 2, 1821. Fleeing to Paris
to escape duns, he sent over to London numer-
ous plays for which Irving and possibly Haz-
Payne
litt served as intermediaries. It seems ironic
that while all these ambitious dramas were
doomed to oblivion, he was to gain a slender im-
mortality from a single song. Clari, or, The
Maid of Milan (Covent Garden, May 8, 1823),
metamorphosed into an opera at the request of
Charles Kemble, contained the lyric "Home,
Sweet Home !," which was to be sung through-
out the English-speaking world during the re-
mainder of the century. For the play, which was
acted only twelve times, Payne received fifty
pounds, but for the song not a single penny.
About the lyric legends cluster, for example,
that Payne heard the air from an Italian peas-
ant girl, or that it symbolized his sad, wandering
life. Actually, knowing no music, he wrote the
words to the measure of the "Ranz des Vaches,"
and at the time of its composition he was com-
fortably established in Paris. Eager for fame as
actor and dramatist, he won it paradoxically as
the author of a sentimental ballad in a relatively
prosperous period of his life.
In the summer of 1823, Irving, who had long
been fascinated by Payne's theatrical ventures,
returned from Dresden with some unfinished
operas and was persuaded to collaborate with his
friend. Out of this association resulted at least
ten plays, seven of which were produced, and
two of which were acted with some success. The
three-act comedy, Charles the Second; or, The
Merry Monarch (Covent Garden, May 27, 1824),
with Charles Kemble as the King and Fawcett as
Captain Copp, was distinguished for unity of
structure, rapidity of action, brilliance of dia-
logue, and very nearly achieved the quality of
high comedy. Richelieu, A Domestic Tragedy
(Covent Garden, Feb. n, 1826) was less fortu-
nate, in spite of the efforts of Kemble and Mrs.
Glover in the leading roles ; it ran for only six
nights. The play revealed for the first time, by
its dedication to Irving, the collaboration of the
dramatist and the essayist.
Although the meager proceeds from these plays
discouraged Irving from further sustained col-
laboration with Payne, he continued to aid his
friend by criticizing his manuscripts and by pro-
tecting him from his hordes of creditors. From
the fall of 1823 to the summer of 1825 Payne was
in London, sometimes tinder the name of "J.
Hayward" in order to escape the attentions of
these gentlemen. In the intervals of his troubled
dealings with managers, he contrived to fall in
love with Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, who told
him frankly that she preferred Washington Ir-
ving, news which the latter, when Payne later
showed him the lady's correspondence, received
calmly, if we may judge from an entry in his
328
Payne
• urnal No proof exists that in this curious tri-
J° v anv real passion existed, unless it were tLe
S^ame^l Payne's for Mrs. Shelley Car-
LinlY it caused no rift in the friendship of Payne
and Irving, for at this very time Irving secured
for Payne a contract with Stephen Price. Be-
ween Oct. 2, 1826, and Mar. 24, 1827, Payne,
azain in London, brought out the twenty-six
numbers of his Opera Glass, a weekly paper "for
oeeping into the microcosm of the fine arts, and
more especially of the drama/1 and for five years
more a period which remains somewhat ob-
scure, he lingered in England. On June 16,
1832, with passage money provided by friends
in America, he sailed for home, a disillusioned
man of forty-one, rich in experience but as poor
as ever in purse.
Yet he found himself an eminent citizen. On
Nov. 29 a benefit was arranged for him, offering
a program which included Brutus, with Edwin
Forrest, and Katherine and PetrucUo, with
Charles and Fanny Kemble, both now for the
first time in America. The benefit's conclusion
was Charles II, with James W. Wallack as Cap-
tain Copp. Between the plays Payne heard an
address of welcome, a rendition of "Home,
Sweet Home 1," and the finale of Clan. This and
the public dinner were soothing tributes not only
to Payne but also to the army of creditors, who
at once swarmed down upon the unlucky dram-
atist and devoured the slight income from the
benefit Undaunted, Payne at once resumed his
magnificent schemes, including one for a maga-
zine to be published in London for the advance-
ment of art, science, and belles-lettres in the
United States. Not one issue of the magazine
ever went to press.
Payne's make-shift way of life now led him
into an adventure which almost caused his
death, and which elicited from him the most un-
selfish act of his career. In Georgia, in Septem-
ber 1835, in search of material for his maga-
zine, he became interested in original material
owned by John Ross, head of the Cherokee na-
tion, whose affairs with the United States gov-
ernment were then a subject of stormy contro-
versy. Ross turned over to Payne material
which was to furnish a series of articles for the
magazine. In the midst of these labors the
Georgia Guards arrested Ross and Payne and
accused the latter of being an abolitionist and in
league with the French. Ultimately released,
Payne was advised by his captors never to re-
turn to Georgia. On his way home, however,
he had the courage to publish, in the Knoxville
(Tennessee) Register two articles : "John How-
ard Payne to his Countrymen" and "The Cher-
Payne
okee Nation to the People of the United States."
Both essays were lively, forceful accounts not
only of his own mishaps, which he was always
inclined to view with a humorous eye, but of
the wrongs of the Indians. Back in New York
he began a history of the Cherokee nation. This
is still in manuscript, as is a play of this period,
Romulus the Shepherd King (1839).
In spite of his misdemeanors Payne was now
widely known in America, and when Tyler be-
came president, his advocates secured for him
in 1842 through the aid of Daniel Webster an
appointment as American consul at Tunis. Re-
called by President Polk in 1845, he returned
by way of Rome, Paris, and London, reaching
New York in the summer of 1847. Once again
his creditors made his life wretched. After a
struggle against the opposition of Thomas H.
Benton, he again obtained in March 1851 the
post at Tunis. It was the last act in the drama
of his feverish life. During the winter of 1851-
52 his health failed rapidly, and he died on Apr.
9, 1852, still beset by unfinished plans and un-
paid debts. Thirty-one years later his body was
brought to America and interred at Oak Hill
Cemetery in Washington.
[A detailed biography of John ^Howard Payne is in
process of composition by E. Allison Grant. The fol-
lowing books throw light upon his career and person-
ality: Gabriel Harrison, The Life and Writings of
John Howard Payne (i875> 1885) ; W. T. Hanson,
Jr., The Early Life of John Howard Payne (1913) I
Rosa Pendleton Chiles, John Howard Payne (1930);
Memoirs of John Howard Payne, the Am. Roscws
(London, 1815); T. S. Fay, "Sketch of the Life of
John Howard Payne," N. Y. Mirror, Nov. 24, Dec. i,
1832 ; A. H. Quinn, HisL of the Am. Drama from the
Beginning to the Civil War (1923) ; P- M- Irving,
Life and Letters of Washington Irving (4 vols., 1862-
64) ; "Correspondence of Washington Irving and John
Howard Payne," Scribner's Mag., Oct., Nov. 1910;
The Romance of Mary W. Shelley, John Howard
Payne, and Washington Irving (Boston, 1907) ; Jw.
of Washington Irving (1823-24) (1931), ed. by Stan-
ley Williams ; T. T. P. Luquer, "When Payne Wrote
'Home! Sweet Home!/ " Scribner's Mag., Dec. 1915.]
E.A.G.
S.T.W.
PAYNE, LEWIS THORNTON POWELL,
1845-1865 [See BOOTH, JOHN WILKES].
PAYNE, OLIVER HAZARD (July 21, 1839-
June 27, 1917), capitalist, was born at Cleve-
land, Ohio, the son of Henry B. Payne [g.v.]
and Mary (Perry) Payne. His mother was a
daughter of Nathan Perry, honored pioneer
merchant of Cleveland, who had been identified
with the city's growth since going there as a
fur trader in 1804. Soon after his son's birth the
father, already successful in the fields of indus-
try and commerce, entered upon a political ca-
reer. Oliver was educated at Phillips Academy
and at Yale University. A member of the ckss
329
Payne
of 1863, he left in 1861 to enter the Union army,
his father having procured for him a lieutenant's
commission in an Illinois regiment. Soon he
was advanced to captain and his company took
part in the engagements at New Madrid, Cor-
inth, and Booneville, Miss. On Sept. n, 1862,
he became lieutenant-colonel of the I24th Ohio
Volunteers and on Jan. 1, 1863, he was promoted
colonel. He was seriously wounded at Chicka,-
mauga, suffered a long convalescence, and re-
joined his regiment to take a gallant part in the
battles of Resaca and Pickett's Mill, his conduct
winning him the brevet of brigadier-general for
"faithful and meritorious services." In de-
pressed mood after the arduous Atlanta
campaign, he resigned on Nov. 2, 1864. Ap-
parently his men held their very young colonel
in high regard.
Returning to Cleveland and entering business,
Payne rapidly gained a place for himself in the
iron industry and also in the pioneer field of oil
refining. Until the formation of the Standard
Oil Company in 1870, Clark, Payne & Company
were the largest refiners in Cleveland and the
chief of Rockefeller's competitors. Payne, how-
ever, became a shareholder in the notorious
South Improvement Company (1872), and a few
years later allied his oil interests completely
with the Standard Oil Company. He was almost
immediately made treasurer, which office he held
until his removal to New York City in 1884.
His holdings in Standard Oil were at one time
exceeded only by those of John D. Rockefeller,
the Charles Pratt estate, and the Harkness fam-
ily. While in Ohio he was a heavy contributor
to Democratic campaign funds, and through his
father was influential in party matters. He also
used his wealth to further his father's career and
was charged with securing Henry B. Payne's
seat in the Senate in 1884 by bribing the Ohio
legislature. The charge, though never proved,
was the subject of acrimonious dispute for years.
In 1886 the Ohio legislature asked the Senate for
an investigation and submitted evidence, but the
Senate refused to act. During the debates in the
Senate over combinations in trade and industry
it was frequently charged that Henry B. Payne
was there as a representative of Standard Oil.
It was also hinted that Payne's support of Cleve-
land was a factor in the appointment of William
C. Whitney, Payne's brother-in-law, as secre-
tary of the navy,
After going to New York Payne gradually
divested himself of his oil holdings and invested
in other fields, becoming a director in various
banking firms and industrial corporations. He
was a dominant figure in the affairs of the
Payne
American Tobacco Company and its subsidiaries
(A. Pound and S. T. Moore, They Told Barron
1930, pp. 49-5°) and was influential in the af-
fairs of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company
at the time of its absorption by the United States
Steel Corporation. Yachting was his chief rec-
reation, and every summer between 1898 and
1914 he visited Europe in his Aphrodite, which
when built was the largest, fastest, and most
luxuriously appointed steam yacht in the coun-
try. At one time it carried him around the
world. He lived a bachelor at his Fifth Avenue
mansion in winter, but spent other seasons of
the year on estates in Ulster County, N. Y., or
in Georgia. During his lifetime he was a quiet
giver to many causes, his most notable philan-
thropy being a gift of $500,000 to found Cornell
Medical College and further gifts to it totaling
over $8,000,000 which enabled it to take front
rank among institutions of its kind. In his will
he bequeathed $1,000,000 to the New York Pub-
lic Library, $1,000,000 to Yale University,
$1,000,000 to Lakeside Hospital, Cleveland, and
smaller amounts to many other medical and edu-
cational institutions. The greater part of the re-
mainder of his large estate passed to his favorite
nephews, Harry Payne Bingham and Payne
Whitney.
[G. W. Lewis, The Campaigns of the 12 4th Regiment
(1894); F. B. Heitman, Hist. Reg. and Diet, of the
U. S. Army (1903), vol. I; Ida M. Tarbell, The Hist,
of the Standard Oil Company (2 vols., 1904) ; H. D.
Lloyd, Wealth against Commonwealth (1894) ', Who's
Who in America, 1914-15; A. F. Payne White, The
Paynes of Hamilton (1912) ; the Sun (N. Y.), N. Y
Herald and N. Y. Times, June 28, 1917, and N Y
Times, July 7, 1917.] O.W.H.
PAYNE, SERENO ELISHA (June 26, 1843-
Dec. 10, 1914), politician, was born at Hamil-
ton, N. Y., the son of Betsy (Sears) and Wil-
liam Wallace Payne, a farmer and one-time as-
semblyman, and die nephew of Henry B. Payne
[q.v.]. The family, soon after his birth, removed
to Auburn, where the boy attended the academy.
After graduation at the University of Roches-
ter in 1864, he entered the law office of Cox &
Avery in Auburn and in 1866 was admitted to
the bar. He immediately opened a law office in
Auburn, which he maintained to the end of his
life, gradually acquiring a large practice. On
Apr. 23, 1873, he married Gertrude Knapp of
Auburn, who bore him one son. From the first
he was interested in politics, became an active
Republican worker, and held a succession of local
offices: city clerk of Auburn, 1867-68, super-
visor of Cayuga County, 1871-72, district attor-
ney for that county, 1873-79, and member of the
Auburn board of education, 1879-82. In the fall
of 1882 he was elected to the Forty-eighth Con-
330
Payne
<rress, and two years later was reflected, but af-
ter the Democrats gerrymandered the district he
was defeated for the Fiftieth Congress. He was
chosen to a vacancy in the Fifty-first Congress
caused by the death of Newton W. Nutting and
thereafter served continuously until his death.
He was proud of his long tenure and achieved a
reputation as one of the most faithful, conscien-
tious, and hardworking representatives in Wash-
ington.
Though a plodding member, without brilliance
or dash, a slow, heavy speaker, and handicapped
in later years by partial deafness, he gradually
advanced to the position of a leader. In the Fif-
ty-first Congress he became a member of the
ways and means committee and thereafter de-
voted his chief attention to the tariff. He helped
draft the McKinley Tariff of 1890 and made his
first important speech to the House in its behalf.
Four years later he was one of the principal op-
ponents of the Wilson Tariff. When the Dingley
Bill was written in 1897 he stood second in rank
on the ways and means committee and had served
there longer than any other Republican. He
prepared whole schedules of this bill and had the
distinction of closing the House debate upon it
In 1899 he served as a member of the American-
British joint high commission. When Dingley
died that year, he succeeded to the chairmanship
of the ways and means committee, and he became
one of the so-called "Big Five/' a controlling
group that included Cannon, Tawney, Dalzell,
and James Sherman.
His two principal ambitions were to be speak-
er and to attach his name to some law of lasting
importance. He was denied the first when in
1903 Cannon was chosen presiding officer of the
House, the New York Republicans splitting their
vote between James Sherman and Payne, either
of whom might have succeeded had the other
withdrawn. Payne was an effective lieutenant of
Cannon, often taking charge of floor strategy.
His second ambition was realized, when in 1909
he gave his name to the Payne-Aldrich Tariff.
His work in connection with this much-de-
nounced measure was far more palatable to the
country at large than Senator Aldrich's (F. W.
Taussig, The Tariff History of the United States,
5th ed., copr. 1910, 368-408). He conducted
long and honest hearings before the ways and
means committee, with a close critical compari-
son of foreign and domestic costs. In introduc-
ing the bill he made a detailed explanatory speech,
the fullness and conscientiousness of which were
in^ striking contrast with the speeches of Mc-
Kinley and Dingley in 1890 and 1897 and with
Aldrich's speeches in the Senate. The House
Payne
made no important changes in the bill; the Sen-
ate made 847, half of them of substantial impor-
tance and generally upward in trend. Payne
showed some resentment, for he had said that
duties should be fixed strictly at the difference
between the cost in the United States and the
cost abroad, and that the best friends of pro-
tection were those who tried to keep the rates
reasonably protective. He frankly asserted, for
example, that the Senate had gone too far in al-
most doubling the House rates on shingles. In
the conference hearings on the Payne-Aldrich
Bill he was distinctly more moderate than Taw-
ney and Dalzell. Yet of the bill as finally passed
he was a warm defender. In spite of failing
health he remained active in the House, and on
the day of his death he not only occupied his
usual seat but made a short speech on an appro-
priation bill.
m [Sereno Elisha Payne . . . Memorial Addresses . . .
«« the House of Representatives (1916) ; N. W. Ste-
phenson, N. W. Aldrich (1930); D. S. Alexander, A
Political Hist, of ... N. Y.f vol. Ill (1909) ; A. F.
Payne, The Paynes of Hamilton (1915) ; N. Y. Trib-
une and Evening Post (N. Y.), Dec. n, 1914.]
A.N.
PAYNE, WILLIAM HAROLD (May 12,
i836-June 18, 1907), educator, was born in On-
tario County, N. Y., near the village of Farm-
ington, the son of Gideon Riley Payne and Mary
Brown (Smith). He attended country school
during the winter months and by the time he
was thirteen had mastered textbooks on algebra
and grammar. Since he was of frail constitution,
he found farm work heavy as well as irksome,
and accordingly his mother, who recognized his
bent for study, encouraged him to enter the Mace-
don Academy in 1852. Here he studied for two
years, teaching in country schools part of the
time. During the summer of 1854 he attended
the New York Conference Seminary at Char-
lottes ville, then gave eighteen months to teaching
country schools. On Oct. 2, 1856, he married
Sara Evaline Fort, and with her conducted the
school at Victor, N. Y., for the next two years.
He was then appointed principal of the Union
School at Three Rivers, Mich., where his wife's
family had settled. Under his administration the
school grew from two to six departments in six
years, and he won a local reputation. In 1864,
he became principal of the union school at Niles,
Mich., and from 1866 to 1869 was in charge of
Ypsilanti Seminary, resigning that position to
become superintendent of public schools at Ad-
rian. He was president of the Michigan Teach-
ers Association in 1866 and editor of its organ,
the Michigan Teacher, from its first issue, Janu-
ary 1866, to 1870.
331
Payne
During his first year at Adrian he delivered
an address, The Relation between the University
and Our High Schools (published 1871), by
which he first attracted attention as an advocate
of a coordinated state school system which would
permit the pupil to pass by regular steps from
the primary grades to the University. He also
urged the training of prospective teachers in the
technique of teaching. His views met with some
opposition, but won the favorable notice of James
B. Angell [#.#.], president of the University of
Michigan, who succeeded, in 1878, in securing
the establishment of a chair of education in the
University, the first chair of pedagogy in the
United States. The following year Payne became
its first incumbent To supply textbooks for his
new courses he wrote Syllabus of a Course of
Lectures on the Science and Art of Teaching
(1879); Outlines of Educational Doctrine
(1882) ; Contributions to the Science of Educa-
tion (1886); edited D. P. Page's Theory and
Practice of Teaching (1885), and translated The
History of Pedagogy (1886) from the French of
Gabriel Compayre. He had previously published
Chapters On School Supervision (1875). The
department of education developed under his pro-
fessorship until it included seven courses offered
by the professor himself and four courses in spe-
cial methods by members of other departments.
In 1887 Payne accepted the dual position of
chancellor of the University of Nashville and
president of Peabody Normal School, Nashville,
Term. He reorganized the library; raised the
standards of the normal school, which in 1889
was renamed Peabody Normal College ; and by
1901 had more than trebled the enrollment. In
that year he resigned to resume his old profes-
sorship at the University of Michigan, vacated
by the death of his successor, Burke A. Hinsdale
[q.v.~\* During the Nashville period he trans-
lated The Elements of Psychology (1890) and
Psychology Applied to Education (1893) fr°m
the French of Compayre, and £mtte (1893) from
the French of J. J. Rousseau. In 1901 he pub-
lished The Education of Teachers. His first wife
had died in 1899, and on July 6, 1901, he married
Elizabeth Rebecca Clark. Ill health compelled
him ta retire from teaching in 1904 and he died
in Ann Arbor three years later. He had five
children by his first marriage. A colleague (I.
N. Demmon, in Michigan Alumnus, July 1907)
characterized Payne as a perfect disciplinarian,
combining gentleness and firmness in a singular
degree.
[G. C. Poret, The Contributions of William Harold
Payne to Public Education (1930), with a. bibliog. of
printed and manuscript sources : Report of the Pioneer
Payne
and Hist. Soc. of Mich., vol. IX (1886) ; Jour, of Proc.
and Addresses . . . Nat. Educ. Asso., 1907; Mich.
Alumnus, Nov. 1901, July 1907 ; L. C. Aldrich, Hist,
of Ontario County, N. Y. (1893) ; Am. Biog. Hist, of
Eminent and Self Made Men, Mich. Vol. (1878) ; Who's
Who in America, 1906-07; Detroit Free Press, June
19.1907-] R.H.E.
PAYNE, WILLIAM MORTON (Feb. 14,
i8s8-July n, 1919), teacher, translator, and lit-
erary critic, was born at Newburyport, Mass.,
the son of Henry Morton and Emma Merrill
(Tilton) Payne, and the descendant of William
Payne, who emigrated from England in 1635 and
settled at Watertown. In 1868 his family re-
moved to Chicago, where the remainder of his
life was passed. The boy was educated in the
public schools of Newburyport and Chicago.
Financial reverses of his family made it impos-
sible for him to proceed to Harvard, as had been
designed. Instead, he found employment in the
Chicago Public Library (1874-76), and then as
a teacher of literature in the high schools of Chi-
cago (1876-1919). At the same time, not ac-
cepting misfortune supinely, he undertook a
course of self-education which involved severe
discipline. And his efforts were eminently suc-
cessful. He became an accomplished linguist,
speaking Norwegian, German, and Italian fluent-
ly, and French so perfectly that he deceived
Frenchmen as to his origin ; and attaining be-
sides a competent knowledge of Swedish, Danish,
and Spanish. In later years he traveled repeat-
edly in Europe. By 1883 he was entering upon
his career as a critic and man of letters, and had
established a connection with the Chicago Dial.
He presently became literary editor of the Chi-
cago Daily News (1884-88), and then of the
Chicago Evening Journal (1888-92), and there-
after acted as associate editor of the Dial until
1915. In addition, he contributed frequently to
periodicals, wrote editorials for the Chicago Jour-
nal (1917-18), edited English in American Uni-
versities (1895), American Literary Criticism
(1904), and two volumes of selections from
Swinburne (Selected Poems, 1905, Mary Stuart,
1906), and wrote sixteen essays and made many
translations in prose and verse for C. D. War-
ner's Library of the World's Best Literature.
His principal translations, however, were care-
ful and felicitous renderings of Bjornstjerne
Bjornson's dramatic trilogy, Sigurd Slembe
(1888), and of the same author's epic cycle,
ArnLjot Gelline (1917).
His remarkable activity did not render Payne
a^drudge. Inevitably the usefulness of much of
his journalistic work was exhausted when the
immediate occasion for it had passed; but, taken
together, this work represents a consistent force
332
Payson
through many years in support of the humanities
—in support of liberal culture based upon the
classical tradition of literature. Payne's criticism
was judicial, was concerned more with ideas
than with literary form, and was well calculated
to maintain tried standards of taste while com-
municating the significant influences, old and
new, which were powerful in the nineteenth cen-
tury. Though he was less forceful and less in-
dividual than Matthew Arnold, he still aimed at
the ends which his older English contemporary
set before himself ; and in so doing he attained a
position of more than local influence. For it was
he, more than anybody else, who made the Dial
what it was in its best days. Ninety of his
essays for the Dial were reprinted In three
small volumes — Little Leaders (1895), Editorial
Echoes (1902), and Various Views (1902) —
which exhibit his critical talent more happily
than his two larger, more formal volumes of es-
says, The Greater English Poets of the Nine-
teenth Century (1907) and Leading American
Essayists (1910). The former volume was based
upon a course of lectures which Payne delivered
at the Universities of Wisconsin (1900) , Kansas
(1904), and Chicago (1904). His work was
too quietly performed to gain for him the recog-
nition he deserved in his own day ; but the Uni-
versity of Wisconsin made him an honorary
LL.D. in 1903, and he became a member of the
National Institute of Arts and Letters. At his
death after a short illness, he was buried from
the home of his lifelong friend, Professor Paul
Shorey. He was never married.
Who's Who in America, 1916-17 ; H. D. Paine, e<L,
Paine Family Records, Nov. i87&-Oct. 1883; Chicago
Herald and Examiner and Chicago Tribune, July 12,
1919; information from Mrs. Herbert E. Bradley (in
whose possession Payne's library, scrap-books, and
correspondence remain), and from Prof. Paul Shorey.]
R.S.
PAYSON, EDWARD (July 25, 1783-0 ct. 22,
1827), Congregational clergyman, was a native
of Rindge, N. H. His grandfather, Phillips Pay-
son, his father, Seth [#.£>.], and two uncles, Phil-
lips and John Payson, were all Congregational
ministers. Seth Payson was long pastor at
Rindge, and although an epileptic, was able in-
tellectually and active in public affairs. He mar-
ried a relative, Grata Payson, of Pomfret, Conn.
Edward, one of seven children, was educated at
home and at the academy in New Ipswich. He
was ready for college at sixteen, but although he
was extremely susceptible to religious Influences
from early childhood, his father held him back,
since he had not made confession of faith, saying,
"To give you a liberal education while destitute
of religion, would be like putting a sword into
Payson
the hands of a madman." Edward, nevertheless,
entered the sophomore class of Harvard College
in 1800, and graduated in 1803. For the next
three years he was principal of an academy In
Portland, Me.
While here his thought became Increasingly
concerned with religion. In September 1805 he
joined his father's church, and In August of the
following year retired to Rindge to study theol-
ogy. Licensed to preach on May 20, 1807, he
supplied the church at Marlboro, N. H., for about
three months, and later became colleague of Rev.
Elijah Kellogg at the Second Congregational
Church, Portland, Me., where he was ordained
Dec. 1 6, 1807. From December 1811 until his
death he was sole pastor. On May 8, 1811, he
married Ann Louisa Shipman of New Haven,
Conn. They had eight children, one of whom,
Elizabeth Payson Prentiss [#.£>.], was a popular
writer of religious fiction.
From about his twenty-first year, Payson was
a votary of religion in no ordinary degree. His
own spiritual experience and the spiritual wel-
fare of others engrossed his every thought and
all his energies. The revival spirit was always
burning within him. Twelve hours of each day
he gave to study, never less than two to devo-
tions, and at least one day a week he spent in
fasting and prayer. He was unhealthily intro-
spective, subject to periods of highest elevation
and deepest despair. Doubtless his physical In-
heritance, and the fact that from the beginning
of his pastorate he was a victim of what was
probably tuberculosis, had much to do with his
mental processes. Although his preaching was
frequently dark and menacing, and painted hu-
man nature in such, colors that unregenerate
hearers would address each other on a Monday
morning as "Brother Devil," his complete aban-
don in his faith and calling, his genuine spir-
ituality, and his vivid preaching and oratorical
ability inspired reverence for him as a man and
gave him great effectiveness in the pulpit Calls
came to him from Boston and New York, but he
was not persuaded that they emanated from God,
and he stayed in Portland, until, after a long
period of failing strength, with extreme suffer-
ing at the end, he died in his forty-fourth year.
Those who came to view his body saw attached
to his breast, as he had directed, the admonition,
"Remember the words which I spoke unto you
while I was yet present with you." They were
also engraved on the plate of his coffin.
After his death, both in the United States and
m England Payson became one of the most read
of American divines. Previously only a few of
his sermons were printed, but The Bible Above
333
Payson
All Price (1814) had wide circulation and An
Address to Seamen (1821), still greater, being
translated into several foreign languages. A col-
lection, Sermons by the Late Rev. E. Payson,
D.D.f was published in 1828, and A Memoir of
the Rev. Edward Payson, D.D., containing
many letters and extracts from his diary, by
Asa Cummings, appeared in 1830. Other vol-
umes of selections were issued, and in 1846 there
appeared under the editorship of Cummings The
Complete Works of Edward Payson, D.D. (3
vols.), the first volume of which contains the
Memoir.
[W. B. Sprague, Annals Am. Pulpit, vol. II (1857) ;
Our Pastor ; or Reminiscences of Rev. Edward Payson f
DD. (1855) ; E. L, Janes, Mementos of Rev. E. Pay-
son, D.D. (1873) ; Win. Willis, Journals of the Rev.
Thomas Smith and the Rev. Samuel Deane, . . . with
. . . a Summary Hist, of Portland (1849) ; Christian
Observer (London), Apr., May, June, 1833; Christian
Examiner, July 1847 ; Quart. Reg. and Jour., Apr. 1828,
Feb. 1831 ; Biblical Repertory and Theological Rev.,
Apr. 1831 ; Spirit of the Pilgrims, Nov. 1829, Jan.
1831 ; Meth. Mag. and Quart. Rev., Oct 1838 ; Ameri-
can Patriot (Portland), Oct. 26, 1827.] H.E. S.
PAYSON, SETH (Sept. 30, i75S-Feb. 26,
1820), Congregational clergyman, was born in
Walpole, Mass., the son of the Rev. Phillips Pay-
son by his second wife, Kezia (Bullen), widow
of Seth Morse. As a child he had a feeble con-
stitution with a tendency to epilepsy. Later he
enjoyed vigorous health until within a year of
his death. He entered Harvard College in 1773,
where he had been preceded by his father, and
by an elder brother, Phillips, and was followed
by another brother, John, all of whom entered the
Congregational ministry. Seth graduated from
Harvard in 1777, receiving one of the highest
honors in his class. Although in his early re-
ligious opinions he inclined toward Arminian-
ism, he became eventually a decided Calvinist
On Dec. 4, 1782, he was ordained pastor of the
Congregational church in Rindge, N. H. Here
"he laboured with exemplary fidelity and zeal"
until his death thirty-eight years later. As a
preacher his reputation was excellent, for his
"intellect was sharp and vigorous, his imagina-
tion lively," and his ideas "admirably arranged
in his own mind." Furthermore, "he was able to
communicate them to others with great clearness
and force." In the discharge of his other parish
duties "his unceasing solicitude was to promote
the highest interests of the people of his charge."
Throughout his long ministry he "possessed, in
a high degree, the esteem and affection of his
flock" (Sprague, post). He also interested him-
self in religious affairs outside his parish. Early
in the nineteenth century his interest in missions
led him to undertake a missionary tour of several
Peabody
months to the new settlements in the Province of
Maine. He also served for several years as vice-
president of the New Hampshire Bible Society,
and was a member of the American Board of
Commissioners for Foreign Missions. In 1815
he represented the General Association of New
Hampshire in the General Assembly of the Pres-
byterian Church in Philadelphia. That his ac-
tivities outside of his parish were not altogether
religious, however, is evident from the fact that
from 1802 to 1806 he sat in the New Hampshire
Senate, and was recognized as one of its ablest
members. In June 1799 he preached the annual
sermon before the legislature, which was so pow-
erful as to influence the General Court to
strengthen the Sunday laws. In 1813 he was
made a trustee of Dartmouth College, a position
which he held until his death, taking the side of
the college in the events that ultimately precipi-
tated the famous Dartmouth College case.
In addition to the publication of a number of
occasional sermons he put forth in 1802 his Proofs
of the Real Existence and Dangerous Tendency
of lUuminism, inspired, without doubt, by the ap-
pearance in the United States of the works of
Robison and Barruel, as well as by the published
sermons of the Rev. Jedidiah Morse [q.uJ] on the
same subject. In his Proofs, Payson again called
attention to the danger to church and state oc-
casioned by the rise of the Illuminati societies in
Europe, and to their probable existence in Amer-
ica. Although a somewhat belated exposition of
the subject, the work seems to have attracted
considerable attention, particularly among the
clergy.
In 1819, after a severe attack of epilepsy, his
mind gradually failed and he died in February
of the following year. His wife, whom he mar-
ried in 1782, was his cousin Grata Payson of
Pomfret, Conn. They had two daughters and five
sons, two of the latter entering the ministry, Ed-
ward [q.v.'] settling in Portland, Me., and Phil-
lips in Leominster, Mass.
[W. B. Sprague, Annals Am. Pulpit, vol. II (1857) J
Isaac Robinson, The Christian's Knowledge of Christ
. . . Sermon Delivered at Rindge, N. H., Mar. i, 1820,
At the Funeral of Rev. Seth Payson, D.D. (1820) ; E.
S. Stearns, Hist, of the Town of Rindge (1875) j Vital
Records of Walpole, Mass. (1902).] W.R. W.
PEABODY, ANDREW PRESTON (Mar.
19, i8n-Mar. 10,^893), Unitarian clergyman,
college professor, author, was born in Beverly,
Mass. He was the son of Andrew and Mary
(Rantoul) Peabody, and a descendant of Francis
Peabody who emigrated from England to Mas-
sachusetts as early as 1635. Andrew Peabody
desired that his son be educated for the Chris-
tian ministry. "He died/' writes the latter, "be-
334
Peabody
fore I was three years old, and on his death-bed
he charged my mother to fulfil his wish, . . .
should I be fit for such a calling" (Normandie,
post, p. 290). The younger Andrew was some-
thing of an infant prodigy. He could read at the
age of three. He was only twelve when he passed
with distinction the entrance examinations of
Harvard College. Being "regarded as somewhat
immature," he continued for a year under private
instruction, with the result that, instead of being
retarded, his scholastic advancement was accele-
rated, "for in this one year's study he anticipated
two years of college work" (Peabody, post, p.
32) . Thus he was only thirteen when he entered
college as a member of the junior class. He was
graduated at the age of fifteen being "with the
exception of Paul Dudley of the class of 1690,
the youngest boy . . . that ever received the Har-
vard degree" (Ibid., p. 32). His scholarship,
though excellent, was not exceptional.
Too young to take any steps toward fulfilling
his father's dying wish and not old enough to un-
dertake any task commensurable with his scho-
lastic attainments, he ventured upon the work of
teaching. At the age of seventeen he was prin-
cipal of the academy at Portsmouth, N. H. He
was hardly successful. In 1829 he entered the
Harvard Divinity School, graduating therefrom
in 1832, and tutoring during the ensuing year at
Harvard College. In October 1833 he was or-
dained and installed as assistant to Dr. Nathan.
Parker, minister of the South Parish Unitarian
church, Portsmouth, N. H. Two or three weeks
later Parker died and young Peabody became
pastor of this important church and continued in
that position for twenty-seven years. Through a
combination of unusual erudition and fineness of
character he won an influential following in
Portsmouth, while his astonishing literary activi-
ties kept his name before an ever widening pub-
lic. He wrote extensively for the Whig Review
and in 1853 became editor and proprietor of the
North American Review, in which relationship
he remained for ten years.
In 1860 he was invited to succeed Frederic Dan
Huntington \_q.v.~] as Plummer Professor of
Christian Morals at Harvard. He served in 1862
and again in 1868-69 as acting president of the
college. As Plummer professor it was his duty
to conduct daily prayers, to preach two sermons
on Sunday, and to exercise pastoral care over
the students. He was easily the most beloved of
all the professors at Harvard, and in some ways
undoubtedly the most influential. It may fairly
be said that he made no contribution to scholar-
ship for all his vast learning.
"He was not eloquent as a preacher or inspir-
Peabody
ing as a teacher ; ... his instruction in ethics was
little more than a hearing of stumbling recita-
tions from a memorized text yet, if any one who
was in those remote days a student at Harvard
College were now asked to name the personal in-
fluence which he still recalls as most beneficent,
he would almost inevitably single out . . . the
friend and counsellor who, by common consent
of that generation, was given the title of the Col-
lege Saint" (F. G. Peabody, post, pp. 28, 29),
In temper and outlook, Peabody is best de-
scribed by the word "conservative/' He was a
Unitarian partly because of family ties and partly
because he valued the wide freedom which that
fellowship gave him. Though he prized his Uni-
tarian fellowship very highly and never thought
of surrendering it, he had no sympathy with the
tendency among his Unitarian associates to de-
part from the modestly heretical theological po-
sition of Unitarian beginnings. It may, quite
correctly, be said that he was in closer sympathy
with the orthodox Congregationalism of his time
than with the prevailing Unitarian thought. He
was a prodigious worker. His contributions to
the North American Review fill 1,600 pages. In
the last twenty years of his life, in addition to his
college duties, he published 120 books and pam-
phlets, all of which were written out by his own
hand. In the Harvard Library he is credited
with 190 titles. His volumes Conversation; Its
Faults and Graces (1856) ; Reminiscences of Eu-
ropean Travel (1868) ; A Manual of Moral Phi-
losophy (1873) ; Christian Belief and Life
(1875), and Building a Character (1886) sug-
gest the variety of themes he wrote upon. In
1881 he was made professor emeritus, and from
1883 to 1893 was an overseer of the college. On
Sept 12, 1836, he married, in Portsmouth, Cath-
erine Whipple Roberts.
[James de Normandie, in Heralds of a Liberal Faith*
ed. by S. A. Eliot, vol. Ill (1910) ; E. J. Young, An-
drew P. Peabody (1896), reprinted from Mass. Hist.
Soc. Proc., 2 ser., vol. XI (1897) ; New World, June
1893 ; Unitarian, Apr. 1893 ; Christian Reg., Mar. 16,
1893; C. L. Slattery, Certain American Faces (1918) ;
F. Gv Peabody, Reminiscences of Present-Day Saints
(1927) ; Harvard Univ. Quinquennial Cat. Officers and
Grads. (19*5).] C.G.*
PEABODY, ELIZABETH PALMER (May
16, i8o4-Jan. 3, 1894), educator and author, the
eldest child of Nathaniel and Elizabeth ( Palmer)
Peabody, was born at Billerica, Mass. Her fa-
ther at the time of her birth was practising medi-
cine and dentistry. Her mother, a daughter of
Joseph Palmer [g.u], conducted a private school
in which her children were trained and was an
early American editor of the poetry of Edmund
Spenser. As early as 1820, after a childhood in
Salem, the sixteen-year-old Elizabeth had opened
335
Peabody
a private school at Lancaster and had begun a
life of teaching. Two years later she began a
more ambitious project, a private school in Bos-
ton, where she herself studied Greek as a pupil
of Ralph Waldo Emerson, then teaching in his
brother's school during his first year out of col-
lege. In 1823 she went to Maine as a governess ;
but, attracted by the opportunities of Boston, she
returned in 1825 to open another school. While
conducting this, she became a friend of the Wil-
liam Ellery Channing family and for nine years
she acted as Channing's secretary and amanu-
ensis, a relationship which resulted in her be-
coming familiar with the writings of Coleridge
and other European transcendental writers, and
which, nearly fifty years later, resulted in her
book, Reminiscences of Rev. William Ellery
Channing, D.D. (1880). Except for a six
months* rest in Salem, she continued the double
duty of being secretary and teacher until Sep-
tember 1834, when she relinquished both and be-
came Bronson Alcott's assistant in his Temple
School in Boston. The journal of her experiences
there and of Alcott's unconventional method of
teaching was published anonymously in 1835 un-
der the title Record of a School. In 1836 she
returned to live with her parents at Salem. Keep-
ing her contacts with Boston, she became one of
the first members of the so-called Transcendental
Club and visited often in the Emerson home in
Concord. Meanwhile, in 1837, she discovered
that the author of certain stories which had at-
tracted her attention in the New England Maga-
zine was the playmate of her Salem childhood,
Nathaniel Hawthorne. She introduced Haw-
thorne to her Boston literary friends and to her
youngest sister, Sophia, whom Hawthorne mar-
ried in 1842. Another sister, Mary, married
Horace Mann in 1843.
In 1839 Miss Peabody returned to Boston and
opened a bookshop in West Street Herself re-
sponsive to all current social enthusiasms, and
her shop the only one in Boston carrying a stock
of foreign books, she found herself in the midst
of the transcendental ferment of the time. Groups
of reformers met in the shop to plan the Brook
Farm community, liberal clergymen and Harvard
professors came there for their European books,
and in the back room she set up a press and pub-
lished three of Hawthorne's books, several of
Margaret Fuller's translations from the German,
and for two years, 1842-43, the organ of trans-
cendentalism, the Did, to which she contributed
two articles an Brook Farm. After 1845 she be-
gan in earnest her career in education. Before
she was thirty she had published elementary text-
books of grammar and history. From 1850 to
Peabody
1860 she turned her entire attention to the ad-
vancement of the study of history in the public
schools and in 1856 issued her Chronological His-
tory of the United States. The reading of one of
Friedrich Froebel's books and a conversation in
1859 with his former pupil, Mrs, Carl Schurz,
inspired Miss Peabody to establish the first Amer-
ican kindergarten, opened in Boston in 1860.
Though the experiment was successful in the
eyes of her patrons, she herself feared it was not
in full accord with Froebel's theories and, clos-
ing the school in 1867, she spent a year in Ham-
burg studying methods and theory. Returning,
she published a magazine, the Kindergarten Mes-
senger, from 1873 to 1875, and lectured in vari-
ous parts of the country.
Indian education attracted her attention about
1880 and her enthusiasm culminated in the dis-
covery of Sarah Winnemucca, founder of a school
for Piute Indians, who preyed upon Miss Pea-
body's credulity and for ten years absorbed what-
ever money Miss Peabody would send or could
persuade her friends to send. After this expen-
sive bit of sentimentality, she retired to Jamaica
Plain and to Concord, where from 1879 to *884
she was a member and lecturer at Alcott's Con-
cord School of Philosophy. The vivacious wom-
an had become one who, in Moses Coit Tyler's
words, had a "bulky form, puffy face, and watery
eyes," but whose charm of personality, especially
in reminiscence, did not desert her. Her final
book, A Last Evening with Allston (1886), re-
corded some of her reminiscences and reprinted
some of her essays from the Dial. She died at
Jamaica Plain and was buried in Concord near
Emerson and Hawthorne.
[There are type-written copies of "Elizabeth Pea-
body: A Biog. Study" (1918) by Doris Louise McCart
in the Chicago Univ. Lib. and in the N. Y. Pub. Lib.
Biographical information can be found in Miss Pea-
body's books and in her magazine article, "The Origin
and Growth of the Kindergarten," Education, May-
June 1882. See also : G. W. Cooke, An Hist, and Biog.
Introduction to Accompany the Dial (1902) ; S. H.
Peabody, Peabody (Paybody, Pabodyf Paybodie} Gen-
eal. (1909); and obituaries in the Academy (Lon-
don), Feb. 3, 1894, Boston Transcript, Jan. 4. 1894, and
N.-Y. Daily Tribune, Jan. 5, 1894.] R W> ^
PEABODY, GEORGE (Feb. 18, i795-Nov.
4, 1869), merchant, financier, philanthropist, was
born in South Danvers, now Peabody, Mass., the
son of Thomas and Judith (Dodge) Peabody.
His first ancestor in America was Francis Pea-
body, who emigrated from England in 1635 and
settled at Topsfield, Mass. The poverty of his
parents prevented George from receiving more
than a rudimentary education, and at the age of
eleven he was apprenticed to a grocer in Dan-
vers. He subsequently held positions of increas-
ing responsibility in Newburyport, Mass., and
336
Peabody
Georgetown, D. C. Here, in 1814, he assumed
the management of Elisha Riggs's wholesale
dry-goods warehouse and was soon admitted to
partnership. The next year Riggs & Peabody
moved to Baltimore, and in 1829, upon the retire-
ment of Riggs, Peabody became senior partner.
He made various trips to England on the firm's
business, and in 1835, while in London, per-
formed the first of his great public services, nego-
tiating a loan of $8,000,000 for the state of Mary-
land, then on the verge of bankruptcy. For his
generous act in refusing a commission he re-
ceived a vote of thanks from the state legislature.
Peabody was an incorporator and the presi-
dent of the Eastern Railroad, built in 1836, and
his experience in railroad financing showed him
the profitable character of capital importation.
Hence, in 1837 he settled permanently in London,
where he had previously established the firm of
George Peabody & Company, specializing in
foreign exchange and American securities. So
powerful did he become that he competed suc-
cessfully for American business with the Barings
and the Rothschilds ; while in the panic of 1857,
though in a weakened financial position, he chal-
lenged the hostile Bank of England to cause his
failure. In 1854 he took Junius Spencer Morgan
[g.z;.] into partnership.
As his business prospered and his wealth as-
sumed large proportions, he added to his intuitive
gift of shrewd trading a growing sense of inter-
national and social obligation. He became in a
way an unofficial ambassador and his great in-
fluence was exerted towards preserving Anglo-
American friendship. In the years when Amer-
ican credit was much shaken abroad (in 1837
three American houses in London were com-
pelled to suspend payments, and in 1841 nine
states suspended interest payments and three re-
pudiated their debts), he used his name and funds
to restore confidence. When in 1851 America
was humiliated by the failure of Congress to ap-
propriate money for a display at the Crystal
Palace exhibition, his gift of $15,000 made it pos-
sible to show American products and inventions
beside those of other nations. When money was
required to fit out a ship to search for Sir John.
Franklin, the Arctic explorer, Peabody's $10,000
equipped the Advance, in 1852, for Elisha Kent
Kane [q.v.']. His large and elaborate Fourth-of-
July dinners, at which the English nobility met
American visitors to London, became a feature
of the London season.
Peabody*s altruistic activities were not limited
to international affairs, however. He retained
an abiding love for his native land, which he
manifested in a succession of munificent gifts.
Peabody
Notable among these were $1,500,000 to found
the Peabody Institute at Baltimore, Md., which
provides a free library, an endowment for lec-
tures, an academy of music, and an art gallery;
$250,000 to found the Peabody Institute, Pea-
body, Mass., which contains a library and some
important memorabilia of George Peabody, and
affords an endowment for lectures; $150,000 to
establish the Peabody Museum of natural history
and natural science at Yale; $150,000 to estab-
lish the Peabody Museum of archeology and
ethnology at Harvard; $140,000 to found the
Peabody Academy of Science in connection with
the Essex Institute, at Salem, Mass.; and $3,-
500,000 (The Peabody Education Fund) for the
promotion of education in the South. His be-
quest to his nephew, Othniel C. Marsh [q.v.],
enabled the latter to make the collections which
established him as one of the leading American
paleontologists of his time. Most of Peabody's
large fortune was spent in philanthropy, a gen-
erosity which was unusual and startling in that
age. His most considerable benefaction in Eng-
land was the donation to the City of London of
a sum of $2,500,000 for the erection of working-
men's tenements, which still provide clean, com-
fortable, and airy quarters for hundreds of poor
families at a rent less than they would have to
pay for inferior rooms elsewhere.
Peabody's liberality won him love and honor
in England as well as in his own country. In
1867 Oxford granted him the honorary degree
of D.C.L. In 1869 he was given the freedom of
the City of London, and in the same year a
statue of him was unveiled by the Prince of
Wales on the east side of the Royal Exchange.
When he refused to accept either a baronetcy or
the Grand Cross of the Bath, Queen Victoria
sent him an autograph letter of appreciation and
a large miniature of herself. He died in London
upon his return from a visit to America in 1869.
After a funeral service in Westminster Abbey,
his body was placed on board H. M. S. Monarch
and, escorted by a French and an American naval
vessel, was brought to America where, after
elaborate ceremonies, it was buried in Danvers,
Feb. 8, 1870.
Although he was a shrewd merchant, and for
the most part made a point of ignoring all direct
requests for charity, Peabody had qualities which
made him highly attractive to both men and
women and especially to young people. His
deeply lined face and snow-white hair seemed an
index to his character — acute, strong, yet be-
nevolent He was kindly, generous both to his
numerous relatives (he never married) and to
the objects of his great benefactions, and, though
337
Peabody
simple in his personal tastes, moved urbanely in
London society. Moreover, in his business deal-
ings there was no trace of the dishonorable prac-
tices to which the great American financiers of
the next generation sometimes stooped.
[Peabody Papers at Phillips Academy, Andover,
Mass., consisting of Peabody's correspondence as he
left it, newspaper clippings, and miscellaneous data;
Phebe A. Hanaford, The Life of George Peabody
(1870), excessively laudatory ; Lewis Corey, The House
of Morgan (1930) ; J. L. M. Curry, A Brief Sketch of
George Peabody (1898) ; Md. Hist. Soc. Fund Pub. No.
3f Jan. 1870; S. H. Peabody, Peabody . . . Geneal.
(1909); AT. Y. Daily Times, June i, 1853; Evening
Gazette (Boston), Oct. 1 1, 1856 ; Times (London), Nov.
5, 1869 ; Diet. Nat. Biog.] S. H. P.
PEABODY, JOSEPH (Dec. 12, i7S7-Jan. 5,
1844), privateersman, mariner, merchant ship-
owner, was descended from Francis Peabody
who emigrated from England to Massachusetts
in 1635 and settled at Topsfield, about ten miles
from Salem. Joseph was born in Middleton near-
by, ninth of the twelve children of Francis Pea-
body, a farmer, and Margaret (Knight) Pea-
body. A youth at the time of the outbreak of the
Revolution, the boy marched toward Lexington
with the Boxford minute-men but they arrived
too late for the battle. He then served aboard
the Salem privateers Bunker Hill and Pilgrim.
Determined to follow the sea, he realized that
education was necessary for advancement, so he
spent a year ashore studying at Middleton with
his future father-in-law, the Rev. Elias Smith.
He served for a brief period in the militia with-
out seeing action, and then went to sea again on
the privateer Fishhawk, which was captured.
Exchanged after being imprisoned at St. John's,
Newfoundland, he became second officer on the
letter-of-marque Ranger. One night as the ship
lay in the Potomac laden with Alexandria flour,
she was attacked by a band of Loyalists who out-
numbered the crew three to one. Peabody, in
his nightshirt, led so spirited a defense that they
were beaten off, though he was severely wound-
ed. At the close of the war he was captain of a
Salem merchantman and before long purchased
the schooner Three Friends which he command-
ed for several years in the West Indian and Eu-
ropean trade.
By 1791 Peabody had amassed enough money
to come ashore and engage as a merchant ship-
owner. From small beginnings he built up a
tremendous business under his single control.
He owned a large number of vessels, some of
which were built to his order and all of which
he freighted and operated. He did consider-
able business with the Baltic, Mediterranean,
and West Indies, but his richest ventures were
with India, China, and what Morlsoa terms
338
Peabody
the "Salem East Indies," dealing- in indigo, opium,
tea, pepper, and similar products of that region.
His little Sumatra of 287 tons paid more than
$400,000 in duties in three years. His favorite
ship, the 328-ton George had been built in 1814
for privateering, with unusually fast lines. He
bought her at a bargain for $5,250. Between
1816 and 1837 she made twenty voyages to Cal-
cutta and one to Gibraltar, the total duties
amounting to $651,743.32. It is likely that the
profits were fully equal to the duties. She brought
more than half of the 1,500,000 pounds of indigo
which Peabody imported from Calcutta between
1807 and 1840. It is said that Peabody employed
altogether between 6,500 and 7,000 seamen. He
was a generous employer, always ready to reward
merit, and thirty-five who entered his service as
boys rose to be masters of ships. Practically his
only ship to come to grief was the Friendship,
the crew of which were massacred by the natives
at Quallah Battoo in the East Indies, leading to
punitive measures by the U.S.S. Potomac. He
was loyal to Salem even at the expense of profit,
building his ships in Salem yards instead of to
the eastward, and bringing his cargoes to Salem
to be distributed along the coast instead of send-
ing them to the larger markets at Boston or New
York. He was a director of the Salem Iron
Works but confined himself chiefly to shipping.
His wealth was immense for the day, and he paid
annual taxes of some $200,000.
Peabody's reputation was such that his credit,
it is said, was equal to the government's ; he was
so fair in his dealings that he never resorted to
litigation. In charity, he was generous but un-
ostentatious. In spite of a hasty temper, he gen-
erally maintained the dignified reserve reflected
in his portrait. He was a devout member of the
Unitarian Church. He took no part in politics.
In 1812 he helped to frame Salem's petition
against war, but once war was declared, support-
ed the government. He married Catherine Smith,
daughter of his old tutor, on Aug. 28, 1791, and
after her death two years later, married her sis-
ter Elizabeth on Oct. 24, 1795, living very hap-
pily with her for nearly a half century. He had
six sons, two of whom survived him, and one
daughter. His death at Salem practically marked
the end of Salem's greatness on the sea.
[The sketch of Peabody in Freeman Hunt, Lives of
Am. Merchants (1858), vol. I, is reprinted from Hunt's
Merchants' Mag.> Aug. 1845. See also : Mass. Soldiers
and Sailors of the Revolutionary War, vol. XII (1904) ;
E. S. Maclay, A Hist, of Am. Privateers (1899) ; S. E.
Morison, The Maritime Hist, of Mass., 1785-1860
(1921); C S. Osgood and H. M. Bachelder, Hist.
Sketch of Salem (1879) ; R. D. Payne, The Ships and
Sailors of Old Salem (1909) ; G. G. Ptttnam, "The Ship
'George/ " Essex Inst. Hist. Colls,, Jan., Apr.
Peabody
C M Endicott, "The Peabody Family," New-Eng. Hist,
and Geneal. Reg., Apr., Oct. 1848 ; S. H. Peabody, Pea-
body (Paybody, Pabody, Pabodie} Geneal. (1909).]
JLG.A.
PEABODY, JOSEPHINE PRESTON
(May 30, i874-Dec. 4, 1922), poet, dramatist,
was the second child of Charles Kilham and
Susan Josephine Morrill Peabody and a de-
scendant of Francis Peabody who emigrated
from England to Massachusetts in 1635. She
was born in Brooklyn, N. Y., and spent her first
ten years there and in New York City. A young-
er sister died ; an older by five years was her close
companion. The parents gave unusual attention
to their children's education. The father, of ar-
tistic tastes and interests, implanted in them his
keen delight in the theatre, especially in Shake-
speare, and trained them in the appreciation of
music and poetry. The mother laid stress, in
daily details, upon beauty. These early years
surrounded her sensitive nature with nobility of
feeling, with harmony and with joy. But the
lack of these was also to share in her growth.
At Charles Peabody' s death in 1884 the saddened
widow took the children to live in Dorchester,
Mass. Lack of means severely limited their en-
joyment of the theatre and of music. Josephine
found few friends who shared her tastes. Thrown
upon her own resources, she read omnivorously.
A note book records six hundred books read be-
tween 1888 and 1893. These are poetry, novels,
essays, history, philosophy and drama. But her's
was a creative mind, not content alone with
reading. "Expression is my habitual instinct/*
she wrote in the diary that gave her one channel
of expression. For another channel she wrote
poetry, experimenting with form.
In 1894-95 and 1895-96, she was aided to study
at Radcliffe College. Here she was stimulated
by instruction by Harvard University professors.
She was especially influenced by study of Dante,
by the Miracle and Morality plays, and by the
Elizabethan drama. She now found congenial
friends. These were years of rapid artistic
growth. In 1894 a poem was accepted by the
Atlantic Monthly, and a helpful friendship began
with Horace Scudder, its editor. His advice,
critical yet encouraging, influenced her to prune
her work, to demand of herself lucidity and ex-
actitude. Her first volume of poetry was pub-
lished in 1898 — The Wayfarers. Her poems now
appeared frequently in the leading magazines.
Evidence of such gift in one so young brought
much publicity and many new friends. Her love-
liness of form and face — slender, child-like, with
beauty of feature and radiance in expression —
increased the admiration for her achievement
Peabody
Few guessed the depression, the physical weak-
ness, and the family anxieties, that weighed her
down. Only in her diary are these evident, as are
the power of her spiritual life and her urge for
poetic expression. In the next eight years, un-
der these difficult conditions and with the addi-
tion of a lectureship in poetry and English lit-
erature at Wellesley College (1901-03), she
wrote and published the following poems and
plays: Fortune and Hen's Eyes (1900) ; Mar-
lowe (1901) ; The Singing Leaves (1903) ; and
Pan, A Choric Idyl (1904), a "Novello," with
musical setting, produced at a state farewell con-
cert to Lord and Lady Minto at Ottawa, Canada.
In 1906 Miss Peabody married Lionel Simeon
Marks, of the engineering department at Har-
vard University. Her artistic self-expression
came to its full development in this happy mar-
riage and in motherhood. In 1908 she published
The Book of the Little Past and in 1909 The
Piper. In 1910 The Piper won the Stratford
Play Competition against three hundred and fif-
teen competitors and was produced at the Memo-
rial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, England,
on July 26, 1910. It was played in London and
over England, and was produced at the New
Theatre, in New York, on Jan. 30, 1911. Con-
temporaneous with these was her growing con-
cern for conditions of labor, expressed in The
Singing Man. She shared in that aroused sense
of social responsibility and warmth of feeling
characteristic of this period in the United States.
She also began to take active part in the move-
ment for woman's suffrage, finally joining the
Woman's party. In 1912 The Wings was pro-
duced at the Toy Theatre, Boston. In 1913, The
Wolf of Gubbia was published. In 1914, she was
elected an honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa
and gave the Phi Beta Kappa poem at Tufts
College. In 1916 Harvest Moon was published.
Through these and the following years, her gal-
lant spirit and her urge for expression of beauty
in poetic form were increasingly engaged in a
losing fight with pain and with the insidious and
unrecognized hardening of the minute arteries
that feed the brain, which brought her death. In
1921 she contributed a Song for the Pilgrim
Women for the Plymouth Pageant Portrait of
Mrs. W.3 a play in prose, was published in 1922,
a few months before her death on Dec. 4, 1922.
Her artistic development was from lyrical to
dramatic poetry. Her keen interest in metrical
design and in symbolism was increasingly sub-
jected to the desire for limpid expression, clear
to the general reader, and for dramatic form.
With a few companions in her art, she kept alive
a passing tradition — the poetic drama. Probably,
339
Peabody
however, her reputation is assured not by her
dramatic, but by her lyrical achievement. Here
she attained a phrasing of beauty that has, at
times, inevitability, and that gives her a perma-
nent place among American poets.
IThe Diary atid Letters of Josephine Preston Peabody
(1925), edited by Christina H. Baker, gives biographi-
cal material and selections from her diary from her
sixteenth year to her death. The Collected Poems of
Josephine Preston Peabody, with a foreword by Kath-
erine Lee Bates, and The Collected Plays of Josephine
Preston Peabody, with a foreword by George P. Baker,
were published in 1 927. See also : A. H. Quinn, A Hist,
of the Am. Drama from the Civil War to the Present
Day (1927), vol. II; S. H. Peabody, Peabody (Paybody,
Pabody, Pabodie) Geneal, (1909) ; Who's Who in
America, 1922-23 ,* N. Y. Times, Dec. 5, 1922.]
C. H. B.
PEABODY, NATHANIEL (Mar. i, 1741-
June 27, 1823), physician and Revolutionary
patriot, was born at Topsfield, Mass. He was
the son of Jacob and Susanna (Rogers) Peabody
and a descendant of Francis Peabody who emi-
grated to New England in 1635 and later settled
at Topsfield He was educated at home and
studied medicine with his father, a popular and
successful physician. When about twenty years
of age he began practice in that part of Plaistow,
N. H., afterward made the town of Atkinson,
where he resided most of his life. On Mar. I,
1763, he married Abigail Little. His public career
began in 1771 when he was commissioned justice
of the peace and of the quorum of Rockingham
County by Governor Wentworth. He was from
the beginning, however, a supporter of the Revo-
lutionary movement and is reported to have been
the first in the colony to resign his royal com-
mission when the final break impended. In De-
cember 1774 he participated, with John Langdon
and other prominent patriots, in the capture of
the magazines at Fort William and Mary, one
of the first overt acts of Revolution. For the
next twenty years he was a leader in New Hamp-
shire affairs both in the movement for inde-
pendence and in the difficult task of reorganiz-
ing the government and institutions of the colony
to meet the responsibilities of the new common-
wealth. In 1776 he served his first term in the
legislature, being repeatedly elected, with oc-
casional intermissions, until his withdrawal from
public affairs in 1795.
His status among the New Hampshire leaders
is apparent in the fact that he served on the Com-
mittee on Safety which at times exercised almost
dictatorial power in local affairs. He repeatedly
represented New Hampshire in conferences held
to promote the Revolutionary cause and to seek
relief from the economic embarrassments caused
by the depreciation of the currency and the dis-
location of commerce In addition to Ms civil
Peabody
activities he was for a time adjutant-general of
the militia and accompanied the New Hampshire
contingent on the Rhode Island expedition of
1778. In 1779 he was elected delegate to the
Continental Congress, serving until Nov. 9, 1780.
He was a member of the medical committee and
was active in the various affairs of that body.
In 1780 he served on a select committee with
Philip Schuyler and John Mathews to consult
with General Washington and to report on the
dangerous conditions then existing. A long let-
ter which he wrote Josiah Bartlett, from Morris-
town, N. J., on Aug. 6, 1780, is an interesting
memorial of this service and shows that he pos-
sessed both a keen mind and the ability to ex-
press his ideas. His scathing criticism of the
feeble, blundering, military policy of the Revo-
lutionary authorities is worthy of the command-
er-in-chief himself (New Hampshire State Pa-
pers, xvn, 1889, pp. 399-403)-
On the establishment of peace he continued his
activity in New Hampshire affairs, served in the
legislature, being speaker of the House in 1793,
was a member of the constitutional conventions
of 1781-83 and 1791-92, assisted in compiling
the laws of the state and adjusting them to the
new restrictions of the Federal Constitution, de-
clined an appointment to the Continental Con-
gress in 1785, and was defeated in the first elec-
tion of United States senators in 1788. In 1795
he returned to private life. He is said to have
been a successful physician and in 1791 was one
of the organizers of the New Hampshire Medi-
cal Society. Suffering heavy property losses, he
was obliged to spend his last years in constant
struggles with creditors, and at the time of his
death he was— technically at least— undergoing
imprisonment for debt at Exeter. He is de-
scribed as a man of fine presence, witty and self-
confident, unscrupulous at times, a skeptic in
religion, extravagant and lacking in some essen-
tial qualities of leadership, but able and patri-
otic.
[The test sketch of Peabody is in Wra. C. Todd,
Biog. and other Articles (1901) ; an earlier one appears
In J. Farmer and J. B. Moore, Collections, Hist, and
Miscellaneous, vol. Ill (1824). See also C. H. Bell,
Hist, of the Town of Exeter, N. H. ( 1888) ; N. H. State
Papers, vol. XVII (1889), pp. 386-414, containing: in-
teresting correspondence between Peabody and various
leaders of th* period; J. F. Colby, Manual of the Con-
stitution of the State of N. ff. (rev. ed, 1912) ; and
C. E. Potter, The MU. Hist, of the State of N.H. (*%66).
The N. H. Hist Soc. has Peabody letters and miscel-
laneous papers, and a sketch of Peabody is included in
the William Htnner manuscript collections of the So-
ciety.] W.A.R.
PEABODY, OLIVER WHXIAli BOURN
(Jtity 9, i7^-Jt$y & .*$#), Jaw^man of let-
ters^ Unitarian €$efgy&a^,i$w teller of W3-
Peabody
Ham Bourn Oliver Peabody [#.£'.], was born in
Exeter, N. H., the seventh of the ten children of
Oliver and Frances (Bourn) Peabody, and the ^xl>VA *"»«nno. ^ t,-
fifth in descent from Francis Peabody— or Fran- he was licensed *o Brother at Springfield,
ces Pabody, as he sometimes signed himself— ation of Con§*re 1ILl°44 by the Boston Associ-
who emigrated from England in 1635 and lived tied in August ^ Ministers and was set-
nearly half a century in Topsfield, Mass. His Church of Bun- as pastor o£ tlle Unitarian
- .. - - r*insrtorL V> "Ric ™:-..<.i_. i-c
Peabody
but finding the r ^
turned to Mas^l^ate enervati^ he soon re-
After j
°n' *" His
life and
a,
t l? de deep imPressi°n on
polished schoI
his congregat e I eep mPressi°n on
soon began to?' ?* h£ health- never robust,
preparation
He died,
buried in
f
Work was
bel°Ved brother'
Bedford
'
6 and
father
SWAIN
. was bom in New
Peabody,
Boston' from ^45 to
His
and a descendant
father, a graduate of Harvard College and the
first student of law under Theophilus Parsons,
was a jurist and politician of some note and for
thirty-four years a trustee of Phillips Exeter
Academy.
Peabody graduated from Harvard College in
1816 in the same class with his twin brother, to [E. E. Hale oh?"""' .
whom he bore a strong resemblance in appear- p^|0?P^ Sept
ance, manner, and endowments, and in the purity of^H*. (i^^L? Cl H- Bell» The Bench*and 'Bar
and delicacy of his taste. His own desire was to (1909) ; The AT, L- =,?: ^Pffl'- p^dy . . . Geneal.
enter the ministry, but he took up the study of sherzfr^A^^ & * ci&fc^ ifc^4?1 '*
law to gratify his father, received the degree of " r "' ' ' EdiHnnc ^ C1^ -- 4 ' -J ane
LLB. from the Harvard Law School and was
admitted to the bar in 1822, opened an office in
Exeter, sat as a representative in the legislature,
1824-31, edited at different times the Rocking-
ham Gazette and the Exeter News-Letter, and
delivered poems before the Harvard chapter of
Phi Beta Kappa and on various occasions of state.
The one recited at Portsmouth May 21, 1823, at
the centennial celebration of the first settlement
in New Hampshire (published in Collections of
the New Hampshire Historical Society, vol. VI,
1850, pp. 269-77) was his most applauded per-
formance and is a striking example of the per-
sistence in America of the eighteenth-century
poetic style. The personal collisions and asperi-
ties of the practice of law were repugnant to
Mm, and in 1830 he moved to Boston to assist
his brother-in-law, Alexander Hill Everett [q.v.],
with the North American Review, to which he
contributed a number of able articles. For Hil-
liard, Gray & Company he supervised the prepa-
ration of the Dramatic Works of William Shake-
speare (7 vols., 1836; several times reprinted).
Though this edition was little more than an in-
telligent reworking of Samuel Weller Singer's,
Peabody did compare his text with that of the
First Folio and adopted some of the Folio read-
ings, showing thereby a certain awareness of
critical principles and making himself in a sense
the first American editor of Shakespeare. For
Jared Sparks's Library of American Biography
he wrote lives of Israel Putnam (vol. VII, 1837)
and John Sullivan (2 ser., vol. Ill, 1844). He
was a member of the Massachusetts legislature,
1834-36, and register o£ probate for Suffolk
County, 1836-4$..' JM tie latter year he accom- great succpc) V 7~I?/£ 7T "~"~
panicd Everett to tie Coiefee of Jefferson at shortly \^^^^J^!l^^
vs"
hood in
of rSfifi
of
acterand^ch j
T » •ucrnila I,' O \.*-<A*VI,, i/t/O4. U«
i), while h« n0thei. was «& Sa]em j^ ^
a wealth considerable in those
Robert Peabody
and prepared f or <
•ol, entering Harvard with the class
h* A C0^e£e ^e ra*iked well in scholar-
T& ™T!, °.n a ™*orious crew, and was chosen
He went from Har-
passed the entrance exami-
Atelie rl "^UAC ^es ^eaux ^rts an<* entered
he scJ aumet W*1611 he was H°t working
"°ol, he was sketching architecture in
of th* Pa '^Ian(J> and Itaty- His chief friends
M A~8 student years were Frank W. -
oier ana Qiarle
he came ba.i , „ , , . ,
Entirely Boston to earn his own living.
KartoTn,,!1!^^6^^ °ffice PraCtice, but With a
a skill at sketching,
, he formed a part-
bhn G. Stearns (Harvard, B.S.
^ possessed a marked ability for build-
oUpCTj..^ « ^ .
The fi *:eilcience and construction.
•pat «ii o£ Peabody ^d Stearns lasted with
x- VVI __ , ^,» **.».«• *,w lj»*».*-w l-vx-VF»*iV^J^tV* V/JL J V.AA V- J- OWJ. J. CkU OAAV/J. UiJ QpC ^.
Convent, La., as ff^essor c< Baglish literature, building ^ ^ bpa ^er*
Among the many
are Matthews Hall
341
Peabody
and the Hemenway Gymnasium at Harvard, the
old Providence Railroad Station ; the Exchange
Building and other downtown office buildings,
the Telephone Building, Simmons College, the
Wentworth Institute and the Custom House
Tower, all in Boston; the Groton School at Gro-
ton; the City Hall and State Mutual Life Build-
ing in Worcester ; the State House at Concord,
N. H.; the Union League Club in New York
City; The Antlers at Colorado Springs ; the Tip
Top House at Pike's Peak; Machinery Hall at
the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago;
buildings at the Buffalo and San Francisco ex-
positions ; and numerous private houses at New-
port, Lenox, Boston, Philadelphia, New York,
and elsewhere. In designing his larger work
Peabody tended more and more to a free in-
terpretation of the style of the Italian Renais-
sance. In domestic architecture his instinctive
feeling for the picturesque stood him in good
stead. Through his office passed a stream of
young draftsmen who later, going out to all parts
of the country, were to make names for them-
selves and to remember his good influence and
generosity. The architectural schools at the Mas-
sachusetts Institute of Technology and at Har-
vard owed much to his care and wisdom. He
was an Overseer of Harvard from 1888 to 1899,
For many years he served as president of the
Boston Society of Architects. In 1906 he led his
fellow architects in the preparation of a Report
Made to the Boston Society of Architects by Its
Committee on Municipal Improvement (1907)-
In 1908, the Society published A Holiday Study
of Cities and Ports, from Peabody's pen, a valu-
able contribution to the Boston problem. His
"holiday" had comprised a searching visit to the
great ports of Europe. For many years as direc-
tor and then as president (1900-01), he loyally
served the American Institute of Architects, the
national organization of his profession. He
placed public service as the first duty of the In-
stitute, and joined enthusiastically in promoting"
the crusade for the artistic development of Wash-
ington, begun during his term as president.
Like his ancestors, the "Merchant Venturers
of Old Salem," Peabody loved the sea, which he
followed as an able yachtsman. Among his many
sketches there are marine scenes with all kinds
of craft as well as stately buildings and pic-
turesque villages. He wrote fluently and pub-
lisned a number of articles and books on travel
and architecture, all illustrated by himself. These
included Note Book Sketches ( 1873) J ^ Holiday
Study of Cities and Ports (1908) ; An Archi-
tects Sketch Book (1912). Even in his final
years of illness he produced a cfaarming little
Peabody
book of imaginary foreign scenes accompanied
by appropriate passages m prose and poetry, Hos-
pital Sketches (1916). He died at his summer
home at Marblehead, Mass., in 1917. In 1871 he
had married Annie, daughter of John P. Putnam
of Boston, who died in 1911. Three children of
this marriage survived him. In 1913 he married
Helen Lee, daughter of Charles Carroll Lee of
Washington, D. C. His monument is in King's
Chapel, Boston, of which he was warden.
[C. W. Eliot, Charles Eliot, Landscape Architect
(1902); F. G. and R. S. Peabody, A New England
Romance : The Story of Ephraim and Mary Jane Pea-
body, Told by Their Sons (1920) ; Moorfield Storey, in
Later Years of the Saturday Club (1927), ed. by M. A.
DeWolfe Howe; Charles Moore, The Life and Times
of Charles Pollen McKim (1929) ; Glenn Brown, 1860-
1930: Memories (1931); C. E. Stratton, in Harvard
Graduates' Mag., Dec. 1917; R. E. Peabody, Merchant
Venturers of Old Salem (19*2) ; Who's Who in Amer-
ica, 1916-17; S. H. Peabody, Peabody . . . Geneal.
(1909) ; N. Y. Times, Sept. 24, 1917.] R. P.B.
PEABODY, SELIM HOBART (Aug. 20,
i829-*May 26, 1903), educator, was born in Rock-
ingham, Vt, the son of Charles Hobart and Grace
(Ide) Peabody, and a descendant of Francis
Peabody, who emigrated from England to Mas-
sachusetts in 1635. While Selim was still a child,
his parents moved to Randolph, Mass. His fa-
ther, a clergyman, desirous of preparing him for
the ministry, supplemented his public school
tuition by giving him lessons in Greek and He-
brew. When he was twelve years old, his father
died, and a well-to-do friend of the family sent
the boy to the Public Latin School in Boston for
a year (1841-42). Returning to his home, he
was placed upon a farm to work for his board
and clothes. At fifteen, he was apprenticed to a
carpenter, with whom he remained for two years.
During this time, he purchased books and read
much in anticipation of entering college ; for one
term he taught school. In 1848 he matriculated
at the University of Vermont, receiving the de-
gree of A.B. in 1852, having met his expenses
by teaching during winter vacations. On Aug.
9, 1862, he married Mary Elizabeth, daughter of
David Knight and Betsey (Farrington) Pang-
born. A month later, he was appointed principal
of the Burlington High School, where he served
one year, resigning to accept the professorship
of mathematics and physics at New Hampton
Seminary, Fairfax, Vt.
In 1854 he removed to Philadelphia to become
professor of mathematics and civil engineering
at the Polytechnic College of the State of Penn-
sylvania. When the financial panic of 1857 forced
the college to suspend payments, Peabody se-
cured an appointment as clerk in a United States
land office at Eau Claire, Wis. He remained
here two years and then became principal of the
342
Peabody
high school in Fond du Lac, Wis. In 1862 he
went to Racine, Wis.; to serve as principal of the
high school and superintendent of schools. The
position of director of the Dearborn Observa-
tory, which had just been established in Chicago,
was offered him in that year, but he declined it.
His success at Racine was recognized by the
Wisconsin State Teachers' Association, which
elected him president in 1863. As spokesman for
this organization, he advocated a state-supported
normal school, and the establishment of teachers'
institutes. He also recommended a graded sys-
tem of state schools, including the high school,
the normal school and the state university, a
scheme that was later adopted. From 1865 to
1871 he was professor of physics at the Central
High School, Chicago, and then for a period of
three years, professor of physics at the Massa-
chusetts Agricultural College, Amherst, Mass.
While here, he conducted a noteworthy series of
experiments on the cause of the ascent of sap in
trees. Disagreement with the president of the
institution, William Smith Clark \_q.v.'\, with
respect to credit for the results of this work led
to Peabody's resignation in 1874 (Girling, post,
p. no).
His efforts to reestablish himself led him to
return to Chicago, where he was appointed to
his former position at the Central High School,
in which he remained until 1878, when he accept-
ed a professorship of mechanical engineering and
physics at the Illinois Industrial University. Re-
signing in February 1880 to serve as editor of
The International Cyclopedia, he returned in
August, as regent (president) pro tempore. In
March of the following year he was appointed
regent. The university was in debt; its endow-
ment from a land grant was small ; and its income
from tuition meager. Peabody secured the first
support which the institution received from the
legislature, and increased its endowment by the
sale of public lands. In 1885 its name was
changed to University of Illinois. He estab-
lished the agricultural experiment station, in
1887, thereby strengthening his position with the
legislature. Meanwhile, he declined the presi-
dency of the Rose Polytechnic Institute and the
position of assistant secretary of agriculture un-
der President Harrison.
Resigning- in September 1891, he went to Chi-
cago as chief of the department of liberal arts
in the World's Columbian Exposition. He was
appointed official editor and statistician of the
American exhibits at the World's Fair at Paris
in 1899 ; was in charge of the educational exhibits
at the Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, in
1901 ; and of the South Carolina Interstate and
Peabody
West Indies Exposition at Charleston in 1902.
On Aug. i, 1902, he went to St. Louis as as-
sistant to the director general of the Louisiana
Purchase Exposition, and remained there until
his death in the following year.
[S. H. Peabody, Peabody (Paybody, Pabody, Pa-
bodie) GeneaL (1909), ed. by C. H. Pope; The Alumni
Record of the Univ. of III. (1913) ; Paul Monroe, A
Cyc. of Educ., vol. IV (1913); Katherine Peabody
Girling, Selim Hobart Peabody (1923) ; Who's Who in
America, 1899-1900; St. Louis Globe-Democrat, May
27, 1903 J Peabody MSS. in the Univ. of 111. lib.]
R.F.S.
PEABODY, WILLIAM BOURN OLIVER
(July 9, 1799-May 28, 1847), Unitarian clergy-
man, twin brother of Oliver William Bourn Pea-
body [?.».], was born in Exeter, N. H., the
eighth of ten children of Oliver and Frances
(Bourn) Peabody, and fifth in descent from
Francis Peabody who emigrated from England
in 1635 and settled first at Ipswich and later in
Topsfield, Mass. His father, a graduate of Har-
vard College, was a lawyer and politician, presi-
dent of the state Senate in 1813 and associate
justice of the court of common pleas, 1813-16.
Peabody attended Phillips Exeter Academy un-
der Benjamin Abbot [#.£'.] from 1808 to 1813,
graduated from Harvard College in 1816, taught
at Phillips Exeter for a year, returned to Cam-
bridge to complete his theological course with
the younger Henry Ware [g.v.], and was or-
dained Oct. 12, 1820, as pastor of the Third Con-
gregational (Unitarian) Society of Springfield,
Mass., to which he ministered until his death
some twenty-seven years later. On Sept. 8, 1824,
he married Elizabeth Amelia White, by whom
he had a daughter and four sons. Despite a frail
constitution and much positive ill health he per-
formed the duties of his office with exemplary
tact and devotion and was held in veneration by
his parishioners and fellow citizens. Early in
life he had resolved to shun dogmatism and the
sectarian spirit, but he was a close student of the
Bible, and his sermons, painstakingly wrought
out with both a religious and a literary con-
science, were sermons and not mere essays. His
literary work was by no means negligible. To
Jared Sparks's Library of American Biography
he contributed lives of Alexander Wilson (vol.
II, 1834), Cotton Mather (vol. VI, 1836), David
Brainerd (vol. VIII, 1837), and James Ogle-
thorpe (2 ser., vol. II, 1844). For over twenty
years lie was a frequent contributor to the North
American Review. He also wrote a great deal
for the Christian Examiner, contributed oc-
casionally to annuals, and published nine ser-
mons and addresses. As a commissioner appoint-
ed by Gov. Edward Everett he prepared A
Report on the Ornithology of
343
Peale
(1839) which is notable chiefly for its observa-
tions on the economic value of birds and its plea
for their preservation. It lists 286 species but is
less an independent treatise than an appendix to
Thomas Nuttall's Manual of the Ornithology of
the United States and of Canada (1832-34).
Peabody was, incidentally, a friend of John James
Audubon. He was also something of a poet, au-
thor of a Poetical Catechism (1823) and of sev-
eral occasional poems and hymns. He edited the
Springfield Collection of Hymns for Sacred
Worship (1835). The whole range of his lit-
erary work is well displayed in two posthumous
volumes, Sermons by the Late William B. O.
Peabody (1849; 2 ed-) and The Literary Re-
mains of the Late William B. 0. Peabody (1850).
The death of his wife, Oct. 4, 1843, and of his
daughter, Jan. 28, 1844, were severe trials _ to
him, and thereafter his health declined steadily.
His last sermon, preached twelve days before his
death, was on the text, "To be spiritually minded
is life and peace." He died at Springfield and
was buried in the Springfield Cemetery.
[0 W. B. Peabody, memoir prefixed to Sermons by
the Late William B. 0. Peabody (1849) ; W. B. Sprague,
Annals of the Am. Unitarian Pulpit (1865) ; Heralds of
a Liberal Faith, vol. II (1910), ed. by S. A. Eliot;
Henry Ware, Sermon Delivered Oct. 12, 1820, at the
Ordination of the Rev. W. 5. 0. Peabody (1820) ; E.
S. Gannett, Discourse Delivered at the Funeral of Rev.
W.B. 0. Peabody, D.D. (1847) ; Geo. Walker, Address
at the Dedication of a Monument to Rev. W. B. 0. Pea-
body, D. D. (1861); S. H. Peabody, Peabody . . .
Geneal. (1909)-] G.H.G.
PEALE, ANNA CLAYPOOLE (Mar. 6,
I79i-Dec. 25, 1878), miniature painter, sister of
Sarah Miriam Peale [g.z>.], was born in Phila-
delphia, the daughter of Mary Claypoole and
James Peale [#.<]. Her grandfather, James Clay-
poole, was said to be the first native Pennsyl-
vania artist Her uncle, Charles Willson Peale
\_q.v.~\9 her cousins, and her father provided an
artistic family background, and she was reared
in one of the most cultivated cities of the early
republic at a time when miniature painting was
practised and appreciated. She studied with her
father the technique of oil painting and also of
water color on ivory. Her first picture to be
exhibited was a still life of fruit shown in Phila-
delphia in 1811 when she was twenty years old.
Soon afterward she achieved some success as a
miniaturist and painted portraits of many per-
sons of social and political eminence. The most
active period of her work extended from 1820 to
1840. She was twice married: in 1829 to Dr.
William Staughton [g.^.], an able minister and
educator, who died in the same year, and in 1841
to Gen. William Duncan, whom she also sur-
vived. She had no children by either marriage.
Peale
Most of her miniatures were painted in Phila-
delphia and Baltimore, although she also worked
in Boston and Washington. A Baltimore paper
of 1822 in announcing that she was prepared to
paint portraits in miniature stated that examples
of her work were on exhibition at the Museum.
She exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of
the Fine Arts and was represented in the early
exhibitions of the Boston Athenaeum.
Anna Peale painted miniatures of Andrew
Jackson and his wife in 1819, two of her earliest
known portraits; of Commodore Bainbridge,
President James Monroe, Dr. Oliver Hubbard,
Mr. and Mrs. Henry Rodenwald (1825), Mr.
and Mrs. C. P. Dexler, General and Madame
Lallemand ; and of such attractive young women
as Eleanor Britton, Jane Brown, and Margaret
Hart Simmons. Only about thirty miniatures by
her are known, but she must have painted several
times that number. Most of her work is owned
by descendants of her subjects, although a few
examples may be seen in museums.. Among these
are the portraits of Madame Lallemand in the
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and of
Mrs. Nathan Endicott in the Boston Museum of
Fine Arts. The miniatures are signed with any
of her names. On the back of one portrait she
wrote : "Miniature of Angelica Vallaye by Anna
Peale, widow of Dr. Staughton, also widow of
General Duncan." Frequently she signed her
miniatures on the front in very small letters
"Anna Claypoole Peale" with the date. Some-
times the signature and date are scratched in
with a needle. Her technique is detailed and
careful. She usually painted flesh surfaces in
high colors with great complexity of stroke, a
technique which gives somewhat the effect of oil
painting1. Frequently there are brilliant con-
trasts of light and shade and the backgrounds
are usually dark. Her miniatures are always
sprightly and pleasing, though less important
artistically than those of her father or of her
uncle Charles Willson Peale.
[Sources include : Anne H. Wharton, Heirlooms in
Miniatures (1898) ; Harry B. Wehle, Am. Miniatures
(1927) ; Theodore Bolton, Early Am. Portrait Painters
in Miniature (1921) ; J. T. Scharf and Thompson West-
cott, Hist, of Phila. (3 vols., 1884) ; R. I. Graff, Geneal.
of the Claypoole Family (1893) ; Phila. Inquirer, Dec,
*6, 1878.] J.L.B.
PEALE, CHARLES WILLSON (Apr. 15,
I74i-Feb. 22, 1827), portrait painter, naturalist,
patriot, was born in St. Paul's Parish, Queen
Anne County, Md, the eldest of five children of
Charles Peale (1709-1750), a native of Rutland-
shire, England, whose progenitors for several
generations were in turn rectors of the parish
church at Edith Weston. The elder Peak's classi-
344
Peak
cal education qualified him as master of the pub-
lic school at Annapolis after coming- to Mary-
land, and following his marriage in 1740 to
Margaret (Triggs) Mathews he removed to
Queen Anne County as master of the Free School
near Centerville. Two years later he was called
to Chestertown as master of the Kent County
School. Upon his death in 1750 his widow re-
turned to Annapolis. Charles Willson Peale re-
ceived the common rudiments of schooling until
his thirteenth year when he was apprenticed to
Nathan Waters, a saddler. He was released from
his indenture at twenty and on Jan. 12, 1762, was
married to Rachel, the daughter of the late John
Brewer of West River. With means advanced
by Judge James Tilghman he was established at
his trade with materials supplied by his former
master on credit These obligations and his at-
tempts to meet them by diversifying his pursuits
soon involved him in difficulties. Having joined
the Sons of Freedom during- the Stamp Act agi-
tation, in 1764 he was forced by his creditors,
who were Loyalists, to abandon his trade. In
his memoirs he recalls the incident as the for-
tunate turning point in his career since the cir-
cumstances resulted in his following the art which
thereafter was his sole vocation. His attempts
at portraits of himself, his wife, and others
brought him a commission to execute portraits
on terms which offered more congenial and re-
munerative occupation than his other pursuits
and he thereupon sought instruction from John
Hesselius [g.z/.], the painter.
In 1765 he accompanied his brother-in-law,
Capt Robert Polk, on a voyage to New England,
where after painting several portraits at New-
buryport he made the acquaintance at Boston of
John Singleton Copley. Proceeding homeward
he met with patronage in Virginia which de-
tained him until the following year, and upon his
return to Annapolis in 1766 he was awarded
recognition which prompted several gentlemen
to advance funds to enable him to visit England.
Among letters of introduction he carried one to
Benjamin West through which he was accepted
as a pupil upon his arrival in London in Febru-
ary 1767. His studies under West, supplement-
ed by modeling, miniature painting, and mezzo-
tint engraving, he pursued with characteristic
zeal and diligence. He contributed to his sup-
port by painting portraits, chiefly in miniature.
Other commissions included that for the full-
length portrait of Lord Chatham, sent to Vir-
ginia in 1768, from which he made his first known
engravings. He was represented in two exhi-
bitions of the Society of Artists prior to the
founding of the Royal Academy, and while in
Peale
London he twice posed for West Returning to
Annapolis in June 1769 he was soon in full em-
ployment in Maryland and adjacent provinces
with frequent and prolonged engagements at
Philadelphia. When Copley left Boston to make
his home in England Peale's activities extended
farther northward and in the spring of 1776 he
established his household at Philadelphia. Con-
gress was then in session and Peak's patrons in-
cluded delegates and other visitors to the city.
He had joined in patriotic activities incident
to the Revolution before leaving Maryland, and
when settled in Philadelphia enlisted as a private
in the city militia. He was elected first lieuten-
ant and was active in recruiting volunteers when
the militia was called out in December 1776. He
was in action during the engagements at Tren-
ton and Princeton, and in 1777 was commissioned
captain of the 4th Battalion or Regiment of Foot
He continued in active service during the cam-
paign ending with the evacuation of Philadelphia
by the British. He also served on important
military and civil committees, was chairman of
the Constitutional Society, and in 1779 was elect-
ed one of the Philadelphia representatives in the
General Assembly of Pennsylvania. On the ex-
piration of his term he retired from office al-
though he continued to render public service as
occasion offered until the close of the war. Dur-
ing the several encampments he was called upon
to paint portraits in miniature of his fellow of-
ficers, replicas of which in head size were the
nucleus of the portrait collection subsequently
formed as his record of the war, In the interval
at the close of the war when economic conditions
were unfavorable to his profession, he under-
took to engrave mezzotint plates from his por-
trait collection. At this time, while he was^mak-
ing drawings of recently discovered bones of the
mammoth, it was suggested to him that his gal-
lery be made the repository also of natural curi-
osities. His interest in the project was thus
aroused and he conceived the idea of founding an
institution. He wished to make it public rather
than private in character and accordingly, when
the museum was established, it was governed by
a Society of Visitors. It was removed to the
hall of the American Philosophical Society in
1794 and in 1802 by act of the Pennsylvania As-
sembly it was granted the free use of the State
House (Independence Hall) recently vacated by
the legislature. It was subsequently incorpo-
rated as the Philadelphia Museum under the di-
rection of a board of trustees. In scope and
character it ranked with the notable museums of
the time.
Peale retired from his profession in the sevear
345
Peale
teen nineties although he continued to paint at
intervals in order to enlarge his portrait gallery
and to acquire means for improving the mu-
seum, which was largely dependent upon his
resources. After he retired to his country place,
"Belfield," in 1810, his sons who were naturalists
relieved him of active supervision of the mu-
seum. His varied hobbies, his interest in applied
science and the arts, and his youthful ventures
in trade have created misleading impressions
of him and have tended to obscure his ca-
reer as a painter. In 1791 and again in 1795 he
attempted to establish academies of the fine arts.
These failed through inadequate encouragement,
but he was largely responsible for the successful
establishment of the Pennsylvania Academy of
the Fine Arts in 1805. He was thrice married.
Of his six children by his first wife who survived
infancy, his sons Raphael and Rembrandt [gg.z-'.]
were painters, and Titian and Rubens, natural-
ists. By his second marriage with Elizabeth
DePeyster of New York in 1791 he had six chil-
dren of whom Franklin and Titian Ramsay
[#.#.] were best known as naturalists. His third
marriage (1805) to Hannah Moore, who died
in 1821, was without issue. Peale died at Phila-
delphia and was buried in St. Peter's churchyard.
Besides his manuscript memoirs and unpublished
writings, he was author of An Essay on Building
Wooden Bridges (1797); Discourse Introduc-
tory to a Course of Lectures on the Science of
Nature ( 1800) ; Introduction to a Course of Lec-
tures on Natural History (1800), delivered at
the University of Pennsylvania; An Epistle to
a Friend on the Means of Preserving Health
(1803) ,* An Essay to Promote Domestic Happi-
ness (1812) ; and Address to the Corporation and
Citizens of Philadelphia (1816).
Peale returned to Annapolis in 1769 after two
years study under Benjamin West, trained in
and accustomed to that school of English paint-
ing which often placed the figure in an open-air
background beside an altar, a fountain, vase, or
statue as required by the classic tradition. His
early canvases were usually large, many dis-
playing a full-length figure, and some even whole
family groups. For the most part he painted into
his backgrounds landscapes, or some incident
having a connection with the sitter, and some
personal belonging added local color. His fig-
ures are somewhat formally placed; the faces
solidly and tightly painted; the lips almost uni-
formly thin, and the hands, while moderately well
drawn, are frequently ungraceful. The jabot,
shirt-ruffle, the fabric and lace on the women's
gowns are painted with scrupulous care, but the
eyes, usually oversmall, are the least satisfactory
Peale
feature. His later portraits, painted after his art
had become an avocation, are so distinct in style
and technique that a presumption is raised that
he received some instruction from his son, Rem-
brandt, after the latter's return from study in
Paris. While Peale was never a great painter,
his work shows sincerity and trained craftsman-
ship, and he did for Pennsylvania, Maryland,
and Virginia what Copley did for Massachusetts :
he left scores of pleasing- and highly decorative
canvases portraying the distinguished men and
gracious women from the representative families
of the day; he preserved the flavor and dignity
of colonial life at its apogee. Peale will always
be known as the painter of Washington, as he
not only painted the first portrait of him, but
during twenty-three years — 1772-95 — painted
him seven times from life, and his son states that
Washington sat on seven other occasions for his
father to further the painting of a replica of some
one of his originals. There is some uncertainty
as to which are Peale' s life portraits of Wash-
ington, but the better authority is as follows:
Three-quarter length in the uniform of a colonel
of Virginia militia, painted at "Mount Vernon"
in 1772 ; three-quarter length in Continental uni-
form painted for John Hancock in Philadelphia
in 1776; miniature on ivory, probably painted
late in 1777; a bust portrait, claimed to have
been begun from life at Valley Forge in 1777
(Many authorities consider this canvas to have
been cut down from a full-length portrait
Whether Peale could have had the opportunity
to paint so large a canvas while on active service
and encamped at Valley Forge is an open ques-
tion) ; full length, Continental type portrait, or-
dered by the Supreme Executive Council of Penn-
sylvania on Jan. 18, 1779 (This is the familiar
portrait of Washington standing, with his left
hand resting upon a cannon, Nassau Hall and
marching Hessian prisoners being in the back-
ground.) ; a bust portrait painted during the
sittings of the Constitutional Convention in
Philadelphia in 1787; and a bust portrait of
Washington when president, painted in Phila-
delphia in 1795.
Peale painted about sixty portraits of Wash-
ington in all. Lacking that insight which enables
a great artist to indicate strongly individual
character, Peale conscientiously transferred to
canvas what he saw before him, and in the por-
trait of 1779 he uncompromisingly portrayed
Washington's small eyes, his high cheekbones,
and his rather ungainly figure — the sloping
shoulders, the slightly protruding abdomen, the
long arms and thin legs. Yet, when this is com-
pared with Houdon's standing statue in Rich-
346
Peale
mond, the similarity is at once apparent. Houdon,
the greatest sculptor of his day, had life sittings
from Washington, and, therefore, his statue
should be accepted as the canon for comparison.
Peale's conception of Washington's face was
perhaps uninspired, but this portrait of 1779 rep-
resents Washington of the Revolution more
truthfully than do later portraits by others, even
by so great a master as Stuart, who never saw
Washington until four years before his death,
when, old before his time, care worn and dis-
illusioned, his appearance had much altered, and
the loss of his teeth had entirely changed his
expression and the shape of his face.
[The biographical details of this sketch were drawn
chiefly from Peale's manuscript memoirs, journals, and
correspondence, from 1765 to 1827, in the possession of
Horace Wells Sellers at the time the sketch was written.
Many biographical references to Peale in published
sources have been based upon Wm. Dunlap's biography
in the Hist, of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of
Design in the U.S. (2 vols., 1834), which is inaccurate
and somewhat bad-tempered. For printed sources, see
especially, Cuthbert Lee, Early Am. Portrait Painters
(1929) ; A. C. Peale, Chas. Willson Peale and His Serv-
ices During the American Revolution (n.d.) ; C. W.
Peale and A, M. F. J. Beauvois, A Sci. and Descriptive
Cat. of Peale's Museum (1796) ; The Pa. Acad. of the
Fine Arts, Cat. of an Exhibition of Portraits by Chas.
Willson Peale and fas. Peale and Rembrandt Peal&
(ed. 1923) ; "Extracts from the Correspondence of
Chas. Wilson [sic] Peale Relative to the Establishment
of the Acad. of the Fine Arts, Phila.," Pa. Mag. of Hist,
and Biog., July 1885 ; Walter Faxon, "Relics of Peale's
Museum," Bull, of the Museum of Comparative Zodl.,
July 1915 ; H. W. Sellers, Engravings by Chas. Willson
Peale ; Limner (1933), reprinted from the Pa. Mag. of
Hist, and Biog., Apr. 1933, and "Chas. Willson Peale,
Artist-Soldier/' Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., July 1914 ;
C. W. Janson, The Stranger in America (1807) j H. S.
Colton, "Peale's Museum," Popular Sci. Monthly, Sept.
1909 ; J- H. Morgan, Two Early Portraits of Geo. Wash-
ington (1927) ; J. H. Morgan and Mantle Fielding, The
Life Portraits of Washington and Their Replicas
(1931) ; Theodore Bolton and H. L. Binsse, "The Peale
Portraits of Washington," the Antiquarian, Feb. 1931 ;
C. H. Hart, "Peale's Original Whole-Length Portrait
of Washington," Ann. Report of the Am. Hist. Asso.
for the Year 1896 (1897), and "Life Portraits of Geo.
Washington," McClure's Mag.f Feb. 1897; Poulson's
Am. Daily Advertiser, Feb. 23, 1827. The estimate of
Peale's work, comprising the last part of the biography,
was written at the request of the editor by John Hill
Morgan, who, owing to the inability of the author to
make a final revision of the article before his death,
kindly consented to add an appraisal of the artist.]
H.W.S.
PEALE, JAMES (i749~May 24, 1831), por-
trait painter in miniature and oils, was born in
Chestertown, MdL, the fifth and youngest son of
Margaret (Triggs) Mathewsand Charles Peale
and the brother of Charles Willson Peale [g.<J.
His father, the eldest son of a Rutlandshire fam-
ily, had come to the colonies, taught school in
Maryland, married, and then kept the Free School
in Chestertown. There he died in 1750. The fam-
ily moved to Annapolis and several years later
Charles Willson, who was apprenticed to a sad-
Peale
dler, took James under his care to learn the sad-
dlery trade. About 1770, following Charles' ex-
ample and under his guidance, James Peale gave
up his trade to become a painter. His brother
taught him the technique of water-color and oil
painting and the principles of portraiture. Dur-
ing the Revolution James rendered active service
until June 3, 1779, when he resigned. He was
first with Small wood's Maryland Regiment (en-
sign, Jan. 14, 1776) and later with the 1st Mary-
land, in which he was commissioned captain
Mar. i, 1778.
After the war he went to Philadelphia to re-
side with his brother Charles. About 1785 he
married Mary Claypoole (1753-1829), daughter
of James Claypoole, the artist Apart from oc-
casional painting trips to the Southern cities he
lived most of his life in Philadelphia. He had
one son, James, Jr., who became a banker but
who in his leisure painted marines and land-
scapes. Of his five daughters two were Sarah
Miriam and Anna Claypoole Peale [qq.v."]. He
left an abundant pictorial record of himself and
of his family. In the Pennsylvania Academy of
the Fine Arts may be seen "Janies Peale and his
Family/' painted in 1795; "Mary Claypoole
Peale/' his wife, and a "Portrait of the Artist"
He has also left several portraits and miniatures
of himself and of his family. His achievement
in oil painting is uneven ; in general the later
work is much finer than the early pieces. Por-
trait groups painted around 1795 are stiff and
awkward, both in arrangement and treatment.
Ten years later he had mastered technical dif-
ficulties and had developed his own style. Such
a picture as that of his two daughters, Anna and
Margaretta, in the Pennsylvania Academy, shows
him at his best Naturalness of pose, good draw-
ing, and a sympathetic understanding of both his
subject and his medium distinguish the work.
James Peale copied the head of Charles Will-
son Peale's 1787 life portrait of Washington to
make a half-length figure with a sword. This he
did several times, varying the background. Ex-
amples may be seen in the New York Public
Library and in Independence Hall, Philadelphia.
There is evidence that he was interested in paint-
ing still life, landscapes, and even historical sub-
jects. Several of his paintings of fruit are in New
York He sometimes painted landscape detail
in the background of his portraits as far instance
in the "Ramsay-Polk family." The "View of the
Battle of Princeton/' "A View of Belfield Farm,
near Germantown" (1811), and "A Rencontre
between Col. Allen McLane and two British
Horsemen" (1814) are attributed to him, Btat
it is as a miniature painter that he is justly test
347
Peale
known. He began by closely following the style
of his brother and the miniatures of his first
period to about 1795 are on similar small oval or
circular pieces of ivory. He was most active
in miniature painting between 1782 and 1812. In
the former year he painted miniatures of Martha
and of George Washington, and again in 1788
he painted another miniature of Washington.
Probably both are from life. In the autumn of
1795 when his brother and two nephews were
painting portraits of Washington, he also made
a small water-color portrait on paper.
From about 1795 his prolific brush produced
miniatures which are the work of a finished
artist. The drawing is surer, the portraits are
developed in fewer and broader strokes, though
his lines are always delicate. "Mollie Callahan"
(1799) is typical of this period. The size of the
ivory is somewhat larger, the color diversified
and harmonious, the effect delicate and beautiful.
His technique and talent were particularly suited
to portrayal of feminine subjects. A mannerism
of tucking in the corners of the mouth and draw-
ing the lips in a definite cupid's bow pattern is so
common in his miniatures as to become a point
of identification. The signature is usually I. P.
or J. P. in very small letters with the date.
[For printed sources see : C. W. Bowen, The Hist, of
the Centennial Celebration of the Inauguration of Geo.
Washington (1892) ; The Pa, Acad. of the Fine Arts,
Cat* of an Exhibition of Portraits by Chas. Willson
Peale and Jos. Peale and Rembrandt Peale (ed. 1923) ;
Theodore Bolton, Early Am. Portrait Painters in Minia-
ture (1921) ; "Life Portraits of Washington by Mem-
bers of the Peale Family," Antiquarian, Feb. 1931 ;
Harry B. Wehle, Am. Miniatures (1927) ; Cuthbert Lee,
Early Am. Portrait Painters (1929) ; R. I. Graff, Ge-
neaL of the Claypoole Family (1893) ; Paulson's Am.
Daily Advertiser, May 26, 1831.] J L. B
PEALE, RAPHAEL (Feb. 17, 1774-Mar. 4,
^25 ), painter, brother of Rembrandt and Titian
Ramsay Peale [qq.v.~\t was born at Annapolis,
Md, the eldest child of Charles Willson Peale
[q.v.~\ and his first wife, Rachel Brewer of An-
napolis. He preferred to spell his name Raph-
aelle. When he was two years old the family
settled in Philadelphia where the boy was to
have many advantages. He became his father's
pupil and when he was twenty-one painted a
water-color profile of Washington. Although
not so talented as his younger brother Rem-
brandt he achieved some success as a miniature
painter and after 1815 was favorably known for
his still-life pieces. He worked in several me-
diums : oils and water color on ivory, paper, and
vellum. He also used the physionotrace. On
May 25, 1797, he was married to Martha Mc-
Glathery in Philadelphia. He always made his
home there, although he painted in many of the
Peale
chief cities of the country. By 1799 he had es-
tablished himself as a professional miniature
painter. At several times during his career he
cooperated with his brother Rembrandt in vari-
ous undertakings. From 1790 to 1799 they were
working together in Baltimore attempting to es-
tablish a portrait gallery of distinguished per-
sons. In 1803 Raphael painted in Norfolk and
the following year with Rembrandt visited Sa-
vannah, Charleston, Baltimore, and Boston.
Between 1804 and 1811 Raphael Peale's prices
for portraits are said to have declined from fifty
to fifteen dollars. For miniatures on ivory and
vellum and for profiles his charges also de-
creased materially. After 1815 when his health
began to fail he devoted himself almost entirely
to still-life subjects such as fruit, game, and
fish. He sometimes signed his miniatures "R.
P.," which perhaps accounts for the one-time
confusion of his work with that of Rembrandt
Peale. He also signed himself "Rap. Peale,"
"Raphe. Peale," or in full, "Raphael Peale." Oc-
casionally there was no signature. Representa-
tive examples of his miniature portraits are those
of Doyle Sweeney, Abiah Brown, and Maj.-Gen.
Thomas Acheson, all privately owned. Not more
than a dozen miniatures by him are known. Sev-
eral examples of his still-life paintings are owned
by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
His style in miniature painting faintly resembles
that of James Peale. He has, however, several
distinguishing characteristics of technique such
as modeling the features in blue hatching with
very little flesh color added. Usually he painted
the costume in solid gouache, displaying little
variety or interest in color. The backgrounds
are light and clear, sometimes painted in delicate
cloudlike forms. The drawing is not uniformly
skilful but his style was sufficiently personal to
permit identification of unsigned pieces. He is
said to have been successful in obtaining like-
nesses. After a lingering illness he died in his
fifty-third year, survived by his wife and their
seven children.
[For printed sources see Rembrandt Peale's "Rem-
iniscences," in the Crayon, Aug. 29, Sept. 19, Oct. 3,
1855, Jan., Apr., June 1856, Feb., Sept., Oct., Nov.,
Dec. 1857, Nov. 1860; C. H. Hart, "Life Portraits of
Geo. Washington," McClure's Mag., Feb. 1897; Harry
B. Wehle, Atn. Miniatures (1927) ; J. T. Scharf and
Thompson Westcott, Hist, of Phila. (3 vols., 1884) ;
The Cat. of the Exhibition of Am. Miniatures at the
Metropolitan (1927) ; Theodore Bolton, Early Am.
Portrait Painters in Miniature (1921), There is a
manuscript Peale genealogy in the possession of the
Geneal. Soc. of Pa.] J L B.
PEALE, REMBRANDT (Feb. 22, 1778^0 ct.
3, 1860), portrait and historical painter, son of
Charles Willson \_q.v.] and Rachel (Brewer)
Peale, was born at the Vanarsdalen Farm near
348
Peale
Richboro, Bucks County, Pa., where his father,
then with the army at Valley Forge, had found
refuge for his family during the British occu-
pation of Philadelphia. According to his mem-
oirs Rembrandt Peale completed his studies at
private schools in Philadelphia in advance of
students of his own age and showed a special
interest in literature and a gift for verse-making1.
He was likewise precocious in the study of draw-
ing and in his thirteenth year painted a credit-
able self-portrait — his first attempt in oil colors.
Besides studying under his father and copying
the paintings in his father's gallery he had the
opportunity, when he was seventeen, to practise in
the school of design which his father and other
artists attempted to form in 1795. In the same
year at the exhibition of the Academy, Rem-
brandt was represented by five portraits and a
landscape. In September 1795, when the elder
Peale painted the last of his numerous life por-
traits of Washington, Rembrandt was accorded
the same opportunity. He carried his portrait to
Charleston, S. C, where he claimed to have made
ten copies besides painting the portraits of Gen-
erals Gadsden and Sumter and Dr. David Ram-
say, the historian, for his father's gallery. In
1796 he joined with his brother Raphael in es-
tablishing in Baltimore a gallery in which to
exhibit their paintings, including copies they
had made of their father's portraits of distin-
guished persons. To this they added a cabinet
of natural history objects, chiefly duplicates
from the elder Peale's collection. Three years
later this venture was abandoned.
After painting portraits in Maryland Rem-
brandt Peale returned to Philadelphia and pub-
licly announced in 1800 that to avoid confusion
with others of his family he would paint under
the name of Rembrandt, an ostentation which he
speedily abandoned. At about this time he at-
tended a course of lectures on chemistry at the
University of Pennsylvania to perfect his knowl-
edge of pigments. He had married in 1798, when
barely twenty, Eleanora Mary Short. Being then
largely dependent upon his father's support, he
sought other means of employment until his
reputation as a painter was established. His fa-
ther had successfully recovered two skeletons of
the mammoth or mastodon and Rembrandt as-
sisted in mounting them and carving the replicas
of such bones as were missing. The wide inter-
est in this discovery among naturalists prompt-
ed the elder Peale to send one skeleton to Europe
in charge of Rembrandt, who was assisted "by
his younger brother Rubens Peale, then in train-
ing as a naturalist Arriving in England in the
autumn of 1802 Rembrandt placed himself under
Peale
the guidance of Benjamin West and while pur-
suing his studies painted portraits of Robert
Bloomfield, the poet, and Sir Joseph Banks,
president of the Royal Society, for his father's
collection. In the Royal Academy's exhibition
of 1803 he was represented by two portraits.
While in London he published his Account of
the Skeleton oj the Mammoth (London, 1802),
followed in 1803 by An Historical Disquisition
on the Mammoth. As the war with France pre-
vented exhibiting the skeleton in Paris as con-
templated, the brothers returned to America in
November 1803.
In 1804 Peale established a painting room in
the State House at Philadelphia, the building
having been granted by the legislature as a re-
pository for the elder Peak's gallery and mu-
seum. Employed by his father to paint portraits
for his collection, he visited Washington where
he executed a likeness of President Jefferson
and portraits of other prominent characters. In
1805 he assisted in the establishment of the
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In
that year he exhibited thirty portraits. His repu-
tation was further extended by visits to New
York and Boston. Commissioned by his father
he visited Paris in the spring of 1808 and paint-
ed for the latter's collection the portraits of
Houdon, Cuvier, Bernardin de St. Pierre, Abbe
Huay, Count Rumford, David, and Denon. De-
non, the director-general of museums, offered
Peale the government patronage if he would re-
main in France. Fearing that the disturbed sit-
uation in Europe would separate him from his
family, he returned to America in October 1808,
but to complete his father's commission, again
visited Paris in 1809 and remained throughout
the following year. He painted largely in en-
caustic and his work during this and the follow-
ing decade is generally considered the high point
of his art. Upon his return to Philadelphia in
November 1810 he painted a large equestrian
picture of Napoleon, which was exhibited first at
Baltimore in 1811 and later at Philadelphia. He
also painted a number of classical subjects.
Although urged by his father to confine his
talents to portrait painting, and his exhibitions
to Philadelphia, Peale determined to establish a
gallery and museum in Baltimore with possibly
an academy for teaching the fine arts. Securing1
support for this venture he erected a building
and opened his exhibition in 1814. He aimed to
emulate his father by maintaining his museum
on a strictly scientific and educational basis, but
popular support was insufficient to justify the
investment and finally his brother Rubens Peale
who had managed the Philadelphia Museum
349
Peale
came to his assistance and relieved him of the
establishment. In the meantime he had executed
his large canvas, 24' x 13', "The Court of Death,"
which was placed on view in his gallery at Bal-
timore in 1820 and subsequently exhibited in
other cities for a number of years. After leaving
Baltimore he practised his art in New York un-
til 1823 when he reopened his gallery and paint-
ing room in Philadelphia, During this interval
he labored to perfect an ideal likeness of Wash-
ington based upon his own and his father's por-
traits and he then painted a large equestrian pic-
ture using his composite studies for the likeness.
In 1825 he was again called to New York and
during his residence there was elected to suc-
ceed John Trumbull as president of the Ameri-
can Academy of Fine Arts. Subsequently his
patronage extended to Boston where he resided
for a time. While there he became interested in
lithography. He executed, among other works,
a large head of Washington for which he re-
ceived the silver medal of the Franklin Insti-
tute.
In 1828 Peale again went abroad and for two
years traveled, chiefly in Italy, copying the
works of notable masters, besides painting orig-
inal studies and some portraits. During his nine
months' residence in Florence he exhibited at
the Royal Academy his portrait of Washington,
which on his return was purchased by the United
States government Returning to America in
September 1830 he published his Notes on Italy
(1831) and after residing in New York until
1832 he crossed the ocean for the fifth time,
having engaged to paint portraits in England.
On his return to America in 1834 he resumed
his painting at Philadelphia and in his leisure
hours perfected a system for teaching drawing
and writing described in his Graphics: A Man-
ual of Drawing and Writing (1835). In 1839
he published his Portfolio of an Artist which
contains a number of his original verses. In his
last years he devoted much time to his lectures
on the portraits of Washington and contributed
to magazines articles relating to art and his
"Reminiscences." He continued these activities
until shortly before his death at Philadelphia in
his eighty-third year. He was survived by his
second wife, Harriet Caney. By his first wife
he had seven daughters and two sons.
It was Rembrandt Peak's misfortune to paint
during1 that half-century when the artistic sense
of the English-speaking peoples, at least, almost
entirely disappeared The ugliness of this era
was nowhere more manifest than in clothes and
household furnishings, and these, perforce, had
to appear in Peale's portraits. Technically,
Peale
Rembrandt Peale may have been a better painter
than his father, but not one of his canvases ex-
hibits the charm and decorative qualities of
those of the elder Peale. After his study in
Paris, his portraits were painted with that thor-
oughness then in fashion and in encaustic, so
that many almost resemble work in enamel.
When in the second decade of the nineteenth
century Peale turned to allegorical and historical
subjects, and especially after he became ob-
sessed with the idea of exploiting his portrait
of Washington, painted in 1823 (known as the
"Port Hole" type), as the "ideal" Washington,
general portraiture seems to have become a
means to an end, and as a result his portraits,
while good likenesses, are perfunctory.
[This sketch is based upon the Peale family papers.
For printed sources see Rembrandt Peale's "Reminis-
cences" in the Crayon, Aug. 29, Sept. 19, Oct. 3, 1855,
Jan., Apr., June 1856, Feb., Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec
1857, Nov. 1860; C. E. Lester, The Artists of Amer-
ica (1846) ; Wm. Dunlap, A Hist, of the Rise and Prog-
ress of the Arts of Design in the U. S. (1918) vol
II ; The Pa. AcacL of the Fine Arts, Cat. of an Exhibi-
tion of Portraits by Chas. Willson Peale and Jos.
Peale and Rembrandt Peale (ed. 1923) ; Description of
the Court of Death, an Original Painting by Rembrandt
Peale (n.d.) ; and "Original Letters from Paris," the
Portfolio, Sept. 1810. There are manuscripts in the
possession of the Pa. Hist. Soc. relating to Peale. His
lectures on portraits of Washington are in the library
of Haverford Coll. Suggestions for this sketch have
been supplied by John Hill Morgan.] H W S
PEALE, SARAH MIRIAM (May 19, 1800-
Feb. 4, 1885), portrait painter, was born in Phil-
adelphia, Pa., the youngest of six children of
James [q.v.~\ and Mary (Claypoole) Peale. Of
her sisters, Anna Claypoole \_q.v.~\ attained dis-
tinction as a miniature painter, and Margaretta
was a professed painter of still life. Reared in
an artistic environment, Sarah Miriam Peale
began to study and practise painting during
early girlhood. She is said to have assisted her
father in his pictures by painting details such as
lace and flowers. At eighteen she executed her
first portrait, a self-likeness which her uncle,
Charles Willson Peale, praised at the time as
being "wonderfully like." In the annual exhibi-
tion of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine
Arts in 1818 she was represented for the first
time by a portrait of "a lady/' described as her
"second attempt/' and in the following year she
exhibited two portraits and four still-life pic-
tures. In subsequent exhibitions her entries in-
cluded portraits of men in public life, the first
being Commodore Bainbridge, U. S. N. Con-
gressman Caleb Gushing, Dixon H. Lewis of
Alabama, L. F. Linn of Missouri, H. A. Wise,
W. R. D. King (later vice-president), and Sen-
ator Benton were also among her patrons.
In 1824 Miss Peale was elected an academi-
350
Peale
cian of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine
Arts, her sister Anna being- likewise honored.
In 1825 the Marquis de Lafayette gave her four
sittings during his second visit to the United
States and her portrait of him was highly praised
as a faithful likeness. In 1826 she exhibited at
the Pennsylvania Academy two miniatures — the
first of her work in that medium recorded. Fol-
lowing the death of her father in 1831 she re-
moved with her sister, Jane (Peale) Simes, to
Baltimore. She painted there and in Washing-
ton until about 1847, when she went to St. Louis.
In 1877 she returned to Philadelphia to rejoin
her sisters, Margaretta and Anna. During her
residence in the West she pursued her art,
though her pictures rarely, if ever, found their
way to exhibitions in the East where Anna
Claypoole Peale continued to paint, thus over-
shadowing the accomplishments of her younger
sister. Her paintings displayed greater virility
in style than her sister Anna's miniatures, a
quality which gave character to her more nu-
merous portraits of men. She died in Philadel-
phia in the eighty-fifth year of her age. She had
never married.
[Sources include: Anne H. Wharton, Heirlooms in
Miniatures (1898) ; J. F. Watson, Annals of Phila.,
enlarged and republished by W. P. Hazard (3 vols.,
1898) ; Theodore Bolton, Early Am. Portrait Painters
in Miniature (1921) ; C. E. Clement and Laurence
Hutton, Artists of the Nineteenth Century (2 vols.,
1885) ; the Phila. Record, Feb. 6, 1885 ; Peale family
papers; exhibition catalogues, Pa. Acaol of the Fine
^•1 H.W.S.
PEALE, TITIAN RAMSAY (Nov. 17, 1799-
Mar. 13, 1885), naturalist, artist, mechanician,
born in Philadelphia, Pa., was the youngest son
of Charles Willson Peale [q.v.~\ and his second
wife, Elizabeth DePeyster of New York. He
was given the name of his half-brother Titian
(1780-1798) whose death during the yellow
fever epidemic of 1798 was a heavy blow to his
father. When convinced of Titian's talent for
mechanics the elder Peale placed him with a
manufacturer of spinning machines, intending
to establish him with his brother Franklin in
the cotton-spinning business. Titian however
turned from this to study natural history and in
his seventeenth year was placed with his broth-
er Rubens Peale, then curator of the museum
founded by their father. He attended lectures
on anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania
and developed skill in the preservation of speci-
mens for the museum and in making drawings
of subjects for its records. Jn iSiS he joined
an expedition to the coast of Georgia and eastern
Florida with William Macltire, Thomas Say, and
George Ord to study the fauna and collect speci-
Peale
mens. In the following year he was appointed
as assistant naturalist and painter with the Unit-
ed States Expedition under Maj. Stephen H.
Long to the Upper Missouri, and he made many
of the sketches used in illustrating the papers by
members of the party. In 1821 he was appointed
assistant manager of the Philadelphia Museum.
Peale was represented in the exhibition of
1822 at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine
Arts by four water-color paintings of animals.
In 1824 he was sent to Florida by Charles Lu-
cien Bonaparte to collect specimens and make
drawings for his American Ornithology (4 vols.,
IS25-33), of which the colored plates in volumes
I and IV were Peale's work. He also drew some
of the plates for Thomas Say's American En-
tomology (3 vols., 1824-28). In 1826 he was
again represented by water-color drawings of
animals in the Pennsylvania Academy exhibi-
tion. While engaged as curator of the Philadel-
phia Museum he visited the interior of Colombia
in 1832 to collect specimens and the following
year published Lepidoptera Americana. In 1833
he was elected manager of the museum and con-
tinued to deliver lectures on natural history in
that institution. From 1838 to 1842 he was a
member of the civil staff of the United States
Exploring Expedition to the South Sea under
Charles Wilkes, and it was through Peale's ac-
tivities that the Academy of Natural Sciences
of Philadelphia was enriched by its notable col-
lection of Polynesian ethnica. He also made
drawings for a number of the plates which ap-
pear in the published accounts of the expedition.
He was the author of "Mammalia and Ornithol-
ogy," published in 1848 as Volume VIII of the
Reports of the United States Exploring Expe-
dition, 1838-42, but the work was later sup-
pressed. After his return to Philadelphia he re-
sumed the managership of the museum. The
financial difficulties which finally led to the sale
of the institution ended his connection with its
affairs and in 1849 he was appointed an exam-
iner in the United States Patent Office at Wash-
ington, an office which he held until 1872.
Peale was one of the founders of the club
known as the United Bowmen of Philadelphia
which was composed originally of six young
men of scientific and social proclivities who
practised archery. The organization, uniformed,
is shown in Sully's engraving, "The United
Bowmen." After retiring from office at Wash-
ington Peale devoted his remaining years chiefly
to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Phila-
delphia where his collection of Lepidoptera Is
preserved. He was married first in 1822 to
Eliza CedEa Laf orgue by whom he had six dial-
351
Pearce
dren and second to Lucy Mullen. He died in
Philadelphia.
[The author of this sketch used chiefly the Peale
manuscripts. For printed sources see : "Titian Ramsey
Lsic] Peale," Entomol. News, Jan. 1913; Wm. Church-
ill, "The Earliest Samoan Prints," Proc. Acad. Natural
Sci. of Phils., vol. LXVII (1915) ; H. B. Weiss and
G. M. Ziegler, Thos. Say, Early Am. Naturalist (1931) ;
R. B. Davidson, Hist, of the United Bowmen (1888) ;
Chas. Wilkes, Narrative of the U. S. Exploring Expe-
dition (1845) ; Edwin James, Account of an Expedition
from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains (2 vols.,
1823) ; the Phila. Record, Mar. 15, 1885. The minutes
of Philadelphia Museum are in the manuscript collec-
tions of the Pa. Hist Soc.] j^ ^ c^
PEARCE, CHARLES SPRAGUE (Oct. 13,
i8si-May 18, 1914), painter, born at Boston,
Mass., was the son of Shadrach Houghton and
Mary Anna (Sprague) Pearce. His father, a
native of Ashford, Kent, England, was brought
to the United States when he was six years old,
and became a China merchant in Boston. His
mother was the daughter of Charles Sprague
\_q.v.~\, the poet, and a descendant of one of the
members of the "Boston Tea Party." Young
Pearce was educated at the Brimmer School and
the Boston Latin School, Boston; worked in his
father's office for five years ; and met with some
success as an amateur painter in his nonage.
In 1873 he went to Paris and for three years
studied painting- under Leon Bonnat. Owing
to delicate health, he spent his winters in Italy,
Southern France, Egypt, Algiers, or Nubia. He
began to exhibit his paintings in the Paris Salon
in 1876, and continued to send work there for
many years. The greater part of his life was
passed in France. He bought a house at Auvers-
sur-Oise in 1885 where, with his wife, Louise
Catherine Bonjean, whom he married in 1888,
he lived for more than thirty years.
Pearce's specialty was the pictorial represen-
tation of the peasant life of Northern France
with its background of rustic landscape or quaint
villages; but he also painted some Oriental
scenes, Bible subjects, and a few portraits. His
"Beheading of St. John the Baptist," shown at
the Salon of 1881 and later at the Panama-Pa-
cific International Exposition at San Francisco,
1915, is now in the Art Institute of Chicago.
"Peines de Ccsur," exhibited at the Salon of
1885, was awarded the Temple gold medal at
the Pennsylvania Academy exhibition of the
same year. ffUn Enterrement Civil" (a village
funeral in Brittany), shown at the Salon of
1891, was especially interesting for its rendering
of types of Breton character. Pearce's peasant
girls, however, generally look more like profes-
sional studio models than real peasants. He was
one of the American painters called upon to con-
tribute mural paintings for the Library of Con-
Pearce
gress in Washington, and made a series of six
lunettes for the north corridor, symbolizing the
Family, Religion, Labor, Study, Recreation, and
Rest. These works are well drawn and com-
posed, though the conceptions do not rise above
the average level of creative imagination as ex-
emplified in other decorations in the building.
Considering the inexperience of the artist in
mural work, he acquitted himself creditably in
this difficult field. Honors came to him from
many sources and in many forms — medals, di-
plomas, election to high academic distinction in
France, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, and the
United States. His colleagues showed their es-
teem for him by making him chairman of the
Paris juries for two important international ex-
positions, those at Chicago and St. Louis, 1893
and 1904, and member of the juries of awards
for the Paris Exposition of 1889 and the Ant-
werp Exposition of 1904. His death occurred
at his home in Auvers-sur-Oise in his sixty-
third year. His work in general is typical of the
academic productions of the numerous talented
Americans trained in Paris and living in France
in the late nineteenth century. It is accom-
plished school work, well constructed and hav-
ing many technical merits, but on the other hand
it is quite without imagination, poetry, or the
"flame of sensibility."
[H. L. Earle, Biog. Sketches of Am. Artists (1924) ;
Art Amateur, Dec. 1883; Who's Who in America,
1910-11 ; Cat. of T. B. Clarke coll., 1899; Cat. of the
Thomas B. Clarke Coll. of Am. Pictures (Pa. Acad.
of the Fine Arts, 1891) ; C. B. Reynolds, Washington,
the Nation's Capital (1912) ; Rand McNally Washing-
ton Guide (1915); Boston Transcript, May 18, 1914.]
W.H.D.
PEARCE, JAMES ALFRED (Dec. 14, 1805-
Dec. 20, 1862), representative and senator
from Maryland, was descended in the fifth gen-
eration from William Pearce who emigrated
from Scotland to the Eastern Shore of Maryland
about 1670. The eldest child of Gideon and Julia
(Dick) Pearce, he was born at the home of his
maternal grandfather, Elisha Dick [g.z/.], in
Alexandria, Va., then in the District of Colum-
bia. The death of his mother when he was only
three years old left his early education under
the direction of his grandfather, who is best
known as Washington's physician. From a pri-
vate academy at Alexandria he entered the Col-
lege of New Jersey (Princeton) at the age of
fourteen and was graduated in 1822 with high
rank. Then applying himself to the study of
law in the office of Judge John Glenn in Balti-
more, he gained admission to the bar in 1824.
He soon commenced the practice of his profes-
sion at Cambridge, Md., but his career was in-
terrupted within a year by his removal to his
352
Pearce
father's plantation on the Red River in Louisi-
ana, where for three years he engaged in sugar
planting. When he returned to Maryland, it
was to resume the practice of law at Chester-
town, though he at the same time found expres-
sion for his agricultural tastes by cultivating a
farm successfully. On Oct. 6, 1829, he was mar-
ried to Martha J. Laird, who died in 1845.
His legal career was again interrupted in
1831, when he was elected to the legislature of
Maryland, from which he passed in 1835 to Con-
gress. With the exception of a single term, that
of 1839-41 when he lost his seat by a small ma-
jority in the only defeat of his experience, he sat
as a Whig member in the House of Representa-
tives from 1835 to 1843. *n ^e latter year he
was transferred to the Senate, where he con-
tinued through three successive elections to hold
his seat until his death. He was reflected as a
Democrat the last time in 1859 after the disrup-
tion of the Whig party. It was probably in the
committee rooms that his influence as a senator
was most felt, for there his analytical mind, the
extent of his information, his industry, and his
patience for details gave his opinions authority.
A man of broad cultural interests, his natural
inclinations caused him to give especial atten-
tion on matters of education and science. Dur-
ing this long period of service he interested him-
self in the welfare of the Library of Congress,
the Smithsonian Institution, and the Coast Sur-
vey. In the decoration of public buildings,
sculptors found in him an ever-ready friend. For
years he served on the board of visitors and gov-
ernors of Washington College at Chestertown,
Md., where he also lectured on law from 1850
to 1862.
After careful thought he opposed the conces-
sions to Texas concerning the New Mexico ter-
ritory proposed in the compromise measures of
1850 and succeeded in having the bill amended,
an action that resulted in bitter feeling between
him and Clay, He was in advance of his time in
the firm stand he took against the spoils sys-
tem and in favor of arbitration of the Oregon
boundary dispute with England. Convinced that
he was more useful in the Senate, he declined
two positions offered him by President Fillmore :
a seat on the federal bench of the district court
of Maryland and a position as secretary of the
interior. The fact that his name was repeatedly
mentioned for the presidency, though probably
not seriously, indicates a man who rose above
the regular senatorial group. During the heat-
ed debates of the last slavery years he constant-
ly opposed agitation as calculated to increase the
discords that were dividing the country. Con-
Pearce
fronted with the actual fact of disunion, he de-
plored secession as ill-advised but equally de-
plored a union preserved by force. He soon
found himself one of a small group which were
futile against a dominant majority. Owing to
failing health, he did not enter the Senate after
Mar. 24, 1862, though he lingered nine months.
He was survived by his second wife, Mathilda
Cox (Ringgold) Pearce, whom he had married
on Mar. 22, 1847. Social, genial, even playful
with his intimates, he enjoyed warm and deep
friendships, A brilliant conversationalist, he was
at his best in a small circle. He was no politi-
cian in the ordinary sense of the word, yet he
was one of the most successful public men of his
period.
[A few letters in Md. Hist. Mag., June 1921 ; B. C
Sterner, "James Alfred Pearce," Ibid., Dec. i92i-June
1924; Cong. Globe, 37 Cong., 3 Sess., pp. 292-94, 298-
302 ; A. B. Bache, "Eulogy," Ann. Report of ... the
Smithsonian Institution . . . 1862 (1863) ; G. A. Han-
son, Old Kent (1876) ; C. W. Sams and E. S. Riley,
The Bench and Bar of Md. (1901),] E L.
PEARCE, RICHARD (June 29, i837~May
18, 1927), metallurgist, was born near Cam-
borne in Cornwall, England, the son of Richard
Donald Pearce and his wife, Jenifer Bennett.
He inherited an early interest in mining from
his father who was one of the superintendents of
Dolcoath, the premier tin mine of Cornwall. A
common-school education was terminated at the
age of fourteen when he went to work in the
tin-dressing plant of Dolcoath. In 1855, when
only eighteen years of age, he was appointed as-
sistant in chemistry at the Truro mining school
where he taught while continuing his own stud-
ies. The school was poorly supported, however,
and had to close, and three years later he joined
his father at Dolcoath as assayer. After a short
interval he was called upon again to start local
classes in mining instruction, performing the
task so well that he was given the opportunity
of entering the Royal School of Mines in Lon-
don. He equipped himself for further teaching
under such distinguished professors as Percy
and Hoffman, then went to Freiberg, Saxony, in
1865, for further study at the mining academy
where he became interested in metallurgical sil-
ver processes, particularly those of Ziervogel
and Augustin. On his return he built a copper-
smelting plant at Swansea in south Wales, di-
recting the operations himself, but he found it
difficult to introduce there any practice that was
not Welsh, The business, moreover, was con-
ducted on stich unsound principles that he was
glad to accept the invitation of a London firm
to visit Colorado in 1871 to inspect silver mines.
He had to render an unfavorable report on this
353
Pearce
occasion, but he was subsequently asked by the
same company to take charge of a smelter to be
built in Colorado. Since his health had suf-
fered from the damp climate of Swansea, he wel-
comed the opportunity to enjoy the clear air and
the cheerful atmosphere of the Rocky Mountain
region.
He sailed from Liverpool with his wife and
three children in 1872. The little smelter near
Empire in Clear Creek County, Colo., was soon
built and ready for business. Its technical opera-
ations were successful but the supply of pyritic
ores was inadequate and the shipments of matte
to Swansea entailed a cost which was excessive.
Meanwhile, he had made the acquaintance of
Nathaniel Peter Hill [q.v.~\, formerly professor
of chemistry at Brown University and at that
time manager of a smelter at Blackhawk in the
adjoining county of Gilpin. The two metal-
lurgists joined forces in building a reduction
works in which Pearce's plan for treating the
matte and extracting the precious metals was to
be given a fair trial. The new plant was in ac-
tion at Blackhawk by the end of November 1873.
Pearce recognized the great responsibility
placed upon him by this new position. In com-
menting upon the difficulties involved in inau-
gurating a process hitherto untried in America
where many things that he needed were not ob-
tainable, he said, "I found myself obliged from
the first to introduce what might be termed
makeshifts." Such is the history of technical
operations in remote places. Richard Pearce
was successful because he was able to adapt his
methods to local conditions and to the exigen-
cies of circumstances, and because his experi-
ence at Swansea in devising and superintending
metallurgic operations performed by compara-
tively ignorant men taught him how to train un-
skilled labor to manipulate the intricate devices
of a furnace. He was essentially a practical
man, that is, a man of educated common sense.
During the next thirty years no less than 52
tons of gold (equivalent to $31,200,000) were
separated and refined for the Boston & Colorado
Smelting Company, first at Blackhawk and later
at Argo, near Denver, by the process devised
and conducted by Richard Pearce. The larger
smelter at Argo was built in 1878, and in the
following year a branch smelter was built at
Butte to provide matte from the ores of Mon-
tana, At this time Pearce lived at Denver, a
wealthy man and an honored citizen. In 1885
he was appointed British vice-consul; in 1889
he was elected president of the American Insti-
tute of Mining Engineers; and, lie was twice
president of the Colorado Scientific Society,
Pearce
with which he was closely identified as a charter
member and to the Proceedings of which he con-
tributed a number of valuable papers on geology
and mineralogy. The mineral, pearceite, a sul-
phide of silver and arsenic, is named for him.
In 1902 he retired from the management of
the Argo smelter and returned to Cornwall
where, in 1908, he associated himself with Wil-
liams, Harvey & Company in building a tin
smelter at Bootle, near Liverpool. He was en-
gaged in this pleasant professional activity until
1919 when he left the works in charge of his
son and changed his residence to London.
There he remained, near to the museums and
schools of science, both of which continued to
command his lively interest. In 1925, at the age
of eighty-eight, he received the gold medal of
the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy "in
recognition of the services which he had so long
rendered to the advancement of metallurgical
science and practice." He died on May 18, 1927,
within a few weeks of his ninetieth birthday. He
was twice married, first to Carolina Maria Lean
and, second, to Amelia Elisabeth Hawken.
[T. T. Read, "Richard Pearce/' Mining and Metal-
lurgy, Feb. 1928; H. V. Pearce, "The Pearce Gold-
Separation Process," Trans. Am. Inst. Mining Eng.f
vol. XXXIX (1909) ; Times (London), May 19, Sept.
12, 1927; information from family sources.]
T.A.R.
PEARCE, RICHARD MILLS (Mar. 3, 1874-
Feb. 1 6, 1930), pathologist and authority on
medical education, was born in Montreal, Can-
ada. His father, Richard Mills Pearce, and his
mother, Sarah Smith, were both from the Unit-
ed States and moved back to New England soon
after their son was born. Pearce received his
education at Hillhouse High School in New
Haven, Conn. (1889-90), the Boston Latin
School (1890-91), the Boston College of Physi-
cians and Surgeons (1891-93), Tufts College
Medical School (1893-94; M.D., 1894), and
finally at the Harvard Medical School (M.D.
1897). His interest was directed toward pathol-
ogy by F. C. Mallory, and by W. T. Council-
man in whose department at Harvard he served
as instructor (1899-1900). From 1896 to 1899
he had acted as resident pathologist to the Bos-
ton City Hospital, and during 1899 he was pa-
thologist to three other Boston hospitals.
In 1900 he accepted a post in the department
of pathology at the University of Pennsylvania
under Simon Flexner, and the following year
went to Leipzig to work with Marchand, In
1903 he became director of the Bender Hygienic
Laboratory at Albany and professor of pathology
at Albany Medical College. He was called in
1908 to the chair of pathology at the Bellevue
354
Pearce
Hospital Medical College, New York, and in
1910 he went to the University of Pennsylvania
to occupy the first chair of research medicine to
be created in the United States, which had been
endowed by John Herr Musser. This post Pearce
held until his appointment as director of the di-
vision o£ medical education of the Rockefeller
Foundation (1920). During the War, as major
in the medical corps, he helped organize the lab-
oratory section of the army medical department
and served as chairman of the division of medi-
cine and related sciences of the Council of Na-
tional Defense.
His appointment as a research professor of
medicine marked the turning point in his career,
and he worked unremittingly throughout the rest
of his life to improve scientific medicine. In
1912 he delivered the Hitchcock lectures at Cali-
fornia, choosing as his subject "Research in
Medicine" and giving a vivid and farseeing por-
trayal of the history of medical experimentation
and of present and future problems of medical
education. Since he was a modest man of great
alertness, tact, and broad human sympathies, it
was scarcely surprising that he should have been
selected to direct the great program of medical
education inaugurated after the World War by
the Rockefeller Foundation. His approach to the
gigantic problem of improving world medicine
was simple and logical, and it reflected his ex-
traordinary combination of aptitudes for admin-
istration, teaching, and scientific investigation.
His first years were spent largely as an admin-
istrator collecting data about the conditions of
medicine in every civilized country ; his surveys
were models of detailed accuracy and clarity, and
they form an incomparable body of source ma-
terial concerning the history of contemporary
medicine. On the basis of information thus se-
cured the Foundation devoted considerable at-
tention to medical education, and in administer-
ing the large capital funds expended in influential
medical centers during the next seven years
(1922-29) Pearce's unusual gifts as a teacher
were allowed full expression. He concentrated
upon the improvement of the preclinical sciences,
giving funds for buildings and endowment, and
fellowships for the training of promising teach-
ers and investigators. To facilitate the exchange
of information and opinion between countries,
he established in 1924 an annual publication en-
titled Methods and Problems of Medical Educa-
tion. With his keen interest in fostering medical
research, he welcomed the important change of
policy reflected by the fact that on Jan. i, 1929,
the division of medical education became known
as the division of medical sciences of the Rocke-
Pearce
feller Foundation. "The new undertakings [of
the Foundation] differed from earlier programs
in being directly aimed at the advancement of
knowledge through improvement of clinical
facilities or routine teaching laboratories or
more fully trained teaching personnel instead of
the development of institutions as teaching or-
ganizations" (Gregg, post).
In addition to many early contributions to
pathology and to addresses on medical education
(collected in Medical Research and Education,
1913) Pearce published a monograph, The
Spleen and Anaemia (1918). On Nov. 6, 1902,
he married May Harper Musser; there were
two children, a son and a daughter.
IRichard Mills Pearce, Jr., M.D. 1874-1930, Ad-
dresses Delivered at a Memorial Meeting at the Rocke-
feller Institute, Apr. 15, jpjo (privately printed) ; Si-
mon Flexner, in Science, Mar. 28, 1930; Who's Who
in America, 1928—29; Alan Gregg, in Rockefeller
Foundation Quart. Bull., Oct. 1931, pp. 538-79; H. T.
Karsner, in Archives of Pathology, Mar. 1930 ; G. M.
Pierson, In Am. lour. Medic. Sci., June 1919, May
1930 ; -V. Y. Times, Feb. 17, 1930.] j ^ j?m
PEARCE, STEPHEN AUSTEN (Nov. 7,
i836~Apr. 8, 1900), musician, was born in
Brompton, Kent, England, the son of Stephen
and Elizabeth (Austen) Pearce. The father, a
postmaster, gave his six children the best edu-
cational opportunities. Two sons, Stephen and
James, received special training as organists and
choirmasters and were so similarly trained that
a biography of one to a certain degree involves
also the other. Stephen, the elder brother, was
the more learned and his influence was there-
for more far-reaching. Both boys sang in the
Rochester Cathedral and the nearby Chatham
Cathedral choirs (Episcopalian), thus taking
part daily in two services and spending the re-
maining time in the cathedral school. Both re-
ceived their most important organ training un-
der the eminent organist, John Larkin Hopkins,
and were therefore fitted for any organ position.
Both entered Oxford and took their degrees of
B.Mus., Stephen in 1859, an<i James in 1860.
Stephen continued his study and received the
degree of D.Mtis. in 1864. In that year he visit-
ed the United States and Canada, His brother
had preceded him and was organist of the Quebec
Cathedral. Stephen had held important positions
in London churches and returned to give organ
recitals at the Hanover Square Rooms and else-
where, but in 1872 he came to America to re-
side. Settling in New York, he became an im-
portant factor as organist, theorist, and writer.
He held church positions at St. George's, St
Stephen's, Zion, Ascension, the Fifth Avenue
Collegiate (Dutch Reformed), all in New York
City, and at the First Presbyterian in Jersey
355
Pearse
City. For one year (1878-79) he was instructor
in vocal music at Columbia College, He also
taught harmony and composition at the New
York College of Music and was lecturer on har-
mony at the General Theological Seminary, and
at the Peabody Institute and The Johns Hopkins
University, Baltimore. Besides these many ac-
tivities he gave numerous lectures and recitals
in other cities. He had a brilliant technique and
was doubtless one of the best organists of his
time.
With a tremendous capacity for work, in 1874
he became musical editor of the New York Eve-
ning Post and on occasion contributed articles
to the Musical Courier and to various other
periodicals. He edited a Pocket Dictionary of
Musical Terms ( 1889) in twenty-one languages,
including Arabic, Chaldaic, French, German,
and Greek. He wrote much church and piano
music and made many transcriptions of sym-
phonies and oratorios for organ. Among his
more important compositions are the following :
a three-act children's opera, La Belle Ameri-
caine] a dramatic oratorio, Celestial Visions', a
church cantata, The Psalm of Praise (in fugal
style for solos, eight-part chorus, full orchestra
and organ), performed at Oxford University;
an Overture in E minor ; an orchestral "Allegro
Agitato"; several pieces for piano, and a vocal
trio in canon form, "Bright Be Thy Dreams."
Pearce died on Apr. 8, 1900, in the Jersey
Heights Presbyterian Church. He had begun to
play the morning service, but feeling ill, he was
obliged to lie down and died almost at once of
a stroke of paralysis. In appearance he was dig-
nified and fine-looking. Dr. Waldo Selden Pratt,
who frequently heard him play, writes of him:
"My impression of him was that he was a most
competent and accomplished musician, probably
too much so to secure full recognition at the time
when he came here."
[Sources include: Theodore Baker, A Biog. Diet, of
Musicians (1900) ; Grove's Diet, of Music and Mu-
sicians: Am. Supp. (1930) ; Musical Courier, Apr. n,
1900; Evening Post (N. Y.)> Apr. 9, 10, 1900; infor-
mation as to certain facts from Pearce's niece, Miss
Ella Gilmore Pearce, Yonkers, N. Y.] ^ L, G. C.
PEARSE, JOHN BARNARD SWETT
(Apr. 19, i842-Aug. 24, 1914), metallurgist, was
born in Philadelphia, Pa. His father, Oliver
Peabody Pearse, a merchant sea-captain, was
drowned at Cape May, N. J., while saving a
bather, when John was six years of age. His
mother, Adelia Coffin ( Swett) , later married Dr.
Edward Hartshorne, a metallurgical expert,
whose experiences and influence determined the
boy's active business career. His early educa-
tion was obtained tinder Pro! Charles Short,
Pearse
who was connected subsequently with Columbia
University. By working as a machinist he also
gained a certain amount of information concern-
ing metals. Later he entered Yale University,
from which he graduated in 1861, with the de-
gree of B.A.
Returning to Philadelphia, he became con-
nected with Booth and Garrett's chemical labora-
tory, but in June 1863 assumed complete charge
of the chemical division of the United States
army's laboratory at Philadelphia, where phar-
maceutical products for the hospital service were
manufactured. At the conclusion of the Civil
War he studied metallurgy for more than a year
in the School of Mines at Freiberg, Saxony. He
then spent a similar period of time at Neuberg
and Leoben, Styria, and other places in Europe,
visiting mines and observing methods of metal
manufacturing. He returned to the United States
in December 1867, and two months later was
engaged as chemist by the Pennsylvania Steel
Works, near Harrisburg. In 1870 he was pro-
moted to the position of general manager, and
this advancement enabled him to build up an
enviable reputation as a metal expert, particular-
ly in designing and improving Bessemer steel
plants and their products. In addition to other
achievements, he was instrumental in develop-
ing for the first time the process of manufactur-
ing Bessemer pig-iron from native New Jersey
and Pennsylvania ores.
In June 1874 he resigned his position to accept
appointment as commissioner and secretary of
the second Pennsylvania geological survey,
which positions he held until 1881. He was also
active on the committee in charge of metallurgi-
cal and mining exhibits displayed at the Centen-
nial Exhibition, Philadelphia. In 1876 he became
general manager of the South Boston Iron Com-
pany, a concern engaged in general machine and
foundry work, and particularly in the manufac-
turing of ordnance and projectiles for the United
States government. During the next seven years
his keen mind and tireless efforts enabled the
company to produce new and better products. In
1883, however, his health broke down and he
retired from active participation in metallurgical
enterprises. The remainder of his life was spent
in cultural vocations and in travel. Until 1889
he lived in England studying music, particularly
the violin. During the latter part of his life his
home was in Boston. He died at his summer
residence in Georgeville, Quebec.
He was the author of several publications pre-
pared during the earlier years of his career. In
1869 he completed a translation of A Treatise on
Roll Turning for the Manufacture of Iron from
356
Pearson
the German of Peter Tunner. He contributed
a paper "On the Use of Natural Gas in Iron
Work/' to Reports on the Second Geological Sur-
vey of Pennsylvania (1875). His largest single
published work was an historical essay entitled
A Concise History of the Iron Manufacture of
the American Colonies up to the Revolution and
of Pennsylvania until the Present Time (1876).
Three of his papers were printed in the Trans-
actions of the American Institute of Mining En-
gineers, entitled, "The Manufacture of Iron and
Steel Rails" (vol. I, 1874), "The Improved Bes-
semer Plant" (vol. IV, 1877), and "Iron and
Carbon, Mechanically and Chemically Consid-
ered" (Ibid.").
He was married in Arlington, Mass., Nov. i,
1876, to Mary Langdon Williams, daughter of
David W. Williams of Roxbury (now part of
Boston) , Mass. A son and a daughter were born
to them.
{Monthly Bull. Am. Inst. Mining Engineers, Dec.
1914; Directory of Living Grads. of Yale Univ. (1904) ;
The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Class of 1861, Yale
Coll. (1912) ; Obit. Record Grads. Yale Univ. (1915) ;
Boston Transcript, Aug. 27, 1914; information from
Pearse's son, Langdon Pearse.] H. S. P.
PEARSON, EDWARD JONES (Oct. 4,
i863-Dec. 7, 1928), railroad engineer, best
known as chief executive of the New York, New
Haven & Hartford Railroad, was born in Rock-
ville, Ind., the son of Leonard and Lucy Small
(Jones) Pearson and a brother of Leonard Pear-
son [g.z>.]. After preliminary schooling in the
West, he entered Cornell University, where he
received the degree of B.S. in engineering in
1883. On June 7, 1899, he married Gertrude S.
Simmons of Evanston, 111. ; one son was born to
them.
Pearson's first railroad experience was with
the Missouri Pacific in 1881 as a rodman on the
extension from Atchison, Kan., to Omaha, Nebr.
The following year he was engaged in construc-
tion work in Indian Territory on the line of the
Atlantic & Pacific Railroad. In 1883 he was
engaged as assistant engineer for the Northern
Pacific, to work on the terminal at Portland,
Ore., and subsequently was made supervisor of
the St. Paul division (1884), supervisor of
bridges, buildings, and water supply of the Min-
nesota and St. Paul divisions (1885), and en-
gineer in charge of construction train service
(1890). In the years 1892-94 he was principal
assistant engineer of the Chicago terminal lines
in which the Northern Pacific was interested.
Returning to the exclusive service of the North-
ern Pacific, he continued to rise in rank, be-
coming1 superintendent of the Yellowstone di-
vision (1894), superintendent of the Rocky
Pearson
Mountain division (1895), superintendent of the
Pacific division (1898), assistant general super-
intendent of the eastern division (1902), acting
chief engineer (1903), and chief engineer
(1904).
The transcontinental extension of the Chicago,
Milwaukee & St. Paul attracted Pearson in 1905,
and he became chief engineer of the Chicago,
Milwaukee & Puget Sound Railway, which con-
structed the Pacific extension for the parent com-
pany. During his period of service that road
was completed. On June i, 1911, he became vice-
president of the Missouri Pacific and of the St.
Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern, having charge
of maintenance, operation, and construction. He
took a similar vice-presidency of the Texas &
Pacific, in March 1915, primarily to direct the
construction of a terminal at New Orleans. The
following year he accepted still another position
of like nature, the vice-presidency of the New
York, New Haven & Hartford, with the duty of
acting as assistant to the president and of con-
trolling construction, operation, and mainte-
nance. Upon the death of President Howard El-
liott, Pearson on May I, 1917, succeeded him.
During the administration of former president
Charles S. Mellen fo.zrj the "New Haven" had
fallen into bad physical and financial condition.
The buildings, equipment, and roadbed needed
extensive repairs, provision had to be made for
a considerable floating debt, rates had to be re-
adjusted, and disposition had to be made of nu-
merous "outside properties." No dividends had
been paid on the common stock since December
1913. The task of meeting these and other dif-
ficulties had undoubtedly hastened the death of
former President Elliott. During Pearson's presi-
dency, which included the war period in which
he acted as federal manager, considerable prog-
ress was made in restoring the road. Obviously
the boom of the 1920*5 played a part. By 1924
the road showed an operating profit, and the fol-
lowing year Pearson was able to float a bond
issue in New England, thus bringing to a suc-
cessful culmination a long fight to obtain local
support Dividends on the common stock were
resumed in 1928. This same year, however,
Pearson's health gave way, due in part, no doubt,
to his tireless and unsparing efforts on behalf of
the road. On Oct 23 he entered the Johns Hop-
kins Hospital, Baltimore ; on Nov. 26 he tendered
his resignation as president, to take effect at the
end of the year ; and the following month he died.
{The Biog. Directory of the Railway Officers of Amer-
ica (1913); Railroad Gazette,, May 9, 1902; Railway
Age Gazette, Mar. 26, Apir. 2, 1915, Mar. 17, 1916;
Railway Age, Dec. i, 15, 1928 ; Wha's Who mAwtencm*
1928-29 ; N. Y. Times, Dec. 8, 1928.! R.E.R.
357
Pearson
PEARSON, ELIPHALET (June 11, 1752-
Sept. 12, 1826), first principal of Phillips Acad-
emy, Andover, was born in Newbury, Mass., the
eldest son of David Pearson, a thrifty farmer
and miller, and his wife, Sarah (Danforth) Pear-
son. At Dummer Academy, in Byfield, where he
studied under the famous Master William Moody,
Pearson first met Samuel Phillips \_q.v.~\y with
whom he formed an enduring friendship. He
graduated from Harvard College in the class of
1773, his Commencement part, a disputation with
Theodore Parsons, being considered so excellent
that it was published as a pamphlet {A Forensic
Dispute on the Legality of Enslaving the Afri-
cans, 1773). He remained at Cambridge for
further study, and was later licensed to preach
but was never a candidate for a pastorate.
At the outbreak of the Revolution he withdrew
to Andover, escorting the widow of President
Holyoke of Harvard and her daughter Pr is cilia.
At Andover, he taught in the grammar school,
joined his friend Phillips in various projects, and
especially aided him in drawing up the consti-
tution of Phillips Academy, of which, at the
unanimous request of the trustees, he became the
first principal when it was opened in 1778. De-
scribed by Oliver Wendell Holmes as having a
"big name, big frame, big voice, and beetling
brow" (The Complete Poetical Works, Cam-
bridge edition, 1895, P- 257)» ne was a strict
disciplinarian, who, through his masterful per-
sonality and careful supervision of his students,
established confidence in the new institution.
But he chafed under the irritating restraints of
his position and, when he received in 1786 a call
to become Hancock Professor of Hebrew and
Oriental Languages at Harvard, he was glad to
escape to Cambridge. On July 17, 1780, he mar-
ried Priscilla Holyoke, twelve years older than
he, who brought him a dowry of $8,000 ; by her
he had a daughter. After his wife's death in 1782,
he married, Sept. 29, 1785, Sarah Bromfield, by
whom he had four children.
At Harvard, Pearson was an influential figure,
who, after the death of President Willard in
1804, assumed the duties of president and, but
for his orthodox and conservative Calvinistic
views, might have been elected as Willard's suc-
cessor. The growing spirit of Unitarianism be-
ing distasteful to him, he resigned in 1806 and
returned to Andover, where he was instrumental
through his perseverance and tireless energy in
founding Andover Theological Seminary, des-
tined to become a citadel of Congregational theol-
ogy in New England For one year (iSoS-op)
he was professor of sacred theology in the Semi-
nary, but then retired in favor of Moses Sttiart
Pearson
[q.v.]. He remained in Andover, however, until
1820, as president of the board of trustees of both
the academy and the seminary, an office to which
he had been elected on Aug. 17, 1802, and which
he did not resign until Aug. 20, 1821. In 1820
he moved to Harvard, Worcester County, Mass.
He died in Greenland, N. H., while on a visit to
a daughter, and was buried in the local cemetery.
He was extraordinarily versatile, being both
business man and scholar, musician and agricul-
turist, preacher and mechanic. Several of his
sermons, preached on special occasions, were
published. His austerity, intolerance, and ex-
plosiveness made him many enemies, but his
rugged personality and brilliant, restless intel-
lect played an important part in American edu-
cational history. His students called him "Ele-
phant," "because of his ponderous name and
figure." A recitation building on Andover Hill
is named Pearson Hall in his memory.
[C. C. Carpenter, Biog. Cat. of . . . Phillips Acad.,
Andover (1903) ; Phillips Bull., Jan. 1914 ; C. M. Fuess,
An Old New England School (1917) ; W. B. Sprague,
Annals Am. Pulpit, vol. II (1857).] C.M F
PEARSON, FRED STARK (July 3, 1861-
May 7, 1915), engineer, the son of Ambrose and
Hannah (Edgerly) Pearson, was born in Lowell,
Mass. He entered Tufts College in 1879, studied
during the following year at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, and then returned to
Tufts where he graduated in 1883. For three
years thereafter, while he served at Tufts as in-
structor in mathematics and applied mechanics,
he pursued further studies and conducted inves-
tigations for various commercial interests. From
1889 to 1893 he was engaged in the electrification
of the West End Street Railway of Boston, Mass.
Cars had been run by electricity before, but this
was the first system of electric traction to be
operated on a great scale and for many years it
was the model for all who sought to equip electric
railways. The generators at the main power plant
were increased at his direction from 120 to 500
horse power — a step so unprecedented that the
Westinghouse Company refused to bid on the
work. The late George Westinghouse considered
this project as epoch-making in the development
of the dynamo. Throughout his life Pearson Jed
his profession in making demands upon manufac-
turers for increasing the size of machinery to
the highest practical efficiency.
He was responsible for the introduction of
electric street cars in Brooklyn, in connection
with which project he designed and erected what
was then the largest and most modern electric
power station. For the Metropolitan Street Rail-
way Company of New York City with which he
358
Pearson
was associated from 1894 to *&99, he devised
and put into successful operation the under-
ground conduit or trolley. It still remains prac-
tically as he left it. For this company he de-
signed and erected the 96th Street Power House,
at the time (1896) the largest in the country
with a total generating capacity of 70,000 horse
power. During this period he was in great de-
mand as consulting engineer for electric railways
and power transmission lines in the United
States, in Canada, Cuba, Jamaica, and England.
Pearson also served as chief engineer for the
Dominion Coal Company, refusing at one time
the presidency of that concern.
Pearson's interests were largely transferred
to foreign countries after 1899. In Brazil, he
undertook the task of furnishing power to the
city of Sao Paulo by developing the Rio Tiete.
At the Falls of Necaxa in Mexico, he built a
plant transmitting between 100,000 and 200,000
horse power to the city of Mexico ninety-five
miles away. Later he constructed a plant of about
the same magnitude at Niagara Falls for supply-
ing electric light and power to Toronto 100 miles
distant. At Lac de Bonnet, on the Winnipeg
River, he built a 25,000 horse power plant for
the city of Winnipeg, Canada. The development
of a power plant of about 40,000 horse power for
the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was his next
great enterprise, and this was followed by his
last important work, the development of the Ebro
River for the general use of the city of Bar-
celona, Spain. The World War, however, in-
terrupted this work when it was near comple-
tion.
In addition to his achievements in electrical
engineering, Pearson directed many enterprises
in other fields, mining, railroading, lumbering,
and irrigation. To indulge his love of nature he
developed and managed a beautiful estate of
thousands of acres in the hill country of western
Massachusetts. He was married on Jan. 5, 1887,
to Mabel Ward, of Lowell, Mass. Both lost their
lives when the Lusitania was sunk on May 7,
1915. They were survived by two sons and one
daughter. "Pearson was a man of tireless en-
ergy. . . . Every subject that he touched he
seemed to absorb and master as though he had a
special aptitude for every science. His versa-
tility of intellect was marked by all who knew
him. He possessed a constructive and creative
imagination without which he could never have
achieved the enormous works he left, involving,
as they did, great originality and prompt com-
prehension of complicated situations" (Trcmsac-
tions of the American Society of Civil Engineers,
vol. LXXXVII, 1914, p. 1404).
Pearson
IWho's Who in America, 1914-15; Gen. Electric
Rev., vol. XVIII, 1915 ; Frederic I. Winsiow, Trans.
Am. Soc. Civil Eng., vol. LXXXVII, 1924 ; Proc. Am.
Inst. Electrical Eng., June 1915 ; C. Martyn, The Wil-
liam Ward Genealogy (1925) ; N. Y. Times, May 8,
I9I5'] B.A.R.
PEARSON, LEONARD (Aug. 17, 1868-
Sept 20, 1909), veterinarian, was born in Evans-
ville, Ind., the brother of Edward Jones Pearson
\_q.v.~\ and the son of Leonard and Lucy Small
(Jones) Pearson, natives of New England. His
preliminary education was obtained mostly from
his mother. From early boyhood he was inter-
ested in animals and when he went to Cornell
University at sixteen, he elected all the courses
offered in veterinary science. Graduating (B.S.)
in ^1888, he worked for the federal bureau of
animal industry during the summer and In the
fall entered the Veterinary School at the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania. When he received his
degree of Doctor of Veterinary Medicine ( 1890)
he accepted a position on the teaching staff, with,
permission to spend the first year in graduate
study abroad. In the course of his studies in
Germany, he discovered the thermal reaction
produced by malleln in horses Infected with
glanders, and he became deeply interested in
tuberculin (just then discovered by Koch) when,
in January 1891, Professor Gutmann, of the
Veterinary Institute at Dorpat, Russia, demon-
strated that it could be used to discover the pres-
ence of tuberculosis in cattle before any physical
signs were apparent
In the fall of 1891, he returned to Philadelphia
and began his work in the University of Penn-
sylvania as assistant professor of veterinary
medicine, being promoted to a full professorship
three years later. He also engaged in practice,
and within a few months, in March 1892, made
the first tuberculin test of cattle in the western
hemisphere. In the years immediately follow-
ing, through his addresses and writings, he was
one of the chief factors in bringing about the
general acceptance of this test When the State
Livestock Sanitary Board was established in
1895, he was appointed state veterinarian, be-
coming a member of the board ex officio. He
took office Jan. 1, 1896. His organization of the
work of the board, the laws lie devised and in-
duced the legislature to pass, and his system of
suppressing bovine tuberculosis operated so sat-
isfactorily that they were regarded as models
and were copied by other states (see his "The
Pennsylvania Plan for Controlling Tubercu-
losis," Proceedings of the American Vetenmry
Medical Association, 1899). Almost at tfoe be-
ginning of the work, he prevailed upon the foowf
to establish a laboratory for researdi, ^
359
Pearson
versity of Pennsylvania providing the space at
the Veterinary School. Here, in collaboration
with M. P. Ravenel and S. H. Gilliland, he did
work that attracted world-wide attention on the
relation of bovine to human tuberculosis and on
the vaccination of cattle against tuberculosis
(Ravenel, "Comparative Virulence of the Tuber-
cle Bacillus from Human and Bovine Sources,"
Transactions of the British Congress on Tuber-
culosis, 1901 f vol. Ill, 1902; Gilliland, The Pro-
duction of Artificial Immunity against Tuber-
culosis in Cattle, Pennsylvania State Livestock
Sanitary Board, Circular 32, 1915). In 1908, in
recognition of his researches, the University of
Pennsylvania conferred on him an honorary doc-
torate of medicine.
While developing and directing the work of
the State Livestock Sanitary Board, he continued
his connection with the Veterinary School. His
conception of the relation of veterinary medicine
to the public health on the one hand and to the
economics of agriculture on the other and his
revelation of the great opportunities for research
inspired his students. In 1897, he was appoint-
ed dean of the faculty. Through his efforts the
endowment funds of the school were consider-
ably increased, the support of the livestock in-
dustry was enlisted, and in the course of eight
years a total of $450,000 was appropriated to the
University of Pennsylvania to erect and equip
buildings for the Veterinary School. Additional
funds were secured which made it possible to
reorganize and enlarge the teaching staff, pro-
viding facilities for instruction and research
which were unequaled in the United States.
Pearson was of a robust, vigorous constitution
and there seemed to be no limit to his capacity
for work but eventually, under the intense strain,
his health began to fail. In the summer of 1908,
his friends advised him to take a rest, but he
continued at work until the following June,
when he went away, too late, to rest and recu-
perate. He died, unmarried, at Spruce Brook,
Newfoundland, in September 1909, aged forty-
one. During his professional career he held many
positions of honor and trust. In 1903, he became
a member of the Philadelphia board of health
and, in 1905, of the advisory board of the state
department of health. He was a member of nu-
merous professional, scientific, and agricultural
societies* and was honored with the presidency
of all the professional organisations in which he
held membership.
[Leonard Pearson (1909), repr. from^m, Veterinary
Rev.f Oct, 1909; In tyemoriam — Leonard Pearson
(n.<L) ; L. A. Klein, "Pioneer Work in Tuberculosis
Control," Jour. Am* Vefermaary MeMc. Ass&.> Jan.
1921 ; Who's Who in America, xo/oS-o^; N. Y» Medic.
Pearson
Jour., Oct. 2, igog-)fPub. Ledger (Phila.), Sept. 21,
1909; personal acquaintance.] L A K
PEARSON, RICHMOND MUMFORD
(June 28, i8o5-Jan. 5, 1878), jurist, was born in
Rowan County, N. C. His father, Richmond
Pearson, who moved from Virginia to North
Carolina after service in the Revolution, was a
planter and merchant ; his mother, Elizabeth, was
the daughter of Robinson Mumford, of Con-
necticut parentage, a descendant of Elder Wil-
liam Brewster \_q.v.] who had settled in North
Carolina after a period in Jamaica (J. R. Totten,
Christophers Genealogy, 1921, p. 143 and pas-
sim'). Young Pearson was prepared for college
in Washington, D. C., and at Salisbury, N. C,
and was graduated from the University of North
Carolina in 1823. Studying law, he was admitted
to the bar in 1826 and began practice at Salis-
bury. He was a good lawyer, not eloquent, but
painstaking in preparation of cases. His presen-
tation of them was simple, logical, and, as he
would have phrased it, "full of meat." He began
in 1829 four successive terms in the House of
Commons. In 1835 he was defeated for Con-
gress, and in 1836 was elected a judge of the
superior court. During the next twelve years he
gained reputation as an unusually able and effi-
cient trial judge. In 1848, although a Whig, he
was elected associate justice of the supreme court
by a Democratic legislature. Ten years later he
became chief justice. In 1865 he was defeated
for the "Johnson" convention, by which all of-
fices were vacated, but he was at once reelected
chief justice, and in 1868, the existing govern-
ment having been overthrown by congressional
reconstruction, he was the choice of both parties
for the same position, which he held until his
death from apoplexy in Winston while on his
way to a session of the court. He was twice
married: on June 12, 1831, to Margaret Mc-
Clung Williams, daughter of Senator John Wil-
liams of Knoxville, Tenn., and, after her death,
in 1859 to Mary (McDowell), widow of John
Gray By num.
In 1836 Pearson established a law school at
Mocksville. He moved to Richmond Hill in
Surry County in 1848 and continued the school
there. He proved himself a really great teacher,
and more than a thousand students read law un-
der him, whom he filled with enthusiasm for the
subject and with lasting personal affection for
himself. Three of them were later on the su-
preme bench with him. He was plain and sim-
ple in manner, with a touch of the rough and un-
couth, which many thought he cultivated. He
had no high degree of culture, was cold and stem
in temperament, inclined to be unforgiving in
Pearson
disposition, and was relentless in his determined
ambition. For many years he drank to excess.
Cold in temper though he was, in intellect he
was blazing1. He had strong native powers of
mind, and, never a wide reader, achieved his in-
tellectual development through reasoning. As a
judge, while a master of the common law, he
cared little for precedents. He grasped prin-
ciples firmly and recognized the most delicate
distinctions. A striking characteristic was his
ability to cut through the artificial and irrelevant
matter in a case and reach directly the matter at
issue. His style was terse and pithy, baldly un-
adorned, clear and strong, and his opinions
abounded in homely illustrations drawn from
every-day life. All his opinions reflect the clarity
of his thinking, his grasp of his subject and the
law applicable to it, his power of logical analysis
and deduction, and his strong personality. They
are more, says one commentator, "than repeated
precedents, abstract statements, and tedious de-
tails. They glow with life, abound with reason,
and clothe the law in rich apparel and endow its
precepts with soul and spirit" (Lewis, post, p.
254). Comparison of Pearson with Thomas Ruf-
fin [#:£>.], his great predecessor, is almost in-
evitable. In equity Pearson did not approach
him, but in the common law he was certainly
Rufiin's equal, if not his superior. "If Ruffin had
more scope,, Pearson had more point. If Ruffin
had more learning, Pearson had more accuracy.
If Ruffin was larger, Pearson was finer" (Edwin
G. Reade, in 78 N. C.f 501 ) . Certainly, too, Pear-
son was more original.
During the Civil War, Pearson incurred great
unpopularity throughout the South by his de-
cisions in habeas corpus proceedings growing
out of the conscription laws, which his critics
declared were designed to injure the Confederate
cause. His whole conduct in the matter shows
his disregard for precedents and for the opinion
of others, but his rulings were in accordance with
law and were upheld by his colleagues until in
Gatlin vs. Walton (60 N. C.f 325), a case in-
volving the power of Congress to change the
terms of exemption, he was overruled. His dis-
senting opinion is notably weak. He opposed
secession on constitutional and moral grounds,
and he had no love for the Confederacy, but there
was about him no taint of disloyalty toward his
state. More open to criticism, however, was his
conduct during reconstruction. In 1868 he identi-
fied himself with the Republican party, published
an appeal for Grant's election, and in other ways
was active politically. When the bar tinder the
lead of B. F. Moore signed a protest against
the political activity of the judges, he was the
Pearsons
prime mover for disabling the signers from prac-
tice (In the Matter of B. F. Moore cmd Others,
63 N. C., 389) and did not thereby add to his
legal reputation. In 1870 when the Kirk-Holden
war occurred, he issued the writ of habeas corpus
for those illegally held, but, forgetting his fa-
vorite legal maxim, fiat jiistitia, ruat coelum,
which he had uttered so often in 1863 an^ 1864,
he sustained the governor — William Woods Hoi-
den [q.v.] — to the extent of refusing to summon
a posse comitatus to enforce the writs, but, in-
stead, declared the power of the judiciary ex-
hausted (Ex parte Adolphus G. Moore and
Others, 64 N. C.t 802). When the collapse of the
movement came, he was pathetically fearful of
impeachment. He engaged counsel and prepared
a defense which he submitted to the Senate only
to have it rejected. He was not impeached,
however ; largely, it is supposed, because of the
influence of his former students. He presided
with outward impartiality in the impeachment
trial of Holden, but his sympathies were natural-
ly with the Governor and he privately advised
his counsel as to their conduct of the case.
[S. A. Ashe, Biog. Hist, of N. C.t vol. V (1906) ;
W. D. Lewis, Great Am. Lawyers, vol. V (1908) ; J. G.
deR. Hamilton, Reconstruction in N. C. (1914), apd
"The N. C. Courts and the Confederacy," in N. C. Hist.
Rev., Oct. 1927; 31-35 and 40-77 N. C. Reports;
"Proceedings in Memory of Richmond M. Pearson/'
78 N. C.t 493-509; Morning Star (Wilmington), Jan.
8.1878.] J.G.deR.H.
PEARSONS, DANIEL KIMBALL (Apr. 14,
i820-Apr. 27, 1912), physician, financier, phil-
anthropist, was born at Bradford, Vt, beside the
Connecticut River, in a farmhouse that served
also as a wayside inn. His father, John Pear-
sons, was of Scotch ancestry; his mother, whom
he resembled in physical and mental qualities,
was Hannah (Putnam) Pearsons, a distant re-
lation of Gen. Israel Putnam. He studied in
academies at Bradford and Newbury, and at-
tended Dartmouth College during the freshman
year, boarding himself and living on less than
one dollar a week, a part of which expense he met
by sawing wood at twenty-five cents a cord.
Graduating in 1841 from the Vermont Medical
College, Woodstock, he entered his profession in
Chicopee, Mass., and was promptly successful.
In August 1847 he married Marrietta Chapin,
daughter of Deacon Giles Chapin of Chicopee;
to her at the end of his career he emphatically
ascribed much of the credit for his philanthropies*
At her suggestion he sold both their home and
his practice in 1851, with a view to entering busi-
ness, for which she thought he possessed special
aptitude. They spent six months in -Europe, atwi
then for a few years Pearsons introduced
361
Pearsons
books on physiology, lecturing on the subject in
the colleges of several Southern states, in the
East, and in the interior. Being asked by ac-
quaintances in Massachusetts to undertake the
sale of their farm lands in Illinois, he went to
Chicago in 1860 and later became agent for the
sale of many thousands of acres held by private
owners and by the Illinois Central Railroad Com-
pany. An eastern life insurance company also
entrusted funds to him for loaning on farm mort-
gages. Hay was selling at one dollar and a half
per ton and corn at ten cents a bushel, but Pear-
sons inspired possible buyers and despondent
farmers with his courage and foresight of future
values. In a few years he had sold 200,000 acres.
He became a director of Chicago banks and other
enterprises, and against the advice of friends
invested largely in Michigan pine lands which
became very valuable. He served on the Chi-
cago city council, 1873-76, and as chairman of
its finance committee gave important assistance
in rehabilitating the city's finances which had
been demoralized by the devastating fire of 1871.
He was one of the founders of the Presbyterian
Hospital, 1883, and president of its board for
about five years.
In 1885 he removed to Hinsdale, 111., and in
1889 retired from business to devote himself to
giving away his fortune. After making a few
preliminary gifts, he sailed with his wife for a
year in Europe and the Near East. Returning
in 1890 he set himself with characteristic thor-
oughness and zest to the work he had projected
for the next twenty years — for he fully expected
to live to the age of ninety. Keenly interested in
education from his youth, he was convinced that
the colleges of the West and South were of
utmost importance to the future of America. At
that time they were meagerly endowed and ill
able to meet growing educational requirements.
Pearsons decided to devote to selected colleges
the bulk of his fortune, about five million dollars,
by making gifts conditioned upon the securing
by the colleges of larger total amounts from
others, thus stimulating the institutions to in-
creased exertions and multiplying the number of
their supporters. In this way he imparted a pow-
erful stimulus to some forty colleges and several
secondary schools. The colleges specially singled
out by him for repeated gifts were Whitman
(Washington), Pomona (California), Lake
Forest (Illinois), Knox (Illinois), Yankton
(South Dakota), Berea (Kentucky), Mount
Holyoke (Massachusetts), and, for the largest
amount of all, Beloit (Wisconsin). Healsogave
liberally to the Chicago Young Men's Christian
Association, Chicago Theological Seminary,
Peary
Chicago City Missionary Society, and to the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign
Missions.
Pearsons was as unusual in characteristics as
in career. Tall, erect, with piercing black eyes,
abrupt and unconventional in speech, caustic in
criticisms, adamant in refusals, an iconoclast yet
a reverent idealist, a rigid economist and a prince-
ly giver, severe in manner but profound in his af-
fections, he was regarded by those who knew
him but slightly as an interesting eccentric;
those who understood him honored and loved
him. He died at ninety-two, having divested
himself of all his possessions excepting a small
annuity and regarding himself as one of the hap-
piest men in the world.
[E. F. Williams, The Life of Dr. D. K. Pearsons
. . . (1911) ; D. K. Pearsons, Daniel K. Pearsons, His
Life and Works (1912), of much less value; E. D.
Eaton, Historical Sketches of Beloit College (1928) ;
Who's Who in America, 1912-13; Congregationdisi,
May 4, n, 1912; Literary Digest, May n, 1912; Chi-
cago Evening Post, Apr. 27, 1912.] EDE
PEARY, ROBERT EDWIN (May 6, 1856-
Feb. 20, 1920), Arctic explorer, the only son of
Charles Peary and Mary (Wiley) Peary, came
of French and British stock long settled in New
England. He was born at Cresson, Pa., whither
his family had moved from Maine to engage in
the manufacture of barrel heads and staves. On
the death of the father, when Robert was not
quite three years old, mother and son returned
to Maine, settling at Cape Elizabeth, not far
from Portland. In the rugged surroundings of
this region he spent his childhood and youth, de-
veloping the splendid constitution which was to
stand him in such good stead in his arduous work
later. His education he received in the local
public schools and in the Portland High School,
and in 1873 he entered Bowdoin College. Here
he chose the civil engineering course, did well in
his studies, and also took a prominent part in
athletics.
On graduation, in 1877, he became a country
surveyor in Fryeburg, Me. Two years later he
entered the United States Coast and Geodetic
Survey at Washington, D. C., as a cartographic
draftsman, and after two years' service here, he
joined the corps of civil engineers of the navy
with the rank of lieutenant (Oct. 26, 1881). In
1884 he went to Nicaragua as assistant engineer
of the expedition sent to survey a route for the
proposed Nicaragua ship canal. He returned to
the United States the following summer. That
autumn, in the course of casual reading, he
came upon a paper describing the inland ice of
Greenland. It captured his interest and he began
reading all he could find on the subject The
362
Peary
vast interior of Greenland was at this time still
unexplored, and Peary became fired with the
ambition to cross the inland ice. Securing six
months* leave in the summer of 1886, he em-
barked as a supercargo aboard a steam whaler,
which dropped him off at Godhavn on the west
coast of Greenland.
His aim on this expedition was, in his own
words, "to gain a practical knowledge of the
obstacles and ice conditions of the interior; to
put to the test of actual use certain methods and
details of equipment ; to make such scientific ob-
servations as might be practicable" ("A Recon-
naissance/' post, p. 261 ) . He enlisted the inter-
est of a young Danish official at Godhavn, and
the two young men with a party of eight natives
carried equipment, provisions, and two sledges
up to the foot of the ice cap, 1,100 feet above sea
level. Here the two explorers started off alone,
dragging their sledges. The steep slope was
traversed by ridges and gullies with nearly ver-
tical walls and by cracks and crevasses of all
widths. They had to contend further with heavy
head winds, sleet, and snow. After three weeks
they had come about 100 miles from the ice foot,
reaching an elevation 7,500 feet above sea level.
Another storm now set in and by this time they
had rations for but six days, so that return was
imperative.
As a result of this reconnaissance, Peary be-
came confirmed in his desire to make Arctic re-
search his life work. On returning to the United
States he published an account of his experiences
in the Bulletin of the American Geographical
Society (Sept 30, 1887) under the title, "A
Reconnaissance of the Greenland Inland Ice."
The following year his official duties again took
him to Nicaragua, this time as engineer in chief
of the Nicaragua Canal Survey. On his return
he was married, Aug. n, 1888, to Josephine
Diebitsch of Washington, and for the three years
following was engaged on naval engineering du-
ties along the Atlantic seaboard, chiefly in New
York and Philadelphia. All his spare time was
spent in studies dealing with the Arctic and he
took advantage of every opportunity to lay be-
fore various scientific societies his plans for the
crossing of Greenland. He was confident that
by starting at the right time of year and follow-
ing the route of his reconnaissance, he could
cover the distance across and back in a single
season. To secure financial help for his pro-
posed expedition he stressed the fact that if suc-
cessful it would give America priority in the
crossing of Greenland.
His efforts to enlist help in financing an expe-
dition appeared ready to bear fruit when, early
Peary
in 1889, came the news of the crossing of Green-
land by the young Norwegian explorer, Fridtjof
Nansen. This was a serious blow to Peary's
hopes, for now the mere crossing of the inland
ice could no longer be urged to secure help for
an expedition. He therefore began stressing- the
importance of solving the mystery of Green-
land and of determining its northern extent. So
earnestly did he labor that he received the sup*
port of various American scientific and geo-
graphical societies, and early in 1891 he secured
eighteen months' leave for the purpose of reach-
ing the northern terminus of Greenland by way
of the inland ice. On June 6 of that year the
party, consisting of six men and Mrs. Peary,
left New York aboard the Kite, a Newfoundland
sealer which had been chartered for the purpose.
On July n, the Kite was ramming a passage
through some heavy ice off the west coast of
Greenland when a blow from the iron tiller
broke both bones of Peary's right leg just above
the ankle. Despite the accident he determined
to carry on, and two weeks later the party land-
ed, the leader being carried ashore. The Kite
then left, to return the following summer to
bring the explorers home. Scientific observa-
tions were begun at once and a house built be-
fore the end of August, when the snow began to
fall. Peary by this time was able to hobble
about on crutches. On Oct 19, the sun was seen
for the last time, and the six men together with
Mrs. Peary — the first white woman to winter
with an Arctic expedition — settled down for the
long polar night A number of Eskimos, too,
had by this time joined the expedition. Under
Peary's leadership the party kept constantly oc-
cupied so that when the sun returned in the mid-
dle of February they were all in good condition.
By the middle of May the supplies had been
transported to the edge of the inland ice and by
May 24 Peary and three of his men had reached
a point about 130 miles from their winter camp.
From this place, with one companion and six-
teen dogs, Peary continued northeastward for
a month, when the northernmost limit of the ice
cap was passed and one of the objects of the
expedition was achieved. Several days later they
came to the Greenland shore of the Arctic ocean,
pretty well establishing the insularity of Green-
land On his return to base, which took a month,
Peary found the Kite at anchor and in Septem-
ber the party reached New York.
This expedition established a brilliant record
of achievement By itself, the sledge journey to
the northeast coast of Greenland and back — 1,300
miles — was an accomplishment of the first mag-
nitude. Furthermore, in addition to determmliig"
363
Peary
the northernmost extension of the ice cap and
the insularity of Greenland, this small party had
made tidal and meteorological observations,
brought back detailed knowledge of hitherto un-
known territory, and carried out a careful ethno-
logical study of a little known tribe of Eskimos.
On his return Peary received generous recog-
nition, and a lecture tour he made that winter
proved successful. The public interest aroused
by his achievement as well as the funds from the
lecture tour he turned to account in the interest
of another expedition to follow up his discoveries,
and the month of August 1893 found him again
on the west coast of Greenland near his former
base. Besides Peary, the party consisted of Mrs.
Peary, a nurse, and twelve men. In September
the number was increased by the birth of the
Peary s* first child, Marie Ahnighito, born far-
ther north than any other white child in the
world.
One aim of this expedition was to follow up
the land north of Greenland discovered on the
previous expedition and reach the Pole if pos-
sible. The winter of 1893-94 proved to be a hard
one, several of the men broke down, and when in
March the trip across the ice cap was begun, a
succession of violent storms so crippled the party
that after making 120 miles it was necessary to
return. By the time they had recuperated, after
six weeks, a trip across the ice cap was out of
question. In August the steamer appeared to take
the explorers home, and all but Peary and two
of his men returned. The following spring ( 1895)
the three succeeded in crossing the inland ice,
but lack of food and supplies prevented any fur-
ther exploration on the east coast of Greenland.
After considerable hardship they returned to the
base camp the latter part of June. In August
the steamer arrived and Peary took the oppor-
tunity to bring back to the United States two of
three large meteorites he had discovered the year
before. One of these weighed half a ton and the
other three tons. While there was recognition
that the expedition had to cope with unusual
hardships, the public verdict was that it had met
defeat, even if undeserved. The defeat, however,
did not lessen Peary's determination to continue
in Arctic exploration. While the public mood
in the United States was at the moment not fa-
vorable to any ambitious Arctic undertaking, he
kept interest in the region alive by organizing a
party for scientific work along the west coast of
Greenland during the summer of 1896. One of
the aims of this expedition was to bring back the
largest of the meteorites he had discovered, which
weighed ninety tons. In this he was unsuccess-
ful and it was only in tbe following y«ar, on a
Peary
similar expedition, that he succeeded in bringing
it back.
As a result of his experiences Peary had come
to the conclusion that the only practicable means
for reaching the North Pole consisted in push-
ing a ship as far northward as possible to a win-
ter harbor on the Greenland coast, and then early
in spring traveling with dogs and sledges due
north until the Pole was attained. In the winter
of 1896-97 he went to London, and in a lecture
before the Royal Geographical Society outlined
his plan for reaching the Pole. It won the in-
terest of Lord Northcliffe, who thereupon pre-
sented Peary with the Windward, the ship that
had recently been used in Arctic exploration by
a British expedition. Peary now judged the time
ripe for an American Arctic expedition. Inter-
est in polar exploration had become world-wide.
The famous Norwegian explorer, Fridtjof Nan-
sen, had just returned from his daring expedition
in the Fram, during which he made a new record
for "farthest north," wresting this record from
the American, James Booth Lockwood [q.vJ\t
who had held it for twenty years. Peary now
took the opportunity to write his Northward
over the "Great Ice" which was to appear in
1898 in two volumes, and which gave a record
of all his expeditions up to this time. The Navy
Department did not look favorably on further
Arctic exploration, however, and in April 1897
ordered him to report for duty at San Francisco.
Immediately he put in a request for five years1
leave of absence, but the efforts of prominent sci-
entists to have the Department rescind its order
and grant the leave proved ineffectual. It was
only a chance meeting with an influential Repub-
lican, Charles A. Moore, a day or two before
Peary's scheduled departure for San Francisco,
that saved the situation. Moore took the case to
President McKinley personally, and it was on
the latter's order that the five years' leave was
granted.
In the midst of preparations for this am-
bitious expedition the Spanish-American War
broke out Peary was now forty-two years old,
with a number of years of Arctic experience and
with preparations for his expedition nearly com-
plete. To drop his enterprise at this juncture
would in all probability mean the end of Arctic
work for him. Under the circumstances, he felt
that his polar task could justly be put ahead of
any war service he might render. He therefore
continued his preparations, and in July 1898, on
board the Windward, steamed out of New York
Harbor for the north. By August he had pushed
the ship across Smith Sound, a little above 79°N,,
where she became icebound. This was nearly 700
364
Peary
miles from the Pole — 200 miles farther south
than he had planned.
The next few months were spent in advancing"
food and fuel by sledge to a base on the shores
of the Polar Sea, from which a dash for the Pole
might be made in the spring. The sledging was
over difficult ice, and as the season advanced the
temperature fell considerably below zero. In
January 1899, after a particularly difficult sledge
journey, Peary found himself with both feet bad-
ly frozen, necessitating the amputation of eight
toes. In a few weeks, however, he was in the
field again. During this winter his sledge jour-
neys, which extended over 1,500 miles, clarified
the geography of the region about Smith Sound.
Not until the fall of 1902, after four years in the
Arctic, did Peary return to the United States.
During these four years he carried out an exten-
sive series of explorations, and in the spring of
1902 he attained 84° 17' N., the nearest approach
to the Pole in the American Arctic.
The year following his return he was engaged
in various duties with the Bureau of Yards and
Docks in the Navy Department, but his spare
time was still given to his Arctic projects, and
in September 1903 he secured three years' leave
for an expedition whose main purpose was the
attainment of the North Pole. Heretofore he
had been handicapped by the lack of a suitable
ship to take him to a base in high latitude. This
expedition, therefore, was to make use of a ship
capable of forcing its way to winter quarters on
the north shore of Grant Land. The plan then
contemplated a dash for the Pole with the re-
turning light of February. The distinctive fea-
tures of the plan were the use of individual
sledges drawn by dogs, which gave a traveling
unit of high speed, the adoption of Eskimo meth-
ods and costume, and the fullest utilization of the
Eskimos themselves. Financial difficulties at
first appeared insuperable, in spite of the help of
the Peary Arctic Club — a group of friends and
supporters who had financed his previous ex-
pedition. In the summer of 1904, however, two
members of this club, Morris K, Jesup and
Thomas H. Hubbard \_qq.v.~] , each agreed to give
$50,000 on condition that the club itself raise not
less than $50,000. The sum was finally accumu-
lated and in October the keel of the new ship, the
Roosevelt, was laid. The vessel was designed by
Peary for the specific purpose of forcing its way
through the ice fields of the Arctic waters.
In July 1905 the Roosevelt left New York with
a small party, and early in September had reached
the north coast of Grant Land. Here the ship
wintered, and by February 1906 Peary had gath-
ered his party at Cape Hecla, the point from
Peary
which the dash to the Pole was to be made. Early
in March he started, and for two weeks the jour-
ney continued over the broken ice of the Polar
Sea, until a region of leads was reached. These
were wide cracks in the ice — wide lanes of open
water— which checked advance until they closed
or were frozen over. By Apr. 21, 1906, Peary
had reached latitude 87° 6' N., only 174 miles
from his goal and the nearest approach to the
Pole made up to that time. The condition of his
dogs and the declining food supply prevented
further progress, however, and it was only after
a hazardous trip and in an exhausted condition
that the party regained the ship. In December
of that year the Roosevelt returned to New York ;
and in the following year Peary published the
narrative of this journey under the title, Nearest
the Pole (1907).
In July 1908 Peary left for his final polar ex-
pedition. He was now fifty-two years old, but
he rightly felt that the disadvantage of his age
was more than counterbalanced by nearly a quar-
ter century of Arctic experience during which
his skill, endurance, and leadership had been
thoroughly tested. He had the further advantage
of being able to enlist the services of capable and
enthusiastic assistants and well-equipped and
well-trained Eskimos who were devoted to him.
By September the Roosevelt had been pushed to
latitude 82° 30' N., a world's record for a ship
under its own steam. The dark months were
utilized for making scientific observations, for
hunting, and for sledging supplies to Cape Co-
lumbia, ninety miles to the northwestward, from
which point the attack on the Pole was to be
made. On Mar. i, 1909, the party of six white
men, one negro, seventeen Eskimos, 133 dogs,
and nineteen sledges set out from Cape Columbia
over the sea ice for the Pole. As the main party
advanced, the sections which had borne the brunt
of trail breaking were turned back, leaving the
best dogs and extra supplies with the leader. On
the whole the sledging conditions were not very
unfavorable, though fourteen days were lost be-
cause of leads or open lanes of water. Towards
the end of March the previous record of "farthest
north'1 — 87° 6'— was broken, and near the 88th
parallel of latitude the last supporting party, that
under Capt Robert Bartiett, turned back. From
this point Peary, with his negro servant, four
Eskimos, and forty dogs, set out for the final
dash. On the morning of Apr. 6, although his
observations showed him to be in latitude 89° 57*
— only three miles from the Pole — he was so
nearly exhausted that with the prize actually
sight he could go no further. After a
sleep, however, he covered the reinftipjgg'
365
Peary
reaching latitude 90° N., and the North Pole was
attained.
On his march Peary took three soundings, the
last one within five miles of the Pole. Here af-
ter paying out all his line — 9,000 feet in length —
he failed to touch bottom. The North Pole was
thus definitely proved to be located in the center
of a vast sea of ice. After remaining at the Pole
thirty hours, during which astronomic observa-
tions were made, the party began the return trip.
Forced marches were made by reducing the hours
of sleep, and further time was saved by occupy-
ing the igloos built during the northern advance.
The weather proved favorable, and with the
light loads the dogs made rapid progress. The
distance from the Pole to the base camp at Cape
Columbia was covered in the wonderfully quick
time of sixteen days.
By the middle of July 1909 the Roosevelt had
left her winter quarters with the party aboard
and headed south. On Sept. 5 she steamed into
Indian Harbor, Labrador, and from this place
Peary cabled the news of his attainment of the
North Pole. This news, however, came five days
after the world had been electrified by the dra-
matic announcement that Dr. Frederick A. Cook,
who had served as surgeon on Peary's expedition
of 1891, had reached the Pole on Apr. 21, 1908,
or a year earlier than Peary. In the controversy
which ensued the large American public was in-
clined to side with Cook. Peary had won only
after many years* striving and planning, and at
considerable financial outlay. Cook's sudden ap-
pearance from an unheralded expedition, under-
taken practically singlehanded, made a much
more dramatic appeal to the public at large.
Moreover, the press found the latter more ami-
able in the controversy than Peary, who was
certain that the alleged attainment of the Pole
by Cook with a small party of Eskimos was an
impossibility.
This controversy was a bitter experience to
Peary. Instead of receiving the well-merited ap-
probation of his fellow countrymen upon the
completion of a heroic task in which he had spent
the best years of his life, he was forced to become
party to a petty squabble and face the humiliation
of having his claims questioned. For it was only
natural that after the rejection of Cook's claims
on the part of the scientific world, there should
arise those who in turn would question Peary's
claims. Sinister meaning was read into the fact
that on the final dash to the Pole he had taken
none of his white assistants, only his negro serv-
ant and four Eskimos. Bitter criticism was
leveled against him for not having- given Capt
"Bob" Bartlett the opportunity to accompany
Peary
him clear to the Pole. The rapid sledging to the
Pole after the return of Bartlett's supporting
party, and the even more rapid progress from
the Pole — the result of years of experience, of
painstaking preparation, and favorable weather
and ice conditions — were pointed to with sus-
picion. In the trying situation, however, Peary
had the whole-hearted support of a host of
friends and of the greater part of the scientific
world. In October 1909 a committee of experts
appointed by the National Geographic Society
examined his records and reported that they were
unanimously of the opinion that he had reached
the North Pole (National Geographic Magazine,
November 1909). His friends also worked ac-
tively to induce Congress to give adequate recog-
nition to his achievements, and early in 1910 a
bill was introduced to promote him to the rank
of rear admiral and place him on the retired list.
His status in the navy was technically that of
civil engineer with the rank of commander, and
a number of the regular officers opposed the bill
on the ground that it would promote Peary over
the heads of line officers who were his seniors ;
opposition was also registered by those who had
taken Cook's part in the North Pole controversy.
In March 1911, however, a bill was passed ten-
dering him the thanks of Congress and placing
him on the retired list of the corps of civil engi-
neers with the rank and retired pay of rear ad-
miral.
This period of controversy was not without its
compensations. While the fight for recognition
was going on in Congress, Peary brought out his
book, The North Pole (1910). The leading
American geographic societies invested him with
their highest honors. Early in 1910 he went
abroad for five weeks, visiting various countries,
and the great European geographic societies took
this occasion to bestow on him their highest
awards. In large part these honors recognized
his attainment of the North Pole; but in part,
too, they were a recognition of the value of his
Arctic work as a whole. As a result of his labors,
a highly efficient method of polar exploration had
been developed — large parties being discarded in
favor of the small party, and Eskimo modes of
dress and travel being utilized. His Greenland
traverses and his later travels had completely re-
vised the map of a large region. His expeditions
had made available to enthnology valuable studies
of a little known tribe of Eskimos. The sciences
of meteorology and hydrography had been en-
riched by careful observations in regions from
which information had hitherto been wanting.
Peary's tidal observations include the most north-
erly observations ever made and constitute an
366
Pease
important addition to the knowledge of the tides
of the Arctic Ocean.
Peary now retired to his home on Eagle Island,
in Casco Bay. Here with his wife, daughter,
and son, the latter born in 1903, he enjoyed the
pleasures of home life to which he had so long
looked forward. In 1913 he became interested
in aviation and was made chairman of the com-
mittee on aeronautic maps and landing places of
the Aero Club of America, an office he retained
until his death. On the outbreak of the World
War he foresaw the importance of aviation in
warfare and labored in organizing the National
Aerial Coast Patrol Commission which worked
out a comprehensive plan for the protection of
the coast. With the entry of the United States
into the war, he was made chairman of the Na-
tional Committee on Coast Defense by Air. At
this time, too, he accepted the presidency of the
Aero League of America. In May 1919 the
hardships he had undergone began to tell on his
health, and at Washington, D. C, on Feb. 20,
1920, in his sixty-fourth year, he died. The mo-
tives which prompted him in his Arctic work he
expressed in a simple statement uttered in 1895
(Bulletin of the American Geographical Society,
vol. XXVII, 1895, P- 375) J "To say that my mo-
tives were entirely unselfish, or that I was actu-
ated solely by love of science, would be incorrect,
but I can say that the desire to win an honorable
and lasting reputation went hand in hand with
the desire to add to the sum total of human
knowledge."
[Fitzhugh Green, Peary : The Man Who Refused to
Fail (1926), is the only complete biography; the record
of his explorations is found in his books mentioned
above and in the Bull. Am. Geog. $oc.y 1887-1911 (see
A. A. Brooks, Index to the Bull, of the Am, Geog. Soc.,
1852-1915, 1918) ; a brief appreciation of the man and
v., Jan. 1929 ; J. Gordon Hayes, Robert Edwin Peary
(1929), written with manifest animus, gives a complete
summary of the unfavorable views, especially with re-
gard to his attainment of the North Pole.] H. A. M.
PEASE, ALFRED HUMPHREYS (May 6,
iSsS-July 13, 1882), pianist and composer, was
born In Cleveland, Ohio, the second of three
children of Sheldon and Marianne (Humphreys)
Pease, both natives of Connecticut He mani-
fested very early his devotion to music and
drawing:, but in order to prevent his develop-
ment into a professional musician his parents
put him through a rigid course of classical study
which fitted him to enter Kenyon College at
Gambier, Ohio, at the age of sixteen, where they
hoped he would have the wisdom to choose an-
other profession. His painting and drawing,
however, attracted the attention of a young Ger-
Pease
man artist, who persuaded the parents to permit
Pease to go to Germany. On arriving in Berlin,
he began an intensive study of German and then
took up other languages. Once having tasted
the freedom of self -direction, he began the study
of piano under Theodor Kullak but for some
time did not reveal the fact in his letters. At
length he persuaded his parents to sanction the
pursuit of the art for which nature had endowed
him. Besides studying piano with Kullak for
three years, he studied composition with Wiierst
and orchestration with Wieprecht For a short
time he returned to America but immediately re-
turned to Europe and studied three years with
von Biilow. Upon his return he began touring
in the principal cities of the United States and
was immediately acclaimed as a remarkable per-
former. He had a brilliant technique, combined
with a beautiful quality of tone and delicacy of
expression, and he played with ease and grace.
His tendency was to favor somewhat popular
compositions, especially operatic transcriptions.
During the last twelve years of his life he re-
sided in New York City, where he moved in a
select group.
Pease achieved considerable success as a com-
poser. Nearly a hundred of his songs became
great favorites during his lifetime and of those
"Hush Thee, My Baby" was one of the most
popular. Indeed it is as a song writer that he is
remembered, for most of his piano pieces (large-
ly transcriptions of themes from Lohengrin,
Alda and other operas) are forgotten. William
Treat Upton (post, p. 61) gives him credit for
surpassing all his contemporaries "in the lavish
use of a vividly tinted palette" and adds : "There
is no one of his time in America whose harmonic
fabric is so sensuously colored." His first songs
were published in 1864 — "When Sparrows
Build," and "Blow, Bugle, Blow"— and each
subsequent year brought new ones. Among his
best are "Stars of the Summer Night," "Tender
and True, Adieu," and "A Year's Spinning.5*
During his life time his orchestral works were
considered important, and his "Reverie and An-
dante," "Andante and Scherzo," and "Ro-
manza" for brass and reed instruments were
performed by Theodore Thomas in New York
and elsewhere. His best work was undoubtedly
his Concerto in E flat, written in 1875 an<i Per-
forrned at an ail-American concert at the Cen-
tennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, with the
composer at the piano, on July 19, 1876, Pease
toured with Ole Bull in 1879 and was engaged
to tour with Christine Nilsson, but that was pre-
vented by his untimely death which occurred in
St. Louis In July 1882. He died of alcoholism —
367
Pease
a habit contracted during- a period of sorrow
over the tragic death of his brother, who with
his wife perished in a railroad disaster near New
Hamburg-, N. Y., in 1871. Pease never married.
[Frederick Humphreys, The Humphreys Family in
America (1883) ; W. T. Upton, Art-Song in America
(1930) ; Applet ons' Ann. Cyc.t 1882; St. Louis Globe-
Democrat, July 15, 1882; Chicago Daily Tribune f July
1 6, 1882.] F.L.G.C.
PEASE, CALVIN (Sept. 9, i77<5-Sept. 17,
IS39), Ohio jurist, was one of the many Ohio
pioneers of Connecticut birth. Samuel Hunting-
ton, George Tod, and Benjamin Tappan [qq.v.]
had been his neighbors in the East and were his
associates in frontier Ohio. He was born in
Suffield, Conn., the eleventh child of Joseph and
Mindwell (King) Pease and the descendant of
Robert Pease who emigrated from England in
1634 and settled at Salem, Mass. He studied law
in the office of his brother-in-law, Gideon Gran-
ger [g.z/.], and was admitted to the bar in 1798.
He practised for a short time in New Hartford,
but in 1800 he removed to Youngstown, Ohio,
and in 1803 he settled permanently in the neigh-
boring town of Warren. In June 1804 he was
married to Laura Grant Risley, the daughter of
Benjamin Risley of Washington, D. C. They
had four sons and three daughters.
He was made clerk of the common-pleas court
and served also as the first postmaster of Youngs-
town. In the bitter contest waged between the
advocates of statehood and Gov. Arthur St.
Clair, he opposed the governor. Upon the or-
ganization of the judiciary of the new state he
was appointed presiding judge of one of the three
circuits of the court of common pleas. For the
next seven years, until March 1810, he traveled
over the difficult roads of eastern Ohio dispensing
justice according to schedule. In 1806 he ren-
dered a decision that brought him to the atten-
tion of the whole state. The Ohio legislature
had passed an act granting jurisdiction in civil
suits to the justices of the peace to the limit of
fifty dollars. He held this act to be unconstitu-
tional because It impaired the constitutional
right of jury trial. Ohio JefTersonians were
fully alive to the threat of legislative supremacy
that was involved in this application of John
Marshall's formula within their state. Their
alarm increased when the state supreme court
upheld the decision of Pease in a parallel case.
The contest between the legislature and the
courts dominated state politics during the years
1808 to 1811 (W. T. Utter, "Judicial Review in
Early Ohio,"* Mississippi Valley Historical Re-
view, June 1927). George Tod of the supreme
court and Pease were impeached by the legisla-
ture and barely escaped removal from office.
Pease
When his term expired in 1810 Pease was not
reappointed because of legislative opposition.
He engaged in private practice and served a
term in the state Senate, 1812-13. He also aided
the postmaster-general, Gideon Granger, in es-
tablishing western postal routes. In 1815 a more
conservative Assembly elected him to the state
supreme court, where his activity from 1816 to
1830 indicated a mind well-balanced rather than
brilliant. He read Sterne and Swift in prefer-
ence to the legal classics. His written opinions,
which are comparatively few, may be found in
the first four volumes of Ohio Reports. His con-
duct on the bench was so stern that young attor-
neys trembled before him, yet when his robes
were laid aside he was a jovial companion, for
he could tell a story or sing a ballad as well as
any other. After his retirement from the bench
he led a quiet life in Warren. He served one
term in the state House of Representatives,
1831-32, where he sponsored bills for the im-
provement of the treatment of prisoners in the
state penitentiary.
[Letters in Western Reserve Hist. Soc. Lib. at Cleve-
land and in correspondence of Ohio governors in Ohio
State Lib. at Columbus; Green Bag, Mar., Apr. 1895;
Western Law Monthly, Jan. 1863; David and A. S.
Pease, A GeneaL and Hist. Record of the Descendants
of John Pease (1869), p. 61 ; New-England Hist, and
GeneaL Register, Apr. 1849, pp. 174, 390.] -yjm T. U.
PEASE, ELISHA MARSHALL (Jan. 3,
i8i2-Aug. 26, 1883), governor of Texas, was
for nearly fifty years, from the eve of the Texas
Revolution to the day of his death, an outstand-
ing figure in the history of the republic and the
state. He was born in Enfield, Conn. His fa-
ther, Lorrain Thompson Pease, was a descend-
ant of Robert Pease who emigrated from Eng-
land to Salem, Mass., in 1634 and of John Pease,
one of the founders of the town of Enfield. His
mother was Sarah (Marshall) Pease, of Wind-
sor, Conn. His education was obtained in the
public schools of Enfield and in an academy at
Westfield, Mass. From his fourteenth year to
his twenty-first he was a clerk in a country store
and in the post-office at Hartford, where he ac-
quired an elementary knowledge of business and
of accounting. He spent the summer of 1834
in the West and in the late fall was in New Or-
leans on business. There he heard so much of
Texas that in January 1835 he removed to Texas
and settled at Mina, now Bastrop, and began
the study of the law with D. C. Barrett. How-
ever, his studies were soon interrupted by the
outbreak of the war for Texan independence.
He fought in the first skirmish at Gonzales and
was then made secretary of the provisional gov-
ernment established by the consultation held at
368
Pease
San Felipe in November 1835. Though not a
member of the convention that declared inde-
pendence in March 1836, he was of great help in
drafting the constitution for the new republic.
During the struggle for independence he served
as chief clerk of the navy and treasury depart-
ments and, for a short time, as secretary of the
treasury after the death of Hardeman. In No-
vember 1836 he became clerk of the judiciary
committee of the Congress and drafted the laws
to organize the judiciary and define the duties of
county officers. Late in 1836 he resumed the
study of the law, this time with John A, Whar-
ton of Brazoria. Admitted to the bar in 1837,
he formed a partnership with Wharton and,
later, with John W. Harris \_q.v. ~\. For a short
time, during the days of the republic, he served
as district attorney. After Texas entered the
Union, he served two terms in the House and
one in the Senate of the state legislature. In
August 1850 he was married to Lucadia Chris-
tinia Niles, the daughter of Richard Niles of
Windsor, Conn. They had three daughters.
In 1853 he was elected governor and in 1855
was reflected on a platform opposed to the doc-
trines of the Know-Nothing party. The period
of his two administrations was one of great
prosperity to the state. Under his leadership
the public debt was paid; a school fund of
$2,000,000 was created; railroad building was
encouraged; state institutions were established
for the care of the insane, the deaf, and the blind ;
$100,000 was set apart as an endowment for a
state university; and steps were taken to put
the university in operation. However, the ap-
proach of the Civil War put a stop to this de-
velopment. Like Houston, he opposed secession,
but he remained in Texas during the war, tak-
ing no part in it. Before the war he had affiliated
with the Democratic party, but he now became
a Republican. In 1866 he was a delegate and a
vice-president of the Philadelphia convention of
Southern Unionists, and later in the year he was
a candidate for governor but was defeated by J.
W* Throckmorton. In the following year, when
the latter was removed by the military authori-
ties as an "obstruction to reconstruction/* he
was appointed provisional governor by General
Sheridan, but he resigned in 1869 because of a
difference of opinion between the commanding
general, J. J. Reynolds, and himself in regard to
the reorganization of the state government In
1872 he represented Texas in the Liberal Re-
publican convention at Cincinnati that nomi-
nated Horace Greeley for the presidency. In
1874, he was offered the collectorship of the
port of Galveston, but lie declined it When
Pease
a second tender of the same office was made by
President Hayes in 1879, &e accepted it This
was his last public service. He died in the town
of Lampasas, where he had gone for his health.
While he did not escape the animosities of the
Civil War and Reconstruction, he was respected
by his foes as well as by his friends. His ap-
pointment as military governor, although it
arrayed a majority of the people of the state
against him, was a fortunate thing for Texas,
for no other member of the "radical party," with
the possible exception of Andrew J. Hamilton
[#•£'•]> was so sane, so moderate, and so devoted
to the welfare of the state.
[J. H. Brown, Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas
(n.d.) ; J. D. Lynch, The Bench and Bar of Texas
(1885) ; F. W. Johnson and E. C Barker, A Hist, of
Texas and Texans (1914), vols. I, IV; C. W. Rams-
dell, Reconstruction in Texas (1910) ; L. E. Danid.1,
Personnel of Texas State Government with Sketches
of Representative Men (1892) ; David and A. S. Pease,
A GeneaL and Hist. Record of the Descendant of
John Pease (1869), p. 143; New-England Hist, and
GeneaL Register f July 1849, p. 237 ; Galveston Daily
News, Aug. 28, 1883.3 C. S. P.
PEASE, JOSEPH IVES (Aug. 9, iSoo-July
2, 1883), line-engraver, was born in Norfolk,
Conn., the son of Earl P. and Mary (Ives)
Pease, and a descendant of Robert Pease who
emigrated from England in 1634 and settled at
Salem, Mass. Joseph's determination to become
an engraver was expressed at a very early age,
and when, at fourteen, he was placed in a dry-
goods store in Hartford, Conn., he began to imi-
tate the labels and other designs he found at-
tached to pieces of fabric, copying them in pen-
cil. His ambition to be an engraver soon became
irresistible; he left the dry-goods business and
began to practise, in an untrained, amateurish
way, his chosen art. He is said, at first, to have
used an awl for a graver and a piece of brass
from an old thermometer for a plate ; and to have
produced his impressions on a roll press of his
own construction (Baker, post, p. 126). He had
a strong mechanical bent and showed great in-
genuity in making a turning lathe and building
a small power loom, with which he succeeded in
weaving cloth six inches in width. It is said that
he erected this loom before he was aware that
similar pieces of machinery had been construct-
ed by others. Since his crude attempts at en-
graving revealed undeniable talent, he was ap-
prenticed to Oliver Pelton, a prominent line-en-
graver of Hartford, and remained with him until
lie became of age, when lie set tap for himself.
His younger brother, Richard H. Pease, who
had also become an engraver, had settled in
Philadelphia, and in 1835 Joseph followed tim
thither.
Peaslee
His pure and somewhat intimate style of en-
graving in line recommended him to Carey &
Hart, who published The Gift and several other
annuals, and for these publications Pease did his
most charming work. All his plates that have
been seen are small ones, but none the less de-
lightful on that account. For ten years his work
appeared regularly in the annuals, and his plates,
despite their diminutive size, were much prized
for the artistic and technical skill they displayed,
as well as for their good taste. Among the best
of these little plates are "Mumble the Peg/'
from the painting by Inman; "Young Traders,"
after Page; and "Tough Story," after Mount
Pease also engraved an illustration for The Spy
— a picture of Washington meeting with Harvey
Birch — -which has been admired. From 1848 to
1850, he adapted the foreign fashions and en-
graved the fashion plates for Godey's Lady's
Book. About 1850 he left Philadelphia and went
to Stockbridge, Mass., where he devoted him-
self to banknote engraving. A little later he
bought a farm at Twin Lakes, near Salisbury,
Conn., where he continued to engrave vignettes
for banknotes. He died on this farm, in the
summer of 1883. Pease was married to Mary
Spencer of Baltimore, Md., Dec. 8, 1841. He
was represented in the exhibition of One Hun-
dred Notable American Engravers at the New
York Public Library in 1928.
[David and A. S. Pease, A Geneal. and Hist. Rec-
ord of the Descendants of John Pease (1869) i New
Eng. Hist, and GeneaL Reg., Oct. 1849; W. S. Baker,
Am. Engravers (1875) ; D. M. Stauffer, Am. Engrav-
ers upon Copper and Steel (1907), vol. I ; One Hundred
Notable Engravers (N. Y. Pub. Lib., 1928) ; Frank
Weitenkampf, Am. Graphic Art (1924).] j.j.
PEASLEE, EDMUND RANDOLPH (Jan.
22, 1814- Jan. 21, 1878), physician, was born in
Newton, Rockingham County, N. H., eldest of
the four children of James and Abigail (Chase)
Peaslee. He entered Dartmouth at the age of
eighteen years and graduated with honors in
1836. After teaching school for a brief period
in Lebanon, N. H., he tutored at Dartmouth
from 1837 to 1839 and utilized this time for the
study of medicine at Dartmouth Medical School.
Following the custom of the older generation of
medical men, he became the private pupil of a
practitioner, Dr. Noah Worcester of Hanover,
N. H., later transferring to the preceptorship of
Dr. Dixi Crosby of the same town, and still
later to that of Dr. Jonathan Knight [g.v.] of
New Haven, Conn. In 1839 he entered Yale
Medical School, where he received his medical
degree in 1840. After a year's study abroad, he
returned to Dartmouth to become lecturer in
Peaslee
anatomy and physiology. In 1842 he was made
professor. He retained the chair of anatomy
and physiology until 1869 ar*d thereafter served
as lecturer on diseases of women, 1868-70; pro-
fessor of obstetrics and diseases of women, 1870-
73 ; and professor of gynecology from 1873 until
his death. He was evidently in demand as a
teacher, for he held concurrent lectureships or
professorships in no less than four other medical
institutions. From 1843 to 1860 he was con-
nected as lecturer or professor with the depart-
ments of surgery and anatomy at the Medical
School of Maine, affiliated with Bowdoin Col-
lege. From 1852 to 1856 he was professor of pa-
thology and physiology and from 1856 to 1860
professor of obstetrics in New York Medical
College. In 1872-74 he taught obstetrics and
from 1874 to 1878 was professor of gynecology
at the Albany Medical College, while during the
latter period he was professor of gynecology at
Bellevue Hospital Medical College also. To this
work he gave much time and it was his pride
that he never permitted other activities to inter-
fere with his scholastic duties. It is no slight
indication of a scientific mind that Peaslee, at
this early period in the science, was regarded
an an authority on microscopy. To the academic
field of medicine he made two noteworthy con-
tributions : Necroscopic Tables for Postmortem
Examinations (1851) and Hwman Histology in
Its Relations to Descriptive Anatomy, Physi-
ology, and Pathology (1857).
In 1858 he removed to New York City where
he devoted himself to a large and lucrative pri-
vate practice. His interests now turned largely
to gynecology. In 1872 he published his most
important work, Ovarian Tumors; Their Pa-
thology, Diagnosis and Treatment, Especially
by Ovariotomy. This is a comprehensive trea-
tise in which he compiled all the then known facts
concerning the anatomy, pathology, diagnosis,
and treatment of ovarian cysts. It was especially
concerned with the operation of ovariotomy
which Peaslee had advocated in New York City
in 1864. He made no notable additions to the
technique of the operation but compiled carefully
and critically practically everything that was
known of it, producing a book which was for
many years a standard text It undoubtedly re-
moved many of the objections against ovariotomy
which were entertained at that time by the pro-
fession, and, although long since displaced by
more modern books, retains some historical
value, for in it Peaslee established the priority
of Ephraim McDowell \_q.v."\ in the methodical
and successful removal by surgery of an ovarian
cyst. Peaslee was one of the first to advocate
370
Peavey
and institute the procedure of peritoneal lavage
as a prophylaxis against infection.
He was something of a linguist, speaking no
less than four foreign languages. In 1860 he
was appointed a trustee of Dartmouth College.
His clinical duties were confined to his private
practice and service (1858-65) as attending
physician to the Demilt Dispensary, New York
City. During the Civil War he was surgeon to
the New England Hospital and the New York
State Hospital. The gynecologist T. A. Em-
met (post) regarded him as an excellent diag-
nostician and student but less highly as an oper-
ator, a judgment which is probably correct.
Peaslee married Martha Kendrick of Lebanon,
N. H., in 1841, and they had two children, a son
and a daughter. He died in New York City.
[B. M. Emmett, in Am. Jour, of Obstetrics, May
1913; T. A. Emmet, Ibid,, Apr. 1878; Medic. Record,
Jan. 26, 1878; F. S. Dennis, in H. A. Kelly and W. L.
Btirrage, Am. Medic. Biogs. (1920) ; Fordyce Barker,
in Trans. Am. Gynecol. $oc.> vol. Ill (1879) ; N. Y.
Tribune, Jan, 23, 1878.] H.S.R.
PEAVEY, FRANK HUTCHINSON (Jan.
18, i85O-Dec. 30, 1901), industrialist, was born
in Eastport, Me., the son of Albert D. and Mary
(Drew) Peavey. His father, who died when
Frank was nine years old, and his grandfather
were engaged in the lumber trade and ran a line
of coasting vessels. They were considered
wealthy, but as a boy Peavey determined to
make his own way. At the age of fifteen, on
money which he had earned, he went to Chicago,
where an uncle found him a job as messenger for
a grain firm. The next year he worked in a
bank, broke down physically, visited his home in
Eastport, and in the spring of 1867 was back in
Chicago where, in the post-war depression, jobs
were scarce. Hearing of an opening in a bank
at Sioux City, Iowa, he went to that frontier
town, one hundred miles from the nearest rail-
road. In 1870 he became a partner in an imple-
ment firm, Booge, Smith & Peavey, which suf-
fered severe loss by fire the next year. Reorgan-
ized as Evans & Peavey, the concern added the
buying and selling of grain to its dealings in ag-
ricultural implements, and built a small elevator.
When, in 1875, the Dakota .Southern Railroad
reached Sioux City, Peavey, having bought out
his partner, extended his grain business and his
elevators, obtaining from Minneapolis millers
the agency to purchase grain for them. As rail-
road communications extended, Peavey*s eleva-
tors increased. Taking Edgar C. Michener as
a partner in 1881, and operating as F. H. Peavey
& Company, he established the headquarters of
the firm In Minneapolis, but did not remove
thither himself until 1884.
Peay
In the next sixteen years he built up a line of
elevators, including one of five million bushels'
capacity at Duluth, along the railroad lines of
that section. In 1899 he organized the Peavey
Steamship Company which, by the summer of
1901, was operating four of the largest freight-
ers on the Great Lakes. He made it a rule "never
to embark in an enterprise unless he could con-
trol it," and at the time of his death he was the
dominating influence in nineteen different con-
cerns—elevator, grain, steamship, land, and
piano companies ; he was also a director on the
boards of two railroads and one large bank. It
was his idea that his firm, into which he took his
son, George W. Peavey, and his sons-in-law,
Frank T. Heffelfinger and F. B. Wells, should
survive him ; to this end he insured his life for
a million dollars, payable to his estate, so that his
death might cause no embarrassment to the busi-
ness. "His mentality was so strong, his energy
and business acumen so great, that he insensibly
dwarfed his associates. . , . He was the Elevator
King, and undoubtedly controlled larger interests
in this line than any other man in the world"
(Northwestern Miller, Jan. 1, 1902, p. 19). In a
time when consolidation was the order of the day,
he saw and grasped the opportunity to build up
in the Northwest a powerful combination of ele-
vators and their appurtenances. He took little
active part in civic affairs, although he was a
member of the Minneapolis board of education
for two years and for a time stood back of a
Newsboys* Fund, which was calculated to incul-
cate thrift In 1872 he married Mary, daughter
of Senator George G. Wright of Des Moines, by
whom he had three children. He died in Chi-
cago.
[C. E. Flandrati, Encyc. of Biog. of Minn. (1900) ;
Northwestern Miller f Jan. i, 1902; Minneapolis Jcmr.,
Dec. 30, 1901.] L.B.S.
PEAY, AUSTIN (June i, i876-Oct. 2, 1927),
governor of Tennessee, was born near Hopkins-
ville, Ky., the son of Austin and Cornelia Fran-
ces (Leavell) Peay. He was given the middle
name, Leavell, but he stopped using it about
1900. He went to Centre College at Danville,
Ky. On Sept 19, 1895, he married Sallie Hurst
of Qarksville, Tenn. The following year he be-
gan the practice of law in this town, where he
made his home for the remainder of his life.
Soon he entered politics as a Democrat In 1900
and 1902 he was elected to membership in the
Tennessee House of Representatives. He became
chairman of the Democratic state executive com-
mittee in 1905. Three years later he was cam-
paign manager for Malcolm R. Patterson, the
successful candidate of the anti-Prohibitionists
371
Peay
for the governorship. For the next decade he
devoted himself to his legal practice, becoming
increasingly popular and prosperous. In 1918
he was defeated by Albert H. Roberts for the
Democratic gubernatorial nomination. Four
years later, however, he won the nomination
against three opponents and easily defeated the
Republican candidate, Gov. Alfred A. Taylor.
In 1924 he was reflected with negligible oppo-
sition, and in 1926 he broke a tradition of many
years by winning election to a third consecutive
term.
In his campaigns he attacked the political ma-
chine that then dominated the state, and he ad-
vocated administrative reforms, the reduction of
taxes on land, and the improvement of the state's
educational system. His speeches were serious
and thoughtful discussions of the state's needs,
which appealed to the intelligence of the voters.
The legislature was unusually responsive to his
wishes, and his administrations were notable for
the enactment of a number of laws of progres-
sive character. He procured the enactment of
an administrative reorganization bill that cen-
tralized responsibility and power by regroup-
ing twenty-seven departments and thirty-seven
boards into eight departments, headed by com-
missioners who were directly responsible to the
governor. He obtained a considerable shifting
of the burden of taxation from the land owner,
but he was unable to obtain an amendment to the
state constitution that would have made possible
an efficient and equitable system of taxation. He
effected a reorganization of the highway depart-
ment that resulted in the efficient construction
of many miles of paved roads, financed largely
from the proceeds of a tax on gasoline. He ad-
vocated successfully much-needed appropriations
for the state university and the enactment of a
general education bill that established an eight
months' term for schools, higher salaries for
teachers, and other improvements in the state's
educational system. He obtained also the crea-
tion of a park in the Great Smokies and a game
preserve at Reelfoot Lake. The most notorious
piece of legislation of his administrations, how-
ever, was an act, in 1925, which made it ''un-
lawful for any teacher in any of the Universities,
Normals and all other public schools of the State
... to teach any theory that denies the story of
the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bi-
ble, and to teach instead that man has descended
from a lower order of animals'* (Public Acts of
. . . Tennessee, 1925, pp. 50-51). He had not
advocated the passage of this measure, and there
are private reports that he was greatly angered
when the legislature forced him to commit him-
Peck
self by sending it to his desk. The labored mes-
sage he sent to the legislature, and through it to
an interested world, in justification of his sig-
nature, seems to have been dictated by political
expediency and by the conventional opinion that
religious and moral safety lie in an "old-fash-
ioned faith and belief" rather than along the new
ways of exploration and experiment. "Nobody
believes that it is going to be an active statute,"
he added (Austin Peay . . . A Collection of . . .
Papers and . . . Addresses, comp. by S. H. Peay,
1929, p. 363). Yet, John T. Scopes, a young
teacher in Dayton, was soon prosecuted and con-
victed under it. Peay had no part in the trial,
and the anti-evolution law played an insignificant
part in his successful campaign in 1926 for a
third term. He died at the executive mansion in
Nashville, survived by his wife and their two
children.
[Biog. by T, H. Alexander, in Austin Peay, ante;
Who's Who in America, 1926—27 ; J. T. Moore and A.
P. Foster, Tenn.: the Volunteer State (1923), vols. I,
IV; Nashville Banner, Oct. 3, 1927; information con-
cerning name from Mrs. Austin Peay, Clarksville,
Tenn'] P.M.H.
PECK, CHARLES HORTON (Mar. 30,
i833-July n, 1917), mycologist, was born at
Sand Lake (now called Averill Park), Rens-
selaer County, N. Y., the son of Joel B. and
Pamelia (Horton) Peck. He was of English
descent, the first member of the family to come
to America being Henry Peck, who settled at
New Haven, Conn., in 1638. As a boy, Peck
helped in his father's sawmill and attended the
proverbial log schoolhouse of the settlement. His
interest in plants was kindled by fortunate cir-
cumstances during the period of his studies at
the State Normal School in Albany, where he
pursued the special study of botany before it was
included in the curriculum. Upon graduation in
1852 he returned to the home farm, devoting all
of his spare time to the collecting and analyzing
of plants. He prepared for college at Sand Lake
Collegiate Institute, and in 1855 entered Union
College, from which he was graduated with high
honors in 1859. From 1859 to 1861 he taught
the classics, mathematics, and botany at the Col-
legiate Institute and then taught for the follow-
ing three years at the Albany Classical Institute.
On Apn 10, 1861, he married Mary C. Sliter,
also of Rensselaer County, N. Y. A year later
he received the A.M. degree from Union Col-
lege. His interests centered in moss study at
this time and through the friendship of George
W. Clinton, himself a distinguished botanist, he
was appointed in 1867 to the staff of the New
York State Cabinet of Natural History. His
report of Jan. i, 1868, to the regents of the Uni-
372
Peck
versity of the State of New York is the first of
a notable series which, appearing annually and
dealing" with many phases of botanical study,
came to be known as "Peck's Reports/' and end-
ed only with his physical disability in 1912. In
1883, immediately following the passage of a law
establishing the office of state botanist, he was
appointed formally to that position. The death
of his wife in February 1912, and his own serious
illness within a year thereafter, prompted him
to resign in 1913, but not until January 1915 was
his resignation accepted. He died at Menands,
N. Y., in his eighty-fifth year.
As state botanist for nearly half a century,
Peck naturally gave much attention to botanical
exploration, the building up of a state herbarium,
and the publication of taxonomic and distri-
butional studies of nearly all groups of plants as
represented in the state of New York. He is
chiefly celebrated, however, for his long-con-
tinued and acute investigations upon the fungus
flora of the United States and Canada, in the
course of which he described about 2,500 species
as new to science. His work was essentially that
of a pioneer, only a very few having preceded
him in the field of American mycology. The for-
ty-six annual reports are thus devoted largely to
the description of new fungi in many different
groups, but they are of equal importance, at
least, for the series of synoptical studies of most
of the large and important genera of fleshy fungi
known as agarics, in which the species are de-
scribed, keyed, and freely illustrated, largely on
the basis of specimens collected through Peck's
own indefatigable field-work. Other groups than
agarics (e.g. Boletaceae, Hydnaceae, Clavari-
aceae) were similarly treated. A self-trained
scientist, Peck brought to these studies a highly
analytical mind and keen powers of clear de-
scription, and, undaunted by lack of proper sup-
port and facilities he succeeded in producing an
enormous amount of discriminating work. In
the absence of any comprehensive general trea-
tise upon the fungi of North America, his con-
tributions were of incalculable value to younger
American students, with whom he stood in pe-
culiarly friendly relation through long corre-
spondence and exchange of specimens. His
studies in mycology, which are exceeded in im-
portance by those of no other American student,
are regarded as basic. As a memorial to hisjife
and services, an exhibit of fifty-seven exquisite
models of edible and poisonous mushrooms has
been installed in the State Museum at Albany,
N.Y.
[Who's Who in America, 1914-15; G. F. Atkinson,
in Botanical Gazette, Jan. 1918 ; C E. B«ssey, A No-
table Botanical Career." Science. My io> 1914; C. U
Peck
Lloyd, Mycological^ Notes, No. 38, Nov. 1912; four,
of the N. Y. Botanical Garden, Oct. 1917 ; Albany Eve~
ning Journal, July 12, 1917.] W.R.M.
PECK, CHARLES HOWARD (June 18,
iSjo-Mar. 28, 1927), surgeon, was born at New-
town, Conn., the son of Albert W. and Louise
W. (Booth) Peck, and a descendant of William
Peck who emigrated to Boston in 1637 and was
one of the founders of New Haven, Conn.
Charles Howard received his preparatory edu-
cation at Newtown Academy, studied medicine
at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of
Columbia University, and received the degree of
M.D. from that institution in 1893. He entered
upon the private practice of surgery in New York
City in 1895, and on Sept. 2, 1896, married Betsy
F. Chaffee of Montreal, Canada, who bore him
three sons. In 1900 he was made an assistant
instructor in operative surgery at the College of
Physicians and Surgeons, subsequently advanc-
ing through the intervening grades to full pro-
fessorship in 1909. He also became surgeon to
the Roosevelt Hospital, and consulting surgeon
to the French and Memorial hospitals, the Hos-
pital for Ruptured and Crippled, the Stamford
(Conn.) Hospital, and Vassar Brothers Hos-
pital, Poughkeepsie, N. Y.
When the United States entered the World
War, he offered his services to the government
and was commissioned a major in the medical
reserve. He organized Base Hospital 15, at
Chaumont, France, and expanded it to a capacity
of 3,000 beds. In April 1918 he was appoint-
ed senior consultant in general surgery in the
American Expeditionary Forces and in June he
was commissioned lieutenant-colonel. He served
in France until 1918, when he returned to Amer-
ica. Thereafter, until February 1919, he acted
in rotation with Colonels W. J. and Charles H.
Mayo, as chief of the department of surgery in
the office of the surgeon general of the army. In
August 1918 he was commissioned a colonel. Af-
ter the war he was awarded the distinguished
service medal, and was made Officier de Fln-
struction Publique by France, and was accorded
honorary membership in the 68th Battalion of
Alpine Chasseurs "for services rendered to the
French Army" during the battle of Chemin des
Dames, Oct. 17, 1917* In France he lost a son
who was serving in his father's unit
After the war Peck continued his career of
surgical teaching and practice until he died of
pernicious anaemia. His friend, Dr. Charles H,
Mayo, wrote of him that "as a surgeon, he was
resourceful, meticulous, noted for kindliness to
tissue and scrupulous haemostatis, skillful m tfp*
erathre maneuvers, and possessed of a mature
373 .
Peck
judgment, the fruit of long and ripe experience"
(Mayo, post, p. 119). A general surgeon, in-
terested in the whole broad field, he was perhaps
best known for his work in gastro-intestinal
surgery. While he was not a prolific writer,
nearly a hundred articles on medicine and sur-
gery were published by him; the majority of
them, however, are case reports and are brief,
while none is very long. He was a member of
many surgical societies and served as president
of the Society of Clinical Surgery, and as treas-
urer of the American Surgical Association and
member of its council from 1915 to the time of
his death. He was also fellow of the American
College of Surgeons and a member of its board
of regents, president of the New York Surgical
Society, and vice-president of the New York
Academy of Medicine.
[Darius Peck, A GeneaL Account of the Descendants
. . . of William Peck, One of the Founders in 1638 of
the Colony of New Haven, Conn. (1877) ; John Shrady,
The Coll. of Physicians and Surgeons, N. Y. (n.d.) ;
C. H. Mayo, in Surgery, Gynecology and Obstetrics,
July 1927; Am. Jour, of Surgery, May 1927; Who's
Who in America, 1926-27; JV. Y. Times, Mar. 30,
X927.] P.M. A.
PECK, GEORGE (Aug. 8, 1797-May 20,
1876), Methodist Episcopal clergyman, editor,
was a descendant of Henry Peck who came from
England, probably in 1637, and was one of the
first settlers of New Haven, Conn. George's
parents, Luther and Annis (Collar) Peck, mi-
grated from Danbury, Conn., to Otsego County,
N. Y., in 1794, and bought land in what is now
Middlefield. Here in a log cabin George was
born. At the time of his birth there were four
other children, three girls and a boy ; later three
more girls and three boys were born. All the
boys became Methodist ministers, one of them,
Jesse Truesdell [g.^.], a bishop. As a youngster
George attended rebelliously a school where the
teaching could hardly have been worse, and com-
mon forms of punishment, in addition to the
whip, were a gag put between the culprit's teeth,
and a split stick stuck upon his nose. He also
helped an uncle make shoes, "blew and struck"
in his father's blacksmith shop, and worked on
the farm. Half- Way Covenant Congregational-
ists in Connecticut, his parents became Meth-
odists in New York, and when about fifteen
years old George was converted. In 1814 the
family moved to Hamilton Township, Madison
County, and the Peck house became a place
where Methodists met regularly for conference
and worship. George developed into a class-lead-
er and exhorter, and in July 1816 was admitted
to the Genesee Conference on trial. In 1818 he
was ordained deacon, and the following- year,
Peck
June 10, he married Mary Myers, daughter of
Philip and Martha Myers of Forty Fort, Pa. In
1820 he was ordained elder.
His active service in the Methodist Church
covered a period of some fifty-seven years. It
began with arduous circuit riding, which was
followed by pastorates and numerous terms as
presiding elder. From the start he worked dili-
gently to equip himself with the knowledge which
others had secured in the schools, and when he
was appointed principal of Cazenovia Academy
in 1835, a position which he held until 1838, he
was able to teach Hebrew, intellectual and moral
philosophy, and rhetoric. He had the unusual
distinction of being a delegate to thirteen con-
secutive General Conferences (1824-1872), and
through almost a half century of the Church's
history he had an important part in shaping its
legislation. In 1840 he was elected editor of the
Methodist Quarterly Review and after conduct-
ing it successfully for eight years became editor
of the Christian Advocate, New York. He was
a delegate to the world convention held in Lon-
don in 1846 at which the Evangelical Alliance
was organized. After retiring from the editor-
ship of the Christian Advocate in 1852, he was
pastor and presiding elder in the Wyoming Con-
ference, Pa., until 1873, when upon his own re-
quest a superannuated relation was accorded him.
The following year he published The Life and
Times of Rev. George Peck, D.D., written by
himself. He had previously published numerous
books, chiefly controversial or historical, some
of which were widely read. Among them are The
Scripture Doctrine of Christian Perfection,
Stated and Defended (1842, 1845, 1848, 1851);
An Answer to the Question, Why are You a
Wesleyan Methodist (1847) ; Appeal from Tra-
dition to Scripture and Common Sense; or, An
Answer to the Question, What Constitutes the
Divine Rule of Faith and Practice (1844, 1852) ;
Slavery and the Episcopacy, Being an Exami-
nation of Dr. Bascom's Review of the Reply of
the Majority to the Protest of the Minority of the
Late General Conference of the Methodist Epis-
copal Church in the Case of Bishop Andrew
(1845) ; Formation of a Manly Character
(I853), a series of lectures; Lives of the Apos-
tles and Evangelists (3rd edition, 1851) ; Early
Methodism Within the Boimds of the Old Gen-
esee Conference from 1788 to 1828 (1860) ; Our
Country: Its Trial and Its Triumph (1865);
Wyoming: Its History, Stirring Incidents, and
Romantic Adventures (1858, 1868, 1872). Peck
died in Scranton in his seventy-ninth year and
was buried at Forty Fort, Pa. His daughter
Mary Helen married Jonathan Townley Crane
374
Peck
[q.v.] and became the mother of Stephen Crane
[I. B. Peck, A Geneal. Hist, of the Descendants of
Joseph Peck . . . also an Appendix Giving an Account
of . . . Deacon William and Henry of New Haven
(1868); J. K. Peck, Luther Peck and His Five Sons
(1897) ,* F. W. Conable, Hist, of the Genesee Ann. Con-
ference of the M. E. Ch. (1876) ; First Fifty Years of
Cazenoyia Sem. 1825-1875 (n.d.) ; Ann. Minutes of the
Wyoming Conference (1877) ; Christian Advocate (N.
Y.), May 25, June 8, 1876.] H.E S
PECK, GEORGE RECORD (May 15, 1843-
Feb. 22, 1923), railroad attorney, was born on a
farm near Cameron, Stetiben County, N. Y.,
youngest of the ten children of Joel Hunger and
Amanda (Purdy) Peck and a direct descendant
of William Peck, one of the founders of the New
Haven Colony. When he was about six years old,
George moved with his family to a farm near
Palmyra, Jefferson County, Wis., where he
worked on the farm and attended the common
schools until, at the age of sixteen, he became a
district school teacher. He spent two terms,
1861-62, in Milton Academy, and on Aug. 21,
1862, enlisted as a private in the 1st Wisconsin
Heavy Artillery. He was commissioned first
lieutenant Dec. 12, 1862, and captain, July 6,
1864, of Company K, 3ist Wisconsin Infantry,
and participated in Sherman's march to the sea.
From 1865 to 1871 he studied law in the office of
Charles G. Williams at Janesville, Wis., and at-
tended lecture courses in the law school of the
state university at Madison. He was admitted
to the bar in 1866, served as clerk of the circuit
court of Rock County from Jan, i, 1867, to Jan.
i, 1869, then engaged in general practice in part-
nership with J. M. Kimball.
In December 1871 he removed to Independ-
ence, Kan., and entered the office of W. H. Wat-
kins, probate judge of Montgomery County. He
studied Kansas law, and in time became a mem-
ber of the firm of Peck & Chandler. Appointed
United States attorney for the district of Kansas
in 1874, he moved to Topeka. One of his most
notable achievements in this office was the win-
ning of the Osage Ceded Land Case (12 Kan.r
124; i McCrary's 8th Circuit Reports, 610; 92
U* $•> 733 J 1 6 Kan., 510). He was reappointed
in 1878, but resigned in March 1879, to devote
himself to general practice. While in Topeka he
was a member of the firm of Peck, Ryan & John-
son and head of the firm of Peck, Rossington,
Smith, & Dallas. On Feb. 9, 1882, he became
general solicitor of the Atchison, Topeka, &
Santa Fe Railroad, which position he held until
Jan. i, 1884, and again from Apr. 15, 1886, un-
til Sept. 16, 1895. In 1891 when the Santa Fe
attempted to secure control of St. Louis & San
Francisco Railway, a stock-holder of the latter
Peck
sought to enjoin the sale on the ground that the
roads were "parallel and competing lines" and
the sale therefore illegal (Kimball vs. Atchison,
Topeka 6- Santa Fe Railroad Co., 46 Fed. Re-
porter, 888). Peck's successful handling of the
consequent litigation in the circuit court and the
Supreme Court gave him a place of first rank
among railroad attorneys. When the Santa Fe
was forced into receivership in December 1893,
he directed the legal proceedings so well that the
railroad was successfully reorganized in two
years, a notable feat of efficiency. Although a
leader of the Republican party in Kansas, Peck
did not desire political office, and in 1891 de-
clined Governor Humphrey's offer of a seat in
the United States Senate vacated by the death
of Senator Preston B. Plumb.
In 1893 when the Santa Fe established gen-
eral offices in Chicago, Peck moved to that city,
becoming a member of the distinguished law firm
of Peck, Miller & Starr. After his resignation
as general solicitor of the Santa Fe in September
1895, ^e served as general counsel for the Chi-
cago, Milwaukee & St Paul Railway until his
retirement, Jan. i, 191 1. He was engaged in the
foreclosure of the mortgage on the Jacksonville
& Southwestern Railroad, was retained in con-
nection with the reorganization of the Northern
Pacific, and drafted the articles of incorporation
of the Civic Federation of Chicago upon which
was modeled the National Civic Federation. In
1896 he was considered by many newspapers as
a possible candidate for the Republican presi-
dential nomination.
He was a speaker of unusual ability, much in
demand by patriotic societies, private clubs, uni-
versities, and colleges. In 1905-06 he was presi-
dent of the American Bar Association. A lover
of literature, history, and biography, he possessed
a library of over twelve thousand volumes. He
was married, Oct. 24, 1866, to Arabella Burdick
of Janesville, Wis., who died Mar. 5, 1896. They
had four children. Peck died in Chicago in his
eightieth year.
[Darius Peck, A Geneal. Account of the Descendant
in the Male Line of William Peck (1877) ; E. A, Ban-
croft, in Green Bag, Sept i9«5» repr. in Chicago Legal
News, Nov. 1 8, 1905; J. M. Palmer, The Bench and
Bar of Itt. (1899), vol. I ; Trans. Kan. State Hist Sac.,
vol. DC (1906) ; Hist, of Montgomery County, Ka».
(1903), ect by L. W, Dttncan; Mil. Order of the Loyal
Legion of the U. S. Commandery of the State of Kan*f
Circular No. 2, Serifs of 1923; Santa FS Employes'
Mag~, Apr. 1923 ; Chicago Bar Asso. Record ', Oct. 1924 ;
Who's Who in America* 1918-19; Chicago Daily Trib-
une, Feb. 23, 1923 ; clippings concerning Peck in Kan,
State Hist. Soc. Lib.] j. K. W.
PECK, GEORGE WASHINGTON (Dec. 4,
i8i7-June 6, 1859), author, journalist, music
critic, was born in Rehoboth, Mass., the son of
375
Peck
George Washington Peck and his second wife,
Hannah Bliss (Carpenter), and a descendant of
Joseph Peck who came to Massachusetts in 1638.
The first George Washington Peck is described
as having "settled, lived, and died on the home-
stead" (Ira B. Peck, post, p. 66) ; but his son
saw much more of the world. He attended
Brown University, graduating in 1837, taught
for a time in Indiana and Ohio, engaged in jour-
nalism in Cincinnati, and returned east to study
law in Boston under Richard Henry Dana [g.^.].
It may have been literary as much as legal am-
bition that led him to seek this association with
the author of Two Years Before the Mast, but
he was admitted to the Massachusetts bar on
May 19, 1843, an<* for the next four years is
recorded in the Boston Directory as a "counsel-
lor/* Yet even during this period he seems to
have been most active as a journalist and music
critic. He contributed articles on music and the
drama to the Boston Post, and in 1845 he founded
the Boston Musical Review, a monthly publica-
tion of which only four numbers appear to have
been issued. In 1847 ^e gave UP whatever con-
nection lie may have had with the law and re-
moved to New York, where he joined the staff
of the Morning Courier and New York En-
quirer and established a rather close connection
with the American Review, later the American.
Whig Review, which had a brief but rather con-
spicuous career. In February and May 1847 ^e
published articles on "Music in New York" in
this periodical, and from February 1848 to Janu-
ary 1849 was represented by at least one article
a month. He was an occasional contributor up
to 1850, his subjects including reviews of Long-
fellow's Evangeline and Emily Bronte's Wuther-
ing Heights, discussions of Cooper, Dana, Poe,
and of Charles Lamb's letters, besides specula-
tions entitled "On the Use of Chloroform in
Hanging/* fiction, and forty sonnets in two in-
stalments of twenty each. In 1849, under the
transparent pseudonym Cantell A. Bigly, he pub-
lished a volume called Aurifodina, describing
adventures in California among a strange people
whose commonest possession was gold. Obvi-
ously modeled on Gulliver's Travels, it also sug-
gests Poe's influence and in some ways is like
Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King
The ravages of consumption, of which he died,
reduced the outptit of his last years ; but he made
a trip to Attstralia in 1853, writing letters to the
New York Times, and published an account of
the journey in his Melbourne and the Chincha
Islands; with Sketches of Lima, @nd a Voyage
Round the World (1854), After the publication
Peck
of this book there is little certain trace of him
till the official record of his death in Boston. Al-
though his literary product is not impressive in
quantity nor marked by any high degree of cre-
ative power, it displays a broad culture and an
enthusiastic appreciation of literature and music.
He died unmarried.
["Necrology of Brown University," Providence Jour-
nal, Sept. 7, 1859 ; Hist. Cat. Brown Univ., 1764-1904
(1905) ; autobiographical material in Peck's own writ-
ings, especially Melbourne and the Chincha Islands -
Ira B. Peck, A Geneal. Hist, of the Descendants of
Joseph Peck (1868).] s G
PECK, GEORGE WILBUR (Sept. 28, 1840-
Apr. 16, 1916), humorist, journalist, and gov-
ernor of Wisconsin, was born at Henderson, N.
Y., the son of David B. and Alzina Peck. When
he was about three years old, his parents re-
moved to Wisconsin and settled on a farm at
Cold Spring, Jefferson County. Later they moved
to the town of Whitewater, where he attended
school. Before he was fifteen, he became a
"printer's devil" on the weekly Register at
Whitewater and thus began a connection with
newspaper work that continued throughout the
most of his life. In 1860 he was married to
Francena Rowley of Delavan, Wis. Shortly af-
ter this he purchased a half-interest in the Jef-
ferson County Republican, a weekly paper with
which he continued until 1863, when he enlisted
as a private in the 4th Wisconsin Cavalry. He
served with this unit as sergeant and later as
second lieutenant until it was disbanded in 1866.
He went to Ripon and began the publication of
a weekly paper, the Representative, to which he
contributed the first of his humorous articles.
In 1868 one of these skits, a letter in Irish dialect
signed "Terence McGrant" that satirized the
nepotism at the beginning of President Grant's
first term, attracted the attention of Marcus M.
Pomeroy \_q.v :] . As Pomeroy was about to launch
a daily paper in New York City, he offered Peck
a place on the staff in order to continue the
"Terence McGrant" letters. These proved suf-
ficiently popular to be brought together in a vol-
ume with illustrations, published in New York
in 1871 under the title Adventures of One Ter-
ence McGrant. In 1871 Peck returned to La
Crosse and, with a partner, edited Pomeroy's
former paper, the La Crosse Democrat, in which
he supported the candidacy of Horace Greeley
for president in 1872. When he withdrew from
the Democrat in 1874, he began a new paper, the
Sun, but after four years' struggle he abandoned
La Crosse and moved his paper to Milwaukee.
With the motto, "It Shines for All," which had
been used earlier by Benjamin H. Day [g.^.] for
376
Peck
tlie New York Sun, Peck's new venture imme-
diately proved a success.
It was In Peck's Sun that the "Bad Boy"
stories first appeared that were to make Peck's
reputation as a humorist throughout the coun-
try. In 1883 appeared Peck's Bad Boy and His
Pa, his best-known book, in which were told sto-
ries of the practical jokes played on his father by
a mischievous youngster. Within a year another
collection of these stories entitled The Grocery
Man and Peck's Bad Boy (1883) came from the
press to add to his popularity. The success of
these books augmented that of the weekly Sun,
which attained a nation-wide circulation of 80,-
ooo copies. Humorous sketches of his Civil War
experiences, How Private Geo. W. Peck Put
Down the Rebellion, published in 1887, was his
last book for several years.
In the spring of 1890 he was elected mayor of
Milwaukee on the Democratic ticket. The en-
actment of the so-called Bennett Law to compel
some teaching of English in all schools in the
state aroused the fears of Roman Catholics and
Lutherans, whose parochial schools were ac-
customed to give all instruction in foreign lan-
guages. As the Republican party, long dominant
in Wisconsin, had been responsible for this legis-
lation, the Democrats took up the issue and
nominated Peck for governor. His reputation as
a humorist and his success in the Milwaukee
mayorality campaign made him a promising can-
didate. He was elected in November 1890. With
his genial personality and humorous speeches,
his popularity continued after the law was re-
pealed, and he was reflected again in 1892
against John C. Spooner. Two years afterward,
however, he was defeated in the gubernatorial
contest and retired to his home in Milwaukee.
He ran again for governor in 1904 against Rob-
ert M. LaFollette but was defeated. He con-
tinued to be a familiar figure in Milwaukee with
his gray moustache and goatee, eye-glasses, and
a red carnation as a boutonniere. He also ap-
peared occasionally on the lecture platform.
Upon taking office in 1890 he turned over the
Sun to George W. Peck, Jr., his eldest son, who
continued it for four years ; but its popularity
had waned, and in 1894 it was merged with an-
other weekly paper. In 1899 appeared Peck's
Uncle Ike and the Red Headed Boy, which was
followed by Sunbeams — Humor, Sarcasm and
Sense (1900), Peck's Bad Boy with the Circus
(1906), and Peck's Bad Boy with the Cowboys
(1907) ; but these books did not attain the suc-
cess that the original Bad Boy Series enjoyed.
The latter furnished material for a popular
comedy, Peck's Bad Boy, and the original stories
Peck
were reprinted in paper covers to be sold on
trains and at news stands for many years.
[Autobiographical sketch in Soldiers' and Citizens'
Album . . . of Wis., vol. II (1890) ; Who's Who in
America, 1916-17 ; A. J. Aikens and L. A. Proctor,
Men of Progress, Wis. (1897) ; W. A. Titus, Wis.
Writers (1930) ; Evening Wisconsin (Milwaukee), Apr.
V'Wtl W.G.B-r.
PECK, HARRY THURSTON (Nov. 24,
i856-Mar. 23, 1914), classical philologist, editor,
literary critic, was bom at Stamford, Conn., of
English colonial stock, the son of Harry and
Harriet Elizabeth (Thurston) Peck. From his
father, a well-known schoolmaster, he acquired
his skill as a teacher and the beginnings, at least,
of his passion for literature and learning. Ex-
cessive reading by candlelight while he was still
a mere boy did irreparable damage to his eyes
and, by preventing his participation in games
and athletics, intensified his bookishness. As a
student at Columbia College he won a local re-
nown for intellectual brilliance and wrote prose
and verse remarkable for their maturity and
polish. Under his editorship A eta Columbian®
became the most famous undergraduate periodi-
cal in the United States. After his graduation
in 1 88 1 he studied classical philology in Paris,
Berlin, and Rome; was married Apr. 26, 1882,
to Cornelia M. Dawbarn, of Stamford, by whom
he had two daughters ; went in 1883, ^or some
obscure reason, to Cumberland University, Le-
banon, Tenn., to obtain the degree of Ph.D. ; and
in 1884 received the degree of L.H.D. in course
at Columbia. He remained in the service of
the University for twenty-six years : as tutor in
Latin, 1882-86, and in Latin and Semitic lan-
guages, I886-8&; as professor of the Latin lan-
guage and literature, 1888-1904; and as Anthon
professor of the Latin language and literature,
1904-10. He was one of the most prominent
and useful officers of Columbia during the period
of its transformation from a small college into a
university of world-wide reputation.
In any society he would have been a man of
distinction. A brilliant, versatile, and independ-
ent intellect ; learning encyclopedic in its range
and detail ; an astounding capacious memory and
instant power of association and recall ; a ready
command of a clear, sparkling prose style; and
a faculty for gracious, witty conversation — all
these gifts were his, and, though seldom guilty
of overt showmanship, he took great delight in
their exercise. In professional knowledge, though
not in minute accuracy, lie was the equal of such
Columbia Latinists as Anthon, Drisler, and
Short, and he was their superior as a teadier.
Like them he insisted that his pupils master their
grammar and translate their text into exact.
377
Peck
effective English, but he never forgot the pur-
pose behind the discipline. He was saturated
with the very spirit of Latin literature, and he
brought his whole mind with him to the class-
room. In his hands the great Roman classics
became an introduction to the literature, ideas,
and manners of the western world. To graduate
students he offered courses, also, in Latin met-
rics, the history of the language, and the lit-
erature of the Silver Age. His feeling for the
nuances of Latin style was precise and delicate,
the product of innate aptitude reenforced by
close study. Among his philological publications
were a students' edition of Suetonius' De Vita
Caesarum Libri Duo (1889) J Latin Pronunci-
ation (1890) ; a translation of Trimalchio's Din-
ner (1898) from the Satyricon of Petronius
Arbiter ; and a textbook, A History of Classical
Philology (1911). He was the editor, also, of
Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and
Antiquities (1897), which is still the most com-
pendious handbook of its class in English. None
of these productions gives any adequate indi-
cation of Peck's real powers. For many years
he looked forward to the time when he would
have leisure to write a history of Latin litera-
ture and edit a major edition of Juvenal, under-
takings for which he was admirably and in some
ways uniquely equipped, but fate cheated him of
his masterpieces.
He began his long connection with the pub-
lishing house of Dodd, Mead & Company by
editing their International Encyclopedia ( 1892) .
He and Daniel Coit Oilman served jointly as
editors of the New International Encyclopaedia
(1900-03), but the brunt of the responsibility
was borne by Frank Moore Colby [#.z/.] as
managing editor. Peck also edited several com-
pilations and reference books; contributed ar-
ticles to various magazines ; was literary editor
of the New York Commercial Advertiser, 1897-
1901 ; and was on the staff of Munsey's Magazine,
1907-11. His best vehicle, however, was the
Bookman, a literary monthly launched by Dodd,
Mead & Company in February 1895, of which
Peck was editor-in-chief until 1902 and a con-
tributing editor until 1907. For some issues he
wrote a good part of the contents himself, and
his taste, knowledge, and lightness of touch set
the tone of the whole magazine. His "Book-
man's Letter-Box" was famous, for he answered
his readers' questions both authoritatively and
wittily. His criticism for the most part was
shrewd and good tempered, impressionistic in
method, but founded on a keen appreciation of
literary technique and a receptiveness to ideas.
He was relatively free from the provincialism
Peck
and colonialism that still dominated American
criticism. His actual influence on the culture of
the period cannot be estimated; but whatever its
extent, it was wholly beneficial. His separate
publications included: The Personal Equation
(1897) ; What is Good English? and Other Es-
says (1899) ; Greystone and Porphyry (1899),
a volume of verse, displaying excellent technique
but little original poetic insight; William Hick-
ling Prescott (1905), a contribution to the Eng-
lish Men of Letters Series; Literature (1908),
an academic lecture and a characteristic example
of his more florid manner ; Studies in Several
Literatures (1909); and The New Baedeker
(1910), an amusing volume of travel sketches.
He also wrote two charming volumes for chil-
dren, The Adventures of Mabel (1896) and
Hilda and the Wishes (1907). His Twenty
Years of the Republic (1906), a vivid, pungent
history of the United States during the admin-
istrations of Cleveland, Harrison, and McKinley,
has only recently been displaced as the best sum-
mary account of the period. It was an extraor-
dinary feat of literature virtuosity and has be-
come a minor classic. It was characteristic of
Peck that he should write his best work in a
field so far removed from his professional con-
cerns.
Despite his many activities and incessant read-
ing, he had time to travel extensively and to lead
a gracious social life. He bestowed great pains
on his more promising pupils, cultivating their
personal friendship; wrote sprightly letters to
his distant friends ; and was an inveterate thea-
tre-goer. His taste in waistcoats and cravats
ran to the colorful; his friends attributed his
choice of wearing apparel to his defective eye-
sight. By 1905 or 1906 he began to show signs
of mental deterioration and aberration; in Sep-
tember 1908 his wife obtained a divorce from
him in South Dakota, and on Aug. 26, 1909, he
married Elizabeth Hickman Du Bois, of Phila-
delphia, a teacher in a New York high school.
In the summer of 1910 the foundations of his
security crumbled under him, overwhelming him
with disgrace, poverty, and illness. In June of
that year Esther Quinn, a former stenographer,
brought suit against him for breach of promise,
and several sensational newspapers printed as a
serial the letters that he had written to the wom-
an. It was his innocence rather than culpability
that ruined him. At worst the letters showed
that he was an inexpert philanderer, but the
obloquy and ridicule excited by their publication
brought on a mental collapse. He was dismissed
from his professorship and expelled from his
clubs ; his wife left him ; his friends deserted him
378
Peck
almost in a body ; and magazines refused to print
his articles. In January 1913 he declared him-
self bankrupt. A few months later he was in a
hospital at Ithaca, N. Y., desperately ill in body
and mind. His first wife, at this juncture, came
to his rescue, took him to her home at Stamford,
and nursed him back to a semblance of his former
health and spirits. It was only a semblance,
however. Her efforts to convert him to Chris-
tian Science irked him, and finally, with money
that she supplied, he rented a cheap room in a
lodging house, ate his meals — gourmet that he
had beenf — in a Greek restaurant, and endeavored
to earn his living by revising articles for a new
edition of the encyclopedia that he had once
edited. But his distraught mind was unequal
even to such chores, and on Mar. 23, 1914, he
committed suicide.
[Who's Who in America, 1906-13 ; Publishers' Week-
ly, Mar. 28, 1914; Robert Arrowsmith, in Columbia
Alumni News, Mar. 27, 1914; N. G. McCrea, in Co-
lumbia Univ. Quart,, June 1914; G, S. Hellman, "Men
of Letters at Columbia," Critic, Oct. 1903; Brown
Thurston, Thurston Geneals., 1635-1880 (1880), p.
203; Thomas Beer, The Mauve Decade (1926), pp.
180-99 ; W. G. Kellogg, "Harry ^Thurston Peck/' Am.
Mercury, Sept. 1933; AT. Y. Times, numerous refer-
ences, 1908-14; J. E. Spingarn, "The Fate of a Schol-
ar," Poems (1924) ; letter from M. H. Thomas, con-
cerning material in the Columbiana collection,
Columbia Univ. Lib., Am. Mercury, Jan. 1934.]
G.H.G.
PECK, JAMES HAWKINS (c. lypo-Apr. 29,
I&36), jurist, one of twelve children of Adam
and Elizabeth (Sharkey) Peck, was born in
what was then North Carolina, now Jefferson
County, Tenn. His father was a Revolutionary
soldier and a member of the legislature of Ten-
nessee. He was educated for the bar in Tennes-
see, served in the state militia during the War
of 1812, and settled in St. Louis, Mo., in 1818.
When Congress created the federal district court
of Missouri he was appointed judge of that court
by President Monroe, upon the recommenda-
tion of David Barton, senator from Missouri,
and Richard M. Johnson, representative from
Kentucky. In this capacity he served for four-
teen years, during which time he was impeached
and acquitted. He was a painstaking, scholarly,
and upright jurist. The arduous task of organiz-
ing and maintaining the district court in a new
state among a people of diverse race and lan-
guage required and received his best effort.
His impeachment grew out of the numerous
pending cases involving land grants. Many land
grants in upper Louisiana were made during the
Spanish and the French occupancy, and when
Missouri was admitted to the Union the titles to
more than three-fourths of the land in the state
was in dispute. The task of passing* upon their
Peck
validity was placed upon the district court A test
case was heard in 1825, and, as judge of that
court, he rendered an oral opinion finding against
the claimant. The decision was of such impor-
tance that there was a public demand for the pub-
lication of the opinion, and it was published in the
Missouri Republican on Mar. 30, 1826. Luke Law-
less, the attorney for the defeated claimant, pub-
lished an article in the Missouri Advocate and
St. Louis Enquirer on Apr. 8, 1826, criticising
the opinion of the court Lawless was cited,
convicted, and punished for contempt. This in-
duced the lawyer to file a complaint against the
judge before the House of Representatives. The
House at two separate sessions failed to impeach,
but after the charges had been under considera-
tion for more than three years Peck was im-
peached in April 1830. The status of the land
grants had become a political issue, and from
1822 to 1832 there was a prolonged debate in
Congress, during which the federal courts were
repeatedly attacked. These circumstances made
the impeachment possible. The sole charge was
that the court oppressively convicted a lawyer of
contempt The trial before the Senate lasted
from Dec. 13, 1830, to Jan. 31, 1831, when the
vote for acquittal was obtained. James Buchanan,
then a member of the House and afterward pres-
ident, had charge of the prosecution and Wil-
liam Wirt, formerly attorney-general, repre-
sented the defense. The proceedings of the trial
probably constitute the most thorough commen-
tary available on the law of contempt As one
result of the trial Congress passed a statute, still
in force, to define more clearly the circumstances
under which courts may punish for contempt
Although he was never married, Peck's last
years were pleasantly spent in the warmth of the
friendship of his associates, the closest of whom
was David Barton, also a bachelor. In addition
to his judicial labors he took an active interest
in the civic and cultural movements in Missouri
He died at St Charles, Mo.
[C. B. Davis, "Judge
Hist. Rev., Oct. 1932 ; J.
tions (1880) ; Wm. Van
the Bench and Bar of Mo.
Early Hist. of St. Louis
of the Trial of lames H.
rept. by A. S. Stanstmry
Louis), May 6, 1836.]
James Hawkins Peck/* U&.
F. Darby, Personal Recottec-
Ness Bay, Reminiscences of
. (1878) ; E. H. Sfaepaxd, The
(1870), pp. 96, 127; Report
Peck . . . before the Senate,
(1833) ; Missouri Argus (St
C.B.D.
PECK, JESSE TRUESDELL (Apr. 4, 1811-
May 17, 1883), bishop of the Methodist Epis^
copal Church, was born at Middlefieid, Otsego
Cotinty, N. Y., son of Ltrther and Annis (Col-
lar) Peek, brother of George Peck [g.vj, and
a descendant of Henry Peck, one of the f ounci-
ers of New Haven, Conn. Jesse was the
379
Peck
youngest of five brothers, all of whom became
ministers ; he also had six sisters. His school-
ing, which was limited, included a period at
Cazenovia Seminary. Early disposed to enter
the ministry, he was admitted on trial to the
Oneida Conference of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, June 12, 1832, was ordained deacon in
1834, and elder, in the Black River Conference,
on Sept. I, 1836. In the meantime he served
churches at Dryden, Newark Valley, Skaneate-
les, and Potsdam. From 1837 to 1840 he was
principal of the Gouverneur, N. Y., high school,
which later became Gouverneur Wesley an Sem-
inary; and from 1841 to 1848 he was principal
of the Troy Conference Academy, Poultney, Vt.
Although only thirty-three years old at the
time, he was elected a delegate from the Troy
Conference to the General Conference of 1844,
at which session action was taken which result-
ed in a division of the Church over the slavery
question. A speech which Peck made on this
occasion brought him into wide and favorable
notice in the North. In 1848 he was appointed
to succeed John P. Durbin [q.v.'] as president of
Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa., which position
he held until 1852, when he became pastor of
Foundry Church, Washington. Two years later,
however, he was chosen to fill out the unexpired
term of Abel Stevens [q.v.~\ as secretary of the
Tract Society of the Methodist Church. In 1856
he took charge of Green Street Church, New
York, but in 1858, on account of his wife's health,
he went to California, where for the next eight
years he served as pastor in San Francisco and
Sacramento and as a presiding elder. Returning
to the East, he supplied St. Paul's Church,
Peekskill, N. Y., for a time ; was pastor of Hud-
son Street Church (now First Church), Albany,
from 1867 to I87o; and from 1870 to 1872, of the
Methodist church in Syracuse, being prominent
among those who were instrumental in the
founding of Syracuse University.
At the General Conference of 1872 he was
elected bishop. During the remaining eleven
years of his life he presided at eighty-three an-
nual conferences, including those in Germany,
Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.
He also attended the First Ecumenical Metho-
dist Conference, held in London in 1881. In his
busy and varied career he found time to write
several books which circulated widely. Among
them are The Central Idea of Christianity (1856,
revised edition, 1876), and The History of the
Great Republic Considered from a Christian
Standpoint (1868), an edition of which under
the title of The Great RepwbUc from the Discov-
ery of America to the Centennial^ July 4, 1876 t
Peck
appeared in 1876. He also wrote tracts and para
phlets and contributed to Methodist periodical
and holiness magazines. He was a huge mar
weighing over 300 pounds, and possessed grea
physical strength. His body was seldom at res
and his mind was always on the alert. While no
bigoted, he was a great lover and defender o
his own church. He preached with much force
and as a presiding officer at ecclesiastical gath
erings he displayed marked ability. His wife
whom he married on Oct. 13, 1831, was Persi:
Wing of Cortland, N. Y. ; they had no children
[I. B. Peck, A Geneal. Hist, of the Descendants cr
Joseph Peck (1868) ; J. K. Peck, Luther Peck and Hi
Five Sons (1897) ; Life and Times of Rev. Georgi
Peck (1874), written by himself; Wm. S. Smyth, Thi
First Fifty Years of Casenovia Sem. (1877) ', T. L
Flood and J. W. Hamilton, Lives of the Methodist
Bishops (1882) ; Minutes Ann. Conferences of tht
M. E. Church (1883); John M'Clintock and James
Strong, Cyc. of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical
Literature, vol. XII (1891) ; J. E. King, "Persona]
Reminiscences of Bishop Jesse T. Peck," in Christian
Advocate (N. Y.), Sept. 21, 1911; Christian Advocate
(N. Y.), May 24, June 7, July 26, 1883 ; N. Y. Tribune,
May 19, 1883.] S.G.A.
PECK, JOHN JAMES (Jan. 4, i82i-Apr. 21,
1878), soldier and man of affairs, was born at
Manlius, N. Y., the son of John Wells and
Phoebe (Raynor) Peck. He received liberal
schooling and graduated from the United States
Military Academy in the same class as Grant in
1843. He was commissioned brevet 2nd lieuten-
ant of the 2nd Artillery and performed garrison
duty until the outbreak of the war with Mexico,
serving, with distinction, in every battle save one.
He engaged in frontier duty in the West and
was present at the skirmish with the Navajo In-
dians at Turn Cha, N. Mex., on Aug. 31, 1849,
afterward being assigned to recruiting and gar-
rison duty. He resigned from the army on Mar.
31, 1853, bearing the high commendation of his
superior officers. Peck married Robie Harris
Loomis of Syracuse, N. Y., on Nov. 20, 1850, and
six children, three boys and three girls, were
born to them. Following his resignation he en-
tered upon a very busy and successful life in
Syracuse. He was treasurer of the New York,
Newburgh & Syracuse Rail Road Company dur-
ing this period, as well as cashier and manager
of the Burnet Bank. From 1859 to 1861 he was
president of the Board of Education and for
some years was vice-president of the Franklin
Institute of Syracuse. He was a delegate to the
National Democratic Convention of 1856 and
of 1860, was twice nominated for Congress, and
once refused a foreign mission.
At the outbreak of the Civil War he offered
his services to the Federal government and re-
fused to aid his f needs who were eodieavonBg" to
Peck
secure for him a high command in the state
forces. By virtue of his past services he was
commissioned brigadier-general of volunteers
Aug. 9, 1861, and served in the defenses of
Washington until March 1862. He accompanied
McClellan in the Peninsular campaign, serving
with such distinction that he was commissioned
a major-general of volunteers July 4, 1862. Un-
til September he was in command of all the Fed-
eral troops in Virginia south of the James. He
rendered his most distinguished military service
in the spring of 1863 when he beat off Long-
street's attack at Suffolk, Va. His skill in the
disposition of his forces and his personal cour-
age were such that he outwitted Longstreefs at-
tempts to outflank him, beat off his assaults,
raised the siege of Suffolk, and ended the cam-
paign by personally leading a small force to cap-
ture at Hill's Point five heavy guns which the
gunboats of a light flotilla had not been able to
silence. For his actions in this area he was high-
ly commended by Dix and Meade. He was seri-
ously injured, however, and was given leave of
absence until August 1863, when he assumed
command in North Carolina until the end of
April 1864. During the following winter he
was engaged only in small skirmishes, but his
health suffered to such an extent that he was
ordered to Washington in the spring and placed
on duty in the Department of the East On Nov.
5 he was given command on the Canadian fron-
tier, remaining at this port until he was mus-
tered out of service on Aug. 24, 1865.
After the war he resumed his civilian inter-
ests at Syracuse. He organized the New York
State Life Insurance Company in 1867 and acted
as president of that organization until his death.
[G. W. Ctdlum, Biog. Reg. ... U. $. Mil Acad. (srd
ed., 1891) ; Ann. Reunion, Asso. Grads. U. S. Mil.
Acad.f 1901; EKas Loomis, Descendants of Joseph
Loomis in America (1909), revised by EHsha S.
Loomis; N. Y. Tribune, Apr. 23, 1878.] j^Y.
PECK, JOHN MASON (Oct. 31,
14, 1858), Baptist preacher and author, was born
in Litchfield, Conn., the son of Asa and Hannah
(Farnum) Peck. He was the descendant of
Paul Peck who probably emigrated to Massa-
chusetts in 1634 and removed to Hartford, Conn.,
in 1636. His father's poverty and lack of health
kept him busy on the farm, and he attended
school only a few winter terms. On May 8,
1809, he married Sarah Paine of Greene County,
N. Y. With the birth of the first of their ten chil-
dren both became doubtful of paedobaptism, and
soon afterward they left the Congregational for
the Baptist Church. Peck was licensed to preach
at Windham, N. Y., in 1811 and was ordained in
1813. After about five years in New York pas-
Peck
torates his interest in missions led him to pre-
paratory study for the service under William
Staughton [g.z/.] of Philadelphia. In 1817 with
James Welch he established the western mission
at Saint Louis ; when this was closed in 1820 he
remained in the West In 1822 as missionary of
the Massachusetts Baptist Missionary Society he
moved to Rock Spring, 111., where he acquired
and cultivated a half-section of land to supple-
ment his appropriation of five dollars a week.
Reading as he rode his horse, enduring hunger
and cold as part of his routine, he traveled con-
stantly through Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri.
To undermine the opposition to missions that he
encountered everywhere, he established Bible so-
cieties and Sunday schools and by frequent visits
kept them alive. Wherever possible he examined
schools, the majority of which he considered
worse than useless, and he placed good teachers
where he could. In 1827 he helped to establish
Rock Spring Seminary, the main purpose of
which was the training of teachers and ministers.
It was soon moved to Upper Alton. In 1835 he
raised $20,000 in the East for the institution, half
being obtained from Benjamin Shurtleff of Bos-
ton, for whom the seminary was renamed Shurt-
leff College. Peck remained a trustee until his
death. A religious periodical, the Pioneer, was
established at Rock Spring under his editorship
in 1829, continuing there or at Upper Alton until
1839, when it was merged with the Baptist Ban-
ner at Louisville, Ky. He became editor of the
Western Watdnnanin 1849. In the meantime his
reports and articles were making him known as
an authority on the West, and he was led to com-
pile his Guide for Emigrants, which appeared in
1831 and again in 1836 and 1837. The first edi-
tion of his Gazetteer of Illinois (1834) ran to
4,200 copies ; it was revised in 1837. &1 collabora-
tion with John Messinger he prepared a sectional
map of Illinois, published in 1835. The Travel-
ler's Directory for Illinois appeared in 1840. He
wrote a Life of Daniel Boone (1847), in 1850
edited a revised and enlarged edition of the An-
nals of the West that had been published in 1846
by James H. Perkins [g.27.], and wrote Father
Clark or the Pioneer Preacher ( 1855 ) . His large
library burned in 1852, but his first sources were
his own observations, noted copiously in Ms
diary while he traveled and amplified by a large
correspondence and by interviews.
He took little part in Illinois politics except an
unsuccessful candidacy for the constitutional
convention of 1847-48. He was active in the
colonization society (Pioneer, Oct. 27, 1837)
but deplored the efforts of the extreme aix>H-
tionists* His criticism of Lovejoy and tbe abo-
381
Peck
litionists compelled him to defend his attitude
toward the tragedy of Love joy's murder (Pio-
neer, June i, 8, 1838). He favored the enforce-
ment of the Fugitive Slave Law and in January
1851 preached a sermon on the subject in the
State House at Springfield, The Duties of
American Citizens (1851). In 1841 and 1842
he acted as agent for the Western Baptist Pub-
lication Society and from 1843 to 1846 as secre-
tary of the American Baptist Publication Soci-
ety. He held a pastorate in Saint Louis in 1849
and in Covington, Ky., in 1854, after which the
failure of his health made necessary his return
home. He died at Rock Spring.
[Rufus Babcock, Forty Years of Pioneer Life, Mem-
oir of John Mason Peck . . . from his Journals and
Correspondence (1864) ; Coe Hayne, Vanguard of the
Caravans (1931) ; A. K. de Blois, The Pioneer School.
A Hist, of Shurtleff College (1900) ; I. B. Peck, A
Geneal. Hist, of the Descendants of Joseph Peck (1868),
P- 38o.] T.C.P.
PECK, THOMAS EPHRAIM (Jan. 29,
i822-Oct. 2, 1893), Presbyterian clergyman,
teacher, was born in Columbia, S. C, the son of
Ephraim Peck, a native of Connecticut who had
moved South on account of his health and opened
a small mercantile establishment in Columbia,
and Sarah Bannister (Parke), a daughter of
Thomas Parke, professor of the classic lan-
guages in the College of South Carolina. The
father died when Thomas was ten years of age,
after which event the mother lived with her fa-
ther till his death in 1840. Prepared for college
by his mother, and afterwards by John Daniel
in the Male Academy of Columbia, Thomas
graduated from the College of South Carolina,
with distinguished honors, in his eighteenth
year. Feeling that he was called to the ministry,
he studied, while acting as College librarian,
not in the Presbyterian Seminary in the town,
but under the personal direction of James Hen-
ley Thorn well [#.z>.], a Presbyterian minister,
then professor of metaphysics in the college, who
exercised a controlling influence over Peck's
mental and spiritual development.
He was licensed by the Charleston Presby-
tery in 1844, preached for several months to the
Salem and Jackson churches in Fairfield County,
S. C., then for a year as temporary supply in
the Second Presbyterian Church of Baltimore.
In 1846 he became pastor of the Broadway
Street Church, an offshoot of the Second
Church, and in 1857, pastor of the Central Pres-
byterian Church of Baltimore. On Oct 28,
1852, he married Ellen Church Richardson, the
daughter of Scotch parents, herself a stanch
Presbyterian. She bore him seven daughters,
three of whom died in infancy and one In early
38;
Peck
womanhood. In 1855-56 he collaborated with
Rev. Stuart Robinson in publishing the Presby-
terian Critic and Monthly Review, a paper de-
signed to maintain strict Presbyterian views in
polity and doctrine, in which are found many of
his characteristic views.
In 1859 he was elected professor of ecclesias-
tical history and church government in Union
Theological Seminary in Virginia. He declined
the call, but when it was tendered him again in
1860 he accepted it, feeling that impaired health
was unfitting him for the pastorate. Upon the
resignation in 1883 of Dr. Robert L. Dabney
[g.tf.], professor of theology, Peck was prompt-
ly and unanimously chosen to fill his place, a
position which he continued to hold till his death.
In 1878 he was elected moderator of the General
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the
United States. He suffered a marked decline of
health in 1892, and in October of the following
year died of Bright's disease and attendant com-
plications, survived by three of his daughters, all
of whom married clergymen.
He published one small book, Notes on Eccle-
siology (1892), and a number of articles which,
with unpublished sketches and notes, were edit-
ed by T. C. Johnson and printed under the title,
Miscellanies of Rev. Thomas E. Peck (3 vols.,
I89S-97)« He rendered his greatest service to
the Church as a teacher at Union Theological
Seminary. He held that the Bible was the iner-
rant Word of God, an absolute rule of faith and
practice, to which nothing should be added ex-
cept by good and necessary inference. He be-
lieved that Presbyterian doctrine and polity were
clearly set forth in the Scriptures, and that the
traditionary beliefs and practices of the Church,
being Scriptural, should be maintained. Many
who did not know him well thought that he was
severe and cold ; friends who pierced his reserve,
however, found him warmhearted and affec-
tionate, albeit possessed of strong and unyield-
ing convictions.
[C. R. Vaughan, in Union Sem. Mag., Mar.-Apr.
1894, and in Miscellanies (vol. Ill) ; T. C. Johnson, in
Christian Observer, July 4, 1894; R. F. Campbell, in
Union Sem. Mag., Mar.- Apr. 1898; The State (Rich-
mond), Oct. s, 1893-] E.T.T.
PECK, TRACY (May 24, iSsS-Nov. 24, 1921),
classicist, teacher, was born at Bristol, Conn.,
the son of Tracy and Sally (Adams) Peck.
Through his father he was descended from Paul
Peck who came to Hartford with Thomas Hook-
er in 1636. His mother was descended from
Henry Adams who emigrated in 1636 from
Devonshire, England, to Massachusetts. By vir-
tue of his own culture and wide experiences
abroad in later life, he became thoroughly cos-
Peck
mopolitan in his point of view, but he reflected
always in his native integrity, intellectual clar-
ity, and personal simplicity, the force of his
colonial New England ancestry. Having pre-
pared for college at Williston Academy, East-
hampton, Mass., he entered Yale College, from
which he graduated as valedictorian in 1861.
During the two years following he studied at
Berlin, Jena, and Bonn, traveling also in Italy.
Returning to Yale, he received the degree of
M.A. in 1864 and was a tutor in Latin for the
next three years. From 1867 to 1869 ^e studied
in Rome and Berlin, returning again to a tutor-
ship for the following year. On Dec. 22, 1870,
he was married in Brooklyn, N. Y., to Elizabeth
Harriet Hall of Hadleigh, England; they had
two children, a son and a daughter. During the
year 1870-71 he taught Latin and mathematics
at the Chickering Classical Institute In Cincin-
nati. From there he was called to be professor
of the Latin language and literature in Cornel
University, where he served until he was called
to Yale in the same capacity in 1880. He was
professor in Yale College for twenty-eight years,
retiring in 1908. During the year 1885-^6 he
was president of the American Philological As-
sociation and in 1898-99 director of the Ameri-
can School for Classical Studies in Rome. After
retiring from active service he spent most of
his time in Rome, where he died and was buried
in the English and American Cemetery.
He represented the Connecticut Academy of
Arts and Sciences at the Darwin Centennial in
Cambridge and London in June 1909. With
Prof. Clement L. Smith of Harvard he edited a
series of Latin authors, preparing personally
with Prof. James B. Greenough [#.#.] one of
the volumes of Livy, published in 1893. He also
published essays in the Nation, the New Eng~
lander j the Cornell Review, the American Jour-
nal of Archeology, and the Transactions of the
American Philological Association. He was
councilor of the British and American Archaeo-
logical Society in Rome. A polished and bril-
liant speaker, he delivered various addresses,
the more memorable of which include one at the
centennial celebration of the incorporation of
Bristol, Conn., In 1885 (see Centennial Celebra-
tion of the Incorporation of the Town of Bristol,
1885), one at the semi-centennial of Williston
Seminary in 1891 {Baccalaureate Sermon, Ora-
tion, and Addresses Delivered at the Semi-Cen-
tennial Celebration of Williston Seminary . . .
1891), and a Latin address before the Phi Beta
Kappa Society at Yale in March 1907. His
Latin style in both verse and prose was, in the
finest sense of the word, elegant; and this Phi
Peck
Beta Kappa speech was particularly noteworthy
for its suggestion of the nomination and election
of William Howard Taft as president of the
United States.
It is more true of Tracy Peck than of most
men that the outline of his life work gives very
slight intimation of the real worth of the man.
He had an extraordinarily ripe scholarship in
the field of Roman life and manners. This re-
sulted from a thorough acquaintance with the
more intimate types of Latin literature and with
the whole range of Latin Inscriptions. Prob-
ably no man of modern times has ever known
better the ancient city of Rome, especially its
peculiar spirit. He also knew all of its material
remains : topographical, architectural, and in-
scriptional. It was his keen understanding of
Rome and the Romans and his fine appreciation
of their human contributions to civilization that
made his classes the delight of all humanistic
students. He was Intolerant of careless work but
his own courtly and chivalrous character made
him one of the best-loved and most respected of
the scholars of a peculiarly rich period in Amer-
ican classical scholarship. His interest was al-
ways In passing on what he had absorbed and
his method was that of the teacher rather than
the writer. In his latter years In Rome he gave
unreservedly of his abundant store of knowledge
to all those who came seriously to learn some-
thing of that capital of the world. He became
deservedly one of the best-known Americans In
Rome without ever losing touch with America
or ceasing to exert a benign influence on Ameri-
can classical scholarship.
[I. B. Peck, A Geneal Hist, of the Descendants of
Joseph Peck (1868), p. 386; 1861-1911: The Fiftieth
Anniv. of the Class of 1861, Yale Coll. (1912) ; Yde
Univ. OUt. Record, 1922; Thirty Year Record: Class
of 1800 , Yale Coll. (1922) ; Am. Acad. in Rome, Ann.
Report, 1921-22; Report of the Dean of Yale Coll. to
the President, 1921—22; Yale Alumni Weekly, Dec. 2,
1921 ; New Hawen Journal-Courier, Nov. 26, 1921 j
New Haven Evening Register, Dec. 11, 1921.]
C.W.M-4.
PECK, WILLIAM DANDRIDGE (May 8,
1763-Oct 3, 1822), naturalist, was born in Bos-
ton, His father was John Peck ; his mother, who
died when he was seven, was Hannah (Jack-
son). At the commencement of the siege of Bos-
ton in 1776, the family removed to Braintree,
Mass., and later to Lancaster. William soon
afterwards enrolled at Harvard College, and In
1782 received the degree of bachelor of arts. He
then entered the accounting house of a promi-
nent merchant and was destined for commer-
cial pursuits. His father, a naval architect of
talent and the designer of ships of war for the
government, felt that he was not adequately
383
Peckham
paid and retired in disgust to a small farm at
Kittery, Me. His son speedily followed him
there, and for nearly twenty years led a secluded
life, busily engaged, however, in making obser-
vations in zoology and collecting insects, aquatic
plants, and fishes. He made rare trips to Bos-
ton and to Portsmouth, but his fame grew, al-
though in a restricted circle.
His friends raised a subscription to establish
a professorship in natural history in Harvard
College and in 1805 Peck was elected thereto.
Though at first strongly resisting all solicita-
tions, he eventually accepted the position. He
was then sent to Europe to visit the different
scientific establishments in England, France,
and the North European countries, largely to
gain information which would be helpful in the
establishment of a botanic garden in Cambridge.
During this trip he purchased many books for
the library of the new department, and brought
back many specimens of natural history. He
was a man of great ability in a number of direc-
tions: he constructed his first microscope; he
was an artist and made exquisite drawings ; he
was a classical scholar. In 1812 he was one of
the incorporators of the American Antiquarian
Society.
Peck was probably the first teacher of ento-
mology in the United States and probably the
first writer of scientific attainment to enter the
field of economic entomology. He wrote "The
Description and History of the Canker- Worm"
(Massachusetts Magazine; or Monthly Mu~
seum, September-October 1795), for which he
received a gold medal from the Massachusetts
Agricultural Society. In 1799 he published Nat-
wal History of the Slug -Worm, for which he
also received a gold medal, and a premium of
fifty dollars. In this paper he described the first
egg-parasite noticed in the United States. He
wrote about the bark-beetles of the pear and of
the pine (Massachusetts Agricultural Reposi-
tory and Journal, January 1817) and about the
lepidopterous borers in locust trees (Ibid., Jan-
uary 1818). His last paper dealt with insects
that affect the oaks and cherries (Ibid., Janu-
ary 1819). In 1818 he published a catalogue of
the foreign and American plants in the Botanic
Garden, Cambridge.
[Josiali Qtiincy, The Hist, of Harvard Univ. (1860) ;
Con. Mass. Hist, Soc., 2 sen, vol. X (1823); H. A.
Kelly and W. L, Burrage, Am. Medic. Biog. (1920) ;
Boston Daily Advertiser, Oct 8, 1822.] L. O H,
PECKHAM, GEORGE WILLIAMS (Mar.
23, i845-Jan. ro, 1914), teacher, librarian, en-
tomologist, was born at Albany, N. Y.r the son
of George Williams Peckhau^ a lawyer, and of
Peckham
Mary Perry (Watson) Peckham. He was a de-
scendant of John Peckham who was in Rhode
Island as early as 1638. In 1853 the family re-
moved to Milwaukee, Wis. Here George was
placed in the Milwaukee Academy, but he never
cared for Latin, Greek, and mathematics; in
fact, he was not interested in any study until, in
the early days of the Civil War, he came upon a
book of tactics. He and his friend Arthur
MacArthur (afterwards a lieutenant-general)
worked over this book and determined to enter
the army and become great soldiers. His parents,
however, did not allow him to enlist until 1863,
when he was assigned to Company B, First
Regiment, Wisconsin Heavy Artillery. He was
mustered out with the rank of first lieutenant
at the age of nineteen.
At the earnest wish of his father, he entered
the Albany (N. Y.) Law School, living in the
family of his uncle, Judge Rufus Wheeler Peck-
ham. After ^graduation he entered the law of-
fice of James T. Brown of Milwaukee. Not
caring for the law, he became a student in the
medical college of the University of Michigan
at Ann Arbor. In 1873 he was called home by
his father's death; the college granted him the
degree of M.D. in 1881. Asked to take a tem-
porary position as teacher of biology in what
at that time was the only high school in Mil-
waukee— afterwards known as, the Eastern High
School — he proved an inspiring teacher, and im-
mediately introduced laboratory methods. It is
said that he was the first to employ such meth-
ods in biological work in any high school in the
United States. He immediately engaged in re-
search and was the leading supporter of the so-
called Darwinian theory in his community.
Elizabeth Maria Gifford, recently graduated
from Vassar (1876), came to work in his lab-
oratory, and in 1880 they were married. It was
a most fortunate union, and together they car-
ried on investigations almost until his death,
publishing very many papers under a joint au-
thorship. In 1888 he was made principal of the
high school, and in 1891 was appointed superin-
tendent of public instruction for the city of Mil-
waukee. He held this post until 1897, when he
was made director of the great public library,
for which a beautiful building had just been
erected. In this position he served until his re-
tirement in 1910. He was a prominent publish-
ing member of the Wisconsin Academy of Sci-
ences, Arts and Letters, and was its president
from 1890 to 1893. He had already been presi-
dent of the Wisconsin Natural History Society.
The Peckhams* scientific work (it is practi-
cally impossible to write of them individually in
384
Peckham
this connection) was largely confined to spiders
and wasps. When Mrs. Peckham first joined
the high school laboratory, they began a study
of the jumping spiders. Commencing with tax-
onomic studies, they devoted evenings and holi-
days to the work and published a number o£
papers. For a time these were limited to de-
scriptions of species and genera, but long vaca-
tions spent in the country gave opportunity for
field work, and in December 1887 they pub-
lished in the Journal of Morphology the results
of a very interesting investigation of the mental
powers of spiders. In 1889 and 1890 they pub-
lished papers on sexual selection and protective
resemblances in spiders (Occasional Papers of
the Natural History Society of Wisconsin, vol.
i).
In the meantime they had been watching a
ground nest of Vespa germanica close to their
country cottage, and from this came their very
important study of wasps, culminating in their
great work entitled On the Instincts and Habits
of Solitary Wasps (1898). It is a volume of
249 pages, with fifteen plates, and is not only a
sound scientific treatise but an altogether charm-
ing book. It was based on years of patient, high-
ly intelligent, and very laborious investigations,
and ranks today as one of the most valuable
books in that field. The somewhat earlier work
of the Frenchmen, Fabre and Ferton, and the
later work of Phil and Nellie Rau in the United
States, together with that of the Peckhams, ex-
plored a fascinating field in comparative animal
psychology. In Bouvier's La Vie Psychique des
Insectes (1918) the work of the Peckhams is
considered as authoritative. Moreover, their
book is a masterpiece of English writing in its
clearness, aptness and simplicity. Three chil-
dren were born to them, a son and two daugh-
ters.
[S. F. Peckham and others, Peckham Geneal. (n.d.) ;
Entomological News, Apr. 1914; Trans. Wif. Acad. of
Sci., Arts and Letters, vol. XX (1921) ; Military Order
of the Loyal Legion of the U. S., State of Wis., Circu-
lar 6f ser. of 1914, Mar. 21 ; Milwaukee Sentinel, Jan.
L.O.H.
PECKHAM, RUFUS WHEELER (Nov. 8,
i838-Oct. 24, 1909), judge, was the son of
the jurist of the same name and Isabella Lacey,
and younger brother of Wheeler Hazard Peck-
ham [q.v.]* He was born in Albany, N. Y., at-
tended the Albany Boys' Academy, and con-
tinued his education in Philadelphia. After
traveling with his brother m Europe he returned
in 1857 and began to study law. In the year of
his admission to the bar (1859) his father was
elected a justice of the supreme court of New
York, and to the vacancy caused by his retire-
Peckham
ment from the firm of Peckham & Tremain
young Rufus succeeded. He continued as a
member thereof for nearly two decades. On
Nov. 14, 1866, he was married to Harriette M.
Arnold, daughter of a leading New York City
merchant. Two sons were born of the union who
predeceased their parents.
From 1869 to 1872 Peckham was district at-
torney of Albany County, in which capacity he
won distinction by his successful prosecution of
certain express-car robbers. He was later called
to assist the state attorney-general in other
prosecutions, meanwhile representing important
clients as a private practitioner. In 1876 he was
a district delegate to the National Democratic
Convention where he strongly espoused the in-
terest of Samuel J. Tilden. He became corpora-
tion counsel for the city of Albany in 1881 and
two years later was elected a justice of the state
supreme court. In 1886 he was elected to the
court of appeals of New York and is said to
have "shown by his opinions in 1891, In the
election controversies of that year ... his inde-
pendence of political affiliations by ranging him-
self with the Republican Judges" (Proceedings,
New York State Bar Association, post, p. 651).
At other times during his preceding career he
seems to have taken a stand adverse to that of
his local party organization and in favor of
good government; but evidently he did not an-
tagonize party leaders as his brother Wheeler
had in New York City, for when, in 1895, Presi-
dent Cleveland nominated him for a vacancy on
the Supreme Court of the United States, Sena-
tor Hill, who had successfully opposed his broth-
er's appointment to a similar position the pre-
ceding year hastened to let it be known that this
nominee was one toward whom he maintained a
different attitude, and the nomination was quick-
ly confirmed.
Peckham assumed his new duties on Jan. 6,
1896, and served for more than thirteen years as
a member of the nation's tribunal. "His opin-
ions/' observed Chief Justice Fuller, "from the
first in Volume 160 of our reports to the last in
Volume 214, are all lucid expositions of the mat-
ter in hand, and many of them of peculiar grav-
ity and importance in the establishment of gov-
erning principles" (Proceedings, New York
State Bar Association, p. 707). Opinions in the
following cases have been especially mentioned
as revealing Peckham's "great learning and
industry": United States vs. Trans-Missouri
Freight Association (166 U. S., 290) ; United
States vs. Joint Traffic Association (171 U. S.,
505); Hopkins vs. United States (171 U. S.,
578); Addysfon Pipe & Sted Camjtmy vs.
385
Peck ham
United States (175 U. $., 211) ; Maxwell vs.
Dow (176 U. S., 581) ; Montague 6- Company
vs. Lo^ry (193 tf. ^.,38) ; and Lochner vs. A/>w
yor& (198 £7. S., 45). Peckham died at Alta-
mont, near Albany, N. Y., in the fall of 1909.
His memory was honored by special services on
the part of the New York State Bar Association,
Dec. 9, 1909, and the bar of the federal Supreme
Court on Dec. 18, of the same year. Addresses
were made on these occasions by Elihu Root,
Alton B. Parker, and other distinguished mem-
bers of the legal profession. The resolutions of
the New York State Bar Association describe
him as "our ideal of a Judge in ability, character
and conduct, . . . always courteous yet dignified.
... He never seemed conscious of his honor, nor
did he feel it necessary to maintain an attitude
of judicial reserve."
Peckham
[See: "Proc. on the Death of Mr. Justice Peckham,"
215 U. S. Reports, v-xiii; "In Memory of Rufus W.
Peckham " Proc. N. Y. State Bar Asso., ip/o (1910) ;
b. *. Peckham, Peckham GeneaL (1922) ; Who's Who
in America, 1908-09 ; AT. Y. Times, Oct. 25, 1009 In
some sources pr-T-T - ' •*« - * -
liams.]
'eckham's middle name is 'given as Wil-
C.S.L.
PECKHAM, STEPHEN FARNUM (Mar.
26, i839-July ii, 1918), chemist, son of Charles
and Hannah Lapham (Farnum) Peckham, and
a descendant of John Peckham, who had come to
Rhode Island as early as 1638, was born at Fruit
Hill near Providence, R. I, and spent his early
years on his father's farm. He prepared for col-
lege at the Friends' (now Moses Brown) School,
Providence, and after two years as a clerk in a
drug store, entered Brown University in 1859,
taking a special course in chemistry. Two years'
later, in association with Nathaniel P. Hill \_q.vJ\
and others, he began to manufacture illuminating
oils from petroleum in a plant at Providence
planned and constructed largely by himself. The
project did not prove immediately remunerative,
however, and was abandoned shortly after the
outbreak of the Civil War. Together with many
others, Peckham enlisted in the army (Aug. 15,
1862), serving first as a hospital steward of the
7th Rhode Island Regiment and subsequently as
chief of the chemical department of the United
States laboratory at Philadelphia. He remained
in the army until the close of the war, being hon-
orably discharged May 26, 1865. In 1865-66, as
an expert for the California Petroleum Com-
pany, he spent most of his time studying the
occurrence of petroleum in the southern part of
that state. This work naturally led him into
geology, and during the next year or so he made
a geological survey of parts of California with
special reference to petroleum and allied mate-
rials. He made several reports, including one on
386
the oil interests of Southern California and sub-
sequently an elaborate one on the technological
examination of bitumen (prepared in 1867 and
published in California Geological Survey Geol-
ogy, vol. II, 1882), a subject which interested
him for many years.
For a number of years, beginning in 1867, he
taught chemistry in various institutions: Brown
University (1867-68), Washington and Jeffer-
son College, Washington, Pa. (1868-69), State
College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts
Orono, Me. (1869-71), Buchtel College, Akron
Ohio (1871-72), and the University of Minne-
sota (1872-80). While teaching in the last-
named place he was also chemist of the state geo-
logical survey and of the board of health. He had
been state assayer of Maine (1869-71), of Min-
nesota (1873-80), and in 1887 was state assayer
of Rhode Island From 1880 to 1885 he was a spe-
cial agent of the United States census office and
prepared many articles on chemistry, including
a Report on the Production, Technology, and
Uses of Petroleum and its Products (1885), with
a bibliography. For the next five years or so he
was engaged in various business, scientific, and
literary occupations, including the preparation
of a^long article on petroleum for the Encyclo-
pedia Britannica (pth ed, 1875-86). He went
to California again in 1893 to serve for a year as
chemist of the Union Oil Company. His interest
in bitumen led him to visit Trinidad to examine
the famous pitch lake. Upon his return he served
for four years as an expert on petroleum and
asphaltum at Ann Arbor, Mich. In 1898 he en-
tered the service of New York City as chemist,
first to the commissioners of accounts and sub-
sequently to the finance department. He held the
latter position until January 1911, when ill health
compelled him to resign. His scientific work
ceased at this time.
In addition to nearly one hundred reports, in-
cluding those mentioned above, and articles in
technical journals, non-technical magazines, and
encyclopaedias, he wrote Elementary Treatise on
Chemistry (1876), Asphalt Paving; Report of
the Commissioners of Accounts of the City of
New York (1904) ; and Solid Bitumens (1909).
He was interested in New England history, was
the chief author of a Peckham Genealogy (n.d)
and from 1912 to 1915 was associate editor of the
Journal of American History. His extended
services and fundamental contributions to the
petroleum and allied industries were recognized
by his election to membership in many scientific
societies. On June 13, 1865, he married Mary
Chace Peck (died Mar. 20, 1892) and on Aug.
i, 1902, Harriet C Waite Van Buren, a phy-
Peckham
sician. There were two sons and two daughters
by the former marriage.
[Hist. Cat. of Brown Unw., 1764-1904 (1905) ;
Providence Journal, July 16, 1918; S. F. Peckham and
others, Peckham Geneal. (n.d.) ; N. F. Times, July 13,
L.CN.
PECKHAM, WHEELER HAZARD (Jan. i,
i833~Sept. 27, 1905), lawyer, was born in Al-
bany, N. Y., the eldest son of Rufus Wheeler
Peckham, and Isabella Lacey, and a brother of
Rufus Wheeler Peckham [g.^.]. He was descend-
ed from John Peckham who was in Rhode Island
in 1638. He attended the Albany Boys' Acad-
emy, a French boarding-school at Utica, where
he learned French, and is said to have spent a
year at Union College. Being delicate, he did not
complete his college course. Instead he traveled
for a year in Europe and returned in 1853 to
study law at the Albany Law School, of which
he was one of the first students, and with his fa-
ther's firm, Peckham & Tremain, with which he
practised after being admitted to the bar in 1854.
On Apr. 30, 1855, he was married to Anne A.
Keasbey, whom he had met while traveling in
Europe. A hemorrhage of the lungs in 1856
caused him such alarm that he left his business
for another tour in Europe, and upon his return,
fourteen months later, took tip his residence for
a couple of years at Dubuque, Iowa, removing to
St Paul, Minn., in 1859 and remaining there
until 1864. He then returned to the East with
health restored and, in the fall of that year, en-
tered into a law partnership with George M.
Miller and John A. Stoutenburgh of New York
City. The firm had a large general practice, and
Peckham proved amply able to handle the very
considerable share of it which fell to him. As
early as 1868 he appeared in the federal Supreme
Court in cases involving the power of a state to
tax "greenbacks" (The Banks vs. The Mayor,
7 Wallace 16; Bank vs. Supervisors, 7 Wallace
26). Peckham contended, and was upheld by
the Supreme Court, which reversed the holding
of the New York court of appeals, that the pow-
er did not exist. Among the opposing counsel
was Charles O'Conor, who, it is said, was so
impressed with Peckham's presentation of the
case that he called Peckham to assist him in the
prosecution of William M. Tweed and his as-
sociates in 1873. There were two trials, the first
resulting in a "hung jury," but in the second
Tweed was convicted and the heavy work had
been done by Peckham.
Like his father before him, lie was a vigorous
opponent of Tammany Hall, but lie never was
"in politics" in the sense of seeking office. When
appointed district attorney by Governor Cleve-
Pedder
land in 1884 he held office less than a year. He
was one of the founders of the Association of the
Bar of the City of New York in 1869 and served
as its president from 1892 to 1894, inclusive. He
was also a member of the New York State Bar
Association and took a practical interest in law
reform. In January 1894 he was nominated by
President Cleveland to fill a vacancy on the
United States Supreme Court Senators Hill and
Murphy of his own state, both organization
Democrats, opposed him because of his inde-
pendent course, and by invoking the custom
known as "senatorial courtesy," prevented his
confirmation. But they could not impair the pro-
fessional standing and reputation which he built
up during a half -century at the bar, nor the in-
numerable friendships which he formed in vari-
ous parts of the country and in all circles In
which he moved. He died suddenly, in Septem-
ber 1905, in his office in New York City.
[The best appreciation of Peckham is Edward Pat-
terson's "Memorial of Wheeler H. Peckham," in Asso.
of the Bar of the City of N. Y., 1907. See also : Prac.
of the Twenty-Ninth Ann. Meeting of the N. Y. State
Bar Asso., 1906; S. F. Peckham, Peckham Geneal.
(1922) ; Who's Who in America, 1903-05 ; N. Y. Trib-
une f Jan. 23, 24, 25, and Feb. 17, 1894 J N. F. Times f
Sept. 28, 1905.3 C.S.L.
PEDDER, JAMES (July 29, i775-Aug. 27,
1859), agriculturist, editor, and author, was born
in Newport, Isle of Wight, England. He was
the youngest of a family of ten children. Little
is known of his childhood or of his formal edu-
cation, but that he was well trained seems cer-
tain from his later accomplishments. In the
early years of his married life he lived at "Buck-
berry Farm" on the Isle of Wight. About 1809
he went to London and became an assistant of
the celebrated chemist and writer, Dr. Samuel
Parks, remaining with him for nearly ten years,
During this period he published a little book for
children, The Yellow Shoestrings, or, The Good
Effects of Obedience to Parents (1814), which
Is said to have gone through seventeen London
editions and at least two in the United States,
About 1819 Pedder was obliged to give up his
position with Dr. Parks on account of his health.
He went to the Isle of Jersey where, after his re-
covery, he took charge of Trinity Manor House
near St. Hilliers for three years, during the ab-
sence of the lord of the manor. During the next
two years he was engaged in supervising the
erection of the chemical works of Amlreux and
Le Breton. This position he left to take charge
of the vast estate of John Christy, the indigo
merchant, who from the extent of his possessions
in Brecknockshire, Wales, was familiarly known
as "The Prince of Wales." For about seven
years Pedder remained In his employ.
387
Peek
Believing: that America would furnish better
opportunities for his labors, he emigrated to
Philadelphia in 1832 and was soon appointed by
the Philadelphia Beet Sugar Society to make an
investigation of the methods employed by the
French in the culture of the sugar beet and the
manufacture of beet sugar. After spending six
months in France, he laid before the Society his
findings, published later in a volume entitled Re-
port Made to the Beet Sugar Society on the Cul-
ture in France of the Beet Root (1836). Sub-
sequently he was employed for several years by
Joseph Levering, the well-known sugar manu-
facturer of Philadelphia. From Apr. 15, 1840,
to July 1843 he edited the Farmers' Cabinet, an
agricultural journal of merit and very consider-
able influence, published in Philadelphia from
1836 to 1848. He was a member of the Phila-
delphia Society for Promoting Agriculture and
was elected librarian on Feb. 2, 1842. About 1844
he became corresponding editor of the Boston
Cultivator, and in 1848 resident editor, which
position he continued to hold until his death.
While he was associated with the Farmers'
Cabinet, he began the publication in its columns
of "Frank; or Dialogues between a Father and
Son on the Subjects of Agriculture, Husbandry,
and Rural Affairs," intended especially for the
children of farmers. This popular series of ar-
ticles was reprinted in part in other agricultural
periodicals of the period, namely, the American
Farmer, the Cultivator, and the New Genesee
Farmer, was published in book form in 1840,
and passed through several editions. A work of
a technical character which also enjoyed a con-
siderable popularity for several years was his
book entitled The Farmers' Land Measurer, or
Pocket Companion (1842), reprinted as late as
1890. His last days were spent in comparative
retirement, but he continued his editorial work
up to a few months before his death, which oc-
curred in his eighty-fifth year, at Roxbury (now
part of Boston), Mass. He was buried in Forest
Hills Cemetery, Jamaica Plain, by the side of
his wife, Eliza, who died July 25, 1854.
IBoston Cultivator, Sept. 3, 1859; Hist. Mag., Oct.
1859; Boston Transcript, Aug. 30, 1859.] C.R.B.
PEEK, FRANK WILLIAM (Aug. 20, 1881-
July 26, 1933), electrical engineer, the son of
Frank William and May (Stedman) Peek, was
born in Mokelumne Hill, Calaveras County, Cal.
He prepared for college in his native town and
was graduated in 1905 from Leland Stanford
University with the A.B. degree. During his
vacations he acquired practical experience with
the Standard Electric Company of California and
the California Gas & Electric Company. For a
Peek
year following his graduation he was employed
as test man at the Schenectady, N. Y., plant of
the General Electric Company and then he as-
sumed direction of a special test in engineering
research, joining the power and mining engi-
neering department of the company in 1907. It
was in this capacity that he began the research
which first drew attention to him as an investi-
gator of high voltage phenomena. In connection
with this project he spent the summers of 1907
and 1908 in the mountains of Colorado studying
lightning and the protection of electric transmis-
sion lines and in 1910 was amongst the first to
join the newly formed consulting engineering
department of the General Electric Company
organized by Charles Proteus Steinmetz [q.v.]
in Schenectady. During his first two years here
he was engaged in studying the problems of elec-
tric transmission at 250,000 volts and in the
course of this work he established the laws of
corona and investigated electric line insulators.
At the same time he took graduate work at Union
College, receiving the degree of M.E.E. from
that institution in 1911. He continued his re-
search in Schenectady until 1916 when he was
transferred to the Pittsfield, Mass., works of the
company and placed in charge of the general
transformer engineering department. He was
later made chief engineer, which position he held
at the time of his death.
High voltage and power transmission with re-
lated developments were subjects of special re-
search for Peek after 1916. He became increas-
ingly active in the investigation of lightning,
designing and building several lightning genera-
tors one of which was capable of producing a
5,000,000 volt lightning flash. In 1931 he built
a machine which produced 10,000,000 volts, the
highest voltage ever controlled by man. During
his long career in this special field he was a fre-
quent contributor to technical literature, his ar-
ticles on the laws of corona, high voltage phe-
nomena, transmission lines calculations and allied
problems exceeding two hundred in number. He
was the author of Dielectric Phenomena in High
Voltage Engineering (1915), also published in
French (1924). For his paper "High Voltage
Power Transmission," published in the Proceed-
ings of the American Society of Civil Engineers,
vol. XLVIII, no. 9, and read in 1922 before the
society, he was awarded the Thomas Fitch Row-
land prize of that organization. For his paper
"Lightning," delivered as an address before The
Franklin Institute in 1924, and published in the
Journal for February 1925, he was awarded the
Levy Gold Medal of that society. He was a
member of the American Physical Society, the
388
Peers
American Association, for the Advancement of
Science, and the American Society of Electrical
Engineers of which he was also a director, rep-
resenting the society on the National Research
Council for a number of years. Peek married
Merle A. Bell of Oswego, N. Y., on Aug. 9, 1913.
She survived him at the time of his death when
his automobile was struck by a train at Port
Daniels, Quebec, Canada.
[Who's Who in America, 1930—31 ; Stanford Uni-
versity Alumni Directory, 1891-1931 (1932) ; Jour, of
The Franklin Inst., Jan. 1924 ; Electrical Engineering,
Sept. 1933 ; N. Y. Times, July 28, 29, 1933.]
C.W.M— n.
PEERS, BENJAMIN ORES (Apr. 20, 1800-
Aug. 20, 1842), educator, was born in Loudoun
County, Va., but at the age of three was taken to
Kentucky by his father, Valentine Peers, a Revo-
lutionary soldier. First settling in Nicholas
County, the Peers family soon removed to Paris,
Ky. In 1817 Peers entered Transylvania Uni-
versity, was in 1819 appointed tutor in Latin and
Greek there, graduated in 1821, and remained to
teach for a year more. Thinking to become a
Presbyterian minister he entered the Princeton
Theological Seminary but for some unknown
reason left at the end of the academic year in
1823. For an equally unknown reason he then
withdrew from membership in the Presbyterian
church and became an Episcopalian. In 1826 he
graduated from the Theological Seminary of the
Protestant Episcopal Church in Virginia at
Alexandria and that year was ordained a deacon.
Attracted by the educational possibilities in con-
nection with religious observances, he estab-
lished in June 1829 a Mechanics' Institute at
Lexington, Ky. In the same year he visited cer-
tain eastern states to examine systems of public
education and collected data, which he afterward
used perhaps too energetically. The result of this
survey was his founding in the same city an
Eclectic Institute in October 1830, in which he
applied Pestalozzi's principles (Lewis, post, p.
68). In November 1833 ^e proposed unsuccess-
fully that this school be consolidated with Tran-
sylvania University.
However, in the next month he became pro-
fessor of moral philosophy, proctor of Morrison
College, and acting-president of the Transyl-
vania University. He entered at once upon an
active prosecution of his duties. His published
Inaugural Address Delivered at tke Opening of
Morrison College (1833) shows that he looked
forward to making of the university something
resembling a state normal school. Some of his
pronouncements in this speech are surprisingly
modern ; he held that "the study of no subject,
the dead languages, or the more abstruse parts
Peers
of mathematics for example, need be pursued
solely on account of the valuable discipline it
affords the mind" and declared that so far as
liberal education was concerned "the argument
from utility is daily acquiring greater strength"
(p. 10). He insisted that it should be the object
of a teacher not to impose upon a youth a fixed
and arbitrary curriculum but to stimulate his
intellect to voluntary effort. The local newspa-
pers, reporting the November ceremonies, paid
less attention to this address than to the fact that
Morrison College was opened for the first time.
He likewise was active in a convention of state
teachers called to discuss educational programs.
However, he soon came into collision with the
trustees of Transylvania University, and their
differences focused in a quarrel over the power
of appointing members of the faculty, on which
he insisted that at least he be consulted. Still
acting-president, on Feb. 14, 1834, he was in-
formed that his "services . . . are no longer use-
ful" and that he was "removed from said office"
(Minutes of the board of trustees). After vain-
ly trying to get the trustees to make open charges
against him, he brought suit against them, as-
serting that his dismissal in an equivocal manner
had given rise to doubts regarding his character.
In 1837 ^e was obliged through a legal maneuver
to abandon this effort at justification. Meantime
he had opened a boys* school in Louisville and
had become rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
there in 1835. He was later called to New York
City to be editor of The Journal of Christian Edu-
cation in 1838 and to assume charge of the Sun-
day-school publications of his denomination. He
continued his interest in training the young; one
of his favorite projects was that which contem-
plated bringing tip the children of each parish
through constant catechetical instruction, family
worship, and right example. Failing health
forced him to travel to a milder climate in the
hope of recovery but, returning from Cuba to
Louisville, he died there. His portrait, painted
by Peak, now in the Ehrich Galleries in New
York, exhibits a sensitive face and slight body.
His scheme of Christian education, published in
the J owned of Christian Education (Nov.-Dee.
1841), was given earnest contemporary atten-
tion; it was the outgrowth of an earlier book,
Christian Education (1836).
^Letters and mlrnttes of the board of trustees of Tran-
sylvania Univ. in the lib. of Transylvania Univ. ; Obitu-
ary Notice of Rev, Benjamin Orrs Peers (1842), re-
printed from Jour, of Christian Education, Oct 1845;
The Bwg. Emcyc. of Ky. (1878) ; Lewis and R. H. Col-
lins, Hist, of Ky. (2 vols., 1874) ; A. F. Lewis, Hut.
of If iff her Education in K$* (1899) ; Amencm Jomr. of
Education, Mar. i866j Robert Peter, Trtua^amtt
Umv. (1896).] G. OIL
389
Peerson
PEERSON, CLENG (i783-Dec. 16, 1865),
immigrant leader and colonizer, served as the
promoter and pathfinder for the first group of
nineteenth-century Norwegian immigrants to the
United States. He was born on the farm "Hest-
hammer," in southwestern Norway, Tysvaer par-
ish, Stavanger ami, the son of Peder Hestham-
mer, his name originally being Kleng (or Klein)
Pedersen Hesthammer. He is said to have
traveled as a youth in England, France, and Ger-
many. In 1821 he journeyed to New York in
company with Knud Olsen Eide, probably as the
agent of a group of Quakers and others in the
Stavanger region who were interested in emi-
gration as a way of escape from religious and
economic difficulties. He returned to Norway
in 1824, made a short visit to his home commu-
nity, and then hastened back to America to make
arrangements in western New York for the pur-
chase of land and the erection of houses for the
prospective immigrants. When they arrived at
New York on Oct. 9, 1825, on the sloop Restau-
rationen, sometimes called the "Norwegian May-
flower/' they were met by Cleng Peerson, and
most of them followed him to the Kendall settle-
ment near Rochester. For eight years Peerson
remained with this colony, but in 1833 he jour-
neyed westward in search of a new site for settle-
ment. This pedestrian reconnaissance took him
into Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and prob-
ably Wisconsin. His preference for the Fox
River Valley in Illinois determined the location
of the first Norwegian settlement in the West
He trudged back to New York and the next year,
1834, led the first contingent of Norwegian pio-
neers to Illinois. The Fox River colony became
a center from which radiated many other immi-
grant settlements in the West.
Ever restless and ever attracted by new fron-
tiers, he founded a Norwegian colony in Shelby
County, Missouri, in 1837. Three years later he
resided in the first Norwegian settlement in Iowa
at Sugar Creek, Lee County, where the federal
census of 1840 recorded him as "Klank Pierson."
In 1842 he went once more to Norway, where an
influential newspaper berated him as an infec-
tious agent in the spread of "America fever." A
contemporary account pictures him sitting in a
Norwegian tavern on a spring evening in 1843,
clad in a long coat, wearing a fur cap, and ex-
patiating in broken "English-Norwegian" on the
glories of America" to a group of eager listeners
(Bergens Stiftstidende, Apr. 27, 1843). Later
in the year he returned to the United States and
guided an immigrant party to the West In 1847
he joined the Bishop Hill colony in Henry Coun-
fV TIT atlf? file fit- C-t- V*M£A /***m4-t*xv*.?.~.~. 1 _* J» _ .1
ty, 111., and, his first wife, Catherine, having died
Peet
in Norway some years before, he married a
young woman called Charlotte Marie, belonging
to this Swedish communistic settlement. He soon
left, however, both the colony and his wife to
rejoin the Fox River settlement. A long-stand-
ing interest in Texas prompted him to visit that
state in 1849. On his return to Illinois he urged
Norwegians to turn toward the Southwest, where
they could spread out "so as to have greater free-
dom in their sphere of action" (Democraten,
Sept. 7, 1850). Under his guidance a group of
Norwegians left Illinois in the fall of 1850 for
Dallas County, Texas. In 1854 he removed to
Bosque County, and there, in the heart of a Nor-
wegian community, he died on Dec, 16, 1865.
Peerson was a droll and entertaining story tel-
ler whose visits were welcomed in frontier homes.
He had been attracted by Quakerism in his
earlier years, but as an old man he was a pro-
nounced freethinker. He was eccentric, restless,
a lover of adventure, in some respects a Peer
Gynt, but he was motivated by a genuine inter-
est in the welfare of his countrymen. His claim
to historical significance has long been disputed
and he has even been characterized as a mere
vagabond, but he led the vanguard of Norwegian
settlers to the upper Mississippi Valley, and his
influence was deeply marked upon the early im-
migration from his homeland. When he turned
to the Southwest, the bulk of the immigrants ar-
riving from northern Europe ignored his coun-
sels but this circumstance does not affect the
significance of his earlier efforts.
[T. C. Blegen, Norwegian Migration to America,
1825-1860 (1931), and "Cleng Peerson and Norwegian
Immigration," in Miss. Valley Hist. Rev., Mar., 1921 ;
R, B. Anderson, The First Chapter of Norwegian Im-
migration (1821-1840}: Its Causes and Results (1895),
and Cleng Peerson og Sluppen "Restaurationen"
(1925) ; G. T. Flom, A History of Norwegian Immi-
gration to the United States from the Earliest Begin-
ning Down to the Year 1848 (1909) ; A. R. Bra&hus,
"Cleng Peersons Norgesbestfk i 1843," in Nordmands-
forbundet, Apr. 1925 ; manuscript letter of Thormod
Madland to Mauritz Halvarsen, June 28, 1825. in the
possession of the Minn. Hist. Soc., St. Paul,]
T.CB.
PEET, HARVEY PRINDLE (Nov. 19,
1794-Jan. i, 1873), educator of the deaf, was a
descendant of John Peet who emigrated from
England to America in 1635. The son of Richard
Peet, a minute-man in 1776, and of Johannah
(Prindle) Peet, widow of Zachariah Brinsmade,
he was born and spent his early years on a farm
among the rough and beautiful hills of north-
western Connecticut, in Bethlehem, Litchfield
County. Though his first educational opportuni-
ties were limited to the country school, he learned
rapidly and became a teacher in the district
schools at the age of sixteen. Later he taught
390
T
Peet
at the private school of Dr. Azel Backus
in Bethlehem and then in that of Dr. Daniel
Parker in Sharon, Conn. Saving his scanty
means and adding to them by farm work during
the summer, he entered Phillips Academy, An-
dover, Mass., in 1816, and Yale College in 1818,
graduating from the latter in 1822 among the
first ten in his class. In the fall of that year he
was invited by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet \_q.v '.]
to become a teacher in the American School for
the Deaf at Hartford, Conn. Here he spent
over eight years, in association with Laurent
Clerc \_q.v '.], Lewis Weld, and other brilliant edu-
cators of deaf children. Such was his success
and energy that he was soon put in charge of the
entire business affairs of the institution and, with
his wife, was given the care of all the children
outside of school hours.
In 1831 he moved to New York, accepting a
call to take charge of the New York Institution
for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb. Here
he labored practically all the rest of his life with
the greatest success, building up the school from
an enrollment of eighty-five to 439 in his thirty-
six years of active management. With great fore-
sight he brought about the advantageous sale of
the old school site in the city, arranged the pur-
chase of a beautiful new site on the Hudson River
at 1 62nd Street, and erected a then model estab-
lishment to accommodate 500 pupils, which was
occupied in 1856. He soon sold a small part of
the new site at an advanced price, and thus was
able to pay off the whole building debt of the
new school within a few years. He studied, at
first hand, methods of instructing the deaf fol-
lowed in European schools as well as in Ameri-
can institutions and was a regular attendant and
forceful speaker at educational gatherings for
instructors of the deaf wherever they were held.
He was a man of great vigor, strong convictions,
and deep religious feeling. He felt that his pupils
were unfitted for life unless they were equipped
as Christian workmen to take their places in the
world. He was a strict disciplinarian but took
a father's interest in all the children under his
care. He was a prolific writer on the subject of
the deaf, their condition, legal status, number,
and education. His Course of Instruction for
the Deaf and Dumb (3 vols., 1844-49) wa& ^SG^
with much success throughout the country. He
also wrote a school history of the United States
to be used by deaf children. His literary con-
tributions appeared mainly, however, in the
American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb, in the
management of which he assisted for many years.
Peet was married three times : first to Mar-
garet Maria Lewis, Nov. 27, 1823, who died
Peet
Sept 23, 1832, leaving three sons, all of whom
became teachers of the deaf; second in 1835, *°
Sarah Ann Smith, who died Dec. 30, 1864 ; and
third, Jan. 15, 1868, to Mrs. Louisa P. Hotch-
kiss. During his declining years he became blind,
but recovered his sight through a skilful opera-
tion. He retired from active charge of the New
York Institution in 1867, having built it up from
a small and poorly equipped school to the largest
and best equipped establishment for deaf chil-
dren in the United States. He continued to re-
side on the grounds of the school and to give ad-
vice to his son and successor, Isaac Lewis Peet
.z;.], until his death.
["Memoir of Harvey Prindle Peet," Am. Annals of
the Deaf and Dumb, Apr. 1873 ; H. W. Syle, "A Sum-
mary of the Recorded Researches and Opinions of
Harvey Prindle Feet," with bibliog., Ibid., July, Oct.
1873 ; J- B. Buraet, "Memoir of Harvey Prindle Peet,"
Am, Jour. Educ., June 1857 ; Obit, Record Grads. Yale
Coll., 1873 i -AT. *• Tribune, Jan. 2, 1873 I records In the
possession of a grand-daughter, Miss Elizabeth Peet,
Gallaudet College, Washington, D. C] p.n,
PEET, ISAAC LEWIS (Dec. 4, i824~Dec.
27, 1898), educator of the deaf, the eldest son of
Harvey Prindle Peet [q*v.~] and Margaret Maria
(Lewis) Peet, was born at the American School
for the Deaf, Hartford, Conn. His father was
an instructor and business manager of the school,
and his mother became the matron in charge of
domestic affairs. When he was seven years of
age his parents moved to New York, where his
father took charge of the New York Institution
for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb, of
which he remained active head until 1867. Isaac
Lewis Peet was brought up, therefore, in close
contact with deaf children and in the midst of
work for their education. He attended private
schools in New York City, was graduated with
honor from Yale College at the age of twenty-
one, and immediately thereafter became a teach-
er under his father in the New York Institution.
Here he served successively as instructor, vice-
principal, principal, and principal-emeritus un-
til his death. In 1849 he graduated from Union
Theological Seminary, but he was never or-
dained. He succeeded his father as head of the
school in 1867 and was its chief executive until
1892, when he retired. He spent the remainder
of his life in a beautiful residence adjoining the
New York Institution.
Peet was a member of the Conference of
Superintendents and Principals of American
Schools for the Deaf and its president in 1896.
From 1868 to 1895 he served continuously as a
member of the executive committee of the Con-
vention of American Instructors of the Deal.
He was president of the Medico-Legal Society
of New York City, and was interested in oilier
391
Peet
welfare work. He wrote numerous articles on
the instruction of the deaf, mostly published in
the American Annals of the Deaf or read before
meetings of members of his profession. Notable
among these essays were "The History of Deaf
Mute Instruction during- One Hundred Years,
1776-1876" (Fifty-eighth Annual Report . . . of
the New York Institution for the Instruction of
the Deaf and Dumb . . . 1876, 1877) ; and "The
Psychical Status and Criminal Responsibility of
the Totally Uneducated Deaf and Dumb" (Jour-
nal of Psychological Medicine, January 1872).
He also published Monograph on Decimal Frac-
tions (1866) and Language Lessons, Designed
to Introduce Young Learners, Deaf Mutes and
Foreigners to a Correct Understanding of the
English Language on the Principle of Object
Teaching (1875).
Peet was married in 1854 to Mary Toles,
daughter of Alvah and Mercy (Fuller) Toles,
of Chautauqua County, N. Y., a brilliant young
deaf woman who had formerly been his pupil.
To them were born a daughter and three sons.
[E. A. Fay and Warring Wilkinson, "Isaac Lewis
Peet," American Annals of the Deaf, Feb. 1899 ; Obit.
Record Grads. Yale Univ., 1 899 ; N. Y. Tribune, Dec.
29, 1898; information furnished by Feet's daughter,
Miss Elizabeth Peet, a professor at Gallaudet College
for the Deaf, Washington, D. C; personal recollec-
tions of the writer.] p^ pj
PEET, STEPHEN DENISON (Dec. 2, 1831-
May 24, 1914), Congregational clergyman,
archaeologist, was born at Euclid, Ohio, the son
of Stephen and Martha (Denison) Peet His
father was a distinguished clergyman, a man
of great energy, who established some thirty
churches in the Middle West and was one of the
founders of Beloit College and Chicago Theo-
logical Seminary. Stephen Denison Peet was
graduated at Beloit in 1851, studied for two years
in the Yale Divinity School, and completed his
theological course at Andover Theological Semi-
nary in 1854. He was married in that year to
his first wife, Katherine Moseley. In February
1855 he was ordained to the ministry and became
pastor of the Congregational Church, Genesee,
Wis. Before he entered upon his first pastorate,
he had traveled for a year or two as a field mis-
sionary, establishing small churches in rural
communities. Until 1866 he ministered to vari-
ous churches in Wisconsin. In that year, at
Elkhorn, Wis., he married Olive Walworth Cut-
ler, who bore him five daughters and two sons.
Accepting a call to New Oregon, Iowa, he left
Wisconsin for thirteen years, returning in 1879.
At various times he was in charge of Congre-
gational churches in New London, Conn. ; Ash-
tabula, Ohio; Clinton, Wis., and Mendon, 111.
Peet
During his college and seminary days he had
been keenly interested in Egyptian, Babylonian
and Grecian antiquities and in the course of his
travels through the northern Middle West he
developed a similar interest in the archaeology
of that section. He liked to inspect, externally,
the ancient earthworks and mound groups of
Wisconsin and Ohio. He attempted no explora-
tions but, walking over the squares, octagons,
circles, and effigies, he speculated upon their
origin, imagining that he perceived in some
small measure the real purpose of their build-
ers.
Throughout his long career he sought to in-
terpret the mysticism not only of the mound
builders but also of the ancient peoples occupying
a higher cultural plane in Mexico and Central
America. In 1875, with Isaac Smucker and Roe-
liff Brinkerhoff \_q.v.~\ he took a leading part in
organizing the Ohio Archaeological Association,
forerunner of the Ohio State Archaeological and
Historical Society, founded in 1885. As a mem-
ber of the earlier organization he attended in
1877 a meeting of the newly founded American
Anthropological Association, and in April of the
following year began to issue the American An-
tiquarian and Oriental Journal, antedating by ten
years the foundation of the American Anthro-
pologist. Notwithstanding limited means, he
maintained this publication for thirty-two years.
To it he contributed many papers on his favorite
themes. His chief works published elsewhere
are "Emblematic Mounds in Wisconsin: the
Forms which They Present" (Wisconsin State
Historical Society, Report and Collections, vol.
IX, 1882) ; and Prehistoric America (5 vols.,
1890-1905 ) . In the light of modern archaeologi-
cal science, much that he wrote appears vision-
ary and conjectural ; yet in this connection it is
proper to record that later studies with refer-
ence to mound-builder symbolism indicate the
correctness of some of Peet's views. His real
contribution to anthropology was that of a pio-
neer. In 1878 when he began to issue his Amer-
ican Antiquarian the Peabody Museum had bare-
ly been established at Harvard and no other
institution, with the exception of the Smith-
sonian, was interested in American Indian stud-
ies. Unquestionably, Peet's journal stimulated
research, and while the trail he blazed was faint
and irregular, it nevertheless tended in the right
direction and encouraged others to follow.
During the latter part of his life Peet lived
for some time in Chicago, but in 1908 removed
to Salem, Mass., where in 1914 he died. Publi-
cation of his American Antiqttarian ceased the
following year.
T
PeiFer
lOhio ArchaeoL and Hist. Soc. Quart., Apr. 1917;
G. Van R. Wickham, The Pioneer Families of Cleveland
(1914), vol. II ; Who's Who in America, 1903-05 ; Wis.
Hist. Soc. Colls., vol. I-XX, passim (see Index, vol.
XXI, 1915) t Boston Transcript, May 26, 1914.]
W.K.M.
PEFFER, WILLIAM ALFRED (Sept. 10,
i83i~Oct. 6, 1912), journalist, senator from
Kansas, was born in Cumberland County, Pa.,
the son of Elizabeth ( Souder) and John Peffer,
a farmer. Both parents were of Dutch descent.
Although he had slight educational advantages,
by the age of fifteen he himself was a teacher.
During the gold rush he went to California but
returned to Pennsylvania where, on Dec. 28,
1852, he married Sarah Jane Barber, a teacher.
The next year the young couple moved to a farm
in Saint Joseph County, Ind., and in 1859 to
Morgan County, Mo., but during the Civil War,
in 1862, they returned to Warren County, 111.
In August 1862 he enlisted as a private in Com-
pany F of the 83rd Illinois Infantry. The next
year he was commissioned second lieutenant.
Most of his service was spent in detached duty.
Using the spare time available he read law, and,
soon after he was mustered out of the army at
Nashville, Tenn., in June 1865, he was admitted
to the Tennessee bar. He practised at Clarks-
ville until the close of 1869. Early the following
year he removed to Kansas, took up a claim in
Wilson County, and combined with its manage-
ment the practice of law in Fredonia, the county
seat. It was not long until he added a third duty,
when he purchased a newspaper plant and be-
came editor of the Fredonia Journal. In 1875
he removed to CofTeyville, Montgomery County,
and there edited the Coffeyville Journal. In 1874
he was elected to the Kansas state Senate and in
1880 was a Republican presidential elector.
In 1881 he became editor of the Kansas Farm-
er, at the same time doing some work for the
Topeka Daily Capital. He transferred his family
to Topeka and made that his home. The Kansas
Farmer became the most powerful farm journal
in the state, with non-partisan political interests
though with a general tone friendly to the domi-
nant Republican party. When the agricultural
distress became acute in 1888 and 1889, Peffer's
voice was insistent for rural organization ; when
the Farmer's Alliance entered the state, he wel-
comed it, and th^ Farmer became the official pa-
per for one branch. In 1888 he published Pef-
fer's Tariff Manual, a pocket-size voltime for
popular reading. He labored for farmer solidar-
ity and urged remedial legislation, but toward
third party activity he was at first hostile. When
the creation of the People's parry made the al-
ternative unavoidable, he left the Republican
Pelrce
party, but he stood as a conservative in the radi-
cal party. In 1890 his reputation as a farm lead-
er, his Republican past, and his conservative po-
sition combined to win for him election to the
United States Senate against more consistent
and more radical third party men. In the Senate
he was not in either major party organization
and so played no important part in legislation.
He introduced numerous bills and was a persist-
ent, somewhat tedious speaker on a wide variety
of subjects. His tall, well-rounded figure, his
unusually long and wavy beard, which he combed
constantly with his fingers as he talked, his
heavy, dry, excessively statistical speeches, his
absence of humor, and his deadly earnestness
made him a conspicuous figure in the Senate, and
one which in caricature came to typify Populism.
For Populism that was unfortunate, since his
position was frequently unorthodox and incon-
sistent His confusion of thought on financial
problems is obvious in his speeches; and his
writings, especially his volume The Farmer's
Side (1891), are undigested summaries of the
arguments of various reforming groups, some of
them self-contradictory.
He was out of sympathy with the tendency of
Populism to unite with the anti-administration
Democrats during Cleveland's second term. In
1896 he was not renominated by his own party.
He took advantage of the new issue of imperial-
ism to slip back to his first allegiance and pub-
lished a book on the Philippines to prove Ms Re-
publicanism, Americanism and the Philippines
(1900). After the term in the Senate he under-
took to prepare an index of discussions of the
United States Congress. In 1902 Congress made
provision for the purchase of the work as it
should be completed but apparently it was never
finished. He was the father of ten children, of
whom eight lived to maturity. He died at the
home of a daughter at Grenola, Kan.
fBrief manuscript autobiographical sketch, dated
1899, in Lib. of Kan. Hist. Soc. ; His*, of Montgomery
County , Kan. (1903); Who's Who in America, 1912—
13; Kan. State HisL Soc. Colls., vol. XVI (1925);
Topeka State Jour., Oct. 7, 1912.] R.CM r.
PEIRCE, BENJAMIN (Apr. 4, i&p-Oct 6,
1880), mathematician and astronomer, was the
third child and second son of Benjamin Peirce
(1778-1831), for several years a member of the
Massachusetts legislature, librarian of Harvard
from 1826 to his death, who prepared the last
printed catalogue of the Harvard library (3 vols.
in 4, 1830-31) and left a manuscript history of
the university to the period of the Revolution,
subsequently edited by John Pickering and pub-
lished in 1833 (A. C. Potter and C K. Batten,
393
Peirce
The Librarians of Harvard College, 1667-1877,
1897, pp. 38-39). His mother was Lydia Ropes
(Nichols) Peirce, first cousin of her husband
and sister of the Rev. Ichabod Nichols, himself
versed in mathematics. He was born at Salem,
Mass., and was of the purest Puritan stock; on
his father's side he was descended from John
Pers or Peirce, a weaver of Norwich, Norfolk
County, England, who had come to Watertown,
Mass., by 1637, and the latter's son Robert who
emigrated to America probably in 1634. While
in his teens at the Salem Private Grammar
School, through a classmate, Henry I. Bowditch
\_q.v. ~\, young Peirce was brought into contact
with the latter's father, Nathaniel Bowditch
[#.#.]. Peirce's estimate of the importance of
the acquaintance thus begun may be judged from
the dedication of his great work on analytic
mechanics, published more than thirty years
later : "To the cherished and revered memory of
my master in science, Nathaniel Bowditch, the
father of American geometry." Peirce entered
Harvard in 1825 and graduated in 1829 ; Oliver
Wendell Holmes, James Freeman Clarke, and
Benjamin R. Curtis were classmates. For the
two years immediately after graduation Peirce
was associated with George Bancroft at his noted
Round Hill School, Northampton, Mass. Then
for forty-nine years he was a member of the
faculty at Harvard University, first as a tutor
in mathematics in the college, in full charge of
the mathematical work ; for the nine years ( 1833-
42) as university professor of astronomy and
mathematics; and from 1842 till his death as
Perkins professor of mathematics and astron-
omy.
Peirce's earliest mathematical work was in the
solution of problems proposed in the Mathemati-
cal Diary (New York, 1825-32), and in revising
and correcting Bowditch's translation, with com-
mentary, of the first four volumes of Laplace's
Traite de M£canique Celeste (1829-39). In a
paper of the last number of the Mathematical
Diary he proved the important result that there
is no odd perfect number with fewer than four
distinct prime factors. During the next few years
he published a series of textbooks which, while
distinctly inferior to the best current in his time,
were certainly stimulating. The plane and spheri-
cal trigonometries of 1835-36 were afterward
elaborated into An Elementary Treatise on
Plane and Spherical Trigonometry, . . . par-
ticularly adapted to explaining the construction
of Bowditch's Navigator and the Nautical Al-
manac ( 1840 ; 3rd ed, with additions, 1845 ; other
eds. or reprints, 1852, 1861). He compiled An
Elementary Treatise on Swmd (1836) based on
Peirce
J. F. W. Herschel's treatise in a volume (1830"
of Encyclopaedia Metropolitan, and the origina'
bibliography at the beginning was interesting
and valuable. An Elementary Treatise on Alge-
bra (1837) and An Elementary Treatise on Plane
and Solid Geometry (1837), of both of whid
there were many later editions or reprints, were
followed by a more advanced work, An Elemen-
tary Treatise on Curves, Functions, and Forces,
vol. I (1841, new ed., 1852) containing analytica
geometry and differential calculus ; vol. II ( 1846)
containing calculus of imaginary quantities, re-
sidual calculus, and integral calculus, noteworthy
for conciseness of style and free use of operative
symbols. The projected third volume of this work
dealing with applications to analytical mechanics
was never published, being doubtless supersedec
by his characteristic, very notable, and most ex-
tensive work, A System of Analytic Mechanics
(1855), suitably expounded for those who hac
already achieved a good grounding in the sub-
ject. A "masterly" discussion of determinants
and functional determinants (Thomas Muir
The Theory of Determinants, II, 1911, p. 251),
in chapter ten, and numerous other features,
were at the time new in English treatises. The
general title-page of the work suggests that a
much larger scheme of four volumes was in the
author's mind. Along with his textbooks may
be mentioned the periodical which Peirce start-
ed and edited, the Cambridge Miscellany of
Mathematics, Physics, and Astronomy (April
i842-January 1843), his colleague, Joseph Lov-
ering \_q.v.~], being associated with him as editor
of three numbers. About half of the material
consisted of problems and solutions, and half of
brief articles.
He took an active part in the foundation of the
Harvard Observatory, the occasion being af-
forded by the great comet of 1843. The work
which first extended Peirce's reputation was his
remarkably accurate computation of the gen-
eral perturbations of Uranus and Neptune. "In
his views of the discrepancy between the mean
distance of Neptune as predicted by Levemer,
and as deduced from observation, he was less
fortunate, although, when due consideration is
given to Leverrier's conclusions, there was much
plausibility in the position taken by Peirce" (Si-
mon Newcomb, in Proceedings of the Royal So-
ciety of Edinburgh, June 5, 1882, vol. XI, 1882,
p. 740; see also H. H. Turner, Astronomical
Discovery, 1904; J. M. Peirce, in Benjamin
Peirce's Ideality in the Physical Sciences, 1881,
pp. 200-11 ; W. G. Adams, The Scientific Papers
of John Couch Adams, I, 1896, pp. xxxiii, 57,
64). In 1849 the American Nautical Almanac
394
Peirce
office was established by a congressional appro-
priation at Cambridge, where it could have the
benefit of the technical knowledge of experts,
and "especially of Professor Benjamin Peirce,
who was recognized as the leading mathemati-
cian of America" ( Simon Newcomb, The Remi-
niscences of an Astronomer, 1903, p. 63). Un-
til 1867 he was consulting astronomer for the
Almanac (after 1860, Astronomical Almanac
for the Use of Navigators} . By this time Europe
had joined with America in taking cognizance
of his achievements. In 1842 he became a mem-
ber of the American Philosophical Society, in
1850 an associate of the Royal Astronomical So-
ciety, London, in 1858 a fellow of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences, in 1860 an hon-
orary fellow of the University of St. Vladimir at
Kiev, Russia, in 1861 a corresponding member
of the British Association for the Advancement
of Science, in 1867 an honorary fellow of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh, and a correspond-
ent in the mathematics class of the Royal Society
of Sciences at Gottingen. In 1847 he was one
of a committee of five appointed by the Ameri-
can Academy of Arts and Sciences to draw up a
"program for the organization of the Smith-
sonian Institution." He was director of the
longitude determinations of the United States
Coast Survey 1852-67, and superintendent of
this Survey 1867-74, while continuing to serve
as professor at Harvard. With reference to his
appointment as superintendent, Charles W.
Eliot wrote : "Those of us who had long known
Professor Peirce heard of this action with
amazement. We had never supposed that he
had any business faculty whatever, or any liking
for administration work. . . . Within a few
months it appeared that Benjamin Peirce per-
suaded Congressmen and Congressional Com-
mittees to vote much more money to the Coast
Survey than they had ever voted before"
(American Mathematical Monthly, Jan. 1925,
pp. 3-4). Although "the extension of the survey
of the coast to a great geodetic system, stretch-
ing from ocean to ocean, . . . had been remotely
contemplated by his predecessor/* it was "first
actually commenced by Professor Peirce, thus
laying the foundation for a general map of the
country entirely independent of detached local
surveys" ( J. E. Hilgard, Report of the Superin~
tendent of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey
. . . June 1881, 1883, P- 8). While superintend-
ent, Peirce took personal charge of the Ameri-
can expedition to Sicily to observe the eclipse
of the sun in December 1870 ; and for the transit
of Venus in 1874 he is often said to have organ-
ized the two American expeditions (but see
Peirce
Simon Newcomb, Reminiscences of an Astron-
omer,, pp. 160-70). Peirce continued as consult-
ing geometer of the Survey from 1874 until his
death. It was doubtless in connection with prob-
lems such as those of the Survey that he was led
to formulate in 1852 and elaborate in 1878 what
is widely known as "Peirce's criterion" (Wil-
liam Chauvenet, A Manual of Spherical and
Practical Astronomy, 1863, II, 558 ; W. S. Je-
vons, The Principles of Science, 2 ed, 1877 ; H.
M. Wilson, Topographic, Trigonometric and
Geodetic Surveying, 1912). The object of the
criterion was to solve a delicate and practically
important problem of probabilities in connection
with a series of observations. From the first
there were critics of the criterion, and its funda-
mental fallacy was finally proved in 1920 (R. M.
Stewart, in Popular Astronomy f Jan. 1920, pp.
2-3 ; see also J. L. Coolidge, An Introduction to
Mathematical Probability, 1925, pp. 126-27).
In 1863 Peirce was one of the fifty incorpora-
tors of the National Academy of Sciences, one
of the nine members of the committee of organi-
zation, and chairman of the mathematics and
physics class. During the early years of the
Academy's existence, Peirce presented a num-
ber of papers in a new field which developed into
his Linear Associative Algebra ( 1870), of which
one hundred "lithographed" copies were pre-
pared through "labors of love" by persons en-
gaged at the Coast Survey ; a new edition, with
addenda and notes by C. S. Peirce, in the Awmri-
can Journal of Mathematics, IV, 1881, was re-
printed in 1882. The oft-quoted first sentence of
the work is as follows : "Mathematics is the sci-
ence which draws necessary conclusions." This
was the most original and able mathematical
contribution which Peirce made ; It was "really
epoch-making" ( J. B. Shaw, Synopsis of Linear
Associative Algebra, 1907, pp. 52-55, 101-06).
He himself held it in high esteem. In the intro-
duction he wrote: "This work has been the
pleasantest mathematical effort of my life. In
no other have I seemed to myself to have re-
ceived so full a reward for my mental labor In
the novelty and breadth of results." Charles S.
Peirce [#.<]» who got out the second edition of
his father's work, declared, "I had first put my
father tip to that investigation by persistent ham-
mering upon the desirability of it" (American
Mathematical Monthly » Dec. 1927, p. 526). A
careful restudy of Peirce's monograph by H. E.
Hawkes (American Journal of Mathematics,
Jan. 1902, pp. 87-95 ; Transactions of the Amer-
ican Mathetnatical Society, July 1902, pp, 312-
30) showed that In a very able manner Peirce
had long anticipated work of the prontiaetit
395
Peirce
man mathematicians, Study and Scheff ers. This
was Peirce's last piece of notably creative work.
His other volumes were Tables of the Moon
(1853), Tables of the Moon's Parallax (1856),
and the posthumous volume of lectures given at
the Lowell and Peabody Institutes, Ideality in
the Physical Sciences (1881). He was an asso-
ciate editor of the first volume (1878) of the
American Journal of Mathematics, founded by
the Johns Hopkins University under the direc-
tion of J. J. Sylvester [g.z>.]. About one quarter
of the titles of Pelrce's publications relate to top-
ics of pure mathematics and three quarters to
questions mainly in the fields of astronomy,
geodesy, and mechanics. While he read before
scientific societies many papers concerning his
Investigations, the printed reports of them are
often mere abstracts. "His mind moved with
great rapidity, and it was with difficulty that he
brought himself to write out even the briefest
record of its excursions" (Nation, Oct. 14, 1880,
p. 268). The nature of parts of some papers
fully printed, may be illustrated by a quotation
of the concluding sentences from one of them, a
paper of 1851, on Saturn's rings, read before the
American Association for the Advancement of
Science (of which he was president in 1853) :
"But in approaching the forbidden limits of hu-
man knowledge, it is becoming to tread with
caution and circumspection. Man's speculations
should be subdued from all rashness and ex-
travagance in the immediate presence of the
Creator. And a wise philosophy will beware lest
it strengthen the arms of atheism, by venturing
too boldly into so remote and obscure a field of
speculation as that of the mode of creation
which was adopted by the Divine Geometer"
(Astronomical Journal, II, 1851, p. 19).
Though Peirce was the leading mathemati-
cian of America, almost up to the time of his
death, he was probably in no wise comparable
m scientific ability with many contemporary Eu-
ropeans. But he was exceptional among Amer-
ican mathematicians, at universities of his time,
in that the publications of Europeans were the
basis of much of his teaching. In 1848, for exam-
ple, various works he discussed included certain
ones of Cauchy, Poisson, Laplace, Monge, Bes-
sel, Gauss, Neumann, and Hamilton. It is in-
teresting to speculate as to the possible publica-
tion harvest of Peirce if throughout his career
he could constantly have met his mathematical
peers, and If he had always had at hand a capable
discipline to put his ideas in a form suitable for
publication. Professor Coolidge was probably
near the truth in writing, "Much more perma-
nently important papers have been written by
Peirce
men who had only a fraction of his ability"
(personal letter, 1933).
Peirce exerted a great influence on the prog-
ress of mathematical science in his own coun-
try. He was an ardent and enthusiastic friend,
ever ready to encourage young men and to pro-
mote their work. He had an especial fondness
for seeking out comparatively unknown men
whose ability had been overlooked, as Newcomb
has well remarked. As a teacher he has been
termed "a failure," while he was at the same
time "very inspiring and stimulating," and pro-
foundly impressive. There was also a delightful
abstraction about this absorbed mathematician
which endeared him to his students, by whom he
was affectionately known as "Benny." Presi-
dent Abbott Lawrence Lowell wrote in 1924: "I
have never admired the intellect of any man as
much as that of Benjamin Peirce. I took every
course that he gave when I was in College, and
whatever I have been able to do intellectually
has been due to his teaching more than to any-
thing else" (Archibald, post, p. 8). Among his
pupils were Benjamin A. Gould, Asaph Hall (at
the observatory), Simon Newcomb, G. W. Hill
(in the Nautical Almanac office), William Wat-
son, Charles W. Eliot, and W. E. Byerly. The
fascination and magnetism of his personality
were alike potent in the lecture-hall, or in a vast
seething mass of people at a Jenny Lind concert,
when he averted a panic (E. W. Emerson, post,
p. 100).
He loved children and children loved him "be-
cause he was full of humor, with an abounding
love of nonsense" (H. C. Lodge, Early Memo-
ries, 1913, p. 55). In his younger days he en-
joyed participating in private theatricals. "As
an actor he was apt to be too violent and impetu-
ous ; but he was always interesting. He had, in-
deed, a gift for dramatic expression which
served him well in many incidents, both comical
and tragical, of his maturer life" (Eliot in Amer-
ican Mathematical Monthly, Jan. 1925, p. 4). He
was married, July 23, 1833, to Sarah Hunt Mills,
daughter of Elijah Hunt Mills \_q.v. ~\, and had
four sons and a daughter. His eldest son, James
Mills Peirce [g.z/.], was a mathematician and
administrator at Harvard for half a century.
His next son, Charles S. [g.v.], was a noted sci-
entist and philosopher. His youngest son, Her-
bert Henry Davis (1849-1916), was a diplomat.
A passport of 1860 describes Benjamin Peirce
as of height 5 feet 7J4 inches, and with high
forehead, hazel eyes, straight nose, regular
mouth, round chin, brown hair, light complexion,
and oval face. He was thick set, and wore a full
beard and long hair. Two of his portraits are
396
Peirce
owned by Harvard University ; one was painted
by J. A. Ames, and the other by Daniel Hunt-
ington.
[Besides references given above, tlie chief sources of
printed information are : H. A. Newton, in Proc. Am.
Acad. Arts and Sciences, vol. XVI, May 1880— June
1 88 1 (1881), and, in slightly different form, In Am.
Jour, of Science, Sept. 1881 ; Benjamin Peirce t A Me-
morial Collection, ed. by Moses King (1881) ; R. C.
Archibald, Benjamin Peirce, iSop-~iSSo (1925), with
a full list of sources, a complete bibliography of
Peirce's writings, and reminiscences by C. W. Eliot,
A. L. Lowell, W. E. Byerly, and A. B. Chace; A Hist.
of the First Half -Century of the Nat. Acad. of Sci-
ences 1863-1913 (1913); J. Ginsburg, "A Hitherto
Unpublished Letter of Benjamin Peirce," in Scripts
M.athematica, May 1934; T. J. J, See, in Popular As-
tronomy, Oct. 1895 ; E. W. Emerson, The Early Years
of the Saturday Club 1855-1870 (1918) ; Flprian Ca-
jori, The Teaching and Hist, of Mathematics in the
U. S: (1890), pp. 133-147; A. P. Peabody, Harvard
Reminiscences (1888), pp. 180-86; J. L. Coolidge,
Harvard Alumni Bull., Jan. 3, 1924, p. 374, and "Math-
ematics, 1870—1928," in S. E. Morison, Ed., The De-
velopment of Harvard Univ. . . . 1869-1929 (1930) ;
R. S. Rantoul and Henry Wheatland, in Essex hist.
Hist. Colls., vol. XVIII (1881) ; F. C. Peirce, Peirce
Genealogy (1880) ; Centennial Celebration of the U. S.
Coast and Geodetic Survey, Apr. 5, 6, 1916 (1916) ;
H. C. Lodge, Early Memories (1913) ; The Harvard
Book (1875), I, i72-73- A considerable quantity of
Peirce's manuscripts and correspondence was present-
ed to the Am. Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1913.
Many other letters of great value, and many unpub-
lished photographs, are owned by his grandson, Ben-
jamin P. Ellis of Cambridge, Mass.] R.C.A.
PEIRCE, BENJAMIN OSGOOD (Feb. H,
i854-Jan. 14, 1914), mathematician and physi-
cist, born in Beverly, Mass., was the only son of
Benjamin Osgood and Mehitable Osgood (Sec-
comb) Peirce and a descendant of John Pers, a
weaver of Norwich, Norfolk County, England,
who emigrated to New England in 1637. For a
time his father was professor of chemistry and
natural philosophy in Mercer University at
Macon, Ga. After an excellent preliminary
training including Latin, Greek, and mathe-
matics, young Peirce entered Harvard and grad-
uated in the class of 1876 with highest honors
in physics. During the years 1877-80 he was a
Parker Fellow in Germany, and in 1879, after
two years in Wiedemann's laboratory in Leip-
zig, he obtained the Ph.D. degree. During the
following year he was at Berlin with Helmholtz,
from whom he drew much inspiration. Return-
ing to America he taught for a year at the Bos-
ton Latin School and was then made an instruc-
tor in mathematics at Harvard. In 1884 he was
appointed an assistant professor of mathematics
and physics, and in 1888 he became Hollis
Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philoso-
phy. The course on the Newtonian potential
function and Fourier series which he and Pro-
fessor W. E. Byerly developed marked a new era
in mathematical physics in American universi-
Peirce
ties. The first edition of his Elements of the
Theory of the Newtonian -Potential Function
was published in 1886, but the third edition, ap-
pearing in 1902, was more than trebled in size.
His thirty-two-page Short Table of Integrals
was issued as a pamphlet in 1889 and also bound
in with the 1889 edition of Byerly's Elements of
the Integral Calculus but after prodigious labor
this was expanded to a book of 144 pages ( 1910) .
Again enlarged, it became the most valuable
work of its kind for ordinary use.
Besides graduate courses in pure mathematics
and mathematical physics, particularly the the-
ory of electricity and magnetism and hydro-
dynamics, Peirce developed laboratory courses
in electricity and magnetism, and threw himself
vigorously into the prosecution of research
which he kept up with unabated assiduity to the
end of his life. The list of his fifty-six papers
published during the years 1875-1915 is append-
ed to the Mathematical and Physical Papers,,
1903-13, "by Benjamin Osgood Peirce (Cam-
bridge, 1926). Apart from those on various
parts of mathematical physics the experimental
papers nearly all called for an unusual amount
of mathematical theory. Perhaps the most nota-
ble are the researches on the thermal conductiv-
ity of stone and its variation of temperature, and
his researches on magnetism, subjects of ex-
treme difficulty. He was an editor of the Phys-
ical Review. Among the 150 leading physicists
of the country in 1903 he was rated by his col-
leagues as nineteenth (American Men of Sci-
ence, 5th ed, 1933, p. 1270), His affiliations
with scientific groups were numerous. He was
elected a fellow of the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences in 1884, of the American As-
sociation for the Advancement of Science in
1900, of the National Academy of Sciences in
1906, and of the American Philosophical Soci-
ety in 1910. He was one of the founders of the
American Physical Society and its president just
before he died. Harvard conferred on him the
degree of D.S. in 1912, at which time President
Eliot cited him as a "man of science ignorant
only of his own deserts/* He was also a member
of the American Mathematical Society, of the
Circolo Matematico di Palermo, of the Astro-
nomical and Astrophysical Society of America,
and of the Societe Francaise de Physique. Ab-
solute self-effacement and devotion to duty were
fundamentals of his character. His charm of
personality and brilliant intellect drew to Mm
a host of friends among students and colleagues.
He was married in Edinburgh, Scotland, July
27, 1882, to Isabella Tumbull Landreth, daugh-
ter of the Rev. P. Landreth of Moatrose and
397
Peirce
Brechin, by whom he had two daughters. He
died in Cambridge, Mass.
[Sources include: E. E. Hall, "Biog. Memoir of
Benj. Osgood Peirce," Nat. Acad. Sci. . . . Biog. Mem-
oirs, vol. VIII (1919) ; John Trowbridge, "Benj.
Osgood Peiree, '76," Harvard Grads.' Mag., Mar. 1914;
A. G. Webster, "Benj. Osgood Peirce," Science, Feb.
20, 1914, reprinted in the Nation, Apr. 23, 1914; J. M.
Cattell, ed., Am. Men of Sci. (and ed., 1910) ; F. C.
Peirce, Peirce Geneal. (1880) ; Who's Who in Amer-
ica, 1912-13; Boston Transcript, Jan. 14, 1914.]
R.C.A.
PEIRCE, BRADFORD KINNEY (Feb. 3,
i8i9-Apr. 19, 1889), Methodist Episcopal cler-
gyman, social worker, editor, was born in Royal-
ton, Vt., the son of Rev. Thomas C. Peirce and
Sally, daughter of Bradford Kinne \_sic\. The
mother was a native of Preston, Conn. Bradford
prepared for college at Wesleyan Academy, Wil-
braham, Mass., and graduated from Wesleyan
University in 1841. The following year he was
admitted on trial to the New England Confer-
ence of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was
ordained deacon in 1844, and elder in 1846. In
the meantime, he had held brief pastorates in
eastern Massachusetts. In 1847, however, he
assumed editorship of the Sunday School Teach-
er and of the Sunday School Messenger, both
publications of the Massachusetts Sunday School
Union. He also wrote several question books
for use in promoting knowledge of the Bible.
In 1850 he became agent for the American Sun-
day School Union. Although he passed on to
other fields of activity, he never lost his inter-
est in the religious education of the young and
found time to write a few books for children
which found a place in the Sunday school li-
braries of the period.
Turning to politics for a time, he was a mem-
ber of the Massachusetts Senate in 1855 and
1856, and in the latter year he edited with
Charles Hale Debates and Proceedings in the
Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachu-
setts Held in the Year 1788. His interest in
children led him to propose the establishment of
the state industrial school at Lancaster, Mass.,
and he was appointed by the governor a mem-
ber of the first board of trustees. Soon after-
ward he was made superintendent and chaplain,
serving in these capacities from 1856 to 1862.
After a brief pastorate at Watertown, Mass., he
was appointed in 1863 chaplain of the House of
Refuge, Randall's Island, N. Y., which position
he held -until 1872. During this period he wrote
a valuable history of the institution, containing
source material in the form of original docu-
ments, tinder the title A Half Century with
Juvenile Delinquents (1869).
In 1872 Peirce succeeded Gilbert Haven [g.z;.]
398
Peirce
as editor of Zion's Herald, a semi-official Meth-
odist weekly, published in Boston, and one of the
most influential papers of its kind in New Eng-
land. For sixteen years he ably occupied the
editorial chair, avoiding controversy whenever
possible, but defending with vigor any good
cause needing his support. He also became £
preacher of wide repute, in great demand aL
dedications, conferences, preachers' meetings,
and Sunday school assemblies. His home life
was a happy one. On Aug. 5, 1841, he marriec
Harriet W. Thompson of Middletown, Conn.,
and three of their four children survived him!
He had a pleasing and attractive presence ana
was courtly and genial in manner. For fifteen
years he was a member of the board of trustees
of Boston University and for a time financial
agent of the institution ; for fourteen years he
was a member of the Wellesley College board.
He lived at Newton Center, Mass., and was ac-
tively interested in its schools and public li-
brary. Among his books not already cited, the
following are worthy of mention : The Eminent
Dead, or the Triumphs of Faith in the Dying
Hour (1846), often reprinted ; Notes on the Acts
of the Apostles (1848), edited by D. P. Kidder;
Life in the Woods, or the Adventures of Au-
dubon (copr. 1863) ; Trials of an Inventor; Life
and Discoveries of Charles Goodyear (1866);
The Word of God Opened (1868).
[A M. Hemenway, Vt. Hist. Gazetteer, vol IV
(1882), pp. 727-28 ; Alumni Record of Wesleyan Univ.
(1883) ; Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the
M. E. Church: Spring Conferences of 1890 (n.d.) •
Official Minutes . . . New England Conference, 1800 :
Christian Advocate (N. Y.), Apr. 25, 1889; Zion's
Herald, Feb. 6, Apr. 24, 1889 ; Boston Transcript, Apr.
20> I889>] S.G.A.
PEIRCE, CHARLES SANDERS (Sept. 10,
i839-Apr. 19, 1914), philosopher, logician, sci-
entist, the founder of pragmatism, was born in
Cambridge, Mass., the second son of Benjamin
Peirce \_q.v.~] and Sarah Hunt (Mills) Peirce,
daughter of Elijah Hunt Mills [g.z>.]. He was a
brother of James Mills Peirce [q.vJ]. His father,
the foremost American mathematician of his
time, an inspiring and unconventional teacher,
and a man of forceful character and wide inter-
ests, supervised the boy's education to such an
extent that Charles could later say, "he educated
me, and if I do anything it will be his work."
However, Charles had learned to read and to
write without the usual course of instruction.
He had had independent recourse to encyclope-
dias and other works for information on out-of-
the-way subjects. He showed an intense inter-
est in puzzles, complicated and mathematical
card tricks, chess problems, and code languages,
Peirce
some of which he invented for the amusement of
his playmates. At eight he began to study chem-
istry of his own accord, and at twelve set up
his own chemical laboratory, experimenting
with Liebig's bottles of quantitative analysis.
At thirteen he had read and more or less mas-
tered Whately's Elements of Logic (1826). His
father trained him in the art of concentration.
From time to time they would play rapid games
of double dummy together, from ten in the eve-
ning until sunrise, the father sharply criticizing
every error. In later years this training perhaps
helped Charles, though ill and in pain, to write
with undiminished power far into the night. His
father also encouraged him to- develop his power
of sensuous discrimination, and later, having
put himself under the tutelage of a sommelier at
his own expense, Charles became a connoisseur
of wines. The father's main efforts, however,
were directed towards Charles's mathematical
education. Rarely was any general principle or
theorem disclosed to the son. Instead, the father
would present him with problems, tables, or
examples, and encouraged him to work out the
principles for himself. Charles was also sent
to local private schools and then to the Cam-
bridge High School, where he was conspicuous
for his declamations. After a term at E. S. Dix-
welFs school, where he was prepared for college,
he entered Harvard in 1855. At college he again
had the benefit of his father's instruction. About
that time, they also began to have frequent dis-
cussions together, in which, pacing up and down
the room, they would deal with problems in
mathematics beyond even the purview of the
elder brother, himself destined to become a
mathematician. Charles was graduated from
Harvard in 1859, one of the youngest in his
class. But his scholastic record was poor. He
was seventy-first out of ninety-one for the four
years, and in the senior year ranked seventy-
ninth. He was apparently too young and of too
independent a mind to distinguish himself under
the rigid Harvard system of those days.
His father wanted him to be a scientist. Peirce
hesitated. Not only was he doubtful whether he
should devote himself to a life with so few ma-
terial benefits, but he was drawn to philosophy
as well. At college he had already read Schiller's
Aesthetische Brief e, and had been led to a study
of Kant's Kritik der Reinen Vernnnjt which he
knew "almost by heart" In July 1861, however,
he joined the United States Coast Survey, with
which he remained for thirty years, living
wherever his investigations led him. About that
time he also spent six months studying the tech-
nique of classification with Agassiz. In 1862 he
Peirce
received an M.A. degree from Harvard and the
next year the degree of Sc.B. in chemistry,
sunima cum lands, the first of its kind. But the
interest in philosophy persisted In 1864-65 he
lectured at Harvard on the philosophy of sci-
ence, and as one of a select group which included
Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Park Fisher,
James Elliott Cabot, and John Fiske he gave the
university lectures in philosophy, for 1869-70.
The next year he was the university lecturer on
logic. Meanwhile, from 1869 to 1872, he worked
as an assistant at the Harvard Observatory and,
from 1872 to 1875, there made the astronomical
observations contained in Photometric Re-
searches (1878), the only book of his published
in his lifetime. It contains material still of value.
In 1871 he was in temporary charge of the Coast
Survey and the following year became an assist-
ant there, holding the latter position until 1884.
In 1873 he was made assistant computor for the
nautical almanac and placed in charge of grav-
ity investigations. Two years later, in 1875, lie
was sent abroad to make pendulum investiga-
tions, and to attend, as the first American dele-
gate, the international geodetic conference. His
report there that pendulum experiments were
subject to a hitherto undetected inaccuracy
aroused great discussion and much opposition.
But he returned two years later, after the other
delegates had had the opportunity to investigate
his results, to receive a vote of approval of the
congress. Plantamour and Cellerier have ac-
knowledged their indebtedness to him, and his
originality in pendulum work has been signalized
by Helmert In that year (1877) he was elected
fellow of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences and a member of the National Acad-
emy of Science. He had charge of the weights
and measures of the United States Coast and
Geodetic Survey in 1884-85 ; was a member of
the assay commission of 1888, sat on the inter-
national commission of weights and measures,
and from 1884 to 1891 was retained as a special
assistant in gravity research. But in 1891, either
because his experiments had proved too costly or
his operations too leisurely, or because of Ms dis-
satisfaction with the conduct of the Survey, he
ceased to work for the government, and termi-
nated Ms active scientific career. It was he who
first attempted to ttse the wave length of a light
ray* as a standard unit of measure, a procedure
wMcli has since played an important role in
modern metrology. Though inaccuracies liave
been reported, his scientific work has, for tibe
most part, been lauded by competent men for Ite
precision.
Peirce said that he had been brotigli tip in a
399
Peirce
laboratory, but he always called himself a logi-
cian. Originally led to a study of logic by his
philosophic problems, he soon saw philosophy
and other subjects almost entirely from a logical
perspective. In 1847 George Boole, the founder
of modern logic, published The Mathematical
Analysis of Logic, to be followed in 1854 by
his definitive work, An Investigation of the Laws
of Thought. These works, destined to revolu-
tionize the entire science of logic and free it
from the thrall of the Aristotelian syllogism,
were practically unnoticed in America until
Peirce, in 1867, in a short but important paper
read before the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences (Proceedings, Mar. 12, 1867, vol.
VII, 250-61; Collected Papers, vol. Ill), re-
ferred to Boole's work and made a number of
vital and permanent improvements in the Boo-
lean system. He proposed at that time to pub-
lish an original logical paper every month, but
soon gave up the attempt because insufficient in-
terest was shown in his published work. Never-
theless, for almost fifty years, from 1866 until
the end of his life, while with the Survey and
after he left it, he occupied himself with logic
in all its branches. His technical papers of 1867
to 1885 established him as the greatest formal
logician of his time, and the most important sin-
gle force in the period from Boole to Ernst
Schroder. These papers are difficult, inaccessi-
ble, scattered, and fragmentary, and. their value
might never have been known if it had not been
that Schroder based a large portion of his Vorle-
sungen uber die Algebra der Logik (3 vols., in
4, 1890-1905) on them, and called attention to
the high character of Peirce's contributions. He
radically modified, extended, and transformed
the Boolean algebra, making it applicable to
propositions, relations, probability, and arith-
metic. Practically single-handed, following De
Morgan, Peirce laid the foundations of the logic
of relations, the instrument for the logical analy-
sis of mathematics. He invented the copula of
inclusion, the most important symbol in the logic
of classes, two new logical algebras, two new
systems of logical graphs, discovered the link
between the logic of classes and the logic of
propositions, was the first to give the funda-
mental principle for the logical development of
mathematics, and made exceedingly important
contributions to probability theory, induction,
and the logic of scientific methodology. He com-
pleted an elaborate work on logic but could not
get it published. It was too specialized for the
publishers, who preferred elementary textbooks
and perhaps the writings of a man in an aca-
demic chair. Many of his more important writ-
Peirce
ings on logic, among which are his detailed pa-
pers on his new science of semiotics, he never
published, and the final appreciation of his full
strength and importance as a logician awaits the
assimilation of the posthumous papers.
Benjamin Peirce, in a public address in the
late sixties, said that he expected Charles to
go beyond him in mathematics. In the early
eighties, J. J. Sylvester, the great mathemati-
cian of the day, is reported to have said of
Charles that he was "a far greater mathemati-
cian than his father." However, Charles pub-
lished only a few papers on pure mathematics.
His concern was with the more difficult and fas-
cinating problem of its foundations. In 1867 ifl
his paper, "Upon the Logic of Mathematics"
(Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences, Sept. 10, 1867, vol. VII, 402-12;
Collected Papers, vol. Ill), he clearly antici-
pated the method for the derivation and defini-
tion of number employed in the epochal Prin-
cipia Mathematica (3 vols., 1910^13) of A. N.
Whitehead and Bertrand Russell. He edited
with important notes and addenda (Collected
Papers, vol. Ill) his father's Linear Associative
Algebra (in American Journal of Mathematics,
July, Sept 1881), having originally, in the six-
ties, interested his father in that work. He
showed, among other things, that every associa-
tive algebra can be represented by one whose
elements are matrices. He also made a number
of contributions, over a period of years, to the
theory of aggregates and transfinite arithmetic,
his work often anticipating or running parallel
with the heralded work of Richard Dedekind
and Georg Cantor. Many of his unpublished
studies in such subjects as analysis situs were
subsequently repeated by other and independent
investigators. Had all his mathematical papers
been published in his lifetime, he would have
been a more important factor in the history of
mathematics than he is today. His work on the
logical and philosophical problems of mathe-
matics remains, however, among the foremost
in the field.
Pragmatism, Peirce's creation, had its origin
in the discussions, in Cambridge, of a fortnightly
"metaphysical club" founded in the seventies.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, the jurist, John Fiske,
and Francis E. Abbot were members'. Bujt
more important for the history of pragmatism
were Chauncey Wright [#.?>.], a philosopher of
power with whom Peirce had frequent heated
but profitable discussions ; William James [q.v.'],
Peirce's lifelong friend and benefactor, in whose
honor he seems later to have adopted the middle
name "Santiago" ("St. James" in Spanish) ;
400
Peirce
and Nicholas St. John Green, a lawyer and fol-
lower of Bentham who had a tendency to Inter-
pret doctrines in terms of their effect upon so-
cial life. It had been Kant's emphasis on formal
logic which drove Peirce to take up that subject,
the history of which he studied with characteris-
tic thoroughness. His Interest in the history
of logic, in turn, was largely responsible for
his contact with the schoolmen. By 1871 he was
converted to Duns Scotus' version of realism,
a position which he held throughout his life.
In the very paper in which Peirce first ex-
pounded his Scotistic realism and criticized the
nominalism of Berkeley, he roughly outlined the
pragmatic position (North American Review.,
Oct. 1871, pp. 449-72). The first definite state-
ment of Peirce's or the pragmatic principle, as it
is alternatively called, was not given, however,
until 1878. It is contained in a paper, originally
written in French in 1877 while he was on his
way to the international geodetic conference,
later translated by him into English, and pub-
lished in the Popular Science Monthly in Janu-
ary 1878, under the title "How to Make Our
Ideas Clear." It was the second of a series of
six articles dealing mainly with problems in
logic (Nov. 1877, Jan., Mar., Apr., June, Aug.
1878 ; Collected Papers, vol. V, book II ; vol. II,
book III, B; vol. VI, book I). Together with
the first paper of that series which he translated
into French, it was published in the Revue Philo-
sophique (Dec. 1878, Jan. 1879). In that article
he formulated, as the most important device for
making ideas clear, the principle that we are to
"Consider what effects, which might conceiv-
ably have practical bearings, we conceive the
object of our conception to have. Then, our con-
ception of these effects is the whole of our con-
ception of the object" (Popular Science Month-
ly, Jan. 1878, p. 293 ; Collected Papers, vol. V,
par. 402). This formula has been ridiculed for
its awkward and somewhat bewildering repeti-
tion, but Peirce contended that he chose each
word deliberately, wishing to emphasize that it
was concerned with concepts and not with things
and was a principle of method rather than a prop-
osition in metaphysics. As usual, he was to re-
ceive no recognition for his work until another
man called attention to it much later. In 1898
William James first publicly used the term "prag-
matism" and acknowledged Peirce's priority in
the creation of the doctrine and the name it bears.
Peirce's pragmatism, however, is not the same as
James's ; it has more in common with the some-
what independently developed idealism of Josiah
Royce and the later views of John Dewey. In
fact, when James heard Peirce lecture on prag-
Peirce
matlsm in 1903 he confessed that he could not
understand him. On the other hand, Peirce soon
rebelled against the characteristic twists which
James and others gave to pragmatism. In 1905
he coined the term "pragmaticism/5 which was
"ugly enough to be safe from kidnappers" (Mon-
ist, Apr. 1905, p. 166; Collected Papers, V, pan
414), to characterize his own views; these In-
cluded much (such as the Idea of an Absolute and
a belief in universals) that the other pragmatlsts
were disposed to discard. For his version of the
doctrine he had but few supporters, and most of
these were not In America.
Peirce did share, though, many of the views
characteristic of the pragmatic school, develop-
ing them in his own, Independent fashion. He
was a firm believer In the dependence of logic on
ethics, argued as early as 1868 against Individ-
ualism and egoism, and developed social theo-
ries of reality and logic. His most important
published philosophical contributions, however,
are those that embody his cosmology. They are
contained In a series of five articles written for
the Monist (Jan. i89i-Jan. 1893 ; Collected Pa-
pers, vol. VI). There he vigorously opposed the
mechanical philosophy, defended the reality of
absolute chance and the principle of continuity,
attempting to solve the hallowed problem of the
relation of mind and body, to explain the origin
of law, to account for the impossibility of exact-
ly verifying the laws of nature, and to develop
his theory of an evolutionary universe. Dewey,
James, and Paul Cams, among others, were
quick to recognize their importance. The latter,
who was the editor of the Monist, engaged
Peirce in controversy, providing Mm with some
of the space necessary for the further clarifica-
tion of his position. Though Peirce's tychlsm,
or theory of absolute chance, received more con-
sideration and favorable attention, it was his
synechisni, or doctrine of continuity, which he
considered his real contribution to philosophy,
holding it to be, however, a regulative principle
rather than an ultimate absolute metaphysical
doctrine. His characteristic metaphysical views
do not seem to have been wholeheartedly accept-
ed by any established philosopher during his
lifetime, though James, Royce, and Dewey have
unmistakably acknowledged his Influence.
Peirce was not given the opportunity to teach
for more than eight years during his entire life.
His longest academic connection was with the
Johns Hopkins University where he was a lec-
turer on logic from 1879 to 1884. Apart from
his early Harvard University lectures of 1864
1869, and 1870, he lectured three times before
the Lowell Institute : in 1866 on logic, in 1892 on
401
Peirce
the history of science, and in 1903 on logic. The
only other official or semi-official contact he
seems to have had with students was through a
lecture on number at Bryn Mawr in 1896, three
or four lectures on "detached topics" delivered
at Mrs. Ole BulPs in Cambridge in 1898, his
seven lectures on pragmatism at Harvard in
1903, and two lectures on scientific method be-
fore the philosophy club at Harvard in 1907.
Yet he was an inspiring teacher. Too advanced
perhaps for the ordinary student, he was a vital
formative factor in the lives of the more pro-
gressive ones, who remembered him later with
affection and reverence. He treated them as in-
tellectual equals and impressed them as having
a profound knowledge of his subject. Of his
small class in logic at Johns Hopkins, four, one
of whom was Christine Ladd-Franklin [g.z/.],
made lasting contributions to the subject in a
book which he edited and to which he contrib-
uted (Studies in Logic. By Members of the
Johns Hopkins University, 1883). His love of
precision made it impossible for him to make a
popular appeal, and he had no capacity for mak-
ing himself clear to large numbers. This fail-
ing would perhaps have been considerably over-
come if he had had the opportunity to come into
more contact with students who challenged his
statements and demanded explications. There
is some justice in James's remark that Peirce's
lectures were "flashes of brilliant light relieved
against Cimmerian darkness" (Pragmatism,
I907, P. 5)> though the lectures on pragmatism,
which this phrase was supposed to characterize,
are lucid when placed against the background of
his entire system. He would buttress his ideas
with a technical vocabulary, creating odd new
terms in his attempt to articulate new ideas, try-
ing to cover vast fields in limited space. He did
at times show a sudden gift for clear expression,
but he lacked the ability to know where further
explanation was necessary.
He was eager to teach, but personal difficul-
ties barred his way. He had described himself
when a senior at college as being vain, snobbish,
uncivil, reckless, lazy, and ill-tempered. He cer-
tainly was not lazy out of college. But he was
always somewhat proud of his ancestry and con-
nections, overbearing towards those who stood
in his way, indifferent to the consequences of his
acts, quick to take affront, highly emotional,
easily duped, and with, as he puts it, "a reputa-
tion^for not finding things." He was irregular
in his hours, forgetful of his appointments, and,
later, careless of his personal appearance. This
dark-bearded man of stocky kiild and medium
height with a short Beck and bright dark eyes
Peirce
could, however, be charming at social gather-
ings, recite with skill and converse delightfully;
he was singularly free from academic jealousy'
and he could work twenty hours at a stretch ori
a subject for which he had for years failed to
find a publisher. A "queer being" James called
him. Peirce himself felt there was something
peculiar in his inheritance and put emphasis on
the fact that he was left-handed. He could, how-
ever, write with both hands — in fact, he was
capable of writing a question with one hand
and the answer simultaneously with the other.
In his years of early promise his peculiar traits
were certainly no serious handicap to an aca-
demic career. But not only, as he regretted, had
his father neglected to teach him moral self-
control, so that he later "suffered unspeakably,"
but he had domestic difficulties as well. On Oct.
16, 1862, when twenty-three years old, he had
married Harriet Melusina Fay, three years his
senior, a grand-daughter of Bishop John Henry
Hopkins [g.z/.]. She joined him in his early sci-
entific work, was respected in Cambridge circles,
and afterward distinguished herself as an or-
ganizer and writer. He divorced her on Apr.
24, 1883, in Baltimore, alleging she had desert-
ed him in October 1876. Shortly afterward, he
writes that he married Juliette Froissy of Nancy,
France, with whom he lived for the rest of his
life and who survived him. His difficulties with
his first wife seem to have been an important
factor in his loss of academic standing and the
partial estrangement of his friends and relatives.
Having inherited some money, he retired in
1887, when only forty-eight years old, to "the
wildest county of the Northern States" near
Milford, Pa. There he secured a house and tract
of land, and fortressed by his large and select
library of scientific and philosophic works, many
of which were of considerable value, he devoted
himself to his writings on logic and philosophy.
At the same time he wrote all the definitions on
logic, metaphysics, mathematics, mechanics, as-
tronomy, astrology, weights, measures, and uni-
versities for the Century Dictionary (6 vols.,
1889-91), and a gradually increasing number
of book reviews on a wide range of topics for the
Nation. He records that he wrote about 2,000
words a day. This was done with care and in a
clear hand. Having a remarkable capacity for
self-criticism, on which he prided himself, he
would work over his copy, rewriting it as often
as a dozen times, until it was as accurate and as
precisely worded as he could make it. More
often than not, the final manuscript, which might
have involved weeks of work, would not be pub-
lished, but together with all the preceding drafts
4O2
Peirce
and miscellaneous scraps incidental to its writ-
ing would be allowed to remain on his tables.
Immediately, with the same enthusiasm, he
would begin another formulation or start on a
new topic, to be subjected to the same treatment.
He has characterized himself as having the per-
sistency of a wasp in a bottle.
As a young man he had little control over his
money; he always remained extravagant. By
his retirement from the Survey, he had cut off
his government salary of $3,000, and had to
live on what he could glean from his occasional
lectures, sales of his books, translations, private
tutoring, collaboration on dictionaries, work as
a consultant, and from private donations. In his
home he built an attic where he could work un-
disturbed or, by pulling up the ladder, escape
from his creditors. Though he had been em-
ployed by J. M. Baldwin in 1901 to write most
of the articles on logic for the Dictiomry of Phi-
losophy and Psychology (3 vols. in 4, 1901-05),
by 1902 he was in debt and on the verge of pov-
erty, doing his own chores and dissipating his
energies in small tasks In order to obtain imme-
diate funds. He then applied to the Carnegie
Fund for aid in getting his works published.
Nine years before he had planned a twelve-vol-
ume work on philosophy, which he had to give
up, despite many indorsements from leading
persons, for lack of subscribers. Now he pro-
posed to submit thirty-six memoirs, "each com-
plete in itself, forming a unitary system of logic
in all its parts." These memoirs were to be
submitted one at a time and to be paid for when
and as approved. Though his proposed mem-
oirs would have dealt with vital issues, and
though his application was accompanied by eu-
logistic letters from the greatest men of the
time, his application was rejected, the official
reason being that logic was outside the scope
of the fund, not being a "natural science." By
1906 he had ceased to review for the Nation and
had lost most of his other sources of income ; the
next year he was practically penniless. Under
James a small fund, barely enough to keep Peirce
and his wife alive, was secured for him through
appeals to old friends and appreciative students.
He published for three years — papers on logic,
pragmatism, epistemology, and religion which
are among the best he ever wrote. By 1909 he
was a very ill man of seventy, compelled to take
a grain of morphine daily to stave off the pain.
With undiminished persistency, forming his let-
ters to judge from the tremulous, painstaking
script with great difficulty, he kept on writing —
or rather rewriting, for by that time he had final-
ly ceased to be original Five years later he died
Peirce
of cancer, a frustrated, isolated man, still work-
ing on his logic, without a publisher, with scarce-
ly a disciple, unknown to the public at large.
After his death his manuscripts were bought
from his wife by the Harvard philosophy depart-
ment (for their publication, see bibliography).
There are hundreds of them, without dates, with
leaves missing, unpaginated and disordered;
there are duplicates and fragments, repetitions
and restatements. His interests were not re-
stricted to logic, pragmatism, metaphysics,
mathematics, geodesy, religion, astronomy, and
chemistry. He also wrote on psychology, early
English and classical Greek pronunciation,
psychical research, criminology, the history of
science, ancient history, Egyptology, and Na-
poleon, prepared a thesaurus and an editor's
manual, and did translations from Latin and
German. James called Peirce the most original
thinker of their generation ; Peirce placed him-
self somewhere near the rank of Leibniz. This
much is now certain; he is the most original and
versatile of America's philosophers and Amer-
ica's greatest logician.
[For years futile attempts were made to organize
Peirce's papers ; he tad himself said that he could not
have put them together. In 1927, however, Charles
Hartshome and Paid Weiss thought they saw a sys-
tematic connection between most of them, and prepared
a ten-volume selection, now in process of publication
as Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce (5 vols.,
* 93 *-34). The foregoing sketch is based mainly on
these papers, autobiographical notes, and letters and
reminiscences of his relatives, friends, and pupils. See
also R. S, Rantcral, Essex- Institute Hist. Colls., XVIII
(1881), 161-76; articles in Jour, of Philosophy, Psy-
chology and Scientific Methods, Dec. 21, 1916, by Josiah
Royce, Fergus Keman, John Dewey, Christine Ladd-
Franklin, Joseph Jastrow, and M. R. Cohen; Chance,
Love and Logic (1923), ed. by M. R. Cohen, containing
some of Peirce's published philosophical papers, an
introduction, and an almost complete bibliography ; F.
C. Russell, "In Memoriam Charles S. Peirce/* Monut,
July 1914; E. W. Davis, "Charles Peirce at Johns
Hopkins," Mid-West Qiuurt., Oct. 1914 ; Harvard Col-
lege. Records of the Class of 1859 ( 1 896) ; F. C. Peirce,
Peirce Genealogy (1880) ; obituary in Boston Evening
Transcript, Apr. 21, 1914.] P.W.
PEIRCE, CYRUS (Aug. 15, 1790-Apr. 5,
1860), educator, was born in Waltham, Mass.,
the son of Isaac and Hannah (Mason) Peirce
and a descendant of John Pers who was in
Watertown in 1637. His father, one of the Wal-
tham minute-men, took part in the engagements
at Concord, Lexington, and Bunker Hill. Dur-
ing his early days in the district school, Peirce
was a student of exceptional promise. His par-
ents, inspired by his ambition and accomplish-
ments, sent him to the Framingham Academy to
prepare for college. Later he was placed with
Dr. Stearns, the scholarly pastor of Lincoln^ for
a term of private instruction. At sixteen he en-
tered Harvard College, graduating with honors
Peirce
in 1810. His winter-term vacations from col-
lege were spent as teacher in the district school
at West Newton. Immediately after graduation
he took charge of a private school at Nantucket.
After completing two years he resigned and en-
tered the Harvard Divinity School, from which
he graduated in 1815. He was persuaded, how-
ever, to return to his former place of teaching in
Nantucket On Apr. i, 1816, he married one of
his students, Harriet, daughter of William and
Deborah (Pinkham) Coffin. He resigned in 1818
to enter the ministry and was ordained on May
19, 1819, becoming pastor of the Congregational
Church in North Reading, Mass.
As a teacher he had been eminently success-
ful ; in the pulpit he preached a strict conform-
ity in matters of belief and personal conduct that
made him rather unpopular. While in Reading,
he espoused the cause of temperance and attract-
ed favorable attention by his sermons and oc-
casional discourses on the subject After eight
years of faithful service he resigned from his
church, May 19, 1827, and withdrew from the
ministry, finally convinced that his talents could
find more effective expression in the schoolroom.
In the summer of 1827 he removed to North An-
dover, where he conducted a school for four
years in partnership with Simeon Putnam.
Then, after repeated invitations from former
friends and patrons, he returned to Nantucket.
While engaged here in the management of his
private school, he became interested in the con-
dition of the local public schools. At the request
of the school committee, he outlined a system
which provided for a properly related series of
public schools, including the primary, inter-
mediate, grammar, and high school. In 1837,
when the new scheme was ready to be launched,
Peirce was prevailed upon to relinquish his pri-
vate school and accept the position of principal
of the Nantucket High School. His success there
attracted the attention of Horace Mann, secre-
tary of the Massachusetts state board of educa-
tion, who visited Nantucket for the purpose of
observing the results of his reforms.
When the first state normal school was estab-
lished at Lexington, Mass., in 1839, the state
board unanimously elected Peirce principal. He
entered upon his new duties, July 3, 1839. The
institution opened with three pupils, but within
three years the enrolment had increased to a sat-
isfactory number. Peirce realized that it de-
volved upon him to prove the value of the normal
school and gave himself unsparingly to his pio-
neer task. From the beginning he strove to
make his pupils masters of the subjects taught
in the schools, insisting that this was fundamen-
Peirce
tal to all good teaching. In the "model depart-
ment," a school composed of children of the
neighborhood, his normal pupils engaged in prac-
tice teaching under his supervision, thereby
testing for themselves the principles in whict
he had instructed them. As a result of his labors
he was obliged to resign, in 1842, to seek recu-
peration. After spending two years at his former
residence in Nantucket, he was persuaded tc
resume his position. The school, meantime, hac
been moved to West Newton. Here he remainec
until April 1849, when ill health again forcec
him to resign. Fortunately, at this time, he wa?
offered an opportunity to travel : the Americar
Peace Society appointed him delegate to the
World's Peace Congress, which convened at
Paris, Aug. 22, 1849. Upon his return, in 1850,
he became an instructor in an academy con-
ducted by Nathaniel T. Allan, in West Newton.
He continued in this position until his death.
[S. J. May, Memoir of Cyrus Peirce (1857), reprint-
ed in the Am. Jour. Educ., Dec. 1857 ; New-Eng. Hist
and Geneal. Reg., Oct. 1860; the Mass. Teacher, May
1860 ; M. S. Lamson, Records of the First Class of the
First State Normal School in America (1903) • A O
Norton, ed., The First State Normal School in Amer-
ica: The Jours, of Cyrus Peirce and Mary Swift
(1926); F. C. Peirce, Peirce Geneal. (1880); Vital
Records of Waltham, Mass. (1904) ; Boston Transcript
Apr. 7, 1860.] R.RS
PEIRCE, HENRY AUGUSTUS (Dec. 15,
i8o8-July 29, 1885), merchant and diplomat, son
of Joseph Hardy and Frances Temple (Cordis)
Peirce was born in Dorchester, Mass., the elev-
enth child in a family of thirteen. A descendant
of Thomas Peirce who settled at Charlestown
in 1634, he numbered among- his ancestors Gen.
Joseph Warren. After a childhood marked by
delicate health, he left school at the age of four-
teen to assist in the office of his father, who was
clerk of the Boston municipal court. There he
learned the rudiments of business, but a desire
for travel, nourished by wide reading-, grew so
strong that in 1824 he shipped before the mast
for a voyage to the North- West Coast on the
brig Griffon, of which his brother was captain.
They reached Honolulu after five months, and
there Henry was promoted to ship's clerk, in
charge of stores and trade goods. For more than
three years they cruised between Alaska and
Mexico, trading for hides and furs with Indians
and Spaniards. Returning to Honolulu in 1828,
Henry became a clerk in the employ of James
Hunnewell [g.z/.], a prosperous merchant, whose
confidence he so completely gained that two years
later the youth of twenty-two was taken into
partnership and left with a capital of $20,000 to
manage the local business of bartering New-
England goods for sandalwood and furs when
404
Pelrce
the senior member went to Boston. In 1833
Hunnewell withdrew from the firm. During the
next two years Peirce opened a triangular trade
with China and Siberia, and in 1836 took as part-
ner Charles Brewer [g.z>.]} whom he left in
charge at Honolulu when he set sail for Boston
in February of that year. Early in the autumn
of 1837 he was again in the Pacific with an
armed brig which he finally sold at Valparaiso,
whence he crossed the continent to Buenos Aires,
traveling mostly on horseback. Sailing thence
to Boston, he married Susan, daughter of Joseph
Thompson, on July 3, 1838. In the following
April he sailed for Hawaii as part-owner and
master of a schooner and spent the next two
years in trading along the Mexican and Cali-
foraian coasts. In 1842 he sold a vessel and
cargo at Mazatlan in Mexico, went overland to
Vera Cruz, and sailed thence to the United States.
Retiring from the firm in 1843 w^h $100,000,
Peirce remained in Boston and engaged exten-
sively in the shipping business. At the height of
the gold rush in 1849 he took a vessel to San
Francisco, where the crew deserted to a man,
but he managed to return by way of Hawaii and
Canton, arriving in April 1850. For a number
of years he was a prominent merchant and ship-
owner, as well as Hawaiian consul for New Eng-
land. On the outbreak of the Civil War he
contributed $50,000 to equip Massachusetts volun-
teers and was active in recruiting, but during the
war he lost most of his large merchant fleet
through the depredations of Confederate priva-
teers. Relatively poor, he invested in 1866 in a
Mississippi cotton plantation, which failed badly
as a result of floods and bad weather. By sell-
ing his Beacon Street mansion he paid all his
debts and lived in retirement until appointed in
1869 as minister to the Hawaiian Kingdom. He
was responsible for calling in American marines
when riots occurred on the election of King
Kalakaua in February 1874, and accompanied
the latter during the following winter to the
United States on a visit which facilitated the con-
clusion of the reciprocity treaty of 1876. On re-
signing from his post in October 1877, he was
given the order of Grand Commander of Kame-
hameha in recognition of his services to Hawaii.
Illness brought him back to Honolulu in a few
months, and on Mar. i, 1878, he was appointed
Hawaiian minister for foreign affairs, a port-
folio he held until July, when a quarrel between
king and legislature forced his resignation. Af-
ter a brief visit to Boston he settled in San Fran-
cisco, where he died. Enterprising and honor-
able in business, he lost a considerable fortune
through speculation and war. As merchant and
Peirce
diplomat, he believed in American expansion
only to California but also to Hawaii and didr**
all in his power to aid it.
[See: Biog. of Henry Augustus^ Peirce (1880), pre-
pared from a manuscript autobiography ; Josephine
Sullivan, A Hist, of C. Brewer and Company, LPd.
(1926); E. W. West, The Peirce Family Record
(1894) ; the Morning Call (San Francisco), July 3*>
1885. Many of Peirce's dispatches as minister are
printed in House Executive Document I, S3 Cong., 3
Sess., pt i, App. II.] w. L. W., Jr.
PEIRCE, JAMES MILLS (May i, 1834-
Mar. 21, 1906), educator and mathematician,
born at Cambridge, Mass., was the eldest son of
Benjamin Peirce [g.#.] and Sarah Hunt (Mills)
Peirce, brother of Charles S. Peirce [g.svf, and
grandson of Harvard's librarian and historian
Benjamin Peirce. He received the degree of
B.A. from Harvard in 1853. After a year in the
law school, he was a tutor in mathematics in
Harvard College, 1854-58. In 1857, while still
a tutor, he entered the Divinity School where he
graduated in 1859. During the next two years
he preached in Unitarian churches in New Bed-
ford, Mass., and in Charleston, S. C., but he then
gave up the ministry and returned as an assistant
professor of mathematics to Harvard where lie
remained in the service of the university until
his death. In 1869 he became university pro-
fessor of mathematics and in 1885 the Perkins
Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy. He
served as secretary of the Academic Council
from its establishment in 1872 until 1889, as dean
of the graduate school from its foundation in
1890 until 1895, and as dean of the faculty of
arts and sciences from 1895 unt^ 1898. He was
one of the pioneers m introducing and expanding
the elective system in the College, and during the
long administration of Ms classmate President
Eliot he worked shoulder to shoulder with him
in fostering graduate study in the university.
In mathematics his chief fields of interest were
quaternions, linear associative algebra, and high-
er plane curves, and for many years he gave
popular courses in these subjects. His lectures
were exceptionally polished and clear. He was
deeply interested in his students, "patient and
helpful, . . . understanding and sympathizing
with their tastes, their aspirations, and their
struggles, as if he were still one of them/* His
slight published output included: A Tejrf Book
of Awdytic Geometry on the Basis of Professor
Peirce's Treatise (Cambridge, 1857), on which
Charles William Eliot was an active collabora-
tor; Introduction to Analytic Geometry (Cain-
bridge, 1869) ; Three and Four Place Tables of
Logarithmic and Trigonometric Functions (Bos-
ton, 1871) ; an article on "Quaternions,** in
Johnson's New Universal Cydop&dm (New
405
Peirce
York, vol. Ill, 1877) ; a memoir in the Trans-
actions of the American Mathematical Society
(October 1904) ; articles in the Monthly Re-
ligious Magazine (1856), Harvard University
Library Bulletin (1878-79), Harvard Register
(1881), and various reports to the President as
an administrative officer. He edited with notes
his father's Lowell Lectures under the title : Ideal-
ity in the Physical Sciences (Boston, 1881). He
was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences.
His interests and gifts were varied. Widely
read in literature, he was in particular a lifelong
student of the plays of Shakespeare and an en-
thusiastic admirer of the work of Shelley. He
was fond of travel, a lover of the best in art, and
a devotee of music ; but the stage and whist were
his passions. He saw most of the best actors and
plays for half a century, and he himself was no
ordinary dramatic reader. He was never mar-
ried. His colleague and intimate friend, Profes-
sor Byerly, has made the following characteri-
zation : "Careful in dress, dignified in bearing,
scrupulously polite to everyone, courteous and
kindly, he will be remembered ... for his friendly
greeting, his earnest speech, at once measured
and impetuous, his quick indignation at any sug-
gestion of injustice, and his scorn of everything
narrow or crooked or mean. . . . His ready in-
terest in everything human, and his keen enjoy-
ment of life made him the most charming of
companions." As in the case of his father he
died in the seventy-second year of his life and
in the fiftieth of his service to the university.
[The chief sources of information concerning Pro-
fessor Peirce are the following: J. K. Whittemore,
Science, July 13, 1906 ; Report of the Harvard Class
of 1833, I849-I9I3 (1913) ? W. E. Byerly and T. S.
Perry, Harvard Grads' Mag., June 1906, excellent por-
trait : A. S. Hill, Colonial Soc. of Mass. Pubs., vol. X
(1007) • W E. Byerly, Proc. Am. Acad. Arts and Set.,
vol LIX (1925) ; C S. Peirce, Am. Math. Monthly,
Dec. 1927-]
R.C.A.
PEIRCE, WILLIAM (c. 1590-1641^ ship-
master and compiler of the first almanac in Eng-
lish America, was probably born in England
about the year 1590. His name first appears in
the colonial records in 1623, his ship, the Para-
gon, having been wrecked in February of that
year. In the summer of 1623 he was given com-
mand of the Anne. Bradford mentions his com-
ing to Plymouth in 1625 in company with Ed-
ward Winslow on one of the latter's return trips
to America. During the next four years Peirce
made constant trips between New England, Vir-
ginia, and England conveying emigrants and
earning the reputation of having made the larg-
est number of such voyages of his day. He was
"for a long period the most noted sail-master
Peixotto
that came into the New England waters" (Re
den, post, p. 16). In May 1629 he took over tb
command of the Mayflower, described as "c
Yarmouth," which was possibly the Mayflowe
of earlier fame.
Peirce was in Virginia at Christmas 1632 o
which date he wrote to Boston describing cor
ditions in the southern colony (Bradford, pos,
p. 365) • It appears that a short time before tha
date he was shipwrecked near Feake Isle off th
Virginia shore, where presumably he lost th
ship Lyon. Early in 1633 we find him in com
mand of the Desire. During 1634 he explore
the island of Nantucket and the shores of Narra
gansett Bay. On Sept. 3, 1635, he was chose
by the General Court commissioner of militar
affairs of Massachusetts Bay Colony but serve
only six months, when he was replaced by Henr
Vane. In May 1637 he was chosen, with others
to start a fishery at Cape Ann and the same yea
was granted two hundred acres of land. At th
close of the Pequot War he was sent to the Wes
Indies with a group of Indians, who were soli
as slaves. He returned with "cotton, tobaccc
and negroes." These were probably the first ne
groes brought to New England. In 1641 he se
out from New England with a party of colonist
for Providence in the Caribbean. He found th
colony in the possession of the Spanish, wh<
fired upon the ship. Peirce was struck by a bul
let and died shortly afterward.
Peirce compiled the first almanac in Englisl
America, An Almanac for the year of our Lord
1639. Calculated for New England, By Mr. Wil
liam Pierce, Mariner. It was a small broadside
printed at Cambridge by Stephen Day. Win
throp describes Peirce as "a godly man and mos
expert mariner." He also gives a graphic ac
count of his death. By his wife, Jane, Peiro
had three children.
[Sources include: Winthrop's Jour (2 yols. 1908)
ed by J. K. Hosmer; Bradford's fast. "Of Phmoti
e y . . .
Plantation" (Boston, 1899), printed by order of flu
General Court of Mass. ; R. F. Roden, The Cambridge
Press, 1638-92 (1905); Chas. Evans Am.
vol. I (1903) ; Records of the Gov. and Company o.
the Mass. Bay, vol. I (1853) J E. E. Hale Jr., ed.
"Note-Book Kept by Thos. Lechford, Esq., Lawyer 11
Boston . . . June 27, 1638, to July 29, 1641," Trans
and Colls, of the Am. Antiquarian Soc., vol. VI
(1885) ; A. P. Newton, The Colonizing Activities o,
the English Puritans (1914) J F. C. Pierce, Piern
Geneal No. IV (1889). The date of Peirce's death n
uncertain. Winthrop records the event tinder date o:
June 21, 1641.] E.L.W.H.
PEIXOTTO, BENJAMIN FRANKLIfl
(Nov. 13, i834-Sept 18, 1890), diplomat, pub
Heist, journalist, lawyer, was born in New Yorl
City, a son of Daniel L. M. Peixotto and Rache
Seixas. His father was a physician, for spun
time president of the New York Medical Society
406
Peixotto
After the death of his father, the thirteen-year-
old boy went to Cleveland, Ohio, where the elder
Peixotto had at one time served as president of
Willoughly Medical College. He eventually be-
came one of the editors of the Cleveland Plain
Dealer y and a strong supporter of Stephen A.
Douglas. At an early age he became deeply in-
terested in the Independent Order B'nai B'rith,
a national Jewish fraternal organization. He
was elected grand master of the order in 1863,
serving till 1866, and was active in founding the
Cleveland Orphan Home connected with it.
During the Civil War he served for a time with
the de Villiers Zouaves in an Ohio infantry regi-
ment In 1867 he moved to San Francisco. He
was gaining recognition there as a lawyer, when
in June 1870 he was appointed by President
Grant United States consul to Bucharest. The
appointment was made in the hope that the
alarming persecutions of the Jews in Rumania
might be abated. Thus Peixotto's role was de-
scribed in a personal letter handed to him by
President Grant just before his departure for his
post, which concluded with the words: "Mr.
Peixotto has undertaken the duties of his present
office more as a missionary work for the benefit
of the people he represents, than for any benefit
to accrue to himself. . . . The United States,
knowing no distinction of her own citizens on
account of religion or nativity, naturally be-
lieves in a civilization the world over which will
secure the same universal laws." (See Kohler
and Wolf, post, p. 13.)
Both through official channels and in a Ger-
man newspaper which he founded at Bucharest,
Peixotto denounced Rumanian anti-Semitism
and aroused public opinion against Rumanian
persecution of the Jews. He induced the Ru-
manian Jews to undertake the important inno-
vation of organizing modern schools for instruc-
tion in the Rumanian language and In other
modern, as well as Jewish, subjects. During the
six years of his consulship, the anti-Semitic
movement there was greatly weakened. Largely
as a result of his efforts, followed up by de-
nouncements of Rumanian atrocities in Congress
and in the parliaments of Great Britain, France,
Germany, and Austria-Hungary, important re-
ligious minority protective clauses were inserted
in the Treaty of Berlin of 1878. Returning to
the United States in 1876, Peixotto took an
active part In the presidential campaign of that
year. In 1877 he was appointed United States
consul to Lyons, France, where he rendered
valuable service to American commerce. After
his return to the United States, he founded in
1886 The Menorak, A HamMy Magasdne, an
Pelham
important Jewish periodical, which he edited tip
to the time of his death. It was the only Eng-
lish Jewish monthly in existence for many years.
Peixotto was married, in 1858, to Hannah
Strauss of Louisville, Ky.
[Sources include : Jewish Encyc. ; M. J. Koliler and
Simon Wolf, Jevnsk Disabilities in the Balkan States:
Am. Contributions toward Their Removal (1916);
Isaac Markens, The Hebrews in America (1888); M.
J. Kohler, "Educ. Reforms in Europe in Their Rela-
tion to Jewish Emancipation," Am. Jewish Hist. Sac.
Pubs., vol. XXVIII (1922); Luigl Luzzatti, God in
freedom (1930) ; I. S. Isaacs, "Benj. F. Peixotto," in
A. C. Rogers, Our Representatives Abroad (2nd cd.,
1876) ; Adolf Stern, Denkrcde ilbsr Benj. F. Peixotto
(Bucharest, 1891). Peixotto's story of the Rumanian,
mission begins in the first volume of The Menorak and
ends abruptly in May 1888. Obituaries of him appear
in The Menorah, Oct. 1890, and in the N. Y. Tribune,
Sept. 19, 1890. Information as to certain facts was
supplied for this sketch by Peixotto's sonf Geor|*e
Peixotto.] M.J.K.
PELHAM, HENRY (Feb. 14, 1748/49-1806),
painter, engraver, cartographer, was bom at Bos-
ton where his father, Peter Pelham [#.^.], limn-
er, engraver, and schoolmaster, had married
Mary (Singleton) Copley, widow of Richard
Copley and mother of John Singleton Copley
[q.v.']. His father died in 1751, and Henry wit-
nessed in childhood the efforts o£ his mother at
her little tobacco shop to keep the family to-
gether until her gifted son Copley "brought pros-
perity to them all through his portrait painting.
The home was in Lindatt Street, where Ex-
change Place and Congress Street now meet.
Thence Henry attended the Boston Latin School.
Drawing and painting he Is assumed to have
studied with his half-brother. It was a likeness
of Henry Pelham, then aged ten or eleven, which
with the title "The Boy with the Squirrel'* was
exhibited at London In 1766 and brought Cop-
ley his first fame abroad,
Henry Pelham's many letters reveal a naive,
boyish young man, devoted to his mother and
half-brother, an efficient assistant to the latter in
practical affairs. He himself painted miniatures
at this time, several of which are preserved. They
reveal admirable workmanship. A much mote
violent Loyalist than Copley, he expressed him-
self vigorously against his neighbors whom he
held misguided and rebellious. In the winter of
1775* while making a journey on horseback to
Philadelphia, he was mobbed at Springield,
Mass., as one of "a damn'd pack of Torys.** His
sketch of ttie redoubts on Bunker Hill is repro-
duced with the Copley-Pdham letters (post, p.
327). His "Plan of Boston** was engraved in
aquatint at London In 1777. No historian of ttte
American Revolution can ignore his iBnmtoatiQg'
letters*
With other Loyalists Pefhaia left Boston ia
407
Pelham
August 1776. Arrived at London, where the
Copleys were settled, he supported himself by
teaching drawing, perspective, geography, and
astronomy. In 1777 he contributed to the Royal
Academy "The Finding of Moses," which was
engraved by W. Ward in 1787 (Brytw's Dic-
tionary of Painters and Engravers, IV, 1904, p.
87). In the following year he exhibited some
enamels and miniatures. Having married Cath-
erine Butler, daughter of William Butler of
Castle Crine, County Clare, Ireland, Pelham
went to Ireland. His wife, however, died while
bearing twin sons, Peter and William, and the
father returned with them to London. He and
Copley shared in the estate of their mother, who
died at Boston Apr. 29, 1789. Soon after this
Pelham was named agent for Lord Lansdowne's
Irish estates, a work which he followed with
energy and ability. He was a civil engineer and
cartographer, and his county and baronial maps
are important documents of Irish history. He
was drowned from a boat while superintending
the erection of a martello tower in the River
Kenmare.
[For the best account of Pelham see D. R. Slade,
"Henry Pelham, the Half- Brother of John Singleton
Copley," Colonial Soc. of Mass. Pubs., vol. V (1902).
Pelham's letters make up a large part of "Letters &
Papers of John Singleton Copley and Henry Pelham,"
pub. in Mass. Hist. Soc. Colls., vol. LXXI (1914). A
letter descriptive of Pelham's life in Ireland, written
by John Singleton, is in Martha Babcock Amory's The
Domestic and Artistic Life of John Singleton Copley
(1882).] F.W.C.
PELHAM, JOHN (Sept. 14, i838-Mar. 17,
1863), called the "boy major," was one of the
bravest and most capable young officers in Lee's
army. Largely because of the glamorous de-
scriptions of him in John Esten Cooke's Surry
of Eagle's Nest (1894), he became to many
Southerners almost as romantic a hero as Rob
Roy or Ivanhoe. His family was of good Eng-
lish stock. Peter Pelham [g.^.], was the first to
emigrate to America, his descendants living suc-
cessively in Boston, Virginia, Kentucky, and,
after 1836, in Alabama. John's great-grandfa-
ther, Peter, son of the immigrant, was for nearly
fifty years organist of Bruton Church in Wil-
liamsburg, Va., and his grandfather, Charles,
was a major in the Continental Army. His par-
ents were Atkinson Pelham, a large planter and
a country doctor, and Martha McGehee, a native
of Person County, N. C. Dr. Pelham was op-
posed to secession but loyally supported the
Southern cause, all six of his sons joining the
Confederate army.
John Pelham was born on his grandfather's
plantation in Bentoa (later Calhoun) County,
Pelham
Ala. He entered West Point in July 1856, z
resigned Apr. 22, 1861, in order to enter •
Confederate army. He was commissioned li«
tenant and sent to Virginia. In November G
J. E. B. Stuart [q.vJ] recommended that he .
ganize and be made captain of a battery of ho
artillery. This battery formed the nucleus of 1
famous Stuart Horse Artillery. Under the co
mand of Pelham it soon acquired the ideal quc
ties of this military branch : quickness and i
expectedness of movement and accuracy
execution. The slender, boyish-looking, mod'
captain displayed remarkable courage and e
terprise at every point, and in posting and firi
artillery he showed real genius. Soon he w
almost idolized by his men, the fame of the Stu<
Horse Artillery attracting to its ranks not or
volunteers from his home state, including Fren
Creoles from Mobile, but also Virginians, Mai
landers, and even foreign adventurers.
In the Seven Days' battles from June 25
July i, 1862, he displayed exceptional abilii
Though reluctant to lose him, Stuart recoi
mended his promotion with the words, "In eith
cavalry or artillery no field grade is too high f
his merit and capacity" ( War of the Rebellio
Official Records, Army, i ser., XI, part II, 552
On Aug. 16, 1862, he was appointed major, j
the second battle of Manassas he rushed up wi
his horse artillery to protect Jackson's rear fro
a surprise attack, and at Antietam, while
command of several batteries, he held a poi
essential to the Confederate position. He co
tinued his brilliant achievements in Stuarl
Loudoun County raid, in the fall of 1862, ai
exercised his unusual ability to keep up with tl
cavalry in the successful assault on the gunboa
at Port Royal and at Fredericksburg. After 1
had held his position there for about two hou
against overwhelming odds, Stuart is said •
have sent him the following message : "Get bac
from destruction, you infernal, gallant fool, Jot
Pelham" (Mercer, post, p. 138). Lee recon
mended him for a promotion to the rank of liei
tenant-colonel of horse artillery, but he was mo-
tally wounded at Kelly's Ford, Va., Mar. I;
1863. He had not only great military abilii
but a lovable and winning personality as we!
and there was wide-spread grief in the South \
his death. Stuart named his daughter, born n<
long afterwards, Virginia Pelham.
[Philip Mercer, The Life of the Gallant
(copr. 1929) ; Heros von Borcke, Memoirs of the Ca
federate War for Independence (2 vols., 1866) ; H. I
McClellan, The Life and Campaigns of Major-Genen
J. E. B. Stuart (1885) ; John W. Thomason, Job S&MR
(1930) ; Daily Richmond Examiner, Mar. 19, 1863,3
R.D.M.
408
Pelham
PELH AM, PETER (c. 1 695-0 ecember 1751),
limner and engraver, was born in England, a
son of Peter Pelham, named "gentleman" in his
will. Many reference books give the artist's birth
year as 1684, but passages in the Copley-Pelham
letters {post, especially p. 8), make it certain that
Peter Pelham, Sr., was born later than 1671. The
Registers of St. Paul's Church, Covent Garden,
London (vol. I, 1906) show that Peter Pelham,
Jr., and his wife Martha had children beginning
with the christening of George Pelham, Jan. 20,
1720. It is fairly inferred from these dates that
the future artist was born about 1695, when his
father would have been in his early twenties. His
portrait, painted by his stepson, Copley, presum-
ably from life or from records of his appearance
about 1750, is not that of a man of sixty-six
years. ( See Charles Pelharn Curtis, Loan Ex-
hibition of One Hundred Colonial Portraits,
1930.) The senior Pelham is revealed in letters
to his son in America as a man of some property.
He died at Chichester, Sussex, in 1756. He may
have been a kinsman of the distinguished Pel-
hams of Sussex described in Mark Antony Low-
er's Historical and Genealogical Notices of the
Pelham Family (1873), but the relationship has
not been proved.
The younger Pelham was one of several artists
of London who learned the then new technique
of the mezzotint engraving. Of his use of the
medium one writer has said: "Pelham handled
the rocker heavily, and so gave to his prints a
darker appearance than usual" (Alfred Whit-
man, The Masters of Mezzotint, 1898, p. 26).
He obviously was well trained as a portrait paint-
er, and he must have had influential connections,
for between 1720 and 1726 he produced portrait
plates of Queen Anne, George I, the Earl of
Derby, Lord Wilmington, Lord Carteret, Lord
Molesworth, Dr. Gibson, the Bishop of London,
and others. Why, amidst such engagements, Pel-
ham should have emigrated is mysterious, if, as
seems not to have been doubted, the impecunious
schoolmaster, limner and engraver of Boston,
Mass., is identical with the well-employed mezzo-
tinter of London. It is possible that he left in
disgrace. (See letter of Peter Pelham, Sr., Sept.
12, 1739, in Copley-Pelham letters.) His por-
trait of Gov. Samuel Shute, of Massachusetts,
painted at London, 1724, was brought, according
to plausible family tradition, to Boston to serve
as introduction to local celebrities.
Though the actual date of his emigration lias
been given variously, the record of Peter Pel-
ham's activities at Boston is well established.
His portrait of the Rev. Cotton Mather, now at
the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester,
Pellew
was painted as copy for the very familiar mezzo-
tint engraving, reproduced frequently. "Pro-
posals" for printing this engraving were pub-
lished in the Boston News-Letter, Feb. 27, 1728.
Portraits of several other New England clergy-
men followed. Pelham was seemingly intimate
with John Smibert, the Scottish painter, who
settled in Boston in 1730, for he painted Sml-
berf s portrait and made several engravings after
Smibert's works. Such professional labors did
not produce a sufficient living for an ever-grow-
ing family, and Pelham opened a school at which
he taught dancing, arithmetic, and other sub-
jects, His first wife dying in Boston, he married
on Oct 15, 1734, Margaret Lowrey, and after
her death he married, May 22, 1748, Mary (Sin-
gleton) Copley, widow of Richard Copley, to-
bacconist, late of Limerick, Ireland. Their
home, school, studio, and tobacco shop were on
Lindall Street (A Report of the Record Com-
missioners of the City of Boston, XV, 1886, p.
367). In this household were reared the future
artists, John Singleton Copley and Henry Pel-
ham [qq.v.]. Peter Pelham died intestate.
[In the "Letters & Papers of John Singleton Copley
and Henry Pelham," pub. in Mass. Hist. Sac. Colls.,
vol. LXXI (1914), there are nine quite important let-
ters addressed to Peter Pelham in answer to tinpre-
seryed letters of Ms. Pelham's first accurate and pains-
taking biographer, who, however, did not know of the
existence of the correspondence just mentioned, was
Win. H. Whitmore, whose Notes concerning Peter Pel-
ham, the Earliest Artist Resident in New England
(1867), contains a few inaccuracies, as In its title.
Indexes of Notes and Queries during the sixties dis-
close the persistence with which Whitmore sought
British aid in his Pelham quest. George Francis Dow's
The Arts & Crafts in New England, 1/04-75 (2927)
reproduces advertisements inserted by Pelham in Bos-
ton newspapers, some of which had not previously been
noted. The accounts of Pelham in English works on
painters and engravers, from Walpole and Stratt to
date, are generally incomplete and inaccurate. For
the administration of his estate see the Suffolk County
Probate Records, No. 1 0085. ]
PELLEW, HENRY EDWARD (Apr. 26,
i82&-Feb. 4, 1923), philanthropist, was born at
Canterbury, England, the son of George Pellew,
canon in Canterbury Cathedral and later dean of
Norwich, and of Frances (Addington) Pellew,
the daughter of Henry Addington, first Vis-
count Sidmouth. He was educated at Eton and
at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took
his BA. degree in 1850. At Cambridge he was
stroke and captain of his college crew and in his
last year was stroke and captain of the varsity
crew. In 1854 he was commissioned by Bar-
ing's, the London bankers, to visit their agen-
cies in the Americas preparatory to accepting a
position in Hew York Although the post never
materialized, he spent two years in travel over
a large part of the United States as well as Cen-
409
Pellew
tral and South America. In 1858 he returned
to the United States and on Oct. 5 was married
at Bedford, N. Y., to Eliza, a daughter of Wil-
liam Jay [g.'y.]. Returning to England he took
up his residence m London, where he was mag-
istrate (J. P.), member of the school board, on
the governing boards of such institutions as
Hanwell lunatic asylum, Bridewell, Westmin-
ster, and other hospitals, and of the Feltenham
industrial school. He became secretary of the
Keble memorial fund and was instrumental in
raising a large amount for the establishment of
Keble College, Oxford. During this period three
of his children were born, two of whom prede-
ceased him but one of whom became seventh
Viscount Exmouth. On Dec. 22, 1869, his wife
died and four years later on May 14, 1873, ^e
was married to Augusta Jay, her sister, at the
American legation in Vienna, Austria, where her
brother John Jay, 1817-1894 \_q.v.~\, was at the
time United States minister. The issue of this
marriage was one daughter.
Since the marriage of a deceased wife's sister
was at that time against English law, subsequent
to his second marriage he removed with his
Peloubet
Church from 1891 to 1908 and as a delegate to
the General Convention of the Episcopal Church
in 1891 and 1900. He was one of the incorpora-
tors of the national cathedral foundation in 1893
and a delegate to the convention of the diocese
of Washington in 1895. He was helpful in es-
tablishing King Hall, a theological school for
negroes, serving on the board of trustees from
1891 to 1903, was a member and for several
years secretary of the commission for work
among the colored people, and also a member of
St. Monica's league for work among the colored
people. The year before his death he fell heir to
the title of Viscount Exmouth, but because of
his advanced age he made no attempt officially
to assume the title, and he died as he had lived
for over fifty years, a citizen of his adopted
country.
[Personal acquaintance; Who's Who in America,
1 922-23 ; Reports, Constitution, By-Laws and List of
Members of the Century Asso. for . . . 1924 (1924);
Bernard Burke, A Geneal. and Heraldic Hist, of the
Peerage (1934) ; N. Y. Times, Feb. 5, 1923.]
T.T.P.L.
PELOUBET, FRANCIS NATHAN (Dec.
2, i93i-Mar. 27, 1920), Congregational clergy-
family to the United States and settled in New - man, editor, author, was the eldest son of Louis
York. He later acquired a country place at Bed-
ford, N. Y., which had been part of the Jay es-
tate. Shortly after his arrival he took an active
part in coordinating the work of the various
charitable organizations then operating in New
York City and helped organize the Charity Or-
ganization Society, serving on the original cen-
tral council from 1882 to 1885, on various com-
mittees, and as vice-president from 1887 to 1890.
He was on the board of managers of the Asso-
ciation for Improving the Condition of the Poor
from 1875 to 1887 and was president, 1884-85.
He was a commissioner of education in New
York, 1 880-8 1, and was helpful in the tenement
house reform movement as well as in the estab-
lishment of free civic libraries and night ref-
uges. During this period he was also active in
Bedford, where his summer home was. He was
a member of the vestry of St. Matthew's Church,
1876-77 and 1885-92, and at one time taught a
class of boys in the Sunday school. He joined
the Bedford farmers' club, an old established in-
stitution, in which he took an active interest and
of which he was president from 1878 to 1890.
Since the climate of New York did not agree
with his health, he moved to Washington in
1885, where he made his home until his death.
Selling his cotjntry place at Bedford in 1892, he
later bought a house at Sharon, Conn., and
thereafter spent his sttmmers there. In Wash-
ington he served & vestryman of St. John's
Michel Francois Chabrier and Harriet (Hanks)
Peloubet. His grandfather and first American
ancestor was Joseph Alexander de Chabrier de
Peloubet, a French royalist officer who was
exiled during the Revolution. Francis was born
in New York City, but the family moved to
Bloomfield, N. J., where most of his boyhood
was spent. Having prepared for college at the
Bloomfield Academy, he entered the sophomore
class at Williams, where he graduated with hon-
ors in 1853. After teaching a year in Bloom-
field, he entered Bangor Theological Seminary
and graduated in 1857. It had been his purpose
to enter the foreign mission field, in preparation
for which he had spent much time in the study of
the Tamil language. He was actually appoint-
ed to India, in fact; but for a variety of reasons
he finally decided to enter the home ministry in-
stead, and was ordained at Lanesville, Mass., on
Dec. 2, 1857. His pastorates, all in Massachu-
setts, were at Lanesville on Cape Ann, 1857-60;
Oakham* 1860-66; Attleboro, First Church,
1866-71 ; Natick, 1872-83. In all these communi-
ties he labored successfully to lift the social,
civic, and educational ideals ; during the Civil
War he twice visited the front in the service of
the Christian Commission.
Peloubet will always rank as a pioneer in the
American Sunday school movement During his
Attleboro pastorate he prepared two question
books, but was unable to secure a publisher. In
410
Peloubetf
1874, however, after the International Lessons
had become almost universally adopted in the
Protestant churches, he began a series of ques-
tion books based on these lessons, which achieved
immediate success and soon reached a circula-
tion as high as 116,000 copies a year. In 1880
this publication became a quarterly, with an an-
nual circulation of 150,000 copies. After the
wide-spread adoption of the International Les-
sons, a need arose for a practical commentary
for teachers and advanced pupils on the portions
of the Bible covered year by year. Accordingly,
with a volume for 1875 Peloubet began his Se-
lect Notes on the International Sabbath School
Lessons (Sunday was later substituted for Sab-
bath), which ably met that need and achieved
immediate success. This publication was issued
annually for forty-five years, the veteran editor
bidding farewell to his public in the volume for
1921, which appeared in 1920, a few months be-
fore his death. Widely used among the Protest-
ant churches of all names and by preachers and
teachers on the mission fields, the work is esti-
mated to have had during Peloubef s lifetime a
circulation of over a million volumes.
In 1883 he resigned his Natick pastorate and
in 1890 established his home in Auburndale,
where he spent the remainder of his life in inces-
sant literary activity. He was a prolific contrib-
utor to the religious press, and published popu-
lar. commentaries on the Gospels of Matthew and
John and the Acts of the Apostles, Loom of Life,
and If Christ Were a Guest in Your Hmne
(1900), The Front Line of the Sunday School
Movement (1904), Studies in the Book of Job
(1906). In addition he edited Select Songs for
the Singing Service in the Prayer Meeting and
Sunday School (2, vols., 1884, 1893), a revision
(1903) of the Oxford University Bible Helps
and a revised edition (1912) of William Smith's
International Bible Dictionary, as well as Treas-
ury of Biblical Information (1913) and Oriental
Light Illuminating Bible Texts and Bible Truth
(1914) . Peloubet had many interests; he was an
enthusiastic devotee of outdoor sports, and his
Auburndale home was the center of a large cir-
cle of friends. On Apr. 28, 1859, he married
Mary Abby Thaxter of Bangor, Me., who with
four of their five daughters survived him, one of
whom was Mary Alice Peloubet Norton [#.<K
[Conffregationalisi and Advance, Apr. 8, 1920 ; Con-
tinent, Nov. 20, 1919; A. R. Wells, in Select Notes
on the International Sunday School Lessons for 1921
(1922) ; J. Peloubet, Family Records of Toseph Alexan-
der de ChaMer de Peloubet (1892) ; The Congrega-
tional Y ear-Book, Statistics for 1920 (1921) ; Boston
Transcript, Mar, 27, 1920 ; Who's Who in America,
1920-21 ; information from members of the family.]
F.T.P.
Pelz
PELZ, PAUL JOHANNES (Nov. 18, 1841-
Mar. 30, 1918 ), architect, the son of Eduard L.
and Henriette (Helfensreiter) Pelz, was born in
Seitendorf, \Valdenburg, Silesia. His father
was a historian and writer, and in the revolu-
tionary movement of 1848 was a member of the
Frankfort parliament. He found it, therefore,
advisable to leave Germany in 1849, and two
years later settled in New York, where he wrote
copiously on subjects interesting to German im-
migrants, publishing his work in Chicago, New
York, and Germany. Paul remained behind in
Germany, receiving- his academic education at
the colleges of St. Elizabeth and of the Holy
Spirit in Breslau. In 1858 he came to New York
to join his family. The next year he became an
apprentice in the architectural office of Detlef
Lienau. Here he stayed until 1866, becoming
chief draftsman in 1864. After leaving Lie-
nau, he was briefly employed by an architect
named Fernbach ; but within a few months left
New York and went to Washington, where lie
entered the service of the United States Light-
house Board. As its chief draftsman from 1872
until 1877, he was concerned in the designing of
a great number of lighthouses, including such
beautiful towers as those at Body's Island, N. C.,
in brick and stone, and Spectacle Reef, Lake
Huron, all in stone, with a fine stone balcony
cornice. In 1873 ^e was sent w^h ^aJ- George
H. Elliot on a tour of inspection to study the
lighthouse services of the European powers and
contributed many illustrations to Elliot's report
(Senate Executive Document 54 , 43 Cong"., i
Sess.).
Meanwhile, outside of his lighthouse work,
he was making designs in association with vari-
ous other architects. In 1873, with John L.
Smithmeyer, he entered the competition for a
plan for the Library of Congress, and their de-
sign received the first prize. For more than a
dozen years thereafter there was vacillation on
the part of Congress with regard to the Library,
and the plan was studied and restadied ; twelve
entirely different designs are said to nave been
prepared. *In 1886, the building was authorized
and Smithmeyer was appointed architect, but
in 1888 the Library Commission was legislated
out of existence and the work placed in the
hands of Brig,-Gen. Thomas L. Casey, chief of
engineers of the army. Smithmeyer was re-
moved but Pelz was retained and directed to
prepare a new design, whicli was followed. In
it Pelz returned to the basic ideas of tie first
competitive scheme. Oa the completion of the
drawings (May if 1892) Ms connection wife the
building ceased,, and it was eacecated 'Wider ,*he
411
Pemberton
supervision of E. P. Casey, of New York, the
General's son. The exterior and interior design
of the building- are far inferior in dignity to the
plan, which was epoch-making in its day; at
the time of the competition, when the general
lines were determined, there was not a contem-
porary building to compare with it in monu-
mental conception, clarity of thinking, and func-
tional directness. The arrangements for archi-
tectural fees on the work were vague, and Smith-
meyer and Pelz brought suit in the Court of
Claims for $210,000 (or 3% of the alleged cost
of the building — a standard architect's fee). On
appeal, the Supreme Court, Jan. 23, 1893, up-
held the decision of the Court of Claims, award-
ing Smithmeyer and Pelz six years' combined
salary at $8,000 a year over and above their of-
fice and drafting costs.
Besides the lighthouses and the Library, Pelz's
work (mainly in association with Smithmeyer)
included the Academic Building of Georgetown
University; Carnegie Library and Music Hall,
Allegheny, Pa. ; the federal army and navy hos-
pital, Hot Springs, Ark. ; the Chamberlain Hotel,
Fortress Monroe, Va. ; the Aula Christi, Chau-
tauqua, N. Y. ; and the Administration Building
of the Clinical Hospital of the University of
Virginia. He was married on Feb. 23, 1895, to
Mary Eastbourne (Ritter) Meem, daughter of
Gen. Horatio Gates Ritter, and they had a son
and a daughter. He died in Washington, D. C.
[Sketch of Eduard L. Pelz in Der Hwsfreund (Leip-
zig), XIX (1876), 37, 40; Ann. Report of the Light-
house Board, 1872-78; Smithmeyer vs. U. S., 147
U. S. Reports, 342 ; Eminent and Representative Men
of Va. and the District of Columbia (1893) ; Who's
Who in America, 1916-17; Herbert Small, Handbook
of the New Library of Congress (1897) ; Russell Stur-
gis, "The New Library of Congress," Arch. Record,
Jan.-Mar. 1898 ; Evening Star (Washington, D. C),
Feb. 25, 1895, Mar. 31, 1918.] T.F.H.
PEMBERTON, ISRAEL (May 10, i;i5-Apr.
22, 1779), Quaker merchant and philanthro-
pist, born in Philadelphia, Pa., was the third of
the ten children of Israel and Rachel (Read)
Pemberton and a descendant of Ralph Pember-
ton who emigrated to Pennsylvania from Lan-
cashire, England, in 1682. James and John Pem-
berton [qq.vJ] were his brothers. His father was
a successful merchant and a member of the
Pennsylvania Assembly. Israel received a thor-
ough education in Friends' schools. At that of
Thomas Makin, where Pastorius was a master,
trouble arose between Pastorius and the boy,
which resulted in Israel's being so severely pun-
ished that he was placed in another school. His
education completed, he entered the mercantile
business with his father, James Logan, and John
Reynell, and became one of the wealthiest mer-
Pemberton
chants of his time. He was able to keep up
home in the city, two country homes on tf
Schuylkill, and one in New Jersey. He was h
terested in various benevolent organization,
When the Pennsylvania Hospital was incorpc
rated in February 1751 he was elected a mar
ager, a position which he filled for twenty-eigl
years, and he contributed generously to its suf
port. He was also a member of the America
Philosophical Society, elected in January 176!
The largest share of his time and money, how
ever, went to the Friendly Association for Re
gaining and Preserving Peace with the Indian
by Pacific Measures, sponsored by the Philadel
phia Meeting to keep the Delawares and Shaw
nees from joining the French in 1756. Pember
ton was a trustee and an active member.
At an early age he took an interest in publi
affairs and in 1739 he was arrested for criticiz
ing Thomas Penn, the lieutenant-governor o
the province. He was released on bail and even
tually the case was dropped. In 1750 he wa
elected to his father's seat in the Assembly fa
the county of Philadelphia. The following yea
he was appointed member of the board of man
agers for the State House and grounds. Hi
was active in the movement to force the Pro
prietors to pay a fair share of taxes and signee
the non-importation agreement at the time o
the Stamp Act, though in general he stronglj
urged a policy of peace. In 1756 he resignec
from the Assembly because of his opposition tc
the Indian War, but he was returned ten yean
later. During the first Continental Congress the
Massachusetts delegation were invited by the
Friends to attend a meeting at Carpenter's Hall,
Pemberton addressed them, urging them to granl
liberty of conscience to the Friends and Bap-
tists in their province. This incident is said tc
be one of the chief reasons for John Adams' ani-
mosity toward the Quakers. Holding to his re-
ligious convictions, Pemberton was opposed tc
the Revolution. With others of his faith he re-
fused to take the oath of allegiance to the Com-
monwealth of Pennsylvania or to promise not to
give aid to the enemy. Consequently he and
nineteen others were arrested early in Septem-
ber 1777 and imprisoned in the Free Masons'
Lodge without trial. Their homes were searched
and their papers seized. On the eleventh of Sep-
tember they were taken by wagon to Winches-
ter, Va., where they were held until April of the
next year. Pemberton's health was undermined
during his imprisonment, causing his death one
year later. He married, Mar. 30, 1737, Sarah,
daughter of Joseph and Sarah (Stacy) Kirk-
bride. She died in 1746 and on Dec. 10, 1747, he
412
Pemberton
married Mary, the daughter of Nathan and
Mary (Ewer) Stanbury and the widow of Rob-
ert Jordan and Capt. Richard Hill.
[F. W. Leach, "Old Phila. Families," Phila. North
American, July 28, 1 907 ; J. W. Jordan, ed., Colonial
Families of Phila. (1911), vol. I; Friends' Miscellany,
Apr. 1835 ; J. P. Parke, Geneal. Notes Relating to the
Families of Lloyd, Pemberton, Hutchinson, Hudson
and Parke (1898), ed. by T. A. Glenn; C P. Keith,
Chronicles of Pa. ... 1688-1748 (1917), vol. II ; R. M.
Smith, The Burlington Smiths (1877); Isaac Sharp-
less, A Hist, of Quaker Government in Pa. (2 vols.,
1900) ; Thos. Gilpin, Exiles in Va. (1848) ;E.P,Ober-
holtzer, Phila., a Hist. (1912), vol. I; G. B. Wood,
An Address on the Occasion of the Centennial Cele-
bration of the Founding of the Pa. Hospital (1851) ;
Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., Apr. 1886, Jan.-Oct.
1913; Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pa., vols.
IV and VII (1851).] E.M.B- n.
PEMBERTON, JAMES (Aug. 26, i723-Feb.
9, 1809), Quaker merchant and philanthropist,
the eighth of the ten children of Israel and Rachel
(Read) Pemberton, and brother of Israel and
John Pemberton [qq.v. ,], was born in Philadel-
phia, Pa. He was educated in Friends* School.
In 1745 he traveled in the Carolinas and in 1748
he went to Europe, primarily for business pur-
poses, as he was associated with his father and
brother in the shipping trade. His main interest
was in the Society of Friends and in the various
religious organizations. An active member of
Meeting, he sat at the head of the preacher's
gallery for many years. When the Meeting for
Sufferings, the executive body of the Friends,
was established in 1756 he was appointed a mem-
ber, a position which he held until 1808. With
his brother Israel he was one of the trustees of
the Friendly Association for Regaining and Pre-
serving Peace with the Indians by Pacific Meas-
ures, and was a liberal contributor to Its support.
He was one of the founders of the Society for
the Relief of Free Negroes, established in 1775.
In 1787, when it became the Pennsylvania Soci-
ety for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, he
became vice-president, and in 1790 he succeeded
Franklin as president, holding this office for
thirteen years. He was a member of the Board
of Overseers of the public schools of Philadel-
phia, for both the city and the county, and took
an active part in establishing secondary educa-
tion In the Friends' schools. A member of the
first board of managers o£ the Pennsylvania
Hospital, he served for twenty-two years on
the board and acted as secretary from 1759 to
1772. He was elected a member of the Ameri-
can Philosophical Society In January 1768.
Pemberton was elected to the Assembly for
the County of Philadelphia but he resigned in
June 1756 with five colleagues because of his op-
position to a war with the Delawares. In 1757,
as clerk of the Meeting, he signed a petition to
Pemberton
the governor protesting against forcing the
Friends of the Lower Counties to bear arms.
He was reflected to the Assembly In 1765 and
held office for four years. At the time of the
Stamp Act, he signed the non-Importation
agreement. He opposed armed resistance to
Great Britain and was arrested, Imprisoned In
the Free Masons' Lodge, and deported with
nineteen other Quakers to Virginia. Since they
were not permitted to attend meeting, Pember-
ton helped to set up one of their own. On Ms
return to Philadelphia he gave up all active In-
terest in politics. As early as 1756 he wrote An
Apology for the People called Quakers^ contain-
ing some Reasons for their not complying with
Human Injunctions and Institutions in matters
relative to the Worship of God. In his capacity
as clerk of the meeting he wrote, as well, many
documents of a religious nature, one of which
was a "Remonstrance vs. Erecting a Theatre
and Theatrical Performances in Philadelphia."
(See Votes ami Proceedings of the House of
Representatives . . . of Pennsylvania, 17/5, vo^
V, p. 524.) During the exile in Virginia he
kept a journal, but more interesting are his let-
ters, which are descriptive, concise, and filled
with comments upon the life In the city and
country. He died in 1809, In his eighty-sixth
year. He had married, on Oct 15, I751* Han-
nah, daughter of Mordecai and Hannah (Fish-
bourne) Lloyd. After her death In 1764, he mar-
ried, on Mar. 22, 1768, Sarah, daughter of Dan-
iel and Mary (Hoedt) Smith of Burlington,
N. J. Two years after her death he married, on
July 12, 1775, Phoebe (Lewis) Morton, daugh-
ter of Robert and Mary Lewis.
[See: F. W. Leach, "Old Phila. Families/* Phila.
North American, July 28, 1907; J. W. Jordan, ed.,
Colonial Families of Phila. (19*1), vol. I; *saac
Sharpless, A Hist, of Quaker Government in Pa. (2
vols.. 1900) and PoL Leaders of Provincial Pa. (1919) >*
R. M. Smith, The Burlington Smiths (1877) ; Thos.
Gilpin, Exiles in Va. (1848); Edward Needles, An
Hist. Memoir of the Pa. Soc. for Pr&mo^mg the Abo-
lition of Slavery (1848) ; G. B. Wood, An Address on
the Occasion of the CentmnwZ Celebration of the
Founding of the Pa. Hospital (1851) ; J. F. Watson,
Annals of Phila. (1844), vol. I; Friends' Miscellany,
May 1835; Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., Jan. 1889,
Jtily 1899, July 1914; Pa. Archives^, 2 ser. IX (1880) ;
Minnies of the Provincial Comncil of Pa., vol. VII
(1851), vol. IX (1852). There are Pemberton manu-
scripts in the library of the Pa. Hist. Soc.]
RM.B— n.
PEMBERTON, JOHN (Nov. 27, i727~Jan.
31, 1795), Quaker preacher, ninth of the ten
children of Israel and Rachel (Read) Pember-
ton and younger brother of Israel and James
Pemberton [qq.v.], was born in Philadelphia,
Pa., where he attended Friends* schools. He
entered business with his father and brothers,
but soon gave this tip so that he might demote
413
Pemberton
his full time to religious work. In 1750, while
traveling abroad for his health, he came into
contact with John Churchman, a Quaker minis-
ter who was on his way to Great Britain on a
religious tour. He persuaded Pemberton to ac-
company him, and for three years they jour-
neyed through the west counties of England, in
Ireland, Scotland, and Holland. During the
trip Pemberton was persuaded to preach and on
his return to Philadelphia he devoted his time
to preaching and to missionary work, visiting
in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and
Virginia. A member of the Friendly Associa-
tion for Regaining and Preserving Peace with
the Indians by Pacific Measures, he attended
the Easton conference in 1756. Ten years later
he was chosen with John Penn to present the
remonstrance against stage plays, prepared by
his brother James, to the governor. Further re-
vealing his religious convictions is the provi-
sional lease which Pemberton granted in 1780
for a Coffee House, in which the tenant prom-
ised to "preserve decency," keep the house closed
on Sunday, and prohibit swearing and card play-
ing, with a penalty of £100 for the first offense.
Opposed to the war against the Delawares in
1756, he was equally hostile to armed resistance
to Great Britain in 1777. Early in September
1777 he was notified that orders had been re-
ceived to take him prisoner. When he refused
to leave the house or give up his keys a guard
of ten men took him by force. His desk was
broken open and the contents seized With his
brothers he was sent to Winchester, Va., a jour-
ney of nineteen days by wagon. The year before
he had begun to keep a journal, commenting
upon the arrest of Friends for refusing to bear
arms, and deploring the loss of life caused by
war and sickness. He kept this journal through-
out his exile, giving a clear picture of his arrest
and imprisonment. His chief complaint through-
out his imprisonment was of the cold and rain.
On Apr. 21, 1778, he left Winchester, arriving
in Philadelphia nine days later, the day after he
received his official pardon from Washington.
He continued to keep up his journal after his
return, but the majority of the entries refer only
to the Meeting and to various Friends. At the
Quarterly Meeting, Feb. 5, 1781, Pemberton
was given a certificate to visit the Friends in
England. Despite the fact that it was now
against the law to leave the country without a
passport, he notified the council that he intended
to dispense with the formality. Permitted to
leave, he went to England, Ireland, and Scot-
land, visiting and preacfiing for five years. He
returned to Philadelphia but set out again on
Pemberton
May 30, 1794, for Holland and Germany. He
held meetings on shipboard, in Amsterdam", and
in several towns in Prussia. Early in September
he became ill, but he continued to Pyrmont
Westphalia. Thereafter he referred constantly
in his journal and letters to his illness, though
he commented also upon his surroundings, the
scenery, and the people. His condition rapidly
grew worse and he died at Pyrmont on the last
day of January 1795. Pemberton's wife was
Hannah, the daughter of Isaac and Sarah Zane,
whom he married in Philadelphia on May 8
1766.
[F. W. Leach, "Old Phila. Families," Phila North
American, July 28, 1907; J. W. Jordan, ed., Colonial
Families of Phila. (1911), vol. I; Isaac Sharpless A
Hist, of Quaker Government in Pa, (2 vols., 1000) •
J. F. Watson, Annals of Phila. (1844), vol I- Thos'
Gilpin, Exiles in Va. (1848) ; G. B. Wood, An Address
on the Occasion of the Centennial Celebration of the
Founding of the Pa. Hospital (1851); Friends' Mis-
cellany, Jan., Feb., Mar. 1836; The Diary of John
Pemberton for the Years 1777 and 1778 (1867), ed. by
E. K. Price; Thos. Wilkinson, Some Account of the
Last Journey of John Pemberton to the Highlands and
Other Parts of Scotland (1811); Pa. Mag. of Hist
and Biog.f Oct. 1885, Apr.-Oct. 1917.] £. M. B— n. '
PEMBERTON, JOHN CLIFFORD (Aug.
10, i8i4-July 13, 1881), soldier, second son of
John^and Rebecca (Clifford) Pemberton, was
born in Philadelphia. He was of Quaker ances-
try, great-grandson of Israel Pemberton [g.z/.],
and a descendant of Ralph Pemberton, of Wigan,
Lancashire, who came with his son Phineas to
Pennsylvania in 1682. John received his early
education in the schools of his native city, and
was privately tutored in Hebrew, Greek, and
Latin. Entering West Point on July i, 1833,
he graduated four years later, twenty-seventh
in a class of fifty. As second lieutenant in the
4th Artillery Regiment, he fought in the Florida
Indian Wars from 1837 to 1839, and from 1840
to 1842 served on the Canadian border. On Mar.
19, 1842, he was promoted to first lieutenant In
the War with Mexico, as aide-de-camp of Gen.
William J. Worth [q.v.], he participated in the
battles of Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Vera
Cruz, Monterey, Cerro Gordo, Churubusco,
Molino del Rey, Chapultepec, and Mexico city.
For bravery throughout these actions, he was
brevetted captain, Sept 23, 1846, and major,
Sept. 8, 1847. In recognition of his Mexican
services the citizens of Philadelphia presented
him with a handsome sword. On Jan. 18, 1848,
he married Martha Thompson, daughter of Wil-
liam Henry Thompson of Norfolk, Va.; five
children were born to them. Pemberton received
his regular captaincy on Sept 16, 1850. In ^858,
under Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, he took part
in the operations against the Mormons in Utafe,
414
Pemberton
while the following three years he was occupied
with Indian affairs in the northwest.
When the Civil War threatened, he was or-
dered with troops at Fort Ridgely, Minn., to
Washington, D. C Arrived there, he resigned
his commission in the United States Army on
Apr. 24, 1861. Gen. Winfield Scott tried to per-
suade him to accept a commission as colonel in
the Federal army, but he refused the offer and
proceeded to Richmond. There he was commis-
sioned lieutenant-colonel, Apr. 28, 1861, and
assigned the duty of organizing the cavalry and
artillery of Virginia. On May 8, 1861, he was
named colonel, Provisional Army of Virginia;
on June 15, major, corps of artillery, Confeder-
ate States Army; on June 17, brigadier-general,
Provisional Army, Confederate States; and on
Feb. 13, 1862, major-general, Provisional Army,
commanding the department which included
South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. He early
counseled the abandonment of Fort Sumter as
having no protective value for the city of
Charleston, and built Fort Wagner and Battery
"B," which protected the city even after Union
fire had levelled Sumter. Many In the South
could not forget that Pemberton was a North-
erner, and the Confederate secretary of war
was even petitioned to remove him from com-
mand. There is no question, however, of his
complete loyalty to the Southern cause, or that
he had the full confidence of his superiors. On
Oct. 13, 1862, he was promoted lieutenant-gen-
eral and given command of the department em-
bracing Mississippi, Tennessee, and eastern
Louisiana. He thus became responsible for the
defense of the Confederate stronghold of Vicks-
burg.
Jefferson Davis instructed him to hold Vicks-
burg at all costs; Gen. Joseph E. Johnston ad-
vised cutting loose from Vicksburg and avoid-
ing a general engagement until sufficient con-
centration could be effected against Grant
Hampered by these conflicting orders and opi-
posed by the ablest soldier of the North, Pem-
berton had to work out his own salvation. Be-
sieged by land and water, heavily outnumbered,
and short of ammunition, he conducted a stub-
born defense. Finally the garrison was reduced
to eating rats, cane shoots, and bark ; men were
so exhausted that they could scarcely stand in
the firing trenches, and those still capable of re-
sisting were all too few to man the defenses. On
the night of July 2, 1863, when the Federals had
closed in to assaulting distance, Pemberton
knew that defeat was inevitable. On July 4, he
accepted the "unconditional stirrpider** terms
imposed l>y General Grant When the exchange
Penalosa Briceno
of prisoners had been effected, Pemberton re-
signed his commission as lieutenant-general and
served until the end of the war as inspector of
ordnance with the rank of colonel.
Through the foresight and generosity of his
mother, he was provided a farm near Warren-
ton, Va., whither he retired after the war. In
1876 he moved to Philadelphia, and there lived
with his brothers and sisters until his death at
Penllyn on July 13, 1881. He was buried in
Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia.
[J. W. Jordan, Colonial Families of Pk&a. (1911);
War of the Rebellion : Official Records (Army) ; Bat-
tlesm and Leaders of the Civil War (4 vols., 1887-88) ;
Thirteenth Ann. Reunion Asso. of Grads., U. S. Mili-
tary Acad. . . . 1882 ; G. W. Culltun, Biog. Reff. Officers
and Grads., U. S. Military Acad., vol. I (1891) ; C A.
Evans, Confed. Military Hist. (1899), esp. vols. I, V,
VII ; Army and Navy Jour., July 16, 1881 ; Public Led-
ger (Phila.), July 14, 1881.] C.C.B.
PENALOSA BRICENO, DIEGO DIO-
NISO de (c. i622~-c. 1687), governor of New
Mexico, soldier of fortune, the son of Alonso de
Penalosa, was a native of Lima, Pern. He went
to New Spain about 1654, where, according to
his later sworn statements, he was employed "in
the higher positions, political and military." In
1661, by appointment of the viceroy of New
Spain, he assumed the office of governor and
captain-general of New Mexico. Obligated to
conduct the residencies, or official investigation
of the administration of his deposed predecessor,
Mendizabal, he sacked the latter's home and
threw him into prison, thus patronizingly defy-
ing the Tribunal of the Inquisition in Mexico,
which had issued a writ for the arrest of Mendi-
zabal and the attachment of his property. The
breach thus made between Pefialosa and Father
Posadas, comisaria of the Inquisition in New
Mexico, soon widened, and during the spirited
contest that ensued, Penalosa In 1663 Impris-
oned and threatened to kill Posadas. This rash
act brought forth a threat to place the province
tinder an interdict Penalosa made frantic ef-
forts to effect a reconciliation, but the entire
power of the Inquisition was directed against
him, and in June 1665, after he had left New
Mexico, a forma! complaint was made by the
Inquisition against him "as a usurper of the
jurisdiction^ of that Tribunal. Furthermore, lie
was charged with rape, incest, robbery, and the
enslavement of Indian girls, and with having at-
tempted first to bribe and then to blackmail Men-
dizabal. In his defense Penalosa admitted rasii-
ness, complained oi having been governor "of
the off-scottrings of the earth,5* cited alleged
services in behalf of his king and Ms religion,
and threw himself on the mercy of tibe court. His
pleas were vain, towever; and oa FA & x€BB»
415
Fender
he was reprimanded, fined 500 pesos, deprived
of the right to hold political and military office,
and exiled forever from New Spain and the
West Indies.
Embittered, he went to England where he
maintained himself by selling to British offi-
cials information concerning the defenses of the
Indies. He enjoyed the favor of the king, who
prevented his arrest when it was requested by
the Spanish ambassador. After some time he
went to France, where he assumed various ficti-
tious titles of nobility. Between the years 1678
and 1684, he presented three proposals to Louis
XIV to attack New Spain in the name of France,
capitalizing, in this connection, his personal
knowledge of the regions mentioned. On pre-
senting in 1684 his proposal to attack Panuco,
he also submitted a manuscript "Relacion" pur-
porting to be an account of an alleged expedition
from Santa Fe to Quivira in 1662. This "Rela-
cion," published in 1882 by J. G. Shea (post),
has recently been proved fictitious (Miller and
Hackett, post). Penalosa submitted his third
proposal just as La Salle arrived ;fcom Canada
with news of his exploration of the Mississippi
River and plans for a settlement near its mouth.
The plan of the renowned French explorer su-
perseded that of the exiled Spanish renegade,
and the expedition which left France that same
year was led by La Salle. After this time noth-
ing more is known of Penalosa, though, accord-
ing to Margry (III, 44), he died in 1687, at
Paris.
[MSS. in the Archivo General, Mexico City, Seccion
de Inquisicion ; transcripts in Univ. of Tex. Lib. ;
Cesareo Fernandez Duro, Don Diego de Penalosa
(Madrid, 1882) ; C. W. Hackett, "New Light on Don
Diego de Penalosa," Miss. Valley Hist. Rev., Dec.
1919 ; Pierre Margry, Decouvertes et Etablissements
des Frangais dans I'Ouest et dans le Sud de VAmerique
Septentrionale, vol. Ill (1878) ; J. G. Shea, The Expe-
dition of Don Diego Dionisio de Penalosa (1882),
which accepts the authenticity of the fictitious "Rela-
cion" ; E. T. Miller, "The Connection of Penalosa with
the La Salle Expedition," Tex. State Hist. Asso. Quart.,
Oct. 1901 ; W. E. Dunn, Spanish and French Rivalry
in the Gulf Region of the U. S., 1678-1702 (1917).]
CW.H.
FENDER, WILLIAM DORSEY (Feb. 6,
i834-July 18, 1863), Confederate soldier, was
born in Edgecombe County, N. C. His father,
James Pender, was a descendant of Edwin Pen-
der who came from England and settled near
Norfolk, Va., during the reign of Charles II.
His mother was Sarah Routh, daughter of Wil-
liam Routh also of Virginia. He received his
preliminary education in the common schools
of his county and at the age of fifteen worked as
a clerk in his brother's store. At sixteen he was
appointed a cadet to the United States Military
Fender
Academy from which he graduated in 185
standing nineteenth in a class of forty-six. Upc
graduation he was commissioned brevet secoi
lieutenant in the ist Artillery and during tl
same year he was made a second lieutenant
the 2nd Artillery. In 1855 he transferred to tl
ist Dragoons and in 1858 was promoted to tl
rank of first lieutenant in that regiment. Fro
1856 to 1860 he saw active service on the froi
tier in New Mexico, California, Oregon, ar
Washington, participating in numerous live]
skirmishes with the Indians. He married Mai
Frances, daughter of the Hon. Augustine I
Shepperd of North Carolina, on Mar. 3, 1851
Three sons were born of this union, Samui
Turner, William D., and Stephen Lee. In 186
he was appointed adjutant of the ist Dragoor
with a station at San Francisco, Cal., but th
year following he was ordered to return to th
East on recruiting duty.
At the outbreak of the Civil War he resigne
his commission and threw in his lot with th
Confederacy. He was commissioned a captai
of artillery in the provisional army and place
in charge of Confederate recruiting in Balti
more, Md. In May 1861, he returned to his na
tive state and acted as an instructor for new reg
iments formed at Raleigh and Garysburg. H
was elected colonel of the 3rd North Carolin
Volunteers on May 16, 1861, and on Aug. i
was transferred to command the 6th North Caro
lina Regiment. His regiment served in Whit
ing's brigade of Smith's division tinder Gen
Joseph E. Johnston in the Peninsular campaign
For brilliant leadership at the battle of Sevei
Pines (Fair Oaks) he was promoted to thi
rank of brigadier-general and assigned to com
mand a brigade of North Carolina troops in Gen
Ambrose P. Hill's division. Pender led his bri<
gade ably in the battle of the Seven Days in f ron
of Richmond and again under Jackson at th<
second battle of Bull Run, in the Maryland cam-
paign, at Fredericksburg, and at Chancellors-
ville. He was wounded three times during these
battles but never relinquished his command. Or
May 27, 1863, he was promoted to the rank d
major-general, being then only twenty-nine
years of age but considered one of the ablesl
officers of the Confederacy. He was placed in
command of a division and demonstrated his
fitness for his new command at Gettysburg on
July i, 1863, when he drove the Union troops
from Seminary Ridge. The second day of the
battle he was severely wounded in the leg by a
fragment of shell. He was evacuated to Statin-
ton, Va., where he died on July 18, 1863, fol-
lowing an operation for the amputation of Ms
416
Pendleton
wounded leg. The loss to the Confederacy of
this gallant young officer can be estimated from
one of Lee's official reports: uHis promise and
usefulness as an officer were only equaled by the
purity and excellence of his private life" (War
of the Rebellion: Official Records, Army,, I ser.
XXVII, Part II, p. 325).
[G. W. Cullum, Biog. Reg. . . . U. S. Mil. Acad. ;
Confederate Military History (1899), "vol. IV; Battles
and Leaders of the Civil War (1884-1888), vols. II,
III ; sketch by W. A. Montgomery in W. J. Peele,
Lives of Distinguished North Carolinians (1898) ;
Cyclopedia of Eminent and Representative Men of the
Carolinas of the Nineteenth Century (1892), vol. II;
Richmond Daily Whig, July 20, 1863.] S.J.H.
PENDLETON, EDMUND (Sept. 9, 1721-
Oct. 26, 1803), Virginia jurist, Revolutionary
patriot, was born in Caroline County, Va. His
grandfather, Philip, a schoolmaster of Norwich,
England, had emigrated in 1682, and the family
became established in Caroline at an early date.
One of Philip's daughters, Catherine, married
John Taylor, grandfather of the well-known John
Taylor of Caroline, while his son Henry mar-
ried Mary Taylor, sister to John. Edmund was
their youngest son. His father and grandfather
both died in the year that he was born (South-
ern Literary Messenger, June 1857, pp. 422-24),
and his mother married again. Left without pa-
ternal care, and apparently without property,
he was apprenticed at the age of fourteen to Col.
Benjamin Robinson, clerk of the court of Caro-
line and a kinsman of the powerful "Speaker"
Robinson (Caroline County Order Books, vol-
ume for 1732-40, p. 282). When the lad was
sixteen years of age, he became clerk to the
vestry of St. Mary's Parish, and at nineteen was
made clerk of the Caroline court martial. Dur-
ing these years he worked diligently to educate
himself and at twenty was admitted to practise
at the local bar. In 1742 he married Elizabeth
Roy, but the bride died in childbirth within the
year and the infant son never breathed. On
June 20, 1743, Pendleton married Sarah Pol-
lard, with whom he lived happily until her death
in 1794.
In 1745 he was admitted to practice before
the general court. In 1751 he became a justice
of the peace of Caroline County, and the next
year was elected to the House of Burgesses.
Judging by the number of his committee ap-
pointments, he was an active member of this
body. In 1765 the financial affairs of Speaker
John Robinson \_q.v."\, who was also treasurer
of the colony, became involved, and Ms friends
made an effort to relieve him by establishing a
state loan office. Pendleton was active in this
movement, but it failed When tne Speaker died
Pendleton
within the following year, an effort was made
by the reforming party to separate the office of
speaker from that of treasurer. Pendleton
strenuously opposed this move, and again was
unsuccessful. It has been said that his stand with
the conservative interests on these questions
made him leader of the "Cavalier" party in Vir-
ginia, to which he was alien by birth. The Stamp
Act was passed while these questions were being
debated. Pendleton, always conservative and op-
posed to violent measures, did not favor Pat-
rick Henry's stand on this issue. Nevertheless,
he stated it as his view that the House of Com-
mons lacked constitutional authority to pass the
offending act, and, as justice of Caroline, he
kept the court open and went as far as he could
legally to nullify the effect of the legislation
(Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical
Society, 2 ser. XIX, 1905, pp. 109-12). Though
his name does not appear prominently again un-
til the beginning of the Revolutionary struggle,
his stand in 1765 clearly indicated what his pol-
icy would be when the storm broke.
Immediately upon the approach of the crisis,
Pendleton emerged as one of the foremost men
in Virginia. His qualifications for leadership
were considerable, yet his strategic position
doubtless had much to do with his preferment.
His place as a leader in the conservative group
made his support of the Revolutionary movement
highly important. Accordingly, he was selected
for membership on the Committee of Correspond-
ence when it was organized in 1773. I*1 I774 ^e
was sent to represent Virginia in the first Conti-
nental Congress. He was a member of all the
Virginia Revolutionary conventions, and was
president of the two which met in 1775. In that
year he was made president of the Committee of
Safety, which placed him at the head of the
temporary government of the colony. In this
position his policy was firm, though not aggres-
sive, since it was his ardent hope that the strug-
gle might be settled foy a redress of grievances
rather than by war (Lee Papers, University of
Virginia Library, Pendleton to R. H. Lee, Apr.
20, 1776 ; also to delegates in Congress, Oct. 28,
1775). He opposed Patrick Henry's proposal to
arm the militia at this time, but when the meas-
ure was carried, he, as county lieutenant of Car-
oline, helped to carry it into effect. When
Henry was made Commander-in-chief of the
Virginia troops, Pendleton was instrumental
in giving to CdL William Woodford the active
command in the field, thereby bringing down
upon himself the enmity of the popular hero of
tlie day. His judgment of the military Qualifica-
tions of the two men seems to have been just, at-
417
Pendleton
though there is no question but that Pendleton
looked upon Henry as a demagogue, and they
were never on the same side of any question.
The friction caused by this incident hurt Pen-
dleton's popularity, and though he was reflected
president of the Committee of Safety in Decem-
ber 1775, it was by a reduced majority (H. J.
Eckenrode, The Revolution in Virginia, 1916,
p. 131). It was doubtless on this account, too,
that he had to contest with Philip Ludwell Lee
election to the presidency of the famous Vir-
ginia convention of 1776 (William Wirt Henry,
Patrick Henry, 1891, I, 333 ff., 35°", 3^9, 445-
46) . His inaugural speech on assuming the chair
foreshadowed a declaration of independence
(Rives, post, I, 122) , and it was he who drew tip
the resolves instructing Virginia's delegates in
Congress to propose the measure. This conven-
tion also drew up Virginia's first constitution,
and provided for a revision of the laws. Pen-
dleton was placed on the committee charged with
the latter function, and the work was completed
in 1779 by Jefferson, Wythe, and himself. In
the framing of the constitution and in the revi-
sion of the laws, Pendleton stood for conservative
measures, opposing Jefferson's program of dis-
establishment of the church and abolition, of
primogeniture and entail.
On the organization of the new state govern-
ment, Pendleton became speaker of the House
of Delegates. He was returned to that body in
1777, but his attendance was delayed by a fall
from his horse, which crippled him for the rest
of his life. He returned to the autumn session
of the House, and was made presiding judge of
the newly organized court of chancery. When
the supreme court of appeals was organized in
1779, he became its president and retained this
post until his death. From this time forward, his
interest in politics was keen but not active. He
spent most of his time on his estate, "Edmunds-
bury," in Caroline, making the journey to Rich-
mond twice each year to attend the sessions of
the court (Lee Papers, University of Virginia
Library, Pendleton to R. H. Lee, Feb. 21, 1785).
Meanwhile he kept up a regular correspondence
with his friends in Congress, particularly with
James Madison (Proceedings of the Massachu-
setts Historical Society, 2 sen XIX, 107-67).
This semi-retirement was interrupted in 1788
when a convention was assembled in Virginia to
decide upon the adoption of the Federal Consti-
tution. Pendleton was known to favor adoption,
but was elected president of the convention with-
out opposition. Despite his lameness and his
official position, he took the floor on several
occasions to defend the new instrument of gov-
Pendleton
eminent, and his political philosophy is revealed
in these speeches as well as in his letters to
Madison. Here he maintains his belief in the
equality of man before the law, denies that he
thinks government should be controlled by the
well born, and advocates a liberal suffrage (Jona-
than Elliot, The Debates on the Adoption of the
Federal Constitution, 2nd ed., 1836, III, 293-
305).
No one familiar with his character could doubt
the sincerity of this defender of established in-
stitutions. Upon the formation of the new fed-
eral government, Washington offered him a
district judgeship, which he declined. The long-
standing friendship between the two was main-
tained, but Pendleton dissented from the foreign
policy and the financial measures of Washing-
ton's administration (Jared Sparks, The Writ-
ings of George Washington, vol. X, 1836, pp. 27,
369-72). This attitude brought him into the Re-
publican camp, and in 1799, at the request of
Jefferson, he published a campaign document in
support of the principles of his party (An Ad-
dress ... on the Present State of Our Country,
Boston, 1799; Writings of Thomas Jefferson,
Memorial Edition, 1903, X, 86-89, 104-110).
The conservative colonist and reluctant revolu-
tionist ended his career as a supporter of the
liberals, but his principles had hardly changed.
Whatever else he was, he was first a Virginian,
and the interests of Virginia as he saw them
actuated his every move. He was an individual-
ist, never a partisan, and his decisions were made
in the light of his personal judgment.
Edmund Pendleton was a typical gentleman
of his generation; tall, graceful, suave (see por-
trait in L. Pecquet du Bellet, Some Prominent
Virginia Families, 1907, IV, 226). He was
methodical, assiduous, and a close rather than
a broad legal student. He wrote as he spoke —
clearly and convincingly. Jefferson said he was
the most able man whom he had ever met in de-
bate, not bearing his opponent down with words,
but forcing him to cover with his tenacious
strategy (Writings, I, 54~S6). As a judge, he
was cautious, conservative, and sound. The only
decision of his which was ever reversed was
reversed by himself (Mays, post). There was
hardly a greater man in Virginia than was Pen-
dleton, but he was lacking in all qualities of
showmanship and aggressiveness, and his fame
has suffered because he confined his activities so
largely to his native state. He died in 1803, leav-
ing no issue.
[Pendleton's papers are scattered. David J. Mays,
of Richmond, to whom the writer is indebted for vahi-
"aHe assistance, has collected all tfrose available, an$ is
preparing a biography. Considerable material is scat-
Pendleton
tered through the published and manuscript writings of
Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and the other Revo-
lutionary Virginians. The more complete biographies
of such characters — particularly William Wirt, Sketches
of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry (1817);
H. S. Randall, The Life of Thomas Jefferson (3 vols.,
1858) ; and W. C Rives, Hist, of the Life and Times
of James Madison (3 vols., 1859-68) — furnish some
information. The best accounts available are by H. B.
Grigsby, The Vu. Conv. of 1776 (1855), pp. 45~55»
which refers to an autobiographical sketch by Pendle-
ton printed in the Norfolk Beacon , Oct. 3, 1834; and
D. J. Mays, Edmund Pendleton (1926), repr. from
Proc. . . . Va. State Bar Asso^ 1925. See also H. B.
Grigsby, The Hist, of the Va. Conv. of 1788 (2 vols.,
1890-91), being Va. Hist. Soc. Colls., vols. IX, X;
Pendleton genealogy in Va. Mag. of Hist, and Biog.,
beginning in July 1931 ; Examiner and Va. Argus, both
of Richmond, Oct. sg, 1803."] T P A
PENDLETON, EDMUND MONROE
(Mar. 19, i8i5-Jan. 26, 1884), physician, chem-
ist, was the great-grandson of James Pendieton,
the brother of Edmund Pendleton [g.sr.]. He
was the third son of Coleman and Martha (Gil-
bert) Pendleton, who moved to Eatonton, Ga.,
from Culpeper, Va., in 1800. He was born at
Eatonton and his early education was obtained
in the private schools there. Owing to financial
stress he was, while quite young, forced to dis-
continue his education and from time to time was
engaged in several business undertakings. At
one time he became part owner of a jewelry
business in Columbus, Ga., and later was engaged
in this business in Macon, Ga. While he was
working in Macon a copy of Brand's textbook of
chemistry gave him his first enthusiasm for this
science, and he employed his spare moments in
the very careful study of this book, which really
laid the foundation for much of his life work.
Thus becoming interested in science, he soon
decided upon the study of medicine, and obtained
a position in a drug store in Macon, Ga, While
working as an apprentice, he devoted much time
to the reading of medicine under a local phy-
sician. He entered the Medical College of South
Carolina at Charleston, from which institution
he was graduated in 1837. While attending lec-
tures here, he read medicine in the office of Sam-
uel Dickson [#.^.]. He also gave much time to
a further study of chemistry under the instruc-
tion of Charles Upham Shepard [q.v."]. While
still a student he contributed bits of verse to the
Charleston News and Courier. He practised
medicine in the city of Warrenton, Ga., and there
married on Nov. 27, 1838, Sarah Jane Thomas,
the sister of James R. Thomas, president of Em-
ory College. They had eleven children. Soon
after their marriage they removed to Sparta, Ga.,
where he practised medicine for thirty years.
During tMs time he became a slave holder and
successfully operated a large plantation. He
applie4 Ms scientific knowledge to bis plantation
Pendleton
as well as to his practice. As a pioneer in this
field he manufactured fertilizer not only for his
own use but for the public market. In 1849 he
published an interesting discussion of "The
Climate and Diseases of Middle Georgia" (South-
ern Medical Reprints,, vol. I, 1849, PP- 314-42).
About 1867 ^ organized the firm of Pendleton
& Dozier in Augusta, Ga., for the purpose of
manufacturing commercial fertilizer on a large
scale. In 1872 he was called to teach agriculture
at the University of Georgia, where he remained
for four years until he resigned on account of
the failure of his health. He did much to or-
ganize his department of the university. As a
result of his carefully prepared lectures, he pub-
lished a Text Book of Scientific Agriculture
(1875) followed by a second edition the next
year. He moved to Atlanta in 1877 and founded
a corporation for the manufacture of commercial
fertilizer, devising and improving formulae in
this field. He was one of the first to use cotton
seed in the manufacture of fertilizers and to
recognize the effect of grain and cotton culture
on the phosphoric acid and nitrogen content of
the soil.
[Personal papers in possession of grandndatighter,
Mrs. G. H. Phillips, Atlanta, Ga.; information from
Medical College of S. C. and Univ. of Ga. ; The Smtk
in the Building of the Nation, vol. XII (1909) ; VCL
Mag. of Hist, and Biog., Apr. 1932, p. 181.] J. S. G.
PENDLETON, GEORGE HUNT (July 29,
i825-^Nov. 24, 1889), representative and senator
from Ohio, minister to Germany, the eldest child
of Nathaniel Greene and Jane Frances (Hunt)
Pendleton, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He
was the great-grandson of Nathaniel Greene
Pendleton, a brother of Edmund Pendleton [q.v.'],
and through all the rough and tumble of political
life in the Middle West, he bore the nickname
"Gentleman George" on account of the dignity
and manner he Inherited from a great Virginia
family. He attended the local schools, where he
was taught by Ormsby M. Mitchel [g.zf.]» and
he was a student in Cincinnati College until
1841. The next three years lie studied under
private tutors. In 1844 he went abroad and
for two years traveled in the principal countries
of Europe, studied for a time at the University
of Heidelberg, and, making portions of the tour
on foot, went to the Holy Land and Egypt In
1846, upon his return from Europe, he married
Alice Key, the daughter of Francis Scott Key
and niece of Roger B. Taaey [qq.v.]. They had
two daughters and a son. He studied law in the
office of Stephen Fales m Cincinnati, was ad-
Hiitted to the bar in 1847, ^^ until 1852 was a
partner of George E. Pugh fowj. In *S$3 fc
419
Pendleton
was nominated and elected by a large majority
to the state Senate on the Democratic ticket. The
energy and ability he displayed in the work of
adapting the state laws to the new constitution
caused his friends to nominate him for Congress
in 1854 before his term in the state legislature
was finished. Unsuccessful in that year he was
again nominated in 1856 and was elected.
He was a member of Congress from Mar. 4,
1857, to Mar. 3, 1865. He supported Stephen A.
Douglas in his attack upon President Buchanan
over the question of the admission of Kansas
tinder the Lecompton constitution. He was a
Douglas supporter in 1860 and during the Civil
War was recognized as one of the leaders of the
peace wing of the Democratic party. He be-
lieved the war could have been averted and
favored the Crittenden Compromise. If seces-
sion were necessary, he insisted that it should be
peaceable; but if the North insisted on war he
warned the House to "prepare to wage it to the
last extremity" (Cincinnati Commercial Gazette,
Nov. 26, 1889). He differed widely, however,
from the policy of the Lincoln administration
during the conflict. He opposed the suspension
of the habeas corpus and every attempt to make
the military arm of the government superior to
the civil. He opposed the passage of the legal
tender act upon constitutional grounds and
quoted with approval Webster's statement that
"gold and silver currency is the law of the land
at home, the law of the land abroad : there can,
in the present condition of the world, be no other
currency" (J. G. Elaine, Twenty Years of Con-
gress, Vol. I, 1886, p. 413). Nevertheless, his
tact and ability earned for him the respect of his
political opponents. He was a member of the
judiciary committee, of the ways and means com-
mittee, and was one of the committee of man-
agers in the impeachment of Judge West H.
Humphreys \_q.u.~\. He was nominated for vice-
president on the National Democratic ticket with
McClellan in 1864. The year following his re-
tirement from Congress he was again nominated
for membership in that body but was defeated.
After the war he was a Greenbacker. If he
did not originate the "Ohio idea" of paying the
5-20 bonds in Greenbacks instead of coin, he, at
all events, early in 1867 sponsored the proposal.
This made his name anathema to the eastern
Democracy; and in the Democratic convention
of 1868, although the platform adopted com-
mitted the party unreservedly to his doctrines,
he was deprived of the nomination for the presi-
dency owing to the opposition of the New York
delegation and the existence of the two-thirds
rule. The following year the Democrats nomi-
Pendleton
nated him for governor of Ohio, but he was de-
feated by Rutherford B. Hayes. The same year
he was chosen president of the Kentucky Central
Railroad, which office he held for ten years. In
1878 he was elected by the Ohio legislature to
the United States Senate and served in that body
from Mar. 4, 1879, to Mar. 3, 1885. He will be
remembered best for his connection with civil
service reform. In 1883, as chairman of the Sen-
ate committee on civil service, he obtained the
passage of a bill drafted by Dorman B. Eaton
\_q.v.~], providing for the creation of a federal
civil service commission and the introduction of
competitive examinations. Nevertheless, he was
severely abused by the spoilsmen in his party
for advocating such a measure as the Democrats
had been victorious in the congressional elections
of 1882. In 1884 he was defeated for renomina-
tion to the Senate. President Cleveland appoint-
ed him minister to Germany on Mar. 23, 1885,
and he served in this capacity until his death in
Brussels.
[G. M. D. Bloss, Life and Speeches of George H.
Pendleton (1868) ; Biog. Cyc. and Portrait Gallery . . ,
of Ohio, vol. I (1883) ; C. R. Fish, The Civil Service
and the Patronage (1905) ; W. C. Mitchell, A Hist, of
the Greenbacks (1903) ; T. E. Powell, The Democratic
Party of . . . Ohio (2 vols., 1913) ; L. P. du Bellet, Some
Prominent Va. Families (1907), vol. IV, p. 251 ; Cin-
cinnati Enquirer, Nov. 26, 1889; Cincinnati Times-Star,
Nov. 25, 1889.] R.C.McG.
PENDLETON, JAMES MADISON (Nov.
20, i8n-Mar. 4, 1891), Baptist minister and
educator, was born in Spotsylvania County, Va.,
the son of John and Frances J. (Thompson)
Pendleton. He could not trace his ancestry be-
yond his grandfather, Henry Pendleton, Jr., of
Culpeper County, who served in the Revolution.
When James was about a year old, the family
moved to Christian County, Ky., where, on a
farm near Pembroke, he lived until he was twen-
ty. He attended the local schools, and from 1833
to 1836 an academy at Hopkinsville. At seven-
teen he had joined the church ; he began to preach
at nineteen, and was licensed by the Bethel Bap-
tist Church in 1831. For the next two years he
preached, taught school, and studied, and on Nov.
2, 1833, he was ordained at Hopkinsville. After
some local preaching during the continuation of
his studies, he became in 1837 pastor of the Bap-
tist Church at Bowling Green, and the following
year, Mar. 13, 1838, he married Catherine Stock-
ton Garnett of Glasgow, Ky. To them four chil-
dren were born. His twenty-year pastorate at
Bowling Green fell during a period when no one
could exert an influence in the spiritual and moral
life of the community without showing his po-
litical proclivities, and Pendleton's development
was increasingly adverse to slavery and con-
420
Pendleton
cerned for the preservation of the Union. He
thus supported the proposals of Henry Clay, In-
cluding that for gradual emancipation of the
slaves, a project which did not meet with general
approval in Kentucky.
In 1857 Pendleton accepted the chair of theol-
ogy in Union University at Murf reesboro, Tenn.
Here he studied and taught church history as
well as Biblical and historical theology, and also
served as pastor of the local Baptist Church. At
the outbreak of the Civil War his attachment to
the Union cause virtually forced him to leave
Tennessee, and from 1862 to 1865 he served as
pastor at Hamilton, Ohio. A son who had en-
listed in the Confederate army was soon killed
by accident; but the grief of the father was as-
suaged by the thought that his son "had never
fired a gun at a Union soldier." In 1865 he
accepted a call to the Baptist Church at Upland,
Pa., where he became one of the original trus-
tees of Crozer Theological Seminary, established
three years later. He resigned the Upland pas-
torate in 1883 and spent the following years with
one or another of his children, in Kentucky, Ten-
nessee, and Texas. He died at Bowling Green*
Pendleton won a reputation as a preacher and
writer of superior intellectual power, especially
during his career at Murfreesboro, when from
1855 to 1861 he was one of the editors of the
Southern Baptist Review Eclectic. His articles
and reviews show a wide range of reading and
acute logical powers, based upon certain presup-
positions which he never questioned. His later
revisions of his early works show little change
from his fundamental position (strictly orthodox
and essentially "Landmarker"), although in the
later works some of his conclusions were not so
obtrusively asserted. Among his published works
are Three Reasons Why I am a Baptist (1853),
revised as Distinctive Principles of Baptists
(1882) ; Church Manual (copyright 1867) ; A
Treatise on the Atonement oj Christ (1869, re-
vised in 1885) ; and Christian Doctrines (1878),
the last two being revisions of articles first pub-
lished in the Review and Eclectic. His autobi-
ography, Reminiscences of a Long Life (1891),
was published after his death.
[J. M. Pendleton, Reminiscences (1891) jWm. Catb-
cart, The Bapt. Encyc. (1881) ; Semi-Centennial of
Upland Baptist Church, 1852-1902 (n.d), containing
an interpretation by a son, Gannett Pendleton; J. EL
Spencer, A Hist, of Ky. Baptists (1886), II, 523-25;
Courier-Journal (LouisviHe, Ky.)» Mar. 5, 1891-!
W.H.A.
PENDLETON, JOHN B. (iTgS-Mar. 10,
1866), pioneer in commercial lithography in tibe
United States, was the youngest son of Capt
William Pendleton, a native of Liverpool, Eng-
Pendleton
land, and the commander of a New York and
Liverpool packet, who came to America about
1789 and resided in New York City, where he
married a widow, and where John and his broth-
er, William S. Pendleton, were born. The father
was lost at sea the year John was born, and both
boys were early sent to work, William was ap-
prenticed to a copper-plate engraver, and in 1819
went to Washington, D. C, where he practised
his craft and the following year was joined by
his brother John. Both young men then set out
to seek their fortunes in the West, but proceed-
ed no further than Pittsburgh, Pa. Before they
had been long in that city, John was invited by
Rembrandt Peale [q.v.1 to exhibit his large paint-
ing, "The Court of Death/* which was shown
in many cities of the country for more than a
year. In 1824 William returned to New York
but soon went to Boston, where he resumed his
business of engraving. About this time John
was sent to Europe in the interests of John Dog-
gett, a bookseller, and while he was in Paris, his
brother wrote him that he had purchased some
lithographic materials and equipment from a
merchant named Thaxter, who had imported it,
but was unable to use the process successfully.
The younger brother's response was to study
lithography in Paris, where he purchased abun-
dant supplies which he brought with him upon
his return to the United States in 1825. With
him he brought also two workmen, Bischboa and
Dubois, the latter said to have been the first real
lithographic printer in the United States. The
firm of W. S. & J. B. Pendleton, Boston, began
to print lithographs that same year. Their first
work was evidently for the Boston Monthly
Magazine, December 1825. John continued a
member of this firm for five years. In 1826 Rem-
brandt Peale went to Boston, apparently at the
suggestion of John Pendletoo, to study lithog-
raphy, and there drew upon the stone a por-
trait of Washington which gained a medal In
the Franklin Institute exhibition In 1827. In
1829 John Pendleton with Francis Keamy and
Cephas Grier Childs [##,?/.] founded a litho-
graphing firm in Philadelphia under the style of
Pendleton, Kearny & Quids* from which the
senior partner withdrew in the same year to
found a lithograph house in New York City.
Thenceforth until his death, he was a resident of
New York In 1832 he was engaged as a lithog-
rapher* and also, In partnership with a man
named Hill, as a bookseller and publisher. He
was twice married: in 1830 to Elba Matilda
Blydenbtirgh, who died in 1842; and in 1846 to
Hester Travis, who survived him. He died in
Mew York City.
421
Pendleton
[E. H. Pendleton, Brian Pendleton and His Descend-
ants . . . and Notices of Other Pendktons of Later
Origin in the U. S. (1910) ; E. T. Freedley, Leading
Pursuits and Leading Men (copr. 1856) ; "Diary of
Christopher Columbus Baldwin," Trans, and Colls., Am.
Antiq. Soc., vol. VIII (1901) ; C. H. Taylor, "Some
Notes on Early American Lithography," Proc. Am.
Antiq. Soc., n.s., XXXII (1923) J H. T. Peters, Amer-
ica on Stone (1931); Joseph Jackson, "History of
Lithography in Phila." (MS.).] J.J.
PENDLETON, JOHN STROTHER (Mar.
I, i8o2-Nov. 19, 1868), legislator and diplomat,
was born in Culpeper County, Va., long the home
of his branch of the Pendleton family. He was
of the sixth generation in America, a descendant
of Philip, who settled in Virginia in 1682, and
the eldest son of William and Nancy (Str other)
Pendleton. After the usual preparatory educa-
tion he studied law, was admitted to the bar in
1824, and achieved prominence in his practice in
Culpeper County. His wife, whom he married
in 1824, was Lucy Ann Williams.
Several terms in the Virginia House of Dele-
gates (1831-33 and 1836-39) were followed by
his appointment in the summer of 1841 to be
charge d'affaires in Chile. There he accom-
plished the principal object of his mission by in-
ducing the Chilean government to make payments
upon the American claims which it had already
recognized. He returned to Virginia in time to
secure election as Whig representative of his
district in the Twenty-ninth Congress and was
reflected to the Thirtieth, serving from 1845 to
1849. In ^48 he was one of those Virginia
Whigs who believed it not expedient to present
Clay again as the candidate of the Whig party
for the presidency. He and three other Whigs
signed a pamphlet entitled To the Whig Party
of Virginia (Washington, 1848) urging the
nomination of Zachary Taylor.
The last phase of his diplomatic career began
with his appointment Feb. 27, 1851, to be charge
d'affaires to the Argentine Confederation. He
was instructed to secure recognition by that
somewhat unstable government of the claims of
American citizens and to negotiate with it a
commercial treaty. Robert C. Schenck \_q.v. ~\,
United States minister to Brazil, was to act with
Pendleton in the negotiation of the Argentine
treaty, and the two were also to conclude treaties
with Paraguay and Uruguay. Late in 1852 Sec-
retary Everett was able to congratulate Pendle-
ton and Schenck upon their "successful and sat-
isfactory^ treaty (of Aug. 28, 1852) with "the
Oriental Republic of the Uruguay." The treaty
with Paraguay was concluded Mar. 4, 1853, hut
neither of these treaties was ever proclaimed.
The "Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navi-
gation" with the Argentine Confederation was
Pendleton
signed July 27, 1853, and a treaty for the free
navigation of the Parana and Uruguay rivers,
with the same power, was concluded July io|
1853. The negotiation of the latter treaty, for
which Pendleton received the commendation of
Marcy, was in keeping with the contemporary
American policy of establishing the principle of
the free use of international waterways. Both
the treaties with the Argentine Confederation
were proclaimed in 1855 ( W. M. Malloy, Trea-
ties . . . between the United States and Other
Powers, vol. I, 1910, pp. 18, 20). After his re-
tirement from diplomacy in 1854 Pendleton ap-
parently resumed his law practice (see John S.
Pendleton, attorney, Notes in Relation to the
Supply of Water Proposed to be Drawn from
the Great Falls of Potomac River for the" Use of
the National Aqueduct, 1858). He died in Cul-
peper County in 1868, without issue.
[Archives of the Dept. of State ; R. T. Green, Geneal
and Hist. Notes on Culpeper County, Va. (1900) ; E.
G. Swem and J. W. Williams, A Reg. of the Gen. As-
sembly of Va., 1776-1918 (1918) ; L. Pecquet du Bellet,
Some Prominent Va. Families, vol. IV (1907) ; Biog.
Dir. Am. Cong. (1928); The Am. Ann. Cyc.t 1868
(1869).] E.W.S.
PENDLETON, WILLIAM KIMBROUGH
(Sept. 8, i8i7-Sept i, 1899), minister of the
Disciples of Christ, college president, editor, was
born at Yanceyville, Louisa County, Va., the son
of Edmund and Unity Yancey (Kimbrough)
Pendleton. His ancestors had been prominent
in Virginia for several generations, the earliest
of them in America, on his father's side, being
Philip, a schoolmaster, who emigrated from Nor-
wich, England, in 1674, returned in 1680, and
came over again in 1682 to stay. His father's
grandfather, John, was a brother of Edmund
Pendleton [q.v.~] ; and his father's grandmother,
Sarah Madison, was the sister of President
James Madison. On the maternal side, William
was of Welsh descent. In his infancy his par-
ents moved to "Cuckoo House/' Cuckoo, Louisa
County, which an ancestor had built. Here he
spent his early days, receiving instruction in
nearby schools, and in 1836 entering the Uni^
versity of Virginia. He finished his course there
in 1840, and, having spent the last part of it in
the study of law, was that year admitted to the
Virginia bar.
In the meantime the elder Pendletons had
joined the Campbellite movement and had been
among the charter members of Gilboa Church,
near Cuckoo. In June 1840 William was bap-
tized by Alexander Campbell [q.v.]. From that
time until Campbell's death the two were inti-
mately associated. In October 1840 Pemfetos
married Campbell's daughter, Lavima, wia^M
422
Pendleton
in 1846, and in July 1848 he married her sister,
Clarinda. In 1840 Campbell's plans for an in-
stitution of learning embodying ideas of his own
bore fruit in the establishment of Bethany Col-
lege, and he persuaded Pendleton to become in
1842 its first professor of natural philosophy.
For the remainder of his active career the inter-
ests of the college were his chief concern. In
1845, he was appointed vice-president, and, since
the president, Campbell, had many extraneous
duties, much of the administrative work fell to
Pendleton, and no little of the success of the in-
stitution during its formative period is attribu-
table to him. After the death of Campbell in 1866,
Pendleton was elected president and served as
such until 1886.
During the forty-five years he was connected
with Bethany, he took part in the cooperative
enterprises of the Disciples, being one of the
leading members in their first national conven-
tion, October 1849, at which the foundations of
their organized missionary work were laid. He
also exerted a wide influence through his writ-
ings. In January 1846 he became an associate
of Campbell in editing the Millennial Harbinger s
and in 1865, its editor-in-chief, continuing as such
until the paper was discontinued at the close of
1870. For years many of the leading articles
were written by him. From 1869 to 1876 he was
associated with William T. Moore [#.^.] in the
editorial management of the Christian Quarterly,
and in December 1873 he became a member of
the staff of the Christian Standard, of which
Isaac Errett [#.£>.] was editor. To both these
publications he contributed regularly.
Pendleton also took an active part in the civic
affairs of the region in which he lived. He
worked energetically for improvement in roads
and schools. In 1855 he was the Whig candi-
date for congressman from his district, oppos-
ing the Democratic representative, Zedekiah
Kidwell, but was defeated in a spirited campaign.
After 1861 he supported the Democratic party.
He was a member of the West Virginia consti-
tutional convention of 1872 and was prominent
in its proceedings. In 1873 Gov. John J. Jacob
appointed him state superintendent of public
schools to fill out the tmexpired term of Charles
S. Lewis, and during his incumbency he framed
a school law, which was adopted by the legis-
lature; in 1876 he was elected superintendent
and served until 1880. Relinquishing the presi-
dency of Bethany in 1886, he retired to Ettstis,
Fla., where he had purchased property, and
found employment in overseeing his orange
groves. Here he was instrumental in establish-
ing a church of the Disciples. He died at
Pendleton
any, where he had gone to attend the Commence-
ment exercises. A Virginia gentleman of the
old school, neither demonstrative nor aggressive,
well and variously informed though not tech-
nically a scholar, possessed of marked literary
ability, fond of music and a good judge of art, he
was perhaps the leading representative of the
more intellectual of the Disciples. His second
wife died in 1851, and on Sept 19, 1855, he mar-
ried Catherine Huntington King of Warren,
Ohio. He was survived by seven children.
[L. P. du Bellet, Some Prominent Fa. Families
(1907) ; F. D. Power, Life of William Kimbrongh
Pendleton, LLJ). (1902) ; W. T. Moore, A Compre-
hensive Hist, of the Disciples of Christ (1909) ; Chris-
tian Standard, Sept. 9, 1899.] H.E. S.
PENDLETON, WILLIAM NELSON (Dec.
26, i8o9-Jan. 15, 1883), Episcopal clergyman,
Confederate soldier, was born in Richmond, Va.,
the son of Edmund Pendleton of "Edmtmdton,*
Caroline County, Va., and Lucy (Nelson) Pen-
dleton. His father was a grandson of John,
brother of Edmund Pendleton [g.v.], member of
the Continental Congress and president of the
Virginia court of appeals, and his mother was a
niece of Gen. Thomas Nelson [g.v.], signer of
the Declaration of Independence and governor
of Virginia in 1781. After instruction by tutors
and at a private school in Richmond he was ap-
pointed to the United States Military Academy.
Graduating July 4, 1830, fifth in his class, he
was appointed second lieutenant in the 4th Regi-
ment of Artillery. He served three years in the
army, including one as assistant professor of
mathematics at West Point, and resigned in 1833
to become professor of mathematics in Bristol
College, Pennsylvania. He occupied a similar
chair at Delaware College, Newark, Del., from
1837 to 1839. Meantime, having determined to
enter the ministry of the Protestant Episcopal
Church, he had been made deacon by Bishop
Meade of Virginia in 1837 and ordained priest
by Bishop Onderdonk of Pennsylvania in 1838'.
Recalled to his native state in 1839 to become
principal of the newly established Episcopal
High School of Virginia at Alexandria, fee held
that position for ive years and brought the
school to a high degree of efficiency and success.
He removed to Baltimore in 1844 and conducted
a private school for three years, during which
time he was also in charge of two small congre-
gations. In 1847 he dosed his school to devote
Mmself to pastoral work He served as rector
of All Saints Church, Frederick, Md, until 1853,
wfien he accepted a call to Grace Church, Lex-
ington, Va., which charge he held, with the 'ex-
ception of foar years of active service In tlie
. Army of Northern Virginia, until Ms death in
423
Pendleton
1883. At Lexington he ministered not only to
the community but to the students of the Virginia
Military Institute and Washington College (later
Washington and Lee University) . He was no-
tably successful in strengthening and building his
parish and was a prominent figure in the larger
work of the Diocese of Virginia. In 1856 he
was elected deputy to the General Convention of
the Protestant Episcopal Church. He made many
missionary preaching tours in the counties west
of Lexington and delivered a series of lectures
published in 1860 under the title Science a Wit-
ness for the Bible.
The outbreak of the Civil War brought in-
sistent demand from the citizens of Lexington
and Rockbridge County that he place his mili-
tary training at the service of his state. Con-
senting, he was elected, May i, 1861, captain of
the Rockbridge Artillery, and was rapidly pro-
moted, being appointed colonel and chief of artil-
lery on the staff of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, July
13, 1861, and brigadier-general in April 1862.
He served later under Robert E. Lee as chief of
artillery in the Army of Northern Virginia un-
til its surrender at Appomattox in 1865. He took
part in all the major engagements of the army
from First Manassas (Bull Run) to the siege of
Petersburg. He was an exceedingly able and
efficient master of axillary but at the same time
never lost sight of his calling as a minister of the
Gospel. He preached to the soldiers as oppor-
tunities offered on Sundays and at weekday
prayer-meetings and was prominent in the re-
markable religious movement among the Con-
federate soldiers which sent so many of the ablest
of them into the ministry of their respective
churches after the war was over.
Upon his return to Lexington in April 1865
he was asked to resume the rectorship of his par-
ish/though in their utter poverty his people could
pay no salary. His rank in the Confederate army
excluded him from the relief accorded by the
first amnesty proclamation and he was subjected
to many indignities, not being permitted for near-
ly a year to hold a public service in his church.
Nevertheless, he continued as rector, earning his
own living as best he could through the difficult
days of collapse of civil government, and re-
linquished his pastoral work in Lexington only
with his sudden death on Jan. 15, 1883.
Pendleton was of commanding- appearance,
in his later years bearing a striking: resemblance
to General Lee, for whom he was frequently mis-
taken. He married, July 15, 1831, Anzolette
Elizabeth, daughter of Capt. Francis Page, of
"Rugswamp," Hanover County, an aunt of
Thomas Nelson Page [<?.#.]. They had one son,
Penfield
Alexander, who became a colonel in the Con-
federate army and was killed in battle in 1864,
and several daughters, one of whom, Susan, be-
came the wife of Gen. Edwin G. Lee of the Con-
federate army.
[Susan Pendleton Lee, Memoirs^ of William Nelson
Mil. Acad. (1883) ; G. W. Cullum, Biog. Reg. Officer's
and Grads. U. S. Mil. Acad. (srd ed., 1891), vol !•
Living Church, Jan. 27, 1883; records of the' Diocese
ofVa-] G.M.B.
PENFIELD, EDWARD (June 2, i866-Feb.
S, 1925), illustrator, painter, author, was born in
Brooklyn, N. Y. His father, Josiah, and his
grandfather, Henry L. Penfield, came from Rye,
N. Y., their forebears from Fairfield, Conn. ; his
mother, Ellen Locke (Moore) Penfield, was born
in England. Edward Penfield received his ele-
mentary education in Brooklyn, but soon left
school to become a pupil at the Art Students'
League in New York. After several years of
study he became, at the age of twenty-four, the
art editor of Harper's Magazine, and shortly,
art editor of Harper's Weekly and Harper's
Basar also. He served these magazines for more
than a decade with great distinction and intelli-
gence, both as editor and as artist, in the former
capacity seeking out and encouraging the best
talent in the country and directing it into new
and interesting channels. He discovered and
befriended many a young and struggling artist
and did much to raise the standards of magazine
illustration. In 1901 he resigned his editorships,
however, to devote his entire time to art. He
executed a series of mural decorations of out-
door sports in Randolph Hall, Cambridge, Mass.,
now the property of Harvard University, and in
1903 painted ten panels depicting a fox hunt for
the Rochester Country Club. Commercial work,
however, absorbed more and more of his interest
and time. He made a large number of poster
designs, by which he is best remembered, and
may be cited as the inaugurator of the brief but
golden age of poster art in America.
His work was bold, precise, full of character,
and always decorative. His flat tones of solid
color bounded by strongly accented black lines
are reminiscent of the work of Nicholson,
Beardsley, Steinlen, and Toulouse-Lautrec; there
is the same forcefulness, directness, and extreme
simplicity of means as in a typical Japanese print
He was the pioneer in America of this influence.
He retained, however, his individuality; his
drawing and even his lettering bear the unmis-
takable mark of his personality. His knowledge
ol old forms of dress and uniforms was accurate
424
Penfield
to the last buckle ; his interest in horses, coaches,
and carriages led him into collecting ancient con-
veyances ; his love of felines was as strong as
Steinlen's. His work compels attention by its
pleasant pattern and easy readability and sus-
tains interest by its quality of draftsmanship and
accuracy of detail. That his output was "com-
mercial" and not "artistic" was largely due to
the spirit of the times.
Percival Pollaird'sPostersinMimature (1896),
for which Penfield wrote an introduction, con-
tains fourteen examples of his work, including a
self-portrait. Other designs were collected in
Country Carts (1900) and The Big Book of
Horses & Goats (1901), Several illustrated ar-
ticles contributed to Scribner's Magazine were
reprinted in Holland Sketches (1907) and Span-
ish Sketches (1911). Other notable magazine
contributions include "The Ancestry of the
Coach" (Outing, July 1901) and illustrations
for Caspar Whitney's article, "The Country-
Cart of To-day" (Ibid., June 1900). Much of
his work was done for the Beck Engraving Com-
pany of Philadelphia (e.g., an Almanack for the
Year of Our Lord 1919sredromm from Old Farm-
ers' Almanacks, 1918) ; typical of his book illus-
trations are those for The Dreamers (1899) by
John Kendrick Bangs; his best posters were
made for Harper's Magazine ; he designed cov-
ers for Cottier's and Harper's Magazine, and
advertising matter issued by the Franklin Press
and by the clothing firm of Hart, Schaffner &
Marx.
Penfield was married on Apr. 27, 1897, to Jen-
nie Judd Walker, daughter of Maj. Charles A.
Walker. They had two sons, one of whom died
in childhood. He lived most of his married life
in Pelham Manor, N. Y. He was quiet, modest,
unassuming, and retiring to the point of secretive-
ness. In matters of dress he was as precise as in
his work. His health was not strong, though,
paradoxically, his art was always robust. He
died in Beacon, N. Y.
[A small collection of Penfield's work is preserved
at the Memorial High School, Pelham, _N. Y. Repro-
ductions appear in Am. Art by Am. Artists, One Hwn-
dred Masterpieces (1914) ; The Pageant of America
(1927), vol. XII; F. C Brown, Letters & Lettering
(1902) For comment and biographical material see
Am. Art Annual, vols. XX (19*3-24), XXH (ig2.s} ;
C. B. Davis, "Edward Penfield and His Art;* Cntic,
Mar. 1899; Intemat. Studio, XXV (1905), xxvi-3owH,
XXVI (1905), Iv-lxj C. M. Price, "The Cat and the
Poster," Arts and Decoration, Sept. 1912; Frank Wet-
tenkampf, Am. Graphic Art (i9?4> ; Who's Who m
America, 1924-25; S. R. Jones, in Stndio (London),
July 15, 1925 ; JV". Y. Times, Feb. 9, 10, 1925 ; Art News,
Feb. 14, 1925. Information for the foregoing sketch
was also derived from his family and friends, and from
the editors of Harper's Magazine.} x. S— r.
Penfield
PENFIELD, FREDERIC COURTLAND
(Apr. 23, i855-June 19, 1922)5 journalist., dip-
lomat, author, son of Daniel and Sophia (Young)
Penfield, was born at East Haddam, Conn. He
graduated from Russell's Military School, New
Haven, and after a period of travel and study In
England and Germany, he entered newspaper
work, joining the editorial staff of the Hartford
Courant in 1880. He was appointed vice-consul
general at London in 1885, and on May 13, 1893,
diplomatic agent and consul general at Cairo,
where he remained throughout Cleveland's sec-
ond administ ration. For the next sixteen years
he was engaged in travel and writing. In addi-
tion to numerous articles in periodicals on eco-
nomic and political subjects of international in-
terest, he published Present Day Egypt (1899)
and East of Sues (1907). He received decora-
tions from several European and Oriental gov-
ernments and from the Pope. His first wife,
Katharine Alberta (Welles), widow of Edward
B. McMurdy, whom he had married in 1892, died
in 1905, and in 1908 he married Mrs. Anne
(Weightman) Walker of Philadelphia, one of
the richest women of the country.
His service under the previous Democratic
administration, his wealth, and his Catholic faith
qualified him for appointment by President Wil-
son as ambassador to Austria-Hungary, July 28,
1913. Within a year he was attending, as special
ambassador, the funeral of the murdered Arch-
duke Francis Ferdinand. His reports during the
critical days of June 1914 threw little light on
the situation ; but, as soon as the task of helping
fellow citizens out of difficulties brought on by
the war had been cleared up, he began transmit-
ting useful information on conditions in the
country. He contributed suggestions for the
reply to the Austro-Hungarian government's
protests of 1915 against American exports of
munitions to the Allies (Papers Relaling to ike
Foreign Relations of ike United States, 1915
Supplement, pp. 788-99). He managed to re-
main on friendly terms with the ministry of for-
eign affairs despite the feeling engendered by
this correspondence, by the enforced recall of the
Anstro-Hungarlan ambassador at Washington,
and by the necessity o£ satisfactions for the sink-
ing of the Anconct. Further embarrassment was
occasioned by the labors Imposed on him as cus-
todian of British, French, Italian, Japanese, and
Rumanian Interests (JWd, 1916 Supplement, pp.
816-18) . During the period of strained relations
between the United States and Germany in fee
spring of 1916, due to the sinking of the Srn&ex*
tie contrived, In a conversation witb Baron
Burian, on Apr. 25, to enlist Ms g
425
Penfield
influence in behalf of a peaceable solution (Ibid.,
pp. 269-70). Three weeks later he induced the
minister of foreign affairs to take steps amelio-
rating the tone of the press regarding America,
a course repeated in February, 1917 (Ibid., 273-
?6>- . ,. u
His last weeks in Vienna were occupied in the
endeavor to break down the unity of the Central
Powers by dissociating Austria-Hungary from
Germany's renewal of unrestricted submarine
warfare and by engaging her in separate peace
negotiations. Messages from Count Czernin
transmitted by Penfield, followed by his own re-
port of desperate internal conditions, inspired
the President to obtain British approval of a sug-
gestion to the Austro-Hungarian government
that, if it would make tangible proposals for
peace, the integrity of the monarchy would be
substantially assured. In pursuance of instruc-
tions dated Feb. 22, the ambassador held half a
dozen conversations with Czernin without being
able to shake his repudiation of all idea of a
separate peace (Ibid., 1917 Supplement, I, 38-44,
55-58, 62-65, 113). Upon the failure of these
efforts Penfield was ordered, on Mar. 28, to re-
turn to Washington "to consult" with the De-
partment of State. He left Vienna on the day
of the declaration of a state of war with Ger-
many. His health never recovered from the strain
of the final struggles, and he lived quietly in New
York until his death.
Who's Who in America, 1920-21 ; Albert Welles,
Hist, of the Welles Family (1876) ; N. Y. Times, Apr.
1 8, June 6, 26, July 8, 29, 1913, June 20, 1922 ; Papers
Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States,
1914-17 Supplements.] J.V.F.
PENFIELD, WILLIAM LAWRENCE
(Apr. 2, i846-May 9, 1909), jurist, was born
in Dover, Lenawee County, Mich., the fourth
of eight children of William and Lucinda (Fel-
ton) Penfield, of Connecticut and Vermont fam-
ilies respectively, who had migrated westward in
1835. His boyhood was spent on his father's
farm. He attended neighboring schools and
earned his way to a course in Adrian College,
whence he entered the University of Michigan,
graduating with honors in the class of 1870. At
this time, according to the catalogues of the Uni-
versity, his middle name was Lorenzo ; later he
used the form Lawrence. A classmate was Wil-
liam R. Day [#.-z>.], who later became secretary
of state and was instrumental in having him
called to Washington. After his graduation Pen-
field taught Latin and German at Adrian Col-
lege for two years, during which time he studied
law and was admitted to the bar. In 1873 he
settled in Auburn, Ind., forming a law partner-
Penfield
ship with H. H. Moody. He was married the
on June 28, 1875, to Luna Walter, and they h<
four children, of whom two, a son and a daug
ter, survived. Penfield practised law in Aubui
for over twenty years, building up a statewi<
reputation for skill and rectitude. He discharg*
various public functions, official and unofficij
such as those of city attorney, member of the R
publican State Committee, presidential elect<
and electoral messenger, and delegate (in 1892
to the Republican National Convention. In i8c
he was elected judge of the 35th judicial circu
of Indiana, by the largest majority ever given i
that circuit.
Called by President McKinley in 1897 to tf
solicitorship of the Department of State, he w<
plunged at once into delicate and important pul
lie questions. Within a year came the war wil
Spain; in 1900 the Boxer troubles in Chit
broke; in 1904 came the war between Russia an
Japan; and in the same year, the prostration (
governmental authority in Santo Domingo. Tr
brunt of the political and legal problems arisin
out of these difficulties fell upon Penfield's shou
ders. He was the trusted adviser of Presidenl
McKinley and Roosevelt and Secretaries Shei
man, Day, Hay, and Root. To the promotion c
international arbitration he made significant cor
tributions. He represented the United States i
1902 at the first arbitration before the Perms
nent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, in th
celebrated "Pious Fund" claim against Mexicc
winning for the United States an award of ove
one and a half million dollars (Senate Docwme*
28, 57 Cong., 2 Sess.). The same year, he rep
resented the United States in the so-calle
"Preferential Claims" arbitration, arising fror
the blockade of Venezuelan ports by Great Bri1
ain, Germany, and Italy to enforce long-standini
grievances against Castro (Senate DocmwH
119, 58 Cong., 3 Sess.). It is said that he draft
ed in one evening the complete protocol of thi
arbitration, which was accepted by all the Pow
ers. In all, he prepared and argued for th
United States before international arbitra
tribunals fifteen important cases, including, be
sides those already mentioned, arbitrations witi
Santo Domingo, Peru, Haiti, Nicaragua, Guate
mala, Salvador, and Mexico. In 1904 he was ai
unsuccessful candidate for nomination for th<
governorship' of Indiana. In 1905 he was ap
pointed special commissioner to Brazil. Late ii
that year he retired from the Department o
State, entering" into law partnership in Wash
ington with his son. He was retained in impor-
tant international cases, and in this period wai
also appointed professor of international law anc
426
Penhallow
of the foreign relations of the United States In
the postgraduate course of the Law School of
Georgetown University. He died in Washington.
Penfield was the author of several notable
magazine articles, including: "Internationa!
Piracy in Time of War" (North American Re-
view, July 1898) ; "British Purchases of War
Supplies in the United States" (Ibid., May
1902) ; "The 'Pious Fund' Arbitration" (Ibid.,
December 1902) ; "The Anglo-German Inter-
vention in Venezuela" (Ibid., July 1903) ; "The
First Session of the Hague Tribunal" (Inde-
pendent; Nov. 27, 1902) ; "The Venezuelan Case
at The Hague" (Ibid., Oct 29, 1903) ; "The
Hague Tribunal" (Ibid., Dec. 17, 1903) ; and
"International Arbitration" (American Journal
of International Law, April 1907). His opin-
ions and arguments as solicitor of the Depart-
ment of State have to a considerable extent
become source materials and precedents in in-
ternational law.
[Extracts from Addresses and a Sketch of the Life
of William L. Penfield (1904) ; Am. Jour. International
Law, July 1910 ; C. S. Carter, Hist, of the Class of '70
. . . Univ. of Mich. (1903) ; Who's Who in America,
1908-09 ; C. W. Taylor, The Bench and Bar of Ind.
(1895) ; Memorial Record of Northeastern Ind. (1896) ;
Washington Post, Indianapolis News, and Evening Dis-
patch (Auburn, Ind.), May 10, 1909.] E.M.B— <L
PENHALLOW, SAMUEL (July 2, 1665-
Dec. 2, 1726), merchant, judge, historian, was
born at St. Mabyn, County of Cornwall, England,
the son of Chamond and Ann (Tamlyn) Penhal-
low. His father was friendly with the Rev.
Charles Morton [g.z/.], an active dissenter, who
removed to Newington-Green, near London,
and founded a school for young men which soon
became famous. In 1683 Samuel Penhallow was
sent to this school for instruction. Since Mor-
ton's educational methods and principles were
not in harmony with those of the bishops, his
school was closed in 1685 and he invited several
of his pupils to follow him to America. Penhal-
low accepted the invitation and in July 1686
landed with his master at Charlestown, Mass.
He was a sober, godly young man and a stu-
dent of promise. Aware of his intention to en-
ter the ministry and preach the gospel to the
Indians, the Society for Propagating the Gospel
in Foreign Parts had promised him twenty
pounds a year for three years in order that he
might study the language of the Narragansetts,
and sixty pounds thereafter as long as he fol-
lowed the ministry and preached to the Indians.
Upon his arrival in Charlestown, however, he
found the political future of New England so
uncertain that he gave tip the idea of becoming
a minister. He joined the church at Charles-
Penhallow
town, the pastorate of which Charles Morton
had accepted soon after his arrival, but shortly
moved to Portsmouth and on July I, 1687, mar-
ried Mary, daughter of John Cutt, president of
the Province of New Hampshire. This marriage
gave Penhallow entry to the governing1 class of
the colony and opened to him many opportuni-
ties for lucrative trading ventures.
On Aug. 25, 1699, he took oath as a justice of
the peace, in September was chosen speaker of
the general assembly, and in December was ap-
pointed treasurer of the province, an office
which, except during a year's absence in Eng-
land, he held until his death. Other offices held
by him in the provincial government in 1702
were recorder and privy councillor. In 1714 he
became a justice in the superior court, and in
1717, chief justice. When Governor Shute was
in Massachusetts in September 1717, Lieutenant-
Governor Vaughan pronounced himself in au-
thority, and, in spite of Governor Shute's con-
trary orders, dissolved the general court Judge
Penhallow, having taken the side of Governor
Shute, was suspended from the council by
Vaughan, but promptly reinstated by Shute.
These proceedings being laid before the King,
were found sufficient cause to remove Vaughan
from office. In 1719 Penhallow was again elect-
ed recorder, and held the office for three years.
During the Indian wars from 1702 to 1725 he
kept a very careful record of events and in 1726
published The History of the Wars of New-Eng-
land with the Eastern Indians, or a Narrative of
Their Continued Perfidy and Cruelty from the
10th of August 1703 to the Peace Renewed the
13th of July 1713, and from the 25th of July
1722 to Their Submission 15 December 1725.
It is a volume faithfully stating harrowing facts
with no attempt made to soften the ghastly deeds
of the savage.
Penhallow left a large estate accumulated by
his trading ventures and through the inheritance
of his first wife, who died in 1713, naving- borne
him thirteen children. His second wife, whom
he married Sept 8, 1714, was the twice-widowed
Abigail (Atkinson) ; by her he had one son, In
his will he ordered the usual scarf and gloves
given each of the bearers and ministers, and a
pair of gloves to each o£ the watchers ; but no
further expense. Instead of authorizing the
'Vine gloves Tobacco & pipes which are usually
expended" lie stipulated that five pounds be add-
ed to the five already left Ms church for its poor.
f A brief extract from PentiatlGw's diary is in Mass.
His*. Sac. Colls., 2 ser. I (1824), 161; and a stort
memoir by Nathaniel Adams, in N. H. Hist. S&c, Caffs^
i ser., vol. I (1824) ; Ms wifl is given in H. H* Me&-
calf, Probate Records of ike Province of N. H*t toL
427
Penick
II (1914) ; an account of a trading expedition to the
Penobscot Indians is printed in New-England Hist,
and Geneal. Reg., Jan. 1880; see also Nathaniel Bon-
ton, Provincial Papers, Documents, and Records Re-
lating to the Province of N. H., vols. II-IV (1868-
70) ; P. W. Penhallow, Penhallow Family (1885).]
H. R. B.
PENICK, CHARLES CLIFTON (Dec. 9,
i843~Apr. 13, 1914), Protestant Episcopal cler-
gyman, missionary bishop of Cape Palmas, Li-
beria, was born in Charlotte County, Va., the
eldest son of Edwin Anderson and Mary (Ham-
ner) Penick. His early education was received
in local schools, in Hamp den- Sydney College
and Danville Military Academy, and was ter-
minated by the outbreak of the Civil War. He
enlisted as a private soldier in the 38th Virginia
Regiment, which became part of General Armi-
stead's brigade and General Pickett's division,
and was appointed quartermaster sergeant of
Company A of his regiment. He was once
wounded, but continued in service until the end
of the war. He then entered the Theological
Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church in
Virginia, at Alexandria, graduating in 1869.
He was ordered deacon June 25, 1869, and ad-
vanced to the priesthood June 24, 1870. He was
assigned as deacon to Emmanuel Church, Bris-
tol, Va., and shortly after his ordination accept-
ed a call to the rectorship of St. George's Parish,
Mount Savage, Md. After a brief ministry here,
he became rector of the Church of the Messiah
in Baltimore, where he won notable success in
reviving and reorganizing the work of a church
in the business section of a large city. He was
a strong and forceful preacher and writer and
an able leader and executive.
On Oct. 30, 1876, he was elected by the House
of Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church
to be missionary bishop of Cape Palmas in Af-
rica, and was consecrated to that office on Feb.
13, 1877. The Missionary District of Cape
Palmas had suffered the disorganization of be-
ing without a bishop for over three years when
Penick undertook his duties. Under his leader-
ship the work was greatly strengthened and ex-
tended. The chief effort of his administration
was to establish mission stations around Cape
Mount He established there among the Vai
people St. John's School, which in its fifty years
of existence has trained many of the leaders of
Liberian life, both civil and religious, and is
today (1934) the outstanding institution in the
Missionary District Penick was a tireless work-
er. The "confusion worse confounded" which
he wrote was the condition when he first landed
soon gave place to order, but after five years of
service it became apparent that the Bishop could
not continue to live in the tropical climate.
Penington
While delirious with African fever, he w
placed aboard a passing ship and brought to t
United States. Upon his return to America
resigned his jurisdiction, his resignation becoi
ing effective in October 1883.
After the recovery of his health, he becar
rector, successively of St. Andrew's Churc
Louisville, Ky. (1883-93) ; St. Mark's Churc
Richmond, Va. (1894-99) ; Christ Church, Fai
mont, West Va. (1899-1904) ; and the Chur<
of the Ascension, Frankfort, Ky. He served all
for a number of years as a representative of tl
Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society a
tempting to arouse interest in work among tl
negroes of the Southern States. Resigning h
charge in Frankfort in 1912 on account of a<
vancing years and declining health, he lived i
retirement until his death, at Baltimore, in 191.
Penick married, Apr. 28, 1881, Mary Hog
daughter of Isaac Hoge of Wheeling, W. V;
One daughter was born of this union.
[E. B. Rice, "Historical Sketch of the African Mi
sion," among records of the National Council of tl
Protestant Episcopal Church, New York; files of tl
Southern Churchman and the Liberian Churchman
War Records, Va. State Lib., Richmond ; Who's Wh
in America, 1914-15; Southern Churchman, Apr. iJ
25, 1914; Sun (Baltimore), Apr. 15, 1914.]
G.M.B.
PENINGTON, EDWARD (Sept. 3y 1667
Nov. ii, 1701), Quaker pamphleteer, surveyor
general of Pennsylvania, youngest son of Isaa
and Mary (Proude) Springett Penington, wa
born in Amersham, Bucks County, England
The family was one of comparative wealth. Hi
grandfather, a London merchant, held severa
responsible city offices, among them that of lor<
mayor. As a member of the High Court of Jus
tice which sentenced Charles I, he was sent t<
the Tower and his property was confiscated a
the time of the Restoration. "Chalfont Grange,3
the home of his son, was seized, but the famil]
was not dispossesed until the year before Ed
ward's birth. Following this loss, Mary Pen
ington began to build a new home at Amer
sham. As the sole heir of Sir John Proude, sh<
was able to take care of her family comfortably
Nine years before Edward was born his par-
ents had joined the Society of Friends and meet-
ings were held in their home. Persecutions fol-
lowed. Isaac Penington served four jail sen-
tences, the last, at Reading, when his youngesl
son was five years old. He was a prolific pam-
phleteer, and the list of his writings filled twen-
ty-six pages in the catalogue of Friends* books,
Until he was thirteen, a year after his father's
death, Edward studied at home tinder tutors,
one of whom was Thomas Ellwood, a recent con-
vert to the Society of Friends. He continued Ml
428
Penington
education at Edmonton. When he was fifteen
his mother died, leaving him u£ioo to bind him
to some handsome trade that hath not much of
labor," and four hundred pounds to be given to
him when he had reached the age of twenty-two.
Like his father he was a devout Friend. Enter-
ing into the religious controversies of his sect,
he published in 1695 three pamphlets : The Dis-
coverer Discovered,, and Rabshakeh Rebuked,
and His Railing Accusations Refuted, and, bound
with the latter, A Reply to Thomas Crisp, all of
which were answers to the attacks of Thomas
Crisp upon George Fox and the Quakers. The
next year two more pamphlets appeared : Some
Brief Observations upon George Keith's Ear-
nest Expostulation, and A Modest Detection of
George Keith's (miscalled} Just Vindication of
His Earnest Expostulation Published by him as
a pretended answer to a Late Book of mine En-
tituled, Some Brief Observations, &c. His
writings were argumentative, without unusual
literary merit.
On April 26, 1698, Penington was appointed
surveyor-general of the province of Pennsyl-
vania, an office which he held until his death.
He accompanied William Penn to Philadelphia
when the latter made his second trip, arriving
Nov. 30, 1698. Penington assumed his duties at
once. In 1701 he was appointed with James Lo-
gan attorney for the disposition of the property
of Letitia Penn, the daughter of William Penn
and Gulielma Springett, Penington's half-sister.
When Letitia Penn returned to England in the
early part of November, Penington's duties be-
gan. About one week later he died in Philadel-
phia. At the Friends' Meeting House in Bur-
lington, N. J., he married on Nov. 16, 1699,
Sarah, the daughter of Samuel and Sarah (Ol-
live) Jennings (or Jenings). Their only child,
Isaac, was born Nov. 22, 1700.
[F W. Leach, "Old Phila. Families," in the PHIa.
North American, Apr. 26, 1908; Jos. Foster, Pedigree
of Sir Josslyn Pennington (1878) ; J. W. Jordan ed.,
Colonial Families of Phila. (i9")» vol. I; Phila. Soc.
of Friends, Quaker Biogs., i ser. II (1909) ', J- H. Lea,
"Geneal. Gleanings Contributpry to a Hist, of the Fam-
ily o£ Penn," Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., Apr. 1893 ;
Samuel Needles, "The Governor's Mill and the Globe
Mills, Phila.," Ibid., Oct. 1884 ; Maria Webb, The Penns
and Peningtons of the Seventeenth Century (1867) J J-
G Bevan, Memoirs of the Life of Isaac Pennington
(1807) J Thomas Ellwood, The Hist, of the Life of
Thos. Ellwood, Written by His Own Hand (1714).]
E.M.B— fL
PENINGTON, EDWARD (Dec. 4, 1726-
Sept 30, 1796), Quaker merchant, the son of
Isaac and Ann (Biles) Penington and grand-
son of Edward Penington [g.v.], was born in
Bucks County, Pa. His father, justice of the
county court, sheriff of the county, and one of
Penington
the founders of the Philadelphia Public Library
Company, was a well-educated man and a large
property holder in the county. The son was
educated in Friends* schools and then went to
Philadelphia3 where he became a successful mer-
chant In 1755 and 1757 he was signing pro-
vincial paper money. Four years later, 1761, he
was elected a member of the Pennsylvania As-
sembly and in the same year he became one of
the judges of the court of common pleas. He
was appointed one of the trustees of the State
House and grounds, and in 1762 he was made
a member of Sir William Johnson's committee
to treat with the Indians. When the Commit-
tee of Correspondence was named in Philadel-
phia in June 1774 Penington was chosen a mem-
ber and was nominated for the presidency. The
following month, July 15, he was elected a depu-
ty for the city and the county of Philadelphia
to the first Continental Congress. Opposed to
armed resistance, he found himself out of sym-
pathy with the government after the signing of
the Declaration of Independence. He has even
been considered the author of a piece of Tory
poetry, the "Poetical Proclamation," which satir-
ized the committee charged with enforcing the
ordinances of the Congress. The poem did ap-
pear in his handwriting, but beyond that there is
no proof that it was of his composition.
Penington was twice arrested, in 1776 for a
few hours, and again in September 1777, when
he was sent with a group of nineteen others to
the Free Masons* Lodge and later exiled to Win-
chester, Va., where he remained until April
1778. On his return to Philadelphia he took
little active interest in politics until 1790 when
he became a member of the city council. The
following year he was appointed by the legisla-
ture as one of the trustees to distribute money
among French refugees living in Philadelphia.
He was a manager of the Pennsylvania Hospital
from 1773 until his resignation in 1779. He was
also a member of the American Philosophical
Society, elected on Nov. 25, 1768, and chosen a
member of the committee to draft its laws the
following January. With the formation of the
Society for the Cultivation of Silk, sponsored by
the Society, Penington was elected treasurer.
He married Sarah, daughter of Benjamin and
Sarah (Coates) Shoemaker at Bank Meeting
House on Nov. 26, 1754. He died in Philadel-
phia.
[F W. Leach, "Old PMladelfMa Families,** Pblla.
North American, Apr. 26, 1908; J. W. Jpit&n, ed.»
Calonml Families of PMla. (3911), vol. I : C ^Kaftf
The Provincial Councillors of Pa. (1883) ; J. F Wat-
son, Annals of Phila. (1844), vol. I; T. G, Mortal,
The Hist, of the Pa. Hospital (1895) ; A #«fc ®f *»f
SchuylMll Fishing Company, vol. I (1889)'; G, B.
429
Perm
Wood, An Address on the Occasion of the Centennial
Celebration of the Founding of the Pa. Hospital
(1851); Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., vol. V. no. i
(1881), vol. VI, no. 3 (1882), Dec. 1884, and Apr.
1908; Pa. Archives, vols. I and III (1875).]
E. M. B— n.
PENN, JOHN (July 14, i729-Feb. 9, 1795),
lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, was the
grandson of William Penn [q.v.~] and the eldest
son of Richard (1706-1771) and Hannah (Lard-
ner) Penn. From his father he inherited in 1771
the life use of a quarter of the proprietary rights
in Pennsylvania. As prospective heir and later
as governor he was largely subject to his uncle,
Thomas Penn [#.z>.], l°ng the principal proprie-
tor and still longer the chief spokesman of the
proprietors of the province. He incurred the dis-
pleasure of his elders on account of a youthful
marriage to a daughter of one James Cox of
London, whom he was compelled to repudiate.
He was then sent with a tutor to Geneva to
study at the University (1747-51) and from
1752 to 1755 was in Pennsylvania, where he was
made a member of the provincial council. He
attended as commissioner the Congress on In-
dian affairs at Albany in 1754. Little is known
of his life in England in the years that followed,
but in 1763 he returned to America commis-
sioned by his father and uncle as lieutenant gov-
ernor. Upon the death of his father in 1771 he
returned to England for about two years, during
which time his brother Richard [q.v.~\ held of-
fice, but in 1773 he returned in his former capac-
ity and so continued until the revolutionary
movement displaced proprietary control and his
authority was superseded by the Supreme Exec-
utive Council. The end of proprietary govern-
ment in Pennsylvania may be dated Sept 26,
1776, with the last adjournment of the provin-
cial assembly. The governor's acts and meetings
of the council closed nearly a year earlier.
Penn's official tasks were extremely difficult.
There were new boundary disputes with Con-
necticut and Virginia, while the long-standing
controversy with the Lords Baltimore of Mary-
land was not settled until the running of the
Mason and Dixon line in 1767. Indian affairs,
though distinctly better after the treaty of Fort
Stanwix in 1768, were always troublesome.
Penn had to deal with both disgruntled Indians
and rabidly vengeful frontiersmen, like the fa-
mous "Paxton Boys." Hostility between people
and proprietors represented by assembly and
council respectively developed as a result of de-
mands of quit rents by the proprietors and claims
by the assembly of their right to tax proprietary
land. The conflict came to a climax in 1764 when
the assembly petitioned the king for the transfer
Penn
of the colony from the Penns to the Crown, E
sides the Anti-Proprietary party, which had t
leadership of Benjamin Franklin and the su
port of the Quakers, there was a strong gro
in favor of the Penns' control, including Justi
William Allen [q.vJ\, whose daughter becar
John Penn's second wife, and other influenti
citizens. The Stamp Act soon diverted animosi
against the proprietary into hostility against t
royal government, but John Penn's position r
mained difficult. Naturally the proprietors wei
like many of the upper class in Pennsylvani
Loyalists in sympathy at the time of the Revol
tion. In fact, for a few months In 1777, Jol
Penn was held a prisoner on parole, though ]
was never found guilty of any overt act again
the American cause.
Open hostility to the British Crown wou
have jeopardized their powers of governmer
yet the Penns were not wholly averse to tl
more orderly and moderate ambitions of ind
pendence. John Penn seems to have yielde
gracefully to the course of events. He receive
his share in the settlement made upon the forrru
proprietors in the divestment act of 1779, whic
granted to the descendants of Thomas and Ricl
ard Penn the retention of all their private ei
tates and proprietary manors and a compens;
tion of £130,000. Except for some years spei
abroad, he continued to reside in Philadelphi
or at his country estate, "Lansdowne," on th
Schuylkill, until his death. On May 31, I76(
he had married Ann, eldest daughter of Chie
Justice William Allen of Philadelphia, an
grand-daughter of Andrew Hamilton [g.#.]. Sb
survived him, dying July 4, 1830. Apparentl
he left no children. His marriage brought hir
in touch with the local society and he enjoye
the personal respect of the Philadelphians. H
was a member of the Church of England an
was buried in Christ Church, Philadelphia
(That he lived in Bucks County in later life ani
died there and that his remains were subse
quently transferred to England was stated i]
Watson's Annals, but the statements are uncon
firmed.)
[Besides the general histories of Pennsylvania se
H. M. Jenkins, The Family of William Penn (1899)
with portraits; Arthur Pound, The Penns of Pa
(1932), weak in regard to the later Penns ; W. R. Shep
herd, Hist, of Proprietary Govt. in Pa. (1896) ; C. P
Keith, The Provincial Councillors of Pa. (1883) ; W
C. Armor, Lives of the Governors of Pa. (1873) ; J. F
Watson, Annals of Phila. (2 vols., 1830-44). Origina
records of the proprietary government have been pub-
lished in part in Pa. Archives, in Pa. Mag. of Hist, am
Biog., and in the Memoirs of the Hist. Soc. of Pa. ; *
large quantity, unpublished, are preserved in the cus-
tody of the Hist. Soc. of Pa., Philadelphia.]
H.J.C.
430
Penn
PENN, JOHN (May 6, i74o-Sept. 14, 1788), •
signer of the Declaration of Independence, was
born in Caroline County, Va., the son of Moses
and Catherine (Taylor) Penn. His father was
well to do, but made no effort to secure any edu-
cation for his son beyond the little he could ob-
tain in a country school of that day. After the
death of his father, Penn's kinsman, Edmund
Pendleton \_q.v. ,], gave him the use of a fine li-
brary in which he studied and read law to such
profit that he was licensed at twenty-one. Two
years later, July 28, 1763, he married Susannah
Lyme.
He practised law with success for some twelve
years in Virginia, and in 1774 moved to the
neighborhood of Williamsboro in Granville
County, N. C, where many of his relatives
lived. There, having an attractive personality
and ability as a speaker, he became a leader and
in 1775 was sent to the provincial congress,
where he served on numerous committees and
won a reputation for tireless industry. Within
a month he was elected to the Continental Con-
gress. He soon lost hope of any adjustment
with England and declared: "My first wish is
that America may be free ; the second that she
may be restored to Great Britain in peace and
harmony and upon Just terms" (Colonial Rec-
ords, post, X, 456). His service in Congress was
performed at great personal sacrifice. Others
retired but he held on, writing to his friend,
Thomas Person, "For God's sake, my Good
Sir, encourage our People, animate them to
dare even to die for their country" (Ilid., X,
450) . As a member of the provincial congress
at Halifax in April 1776, he favored the instruc-
tion to vote for independence, and returned to
Philadelphia in time to vote for and sign the
Declaration. He was a member of Congress
until 1777, was elected again in 1778, and served
until 1780. The task of the North Carolina dele-
gates was by no means purely legislative ; "they
combined the functions of financial and purchas-
ing agents, of commissary generals, reporters of
all great rumors or events, and in general bore
the relation to the remote colony of ministers
resident at a foreign court" (E. A. Alderman,
Address . . . (m the Life of William Hooper,
1894, p. 33, quoted by Ashe, post). They had to
buy military supplies, arrange shipment, and
conduct intricate financial operations. All these
things Penn did besides attending regularly the
sessions of Congress. One contemporary allu-
sion suggests that he found some relaxation from
labor in Philadelphia society. Some light is
thrown upon his character by his conduct in a
certain affair of honor. Henry Laurens, presi-
Penn
dent of Congress, challenged him to a duel, but
since they boarded at the same place, they took
breakfast together on the morning of the day set
for the meeting and then started out together for
the meeting place. After Penn had assisted his
elderly opponent across an almost impassable
street, he suggested that they abandon their
foolish proceeding, to which proposal Laurens
agreed.
In 1780 Penn became a member of the North
Carolina board of war. Upon him fell the major
part of the work of that body, and he rendered
able service, although the board was unpopular
with the army and opposed by the governor,
whose constitutional powers it curtailed. It was
abolished in 1781 at the insistence of Gov,
Thomas Burke. Penn had declined a judgeship
in 1777, and in July 1781, on the plea of ill
health, he refused to serve on the council of state.
Robert Morris appointed him receiver of taxes
in North Carolina for the Confederation, but he
retained the place only a few weeks. He re-
turned to the practice of law, and little is known
of the remainder of his life.
[S. A. Asbe and others, Bioff. Hut. of N. C.3 vol.
VIII (1917); The Colonial Records of ]V. C., vols.
X-XI (1890-95); The State Records of N. C., vols.
XIII-XVI (1896-98), XIX (1901), XXII (1907);
John Sanderson, Biog. of the Signers ta the Declara-
tion Off Independence, vol. VI (1825) ; Wm. and Mary
Quart., Oct. 1903, p. 130; E. C. Burnett, Letters off
Members of the Comtinewial Cong., vols. I— V (1921—
3i)-1 J.G.deR.H.
PENN, RICHARD (i735~May 27, 1811), lieu-
tenant governor of Pennsylvania, was the sec-
ond son of the proprietor of the same name
(1706-1771) and Ms wife, Hannah Lardner,
and was a grandson of William Penn [*p/,],
founder of the province. He was a student for
a time, though not a graduate, of St Johns Col-
lege, Cambridge. For many years he drifted
about without settling dawn to any profession.
Coming to Pennsylvania with his brother John
[1729-1795, q.v.1 upon the latter Js appointment
as governor in 1763, he took some part in pub-
lic affairs until his return to England ia 1769.
Two years later, when his father's death called
his brother home, he was appointed as lieutenant
governor by his brother and his uncle, Thomas
[q.v.~\, who were then sole proprietors. In Aug-
ust 1773 he was abruptly superseded by his
brother, John. He evidently felt himself wronged
either by his removal from office or by the set-
tlement of his father's estate, and was not recon-
ciled to his brother for some months. During
his residence with the people of Pennsylvania
Richard Penn had secured their confidence, and
when he returned to England in 1775 the Con-
tinental Congress, then sitting in
431
Penn
entrusted to him the delivery of the "Olive
Branch," their final address to the King*. This
petition he presented, and when it was being
considered in the House of Lords he was ques-
tioned as to the American colonies, for whose
claims he had much sympathy and understand-
ing.
For the rest of his life, except for a brief
residence in Philadelphia near its close, Richard
Penn lived in England. He was returned four
times to Parliament, sitting once for Appleby
(1784-90), twice for Haslemere (1790, 1806),
and once for Lancaster (1796-1802). His finan-
cial situation was apparently straitened during
the Revolution, when there was little income
from sources in Pennsylvania. From 1787 on he
began to receive a share in the funds voted by
the newly formed state to descendants of its for-
mer proprietors, an interest that was at least
trebled at the death of his brother John in 1795.
The usual view of his character is that he "pos-
sessed a fine person, elegant manners, was of a
social disposition, and a bon vivant. He was
the most popular member of his family who vis-
ited Pennsylvania after the death of the Found-
er" (Thompson Westcott, The Historic Man-
sions and Buildings of Philadelphia, 1877, p.
253). On May 21, 1772, while governor of Penn-
sylvania, Richard Penn married Mary (1756-
1829), daughter of William and Mary Masters
and grand-daughter of Thomas Lawrence [q.vJ].
Of their five children, two sons named William
and Richard had some distinction of mind, but
none left any children.
[See bibliography under John Penn, 1729-1795.]
HJ.C.
PENN, THOMAS (Mar. 9, i7o2-Mar. 21,
I775)> proprietor of Pennsylvania, son of Wil-
liam Penn [q.v.'], the Quaker statesman, and of
Hannah Callowhill, his second wife, was born
in Bristol, England, in the house of his grand-
father, Thomas Callowhill, for whom he was
named. About 1715 or 1716 he was sent from
the home of his parents in Ruscombe, Berk-
shire, to London to enter a business career, ap-
parently first in the employ of Michael Russell,
mercer, and later as partner in a commercial es-
tablishment whose name is unknown. In 1718
his father died, leaving the proprietary inter-
ests in Pennsylvania to his widow as executrix
for their four sons ; but her rights were contest-
ed and not established until 1727, after she her-
self and the youngest son, Dennis, had died.
The mortgages on the estate made in the found-
er's lifetime were not extinguished until some
years later. The three surviving sons of Wil-
liam and Hannah Penn divided the propdetor-
Penn
ship, half going to the oldest, John, and a qu<
ter each to Thomas and Richard. John died
1746, bequeathing his half share to Thomas.
1732 Thomas came to Philadelphia, where
managed the proprietary affairs of the prc
ince for nine years. In 1741 he went back
England expecting to return to Pennsylvan
but he never did so, and his further dealin
with the officials of the province and his o\
representatives there were carried on by cc
respondence.
From his correspondence (preserved in gre
abundance in the Historical Society of Penns^
vania) and from other evidence, Thomas Pei
appears to have been a man of energy and ab
ity. The financial difficulties that had ove
shadowed the last years of his father's life ai
the widowhood of his mother were gradual
relieved by an increased income to the propri
tary from sales of land to immigrants. On Au
22, 1751, Thomas Penn married Lady Juliai
Fermor (1729-1801), fourth daughter of Thon
as, first Earl of Pomfret. In 1760 he purchase
the well-known estate of Stoke Poges, in Bucl
inghamshire, England, which remained in tl
family for eighty years. Of his eight childre.
four died in infancy. The others were Julian
John, Granville, and Sophia Margaretta. T
heirs of the last named the Penn property i
Pennsylvania so far as it was not already lo;
to the family at last reverted, all other lines d<
scended from William Penn's marriage to Har
nah Callowhill having become extinct in i86<
Thomas Penn's Quaker origin did not detei
mine his religious allegiance in later life. I
1743 he wrote of the Quakers that he "did nc
hold their opinions concerning defence," adding
"I no longer continue the little distinction c
dress" (H. M. Jenkins, The Family of WiUiai
Penn, 1899, p. 145) ; and after his marriage h
accounted himself a member of the Church o
England. Yet he did not wish to be estrange
from the Friends, and it was because he was ;
dissenter from the Church of England that h
was prevented by the Test Act and the require
ment of an oath from assuming, even when 01
the spot, the actual governorship of Pennsyl
vania when such office seemed to him both nat
ural and desirable (see unpublished letters fron
John Penn in 1733, Historical Society of Penn
sylvania). But the descendants of William Pern
were very early contrasted unfavorably wit!
their ancestor and failed to command the regan
in which he was held by whites as well as b]
Indians. The Indians, particularly, resentec
what appeared to some of them a fraudulent pur-
chase, in 1737, of the Forks of the Delaware
432
Penn
Penn
made under the terms of the "Walking Pur-
chase/' Whatever opprobrium this famous trans-
action deserves belongs to Thomas Penn, who
must have authorized it directly. He was unsuc-
cessful in conciliating even the white colonists,
either by personal graciousness during his pres-
ence or by effective skill and sympathy in deal-
ing with them through his agents. Nevertheless,
as the first Penn to visit the colony after 1704,
and as the holder for nearly thirty years of three-
fourths of the proprietary and family land in
Pennsylvania and Delaware, he was an impor-
tant figure in the public affairs of Pennsylvania
and, except for his father, more influential In
its history than any other member of the fam-
ily. The proprietary form of government was
one that could not last, however, and the col-
ony became increasingly intransigent and covet-
ous of complete liberty. It is significant that
ten years before Thomas Penn's death and the
beginning of the American Revolution the Penn-
sylvanians were petitioning that jurisdiction
over the province be transferred from the pro-
prietors to the Crown.
[See bibliography under John Penn, 1729-1795.]
HJ.C.
PENN, WILLIAM (Oct. 14, i&w-July 30,
1718), founder of Pennsylvania, born near the
Tower of London, was the son of Admiral Sir
William Penn (1621-1670) and Margaret Jas-
per, whose father was John Jasper, a merchant
of Rotterdam, later of Ireland. Even in child-
hood Penn was religiously Inclined and, although
his father adhered to the Anglican faith, the son
early came under occasional Puritan influences.
After completing about two years at Christ
Church College, Oxford, he was expelled in 1662
on account of his non-conformist scruples and
activities. This was much to the chagrin and
anger of his father, who next sent him on a con-
tinental tour to turn him from his extreme re-
ligious inclinations. In Paris young Penn
seemed for a time to be influenced by court so-
ciety, as his father desired. Later, however, at-
tending for a time a Huguenot Academy at Sau-
mur, he seems to have received impressions fa-
vorable to his later peace principles and to in-
ward spiritual religion (Brailsford, post, pp.
120-24). Recalled home by his father at the
outbreak of the Dutch War (1665), he had a
glimpse of naval activities, sailing with the fleet
and returning with dispatches for the King. In
this year his mind was again turned to serious
contemplation by the horrors of the Great
Plague. At this period also he attended Lin-
coln's Inn for about a year, learning enough law
to help him kter in business affairs and In meet-
ing the legal issues of religious persecutions.
Early In 1666 he went to Ireland, where he took
charge of some estates near Cork owned by his
father. At this time he again tasted worldly
pleasures at the brilliant court of the Duke of
Ormonde, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He also
showed some military prowess In helping to
quell a mutiny — and at this time his well known
portrait in armor was made.
The great turning point of his life was, how-
ever, at hand. He heard again the powerful
preaching of Thomas Loe, an early Quaker apos-
tle, who had influenced him some years before.
Continuing to attend the meetings of Friends, he
was soon In trouble with the authorities and
was for a time In prison — where he composed his
first appeal for liberty of conscience (Works,
1726, 1, 2-3 ; Janney, post, i ed., pp. 24-25). Re-
leased from prison and summoned sharply to
England by his father, he soon became an avowed
and active Friend, With tongue and pen he vig-
orously advocated the doctrines of Friends and
of political liberalism. Thus the great convic-
tions of his life were definitely shaped and set-
tled. In 1669, while Imprisoned in the Tower
of London for publishing his unorthodox work,
The Sandy Foundation Shaken (1668), he com-
posed the first draft of his famous No Cross, No
Crown (1669; see also edition 1930, p. X), di-
rected against luxury, frivolity, vicious amuse-
ments, and economic oppression. Near this time
also, besides many religious tracts, he wrote sev-
eral on political subjects, which together formed
a noble and convincing plea for religious tolera-
tion, security of person and property, and other
rights of free Englishmen. In 1670, after he and
William Meade had been arrested for preaching
in Gracechurch Street, the liberties of English-
men were so ably pleaded by Penn himself that
the case (the noted "Bushell's Case") resulted
first in an acquittal for the defendants, and later
in an outstanding victory for the freedom of
English juries from the dictation of judges
(Braithwalte, post, pp, 70-73, with references).
In 1670 Admiral Penn died, with a blessing on
his lips for the son who came from prison to his
bedside. Soon after this the son made a mission-
ary journey through Holland and parts of Ger-
many, spreading the Quaker faith. Returning
to England he married, on Apr. 4, 1672, the
beatftlW and devoted Gullelma Maria Springett,
daughter of Mary (Proiide) Penlngton by her
first husband, Sir William Springett
Hie next half-decade of Perm's life, 1675^
1680, saw a continuation of his activities in re-
ligion and politics, and the beginning of Ms con-
nection with America. He made a seeoati mis-
433
Perm
sionary journey to the Continent in 1677, in
the company of prominent Friends, including1
George Fox. He visited many towns of Hol-
land and western Germany, winning the interest
and affection of various groups of Protestant
mystics who were later to settle in his American
province. He and some of his fellow apostles
formed a notable friendship with the learned
and pious Elizabeth, Princess Palatine, upon
whom the Quaker teachings made a lasting im-
pression. Returning to England, Penn threw
himself with renewed zeal into the political
struggles of the last troubled years of the Stuart
regime. In these labors he received little sup-
port and some opposition from the Quakers, who
suffered periodic persecutions and tended to
withdraw from "worldly" activities. Penn urged
them to take their proper part in the struggle
for liberal government. He threw himself ac-
tively into two political campaigns for the elec-
tion to Parliament of his Whig friend, Algernon
Sidney. Some of his finest political pamphlets
are of this period. In spite of the friendly con-
nections at Court, inherited from his father, he
was a forthright champion of toleration for dis-
senters, frequent elections, and uncontrolled
Parliaments (see especially "England's Great
Interest in the Choice of this New Parliament,"
Works, 1726, II, 678-82).
His first connection with America was with
New Jersey. By a series of transactions West
Jersey came into the hands of Friends, and Penn
became one of the trustees to manage the prop-
erty. In 1677 tne ship Kent arrived in the Dela-
ware River with two hundred settlers to found
the town of Burlington. The colonists brought
with them the famous Concessions and Agree-
ments for their government ( W. A. Whitehead,
ed., Archives of the State of New Jersey, I sen,
I, 1880, pp. 241 ft".). Historians are in general
agreement that this great charter of liberties
came largely from the hand of William Penn.
It was the first fruit of his hard schooling in
English politics, and his first gift to American
government. The charter guaranteed to the set-
tlers the right of petition and of trial by jury.
It provided against arbitrary imprisonment for
debt, and made no provision for capital punish-
ment even for treason. It guaranteed religious
freedom, stating that "no Men, nor number of
Men upon Earth, hath Power or Authority to
rule over Men's Consciences in religious Mat-
ters" (Hid., I, 253). It provided friendly meth-
ods for the purchase of Indian lands. In jury
trials in which Indians were concerned the jury
was to be composed of six Indians and six
whites. These guarantees of personal rights and
Penn
of justice formed a rather complete bill of rights,
and they were reinforced by the first clear state-
ment in American history of the supremacy of
the fundamental law (in the Concessions) over
any statutes that might be enacted (Ibid., 1, 266).
The Assembly was to dominate the government
of the province. It was to be freely elected by
the settlers and was to serve for one year only
— a gesture against the long and controlled Par-
liaments of the Stuart regime in England.
There was to be complete freedom of speech in
the Assembly, and the public was to be admitted
freely "to hear and be witnesses of the votes."
There was no clear and definite provision for an
executive, and the Assembly later conceded to
the proprietors the appointment of governors.
Yet the Assembly was to be "free and supream"
and there was no provision for an executive veto.
Thus it was not without justification that Penn
and his friends said of these Concessions and
Agreements : "There we lay a foundation for
after ages to understand their liberty as men
and Christians . . . for we put the power in the
people" (Samuel Smith, History of the Colony
of . , . New Jersey, 1765, pp. 80-81). Penn later
became a member of a large group of proprie-
taries, a majority of whom were Quakers, who
secured title to East Jersey. However, the rights
of government held by this proprietorship were
soon brought into question, and by another chain
of events Penn transferred his chief interest to
his great province west of the Delaware River.
His greatest gift to the Jerseys was his part in
the Concessions and Agreements of 1677, which
have been called "the broadest, sanest, and most
equitable charter draughted for any body of colo-
nists up to this time" (C. M. Andrews, Colonial
Self -Government, 1904, p. 121).
Penn's next and greatest venture into the realm
of practical politics was in Pennsylvania. He
had inherited from his father, besides a consider-
able fortune immediately available, a large claim
for funds loaned by the Admiral to Charles II.
On petition of Penn, the King granted him in
1681, as payment for this debt, a great tract of
land north of Maryland. Penn wished to call
his province New Wales, or Sylvania, but the
King insisted that it be named, in honor of the
late Admiral, "Pennsylvania." In 1682 Penn
secured from his friend the Duke of York the
territory of Delaware, which was at first joined
to the government of Pennsylvania but later be-
came a separate province. Penn called his new
project a "Holy Experiment" and threw himself
with enthusiasm into his plans for it. In 1681
he sent over his cousin, William Markham [g.tf.],
to act as his deputy, and himself followed the
434
Penn
next year. He spread broadcast Ms proposals
to settlers, not forgetting- his converts on the
continent of Europe. His terms for the pur-
chase or rental of land were very liberal and soon
attracted large numbers of settlers.
Penn's first Frame of Government for his
province was dated Apr. 25, 1682, and appended
to it a few days later (May 5) were the Laws
Agreed upon in England (Original copy of the
Frame of Government in State Library, Harris-
burg, Pa.). The government thus provided for
was not so strikingly democratic as that of West
Jersey described above, the Proprietor being in-
fluenced perhaps by the prospective large land-
holders whom he consulted (W. R. Shepherd,
History of Proprietary Government in Penn-
sylvania, 1896, p. 237, note i). Thus very large
powers were given to the Council, as compared
with the Assembly. Yet both Council and As-
sembly were elective, and the governor was given
a rather minor place. The fundamental liberties
of the individual were guaranteed. Murder and
treason were the only crimes made punishable by
death. All believers in God "shall in no ways be
molested or prejudiced for their religious Per-
suasion or Practice in Matters of Faith and Wor-
ship, nor shall they be compelled at any Time to
frequent or maintain any religious Worship,
Place or Ministry whatever." Penn's basic be-
lief in a democratic system was tersely expressed
in the preface to his great Frame of Govern-
ment: "Any Government is free to the People
under it (whatever be the Frame) where the
Laws rule, and the People are a Party to those
Laws." Many details of Penn's plan of govern-
ment were changed upon his arrival in America.
The Assembly was self-assertive from the start
and the Proprietor was disposed to grant all
reasonable requests. He soon learned, however,
that he could not please all of the people all of
the time, and that the perennial demand of de-
mocracy is for more democracy. It was not long
before he was driven to write to a group of his
contending provincials : "I am sorry at heart for
your animosities. . . . For the love of God, me,
and the poor country, be not so governmentish,
so noisy, and open, in your dissatisfactions"
(Robert Proud, History of Pennsylvania, 1798,
I, 297, note).
The brightest page in Penn's political record
is the story of his dealing with the American
Indians. Even before his own arrival in Penn-
sylvania he sent them his message of friendship:
"I have great Love and Regard towards you, and
I desire to win and gain your Love and Friend-
ship by a kind, Just and Peaceable Life" ( Works,
1726, 1, 122) . Perhaps the tradition of the Pro-
Penn
prietor's jovial fraternizing with the Indians in
their feasts and games has been overemphasized.
No doubt the glorification of his Quaker peace
policy by uncritical historians has been overdone.
Yet the residue of plain truth is a worthy testi-
monial to William Penn. He did take measures
to protect the Indians from the ravages of rum
and the rapacity of white traders. He did make
every effort to satisfy them in his negotiations
for their lands. His best testimonial is that the
Indians themselves were deeply loyal to him and
always held his name in loving respect (R. W.
Kelsey, Friends and the Indians, 165S-1917,
1917, pp. 62 ff., et passim). Not until his de-
scendants, who forsook his faith and his just
policy, had betrayed and defrauded the natives,
did the frontiers of Pennsylvania know the ter-
rors of savage warfare. Thus the Indians were
faithful on their side to the promises made to
William Penn at various treaties with him, "that
the Indians and English must live in Love as
long as the Sun gave Light." Tradition has fused
these treaties into one great treaty "under the
elm tree at Shackamaxon," made famous by the
brush of Benjamin West, and aptly idealized by
Voltaire as the only treaty "between those peo-
ple and the Christians that was not ratified by
an oath, and was never infringed" (Letters
Concerning the English Nation, 1926 reprint,
p. 22).
Penn's first stay in his colony lasted only a year
and ten months, but he crowded much into that
time. Aside from his cares of government lie
superintended the laying out of Philadelphia and
began the building of his own mansion-house at
Pennsbury, some miles up the Delaware River.
He made a tour of inspection into the interior
of Pennsylvania. He visited New York, Long
Island, and the Jerseys. He went to Maryland
and later to New Castle to discuss his unhappy
boundary dispute with Lord Baltimore. He at-
tended Friends* meetings, and preached when he
felt "called." He composed his long- and well-
known letter (Aug. 16, 1683) to tibe Free So-
ciety of Traders in England, describing with
great fulness the woods, waters, animals, men,
produce, and all the various possibilities of his
great province (Works, 1726, II, 699-706).
Then, in the midst of his arduous but happy tasks,
conditions compelled his return to England,
where the Quakers were suffering renewed and
bitter persecution and needed his influence at
Court Lord Baltimore, moreover, had already
gone to urge his boundary claims in Loodoa.
Wisdom required Penn to follow, and on At®.
12, 1684, he sailed for England.
On his arrival there he entered another period
435
Penn
of strenuous activity. His old friend the Duke
of York succeeding to the throne in 1685 as
James II, Penn was able by his enhanced influ-
ence at Court to secure the release from prison
of about 1,300 Friends. In 1685 he made his
third missionary journey to Holland and Ger-
many, and soon afterward was engaged in a
preaching tour of England. As a close friend of
the King and a constant advocate of toleration,
he was now charged, not for the first time, with
being a Jesuit in disguise. Nor was this accu-
sation forgotten by his enemies when King
James, in 1687, issued on his own royal author-
ity, his famous Declaration of Indulgence. Penn
naturally applauded the new policy, although his
political liberalism compelled him to urge the
King to buttress the Declaration with the sanc-
tion of Parliament As a loyal friend of James
he was greatly compromised by the Revolution
of 1688 and the accession of William and Mary.
More than once he had to answer accusations of
disloyalty before the Privy Council and for a
time he went into partial retirement in London
until the storm of charges and suspicions abated.
For nearly two years (1692-94) his governor-
ship of Pennsylvania was forfeited, but was re-
stored after his full and final vindication of all
treasonable activities. Yet during these troublous
times he wrote his charming maxims of faith
and life, Some Fruits of Solitude (1693). Also,
in 1693, during a war of alliances In Europe,
came his famous Essay towards the Present and
Future Peace of Europe,, by the Establishment of
an European Dyet, Parliament, or Estates, a sig-
nificant early plan for confederation, arbitration,
and peace. In 1694 died his devoted and beloved
wife Gulielma, and on Mar. 5, 1695/96, he mar-
ried Hannah Callowhill, who proved to be a
loyal and efficient helpmeet In this period he
continued his writing and speaking on religious
subjects, influencing among others by his min-
istry Peter the Great, of Russia, who was visit-
ing England. In 1698 he made a business and
preaching journey to Ireland. The effectiveness
of his public ministry at this time is indicated by
a remark of the Dean of Derry, who heard him
preach and afterward said that "he heard no
blasphemy nor nonsense, but the everlasting
truth . . „ [and] his heart said Amen to what he
had heard" (Graham, William Penn, p. 241).
During these busy and troublous years in
England the Proprietor of Pennsylvania was not
forgetful of his interests in the New World. In
1697 he drew up and presented to the Board of
Trade in London the first thorough-going plan
for a union of all the American colonies. In
this plan he proposed a central Congress to fix
Penn
quotas of men and money in time of war, and to
deal with common problems in time of peace
(Copy in E. B. O'Callaghan, Documents Relat-
mg to the Colonial History of the State of New
York, IV, 1854, pp. 296-97) . He secured a par-
tial settlement of his boundary dispute with Lord
Baltimore, although the main issue remained
unsettled during his lifetime and long after his
death. He gave orders in 1689 for the establish-
ment of a public grammar school in Philadelphia,
which was opened in that year and still exists
as the William Penn Charter School. Yet his
own presence was called for in Pennsylvania
and he had long desired to answer the call. There
were religious troubles, including the schism of
George Keith \_q.v.~\. There were administrative
problems and political disputes that had long de-
manded his presence. Finally "the way opened"
and he embarked, this time with his family, ar-
riving at Chester, Pa., Dec. i, 1699, after an
absence of fifteen years from his beloved "wood-
lands" and his "fine greene Country Towne" of
Philadelphia. On his second visit he showed his
continued interest in the Indians by various
meetings with them, making new agreements
and renewing old covenants of friendship. He
did what he could to mitigate the evils of slavery
in Pennsylvania and made a will providing for
the later emancipation of his own slaves. He
continued his religious activities and, on a visit
to Tredhaven (Easton), Md., preached in the
presence of Lord and Lady Baltimore. He took
measures for the suppression of piracy, granted
a charter to Philadelphia, and most important of
all, granted the Charter of 1701 to Pennsylvania.
In this he renewed his old guarantee of religious
liberty, but changed the form of government as
established, 1682-83, and modified under Gov-
ernor Markham in 1696. The new charter made
possible the early establishment of separate legis-
latures for the province and the territories
(Pennsylvania and Delaware). The Council
ceased to be an elective body and became prac-
tically an advisory board to the governor. The
Assembly became a single-chamber legislature,
elected yearly by the people, on a wide suffrage.
Although the governor retained the veto power,
the Assembly could usually find means to coerce
him. Its existence did not depend upon his call,
and it could "sit upon its own Adjournments/'
Thus it continued practically supreme in the
legislative field until the Revolution. The Char-
ter of Privileges of 1701 came to be revered by
the people of Pennsylvania as the palladium of
their liberties (printed in Votes and Proceedings
of House of Representatives of Pennsylvania, I?
1752, part II, pp. i-iii).
436
Penn
Penn had hoped to remain a resident of Penn-
sylvania but this hope was not realized. On the
outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession
a proposal was made in the English Parliament
to annex all proprietary colonies to the Crown.
Penn's presence in England thus became essen-
tial and late in 1701 he again said farewell to his
province, this time not to return. Indeed it ap-
pears that the constructive work of his life had
now been largely accomplished. He was able to
retain his proprietorship but his last years were
full of trouble and disappointment. He was
harassed by almost endless disputes between his
governors and the Pennsylvania Assembly. His
own choice of deputies and helpers was not al-
ways happy. He had serious pecuniary embar-
rassments and for a time languished in a debtor's
prison. He suffered great humiliation and sor-
row because of the dissolute life of his son, Wil-
liam Penn, Jr. Yet he continued to some degree
his activities of writing and speaking. In 1709,
at sixty-five years of age, he traveled "in the
ministry" through several counties of England.
In 1712 he had almost arranged for a sale of his
proprietary government to the Crown when he
suffered an attack of apoplexy which soon de-
stroyed his memory and rendered him incapable
of further administering his affairs. His faith-
ful wife, Hannah Penn, ably supervised his busi-
ness interests until his death in 1718 at the age
of seventy-four years. In 1727, after her death
and that of their youngest son, the proprietor-
ship of Pennsylvania passed into the hands of the
surviving sons, John, Thomas [g.£'.], and Rich-
ard Penn.
As a youth Penn was described as well-built,
handsome, athletic, and of courtly manners. In
later life he became somewhat corpulent but
"using much exercise, retained his activity." The
portrait as a youth in armor and the Bevan bust
show the strength of his facial features. He was
an unusual combination of mystic, courtier, and
statesman. Apart from his important religious
labors, he founded or helped to found three Amer-
ican commonwealths (New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
and Delaware), and made a worthy contribution
to the political thought of England and Europe.
The Quaker "testimony" concerning him (photo-
stat at Haverford College) drawn up after his
death by Reading Monthly Meeting of Friends,
England, was no doubt a deserved tribute : "He
was a Man of great Abilities, of an Excellent
sweetness of Disposition, quick of thought, &
ready utterance; full of the Qualification of trae
Discipleship, even Love without dissimulation
... he may without straining his Oiaracter be
ranked among: the Learned good & great**
Pennell
[There are two authentic portraits of Pain : the one
of him as a youth in armor, of which an original, or an
authentic contemporary copy, Is in the Hail of the Hist.
Soc. ^of Pa., Philadelphia ; and an ivory medallion bust
of Mm in old age, made from, memory after Ms death
by his friend, Sylvanus Bevan. Possibly the portrait
by Francis Place is also authentic (Graham, post, p.
330). There are biographies as follows : "Journal of His
Life," prefixed to Joseph Besse, A Collect tan of the
Works of William Penn (2 vols., 1726) ; Thomas Dark-
son, Memoirs of the Private and Public Life of William
Penn (2nd ed, 2 vols., 1814) ; W. H. Dixon, William
Penn: An Historical Biography (2nd ed., 1852); S.
M. Janney, The Life of William Penn (1852) ; S. G.
Fisher, The True William Penn (1900), reprinted as
William Penn (1932); J. \V. Graham, William Penn,
Founder of Pa. (1917), containing a summary, pp. 310—
13, of tie various refutations of Macaulay's aspersions
upon Penn ; M. R. Brailsford, The Making of William
Penn (1930) ; Bonamy Dobree, William Pmn, Quaker
and Pioneer (1932); C. E. Vulliamy, William Pmn
(1934). On bis relation to Stuart politics, see P. S.
Belasco, Authority in Church and State (1928). For
the family see H. M. Jenkins, The Family of William
Penn (1899) ; and Arthur Pound, The Penns of Penn>-
syhania and England (1932). For the setting of his
life work see W. C. Braithwaite, The Second Period of
Quakerism (1919) ; and R. M. Jones, The Quakers in
the Am. Colonies (1911), The Dictionary of National
Biography emphasizes the European side of Penn's life,
as the above account does the American side, A small
but important contribution by A. C Myers, "William
Penn, His Own Account of the Delaware Indians,
1683," announced for early publication, contains a brief
sketch of Penn's life.
The writings of Penn are largely listed in Joseph
Smith, A Descriptive Catalogue of Friends' Books (2
vols., 1867), and Supplement (1893) ; also M. K. Spence,
William Penn: A Bibliography (1932). Besides the
collection of Joseph Besse (above), may be cited Select
Works of William Penn (1771) ; The Select Works of
William Penn (5 vols., 1782} ; Deborah Logan and Ed-
ward Armstrong, Correspondence between William
Penn and James Logan (2 vols., 1870-72; Pubs, of
Hist Soc. of Pa., vols., IX, X). The largest collection
of ^Penn materials, printed and manuscript, in England,
is in Friends' Library, Boston Road, London. For this
and other collections in England see C. M. Andrews
and F. G. Davenport, Guide to the Manuscript Mate-
rials for the Hist, of the U. S. to 1783, in the British
Museum (igo8). The largest collections in America,
including the important private collection of A. C
Myers, are at 1300 Locust St., Fhihu, Hall of the Hist
Soc, of Pa, The libraries of Haverford and Swartfa-
more colleges should also be consulted. Some biog-
raphers have been at odds as to whetber Penn's mother
was actually Dutch, as stated by Pepys, or Angio-Irisn,
A. C Myers stands with Pepys and thus holds that
William Penn was "half a DatehmaiL"] R.W, K.
PENNELL, JOSEPH (July 4, i8S7-Apr. 23,
1926) , etcher, sprang from an unbroken line of
Quakers, His ancestors left Nottinghamshire,
England, in 1684, for Pennsylvania, and for gen-
erations were husbandmen, until Larkin Pennell,
Joseph's father, broke the family tradition by
becoming a teacher and later a shipping cleric
He married Rebecca A. Barton. Joseph, bora in
their quiet house on South Ninth Street, Phila-
delphia, was their only child. He attended Quak-
er schools In Philadelphia and later in Gennaa-
town, to which place his family moved in 1870,
He was a nervous, moody child and preferred to
be alone to draw pictures. Often il, he bad
437
Pennell
quent accidents, becoming left-handed after he
broke his right arm.
In 1876 he graduated from the Germantown
Friends' Select School and, in spite of the oppo-
sition of his parents, tried to enter the school of
the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts,
but was rejected and became a clerk for a coal
company at seven dollars a week. It was prob-
ably some "perversity" of the romantic, imprac-
tical Welsh-Irish blood in his veins that made
him, from the first, worship beauty with the
same veneration which his sober Quaker rela-
tives accorded to their God, and determined him
to become an artist. He joined the night classes
of the Pennsylvania School of Industrial Art and
soon met Stephen Ferris, who taught him the
technique of etching and showed him the work
of the Spanish artists Fortuny, Rico, Casanova,
and Fabres. Pennell was inspired to imitate the
chaste clarity of their pen-and-ink drawings and
their brilliant effects of warm, glittering sun-
shine.
With the Friends' habit of speaking his mind,
he severely criticized his school for teaching too
much mechanical drawing, and cut so many
classes that he was dismissed. One of his in-
structors, Charles M. Burns, the architect, dis-
cerned his promise and persuaded the Pennsyl-
vania Academy School to reconsider and admit
him as a pupil ; so Pennell abandoned his clerk-
shipi and, devoting all his time to art, began to
work with the extraordinary industry which
never slackened during the rest of his life. Too
sensitive to stand the unsympathetic criticisms
of Thomas Eakins [#.^.], he left the school and
about 1880 hired a studio of his own. Almost
immediately he became self supporting, for he
had not only a good journalistic sense, but also
a gift for salesmanship. This was proved when
he took his drawings of a picturesque marsh in
South Philadelphia to New York and sold them
to Alexander Wilson Drake [#.v.], then art
editor of S miner's Monthly. They appeared in
July 1881, and Drake, very much pleased, ordered
eight etchings of historical buildings in Phila-
delphia. Charles Godfrey Leland [#.£>.] was in-
vited to write the text, but suggested that his
niece, Elizabeth Robins, do it instead. This col-
laboration led to the meeting of Pennell and his
future wife. Their first article, "A Ramble in
Old Philadelphia," was published in March 1882
in the Century, which had succeeded Scri'bner's.
The same year Pennell was commissioned to
go to New Orleans to illustrate a series of ar-
ticles by George W. Cable [^.^.], later published
in book form asT&e Creoles of Louisiana (1884).
Pennell reveled in the insanitary picturesqueness,
Pennell
the good wine, and beguiling cuisine of the old
Latin city, and worked with an ecstatic energy,
taking time only to write rhapsodic letters to
Elizabeth Robins with graphic little sketches on
their margins. The New Orleans etchings and
drawings made such a stir that Pennell, at twen-
ty-five, had achieved success, and the Century
asked him to go to Italy to illustrate articles by
William Dean Howells [q.v.~\ on Tuscan cities.
Early in 1883 he joined Howells in Florence,
and in a month had finished all the necessary
drawings. Then he wandered over Italy, thrilled
by its beauty, and his enthusiasm gave birth to
a series of Italian plates that were remarkable
for so young an artist. He returned by way of
England and Ireland, executing various com-
missions for magazine articles on the way, and
was back in Philadelphia by October, ready to
plunge into a mass of hack drawings for the Cen-
tury.
He swept Elizabeth Robins into his welter of
work by marrying her in June 1884, and they
sailed immediately for Europe. He was to make
more illustrations for Tuscan Cities, but an out-
break of cholera in Italy decided the pair to go
to London. In the beginning of August they set
out on a tandem bicycle to ride to Canterbury,
stopping often for Pennell to sketch while Mrs.
Pennell took copious notes. The result was a
small illustrated book, A Canterbury Pilgrimage
(1885), described by Andrew Lang in a leader
in the London Daily News as "the most wonder-
ful shilling's worth modern literature has to of-
fer" (Life and Letters, I, 149). In October they
finally started for Italy and rode a tricycle from
Florence to Rome. He sketched and she wrote
and they never missed an art museum. This was
the pattern of all their "holidays." In succeed-
ing summers they quartered Europe on wheels,
and on one trip rode ten in succession of the
highest passes over the Alps. They became the
most articulate couple alive, for all their reac-
tions to art, life, and beauty were given expres-
sion in the wife's poised and cultivated prose and
the husband's eloquent graphic illustrations. The
record of these "holidays" fills some twelve
volumes.
In 1884, in spite of his ardent Americanism,
Pennell decided to live in London because most
of his commissions, though from America, were
for European drawings, and he could not afford
either the time or the money for long ocean voy-
ages. His picturesque, earnest personality, his
strong, outspoken convictions and his instant
willingness to defend them, soon made him a
distinctive figure ; and Mrs. Pennell's charm and
tact drew around them the few Pre-RaphaeHtes
438
Pennell
still living and a group of many of the best known
literary men, artists, publishers, and journalists
of the day ; among them Henley, "Bob" Steven-
son, Edmund Gosse, Bernard Shaw, Heinemann,
and of course, Whistler.
Pennell's etchings made an immediate Impres-
sion and were first shown at the Exhibition of
the Society of Painter-Etchers in 1885. He had
struck his stride and was producing an amazing
amount of work, but so great was his artistic
integrity that he never slighted a single line.
Most of his product was reproduced in the Cen-
tury but some appeared in Harper's and in many
of the best English magazines. In addition, he
illustrated books by P. G. Hamerton, Mrs.
Schuyler Van Rensselaer, Justin McCarthy,
Washington Irving, Henry James, George W.
Cable, F. Marion Crawford, Maurice Hewlett,
and many besides. In 1888 he accepted the po-
sition of art critic on the Star, a London ha'pen-
ny daily, but after launching a few attacks —
which made London gasp — against the Royal
Academy for its pompous shows of huge anec-
dotal canvases, he was bored by the work and it
was Mrs. Pennell who continued it, as she did
later on the Daily Chronicle, for years conduct-
ing both columns.
Pennell believed there was as much art in
printing from the plates as there was in making
them and that both processes were equally the
business of the etcher. In 1892, therefore, he
bought a press and from then on, with a few rare
exceptions, pulled his own proofs. Always an
explorer in new techniques, he experimented with
pen, pencil, wash, Russian charcoal, etching, and
even mezzotint. When photo-engraving began
to replace woodblocks for reproducing illustra-
tions, Pennell, ignoring the contention of Wil-
liam Morris and his disciples that the new proc-
ess would only vulgarize art, felt it his duty to
study the invention to see how it could best be
made to serve the cause of illustration, which he
felt should be kept alive and contemporaneous.
His close association with Whistler made it
only natural that lithography would eventually
attract him ; but it was not until the approaching
centennial of the art had fooissed the attention
of such artists as Toulouse-Lautrec, Willette,
Steinlen, Louis Legrand, and Odilon Redon, and
he had seen their lithographs in Paris at the
spring Salon of 1895, that Pennell really became
enthusiastic over the process. As a result, he
persuaded Fisher Unwin to agree to bring out a
book on Lithography and Lithographers (pub-
lished in 1898 ) , as a companion to his Pen Dram-
ing and Pen Draughtsmen, which had been pub-
lished in 1889. When he went to Spain in 1896
Pennell
to illustrate The Alhambra, transfer paper and
lithographic chalk went with Mm. These first
lithographs were delicate and charming but a
trifle anaemic and gray in comparison with the
bold ones he was to make later.
Pennell refused to regard illustration as a
minor art and fought valiantly to raise it in the
public esteem; so when the organization of the
Society of Illustrators was suggested in 1895, he
threw himself into the project with all his usual
steam-engine vigor ; but it soon died of inanition
and Pennell became a member of the council of
the newly formed International Society of Sculp-
tors, Painters and Gravers, and hung the water
colors and prints of its first exhibition in 1898.
This was so successfully accomplished that he
was often invited to serve on committees and
juries of international art exhibitions on the
Continent, where he worked hard to make the
best work of his countrymen known in Europe.
He was a devastating critic of anything he con-
sidered slipshod, but petty personal jealousy
never kept him from extolling the excellent work
of others. He searched out Vierge in Paris,
made Fisher Unwin arrange a show of his work
in London and bring out an English edition of
Pablo de Segovia with his illustrations, for which
Pennell wrote an appreciative preface. For
Charles Keene, who contributed subtly humorous
illustrations to Punch, he did the same thing;
and he was the first to praise in print the work
of Aubrey Beardsley.
It was during these years that the Pennells*
intimacy with Whistler ripened and culminated
in his request that they write his biography. To
this end he gave them many notes and sugges-
tions before he died in 1903. Three years later,
Rosalind Birnie Philip, Whistler's executrix,
brought suit to enjoin the Pennells and Heine-
mann from publishing the Life. The trial result-
ed in their favor, however, and their "author-
ized edition" of The Life of James McNeiU
Whistler appeared in 1908 and was followed by
The Whistler Journal in 1921.
Together with other artists Pennell founded
the Senefelder Oub in London in 1909, to bring
lithographers together and hold exhibitions of
their prints. The art seemed to Mm a medium
peculiarly well adapted to the portrayal of black
masses of factories with their belching smoke,
which were beginning to fascinate him as sub-
jects. He described these industrial transcrip-
tions as "The Wonder of Work? {Joseph Pm~
neWs Pictures of the Wonder of Work, 1916),
and after doing some of them at Birmingham and
Sheffield, he sailed in 1912 for Panama to ciraw"
the Canal. He never surpassed this serks of
439
Pennell
lithographs for richness of color and virile
strength. From Panama he went to San Fran-
cisco where he etched a set of plates, and stopped
on his way across the continent to do lithographs
of the Yosemite and the Grand Canyon, and a
series of Washington, which rivaled those of
Panama. Mrs. Pennell joined him in their na-
tive city and they devoted some months to the
preparation of Our Philadelphia, published in
1914.
From 1884 to 1912 Pennell was primarily en-
gaged in familiarizing America with the pic-
turesqueness of Europe through the medium of
his illustrations in magazines and books. After
his journey across the United States, however,
he became progressively obsessed with interpret-
ing the beauty of his own land. Nevertheless he
continued for a while to live in London and to
do European subjects. In 1913 he made a series
of lithographs in Greece, later reproduced in
Joseph Pennell' s Pictures in the Land of Temples
(1915). When the World War broke out in 1914
he was in Berlin doing more lithographs, but he
returned to England Immediately and spent the
balance of that year helping stranded Belgian
artists and organizing picture sales to aid the
refugees. After the Panama-Pacific International
Exposition in San Francisco in 1915, where he
served on the art jury, he made lithographs and
drawings of British plants engaged in war work.
The War Ministry, realizing their value as
propaganda, arranged to show them in London
and they were later published as Joseph Pennell' s
Pictures of War Work in England (1917). He
sold his lease of the Adelphi Terrace studio to
Sir James Barrie, with the intention of return-
ing to the United States, but before he could
leave, the French government invited him to
make war drawings, so he crossed the Channel
in May 1917, but returned almost immediately,
unable to stand at such close range the horrors
of war. A little later he tried again, managed to
do a few unimportant drawings at Verdun, and,
on the verge of a nervous breakdown, took ship
for the United States. There he recovered his
poise and threw himself into making drawings
of the industrial war activities of America and
volunteer work for the government as a vice-
chairman of the division of pictorial publicity,
Committee on Public Information.
In 1921 he went with his wife to Washington
to make arrangements for exhibiting the valuable
collection of Whistleriana they had presented to
the Library of Congress. When the exhibition
was over they moved to the Hotel Margaret in
Brooklyn, where Pennell was enthralled by the
gorgeous panorama of New York and its harbor,
Pennell
visible from their window. On an earlier visit
in 1904 to serve on the jury of the Louisiana
Purchase Exposition at St. Louis, Pennell had
etched his first New York sky-scraper. Now he
became even more enthusiastic and spent his
time suggesting on paper their overpowering
mass and the grandeur of their groupings. By
way of relaxation he did water colors of the view
from his window in all its different atmospheric
changes.
In 1922 he was invited to teach etching at the
Art Students' League in New York, and threw
himself into the work with the keenest gusto. He
shared with his pupils all the secrets of his craft,
and, during the four years he served, made an
eminently successful teacher, for he had rare
ability and fired his students with the ambition
to work and to experiment. This success was
all the more remarkable because he had earned a
reputation for being querulous and fault-finding.
He resented and was disheartened by the spirit
and manner of the polyglot New York which he
found upon his return after thirty- three years
abroad. Prohibition, too, increased his pessimism,
and his fulminations against it became increas-
ingly lurid, picturesque, and frequent, for he be-
lieved that "there can be no art in a Dry Desert
filled with drunken Hypocrites which we are be-
come" (Life and Letters, II, 303). This railing
arose partly from his convictions but more from
the fact that he was overworked. Making plates,
working at his press, teaching, writing The Ad-
ventures of an Illustrator (1925) and superin-
tending its typography, serving as art critic on
the Brooklyn Eagle until his outspokenness was
more than the journal could stand, helping run
the New Society of Sculptors, Painters and En-
gravers, fulminating against billboards, and lec-
turing overtaxed his strength, and in 1923 he had
a serious illness. As soon as he recovered he
was off again at the same pace, and consequent-
ly, when in the spring of 1926 he contracted
pneumonia, he had no reserve. He died in the
Hotel Margaret in Brooklyn, and was buried in
the graveyard of the Friends' Germantown
Meeting House. By the terms of his will, at the
death of his wife their whole estate was to revert
to the Library of Congress to found a Chalco-
graphic Museum, complete the Whistler and
Pennell collections, and acquire the prints of
etchers living or less than a hundred years dead
Pennell did more than any other one artist of
his time to improve the quality of illustration
both in the United States and abroad and to raise
its status as an art. His incessant industry pro-
duced over nine hundred etched and mezzotint
plates, some six hundred and twenty-one litho
440
Penniman
graphs, and innumerable drawings and water
colors. He was the first to make the varied as-
pects of industry recognized subjects for the
artist. Aside from their artistic value, his prints
and drawings will have an ever-increasing his-
toric interest Not only has he left his graphic
portrayals of war work in America and England,
but his pictures of ever-changing American cities,
and even of London, will soon "be records of a
reality that has passed. He was a member of
numerous societies both in the United States and
Europe, was awarded medals at many expo-
sitions, and his work is represented in museums
and galleries in various parts of the world, in-
cluding the Luxembourg, Paris ; Uffizi, Florence;
British Museum and South Kensington Museum,
London; Library of Congress, Washington; Art
Institute of Chicago ; Brooklyn Museum; Metro-
politan Museum of Art, New York; Cleveland
Museum of Art; and The Prado, Madrid.
[Pennell said he was born in 1860 and believed his
birth records had been destroyed by fire, but after his
death they were discovered and proved he had been
born in 1857. The sources for his life are his own Ad-
ventures of an Illustrator (1925), and three books by
his wife, Elizabeth Robins Pennell : The Life & Letters
of Joseph Pennell (1929), Our House and London out
of Our Windows (1912), and Nights (1916). See also
L. A. Wuerth, Catalogue of the Etchings of Joseph
Pennell (1928) and Catalogue of the Lithographs of
Joseph Pennell (1931) ; Arthur Tomson, "Joseph^ Pen-
nell," Art Journal (London), Aug. 1900 ; H. W. Singer,
"On Some of Mr, Joseph PennelPs Recent Etchings,"
International Studio (N. Y.), Feb. 1907 ; Frank Weiten-
kampf, "Joseph Pennell," Die Graphischen Kunste
(Vienna), Jan. 1910; Grace Irwin, Trail-Blazers of
American Art (1930); N. Y. Times, Apr. 24, 1926.
The Lib. of Cong., Joseph Pennell Memorial Exhibition
Catalogue (1927) has the best bibliography so far print-
ed, but it cannot be entirely relied upon.] £. L. X.
PENNIMAN, JAMES HOSMER (Nov. 8,
iS6o~Apr. 6, 1931), educator, author, and bib-
liophile, was born in Alexandria, Va., the son of
James Lanman and Maria Davis (Hosmer)
Penniman. Both parents were of distinguished
colonial ancestry. His father was a graduate of
Yale College, as were also a number of relatives.
Among his ancestors on his father's side were
Roger Wolcott and Matthew Griswold tqq.v."],
both governors of Connecticut, Judge Charles
Church Chandler, a member of the Continental
Congress, and Judge James Lanman, senator
from Connecticut. On his mother's side were the
Rev. Peter Bulkeley \_q.v.~\ and James Hosmer,
founders of Concord, Mass., and Dr. Jonathan
Prescott and his son, Col. Charles Prescott, dis-
tinguished colonial gentlemen. His mother grew
up in Concord at the time when it was an intel-
lectual center. Thus, through inheritance and
environment, she developed ability, character,
and charm of personality that tmdotibtedly ex-
ercised a strong influence upon her son. James
Pennington
prepared for college at the Free Academy of Nor-
wich, Conn., and graduated from Yale College
in 1884. After a year spent as a private tutor in
Glyndon, Md, fie began teaching in DeLancey
School, Philadelphia, and became head of the
Lower School in 1900, a position which he held
until his retirement in 1913. In connection with
his teaching he wrote a number of articles and
books, including A Graded List of Common
Words Difficult to Spell (1891); Prose Dicta-
tion Exercises from the English Classics (1893) ;
The School Poetry Book ( 1894) J Practical Sug-
gestions in School Government (1899) ; New
Practical Speller (1900); Books, and How to
Make the Most of Them (1911) ; and Children
and Their Books (1921).
Meanwhile he became a collector of Washing-
toniana and an authority on the history of Amer-
ica in the eighteenth century, writing George
Washington as Command cr-in~Chief (1917);
George Washington as Man of Letters (1918) ;
George Washington at Mount Vernon (1921) ;
Our Debt to France (1921) ; What Lafayette
Did for America (1921) ; and Philadelphia in
the Early Eighteen Hundreds (1923). He had
planned and largely completed at the time of his
death a two-volume work on George Washing-
ton that was to have been published in 1932, and
had proposed as a part of the celebration of the
bi-centennial of Washington's birth the building
of the "Highway of the Thirteen Original
States" from Washington to "Mount Veraon.**
His mother having died in 1914, he founded in
her honor in 1915 the Maria Hosmer Penniman
Memorial Library of Education at the Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania. In 1920 he established the
Penniman Memorial Library of Education at
Yale University, which contains more than 8o,~
ooo volumes and has become one of the largest
libraries of education in the world, and in 1921
he founded the Penniman Memorial Library of
Education at Brown University. A man of varied
interests, he had a keen relish for sport, espe-
cially professional baseball, and a fondness for
animals that found expression in a delightful
book, The Alky Rabbit (1920)- He died sud-
denly at his home in Philadelphia and was buried
in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, Mass,
IA Hist, of the Class of Eiffkty-Fomr, Yale Cctt.t
1880-1914 (1914) ; B«ll. of Yde Univ.; QUt, Record
of Grttds, Deceased Dmnmg the Year Ending July I,
W3i; Wkofs Wk® im America, 1930-31; C@lomol
Ffm&tf of tfo U. S., TO!. VII (1920); P*b. L^dffer
(PMla.), Apr. 7, 1931 ; Pa. Gasette, May i, 1931-1
A.LJL
PENNIMGTON, JAMES W. C. (i&9-Oc-
tdber 1870), teacher, preacher, and author,
born in slavery on the Eastern Store of Mary-
441
Pennington
land. While he was a slave he was known as Jim
Pembroke. In his own story of his early life he
recalls the desolate, terrifying days of his child-
hood, deprived of parental care, lacking- educa-
tion, and shrinking from the tyranny of his mas-
ter's children and the brutality of the overseers.
When he was four years old he was given, with
his mother, to his first master's son, Frisbie
Tilghman of Hagerstown, and was taken to live
in Washington County. At nine he was hired
out to a stone mason. Returning two years later
to the home plantation, he was trained as a black-
smith and followed that trade until he was about
twenty-one, when he decided to run away. After
experiencing hunger, exhaustion, and escape
from capture, he was welcomed one morning by
a Pennsylvania Quaker with the friendly greet-
ing, "Come in and take thy breakfast, and get
warm" (The Fugitive Blacksmith, post, p. 41).
He spent six months in this home, and under the
guidance of his Quaker teacher, laid the founda-
tion of an extensive education. Some months
later he found work on western Long Island,
near New York City ; he attended evening school,
and was privately tutored. Five years after his es-
cape he qualified to teach in colored schools, first
at Newtown, L. I., then at New Haven, Conn.
While at New Haven he studied theology, and
pastorates in African Congregational churches
at Newtown, L. I. (1838-40) and at Hartford,
Conn. (1840-47) followed. His scholarship and
pulpit eloquence attracted favorable attention in
Hartford, and he served twice as president of the
Hartford Central Association of Congregational
Ministers, the membership being all white ex-
cept himself. During this time he examined two
candidates (one a Kentuckian) for their licenses
to preach. Closely identified with measures to
help his race, he was five times elected a member
of the General Convention for the Improvement
of Free People of Colour, and in 1843 was sent
to represent Connecticut at the World's Anti-
Slavery Convention at London. He was also
the delegate of the American Peace Convention
to the World's Peace Society meeting in London
the same year. While in Europe he lectured or
preached in London, Paris, and Brussels.
Until a short time before the passage of the
"Fugitive Slave Law" (1850) he kept secret,
even from his wife, the fact that he was a run-
away slave. Fearing recapture, he appealed to
John Hooker, of Hartford, to negotiate for his
freedom and went abroad until his status should
be determined. After many discouragements, a
payment of $150 to the estate of his one-time
master brought a bill of sale, and a deed of
manumission was recorded in the town records
Pennington
of Hartford, June 5, 1851. In the meantime
Pennington had become the first pastor of the
First (Shiloh) Presbyterian Church on Prince
Street in New York City. This pulpit he oc-
cupied for eight years (1847-55). During this
time his story of his early life, The Fugitive
Blacksmith (preface dated 1849; 3rd ed., 1850)
was published in London, the proceeds of the
sale of the same being intended to aid in financing
the new church. He had previously published
Text Book of the Origin and History, &c, &c of
the Colored People ( 1841 ) . A few of his sermons
and addresses survive, including Covenants In-
volving Moral Wrong Are Not Obligatory upon
Man: A Sermon (1842), and The Reasonable-
ness of the Abolition of Slavery (1856). In 1859
he contributed to the Anglo-African Magazine
several articles on the capabilities of his race.
After 1855 he is listed in the Minutes of the
Presbyterian General Assembly as a member of
the Third New York Presbytery, without a pas-
torate, his address appearing as New York,
Hartford, occasionally Maine. During his last
years his usefulness was much impaired by the
excessive use of intoxicants (Brown, post). In
1869 or early in 1870 he went to Florida, hoping
to benefit his health, and at Jacksonville he gath-
ered together a colored Presbyterian church, but
he died there soon after.
[In addition to The Fugitive Blacksmith, see John
Hooker, Reminiscences of a Long Life (1899) ; Wilson
Armistead, A Tribute for the Negro (1848), containing
an autographed portrait; W. W. Brown, The Rising
Son; or, The Antecedents and Advancement of the Col-
ored Race (1874) ; W. J. Simmons, Men of Mark
(1887); Hartford (1843-49) and New York City
(1848-68) directories ; Hartford Town Records; refer-
ences in the Tappan Papers, Jour, of Negro Hist., Apr.-
July 1927 ; Minutes of the Gen. Assem., Presbyt. Ch. in
the U. S.A., 1871, p. 60 1, which gives date of death as
Oct. 20 • N. Y. Observer, Nov. 10, 1870, which gives
date of death as Oct. 22.]
PENNINGTON, WILLIAM (May 4, 1796-
Feb. 16, 1862), governor of New Jersey, con-
gressman, was the son of Phoebe (Wheeler) and
William Sandford Pennington [q.v.~\. He was
born in Newark, N. J., received an elementary
education in the local schools, and was graduated
from the College of New Jersey (Princeton) in
1813. After studying law with Theodore Fre-
linghuysen \_q.vJ] he was licensed as attorney in
1817, as counselor in 1820, and as sergeant-at-
law in 1834. While his father was district judge
in New Jersey he acted as clerk of the district
and circuit courts from 1817, to 1826. Mean-
while his geniality, candor, and oratorical pow-
ers were bringing him an ever-enlarging and
remunerative practice as well as making numer-
ous political friends for him. In 1828 he was a
member of the state Assembly from Essex Conn-
442
Pennlngton
ty as an Adams Democrat. Later the Penning-
tons became Whigs, and when In 1837 the Whigs
controlled the state legislature he was elected
governor and chancellor of New Jersey. He was
reflected annually five times. An imposing man
of six feet two, he was known as a genial com-
panion, somewhat of a "character" but possess-
ing, nevertheless, a good deal of common sense.
Contemporaries testify that both juries and as-
semblies fell an easy prey to his eloquence. His
decisions as chancellor ( i, 3 Green Chancery Re-
ports) are brief but clear and pointed. He was
not a learned jurist and is said to have bragged
in early life that he would get along with as lit-
tle study as possible. Yet his good judgment
preserved him from grave mistakes ; only one of
his decisions as chancellor was reversed.
Out of the fact that New Jersey had been a
doubtful state from the very beginning of the
century there developed the chief political ex-
citement of his tenure as governor, namely the
"Broad Seal" War. He had been elected gov-
ernor in 1837 over the Democratic incumbent,
Philemon Dickerson [#.z>.]. The following year
Dicker son and four other Democrats claimed to
have been elected in five of six congressional
districts. One seat was not challengedj.it was
admittedly Whig. The county clerks certified
all six Whigs as elected. In spite of the accusa-
tions of corruption Pennington held that he had
no authority to go behind the returns and placed
the great seal of New Jersey upon the certificates
of the six Whigs. In the federal House of Rep-
resentatives the parties stood so nearly equally
divided that the admission of one or the other
group of claimants would determine its organi-
zation. After ten days of acrimonious debate, it
organized with a compromise speaker and three
months later admitted the Democratic claimants.
Pennington was bitterly attacked for his par-
tisanship in not investigating the questionable
returns, and, on the other hand, he was defended
loyally by those who resented the refusal of Con-
gress to accept without question the official cer-
tificates bearing the state seal.
When in 1843 a Democrat replaced him as
governor he withdrew from, politics to practise
before the higher courts of the state. His ambi-
tions to be chancellor, which had become an ap-
pointive office under the new constitution, or to
be a minister in Europe were not realized, and
he refused posts as governor of Minnesota Ter-
ritory and as claims judge tinder the Mexican
treaty. His last venture in politics led to another
exciting episode in congressional history. He
was elected to Congress in 1858, when the House
was again deadlocked over Its organization, and
Pennington
it was only after eight weeks of debate, ballot-
ing, and negotiation that the moderates of both
parties were able to agree upon him as a com-
promise speaker. As a newcomer he was totally
unfamiliar with the procedure, and many were
the stories told of his ignorance. He died in
Newark, survived by his wife, Caroline (Bur-
net) Pennington, the daughter of Dr. William
Burnet, 1730-1791 [q.v.].
[L. Q. C. Elmer, "The Constitution and Government
of ... New Jersey," N. J. Hist. Sac. Calls., vol. VII
(1872) ; N. L Law four., July, Aug. 1897 ; F. B. Lee,
N.J.asa Colony and as a Stake (1902), vol. II! ; J. T.
Nixon, "The Circumstances Attending the Election of
Wm. Pennington ... as Speaker/' N. I. Hist. Soc.
Proc., 2. Ser., vol. II (1872) ; A. C M. Pennington,
The Pennington Family ( 1 87 1 ) , reprinted -with additions
from New-Eng. Hist, and Geneal. Reg., July 1871.
Newark Daily Advertiser f Feb. 17, 1862.] H M C
PENNINGTON, WILLIAM SANDFORD
(i757-Sept 17, 1826), governor of New Jersey
and jurist, was the son of Mary (Sandford) and
Samuel Pennington. He was the descendant of
Ephraim Pennington who emigrated from Eng-
land to New Haven, Conn., before 1643 and
whose son, also named Ephraim, was one of the
early settlers of Newark, N. J., where William
Sandford Pennington was born three genera-
tions later. His Revolutionary War diary, 1780-
81, written while he was an officer of artillery
stationed at and near West Point and now pre-
served in the library of the New Jersey His-
torical Society at Newark, shows a facility of
language that bears witness to a good education.
There is reason to believe that lie learned the
trade of a hatter. On the breaking out of Revo-
lutionary hostilities he joined the Continental
Army. He became a sergeant in the 2nd Regi-
ment of Artillery on Mar. 7, 1777, second lieu-
tenant in 1780 to rank from Sept. 12, 1778, and
at the end of the war was mustered out as a cap-
tain by brevet He entered business at Newark,
and he was elected to the state Assembly In 1797
and reelected in 1798 and 1799. He read law in
the office of Elias Boudinot [q.v.~].
In 1801, while still serving his clerkship, te
was elected a member of the council, which, in
addition to its legislative functions, acted with
the governor as a final court of appeals and court
of pardons* In 1802 he was licensed as an attor-
ney-at-law, in the same year was reelected to the
council, and in 1803 was appointed county clerk
of Essex County. In February 1804, before he
had completed the three years of practice as an
attorney necessary to qualify him for license as
a cotmselor-at-law, he was elected by joint meet-
ing of the Council and Assembly to fill a vacancy
in the supreme court, the chief Justice of which
was Andrew Ktrkpatrick [f.^.]. Notwi&statid*
443
Pennock
ing Pennington's short experience as a practi-
tioner, his mature age, natural abilities, and
strong common sense supplemented by diligent
study enabled him from the beginning to per-
form the duties of the office to the entire satis-
faction of the bar and public. In 1806 he pub-
lished a Treatise on the Courts for the Trial of
Small Causes, which he revised and published in
a second edition in 1824. In 1806, under a new
statute, he was appointed reporter to the supreme
court and served as both justice and reporter
until 1813. The two volumes of his reports (2,
3 N. J. Reports) contain the opinions of the
supreme court, including his own, from 1806 to
1813 and are still essential to any New Jersey
law library. In 1812 he was put forward by the
Republican party for the office of governor but
was defeated by a vote of twenty-two to thirty.
In 1813 he defeated his former opponent by a
vote of thirty to twenty, and he was reflected
in 1814. As governor he was also chancellor and
presided in the court of chancery. In 1815 he
was appointed by President Madison as judge of
the federal district court for New Jersey and
held that office until his death. He was married
twice: first, about 1786, to Phoebe, the daughter
of James Wheeler, an officer of the Revolution,
and second, after her death, to Elizabeth Pierson.
[L. Q. C. Elmer, "The Constitution and Government
of N. J.," N. /. Hist. Soc. Colls., vol. VII (1872) ;
F. B. Lee, N. /. as a Colony and as a State (1902),
vols. Ill, IV ; W. S. Stryker, Official Register of the
Officers and Men of N. J. in the Rev. War (1872) ;
A. C. M. Pennington, The Pennington Family (1871),
reprinted with additions from New-En-g. Hist. & Gen-
eaL Register, July 1871 ; N. J. Law Jour., July, Aug.
1897; Fredonian (New Brunswick), Sept. 20, 1826;
True American (Trenton), Sept. 23, 1826.]
C.W.P.
PENNOCK, ALEXANDER MOSELY
(Oct. i, i8i4-Sept. 20, 1876), naval officer, was
born in Norfolk, Va., the son of a prominent
Norfolk shipping merchant and naval agent,
William Pennock, of the firm of Pennock and
Myers. Though left an orphan early in life, he
received a good education, and on the recom-
mendation of Capt. James P. Preston and others,
was appointed midshipman to fill a Tennessee
vacancy Apr. i, 1828. His promotion to passed
midshipman came in June 1834, after he had
made cruises in the Guemere of the Pacific
Squadron and the Natchez of the Brazil Squad-
ron, He then served in the Potomac in the Med-
iterranean and in the Columbia in the East In-
dies, where he led a ship's division in an expe-
dition against the pirates of Quallah Battoo, Su-
matra, on New Year's day, 1839. He was ad-
vanced to the rank of lieutenant the following-
March, and in this capacity served in the Deca-
Pennock
tur of the Brazil Squadron from 1843 to 184
and in the store-ship Supply during the Mexico
War. Following a second eastern cruise in tl
Marion,, 1850-52, he had his first extended sho:
duty as lighthouse inspector, 1853-56, and agai
after commanding the steamer Southern Star i
the Paraguay Expedition, he was lighthouse ii
spector at New York.
In spite of his Southern family connectioi
and property interests, he remained loyal to tl
Union in the Civil War, and on Sept. 20, 186
was among the senior officers detailed und<
Capt. A. H. Foote [q.v.~\ to take over the buildin
of gunboats at St. Louis for the Mississippi flc
tilla. The following October Foote made hi]
fleet captain in special charge of flotilla equij
ment, and from the beginning of 1862 unt
the end of 1864, he commanded the navj
base established at Cairo, 111., where he gaine
a reputation as one of the best wartime execi
tives of the navy. In estimating his work Chark
Henry Davis, 1807-1877 [q.v.~\, Foote's sue
cessor, wrote, "I cannot use any language to
strong to convey a just idea of Capt. Pennock
private and official merit. He is devoted to a
his duties, with a simple, honest, straightforwar
zeal, which gives to the performance of them th
zest of pleasure" (Confidential Corresponded
of Gustavus Vasa Fox, II, 1919, 67). Davi
Dexter Porter \_q.vJ], who followed Davis, de
clared him "a trump . . . and worth his weigt
in gold" (Ibid., 140). His command was "Hi
erally afloat in wharf boats, old steamers, flal
boats, or even rafts, as the government owne
no land at that point . . ." (D. D. Porter, Th
Naval History of the Civil War, 1886, p. 135]
In addition to the multifarious duties of suppl
and repair for the distant flotilla, the scope c
which is revealed in the mass of his correspond
ence in the official records of the Civil War, h
had immediate command of boats operating i;
the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. He wa
made captain on Jan. 2, 1863, and when Porte
left the flotilla in September of the followinj
year, Pennock exercised general command fo
two months.
After the war he was stationed at the Brook
lyn navy yard and then sailed on June 28, 186;
in command of the Franklin, flagship of Admira
Farragut's European Squadron, to visit French
Russian, Scandinavian, English, and Mediter
ranean ports. Both Mrs. Farragut and Mrs
Pennock, who were cousins, accompanied the!
husbands on this cruise, which proved a constan
round of celebrations and entertainments for th<
distinguished admiral (J. K Montgomery, Ow
Admiral's Flag Abroad, 1869). Pennock wa
444
Pennoyer
made commodore on May 6, 1868, and succeeded
Farragut In command of the European Squad-
ron from October 1868 to February 1869. He
was commandant of the Portsmouth navy yard,
1870-72, and, after promotion to the rank of
rear admiral in 1872, was In command of the
Pacific Squadron from May 1874 to June 1875.
He died suddenly of heart trouble at the Rock-
ingharn Hotel, Portsmouth, N. H. Pennock's
wife was Margaret, daughter of George Loyall
of Norfolk, Va., and he was buried in the Loyall
family plot In that city.
[The "birth-date accepted in this sketch has been
taken from Pennock's tombstone in Norfolk, though
Nov. i, 1813, appears in naval records. For additional
biographical data, see : L. R. Hamersly, The Records of
Living Officers of the U. S. Navy and Marine Corps
(1870) ; Henry Walke, Naval Scenes and Reminis-
cences of the Civil War (1877) ; N. Y. Daily Tribune,
Sept. si, 1876.] A.W.
PENNOYER, SYLVESTER (July 6, 1831-
May 31, 1902), governor of Oregon, was born
at Groton, N. Y., the son of Justus P. and Eliza-
beth ( Rowland) Pennoyer, both natives of New
York. His father was a well-to-do farmer, a
community leader, and at one time member of
the state legislature. The son went to Homer
Academy and at Intervals taught several short
terms In rural schools. He graduated from the
Harvard Law School in 1854. The next year he
went by way of Nicaragua to San Francisco and
then to Puget Sound, where for a brief period he
attempted the practice of law, but he soon re-
moved to Portland, Ore. In 1856 he married
Mrs. Mary A, Allen. After six years of teach-
ing he entered the lumber business in 1862,
which, together with shrewd investments in
Portland real estate, In a few years made him a
wealthy man. In 1868 he purchased the Oregon
Herald, a Democratic newspaper that he con-
tinued to edit until 1871. His political career
began in 1885, when he suffered a severe defeat
as a candidate for mayor of Portland. In that
same year he gained a state-wide reputation as
a leader in a movement against Chinese laborers,
which brought him the Democratic nomination
for governor in 1886. He was elected and was
reelected for a second term in 1890. In 1896 he
was elected for a two-year term as mayor of
Portland.
During his long career he did and said many
things that made him seem "peculiar, eccentric,
and demagogic" to his more conservative con-
temporaries (Morning Oregomc»f May 19,
1890). During the Civil War he had openly
sympathized with the Confederacy and after-
ward advocated the payment of government
bonds with federal notes and the issuance of
Pennoyer
"fiat money." While he was governor he made
many recommendations for what seemed to him
the necessary liberalization of government
However, throughout his two terms he was
confronted by legislative assemblies controlled
by his Republican opponents, and In consequence
few of his recommendations receii-ed legislative
approval. He was also severely criticized for
too liberal use of his pardoning power. He rec-
ommended compulsory arbitration for labor dis-
putes. In 1888 in a threatened conflict between
railroad workers and their employers over ar-
rears of wages he intervened to effect a settle-
ment satisfactory to both sides. This experience
led him to advocate "a most stringent law" to
compel all contractors to make weekly payment
to their employees. In his messages to the legis-
lature he asserted that the practice of courts In
nullifying legislative enactments was a usurpa-
tion of power. He asked for strong legislation
against monopoly; he protested against the
growing practice of delegating the governor's
authority to commissions; and he advocated
abolishing the numerous commissions and
boards, such as the fish and railroad commis-
sions and the Immigration board. He vigorous-
ly urged appropriations for the common schools,
while at the same time opposing further state
support for the state university and agricultural
college since that was a tax on all the people for
the benefit of the few. He advocated the removal
of debt exemptions in tax assessments that had
been approved by the legislature In 1891, the
taxing of all incomes In excess of $i»ooo on a
graduated scale, a poll tax of two dollars on
every male over twenty-one, a tax upon the
gross receipts of express, telegraph, and insur-
ance companies, and anticipated the establish-
ment of a state tax commission In asking for
state control of the county tax assessors. He
repeatedly vetoed a Portland water bill, finally
passed over his veto in 1891, because it provided
for the sale of tax-exempt bonds. This action
gained him such popularity as to be accounted,
by the opposition press, the principal cause of
his reelection as governor In 1890. By 1892 he
had passed over to the Populist party. He wrote
an article for the North America* Review (Oct.
1892) on "The Paramount Questions of the
Campaign.** By this time he had 1>ecome bitterly
hostile to President Cleveland. In his Thanks-
giving1 message of 1893 he recommended to the
people that they pray that the President and Con-
gress be guided to restore silver to the position
of full legal-tender money, and at Qiristmas
18^3 lie addressed a long letter to Preslcfait
Cleveland on this same theme. In 1894 Be pi>-
445
Penny packer
claimed a Thanksgiving day a week later than
the one set by Cleveland.
[H. W. Scott, Hist, of the Ore. Country (1924)*
vols. I, III-V, comp. by L. M. Scott ; H. K. Hines, An
Illustrated, Hist, of Ore. (1893) ; Joseph Gaston, Port-
land, Ore. (1911), vol. I; Oregon State Jour. (Eugene),
May 22, 1886, May 17, 1889, May 3, June 7, 1890, May
2, Oct. 24, 1891, Mar. n, June 17, 1893 ; Morning Ore-
gonian (Portland), May 31, 1902.] R.C.C — k.
PENNYPACKER, ELIJAH FUNK (Nov.
29, iSo4-Jan. 4, 1888), reformer, was born in
Schuylkill Township, Chester County, Pa, He
was the son of Joseph and Elizabeth (Funk)
Pennypacker and the descendant of Heinrich
(or Hendrick) Pannebacker, a Mennonite who
came from the Low Countries to Pennsylvania
before 1699. He was the uncle of Galusha Pen-
nypacker [g.-z/.]. The family was prosperous,
and he was educated at the boarding school of
John Gummere [q.v.~\ of Burlington, N. J.,
where he followed the bent of his master toward
mathematics, surveying1, and such practical
studies. He married, first, Sarah W. Coates in
1831 who had no children and who died ten
years later. In 1843 he married Hannah Adam-
son, who bore him nine children. Both wives
were members of the Society of Friends, which
he too joined in 1841, being: drawn not only by
such family ties but also by the anti-slavery sen-
timent that was a ruling factor in his life. In
his early life he taught for a few years, prac-
tised surveying, and devoted himself to farming.
Between 1831 and 1836 he served several ses-
sions in the state legislature, where his reputa-
tion for uprightness and ability attracted the at-
tention of such men as Thaddeus Stevens and
Joseph Ritner. His loyalty to what he thought
right must have become irksome at times in
legislative halls, for Stevens was once minded
to tell him not "to be so damned honest" ( Still,
post, p. 689). While in the legislature he served
ably in many ways : as secretary to the board of
canal commissioners in 1836 and 1837 and a
member of that board in 1838, as chairman of
the committee on banks, as sponsor for the bill
for incorporation of the Philadelphia Reading
Railroad, and as collaborator with Thaddeus
Stevens in the establishment of the common-
school system of Pennsylvania. A career in poli-
tics was undoubtedly open to him, but he de-
clined to continue in this path, being unwilling,
as one has said, "to hold office under a govern-
ment that sanctioned human slavery" (Jordan,
post, p. 492).
After his retirement from public affairs, in
r^39r he joined heartily in the abolition move-
ment, serving from time to time as president of
the local society and also as head of the Chester
Pennypacker
County and the Pennsylvania state anti-slave:
societies. His house near Phoenixville, Pa., b
came one of the stations on the Undergroui
Railroad, and his two-horse wagon was a fr
quent carrier of black-skinned human freig
that sought its way toward the North Star ar
to freedom. Of the "Railroad" he said, whin
sically, when the work was done, that its "sto<
was never reported in money circles, nor div
dends declared, but means were ready as lor
as necessity required. The Emancipation Pro*
lamation of Abraham Lincoln dissolved the Co-
poration" (Jordan, post, p. 492). He was als
prominent in the temperance movement and r
candidate for state treasurer in 1875. Woman
emancipation and her equal education also foun
in him a hearty supporter. His character di
not fail to impress his fellow citizens. Whittle
said of him, "In mind, body, and brave chair
pionship of the cause of freedom he was one c
the most remarkable men I ever knew" (state
ment of Isaac R. Pennypacker in letter Jan. 2;
1931) ; and another declared, "If that is not
good man, there is no use in the Lord writin
His signature on human countenances" (Stil
[Wm. Still, The Underground Rail Road^ (1872)
J. W. Jordan, Colonial Families of Philadelphia (1911)
vol. I ; J. S. Futhey and Gilbert Cope, Hist, of Chests
County, Pa. (1881) ; S. W. Pennypacker, Annals o
Phoenixville (1872) ; Village Record and Local New
of West Chester, Pa., both of Jan. 5, 1888; date o
birth from Pennypacker's daughter.] T.W.
PENNYPACKER, GALUSHA (June i
i844-Oct. 1, 1916), soldier, was born in Schuyl
kill Township, Chester County, Pa., the son o
Joseph J. and Tamson Amelia (Workizer^
Pennypacker and the nephew of Elijah Funl
Pennypacker [<?.£>.]. His first American ances
tor was Heinrich (or Hendrick) Pannebacker
who emigrated to Pennsylvania before 1699
His grandfather had fought in the Revolution
and his father was an officer in the War witf
Mexico. When Galusha was still in his fourtf
year, his mother, a French Canadian, died, anc
his father went to California leaving the boy ir
care of his grandmother, Elizabeth Funk Penny-
packer. He was educated in the private schools
of Phoenixville and Schuylkill Township. A1
the outbreak of the Civil War, he enlisted for
three months in the 9th Regiment of the Penn-
sylvania Volunteers serving as quartermaster-
sergeant. On the expiration of his term of en-
listment, he returned home and recruited Com-
pany A, 97th Pennsylvania Volunteers, of which
he was elected captain on Aug. 22, 1861. He
was promoted rapidly and attained the rank of
colonel by Aug. 15, 1864. On Feb. 18, 1865, he
446
Pennypacker
1 was appointed brigadier-general of Volunteers,
the youngest officer of that rank in the war, and
less than a month later was made major-gen-
eral. He served with distinction at Fort Wag-
ner," Drewry's Bluff, Cold Harbor, Petersburg,
Green Plains, and Fort Fisher, being wounded
seven times in eight months. At Fort Fisher, on
Jan. 15, 1865, he led his brigade in a charge
across a traverse of the work and planted the
colors of one of his regiments on the parapet
where he fell seriously wounded. For this act
of gallantry he was awarded the Congressional
Medal of Honor in 1891.
He resigned from the service on Apr. 30, 1866,
but the following July he was appointed colonel
in the regular army and assigned to the 34th
Infantry. He was again brevetted brigadier and
major-general for his conduct at Fort Fisher
and for his services during the war, and on Mar.
15, 1869, he was transferred to the i6th Infan-
try which he commanded until his retirement in
1883. From 1869 to 1877 his regiment was es-
tablished in the South with headquarters ^ at
Nashville, Tenn., and was engaged in assisting
the civil authorities in carrying out the Recon-
struction Act of Congress. Pennypacker exer-
cised endless patience and tact in executing this
very delicate mission and, without departing
from his duty, he won the respect and affection
of the Southern people and did much to recon-
cile them to the Federal government. After 1877
he did frontier duty in the Indian country of the
West. He was finally retired for disability as
the result of his wounds. Urged to be a candi-
date for governor of Pennsylvania in 1872 he de-
clined on the ground that he had no taste for
politics. He never married but spent the last
years of his life in lonely retirement at his home
in Philadelphia. He died on Oct. I, 1916, and
was buried with the simple rites of the Society of
Friends in the Philadelphia National Cemetery-
Who in America i9i4-*5 1 F- *•
.a*d Diet, of theU. ^^,(1903) ;
of Chester
Cwnty> Pevin. (1881) ; Press (Phila.), Oct. *, 1916.]
CE.T.L,
PENNYPACKER, SAMUEL WHIT AKER
(Apr. 9, i843-Sept 2, 1916), lawyer, judge,
governor of Pennsylvania, bibliophile, historian,
was born at Phoenixville, Pa. the son of Anna
Maria Whitaker and Isaac Anderson Penny-
packer and a descendant of Heinrich (or Hen-
drick) Pannebacker, who emigrated to Pennsyl-
vania before 1699. The father was a practitioner
and university teacher of medicine. Unable to
Pennypacker
go to college, Samuel left school in 1859. After
working in a country store, teaching in a coun-
try school, and serving for a few weeks in the
army of 1863, he studied law and was admitted
to the bar on May 19, 1866. The following July
he graduated in law from the University of
Pennsylvania. Prompt election to successive of-
fices in the Law Academy (of which he became
president at the age of twenty-four) attested the
respect he commanded among his young fellow
practitioners. For many years his practice was
small; but sound judgment, and learning ac-
quired by exceeding industry and evidenced in
professional publications, eventually brought
him important clients. He was appointed judge
in Common Pleas No. 2 of Philadelphia in 1889
(qualified, Jan. 12), to which office he was elect-
ed in November for a ten-year term and reflected
in 1899, after having become president judge of
the court two years previously. Patient atten-
tion to counsel, ample learning, sound sense, and
promptitude in disposal of his cases made his ju-
dicial service very satisfactory to the bar. Espe-
cially as a nisi prius judge he was highly praised.
On the bench he was no innovator, nor did his
many convictions and strong prejudices deflect
his legal judgments, but as governor he later
sought to curb what he regarded as particular
abuses in the administration of the law. From
1885 to 1889 he served on the Board of Public
Education of Philadelphia.
Nominated in June 1902 for governor, he was
immediately attacked for "Quayism." Matthew
S. Quay [q.vJ] was a relative; they had com-
mon literary interests ; they were friends. Penny-
packer was always loyal In friendship, nor would
he deny every virtue to political bosses. After
talking with complete frankness with the people,
he was elected by an unprecedented vote. He im-
mediately declared publicly his purpose to con-
sult with all persons, but Especially with . . .
politicians/' believing this both unavoidable and
desirable for popular government His record,
however, was marked by entirely reasonable in-
dependence in appointments and measures, and
by many excellent accomplishments. Neverthe-
less, his administration (Jan. 20, loos-Jan. 14,
1907) was stormy. From judicial life lie had
derived strong convictions that legislation was
excessive, that many statutes were absurd, and
that there was an Inordinate disposition to mul-
tiply statutory crimes. By pressure, vetoes (63
in 1903, 123 in 1905), and threats to veto, he
cut by half the legislative output and improved
its quality. Every attempt to create a new
crime was blocked. He had other coovictioos:
that corporations should not be chartered1 with
447
Pennypacker
nominal capital as mere trial-balloons, or with
capitalization too small to protect the public ; that
water companies should not be delegated powers
of eminent domain ; nor coal companies (or other
corporations) select and pay state-commissioned
police utilizable in labor disputes. He corrected
all these abuses. He forced a long-delayed reap-
portionment of representation in the legislature,
as required by the constitution ; established a de-
partment of health ; sponsored direct primaries
and improved the election laws, curbing corrupt
practices ; advanced conservation of forest land
and historic sites ; paid the state debt, and left
a large balance in the treasury, without new tax-
ation and despite the cost of a state capitol.
This last caused one of the two great political
turmoils of his gubernatorial term. The furnish-
ings of the capitol involved corruption on a
great scale, but nobody ever hinted or believed
that he was corrupt, though many thought he
should have detected "jokers" in the contracts.
The second turmoil arose from his conviction
that a sensational press hampered the adminis-
tration of justice. His "libel bill" of 1903 and
his supporting message roused tremendous op-
position. The statute merely authorized actions
for damages against newspapers for publication
of untruths as facts when there was negligent
failure to discover their falsity, and required
newspapers to publish the names of their editors
and publishers. It was repealed in 1907, but the
last-mentioned requirement was reenacted. His
only public service after his gubernatorial term
was as a member of the railroad, and later the
public service commission.
Pennypacker's serious historical studies began
before 1872, when he became an active member
of the Pennsylvania Historical Society. He
formed an unrivaled collection of some 10,000
items on Pennsylvania history. He served as
president of the Philobiblon Club (1898-1916),
as trustee of the University of Pennsylvania
(1886-1916), and as president of the Pennsyl-
vania Historical Society (1900-16). To this last
position, particularly, he gave unstinted and de-
voted service. His reading, of which he kept
records, was varied in character and vast in
quantity and not a little was in fpreign lan-
guages. In appearance and voice he was decided-
ly rural. His language, however, immediately
showed the scholar. His conversation combined
wide information, humor, practical philosophy,
and charm. Perfectly simple in his personal
tastes and life, by nature informal and uncon-
ventional, he maintained well official dignity
when occasion required it He had abundant self-
confidence where it was justified, and this doubt-
Penrose
less contributed to his successes, but he was m
est otherwise, nor did his many strong opinic
or even prejudices, alienate associates. Gi
vigor, intense interest and endeavor, and extn
conscientiousness were characteristic of him
every undertaking and office. His numerous p
lished writings touch upon his interests in Ic
history and the law. His work as reporter-
chief of Common Pleas No. 3, 1876-88, is in
Weekly Notes of Cases (vols. II-XXIII, 18;
88) , but he did work for all the forty-five volui
thereof. His decisions are in the Pewmylva
County Court Reports and Pennsylvania L
trict Courts, 1889-1902. He died at Pennypa
er's Mills, near Schwenksville, Pa., survived
his wife, Virginia Earl Broomall, whom he 1
married on Oct. 20, 1870, and by their four cl
dren.
[See Pennypacker Js Autobiog. of a Pennsylvan
(1918) ; H. L. Carson, An Address Upon the Life ^
Services of Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker . . . J
8th, 1917 (1917), with bibliography, not complete,
94 items, and Samuel W. Pennypacker, An- Add?
Delivered before the Philobiblon Club, Oct. 26, it
(1917) ; The Pedigree of Samuel Whitaker Pen
packer, Henry Clay Pennypacker (1892); the Le
Intelligencer (Phila.), Dec. 15, 1916; Report of
Twenty-third Ann, Meeting of the Pa. Bar At
(1917) ; C. R. Woodruff, "The Paradox of Gov. Pen
packer," Yale 'Rev., Aug. 1907; Who's Who in Am
ica, 1916-17; T. M. F., "Hon. Samuel W. Pen:
packer," Searchlight Mag., Aug. 1912; Pub. Led*
(Phila.), Sept. 3, 1916.] p.s.P
PENROSE, BOIES (Nov. i, i86o-Dec. ;
1921), lawyer, political leader, senator, was be
in Philadelphia, the son of Richard A. F. a
Sarah Hannah (Boies) Penrose. His fath
the son of Charles Bingham Penrose [q.v.~\, w
a prominent physician, the descendant of a Pen
sylvania family long noted for wealth and ci
ture; his mother, who came from a Delawa
family of the same type, formed the character
her son along Spartan lines. Boies was prepar
for college by private tutors, also at the Episc
pal Academy and in the public schools of Phil
delphia; he graduated, magna cum laude a:
with honorable mention in political econoir
from Harvard in 1881. For two years thereaft
he read law under Wayne MacVeagh ai
George Tucker Bispham, becoming upon admi
sion to the bar a member of the law firm
Page, Allinson and Penrose. Even as studei
however, his interest was in public administr
tion rather than in private practice; from th
period dates a scholarly treatise, The City Go*
ernment of Philadelphia, published in 1887 in ti
Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historic
and Political Science, written by Penrose in cc
laboration with his law partner, Edward P. A
linson, the later chapters of which contained
448
Penrose
sympathetic appraisal of the Bullitt reform char-
ter of Philadelphia. Such promise as he may
then have given of becoming a reformer soon
vanished; instead he neglected clients in order
to make the acquaintance of the very practical
Republican politicians of his own district, the
eighth, becoming in 1884 its representative in
the lower house of the state legislature, whence
after one term he was advanced to the state Sen-
ate, serving continuously in the latter from 1887
to 1897. In 1895 he was defeated by Charles F.
Warwick for the Republican nomination for the
mayoralty of Philadelphia; but two years later
with the support of Matthew Quay, the state
leader, he defeated John Wanamaker for the
nomination to the United States Senate, in which
he served from 1897 until his death, being elected
three times by the legislature and twice by direct
popular vote. As senator his interest was chiefly
in higher tariff rates ; membership on the finance
committee and, after the retirement in 1911 of
Nelson W. Aldrich [#.^.], its chairmanship,
greatly enhanced his influence. He became
known also as an opponent of prohibition, wom-
an's suffrage, and Progressive policies generally,
yet upon occasion he befriended the direct pri-
mary in Pennsylvania. After Quay's death in
1904 Penrose succeeded to the leadership of the
Republican organization in the state, retaining it,
with the exception of the Progressive inter-
regnum of 1912, to the end of his career. He was
a member of the Republican National Commit-
tee and played a prominent part in the national
conventions of that party in 1900, 1904, 1908,
and 1916. During 1912 Penrose became involved
in a bitter controversy over campaign contribu-
tions which was instigated by William R. Hearst
and participated in vigorously by Former-Presi-
dent Roosevelt At this time attacks upon him as
a cynical boss of the lowest type, which were
more or less current during his whole political
life, reached a climax.
In his prime Penrose was a giant physically,
six feet, four inches in height, powerfully built,
and a lover of vigorous outdoor sports, particu-
larly big-game hunting. He was not an orator,
never speaking when it could be avoided and then
only on subjects which he had mastered thor-
oughly. However, he was extremely effective in
private conferences and committee work; lie
stumped Pennsylvania successfully in his own
behalf after senatorial elections were transferred
to the people ; and in the course of legislative de-
bates was capable of brief but powerful rejoinder,
not infrequently lighted up by sardonic humor
and a devastating frankness. Personally, Pen-
rose was inclined to be aloof and dignified; lie
Penrose
was at ease in converse with gentlemen but when
with his political cronies capable of conduct and
utterances which caused the judicious to grieve
and moved the pious to indignation. Like most
leaders of his type he could be depended upon to
keep his word absolutely; unlike them fie cared
only for power, not for pelf. Through inherit-
ance and fortunate mining investments he was
provided with a sufficiency for his moderate needs
early in his career; he is said never to have
gained a dollar from politics. Master of the
Republican machine in his state for eighteen
years, in reality Penrose was dominated by it;
absorbed as he was by the minutiae of an organi-
zation with nearly 5,000 election divisions and
from twenty to twenty-five thousand active and
hungry workers, it was impossible for him to
devote himself to broad national questions and
to leave an imprint upon the policy of the coun-
try. Thus although qualified by education and
ambition, if not by ideals, he failed to achieve
statesmanship ; nevertheless he was considerably
more intelligent and less grasping than his asso-
ciates and, at times, his opponents, the local Re-
publican leaders, particularly those known as
"contractor bosses." He died in Washington,
D. C. He had never married. Richard A. F. Pen-
rose, 1863-1931 lq.v.1 was a younger brother.
[The numerous public and party offices lield by Pen-
rose are listed in the Cong. Directory and in Smull's
Legislative Hand-B@ok of Pa. for 1921 and earlier
years. Character sketches are presented by C. W. Gil-
bert in The Mirrors of Washington (1921), pp. 328—
41 ; in articles by C. W. Thompson on "The Senate's
Last Leader/* Am. Mercury, June 1924; and by Tal-
cott Williams on "After Penrose, What?" Century f
Nov. 1922. The Philadelphia Public Ledger, Jan. i,
1922, contains an obituary article; a number of me-
morial addresses delivered In the Senate and House,
6;th Cong., are reprinted in a government publication
entitled Senators fr&m Pennsylvania . . . (1924). Wal-
ter Davenport, Power and Glory; The Life of Boies
Penrose (1931), a popular biography, is in reality little
more than a chronigme scamd@leitse. For genealogy, see
J. G. Leach, Hist of the Penrose Fatmily of Philadel-
phia (1903). 1 JLGB.
PENROSE, CHARLES BINGHAM (Oct.
6, 1798-Apr. 6, 1837), lawyer and political lead-
er, was born at Philadelphia, the son of Gement
Biddle and Anne Howard (Blngham) Penrose,
and a descendant of Bartholomew Penrose who
emigrated from Bristol, England, to Pennsyl-
vania about 1700. diaries received his education
in his native citys where, after studying" in the
office of Samuel Ewlng, he was admitted to the
bar on May 9, 1821. Establishing1 himself in
Carlisle, Pa., he practised for a score of years
and became prominent in local politics. On Mar.
16, 1824, he was married to Valeria FtdlertOQ
Biddle.
IB collaboration with Frederick
449
Penrose
Ham Rawle's name also appears on the title page
of the first volume) he published Reports of
Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court of Penn-
sylvania (3 vols,, 1831-33) covering the period
from 1829 to 1832, which became widely known
to the legal profession. In 1833 Penrose was
elected a member of the state Senate, and con-
tinued as such until 1841, serving for a time as
speaker. His term thus coincided with the rise
of the anti-Masonic movement in Pennsylvania,
which figured prominently in the state and coun-
ty elections in 1838. It was charged that the
anti-Masonic Whigs, of whom Penrose was one,
were bent on seating senatorial candidates from
Philadelphia who had not been elected, and when
the session opened on Dec. 4, Speaker Penrose
found himself confronted with a crowd in the
galleries which included some who were de-
termined to thwart that attempt. When he tried
to silence one who, on the face of the returns
appeared to have been elected, Penrose and his
associates were threatened with violence from
the crowd, and were obliged to escape, the speak-
er, according to a Harrisburg paper, having
"jumped out of the window, twelve feet high,
through three thorn bushes and over a seven-
foot picket fence" (quoted by Egle, post, p. 146).
By way of defense to the opposition's criticism,
he issued an Address to the Freemen of Penn-
sylvania (1839), also included in Address of the
Hon. Charles B. Penrose, Speaker of the Senate;
and the Speeches of Messrs. Fraley {City), Wil-
liams, Pearson, and Penrose, Delivered . . . De-
cember 1838 (1839). When the first national
Whig administration came into power in 1841,
Penrose was appointed solicitor of the United
States treasury, and he served until the close of
the Tyler regime in 1845. He then opened an
office in Lancaster, Pa., where he practised un-
til 1847, removing thence to Philadelphia. In
1856 he was again elected to the state Senate,
this time as a "Reform" nominee, and it was
while serving there that he died at Harrisburg-.
Two days later a meeting of the Philadelphia
bar was held at which resolutions were adopted
deploring the loss of one "whose sudden death,
in the midst of honorable labors, has ended a ca-
reer of distinction and usefulness" (Legal Intel-
ligencer, post, p. 117). He had six children,
among whom were Richard Alexander Fullerton
Penrose, father of Boies and Richard A. F. Pen-
rose [qq.v.'] ; and Clement Biddle Penrose, for
many years associate judge of the Philadelphia
orphans' court.
[J. G. Leach, Hist, of the Penrose Family of Phila.
(1903) ; Alfred Nevin, Centennial Bioff. : Men of Mark
of Cumberland Valley, Pa. 1776-1876 (1876); J. H.
Martin, Martin's Bench and Bar of Phila. (1883) ;
Penrose
W. H. Egle, "The Buckshot War/' Pa. Mag. of
and Biog., July 1899; Legal Intelligencer (Ph
Apr. 10, 1857; Daily Pennsylvanian (Phila.), Ap
11,1857-] QS
PENROSE, RICHARD A LEX AND
FULLERTON (Dec. 17, i863-July 31, ig
geologist, was born in Philadelphia. He was
fourth of seven sons of Richard Alexander
lerton Penrose (1827-1908) and Sarah Har
(Boies) and was a younger brother of B
Penrose [q.v.~\. Entering Harvard Univei
in 1880, he graduated in 1884, remaining
further work and receiving the degree of P]
in 1886. In 1885-86 he accompanied Profe
N. S. Shaler \_q.v.~\ on a geological explorat
His years at Harvard were noteworthy not <
for high scholarship but for an active inte
in athletics ; in 1885 and 1886 he was stroke
the University crew.
His serious work in his chosen field, app
geology, began with the preparation of his the
"The Nature and Origin of Deposits of Phospl
of Lime" (published in 1888 as Bulletin of
United States Geological Survey, no. 46). Fi
1886 to 1888 he was manager of mines for
Anglo-Canadian Phosphate Company and -
subsequently appointed to undertake survey*
mineral deposits for the states of Texas (18
89) and Arkansas (1889-92). The results
this work appeared in eight published repo
the most significant of which were "A Preli
nary Report on the Geology of the Gulf Terti
of Texas from Red River to the Rio Granc
First Annual Report of the Geological Surue*
Texas, 1889 (1890), vol. I; "Manganese,"
Uses, Ores and Deposits," Annual Report of
Geological Survey of Arkansas, for. 1890 (189
vol. I ; "The Iron Deposits of Arkansas/' Ib
1892, vol. I (1892). In 1892, with the found
of the University of Chicago, he was offered i
accepted an associate professorship of econoi
geology. Promoted to full professor in 1895,
held the position until 1911, when the press*
of growing responsibilities in his mining ent
prises made it impossible for him longer to
vote any of his time to teaching. From 1893
1911 he was an associate editor of the Journal
Geology. Noteworthy papers not previously m<
tioned include : "The Superficial Alteration
Ore Deposits" (Journal of Geology, April-M
1894) and "Some Causes of Ore Shoots" (£<
nomic Geology, March 1910). Meanwhile,
1894 he was appointed a special geologist of 1
United States Geological Survey to examine 4
gold district of Cripple Creek, Colo., then in
active period of development. The results of ti
study were published by the government ("M;
45°
Pentecost
ing Geology of the Cripple Creek District, Colo-
rado," in Sixteenth Annual Report of the United
States Geological Survey . . . 1894-95, pt 2,
1895). In 1895 he became one of the founders
of the Commonwealth Mining & Milling Com-
pany at what is now Pearce, Ariz., of which he
was president from 1896 to 1903. In the latter
year he was associated with his brother Spencer
Penrose, D. C. Jackling, and others in the found-
ing of the Utah Copper Company at Bingham,
Utah, which was eventually to develop into the
largest copper producing property in North
America.
Clear and constructive but not profuse as a
scientific author, shunning publicity, modest to
the point of diffidence, Penrose was nevertheless
an active member of most of the learned societies
that were related to his chosen interests. He was
a founder and first president (1920-21) of the
Society of Economic Geologists and the year
before his death was chosen president of the
Geological Society of America. His loyalties to
his scientific associates were shown during his
lifetime by many gifts, always unostentatious,
for the support of scientific work— he established
the Penrose Gold Medal of the Geological So-
ciety of America and of the Society of Economic
Geologists — and were evidenced at his death by
munificent bequests to the Geological Society of
America and to the leading American journals of
pure and applied geology by virtue of which he
became the foremost patron of his science.
In his native city he served as trustee of the
University of Pennsylvania (1911-27), president
(1922-26) of the Academy of Natural Sciences
of Philadelphia, member of the Fairmount Park
Commission (1927-31), and trustee of the Free
Public Library of Philadelphia. He never mar-
ried. He died in Philadelphia of chronic nephritis
and arteriosclerosis.
[J G Leach, Hist, of the Penrose Family of PUlm.
(1903) ; manuscript sketch furnished by Miss Manoti
L Ives, Penrose's secretary for many years ; H. Foster
Bain, in Mining and Metallurgy, Sept. 1931 ; Joseph
Stanley-Brown in Science, Nov. 13 1931, and Bag.
Geol Soc. of America, Mar. 1932, with bibhog. ; K. l.
Chamberlm, in Jour, of GeoL, Nov.-Dec. 1931 ',Who s
Who in America, 1930-31 J Phila. Iiuptrer* An&* *»
1931.3 E.S.B— n.
PENTECOST, GEORGE FREDERICK
(Sept 23, i&p-Ang. 7, 1920) » clergyman and
author, was born in Albion, III, the son of Hugh
L. and Emma (Flower) Pentecost In 1856 be
went to Kansas Territory where be became sec-
retary to the governor and clerk of the United
States district court. He was a student at
Georgetown College in Kentucky from 1860 to
1862, when he was converted and enlisted in the
Pentecost
army to serve for two years as chaplain of the
8th Kentucky Cavalry, United States Volunteers.
He entered the Baptist ministry in 1864 and
served congregations at Greencastle and at
Evansville, Ind., for three years. He was then
called to Covington, Ky., where he preached for
another year. On leaving Covington he entered
upon the first of the two important Baptist pas-
torates of his career, Hanson Place church,
Brooklyn, 1869-1872, and Warren Avenue
church, Boston, 1872-1878. His ability as a
pulpit orator and Ms persuasiveness in making"
converts attracted the attention of Dwight Ly-
man Moody iq.v.J with whom he occasionally
joined in evangelistic work during the following
two 3rears. He returned to Brooklyn to become
pastor of Tompkins Avenue Congregational
church in 1880 and remained in this charge until
1887. By this time he had become well known
because of his preaching, his evangelism, and
Ms writings. In 1875 he had published The A ngd
m the Marble; in 1879, In the Volume of the
Book; and, in 1884, Out of Egypt These re-
ligious books were written in the prevailing style
of the day and were second only to his twelve
volumes of Bible Studies (1880-89) in popular-
ity. He was now sought as a religious leader in
other countries. He conducted evangelistic cam-
paigns in several of the large cities of Scotland
in 1887 and 1888; he traveled in India from
1888 to 1891, delivering special lectures to Eng-
lish-speaking Brahmans; and for six years, be-
ginning in 1891, he was minister of Marylebone
church, London. In 1897 he published The Birth
and Boyhood of Christ and Forgiveness of Sins.
He was pastor of First Presbyterian church in
Yonkers, N. Y., during the next five years and
published in 1898 Systematic and
Precious Truths.
In 1902 he visited Japan, China, and the
Philippine Islands, as a special commissioner of
the Presbyterian and Congregational Boards of
Foreign Missions, to study Christian ^work in
the Orient For eleven years after his return
from Asia he lived in retirement, but in 19*4 at
the age of seventy-two, he was persuaded by his
lifelong friend, John Wanamaker, to become the
stated supply of Bethany Presbyterian church
of Philadelphia in which Waaamaker was the
senior elder. Two years later the aged minister
was formally installed as pastor and continued
his evangelistic preaching with vigor and fire.
During the World War he conducted many pa-
triotic services and meetings and spoke vehement-
ly against aH pacifist propaganda. He remained
actively at work until his sudden death in
He was survived by two children awl Ms ,
451
Pepper
Ada (Webber) Pentecost, whom he had married
in Hopkinsville, Ky., on Oct. 6, 1863. Though
his fame as a preacher and writer was greater
before 1900 than afterward, he was held in high
esteem by many church leaders. He was recog-
nized as a stalwart supporter of Biblical author-
ity, as a pulpit orator whose preaching was
marked by deep feeling and unusual breadth of
treatment, and as a man of great physical vigor,
tireless energy, and sensitive spirit.
[Who's Who in America, 1916-17; P. C. Headley,
George F. Pentecost: Life, Labors, and Bible Studies
(1880) j In Affectionate Memorial of George F. Pente-
cost (pub. by Bethany church, Phila., 1920) ; Presby-
teriant Aug. 12, 1920 ; N. Y. Times, Aug. 9, 1920.]
P. P. F.
PEPPER, GEORGE SECKEL (June 11,
i8o8-May 2, 1890), philanthropist, was born in
Philadelphia, the son of George and Mary Cath-
arine (Seckel) Pepper; William Pepper, 1810-
1864 [q.vJ], was a brother. Their grandfather,
Henry Pepper (Heinrich PfefTer), born near
Strasburg, Germany, had come to America with
his wife Catharine about 1769 and settled in Leb-
anon County, Pa. In 1774 he moved to Phila-
delphia, where he made a fortune and died in
1808. His extensive business interests were tak-
en over by his second son, George, who became
one of the richest men in the city. In business
ability he was probably equaled by no other
Philadelphian of the time except Stephen Girard
[#.#.]. He is said to have had the first green-
house in Philadelphia and was one of the found-
ers of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society.
Thus George S. Pepper, in the third generation,
inherited wealth that gave him ample opportunity
to promote the cultural development of his na-
tive city, especially since he never married.
He was admitted to the bar Oct. 23, 1830, but
gave much of his time to civic interests. For
thirty-four years, from 1850 to 1884, he served
on the board of directors of the Pennsylvania
Academy of the Fine Arts and was its president
from 1884 until his death, when the Academy
became one of the beneficiaries under his will.
In 1853 he was one of a group of public-spirited
citizens who decided to erect a building where
music could be suitably heard ; several of their
early meetings were held in his office. The Amer-
ican Academy of Music (now simply the Acad-
emy of Music), seating nearly 3,000 and with
unusually fine acoustic properties, was opened
Jan. 26, 1857, and at once became the center in
Philadelphia for musical performances and im-
portant public gatherings. Pepper did much to
insure the success of the undertaking, not only
as a generous subscriber, but also as chairman
of the building committee, for a time of the
Pepper
finance committee, and from 1857 to 1870 o-
executive committee. Among the many phi
thropies that he fostered was the Henry Sey
Fund, for the care of indigent children, of w
he was a trustee.
At his death in 1890 the greater part of
estate of about $2,000,000 went to public b
factions, including legacies to ten hospitals,
Franklin Institute, the Zoological Society,'
Pennsylvania Museum and School of Indus
Art, the Rittenhouse Club, for the purchase
library, and the Philadelphia, Commercial,
Apprentice libraries. To the University of P<
sylvania he gave $60,000 which was used to
dow the George S. Pepper Professorship of .
giene. In addition to $150,000, a share in
residuary estate was set aside to found a
city library ; for although Philadelphia had le
the eighteenth century in the establishmen'
lending libraries, these had remained close <
porations. Pepper realized the inadequacy of
legacy for the purpose intended, but his hope 1
this might serve as a nucleus was soon reali:
largely through the enthusiastic support of
project by his nephew, Provost William Pej
[#.#.], and other members of his family.
1927, when its handsome new building i
opened on the Parkway, the Free Library
Philadelphia had twenty-nine branches in
city and about 750,000 books.
[J. W. Jordan, Colonial Families of Phila. (igi
F. N. Thorpe, William Pepper, M.D., LL.D. (190
The Free Library of Philadelphia, First Annual
port, Oct. 1896 ; Exercises at the Opening of the fo
Building of the Free Library of Phila. . . . June 2 i
(1927) ; Public Ledger (Phila.), May 3, 1890; Nt
American (Phila.), May 7, 1890; records of the
Acad. of the Fine Arts, and of the Acad. of Music.]
A.L.I
PEPPER, WILLIAM (Jan. 21, i8io-0ct.
1864), physician, teacher, was born in Ph
delphia, the son of George and Mary Cathar
(Seckel) Pepper, and a brother of George Sec
Pepper \_q.v. ~\. He received his early educat
in a school at Holmesburg, from which he w
to the College of New Jersey, graduating in 18
He then began the study of medicine with ]
Thomas T. Hews on, and in 1829 entered
medical department of the University of Pei
sylvania, where he was graduated in 1832, •
title of his thesis being "Apoplexy." Soon af
his graduation there was an outbreak of Asia
cholera in Philadelphia, during which he r<
dered good service as a resident in the Bush I:
Hospital. In the autumn of 1832 he went abrc
for further study, working in Paris, particula-
with Pierre Louis and Guillaume Dupuytren.
this time Paris attracted the most brilliant of
young American physicians, and he was one c
452
Pepper
celebrated group which Included Oliver Wendell
Holmes [g.z;.].
Returning" to Philadelphia, he took up the prac-
tice of medicine. His first professional position
was with the Philadelphia Dispensary, and, given
charge of a district, he soon attracted attention
by the character of his work. In 1839 he was
appointed to the staff of the Wills Eye Hospital
and in 1841, to the Institute for Instruction of
the Blind. In 1842 he was elected a physician to
the Pennsylvania Hospital, a position which he
held until 1858, and took a prominent part in the
teaching carried on there. He was known as a
keen diagnostician and was celebrated for his
clear and practical instruction, especially in his
clinical lectures. In 1860 he was appointed pro-
fessor of medicine in the University of Penn-
sylvania, succeeding George B. Wood [#.£?.],
which position he held for four years, ill health
compelling his resignation. He is described as
of delicate frame and quick and active in his
movements. His portrait, in the Medical School
of the University of Pennsylvania, suggests a
keen, kindly personality. During his stay in Paris
he suffered from illness and spent part of a win-
ter in the south of Europe. His health apparent-
ly was not robust ; he suffered from hemoptysis
from which he died.
In 1840 he married Sarah Platt of Philadel-
phia. There were seven children, of whom two
became physicians, George and William [g.^.].
He was a member of many medical societies and
the American Philosophical Society. He con-
tributed a considerable number of articles to
medical journals, but his influence seems to have
been exerted more through his knowledge of dis-
ease and his excellent teaching than through his
writings.
[T. S. Kirkbride, "Biog. Memoir of William Pepper,"
in Quart. Summary, Trans. Coll. Physicians and Sur-
geons, Phila., 1865-66 (1867), reprinted separately
( 1866) ; F. P. Henry, Standard Hist, of the Medic. Pro-
fession of Phila. (1897) ; T. G. Morton, The Hist, of
the Pa. Hospital (1895) ; H. A. Kelly and W. L. Bur-
rage, Am. Medic. Biogs. (1920) ; Phila. Inqmrer, Oct.
1 8, 1864.] T.M,
PEPPER, WILLIAM (Aug. 21, i843-July 28,
1898), physician, educator, and public benefac-
tor, was born in Philadelphia, the son of William
[q.v.] and Sarah (Platt) Pepper, and a nephew
of George Seckel Pepper [g.v.]. He was a great-
grandson of Heinnch Pfeffer who came to
America in 1769, and a grandson of George
Pepper, Philadelphia merchant, who laid the
foundation of the extensive family fortune. The
elder William Pepper was one of the foremost
physicians of Philadelphia. His frail health and
his extensive practice and teaching* responsifoili-
Pepper
ties relegated the care and training of the chil-
dren to their mother, who came of a New Jersey
Quaker family. Her calm influence on her son
William probably contributed an element of re-
pose to an individuality characterized by mental
vigor and tireless energy. His early education
was obtained in the school conducted by the Rev.
Ormes B. Keith, later in that of Dr. John W.
Paries. In September 1858, although as he says
his knowledge at the time "consisted largely of
Latin and Greek with a small fluency in expres-
sion and English composition/' he entered the
University of Pennsylvania, where four years
later he graduated, second in his class. In 1862
he entered the Medical Department, the faculty
of which included besides his father, Dr. Joseph
Leidy lq.v.~\1 and Dr. Richard A. F. Penrose, pro-
fessor of obstetrics. Following his graduation in
1864, l1^ devoted some months to the care of his
father who had been forced to resign his chair in
the Medical School and who died in October of
the same year. Subsequently, he served one year
as resident physician to the Pennsylvania Hospi-
tal, and soon afterward was appointed pathologist
and visiting physician to the same institution.
He later received similar posts at the Philadel-
phia Hospital, BlocMey. Because of his sound
pathological training and his growing clinical
ability, he was appointed in 1868, lecturer on
morbid anatomy at the Medical School of the
University of Pennsylvania, and two years later
was named to a similar post in clinical medicine.
These early teaching appointments were followed
by thirty years of service to the University.
In order to enlarge the scope of his knowledge,
he spent several months m Europe in 1871, study-
ing methods in medical education and insti-
tutional administration and incidentally laying1
the foundation for Ms future development as an
executive and broad-vlsioned educator. Upon his
return, he threw himself at once into the novel
project of establishing a teaching hospital in con-
nection with the University Medical School. A
committee was formed of which this young man
of twenty-seven was the most active member.
The ingenious methods by which he awakened
the support of conservative Philadelphia mer-
chants and exploited the city council and the state
legislature marked an epoch In the development
of the Medical School, the University, the city
and the man. largely through his efforts there
was founded in 1874 the first hospital in Amer-
ica intimately associated with a university medi-
cal school in which the faculty acted as the staff.
Throughout his life he continued to labor for the
development of the University Hospital In
he founded the ntirses* training school, f
453
Pepper
under the guidance of a trained director and ar-
ranging for a definite course of instruction, and
in 1894, as a memorial to his father, he estab-
lished and endowed the William Pepper Labora-
tory of Clinical Medicine, the first laboratory in
America for the prosecution of advanced clinical
studies into the causation of disease.
In 1875 he was made medical director of the
Centennial Exhibition to be held in Philadelphia
the following year. Under his supervision a
model hospital was erected, problems of hygiene
and sanitation were solved, and the bureau of
medical service displayed such efficiency that he
was personally honored by the English and Nor-
wegian governments. During this same period,
his professional reputation increased greatly and
consequently, in 1876, he was elected to the chair
of clinical medicine, newly created. On Oct. I,
1877, as an introduction to his course of clinical
lectures, he delivered a notable address, Higher
Medical Education, the True Interest of the Pub-
lic and the Profession, which was published by
the trustees. His position as medical director of
the Centennial had offered him additional oppor-
tunities to acquaint himself with the methods of
medical instruction used abroad, and this address
dealt with the evils prevalent in American medi-
cal education, reviewed the sounder European
systems, and suggested correction and new con-
cepts for the American schools. Together with
the efforts of President Eliot at Harvard, it
paved the way for drastic reforms in American
medical education.
In 1884, although in 1880 Pepper had become
provost of the University, he was called upon to
accept in addition to that office the professorship
of the theory and practice of medicine, succeed-
ing to a chair vacated by his father twenty years
before. The latter position he filled with distinc-
tion until his death. Numerous professional hon-
ors came to him. He was a founder (1884) and
president (1886) of the American Climatologi-
cal Society, president (1886) of the American
Clinical Association and (1891) of the Asso-
ciation of American Physicians, and a member
of the executive committee of the American
Medical Association. In 1893, as president of
the first Pan-American Medical Congress, he
did much to promote international relationships
and to endear himself to his Latin- American col-
leagues.
During his active professional life, he pub-
lished several hundred papers on medical topics,
most of them being transcriptions of his clinical
lectures and reports of unusual cases. Some of
his contributions are of extreme interest : in one
early paper, The Morphological Changes of the
Pepper
Blood in Malarial Fever (1867), prepared in
collaboration with Edward Rhoads and J. F
Meigs, the pigmented bodies in the erythrocytes*
later shown to be the malarial parasites, were ac-
curately described. In a contribution on perni-
cious anemia (American Journal of the Medical
Sciences, October 1875), he was the first to call
attention to the involvement of the bone marrow.
At various times he published observations on
the treatment of pulmonary cavities incident to
phthisis and on the climatological treatment of
that disease (notably in The Climatological Study
of Phthisis in Pennsylvania, 1887) . His shrewd
conclusions paved the way for the modern
therapeutics of tuberculosis. His better known
contributions to medical literature, however, were
A Practical Treatise on the Diseases of Children
(1870), which was a fourth, revised, edition of
a work by John F. Meigs [q.v.] ; A System of
Practical Medicine (5 vols., 1885-86) , issued un-
der his editorship ; and a more condensed Text-
Book of the Theory and Practice of Medicine (2
vols., 1893-94). His fame could rest securely,
however, upon two addresses on medical educa-
tion, that delivered in 1877, mentioned above,
and another bearing the same title, delivered in
1893 (Higher Medical Education, the True In-
terest of the Public and the Profession; Two Ad-
dresses, 1894). The one formulated fundamental
principles, the other described their fruition and
offered still loftier conceptions for future ac-
complishment.
Soon after the resignation of Provost Charles
J. Stille [q.v.] in 1880, William Pepper was
called upon to undertake the administrative bur-
den of the entire University, in addition to his
professorship of medicine and his private prac-
tice. Inaugurated as provost Feb. 22, 1881, he
made his first report to the trustees in 1883. In
the next three years he obtained additional land
from the city by arranging for the award of cer-
tain scholarships to local high school graduates
and reorganized the faculties and curricula of
the College, the Dental School, the Law School,
and the Towne Scientific School. During this
time also he was concerned in the founding of
the Wharton School of Finance, the Veterinary
School and additions to the University Hospital.
By the end of a decade of his provostship, the
University had grown greatly; most of the de-
partments were self-supporting or had insig-
nificant deficits, and the funded debt had been
reduced through numerous gifts and bequests in-
spired by Pepper. On land previously acquired,
a library and a school of hygiene had been erected
and additional property had been secured for fu-
ture developments, A biological school and a,de-
454
Pepper
partment of physical education had been started,
many scholarships and fellowships had been
founded, and the College and the Graduate School
of Philosophy had been further developed. Part-
ly as the result of the Provosf s vigorous example
the annual bibliography of the faculties totaled
hundreds of publications. In addition, he had
introduced the University, Extension Lectures
by the faculty and other famous scholars and had
supported the acquisition of archeological treas-
ures by sponsoring an expedition to Babylonia
under the direction of John Punnett Peters [q.v.1.
Aside from his University duties, he had found-
ed (1886) the College Association of Pennsyl-
vania, forerunner of the Association of Colleges
and Secondary Schools of the Middle States and
Maryland.
During the last four years of his tenure as
provost, a School of Architecture was founded,
and on newly acquired land were built the Wistar
Institute of Anatomy and Biology, a gymnasium,
a chemistry building, an engineering building,
and a central heating and lighting station. The
medical course was increased to four years, the
College curriculum was modified by the adoption
of the group elective system, and in 1892 the Ben-
nett School for the graduate instruction of wom-
en was opened, marking a radical departure from
the traditional policy of the University. Pep-
per's teaching in the Medical School, his enor-
mous consulting practice, his duties as provost,
and the multitudinous outside demands made
upon him by virtue of this office made serious
inroads on his health and vitality, and in April
1894 he presented his resignation to the trustees,
accompanying it with a large gift to the Hospital.
In fourteen years, from a loosely organized group
of schools, he had raised the University to emi-
nence in academic circles. Some conception of
this accomplishment can be obtained by reading
the gloomy reminiscences of his predecessor and
then turning to his own final report and the
tributes paid to him when he retired.
Aside from his professional and University
interests, Pepper advanced the welfare of the
community by his zealous promotion of any cause
directed toward civic betterment or the elevation
of the cultural ideals of the public. The Uni-
versity Extension Lectures grew in popularity,
and in 1892 the scope of the experiment was en-
larged by the founding of the American Society
for the Extension of University Teaching. Pep-
per lived to see this pioneer effort in adult edu-
cation spread into 343 cities of the Eastern states.
The death of Ms uncle, George S, Peppetv in 1890
revealed a bequest of $250,000 to found a Free
Library in Philadelphia, and the nephew direct-
Pepper
ed the utilization of the money in developing
an institution capable of unlimited expansion.
From a temporary central library at City Hall
and two small branches, grew during his life-
time the Philadelphia Free Library.
The resources of his waning strength Pepper
devoted to promoting the cause of the Philadel-
phia museums. The Commercial Museum is a
monument to his organizing ability expended in
spite of bodily suffering and the press of other
exhausting duties. Once recognizing the rela-
tion of archeological discoveries to education, he
gave his powerful support to the excavations near
ancient Nippur and organized the Archeological
Association of the University which subsequent-
ly (1892) developed into a University depart-
ment Vast treasures of unique interest poured
into the limited space at the disposal of the Uni-
versity and after his resignation from the office
of provost, he was induced to throw the weight
of his influence into the creation of an adequate
museum, with the result that the University
Museum, an edifice of noble proportions, was
erected on what had been a smoke-swept dump
heap overlooking the SchuylkilL
It was eminently fitting that this nineteenth
century citizen and benefactor of Philadelphia
should associate himself in marriage with a great-
grand-daughter of Benjamin Franklin. On June
25, 1873, he married Frances Sergeant Perry,
sister of Thomas Sergeant Perry [q.v.J> whose
mother was a grand-daughter of Sarah (Frank-
lin) and Richard Bacfie [g.wj. To Pepper and
his wife were born four sons, three of whom lived
to maturity. To few men has it been given to
accomplish so much in so many fields of effort in
so short a lifetime. Pepper attained the pin-
nacle of success in his chosen profession, whether
that success be judged by scientific ability or by
personal emoluments. The latter were merely a
means to an end; he dared mot curtail Ms enor-
mous practice, for by its returns he promoted Ms
larger projects at the University. His person-
ality was magnetic, Ms enthusiasm contagions.
He had the true physician's tenderness and sym-
pathy for his fellow mortal The demands made
upon his time by his practice,, his consultation
work—which took Mm aS over the Eastern
states — {HS teacMng and administrative duties,
called forth the utmost reserves of bodily and
mental vigor for their accomplishment. For
years he slept only for short internals and en-
joyed only momentary relaxation. Even during
the last five years of Ms life, his body racked t»y
fiie torture of recurring" attacks of angina pco-
toris, he never relaxed his exhausting moile of
living, but at length his physical resources were
455
Pepperrell
completely spent and he died, in Pleasanton, Cal.,
in his fifty-fifth year.
[F. N. Thorpe, William Pepper, M.D., LL.D.>
(1904); Trans. Coll. of Physicians of Phila., 3 ser.
XXIII (1901) ; C. J. Stille, Reminiscences of a Provost,
1866-1880 (n.d.) ; Annual Reports of the Provost and
Treasurer of the Univ. of Pa., 1883—94; Addresses
Made at the Meeting Held in Memory of William Pep-
per ... in the Chapel of the Univ. of Pa. (1899) ; The
Free Lib. of Phila. . . . Ann. Report, 1896, 1897; PM-&.
Ledger (Phila.), July 30, 1898; MSS. and clippings in
the possession of Pepper's son, Dean William Pepper,
School of Medicine, Univ. of Pa.] j u p n
E.S.T.'
PEPPERRELL, Sir WILLIAM (June 27,
i696-July 6, 1759), colonial merchant and sol-
dier, was born in the Pepperrell house at Kittery
Point, Me. His father, also William Pepperrell,
was a native of Tavistock, near Plymouth, Eng-
land. As a penniless lad, he had been apprenticed
to the captain of a fishing vessel sailing to the
New England coast. At the age of twenty-two
he had settled on the Isle of Shoals as a merchant.
He prospered, married Margery Bray, and ulti-
mately moved to the home of his wife's family,
Kittery Point on the mainland. Here he became
a justice of the peace and, in time, one of the
most prosperous of the New England merchants
of his day. Young William's education consist-
ed of the three R's, knowledge picked up while
helping in his father's store, and the frontier lore
naturally acquired by a boy growing up on the
edge of civilization. Indian outrages in the
neighborhood were not infrequent, and he was
a member of the militia at sixteen. When his
only brother died, his father took him into part-
nership and the firm became known as the Wil-
liam Pepperrells. They dealt in lumber and
fish ; built ships which they dispatched with car-
goes to the southern colonies, the West Indies,
the Mediterranean countries, and England, sell-
ing vessels as well as cargoes ; and imported Eu-
ropean products which they sold in Boston.
Their constantly increasing profits were invest-
ed in real estate, rapidly advancing in value. By
1729 young William had acquired, among other
holdings, almost the entire townships of Saco
and Scarboro. The firm's large business made it
an important factor in foreign exchange, and the
younger William spent much of his time in
Boston managing affairs there. His business
brought him into contact with the leading public
men and the good society of town. On Mar. 16,
1723, he married Mary Hirst, grand-daughter of
Samuel Sewall [q.v.~\.
At home, advancement in the militia was rapid
and at thirty he had become colonel in command
of all the militia in the Province of Maine. In
1726 he was elected representative to the Massa-
Pepperrell
chusetts General Court from Kittery, and the
next year became an assistant, or member of the
Council, an office to which he was annually re-
appointed until his death. For eighteen years
he was chosen president of the Council. In 1730
Gov. Jonathan Belcher [g.z/.], for political rea-
sons, removed the incumbents of the judicial
bench and appointed Pepperrell as the new chief
justice. The latter at once ordered some books
from London and started to study law. It is
typical of the happy star which shone over him
throughout his career that he could reverse the
usual order, becoming chief justice first and
reading law afterwards. Upon the death of his
father in 1734, he inherited the bulk of the es-
tate. He was now a power in New England, head
of the militia of Maine, president of the Massa-
chusetts Council, his ability as a "captain of in-
dustry" recognized, connected by marriage with
the socially elect, and possessed of one of the
largest fortunes in the colony. He had had four
children, of whom only two, Elizabeth and An-
drew, survived infancy. The young heiress mar-
ried Nathaniel Sparhawk, and Andrew, after
graduating from Harvard with high honors, be-
came his father's business partner in 1744.
Pepperrell's close friend, Governor Belcher,
whom he had steadily supported in the continu-
ous salary controversy, was succeeded by Wil-
liam Shirley \_q.v.~\, and in the year that Andrew
entered business, Great Britain declared war on
France. The colonies were at once involved, and
Shirley conceived the scheme of capturing
Louisbourg, the French stronghold on Cape
Breton. A descent by the commander of Louis-
bourg on a British outpost at Canso Island en-
raged the English ; Shirley pushed his plans rap-
idly; the help of other colonies was enlisted;
and Commodore Sir Peter Warren \_q.v.~], cruis-
ing in the West Indies, received orders from
England to cooperate with the provincial forces.
Between three and four thousand men were dis-
patched from the colonies, about a third of them
from Maine, and Pepperrell was chosen com-
mander of the expedition.
The flotilla bearing the American troops ar-
rived Apr. 30 and found the British fleet wait-
ing at the rendezvous. The troops were disem-
barked with skill. Pepperrell's experience in the
militia had given him no knowledge of Conti-
nental methods of attacking fortresses; never-
theless, the siege began. The French garrison,
inefficient and corrupt, observing the uncouth
movements of the invaders, became suddenly
panic-stricken and abandoned the grand battery
without striking a blow. The Americans took
possession of the enemy's cannon and, with great
456
Pepperrell
difficulty, brought up more. It was said by some
of the survivors of the siege that it resembled a
"Cambridge Commencement," being only half a
siege and half an uproarious holiday (Jeremy
Belknap, The History of New Hampshire^ 1812,
II, 170). The American supplies ran short,
though by the capture of a French frigate sent to
relieve the fortress the navy replenished the pow-
der and ammunition; and at times half the at-
tacking force was on the sick list To the relief
of everybody, including the French, the garrison
surrendered on June 17.
Though it cannot be claimed that Pepperrell
displayed much military skill, he had qualities
which greatly helped the enterprise to its suc-
cessful conclusion. He held the undisciplined
colonial troops at their posts by his personal pop-
ularity. The cooperation of the British fleet was
essential and British and colonials rarely got on
well together, but Pepperrell was patient and
tactful and for the successful cooperation that
was achieved deserves a good share of the credit
The capture of the fortress was warmly wel-
comed in England and the leading participants
were all honored. Pepperrell was commissioned
colonel (Sept. i, 1745), with authority to raise
and command a regiment in the regular British
line and in November 1746 was created a bar-
onet, an honor never before conferred on a na-
tive American. After the capture he acted joint-
ly with Warren as governor of the conquered
territory, raised his regiment, and remained at
Louisbourg until late in the spring of 1746. He
sat in the Council at Boston in June and then
returned to his affairs at Kittery. In September
1749 he went to London, where he was received
by the King, and was made something of a social
lion. The City of London presented him with a
service of plate as a token of respect for his mili-
tary exploit He remained there nearly a year,
then returned to Kittery. Soon afterward his
only son died, unmarried.
His landed property had become very great
and he now gradually wound tip his mercantile
affairs. In 1753 he was one of the commission-
ers, as he had frequently been before, to negoti-
ate a treaty with the Maine Indians. When the
French and Indian War broke out, he was or-
dered by the King to raise a regiment of rooo
men. Shortly afterward he went to New York
on the concerns of his regiment, which was on-
ployed in the Oswego expedition with Shirley's.
Pepperrell, who had been made a major-general,
Feb. 27, 1755, did not accompany them but at
Shirley's order took command of the eastern
frontier. Early in February 1755 Shirley sug-
gested that Peppenrell lead an expedition against
Perabo
Crown Point but later changed his mind, and a
coolness developed between them. After Shirley
went to London in 1756, and the lieutenant-gov-
ernor died, the Massachusetts government was
administered by the Council, and Pepperrell as
president of that body was de facto governor. He
was appointed commander of Castle William and
of all the military forces of the colony. On the
arrival of the new governor, Thomas Pownall
[g.u], in August 1757, Pepperrell was ordered
to proceed to Springfield or other parts of the
frontier and raise troops for the defense of the
province. On Feb. 20, 1759, he was commis-
sioned lieutenant-general in the royal army, but
his health was failing, lie did not take part in
the remaining operations of the war, and on July
6, 1759, he died.
With his death, his baronetcy became extinct.
The bulk of his estate was left to his grandson,
William Pepperrell Sparhawk, on condition that
he take the name Pepperrell, and in 1774 this
William Pepperrell was created baronet He
was a Loyalist and fled to England on the out-
break of the Revolution ; his property was con-
fiscated, and his only son died unmarried.
[Usher Parsons, Tke Life of Sir William Pepperrell,
Bart. (rev. ed, 1856) ; J. F. Sprague, Three Men from
Maine (1924) ; C. A. Harris, In Diet. Nat. Bwg. ; C. H.
C. Howard, "The Peppered! Portraits/* Essex Inst.
Hist. Colls., vol. XXXI (1894-95) ; C. H. C Howard,
The Pepperrells in America (1906), repr. from Essex.
Inst. Hist. Colls., article on William Pei35>errell appear-
ing In vol. XXXVII (1901) ; "Tfee Peppetreli Papers/*
Mass. Hist, Sac. Colls., 6 ser. X (1899) ; "The
Journal of Sir William Pepperrel! Kept during the Ex-
pedition against Louisbourg:, Mar. 24— Aug. 22, 1745,"
Proc. Am. Antig. Soc.t n.s., vol. XX (1911) ; An Ac-
curate four, and Acc&vnt of the Proceedings of tk&
New-England Land Forces during the Lttte Expedition
(1746), official j Quintals, pub. in Lontfon; Lamisbonrg
Journals, 1745 (1932), ed. by L. E. deForest; Ctnrer-
spondenceof Wm. Shirley (2 vols., 1912), ed. by C H.
Lincoln* instructions and letters relating to the Cape
Breton expedition, Mess. Hist. Soc. Cotts., voL I
(1792) ; G. E. Cokayne, Complete Barmtetage, vol. V
(1906) ; Gentleman's Mag. (London), Sept. 1759; Ben-
jamin Stereos, A Sermon Occtmomed by tke Death of
the Hon. Sir Wm. PepperreU (1759).] J.T.A.
PERABO, JOHAMN ERNST (Nov. 14,
i845~Oct. 29, 1920), pianist, teacher, and com-
poser, was born in Wiesbaden, Germany, the son
of Michael and Christine (Hubner) Perabo.
The father was a school teacher and, according
to German requirements, also an organist, pian-
ist, and violinist, hence he was well qualified to
train his nine children, all of whom became mu-
sicians. Ernst, the only child by Michael Pera-
bofs second wife, proved to be the most gifted,
and he began the study of piano with his father
when he was ive years old. In 1852 the family
emigrated to America, settling irst in New York,
where they remained for two years. Ernst re-
ceived instruction in violin and piano from serf-
457
Perabo
eral teachers and during his second year in New
York appeared at a concert given by a teacher
named Heinrich. A great future was predicted
for him. His parents removed to Dover, N. H.,
and then to Boston, where they remained for
only one year. In Boston he took violin lessons
from William Schultze, of the Mendelssohn
Quintet Club, and played at a concert under the
direction of Carl Zerrahn. The next move took
the family to Chicago. Soon thereafter they
went to Washington, D. C, solely to obtain an
interview with President Buchanan, in the hope
that through him they could secure assistance
from the government to send the talented child
to Europe. They were granted an interview but
were not successful in securing funds. They did,
however, win the ear of William Scharfenberg,
a prominent musician in New York, who formed
a committee to defray the expenses of the boy's
education in Europe. He sailed for Hamburg in
1858 and spent four years there, but he had to
struggle against ill health, which prevented se-
rious music study.
In 1862 he entered the Leipzig Conservatory
where he studied piano with Moscheles and
Wenzel, harmony with Papperitz, Hauptmann,
and Richter, and later composition with Rei-
necke. In 1865 he won the Helbig prize, and, at
the public examination of the Conservatory, he
played two movements of the Burgmuller con-
certo in F# minor, which had just been pub-
lished. He returned to the United States the
same year (1865). He established himself first
in New York, as teacher and pianist, and gave a
number of concerts that were so successful that
he decided to give a series of matinees, at which
he performed the sonatas of Schubert. His par-
ents, meantime, had gone to Sandusky, Ohio,
to live. He gave several successful concerts there
and also at Lafayette, Cleveland, and Chicago.
In 1866 he transferred his residence to Boston
and remained there until his death. He never
gave concerts on a large scale but devoted him-
self more particularly to teaching, in which he
was most successful. For many years he played
annually at the Harvard concerts at which he
gave many works unknown at that time in
America. He was especially commended for his
playing of Beethoven, and for his interpretation
of the Schubert pianoforte works. Besides hav-
ing a fluent technique, he was a remarkable
sight-reader. He was a zealous conservative, but
he approached new works in a spirit of open-
mindedness. He married Louise Schmidt of
Boston from whom he soon separated. His death
occurred at West Roxbury, Mass., in the home-
stead in which his parents had lived. He wrote
Peralta
numerous compositions, for the most part for-
gotten, and many transcriptions, including the
first movement of Rubinstein's "Ocean Sym-
phony," parts of Beethoven's Fidelio, the first
movement of Schubert's "Unfinished Sym-
phony," and several of the Loewe ballads. Of
his own compositions, the following are prob-
ably the most important: "Moment Musical"
(opuA i); Scherzo (opus 2); Prelude (opus
3) ; Waltz (opus 4) ; "Pensees" (opus n) ; Pre-
lude, Romance and Toccatina (opus 19).
[W. S. B. Mathews, A Hundred Years of Music in
America (1889); Who's Who in America, 1918-19;
Grove's Diet, of Music and Musicians: Am. Supp.
(1930); Boston Transcript, Oct. 29, 1920; informa-
tion as to certain facts from Mr. George A. Burdett of
Newton Center, Mass., and from Miss Clementine Mil-
ler, Alton, N. H.] F|L G c
PERALTA, PEDRO de (c. 1584-1 666), third
governor of New Mexico, founder of Santa Fe,
was connected with a noble family which origi-
nated in Navarre during the middle ages. There
is some evidence that he was a university gradu-
ate and trained in canon law; also that he had
seen military service. He is believed to have been
unmarried and about twenty-five years of age in
the winter of 1608-09 when he arrived in the
city of Mexico. On Mar. 5, 1609, the viceroy ap-
pointed him governor of New Mexico, to super-
sede Juan de Onate \_q.v.~] and his son Cristobal,
and instructed him "before all else" to see to the
founding of a new villa with a view to order and
permanence. From April to October 1609, Pe-
ralta was at Zacatecas, assembling building sup-
plies, foodstuffs, weapons, clothing, carts and
livestock, missionaries, soldiers, Indian servants.
Probably, therefore, he did not reach Onate's col-
ony at San Gabriel until March 1610; at least,
Onate and his son did not depart before May.
The name selected by Peralta for the new
villa, Santa Fe, would suggest a strong piety in
his character, yet, as governor, it was his duty
to maintain the king's authority as superior to
that of the Church, and he was soon crossing
swords with the Franciscan missionaries. In
the spring of 1612, the comisario, Fray Isidro de
Ordonez, was in Mexico city getting the next
three years' supplies for the missionaries; and
upon his return, late that year, he represented
that he had been made comisario of the Holy In-
quisition also — a false claim for which he was
later rebuked by the king and disciplined by his
own order. Apparently Peralta required him to
show his credentials ; Ordonez refused, called the
governor a "schismatic heretic," and posted SM
excommunication of him. When Peralta disre-
garded the excommunication, he was seized b^
Fray Ordonez with the help of some of tlie sol-
4S8
Percfae
diers and colonists and was held prisoner for
nearly a year in the convent at Sandia pueblo.
Early in December 1612 he managed to escape,
"in the dead of winter, and half naked, covered
with a buffalo skin like an Indian." His jailer,
Fray Estevan de Perea, pursued him with a large
force of Indians to a ranch five miles away, but
he had escaped to Santa Fe. There he was
again seized and brought back "in irons and seat-
ed on a beast like a woman." But from Santa
Fe, Dec. 13, 1612, he had managed to send a re-
port of his situation to Mexico city ; and nearly
a year later peremptory orders arrived which ef-
fected his release.
Official approval of Peralta's defense of crown
prerogatives appeared in his passing a satisfac-
tory residencies. Also he was next appointed lieu-
tenant-commander at the port of Acapulco ; and
in 1621-22 he was alcalde of the royal ware-
house in Mexico city. In 1637 he arrived in
Caracas, Venezuela ; and the following year he
married a widow of means, sister of Pedrode
Paredes, and bought a half -interest in a trading
vessel. From 1644 to 1645 he was auditor of the
royal treasury at Caracas; later, he was acting
treasurer; and from February 1651 to August
1652, was treasurer, having purchased that of-
fice. Late in the latter year he arrived in Madrid,
"old and infirm and almost blind, maimed in the
right hand and totally incapacitated" through
injuries inflicted by enemies in Caracas from
whom he had required moneys due the king. He
petitioned and was granted (1654) leave to re-
sign, and that his wife and two children be
shielded from his enemies and allowed to join
him in Spain. Until his death, which occurred
in Madrid in 1666, his lot may have been happier,
yet his estate was attached by the Jesuit order,
and in 1671 the Alferez Pedro de Paredes was
striving to salvage something for his widowed
sister and her two children.
[Data supplied by France V. Scholes from Staat&-
bibliothek, Mtinich : Codex Monacensis, Hisp. 79 ; and
data gathered by the writer in Madrid, Seville, and
Mexico city ; "Instructions for Don Pedro de Peralta/'
El Palado, June 16, 1928; another translation in
N* Mex. Hist. Rev., Apr. 1,929 ; "When Was Santa Fe
Founded?'* IUd., Apr. 1929 J "Fray Estevan de P^eas
Relacion," IUd., July 1933; L- ?. Bloom and T. C
Donnelly, N. Mex. Hist, and Civics (i933)-J
L.B.R
PERCHfi, NAPOLEON JOSEPH (Jan. 10,
i8os-Dec. 27, 1883), Roman Catholic prelate
and editor, was born at Angers, France. A pre-
cocious child, he cottld read at four ; afe eighteen
he was a professor of philosophy ; and at twenty-
four he was ordained a priest, after graduating"
from the Seminary of BeatipreatL He served in
various pastorates in France ttntl 1837, wbea
Perche
he went to America to assist Benedict J. Flaget
[q.v.J, bishop of Bardstown, Ky., in his mission-
ary work at Portland.
Wishing to raise money to build a church for
his parishioners, who were poor, he secured per-
mission to go to New Orleans. There, in the St
Louis Cathedral, he preached such eloquent ser-
mons in French that the Creoles soon subscribed
the money he needed, and the Archbishop, An-
toine Blanc [$.zf.], offered him an appointment.
Perche, however, asked to be allowed first to go
back to Kentucky and finish his church. This
work accomplished, he returned to New Orleans,
and, in 1842, became almoner of the Ursuline
Convent, a post he filled for twenty-eight years.
In 1842 began the long drawn-out controversy
between Blanc and the wardens of the St. Louis
Cathedral over the right to appoint the curate.
It became so bitter that it was taken to the
courts and the wardens retained the three lead-
ing lawyers of the city — Sonle, Roselius, and
Mazureau — to represent their side. In order to
mobilize public opinion in favor of his church's
stand, Perche founded a French weeMy called
Le Propagaten-r CathoUgue, which made its ini-
tial appearance on Nov. 12, 1842. Although it
contained an announcement that it was "pub-
lished by a society of literary men/* Perche him-
self did most of the writing and struck some
doughty blows in defense of his ecclesiastical
superior, Archbishop Blanc, whose cause was
eventually sustained in the supreme court Hie
good Abbe was a fearless fighter, and his edi-
torials were so vehemently partizan and pugna-
cious that they lacked the calm judicial quality
which might have been expected of his cloth.
He continued, nevertheless, to edit the paper suc-
cessfully until, in 1857, he resigned on account
of his health.
Pope Leo XI** called Mm the "Bossoet of the
American church** on account of his services as
a propagandist; and in 1870 Pope Pius IX ap-
pointed him coadjutor to Archbishop John Mary
Odin fe.«,]. At Odin's death in 1870 Perche be-
came the third archbishop of New Orleans. He
introduced the 'Carmelite Order of nuns into' ifae
diocese, and In 1872 inaugurated an annual serv-
ice of thanksgiving for -victory at the battle of
New Orleans on Jan. 8, 1815. Some of Ms arti-
cles from the Prvpagafmr CathoUqtte were re-
printed in a small pamphlet entitled De f Impor-
tance dn Marrmge sws le rapport el r e-
Kgtotx (1846). This and a few pastoral letters
constitute bis literary remains.
|E. L. Tinker, L*s &crits it *m
Loniswm m XIXe S^rfo (Paris, 193*) ; T«f
tat, Portraits Ixtttrarcs deb NomvfUe-Or&^s (x8$o> ;
L. J. Loeweastein, Hti*. of tit® St. Z**lt ®f
459
Percival
New Orleans (1882) ; J. M. Augustin and T. H. Ryan,
Sketch of the Cath. Church in La. on the Occasion of
the Centenary of the Erection of the See of New Or-
leans in 1793 (1893) ; R. H. Qarke, Lives of the De-
ceased Bishops of the Cath. Church in the U. S. (1888),
vol. Ill ; J. G. Shea, The Hierarchy of the Cath. Church
in the U. S. (1886) ; Times-Democrat (New Orleans),
Dec. 28, 1883.] E.L.T.
PERCIVAL, JAMES GATES (Sept. 15,
1795-May 2, 1856), poet, geologist, was born in
Kensington, Hartford County, Conn., the son
o£ Dr. James and Elizabeth (Hart) Percival.
On the paternal side he was descended from
James Percival, who settled in Sandwich, Mass.,
in 1670. His mother, descended from Stephen
Hart, one of the Hartford proprietors, had a
sensitive, nervous temperament and was inclined
to melancholy, a trait transmitted to her sons,
Edwin, a painter, and James. An attack of ty-
phoid in 1807 permanently impaired the latter's
voice. On the death of his father in the same
year, the shy, sickly, studious boy was sent to
private school. In later life he complained of "a
neglected orphanage" (manuscript letter, dated
New Haven, Feb. 16, 1823, unaddressed). An
omnivorous reader, he was in childhood excep-
tionally well informed in geography, and his
youthful epic, "The Cornmerciad," written in
1809, was a versified gazetteer. His career at
Yale, interrupted for a year in 1812, was bril-
liant scholastically ; he delved into chemistry and
mineralogy under the elder Benjamin SilHman
[g.z>.] and into botany under Eli Ives [g.z/.], and
attained a reputation as a poet. For the gradua-
tion exercises in 1815 he wrote and took part in
a tragedy, later published under the title "Za-
mor." During the next three years he vacillated
between teaching and the professions of law and
medicine, finally entering the medical depart-
ment of the University of Pennsylvania in 1818.
The following year he transferred to the Medi-
cal Institution of Yale College and graduated
with distinction in 1820. After a brief interval
of practice in his native village, he closed his
office. Rejection of a marriage proffer and fail-
ure to win a lucrative clientele drove him to at-
tempt suicide ; but in the same year the publica-
tion of several of his poems in The Microscope,
a New Haven magazine, prompted him to at-
tempt a career as a poet. Into Poems (1821) he
emptied his portfolio, with the result that his
long, Spenserian "Prometheus" was acclaimed
the equal of Byron's Childe Harold, and his
poetic gifts hailed as the most classical in Amer-
ica. The appearance of Clio I and II ( 1822) , col-
lections of weak lyrics, and of Prometheus Part
II with Other Poems (1822) did not alter his
reputation. The darkly sententious and auto-
Percival
biographic "Prometheus," though suffering the
weakness of improvization, is a meritorious
work. Many of his poems were pleas for Greek
freedom. A selection from these four volumes
appeared as Poems (New York, 1823; London
1824).
For brief periods he edited the Connecticut
Herald, a New Haven newspaper, taught chem-
istry at West Point, and served as surgeon in the
Boston recruiting office. These positions he re-
signed because of fancied unjust treatment His
sudden withdrawal as the Harvard Phi Beta
Kappa poet in 1824, his petulance as Phi Beta
Kappa orator at Yale in 1825, and his resignation
as editor of George Bond's American Athenaum
(New York) in August 1825 aroused a storm
of newspaper disapproval, in consequence of
which he withdrew from his literary career,
publishing only Clio No. Ill (1827), dream-
haunted soliloquies, and The Dream of a Day,
and Other Poems (1843), metrical experiments
and translations. Although Percival remained
the ranking American poet until the appearance
of Bryant's Poems (1832), his work is now read
only in anthologies, and he was soon forgotten.
While editing Vicesimus Knox's Elegant Ex-
tracts (6 vols., 1825) and Malte-Brun's System
of Universal Geography (1827-34), he began a
systematic study of languages, translating from
a dozen poetic literatures. By reason of his lin-
guistic attainments, he was employed in 1827-
28 to assist Noah Webster [q.v.] in revising the
manuscript and reading the proof of An Amer-
ican Dictionary of the English Language (1828).
In 1835 ne was appointed state geologist of
Connecticut. After presenting two reports ( 1836
and 1838), which he stipulated must not be pub-
lished, he planned a comprehensive natural his-
tory survey of the state. Gov. William W. Ells-
worth [q.v.~\ refused to credit his seriousness
and in 1838 blocked a further grant of funds.
After vainly attempting to have appropriations
renewed, Percival presented "a hasty outline" of
his bulky materials in the Report on the Geology
of the State of Connecticut (1842). This vol-
ume is almost unreadable because of its mass of
details and the failure to differentiate between
important and unimportant matters. It is main-
ly lithological description, remarkable for the ac-
curate discrimination of crystalline rocks, but in
it Percival made a noteworthy contribution to
geology in demonstrating the crescent shape of
trap dikes, and gave "the best and fullest ex-
emplification" of the laws governing the subter-
ranean forces by which mountains were formed
During the geological survey, Percival cam-
posed many original German poems ; translated
Percival
from Russian, Serbian, and Hungarian; wrote
political songs in support of Harrison (The New
Haven Whig Song Book, 1840) ; and developed
a theory of music, now lost. Poverty-stricken
as a result of his unpaid work as geologist and
his lavish purchase of books, he took quarters in
the State Hospital, New Haven, where he lived
as a recluse, engaged occasionally during the
next ten years as a railroad surveyor and geolo-
gist For the American Mining Company, be-
tween 1851 and 1854 he surveyed the lead-min-
ing district of Illinois and Wisconsin, and m the
latter year he was appointed state geologist of
Wisconsin but died at Hazel Green, Wis., after
the publication of one annual report.
Percival was "an inexhaustible, undemon-
strative, noiseless, passionless man . . . impress-
ing you, for the most part, as a creature of pure
intellect" (Atlantic Monthly, July 1859, p. 59)*
Unyielding and eccentric, utterly impractical and
living alone with his ten thousand books, he was
one of the most learned men of his time.
FH R Warfel, "James Gates Percival, * Bio-
jrraohical" Study" (unpublished dissertation m Yale
UnhT) • J H. Ward, The Life and Letters of James
Gate's Percival (1866), somewhat jnaccuiate, and in-
Descendants (1875).] H.R.W.
PERCIVAL, JOHN (Apr. 5, i779~Sept. 17,
1862), naval officer, was born at West Barn-
stable, Mass., the son of Capt John and Mary
(Snow) Percival, and a descendant of John
Percival who was born in France in 1658 and
who settled at Barnstable in 1685. At the age of
thirteen he went to sea, and at twenty, com-
manded vessels in the West Indian and trans-
atlantic trade. He was impressed into the Brit-
ish navy at Lisbon on Feb. 24, 1797, and served
in H. M. S. Victory and then in a naval ^bng,
but about two years later escaped at Madeira to
the American ship Washington. During the
naval conflict between the United States and
France, he served a year as master's mate in the
U S. S. Delaware (Recommendation of Capt
Thomas Baker, Navy Library Jfiwr; Letters,
Feb. 24, 1809), was warranted midshipman on
May 13, 1800, and was discharged at the peace
establishment in July 1801. He reentered ttie
merchant service as mate and master, and ac-
Percival
tary, was imprisoned for several months and
robbed of his ship at Santa Cruz, Teneriffe,
"about 1805" (United Service, May 1905, p.
595). Many legends accumulated about these
early years before he rejoined the United States
navy as sailing master in 1809. "Mad" or "Roar-
ing Jack," as he was called, became a celebrated
character in the old navy, humorous, irascible, a
superb seaman, the half-fictitious, heroic figure
created by Harry Gringo (H. A. Wise) in his
Tales for the Marines (1855). It is said that lie
once navigated his ship from the African coast
to Pernambuco with his entire crew sick or dead
of fever.
In the War of 1812 his first exploit was at
New York on July 5, 1813, when he loaded the
fishing smack Yankee with vegetables and live-
stock, hid thirty-two volunteers tinder hatches,
and surprised and captured the British tender
Eagle., overpowering her crew of thirteen, kill-
ing her two officers, and towing her into the Bat-
tery "amidst the plaudits of thousands . . . "
(The Naval Monument, rev. ed. 1840, p. ^230).
As sailing master of the sloop Peacock in her
victory over the Epenier on Apr. 29, 1813, he
handled his craft, according to her commander
Lewis Warrington [#.<], "as if he had been
working her into a roadstead*' (Ibid., 132)- F0r
his constant attention to duty and for his profes-
sional knowledge, Warricgton recommended Ms
promotion to the rank of lieutenant in 1814.
After cruises in the Porpoise against West
Indian pirates he sailed to the Pacific in 1823
as first lieutenant in Hull's flagship Untied
States, and in 1825-26, he commanded ffie
schooner Dolphin in the South Seas, pursuing
mutineers from the whaleship Globe. The IM-
phin was the first American warship to visit
Hawaii, and here P'ercival fell afoul of the mis-
sionaries over anti-prostitution ordinances, tot
during the difficulties which ensued, lie curbed
a sailors' riot against the restrictions, arid was
cleared later by a court of inquiry at Charles-
town (Navy Library, Court Martids, joL
XXIII, no, 531)- Made commander m 1531,
and captain in 1841, he commanded the Cyme
in tfie Mediterranean, i8#-3& supervised re-
pairs to the Constitution at Norfolk, 1841-43,
and then commanded her in a cniise rotmd Africa
to China and back by Hawaii and California
from 1844 to 1846. On this memorable voyage
he carried in his cabin a stout oak coffin ivtadt
he later converted into a watering trough at bis
home in Dorchester. A jeweled sword, ^gwea
him on the cruise by the Imam oi Muscat figored
Percy
Jan. 8, 9, 1913). He was put on the reserved
list in 1855. In later years he presented to
friends several silver cups, one of which bore
the legend: "This Cup, with the Donor, has
made three cruises to the Pacific, one to the
Mediterranean, one to the Brazils, two to the
West Indies, and once around the world, a dis-
tance of about 150,000 miles. Has been 37 years
in service and never refused duty." He was
married in 1823 to Maria, daughter of a Dr.
Pinkerton of Trenton, N. J., but they had no
children.
[Hiram Paulding, Jour, of a Cruise of the U. S.
Schooner Dolphin (1831); C. O. Paullin, Diplomatic
Negotiations of Am. Naval Officers, 1778-1883 (1912) ;
I. N. Hollis, The Frigate Constitution (1900) ; B. F.
Stevens, "Around the World in the U. S. Frigate Con-
stitution," United Service, May 1905 J G. W. Allen,
ed., Commodore Hull: Papers of Isaac Hull (1929) ;
W. D. Orcutt, Good Old Dorchester (1893) ; Saturday
Evening Gazette (Boston), Aug. 24, 31, 1861 ; Boston-
Evening Transcript, May 20, 1911.] A.W.
PERCY, GEORGE (Sept. 4, 1580-*. March
1632), governor of Virginia, author, was the
eighth son of Henry Percy, eighth earl of North-
umberland, by his wife Catherine, daughter of
John Neville, Lord Latimer. After some service
in the Dutch wars he joined the Virginia expe-
dition which sailed Dec. 20, 1606, his lack of of-
fice under the first charter being due perhaps to
the cloud under which his brother, Northumber-
land, then lay. His "Discourse of the Planta-
tion of the Southern Colonie in Virginia/' pre-
senting the fullest account of the voyage and the
events of the settlement down to Newport's de-
parture, was subsequently abridged and printed
by Purchas (post, XVIII, 403-19). A resolute
and honorable descendant of Hotspur, he soon
won the good opinion of his fellows through his
industry, courage, and character, while New-
port, Smith, and other officers early learned to
rely implicitly upon him (Edwin Arber, Capt
John Smith . . . Works, 1884, pp. ad, 127, 131-
45, 434, 438, 468, 476).
In September 1609, he succeeded Smith as
governor, the urgency of Ratcliffe, Archer, and
Martin — who may have fixed upon him as their
catspaw — and the importunity of the soldiers
having prevailed upon him to relinquish his in-
tention of returning to England for his health.
For his fame's sake, the decision to remain was
unfortunate. Granted that he was a fighting man
rather than a skilled executive and disciplinarian,
It is unjust to assume, as his detractors have
done, that the destitution which befell the colony
during "the starving time" was attributable chief-
ly to Percy's maladministration. He erected a
new fort at Point Comfort and otherwise planned
for the general welfare, but his illness — he was
Perham
"so sicke he could not goe nor stand" (Arber
p. 170) — hampered his authority and curtailed
his activity. The successive blundering or der-
eliction of Martin, Sicklemore, Ratcliffe, and
Francis West destroyed the morale of the set-
tlers and antagonized the Indians; famine and
fever completed the work; and when Gates
reached Virginia in May he found only three
score of the population of five hundred. The
London Company's "varnished reports" inevi-
tably pointed to incompetence on Percy's part,
and, indeed, years afterward Sir Thomas Smythe
was reproved "for stating the fact that the trou-
ble was really 'the sickness* and not 'misgovern-
ment'" (Alexander Brown, The Genesis of the
United States, 1890, II, 617), but the confidence
of his associates was unshaken. Delaware, upon
arriving at Jamestown, appointed him councilor
and commandant, and a month later, during a
temporary absence, left him in charge. When
Delaware returned to England, Mar. 28, 1611,
he designated Percy deputy governor, to preside
until the arrival of Dale (May 19) ; and that
stern worthy likewise made Percy his represen-
tative while he himself was at Henrico.
In April 1612 Percy left Virginia, and, al-
though retaining landed interests there for sev-
eral years, apparently never returned. Some
time after 1622 he wrote for his generous broth-
er, Northumberland, "A Trewe Relacyon of the
$ cedeinges and O cur rentes of Momente wch
have Hapnd in Virgmie . . ." to justify himself
against an account by an unnamed author, pre-
sumably Smith, First printed entire in Tyler's
Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Maga-
zine (April 1922, pp. 259-82), it is valuable for
its new light on certain phases of events in Vir-
ginia between 1609 and 1612. Of his later life
little is known, save that about 1625 he was
fighting again in the Netherlands, where in 1627
he commanded a company, and that he died, un-
married, in England.
[Alexander Brown, The First Republic in America,
(1898); Samuel Purchas, Hakluytus Posthumus, or
Purchas, His Pilgrimes (Glasgow ed., 1906), vols.
XVIII, XIX ; William Stith, Hist, of the First Dis-
covery and Settlement of Va. (1747) ; E- P- Neill,
Virginia Vetusta (1885); P. A. Bruce, Virgiwa, I
(1924) ; A. W. Weddell, A Memorial Vol. of Va. Hist.
Portraiture (1930), reproducing the painting of Percy
now at Syon House, Middlesex, England, dated 1615,
which supports the assertion that he lost a finger m the
Indian Wars, and not in his later Dutch campaign as
often stated.] A.CG.Jr.
PERHAM, JOSIAH (Jan. 31, i&tf-Oct. 4,
1868), showman, originator of the railroad ex-
cursion system, first president of the Northern
Pacific Railroad, was the son of Josiah Perham
and Elizabeth (Gould). He was born in W3&»»
Franklin County, Me., where he was educated
Perham
and spent his early life; he married Esther Sew-
ell. By successive stages he made a considerable
fortune as a store-keeper and woollen manufac-
turer, but this he soon lost through a bad invest-
ment; and only by moving to Boston in 1842
was he able to accumulate enough to pay off his
creditors.
Forced for a second time into bankruptcy in
1849, he was saved from despair by an idea
which only a man of his character could have
turned to profit. What he did was, in effect,
to anticipate the cinema. He bought in 1850 a
panorama of the Great Lakes, established it in
Melodeon Hall, Boston, and by an ingenious
device which caused the pictures to move across
an illuminated screen, he managed to arouse pop-
ular curiosity. The surrounding countryside
flocked into Boston to see the performance,
while the railroads did a roaring business. Per-
ham was a shrewd man, and it occurred to him
that if he could induce the railroads to grant a
cheap round-trip fare to people coming from
neighboring towns to Melodeon Hall, his profits,
as well as those of the railroads, would be in-
creased. His plans met with such approval that
for years after the Panorama had ceased to exist
he was an active agent for cheap fares and the
organization of round-trip tours. During the
Civil War he published a pamphlet entitled Gen.
Perham' s Platform: The Most Feasible Plan Yet
Offered for Suppressing the Rebellion (1862),
in which he recommended that the Northern sol-
diers make conquest of Southern territory and
settle permanently there, volunteering, himself,
to "arrange with the railroads for tickets at ex-
cursion prices for all who emigrate to settle in
the conquered territory." To the Army of the
Potomac, encamped near Washington, he sold
excursion tickets to the capital.
In the course of his work with the New Eng-
land railroads he became convinced of the need
for a transcontinental line ; and with commend-
able energy he formulated plans for a People's
Pacific Railroad, "to be owned/1 as he put it, "by
the people in small sums" ( Smalley, post, p. 103) .
After an abortive attempt to secure a charter
for his company in Massachusetts, he turned to
his native state of Maine, where, on Mar. 20,
1860, he was successful. Then, hurrying* to
Washington, he sought the cooperation of Thad-
detis Stevens [g.v.] for the purpose of obtaining
the passage of a bill giving recognition to Ms
company and granting land to meet tfie con-
struction expenses of the line. Strong opposi-
tion from the Union and Central Pacific railroads
was sufficient, however, to crowd Perham's ef-
forts out of existence, and until Stevens pre-
Perlam
vailed upon him to obviate all danger of compe-
tition with the southern railroads by changing
to a northern route, the bill had no chance of
success. Even then, as amended, it was defeated
by opposition to the Maine charter. But Stevens
was not discouraged. He assured Perham that
if the Maine charter were relinquished, the bill
would pass. On May 23 a new draft was intro-
duced, creating the company by direct charter*
and this time it was successful. President Lin-
coln's signature was affixed to it on July 2, 1864.
Perham's charter provided for a capital stock
of $100,000,000, and though no mention of a
government subsidy had been made, a munificent
land grant was bestowed upon the company. The
corporators formed a board of commissioners
who, after collecting $2,000,000 as security, chose
directors and elected Josiah Perham the first
president of the Northern Pacific Railroad. He
held the post for a year— just long enough to see
the failure of his scheme for popular subscrip-
tions. Illness overtook him and he was forced
to make settlement of his debts by transferring,
in December 1865, the presidency and the fran-
chise of the company to John Gregory Smith
[#.£/.] of Vermont.
Perham died in extreme poverty in East Bos-
ton on Oct. 4, 1868. With his ideas for cheap
fares and his labors for the Northern Pacific he
conferred two great benefits on future railroad
expansion. His fight for a charter had not been
in vain ; his courage and steadfastness were qual-
ities which his successors were not slow to emu-
late. He and his friends had given the company
an organization ; it remained for others to make
the railroad a reality.
[E V Smalley, Hist, of the Northern Padfc
road '(1883) ; G. J. Varney, A Gmsffitear of the Stefr
of Me. (1886) ; Maine Genealogist and Bwffra&ker,
Dec. 1875 ; H. H. Tyndale Collection of Northern Pa-
cific Pamphlets 1860-1870, in the Baker library. Har-
vard University ; files of the Boston Travdter, Boston
Transcript, Boston Conner, and RaSwap Times, for the
years 1850-68; Cong. Gfafce* 1862-66,] F.E.H — ft.
PERIAM, JONATHAN (Feb. 17,
9, 1911), hortkolturist, agricultural writer, bom
in Newark, N. J.y was one of the ten children of
Joseph and Pfioet>e (X (Meeker) Periam. His
father, an officer during: the War of 1812, con-
ducted an academy for k>ys and girls and under-
took Ms son's education. In 1838 the famSy
mored to a large farm on the Calumet River,
fourteen miles sooth of Chicago, where the fa-
ther started a small nursery from seeds, and set
out the first orcliard of grafted fruit In Cock
County. In the autumn of 1839 Hie £after;«S0d
and (he management of fee faml/s ie*
YQtred on Jonathan.
463
Peri am
At this time he was interested in commercial
dairying, but his success in marketing water-
melons in Chicago turned him to a long career
of gardening and gave him claim to the distinc-
tion of being the first professional market gar-
dener in northern Illinois. Eventually his gar-
dens occupied 100 acres. He also specialized in
blooded road horses, Devon cattle, and Berk-
shire hogs. (See his articles in Transactions of
the Illinois State Horticultural Society, n.s., vols.
XI, 1878, XIV, 1881, XXXIX, 1905; and the
Chicago Inter Ocean, Jan. 24, 1909.) In 1849
he went overland to California on a gold-seeking
expedition, returning by sea in 1853 (see his
"The Argonaut's Trail," in the Prairie Farmer,
Feb. i-Apr. 15, 1912). Some time afterward he
married Mary Wadhams, daughter of Carl ton
Wadhams, and they had four children. During
the Civil War he served on the staff of the pro-
vost marshal at Chicago. In 1868 he became
head farmer, superintendent of practical agricul-
ture, and first recording secretary of the board of
trustees at the newly organized Illinois Indus-
trial University, now the University of Illinois.
About two years later he became manager of
the sugar beet farm and factory at Chatsworth,
111. From 1873 to 1878 he was a member of the
Illinois State Board of Agriculture, serving as
its vice-president during that period. When the
Chicago Veterinary College was organized he
joined its staff and remained a member of it
for two years.
As early as 1842 Periam began to correspond
with western agricultural periodicals. During
the early seventies he served the Western Rural,
the Interior, and Farm, Field and Fireside in
various editorial capacities. His chief work in
this field, however, was his editorship of the
Prairie Farmer from 1876 to 1884 and from 1887
to 1893. He also edited or wrote a number of
compendiums, chief of which are The American
Encyclopaedia of Agriculture (1881), The
Farmers' Stock Book (1885) ; Pictorial Home
and Farm Manual (1885), adapted to the Aus-
tralasian colonies by R. W. Emerson Maclvor ;
The Prairie Farmer Horse Book (1891) ; The
American Farmer's Pictorial Cyclopedia of Live
Stock (1882) ; The New American Farmer's
Pictorial Cyclopedia of Live Stock (1900) ; and
Live Stock; A Complete Compendium for the
American Farmer and Stock Owner (1906), the
last three prepared in collaboration with A. H.
Baker. He wrote many essays for various agri-
cultural publications and the Chicago dailies,
two novels, and a pastoral poem. Notable among
his publications is The Groundswell (1874). In
this book, designed to be sold by subscription to
Perkins
farmers, he attempted to present the farmers'
side of the various questions which were promi-
nent during the decade of the Granger move-
ment. Considerable documentary material, espe-
cially with reference to the movement in Illinois
is included. His interest in horticulture resulted
in his being a life member of the Illinois Horti-
cultural Society, the Horticultural Society of
Northern Illinois, the American Pomological So-
ciety, and the Wisconsin Horticultural Society,
and a frequent contributor to their proceedings ;
he was the first president of the Chicago Agri-
cultural and Horticultural Society. As a speak-
er he was effective and pleasing. His last years
were spent in cultivating flowers.
[///. Farm and Fireside, Dec. i, 1895 ; Orange Judd
Farmer, May 23, 1896; Farmers' Rev., May 5, 1906;
Ann. Report of the Wis. State Horticultural Soc. for
the Year rpoi ; Trans. III. State Horticultural Soc. for
the Year 1911 ; Chicago Tribune, Dec. 10, 1911 ; Prairie
Fartnerf Jan. i, 1912.] E E E
PERKINS, CHARLES CALLAHAN (Mar.
i, i823-Aug. 25, 1886), art critic, organizer of
cultural activities, had from his parents, James
Perkins and Eliza Greene (Callahan) Perkins,
both the material inheritance and the tempera-
ment that naturally made him an influential
friend of the arts of design and of music in Bos-
ton, his native city. The father, descended from
Edmund Perkins who emigrated to New Eng-
land in 1650, was a wealthy and philanthropic
merchant ; the mother was a gracious, cultivated
woman. From the family home in Pearl Street
Charles attended several schools before entering
Harvard College. The prescribed academic
course he found irksome, but he was graduated
in 1843. He had previously drawn and painted
and, declining chances to enter business, he went
abroad soon after graduation, determined to
study art. At Rome he became friendly with the
sculptor Thomas Crawford [q.v.~], then strug-
gling against poverty, and gave him encourage-
ment. In 1846 he took a studio at Paris, where
he had instruction from Ary Scheffer. Later he
was at Leipzig, pursuing studies in the history
of Christian art. During a second residence at
Paris he took up etching with Bracquemond and
Lalanne. He made many etchings to illustrate
his own books.
Circumstances *ed Perkins, a wealthy man, to
devote his life to interpreting the art of others
rather than to creative art. His love of music
competed with his enthusiasm for painting and
sculpture. In 1850-51 and from 1875 unt^ his
death he was president of the Handel and Haydn
Society, Boston, whose concerts he sometimes
conducted and for which he wrote meritorious
music. He married, June 12, 1855, Frances B.
464
Perkins
Bnien, daughter o£ the Rev. Matthias Braen, of
New York. At their home many concerts and
recitals were given. Perkins was the largest sub-
scriber toward the Boston Music Hall, to which
he also contributed the great bronze statue of
Beethoven, modeled by his friend Crawford — th£
work which since 1902 has stood in the entrance
hall of the New England Conservatory of Music,
Boston. An invitation extended to Perkins in
1857 to give some lectures at Trinity College,
Hartford, on "The Rise and Progress of Paint-
ing," started him as a lecturer. He possessed
charm and magnetism on the platform. After a
second period of European residence, ending
in 1869, he lectured frequently on Greek and
Roman art before Boston school teachers, and
at the Lowell Institute on sculpture and paint-
ing. Thirteen years' service on the Boston school
committee amplified his educational work. He
brought to Boston the South Kensington meth-
ods of teaching drawing and design to children,
and he was instrumental in founding the Massa-
chusetts Normal Art School, now the Massa-
chusetts School of Art. As a committeeman he
was also assigned the third division of the school
system, comprising the North and West Ends.
He took pains to know personally all teachers of
his division, often entertaining them at his home.
Prior to 1850 Perkins had proposed an art mu-
seum for Boston but had found the plan prema-
ture. When others twenty years later revived this
project he supported it gladly. He was second
among the incorporators of the present Museum
of Fine Arts, securing for Its opening a gift of
Egyptian antiquities and making valuable sug-
gestions as to arrangement of exhibits. Among
the directors he advocated showing contem-
porary work as well as the arts of antiquity. He
had, meantime, been elected to the presidency
of the Boston Art Club, which he held for ten
years, and to which he gave much time. He sys-
tematically devoted part of each day to writing.
Tuscan Sculptors, published in London in 1864,
brought him a European reputation. It was fol-
lowed In 1868 by Italian Sectors, with illus-
trations drawn and etched by the author. He
edited, with notes, Charles Locke Eastlake's
Hints on Household Taste (1872), and Art m
the House (1879) from "&e original of Jakob
von Falke. In 1878 he brought out, with illus-
trative woodcuts which he had designed, Raphael
and Michaelangelo, dedicated to Henry W. Long-
fellow,wfiose previouslyunpubliAedtranslatioBS
of the sculptor's sonnets were included In the
book His Historical Handbook of ItaKan Sa&t-
ture appeared in 1883, and in 1886^ In Freed*,
Ghiberti et Son £cok. At the time o€ Ms death
Perkins
he had nearly finished his closely documented
History of the Handel and Haydn Society of
Boston, Massachusetts, which other hands com-
pleted. He liked society and good fellowship.
These he particularly enjoyed at his summer
home at Newport, R. I. He was killed instantly
by the overturning of a carriage in which he was
riding near Windsor, Vt, on Aug. 25, 1886.
[There are tributes to PerkiES by Robert C. Winthrop,
Thos. W. Higginson, and Samuel Eliot, with a biog-
raphy by the last-named, in the Prof. Mass. Hist. Soc..
2. ser. Ill (1888). See also : Justin Winsor, The Memo-
rial Hist, of Boston, vol. IV (iSBi) ; A. F. Perkins,
Perkins Family (1890) ; Dwigkt's Jour, of Music, Mar.
i, 1856; and Boston Transcript, Aug. 26, 1886.]
F.W.C
PERKINS, CHARLES ELLIOTT (Nov. 24,
i84o~Nov. 8, 1907), railroad executive, son of
James Handasyd Perkins for.] and Sarah Hart
(Elliott), was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was
educated in the public schools of Cincinnati and
at Milton, Mass. After a short time as clerk in
a store, he was advised by his cousin, John Mur-
ray Forbes fot/J of Boston, who was financially
interested in railroad developments in the Mis-
sissippi Valley, to enter this field. He therefore
moved to Burlington, Iowa, and in 1859 became
clerk at thirty dollars a month in the office of the
Burlington & Missouri River Railroad. This
road had received a federal land grant in 1856
and after the panic of 1857 had been purchased
by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, of which
James F. Joy fow.] of Detroit was president
Together the two roads eventually gave a through
route between Chicago and Omaha, but at the
moment the Burlington & Missouri River of
Iowa was built only seventy-five miles west from
Burlington. Perkins was soon made cashier of
the road and within a year was promoted to the
position of assistant treasurer and secretary, and
in 1865 was appointed acting superintendent and
later general superintendent, thus serving a
valuable apprenticeship for larger tasks in the
future.
By 1869 this line had teen corapletecl, and im-
mediately the Burlington & Missouri River Rail-
road in Nebraska was chartered to extend the
road west from Omaha. Aided by a federal land
grant, the company was able by 1873 to build to
Fort Kearny, where a junction with the Union
Pacific was formed la the promotion and con-
struction of this road Perkins was active, being
an incorporate and director from the beginning:.
In 1872 he was elected -vice-president of the Iowa
line and when this was consolidated with the Chir
cago^ Burlington & Quiiicy in 1873 he continued
in the employ of the combined lines as vkto-
presiclefit and general manager of the roods
of tie Missouri River. He was also dlree-
465
Perkins
tor (1875) and vice-president (1876) of the
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy. With its 1,343
miles of trackage, its valuation of $50,000,000,
and its strong financial and physical condition,
the road was one of the longest and best in the
country at this time. In 1880 the Burlington &
Missouri River Railroad in Nebraska was con-
solidated with the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy,
and the following year Perkins was chosen presi-
dent of the whole system, succeeding his cousin
John M. Forbes, with whom he had worked close-
ly for five years.
Because of his thorough knowledge of the con-
ditions of Western railroading, and of the con-
fidence reposed in him by the Eastern directors
and stockholders, Perkins was able to organize
the road on a sounder basis and to develop, it in
conformity with the complex needs of expanding
markets and areas of production. The unique po-
sition which it held on the railway map of the
country was well expressed by Charles Francis
Adams [<?.£>.] in a letter which he wrote in 1882 :
"The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy and the
Union Pacific together constitute the Broadway
or Washington street of this continent. They
will always be the chief commercial thorough-
fare between Chicago and San Francisco." Some
of the less profitable enterprises into which the
previous management had been drawn, like the
so-called River roads to the north of Burlington,
were disposed of, and other lines more necessary
to the logical expansion westward were built or
purchased. Thus, during the next twenty years,
to the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy were add-
ed, among others, the Republican Valley, the
Grand Island & Wyoming Central, the Grand
Island & Northern Wyoming, the Big Horn
Southern, and the Chicago, Burlington & North-
ern railroads. By Feb. 21, 1901, when Perkins
resigned the presidency, the system contained
7,661 miles and was financially one of the strong-
est of the major railroads. Of him F. A. De-
lano, president of the Wabash, wrote: "As a
railroad builder he was perhaps as great a strate-
gist as any man this country has produced"
(post). He remained, until his death, a director
of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, his work
being primarily in the financial department. In
his business dealings he was guided by the high-
est principles of personal integrity and of careful
administration of other people's property. He
was a big- man physically and was untiringly ac-
tive, but was uniformly courteous and inspired
affection in those with whom he worked. On
Sept. 22, 1864, he married his cousin Edith,
daughter of Capt Robert Bennet Forbes [g.-z;.]
of Milton, Mass. Three or four years after his
Perkins
retirement from the presidency of the Chicago
Burlington & Quincy, he established his horn
in Westwood, Mass., where he died. He lei
three sons and four daughters.
[Geneal. of the Descendants of John Eliot (1905)
F. A. Delano, "Perkins of the Burlington," Appleton*
Mag., Mar. 1908; W. W. Baldwin, Story of the Bur
lington (1925), reprinted from Shipper and Carrier
May 1925 ; H. G. Pearson, An Am. Railroad Builder
John Murray Forbes (1911) ; R. E. Riegel, The Stor
of the Western Railroads (1926) ; Who's WhoinAmer
icaf 1906-07; Boston Transcript, Nov. 9, 1907]
E.L.B.
PERKINS, ELI [See LANDON, MELVILLE D;
LANCEY, 1839-1910].
PERKINS, ELISHA (Jan. 16, i74i-Sept. t
1799) , physician, called by one of his biographer
a "celebrity par excellence in the quack line,1
was born in Norwich, Conn., a descendant o
John Perkins who came to New England in 163
and in 1633 settled in Ipswich. His father wa
Dr. Joseph Perkins, an eminent practitioner ii
Norwich; his mother, Mary (Bushnell) Per
kins. Elisha is said to have studied at Yale, an<
it is certain that he was given the necessary edu
cation for medical practice by his father. H
first settled in Plainfield, Conn., where b
achieved a considerable reputation. He estab
lished an academy there and, according to reporl
because of the lack of adequate boarding accom
modations took many pupils into his own home
he also received patients there for treatment — ;
common practice in that day. In 1792 he becam
one of the incorporates of the Connecticut Medi
cal Society and he served as chairman of th
Windham County Medical Association for sev
eral terms. On Sept. 23, 1762, he married Sara]
Douglass of Plainfield, and had by her ten chil
dren — five sons and five daughters.
Today his name is known only through his so
called "metallic tractors." These instrument
were devised by him in an attempt to apply t
medical practice the principles of the discover
of Galvani. They were called "tractors" becaus
of the method of application, being alternate!;
drawn or stroked over the affected part. The;
consisted of two pieces of metal about thre
inches long, seemingly of brass and iron, an<
were quite similar to the modern horse-shoe nail
being rounded at one end and pointed at tfe
other. One side was half round, while the othe
was flat, with the name "Perkins' Patent Trac
tors" stamped thereon. Perkins made thes
magic instruments at his home, in a small fur
nace concealed in the wall of his house, and s©J
them for five guineas a pair. In the year iff,
he reported his discovery to the Connect»
Medical Society, but gained little encoura&enjep
there from his professional brethren. A ste
466
Perkins
time after, he went to Philadelphia, where he
met with a most enthusiastic reception. Here he
Is said to have made extensive tests in the public
hospitals, infirmaries, and other institutions.
Congress was then in session, and some of the
most distinguished men in the country, as well
as physicians, were witnesses. On Feb. 19, 1796,
he took out a patent for his tractors, receiving
the exclusive right of making them for a period
of fourteen years. The following year he was
expelled from membership in the Connecticut
Medical Society, on the ground that he was "a
patentee and user of nostrums" (Medical Re-
pository, vol. I, no. i, 1798).
Besides the invention of the celebrated tractors,
Perkins also introduced a remedy which was a
combination of common vinegar saturated with
muriate of soda. In 1799, during an outbreak of
yellow fever in New York, he visited that city
for the purpose of using this remedy. After four
weeks of assiduous effort, during which time the
remedy proved of no avail, Perkins himself con-
tracted the fever and died in his fifty-ninth year.
"Perkinism," as the application of the tractors
came to be known, did not, however, succumb
with its originator. In 1795 his son, Benjamin
Douglas Perkins, a Yale graduate in the class of
1794, went to England to exploit the sale of the
tractors. He opened an office at 18 Leicester
Square — a house formerly occupied by John
Hunter — and immediately established a thriving
trade. Three years later, he published a treatise,
entitled The Influence of Metallic Tractors on
the Human Body (1798). In 1803 he estab-
lished the Perkinean Institution in London, with
the Right Honorable Lord Rivers as president,
and Sir William Barker as vice-president It is
said that 5,000 cases were treated here. In Copen-
hagen, where the tractors were extensively used,
eleven well-known physicians reported so favor-
ably that the records were printed in an octavo
volume. An English translation by Benjamin D.
Perkins, Experiments with the MetcMic Trac-
tors, from a German version of the Danish, was
published in 1798. In 1800, however, the doom
of Perkinism was sounded by Dr. John Hay-
garth, of Bath, England, who in that year pttb-
lished On the Imagination as a Cause and as a
Cure of Disorders of the Body, and declared ttiat
lie had effected as many cures with tractors
made of painted wood.
tG. A. Perkins, The Family of Jokn Perkins of Ips-
wich (1889) ; James Thacher, Am. Medic. Bws&
(1828) ; H. A. Kelly and W. L. Burrage, Am. Medic.
Bioffs. (1920) ; W. R. Sterner, "I>r« Eiislia PerMms of
Plainfiekl, Conn., and His MetalHc Tractors/* in B*fL
Medic, Hist. $oc., C^cdffo, wl. III (1923) ; P- G. Per-
rin, The Life and Works of Thomas Grem Fessmden
(1925), pp, 50-71*] H. T.
Perkins
PERKINS, FREDERIC BEECHER (Sept.
27, i828-Jan, 27, 1899), editor, author , librarian,
son of Thomas Clap Perkins and Mary Foote
(Beecher) Perkins, was born in Hartford, Cona.
On his father's side lie was a descendant of John
Perkins who emigrated to Boston in 1631 and
settled in Ipswich in 1633; his maternal grand-
father was the distinguished theologian, Lyman
Beecher [#.£>.] ; his sister Emily became the wife
of Edward Everett Hale [#.£».]. Frederic en-
tered Yale with the class of 1850, but left college
in the autumn of 1848 and began the study of
law in his father's office in Hartford. He did
not return to college but in 1860 Yale conferred
on him the degree of master of arts.
During 1849 and 1850 he taught school In New
York City and Newark, N. J., at the same time
continuing the study of law. He was admitted
to the bar in Hartford in 1851, but seems to have
practised little, if any. He taught school, did
editorial work in Hartford, and from 1854 to
1857 was one of the editors of the New York
Tribune. Returning to Hartford, he became as-
sistant editor of Barnard's American Journal of
Education, and from 1857 to 1861 was librarian
of the Connecticut Historical Society. For more
than a decade thereafter he steadily engaged In
literary and editorial work He was editor of
the early volumes of the Galaxy, was on the staff
of the Independent, assisted his uncle, Henry
Ward Beecher, in editing the Christian Union,
and from 1870 to 1873 helped his brother-in-kw,
Edward Everett Hale, edit the magazine Old and
New. In May 1874 he became assistant in the
Boston Public Library, working as "bibliographer
and special cataloguer there until December 1879.
In the summer of the following year he became
chief librarian of the San Francisco Public
Library, holding that position until November
1887. For seven years thereafter lie was en-
gaged In editorial work in San Francisco, re-
turning East in 1894. He died five years later
In Morristown, N. J^ after a lingering' Hfiess.
Perkins was one of the earliest and most en-
ergetic workers in the field of library organiza-
tion and his cootrilwitlons to library literature
were many and varied. He contntmted to PM %c
LSmwws in the United States of America* Tkeir
Hntctiy, Condition (1876), Is-
sued by the Bureau of Education, and was as
associate editor of the L&rmry Journal from 1877
to 1880. Much of Ms literary work Is anony-
mous and buried In the iles of the periodical!
with which he was connected. His more impor-
tant books were, Charles Bwrferw ( 1870), a biog-
raphy; Scrope; ory fie Lorf Library (iflpO, s
novel; Check List for Local-Histon
467
Perkins
(1876); Devil-Puzzlers and Other Studies
(1877) ; and The Best Reading (1872), a classi-
fied bibliography which went through several
editions and was long a standard reference book
in public libraries. Brander Matthews ranked
"Devil-Puzzlers" among the ten best American
short stories. Perkins had an encyclopedic mind.
Edward Everett Hale once said that he had never
asked him a question without being told the an-
swer or where the answer was to be found. He
had a roving disposition, changed positions often,
was restless if long in a place, and dissipated his
undoubtedly brilliant mentality by not concen-
trating on one particular vocation. He was tall,
straight, imposing looking, outspoken, proud,
sternly honest, and a hard worker. In Civil War
days, during the New York riots, he once cou-
rageously faced a mob to protect a negro. He
was married twice; first, on May 21, 1857, to
Mary Anne, daughter of Henry and Clarissa
( Perkins ) -Westcott of Providence, R. I.; she
died in 1893 and in May 1894, he married Fran-
ces, daughter of Samuel C. Johnson of Guilford,
Conn., and widow of his uncle, the Rev. James
C. Beecher. By his first wife he had two sons
and two daughters.
[Biog. Record of the Class of 1850 of Yale Coll.,
1 86 1, 1877, and 1901 ; Obit. Record Grads. Yale Univ.,
1899; G. A. Perkins, Family of John Perkins of Ips-
wich, Mass. (1889) ; Lib. Jour., Feb. 1899 ; N. Y. Trib-
une, Feb. 4, 1899 ; data from the librarians of the Conn.
Hist. Soc., Boston Pub. Lib., and San Francisco Pub.
Lib., and from Perkins' daughter, Charlotte Perkins
Oilman.] G.B.U,
PERKINS, GEORGE CLEMENT (Aug. 23,
r839-Feb. 26, 1923), ship-owner, banker, gov-
ernor of California, United States senator, was
born in Kennebunkport, Me., the son of Clement
and Lucinda (Fairchild) Perkins. His father
owned a small farm but was chiefly employed as
a sailor and officer on vessels trading with the
West Indies and the New-England coast. The
son's early childhood was spent in cheerless work
on the unproductive farm, varied with a few
months each year in the district school. In-
heriting his father's fondness for the sea, he be-
came, at the age of twelve, cabin-boy on a vessel
bound for New Orleans, and followed a sea-
faring life for the next four years, making several
voyages to Europe interrupted only by six months
more of schooling' at home. When not yet six-
teen, he sailed for San Francisco, where he ar-
rived in the autumn of 1855. In a few days he
went by boat to Sacramento and tramped from
there to Oroville (then called Ophir). For the
next two years he worked at placer-mining in
Butte and adjoining counties. Meeting with in-
different success, he returned to Oroville and
Perkins
soon became clerk in a country store. By prac-
tising the most rigid economy for over two years
he was able to save $800. This, with $1200 bor-
rowed capital, he invested in a ferry at Long Bai
on the Feather River, and a year later sold the
ferry at a profit of $1000. Returning to the
Oroville store, he gradually saved enough tc
purchase the business, which was now becoming
highly remunerative. During this period he buill
the Ophir flourmill, invested in mining anc
sheep-raising, and constructed sawmills, most oJ
which investments proved profitable. He also as-
sisted in the establishment of the Bank of Butte
County in Chico, and was one of its directors.
In 1860 Perkins cast his first presidential vote
for Abraham Lincoln, and throughout the Civil
War he was a stanch supporter of the Unior
cause, as a member of the Oroville National
Guards and an aide-de-camp to Gen. John Bid-
well. When barely thirty years of age he was
elected to the state Senate (1869) as a Republi-
can from a strongly Democratic district (Butte
County), and served in that body until 1876
While in the legislature he met Charles Goodall
and in 1872 became a member of the San Fran-
cisco firm of Goodall & Nelson. Transferring his
Oroville interests to his brother, he moved tc
San Francisco about 1876 and shortly afterward
purchased the interest of his partner Nelson
Thereupon the firm became Goodall, Perkins Si
Company, and soon was incorporated as the
Pacific Coast Steamship Company. The Com-
pany acquired most of the coast-line steamers
plying between Alaska and Central America ; alsc
the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company
the Pacific Steam Whaling Company, and the
Arctic Oil Company.
Although an outspoken opponent of the Cali-
fornia constitution of 1879, Perkins was electee
(September 1879) the first governor under itb)
a plurality of more than 20,000. As governoi
from Jan. 8, 1880, to Jan. 10, 1883, he took mosl
pride in the fact that during his administration
the state prisons had become practically self-
supporting through the establishment, at hif
recommendation, of the jute-mill at San Quentir
and the quarry at Folsom. After careful investi-
gation in each case, he pardoned and commutec
the sentences of more prisoners than any othei
governor of California prior to 1918, and onlj
one of those pardoned was ever returned tc
prison. In 1886 he was a candidate for the Unitec
States Senate but was defeated by Leland Stan-
ford. He reached the Senate, however, through
appointment by the governor (July 1893) im-
mediately after Stanford's death. By successive
reflections he remained a senator for nearf)
468
Perkins
twenty-two years. Upon the expiration of bis
term (March 1915), lie returned to his home in
Oakland and lived in retirement until his sudden
death in 1923. His knowledge of maritime af-
fairs made him prominent in connection with
legislation dealing with the navy and ocean traf-
fic, and for four years (1909-13) he was chair-
man of the Senate committee on naval affairs.
He opposed Japanese immigration, had a warm
controversy with President Roosevelt over the
latter's message proposing naturalization of the
Japanese, supported the Panama Canal project,
and advocated a protective tariff.
Perkins' interests in California embraced bank-
ing institutions as well as railroad and land com-
panies. He was the owner of a large cattle-ranch
in southern California, and a heavy investor in
quartz and gravel mines throughout the mining
sections of California, and in iron mines near
Puget Sound. He had a conspicuous part in the
preparations for the Panama Pacific Interna-
tional Exposition of 1915 ; was president of the
San Francisco Art Association; a trustee of the
California Academy of Sciences, the State Min-
ing Bureau, and of the State Institution for the
Dumb and Blind at Berkeley; and for thirty
years was the acting president of the Boys and
Girls Aid Society. He held high office in the
Masonic order and was a member of the Loyal
Legion. In 1864 he married Ruth A. Parker of
Marysville, who died in 1921. To them were
born three sons and four daughters.
[H. H. Bancroft, Chronicles of the Builders (1892),
vol. II ; T. H. Hittell, Hist, of CaL, vol. IV (1897) ; G.
C. Mansfield, Hist, of Butte County, CaL (1918) ; J. E.
Baker, Past and Present of Alameda County, Col., vol.
II (1914) ; J. M. Guinn, Hist, of the State of CaL and
Biog. Record of Oakland and Environs (copyright
1907), vol. I; Who's Who in America, 1922—23; San
Francisco Butt., Feb. 26, 1923 ; San Francisco Chroni-
cle, Feb. 27, 1923-] P. O.K.
PERKINS, GEORGE DOUGLAS (Feb. 29,
i840~Feb. 3, 1914), Iowa congressman and edi-
tor, was born in Holley, Orleans County, N. Y.
His father, John D. Perkins, a lawyer, was a
native of Connecticut ; his mother, Lucy Forsyth
Perkins, was born in Albany, N. Y. llhe family
moved to Indiana and later to Wisconsin, where
the father died in 1852, leaving his wife with
four children, two sons and two daughters. Ttie
elder son, Henry A. Perkins, became a printer,
and George followed his example. In 1860 tfie
brothers founded the Cedar Falls (Iowa) Gazette
and published it until 1866, when they sold it,
and engaged in business in Chicago for a few
years. In 1869 they purchased the Simx City
Journal and converted it Into a daily newspaper.
After the death of his brother Hairy in Novem-
Perkins
ber 1884, George D. Perkins remained as editor
and publisher until his death in 1914. For many
years also he took part in politics. In 1873 he
was chosen state senator. He was state commis-
sioner of immigration from 1880 to 1882, United
States marshal from 1882 to 1885, and a member
of Congress from 1891 to 1899. He was also
delegate to the Republican National conventions
in 1876, 1880, 1888, 1908, and 1912. In 1906 he
was a candidate for nomination as governor of
Iowa against Gov. Albert B. Cummins [<?.#.]
who was seeking a third term. A strenuous pre-
convention campaign resulted in his defeat by
the manipulation of party leaders on the pretext
of party necessity. At the convention, according
to custom, the nominee was called upon for a
speech. Governor Cummins, extremely hoarse
from the effect of campaign speaking, responded.
Perkins, the defeated candidate, followed Cum-
mins. His opening sentence was : "I thank God
that although defeated I am still in possession
of my voice and my conscience.9*
His public service and office-holding Perkins
regarded as incidental to his work as a journal-
ist Probably no feature of the Sioux City Jour-
nal under his management was more character-
istic than the "lay sermons'* that appeared every
Sunday morning for many years. His humor,
his mastery of idiomatic English, and his re-
ligious convictions were freely expressed. The
familiar Bible stories were explained by refer-
ence to modern conditions and the old Biblical
figures were made real. Once in 1912 lie tried to
give them up, but there was so much protest that
he continued them. He was a public speaker of
great force as well as a trained and effective
writer. A solemnly serious face only made Ms
whimsical humor more irresistible. His most
expressive features were the eyes which were
"large, keen and deep" and met everyone with
absolute directness. Perkins was married to
Louise E. Julian of Chicago on July 2, 1869.
Five children were born to them, two daughters
and three sons. His portrait painted by Nicholas
R. Brewer hangs In the building which liewises
the Historical Department of the state govern-
ment in Des Koines. He was one of the last of
the pioneer editors in Iowa and was known
throughout the state as "Unde 'George.**
fSee: Annals of Iowa, July 1914; the Sioux Ctiy
Jow.t Fdx 4t 1914 ; tite Rtg* and Leackr (Bes Motaes),
Fdbw 4, 1914; the PtiKmpsesf (Iowa Qty, Iowa), Aug.
19,24; the Register (Des Ifcwnes), Jan. 4, 1931 ; WM&
Who m America, 191^-13.3 F.E.B— «.
PERKIMS, GEORGE HAMELTOH (Get
20, iS36~Qct 28, 1899), naval officer, was
through his father, Hamilton Eliot Perkins* da-
469
Perkins
scended from an old Warwickshire family, the
Rev. William Perkins coming to Boston in 1632.
His mother, Clara Bartlett (George) Perkins,
was also of English stock. He was born in Hop-
kinton, N. H., had his schooling at Hopkinton
and Gilmanton academies, and when he was
nearly fifteen entered the United States Naval
Academy at Annapolis. He had already shown
a greater liking for outdoor life and adventure
than for books, and at the Academy he but nar-
rowly escaped "bilging" because of scholastic dif-
ficulties. He lengthened the four-year course to
five, showing superiority only in target practice
with the big guns on the summer cruises. After
graduation his first duty was in the sloop Cyane,
dispatched to Nicaragua and Panama, and in the
bark Release, sent to Paraguay. As acting mas-
ter of the Sumter he was ordered to the dreaded
West African coast in 1859 to suppress the slave
trade — a duty which lasted for two years and
which provided him many an adventure. On
Feb. 2, 1861, he was promoted to the rank of
lieutenant.
When he returned to the United States the
Civil War had already begun, and he was or-
dered as first lieutenant to the gunboat Cayuga
assigned to the West Gulf Blockading Squadron
under Farragut. As the attack on New Orleans
developed, the Cayuga was made the flagship of
Capt. Theodorus Bailey [q.v.], the second in
command, and on the morning of Apr. 24, 1862,
it led the entire fleet in the passage of the forts.
When the fleet reached New Orleans, Captain
Bailey asked Lieutenant Perkins to go ashore
with him under a flag of truce. Surrounded by
a hostile and threatening mob, the two officers
made their way to the mayor's office to demand
the surrender of the city. Perkins took part in
the subsequent operations between New Orleans
and Vicksburg, and then as commanding officer
of the Sciota served seven months of blockade
duty on the Texas coast. He was then granted
a leave of absence, but when he learned that Far-
ragut was preparing to attack the forts defending
Mobile, he volunteered his services again and
was promptly assigned to the command of the
new river monitor Chickasaw. In passing the
forts and in his engagement with the Confederate
ironclad ram Tennessee, he handled the monitor
with consummate skill, receiving highest praise
from his superiors. He was employed in further
operations against the forts and became so valu-
able that he was continued in command until af-
ter the close of the war.
His subsequent service afloat was almost en-
tirely in the Pacific. He had command of the
the Asiatic Station, 1877-79, and of
Perkins
the Hartford off South America, 1884-85. He
was promoted to the rank of commander in 1871,
and to the rank of captain in 1882, being retired
in 1891 only because of ill health. Five years
later he was promoted commodore on the retired
list. Farragut said of him, only a month before
his own death, "Perkins was young and hand-
some, and ... no braver man ever trod a ship's
deck; ... his work in the Chickasaw did more
to capture the Tennessee than all the guns of the
fleet put together" (Alden, post, p. 205). He
was married to Anna Minot Weld, daughter oi
William Fletcher Weld of Boston, on July 25,
1870. They had one child, Isabel, who later be-
came Mrs. Larz Anderson. The last years of hi<
life were spent largely in Webster, N. H., when
he purchased several farms, bred fine cattle and
race horses, and indulged the whims of a gentle-
man farmer. He spent the winters at his home
in Boston, where he died a few days after his
sixty-third birthday.
[Personal letters in the possession of Mrs. Larz An-
derson of Brookline, Mass. ; C. S. Alden, George Hamil
ton Perkins (1914) ; Letters of Capt. Geo. H. Perkins
edited by Susan G. Perkins, with biog. sketch by G. E
Belknap (sd ed. 1908) ; Official Proceedings at tht
Dedication of the Statue of Commodore G. H. Perkin,
at Concord, AT. H. (1903) ; Isabel Anderson, Under tin
Black Horse Flag, Annals of the Weld Family (1926)
Boston Globe, Oct. 29, 1899.] C. S.A.
PERKINS, GEORGE HENRY (Sept. 25
i844-Sept. 12, 1933), geologist, educator, ad
ministrator, was born at Cambridge, Mass., th<
son of Frederick Trenck Perkins, a Congrega
tional minister and a graduate of Yale in botl
College and Seminary. Through his father to
was descended from John Perkins who emigrate!
to New England in 1631 and settled in Ipswich
His mother was Harriet T. Olmsted, a niece o
Denison Olmsted [g.^.], through whom he wa
descended from Joseph Olmsted who died ii
Connecticut in 1644. George Henry Perkins ha<
two years of college study in Knox College a
Galesburg, 111., then entered Yale College am
graduated with honors in 1867. For post-grad
uate work in geology he received the Ph.D. de
gree in 1869. In the autumn of that year he be
came a member of the faculty of the Universit
of Vermont at Burlington and was continuous!
active as teacher and administrator to the day c
his death, sixty-four years later. He first taugt
"animal and vegetable physiology," then reprt
senting botany and zoology. In 1881 he becain
Howard Professor of Natural History. In 189
his chair was changed to geology, and he wa
given added duties as dean of the newly create
department of natural sciences. In 1907 he be
came vice-president and dean of the CoBegfe c
Arts and Sciences, positions which he oecttple
470
Perkins
until near the close of his life. He was acting-
president during the years 1917-19. For fifty-
six years he was the curator of the university
museum. Because of physical disability he re-
linquished most of his work of teaching, but
classes in anthropology met at his residence un-
til three months before his death. For more
than thirty years he was the academic balance-
wheel of the institution. Combined with a kindly
disposition and understanding, he possessed the
ability to make prompt and wise decisions. With
these gifts he held the confidence and affection
of faculty, students, and alumni for many years.
In 1880 Perkins entered public service as state
entomologist, which position he held to 1895. He
was made state geologist in 1898 and retained
the position until his death. The state survey
dated from 1845, and seven men had preceded
him In the office. The only important survey pub-
lication by his predecessors Is the inclusive two-
volume report by Edward Hitchcock. Perkins*
work for the state survey is on record in eighteen
biennial volumes of state reports, which contain,
besides geological data, much information of
varied scientific interest. Perkins was a fellow
of the American Anthropological Association, of
the American Ethnological Society, and of the
Geological Society of America. He had been ac-
tive in the American Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science, as fellow, honorary life
member, secretary of the section on anthropology
(1883), and as vice-president and chairman of
the section on geology ( 1917) . He was a natural-
ist, in the proper sense of the term, and his wide
and lively Interest In nature is evidenced by his
non-geologic writings, which classify as follows :
botany, twenty-one papers; zoology, sixteen;
archeology, ten ; and entomology, nine. Several
of his geological papers were published in scien-
tific journals, and about fifty articles in the bien-
nial reports of the Vermont Geological Survey.
Perkins was married, in 1870, to Mary Judd
Farnham, of Galesburg, 111. A son, Henry Farn-
ham Perkins, survived him.
[The Vt. Alumni Weekly, Oct 4, *933, is devoted to
the memory o£ Perkins. See also : G. A. Perkins, The
Family of John Perkins of Ipswich, Mass. (1889);
Burlington Free Press, Sept. 13, 1933- A memoir, with
bibliography, is to be printed in the BmlL of the GtoL
Sac. of America.] H. L* F.
PERKINS, GEORGE WALBRIDGE (Jan.
31, iS62-June 18, 1920), banker, was bora HI
Chicago, a descendant of John Perkins, who emi-
grated to New England In 1631, and the son o£
George Walbrldge and Sarah Louise (Mills)
Perkins. His father had been in business in
Buffalo before moving to Chicago, where he en-
tered the life insurance field and became dis-
Perklns
tinguished for his public spirit and philanthropy.
The boy did not attend the Chicago public
schools until he was ten years old. At fifteen
he left school and became an office boy for the
New York Life Insurance Company. Rapidly
advanced, he became first vice-president by the
time he was forty-one. Among other reforms he
revolutionized the company's agency system. The
practice had been to farm out territory to middle-
men or general agents, who appointed those that
did the actual soliciting for policies. These so-
licitors were often underpaid and improvident,
frequently made misrepresentations in order to
get initial premiums, and transferred their al-
legiance as the general agent did his. T0 end
this shifting of personnel Perkins, In 1892, began
to dispense with the general agents as fast as
their contracts expired. He made the local agents
and solicitors a loyal and permanently attached
force by employing them directly and by Intro-
ducing on Jan. 1, 1896, the so-called "Nylic" sys-
tem of benefits based on length of service and
amount of policies written. He also made vari-
ous trips abroad and obtained permission for his
company to do business In Russia and other lead-
ing European countries. When he, after repeat-
ed solicitations, joined the banking house of J.
P. Morgan & Company on Jan. I, 1901, he re-
linquished most of his duties with the New York
Life but remained connected with it until 1905.
In the field of finance he proved himself a skilful
business organizer, taking a leading part in the
formation of the International Harvester Cor-
poratioEy International Mercantile Marine Com-
pany, and Northern Securities Company. He
further devised a working organization for the
United States Steel Corporation and the scheme,
in force since 1903, of annual offerings of pre-
ferred stock to employees on advantageous terms.
At the close of 1910 lie withdrew from Morgan
& 'Company to devote himself to work of a pub-
lic nature and to the dissemination of tils views
on the correct solution of the business problems
of the day. He believed that competition should
be replaced by cooperation in the business world ;
that great cofporations properly supervised were
more efficient than small competing units; and
that workers should receive retirement pensions
and sliare In corporate profits. He made numer-
ous addresses, many of which were later ptib-
lisbed CM these perhaps the most Important were
"The Modem Corporation" in The Cnrremy
Problem. * . . Addresses DMvered at
Unkmr^y (1908), Action and
trial Growth ( 1914) ; The ( Ipi5)>
and Profit Skanng ( 1919) . He had an
and expressed Mmself concisely^
471
Perkins
and convincingly in His writings, although he
was an ineffective speaker. He had already done
notable public service by serving as chairman
from 1900 of the Palisades Interstate Park
Commission, which under his able direction de-
veloped the park from a few hundred acres to
fifty square miles of playground. In 1912 he be-
came nationally prominent by joining the Pro-
gressive party. He was chairman of its national
executive committee and furthered its cause with
all his dynamic energy. During the World War
he was chairman of a joint state and municipal
food supply commission for which he drew up
an admirable report on marketing conditions in
New York City (Joint Report on Foods and
Markets of Governor Whitman's Market Com-
mission, 1917). As chairman of a finance com-
mittee of the Young Men's Christian Association,
he raised $200,000,000 for welfare work among
American soldiers abroad. He belonged to some
forty societies devoted to various causes. He had
an engaging presence and in Andrew Carnegie's
words, sweetened "sordid business dealings by
the amiability of his manners" (New York Times,
post). A rare executive, who could inspire his
subordinates with enthusiasm, he had no recre-
ations but worked incessantly with tireless ac-
tivity, not even taking time to read books. He
died at Stamford, Conn., survived by his wife
Evelyn (Ball) Perkins, to whom he was married
in 1889, and by their two children.
[Who's Who in America, 1920-21 ; B. C. Forbes, Men
Who Are Making America (1917) ; G. A. Perkins, The
Family of John Perkins of Ipswich (1889) ; Pearson's
Mag., July 1907; Current Literature, Apr. 1911 ; Cen-
tury Mag., Apr. 1915, pp. 944~53 ; Sun (N. Y.), June
18, 1920 ; Printers' Ink, June 24, 1920 ; Natural Hist.,
May-June 1920 ; N. Y. Times and N. Y. Tribune, June
19,1920.] H.G.V.
PERKINS, JACOB (July 9, 1766-July 30,
1849), inventor, was born in Newburyport,
Mass. He was the son of Matthew and Jane
(Noyes) Dole Perkins, and a descendant of John
Perkins, who came from England in 1631 and
later settled in Ipswich, Mass. Little is known
of the first ten years of Perkins' life except that
he had meager schooling: but showed unusual in-
ventive talent. When he was thirteen years old
he became a goldsmith's apprentice and when
his master died two years later, Perkins carried
on the business. He continued to follow this
calling until 1787, producing many novel designs
in gold beads and inventing a method of silver-
plating shoe buckles. He was then employed for
a short time by the State of Massachusetts to
make dies for the copper coins struck at the
Massachusetts mint. About 1790 he devised a
machine to cut and head nails and tacks in a
Perkins
single operation. He organized a manufacturii
company, but after patenting the machine, Ja
* 6, 1795, he was involved in a lawsuit respectii
the invention which continued for seven yea
and brought about his financial ruin. Durh
the subsequent years of hardship, he turned h
attention to bank-note engraving, and devised
steel check plate for printing bank notes whi<
made counterfeiting extremely difficult. In i8<
the State of Massachusetts passed a law comp*
ling banks in that state to adopt the form of no
invented by Perkins.
About 1808 or 1810, in partnership with t]
bank-note engraver Gideon Fairman, he is sa
to have published a series of school copybool
entitled Perkins and F airman's Running Han
possibly the first books using steel plates to 1
printed in America (Stauffer, post, I, 209). A
ter spending several years working for engrave
in Boston and New York, Perkins rejoined Fai
man in Philadelphia in 1814 and with him work<
for several years endeavoring to improve Pe
kins' method of bank-note engraving. Failir
to have their process adopted in the United State
they sailed for England in 1818 with many casi
of their machinery to compete for the contra
for the Bank of England notes then about to 1
awarded. They were supported by the count]
banks, but were unsuccessful in the competitio
Nevertheless, with capital and influence fu
nished by the Heath family Perkins proceeds
to establish a factory in England for makir
plates and printing bank notes. The firm of Pe
kins, Fairman & Heath began business in 181
and two years later published an account of the
process ("Prevention of Forgery/' Transaction
of the Society for the Encouragement of Art
vol. XXXVIII, London, 1821). In 1840 the
were entrusted with the production of the fir
penny postage stamps, and during the followirj
forty years produced many millions of Britis
postage stamps by the process invented by Pei
kins.
Shortly after getting his firm definitely estal
lished, Perkins began, about 1823, a series <
unique experiments with high-pressure steal
boilers and engines, which work he continue
for the balance of his life. His experiments i
this field were numerous and varied and reveale
his fearless spirit. In 1827 he had attained worl
ing steam pressures of from 800 to 1400 pounc
per square inch. He perfected a boiler and sit
gle-cylinder engine using steam at 800 pounc
pressure and devised a special alloy to be used i
conjunction with the engine pistons which b<
came so highly polished as to require no Itibr
cant. That same year he built a compound steal
472
Perkins
engine of the Woolf type using steam at 1400
pounds pressure and expanding It eight times.
In 1829 he patented an improved paddle wheel
and In 1831 invented a method of securing free
circulation of water in boilers which led the way
to the modern water-tube boiler. About 1836 lie
patented a high-pressure boiler and engine for
a steam vessel using steam at two thousand
pounds pressure, and while he had difficulties
when salt water was used In the boiler, he over-
came them by using distilled or rain water. As
early as 1820 he had been elected to membership
In the Institution of Civil Engineers (London)
and in subsequent years he read many papers
descriptive of his experimental work not only In
high pressure steam but in other fields. These
included a plenometer for measuring the speed
of vessels, a ship's pump, a method of warming
and ventilating rooms and a method of ventilat-
ing the holds of ships. For this last invention
he was awarded a medal by the Society for the
Encouragement of Arts and for the pump Inven-
tion he received the Vulcan gold medal. He re-
ceived recognition in various countries, par-
ticularly In England, but he was a hundred years
ahead of his time. On Nov. n, 1790, he married
Hannah Greenleaf of Newburyport. He died and
was buried In London, survived by six children.
[G A Perkins, The Family of John Perkins of Ips-
wich*, Mass. (1889) ; R. D. Spear, "High Pressure
Steam," in Wheeler News (house organ of the Wheeler
Condenser & Engineering Company, N. Y. City), Dec.
1926 ; H. P. Vowles and M. W. Vowles, "Jacob Per-
kins 1766 to 1849," Mechanical Engineering, Nov.
1031 • R. H. Thurston, A Hist, of the Growth of the
Steam Engine (1878); J. T. Scharf and Thompson
Westcott, Hist, of Phila. (1884), vol. Ill ; Henry Howe,
Memoirs of the Most Eminent American Mechanics
(1844); J. J. Currier, Hist, of Newburyport, Mass.,
vol. II (1909) ; Wm. Dunlap, A Hist, of the Rise and
Progress of the Arts of Design in the U. S. (rev. ed.,
3 vols., 1918), ed. by F. W. Bayley and C. K Good-
speed; D. M. Stauffer, Am. Engravers upon Copper and
Steel vol. I (1907) ; Minutes of Proc. of the Inst. of
Civil Engineers (London), vol. XXV (1866); The
Times (London) , July 31,1 849. ] Q W. M— -n.
PERKINS, JAMES BRECK (Nov. 4, 1847-
Mar. n, 1910), lawyer, congressman, and his-
torian, was of seventeenth-century Massachu-
setts stock. His parents, Hamlet Houghton and
Margaret Ann (Breck) Perkins, joined the
westward movement soon after their marriage
in 1836 and left Concord, N. H,, for Tremoat,
111. They eventually settled, with other New
Englanders, at a Rock River (Illinois) colony
called Como. In 1847, with two daughters, the
family migrated again, moving on to St Croix
Falls, Wis,, where James Breck Perkins was
born. After her husband's death in 1851, Mrs.
Perkins took her children back to Como, where
the childhood of her son was spent In roaming
Perkins
the woods and ields and acquiring- a devotion to
nature which he never forsook. Without formal
schooling, he was taught to read by his family;
he reveled In Scott, Dickens, and stories from
Roman and English history. In 1856 his mother
returned to the East, settling near her parents, at
Rochester, N. Y. Her son now had his first ex-
perience of systematic education; his record In
high school won him a scholarship at the Uni-
versity of Rochester. Entering In 1863, ^e Be-
came a student of marked excellence. While a
freshman he endeavored to enlist In the Union
army but was rejected because of his youth. He
won first honors In Greek and Latin, and as a
junior, upon the advice of President Martin
Brewer Anderson, borrowed money to finance a
European tour. He traveled, often on foot,
through England, France, and Italy. His intel-
lectual tastes were broadened and deepened and
his interests aroused In French history and In-
stitutions. Returning to Rochester, he graduated
as the ranking member of his class (1867).
Following a brief period of study In a law of-
fice, Perkins was admitted to the bar and to a
partnership. He quickly acquired an excellent
practice and the respect of his Monroe County
colleagues. He continued to study, and wrote
articles for the American Law Rmew on legal
and political subjects. He also wrote book re-
views for New York newspapers. His entrance
to public service began with two terms as city
attorney for Rochester (1874-78). He married,
in 1878, Mary, youngest daughter of Gen. John
H. Martindale [#.a]. Stimulated by Ms read-
ing In French history and by an ambition to
write, he determined to study and interpret an
important but, In America, little-known period
of French history, the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. He went again to Paris In 1885 and
there completed his irst book, France U»der
Mas&rin With a Review of ike
of Richelieu (2 vols., 1886). The favorable re-
ception of this effort led him to continue his
studies. He sold his law practice and with his
wife left for Europe where they resided, chiefly
in France, from 1890 to 1895, He there com-
pleted France Under ike Regency With a Review
of the Administration of Lmts XIF ( 1892) » and
began Fmnce Umlir Lmis XV (2 vols,, 1897).
For the Heroes of the Nations Series he later
wrote Richelieu ami the Growth of French Power
(1900). His last book. Frame in the American
Rwdniion (published posthumously, 1911),
completed a well-rounded survey of two sig-
nificant centuries in the history of France.
In 1898 Perkins joined a group of disttngttisbecl
Americans in founding" the National Institute o£
473
Perkins
Arts and Letters, occupying at different times
the offices of secretary and treasurer. Political
life once more opened to him with a seat in the
New York Assembly (1898). His term at Al-
bany was followed, in 1900, by election to Con-
gress from the thirty-second New York district
(Monroe County). He was a member of the
House of Representatives for five terms, from
the Fifty-seventh to the Sixty-first congresses,
until his death at Washington, Mar. n, 1910.
He did not live to accept the office of ambassador
to Brazil for which he had been designated by
President Taft. As a congressman he won the
affection, confidence, and admiration of the
House. He advanced gradually, but steadily, to
one of the principal chairmanships, that of the
committee on foreign affairs. With industry and
an analytical, painstaking thoroughness he in-
formed himself on the matter of legislative proj-
ects. His speeches, therefore, although he was
not an orator, commanded the attention of his
fellow members. He spoke with care and pre-
cision rather than with force and emotion. A
Republican, he was from conviction a party man
but, withal, fearless and independent in his opin-
ions.
As a historian Perkins began to write at a
moment inauspicious for scholars not of the pro-
fessional guild. Emphasis upon scientific meth-
ods of investigation was in the ascendant and the
production of monographs based upon intensive
research in limited subjects was professionally
the most approved form of scholarship. A work
of such breadth and scope as that of Perkins was
regarded by many of the "scientific historians"
as superficial and popular. Historical journals,
especially those of France and England, reviewed
his books indifferently and none too charitably.
More thoughtful and careful reviews in Ameri-
can journals pointed out that Perkins was doing
a pioneer service in presenting, in English, a
fresh, original, and interesting synthesis of an
obscure and much neglected period. Without at-
tempting research in the complete sense of the
term, without pursuing a limited subject ex-
haustively, or seeking hitherto unknown evi-
dence, he nevertheless worked extensively in
archive material and with printed sources, avoid-
ing second-hand or standardized opinions. He
endeavored to maintain a strict fidelity to docu-
mentary evidence and for this reason was, per-
haps, prone to confine his investigations to the
more formal, official material. His analysis was
unbiased, reasonable, and free from sentimental-
ity; and his judgments, particularly of men and
policies, were generally sound. His style is lucid
and sustained, vigorous and somewhat austere.
Perkins
His books were widely read and if they ad
tie essentially new in evidence, or little
was strikingly different in interpretatic
yet served, for an unusually long period,
useful purpose. To the general reader
many generations of college undergraduat
made a contribution unavailable in th
scholarly monographs.
Perkins was described by his contemr.
as a gentleman of the old school. Cultiva
courteous, hating hypocrisy, he was g
with assistance to others, as when he d
Algernon Sidney Crapsey in the celebrat
esy trial of 1906. In thought he was prog
but not radical. Averse to exaggeration,
avoided guesses and moralizing. He was
humorous, with a genuine sense of fun.
of jealousy and distrust, his life was sir
happy, full, and generously spent.
Uames Breck Perkins, a brief sketch by t
Mary Martindale Perkins (privately printed,
ter, 1913), contains extracts from Jiis diary z
cates the outstanding points in his career. Fu
formation has been derived from Mrs. Perl
from manuscript items in the family papers. *
Jusserand's Introduction to France in the Am.
tion and David J. Hill's review of the same
Hist. Rev., Oct. 1911. Political appreciations z
found in House Doc. 1508, 61 Cong., 3 Sess.]
PERKINS, JAMES HANDASYD (J
i8io-Dec. 14, 1849), author and social
father of Charles Elliott Perkins \_q.v.~\y v
in Boston, the youngest of the six chil
Samuel G. and Barbara (Higginson)
and a descendant of Edmund Perkins w
grated to New England in 1650. He c
boarding schools at Waltham and La
Mass., the Phillips Academy at Exeter,
Round Hill School at Northampton. At
ter school he displayed some superiority
ern languages, and his letters of those yea
a poetical, slightly cynical, and highly in
tive cast of mind. Among his teache
George Bancroft, Joseph G. Cogswell, ar
othy Walker. At eighteen he entered as
the business founded by his uncles The
\_q.v. ,] and James Perkins, prominent irr
and philanthropists. In 1831 he was se
trip for his firm to England and the West
but on his return he abandoned a busines
as opposed to his tastes, health, and ethic?
and removed to Cincinnati with the exp
of following those horticultural pursuits t
his father had long been devoted. The i
of his former teacher, Judge Walker, no\
inent in the Cincinnati bar, caused him
law ; he was admitted to the bar in 1834.
came a brilliant extemporaneous speak
his health, which was not robust, was
474
Perkins
to sedentary occupations, and he was repelled by
practices and attitudes of his profession which
offended his sensitive ethical apprehensions. He
therefore never devoted himself fully to the prac-
tice of the law, but drifted into literary pursuits.
Upon his first arrival at Cincinnati he had
formed a connection with James Hall's Western
Monthly Magazine, newly established in that
city, which he maintained for about three years,
while he was reading law, writing- articles,
sketches, and poems for the North American Re~
view, the New York Review, the Massachusetts
Quarterly, and other periodicals, and delivering
lyceum lectures. In 1834 he became editor of the
Saturday Evening Chronicle, which, later in
that year, he purchased and merged with the
Cincinnati Mirror, edited by William D. Galla-
gher and Thomas H. Shreve. Perkins shared the
editorial work of these men for six months, un-
til the failure of their publisher in 1835. I*1 t&e
meantime he had married, Dec. 17, 1834, Sarah
H. Elliott, of Guilford, Conn. In 1836 he tried
gardening and grain-milling at Pomeroy, Ohio,
but gave that up to establish himself the next
year as a gardener in the edge of Cincinnati.
Here he continued writing, publishing in 1838
his Digest of the Constitutional Opinions of
Chief Justice John Marshall. He was connected
with the Western Messenger, an important Uni-
tarian monthly, from its beginning in 1835, and
was one of its editors in 1839. The First Con-
gregational Society of Cincinnati, a Unitarian
body, established him in 1838 as minister at
large, in which capacity he continued until the
end of his life to work with the poor of Cincin-
nati. He was president of the Cincinnati Relief
Union from its organization in 1841 until his
death, was active in prison reform, and was sym-
pathetic with Fourierism, He also conducted a
small school for girls.
In 1841 Perkins succeeded his cousin William
Henry Channing, his childhood companion and
later his biographer, as minister of the First
Congregational Society of Cincinnati. He was,
however, unsympathetic with denominational
Unitarianism, and in 1848 he took steps to form
a liberal church based upon practical Christian-
ity. In the following year, under the reaction
from an emotional stress caused by the supposed
loss and the recovery of his two sons, he com-
mitted suicide by drowning from an Ohio Rnrer
ferry-boat His body was not recovered. Per-
kins had been interested in historical investiga-
tion, having served as the first president of tlie
Cincinnati Historical Society (1844-47) and
the first vice-president of the Historical and
Philosophical Society of Ohio (1849).
Perkins
nals^of the West (1846) went through several
editions. Perkins' features were delicate, with
aquiline nose, high forehead, and flowing black
hair ; he affected carelessness in dress. He had
wit and imagination, tinged with recurrent mel-
ancholia. His sympathies were warm and he
enjoyed to an extraordinary degree the respect
of those who were acquainted with Ms charac-
ter and qualities.
[The chief source is The Memoir and Writings of
James Handasyd Perkins (Cincinnati, 1831) In two
volumes. The Writings were edited by Wm. Henry
Channing, who also wrote the Memoir. It is doubtful
if Chamring's assumption that Perkins actually edited
the Western Monthly Magazine Is correct. All other
sketches are founded on the Channing memoir.]
F.L.M.
PERKINS, JUSTIN (Mar. 5, iSos-Dec. 31,
1869), missionary, "apostle of Persia," was born
in the Ireland Parish of West Springfield, now
a part of the city of Holyoke, Mass., the son of
William and Judith (dough) Perkins, aad a
descendant of John Perkins who came to Massa-
chusetts in 1631 and two years later settled In
Ipswich. He spent his boyhood on a farm, but
after experiencing a religious awakening- at the
age of eighteen, studied at Westfidd Academy
and in 1829 was graduated with honors at Am-
herst Following a year of teaching at Amhersf
Academy, two years as a student at Andover
Theological Seminary, and one year as tutor in
Amherst College, he was ordained in the sum-
mer of 1833. In September he sailed as a mis-
sionary of the American Board of Commission-
ers for Foreign Missions* his appointment being
to the remnant of the Nestorian Christians in
northwestern Persia,
He found the people poor, ignorant, and de-
graded, living in a state of serfdom under their
Mohammedan nders. In the autumn of 1835 be
established Ms missionary center in Unxmiah,
the reputed home of Zoroaster, near a lake of the
same name. Religious work was begun at once
and was carried on for the most part in entire
harmony with the Nestorian clergy, in whose
churches the missionaries were soon invited to
preach. The establishment of a boys* school a1
Urumiah* the first Lancasterian school In centra]
Asia, was soon followed by the opening of nu-
merous schools for both boys and girls through-
out the surrounding Ytttages; later,, at the invi-
tation of the gcwemment, schools were estab
fished for the Persian Mohanmiedaiis^ PerMn
was the first to reduce the Nestorian Temactdai
modern Syriac, to writing, and he at se
about producing a literature for the peepfe- 1
printing' press was establisheil at Unamiaii i
1840 and from it issued the c
475
Perkins
which Perkins was either the author or trans-
lator. Under his editorship a periodical, the
Rays of Light, devoted to "Religion, Education,
Science, Missions, Juvenile Matters, Miscellany
and Poetry" was issued, which was continued
after his death. His translations of portions of
the Scriptures appeared at various times ; but his
principal Bible translations were the New Tes-
tament (1846) and the Old Testament (1852),
both printed with the ancient and modern Syriac
in parallel columns ; and the Old Testament with
references, in modern Syriac (1858). His other
numerous publications include books for day and
Sunday-schools, hymn books, and translations of
religious classics such as the works of Watts,
Bunyan, Doddridge, and Baxter.
Perkins was widely recognized as one of the
most eminent of Syriac scholars, and to him is
chiefly due the great lexicon of modern Syriac
and English left in manuscript at his death. The
high esteem in which he was held by Nestorians
and Persians alike enabled him to acquire valu-
able Syriac manuscripts which have enriched
European libraries and have greatly aided schol-
ars in linguistic and theological studies. His
contributions to the journals of the American
Oriental Society, of which he was a member, the
Deutsche Morgeril'dndische Gesellschaft, and the
Missionary Herald, were numerous and impor-
tant. His Residence of Eight Years in Persia
(1843), Missionary Life in Persia (1861), and
Historical Sketch of the Mission to the Nesto-
rians (1862) are valuable source materials. Per-
kins was especially acceptable to the Persians
on account of his uniformly polished and courtly
manners. He had an iron will and a robust con-
stitution and he worked with persistence and
clocklike regularity. He died at the home of a
nephew in Chicopee, Mass. On July 21, 1833,
he married Charlotte Bass of Middlebury, Vt. ;
of their seven children, one son survived his
parents.
[In addition to the above mentioned sources see G. A.
Perkins, The Family of John Perkins of Ipswich, Mass.
(1889) ; H. M. Perkins, Life of Rev. Justin Perkins,
D.D. (1887) ; Missionary Herald, Feb. 1870; Congre-
gationalist, June 13, 1870 ; OUt. Record Grads. Amherst
Coll., 1870. A copy of Perkins* lexicon of modern
Syriac and English is in the Yale Univ. Lib.] p.X P
PERKINS, SAMUEL ELLIOTT (Dec. 6,
l8ii-Dec. 17, 1879), Judge, legal writer, was
born in Brattleboro, Vt., the son of John T. and
Catherine (Willard) Perkins. His father died
when he was five years old and the boy was
reared in the family of William Baker, near
Conway, Mass., receiving such formal education
as the common schools of that day imparted.
When he came of age he began to study law at
Perkins
Penn Yan, N. Y., but before settling dov
turned to the West. He walked from we
New York to eastern Indiana and at Rich
finished his law course with Judge Border
1837 he was admitted to the bar. Taking E
terest in politics, he affiliated with and help
build up a languishing Democratic newsp
the Jeffersonian. This enabled him to stre
en his party in a locality where it had been i
In 1844 he was appointed prosecuting attc
for the sixth district (Wayne County). L
same year he canvassed the state for Jarm
Polk, which so enhanced his reputation
James Whitcomb, the Democratic gove
three times made the effort to seat him 02
bench of the state supreme court. As the
ernor's appointment required the confirm;
of the Senate he failed twice, but in 1847,
the third nomination, his appointment was
firmed. Five years later, under the new co
tution, he was elected by popular vote tc
same office, which he retained till 1864. I
1872 to 1876 he was judge of the Marion C
ty superior court, and while holding that c
was returned to the supreme court. Her<
remained till his death, in 1879, his service
judge totaling a period of about twenty-t
years.
In 1857 Perkins was appointed professo
law in the Northwestern Christian Univei
(later Butler University) and again, 1870
took charge of the law school of Indiana 1
versity, where he taught for three years. In
time the department expanded and attendant
creased. During his judicial service he publi<
two legal works: A Digest of the Decision
the Supreme Court of Indiana (1858)
Pleading and Practice . . . in the Courts of I
ana (1859). He is credited with being an ;
man and a capable judge, though most of
biographers make no mention of three of his
cisions which at the time called down upon '
widespread disapprobation. One of these
structed educational progress for several y<
by holding unconstitutional a law under wl
the state's school system was hopefully devel
ing (City of Lafayette et al. vs. Jenners, 10 1
70, 1855). The other decisions annulled the
diana prohibition law of 1855 (Beebe vs. '.
State, 6 Ind.} 501 ; Herman vs. The State, 8 L
545), under which the state had measurably s
pressed the liquor traffic and closed the saloc
Perkins' utterances in his public speeches,
his newspaper writings, and in some of his p
nouncements as a judge show him to have bi
strongly prejudiced in favor of views that hj
since been discarded as opposed to the best
476
Perkins
terests of society. He was twice married. After
the death of his first wife, Amanda Juliet Pyle,
he was married to her sister, Levinia M. Pyle.
He had thirteen children, nine of whom died in
infancy.
[See L. JL Monks, ed, Courts and Lawyers of Ind.
ports , 601-05; Indianapolis Sentinel, Dec. 18, 1879.]
G. S. C.
PERKINS, THOMAS HANDASYD (Dec.
15, 1 764- Jan. n, 1854), merchant, philanthro-
pist, was born in Boston, Mass., the second son
and one of eight children of James and Elizabeth
(Peck) Perkins, and a descendant of Edmund
Perkins who emigrated to New England in 1650.
His father was a vintner, licensed Aug. 13, 1767,
to sell wine at his house on King Street, which
was near the scene of the Boston Massacre. His
father died in 1773, but his mother took charge
of her husband's affairs and until her death in
1807, conducted them so well that she became
prominent in business and philanthropy. Before
his father's death, Thomas was sent to a clergy-
man in Middleboro for instruction, after which
he attended school in Boston. The siege, how-
ever, drove the family to Barnstable on Cape
Cod, and he was able there to indulge his strong
taste for outdoor activities. Following the evac-
uation of Boston, he was sent to Hingham to
prepare for Harvard, but he decided on a com-
mercial career and entered the counting house
of the Shattucks, Boston merchants, remaining
till 1785. He then visited his elder brother in
Santo Domingo and joined him in business there
after a sojourn in South Carolina. Finding the
climate detrimental to his health, he returned to
Boston by 1788 to manage the firm's affairs
there, and to marry on Mar. 25, 1788, Sarah, the
daughter of Simon Elliot, of Boston. His place
in Santo Domingo was taken by a younger
brother. A relative of his wife was captain of
a ship in the China trade, and this connection
led Perkins to make a voyage of investigation to
Batavia and Canton as a supercargo of a ship
owned by Elias Hasket Derby, of Salem, after
which he embarked in the Oriental trade.
In 1792 the insurrection in Santo Domingo
ruined the business there. Perkins* brothers re-
turned to Boston and with the elder he formed
a partnership as J. & T. H. Perkins, the name
under which the business was conducted till
James Perkins* death in 1822, when it was reor-
ganized, but T. H. Perkins remained the prin-
cipal partner till 1838, Its trade was chiefly witli
China, but speculative ventures were undertaken
wherever they seemed likely to be profitable, and
Perkins
the business he controlled so long made many
handsome fortunes besides his own. In 1795 he
spent about eight months in Europe, for the most
part in France. While lie was there, James
Monroe, then United States minister to France,
asked him to request permission for George
Washington Lafayette to go to America. Secur-
ing this privilege from the Committee of Safety,
he shared with Joseph Russell, a Boston mer-
chant, the expense of the journey, and had the
youth entertained at his Boston home on his
way to the Washington household. When Per-
kins visited the projected capital of the United
States in 1796, he was presented to Washing-
ton and afterward paid a two-day visit to "Mount
Vernon," counting it one of the greatest experi-
ences of his life.
Perkins was a prominent member of the Fed-
eralist party and was eight times elected to the
Senate and three times to the lower house of the
Massachusetts legislature between 1805 and
1824, besides being a presidential elector In 1816
and 1832. He was in Europe for a year in 1811-
12, and once he acted as bearer of dispatches to
France for the United States ministry in Lon-
don, running considerable risk through being
given a loose document openly addressed to the
Minister of Russia, with which country Napo-
leon was on the verge of war. Notwithstanding
his detention, on entering France, as a person
suspected of hostility to the country, he man-
aged to prevent the discovery of the document
and afterward delivered It He returned to the
United States after the outbreak of the War of
1812 and he was active in opposition to the Mad-
ison administration. He was one of the three
Massachusetts delegates appointed to go to
Washington to present the plea of the Hartford
Convention that Massachusetts, alone or in as-
sociation with Its neighbors, be allowed to defend
its own territories, and to apply for that purpose
Federal taxes collected within its borders. Peace
came before this resolution was presented.
Perkins was for a long" time an officer of the
Massachusetts militia and was generally known
as colonel. For a time he was president of the
Boston branch of the United States Bank, and
he had one of the first railways in the United
States constructed in 1827 to transport the prod-
uct of a granite quarry at Qtifficy, Mass,, of
which he was president, two miles to the sea-
beard. But he was best known for Ms philan-
thropies. He was active in Indorsing and gen-
erous In supporting many public institutions awl
tmdertakings, including the Massachusetts Gen-
eral Hospital, the Boston Athenaeum, and ibe
Btffiker Hill and National Monument asoaocia-
477
Perley
tions. His benefactions to individuals were so
ready and generous that he was sometimes ac-
cused of being a poor judge of character. In
1833 he deeded his residence to the New Eng-
land Asylum for the Blind for the period it should
occupy it, but in 1839 he made the gift uncondi-
tional, and since then the institution has borne
his name. He was himself blind for a time in his
last years, but an operation restored the sight of
one eye a few months before his death. Perkins
died in Boston in 1854, having survived his
wife two years. They had seven children.
[See : T. G. Gary, Memoir of Thos. Handasyd Per-
kins, Containing Extracts from His Diary and Letters
(1856) ; A. T. Perkins, A Private Proof . . . of the
Perkins Family (1890) ; Boston Jour., Jan. n, 1854;
Daily Advertiser (Boston), Jan. 12, 1854.] S.G.
PERLEY, IRA (Nov. 9, i79o-Feb. 26, 1874),
lawyer and jurist, was born at B oxford, Mass.,
the eldest child of Samuel and Phebe (Dresser)
Perley and a descendant of Allan Perley, who
settled in Charlestown, Mass., in 1630. He had
few advantages in early years, the death of his
father in 1807 leaving the family in somewhat
straitened circumstances. He worked on the
farm and attended school in the winter months.
His mother, however, appreciated the boy's abil-
ity in his studies and gave him every encourage-
ment possible. He prepared for college at Brad-
ford Academy and graduated from Dartmouth
in, 1822 with a distinguished scholastic record.
He had defrayed the greater part of his college
expenses by teaching school. He was a tutor at
Dartmouth, 1823-25, but was bent on a legal ca-
reer, studying law at Hanover and in the office
of Daniel M. Christie at Dover, where his fa-
mous successor in the chief -justiceship, Charles
Doe [#.z/.], likewise served his apprenticeship.
He was admitted to the bar in 1827 and began
practice in Hanover.
From 1830 to 1835 ne served as treasurer of
Dartmouth College, introducing more efficient
business methods, modernizing the accounting
system, preparing an inventory of the college
property, and advising the trustees on sundry
complicated legal and business problems in-
volved in certain Vermont land holdings of the
institution. He also represented Hanover for
one term in the legislature. He became well
known at the Graf ton County bar but in 1836
moved to Concord where professional opportuni-
ties were better and where he resided for the re-
mainder of his life. On June n, 1840, he mar-
ried Mary Sewall Nelson. While a successful
advocate, he was regarded by his professional
associates as possessing the judicial mind in an
eminent degree, an impression which was
Perrin
strengthened by his two years' service a
ciate justice of the superior court, 1850-
1855 he was appointed chief justice of
preme judicial court, serving until 1859. 1
he was reappointed chief justice, retirii
years later under the age limit imposed
state constitution. During his last years
casionally acted as a legal consultant t
not engage in practice before the cour
twice represented Concord in the legi
(1839-40, 1870-71).
Perley was regarded by contemporaries
of the most scholarly men on the bench. ]
acquired a deep interest in general litera-
his early years and retained it throughc
life. He read Latin, French, and Italian
ture and was always ready with an apt quc
He was for many years an active member
New Hampshire Historical and the Nevi
land Historic Genealogical societies an<
formed valuable services for both organiz
He was a thorough student of both Engli;
American history and law and his judicia
ifications — both in character and training-
generally recognized. His printed decisic
a high standard and have received wide;
commendation from the legal profession. I
occasionally invited to deliver public add
but was not successful as a platform sp
however well his material may appear in
His address on trial by jury, delivered
grand jury of Grafton County at the Nov
term in 1866, and subsequently printed b>
request (Trial by Jury, 1867), is a model
ment of the subject. In person he was of
stature, and in manner somewhat shy and
ous, but his intellectual qualities made h
impressive figure in the courtroom. He
laconic manner on the bench and a charact<
shrewdness and humor which occasi
brightened tedious proceedings and fun
anecdotes which were often told at meetir
the New Hampshire bar.
[J. K. Lord, A Hist, of Dartmouth Coll (i
C. H. Bell, The Bench and Bar of N. H. (1894)
dress in Memory of Hon. Ira Perley . . , Prom
before the Alumni Asso. of Dartmouth Coll., Ju
1880 (1881) ; Proc. Grafton and Coos Bar Asst
III (1898) ;_M. V. B. Perley, Hist, and Geneal
Perley Family (1906) ; Independent Statesman
cord, N. H.), Mar. 5, 1874; manuscript material
archives of Dartmouth Coll.] W.A
PERRIN, BERNADOTTE (Sept. 15,
Aug. 31, 1920), classical scholar, college
fessor, was born at Goshen, Conn., the son <
Rev. Lavalette Perrin and Ann Eliza (
stock) Perrin. His father, a graduate of
College in the class of 1840, was a Gong
tional minister and a member of the Yale
478
Perrin
poration from 1882 to 1889. The family was de-
scended from Thomas Perrin, a French Huguenot
who came to Massachusetts in 1690. Bernadotte
Perrin was prepared for college at the Hartford
High School, entered Yale in 1865, and received
the degree of B.A. in 1869. He took high rank as
a scholar and received distinguished social rec-
ognition from his fellow students. As an indi-
cation of his intellectual interests it is significant
that this future classical scholar took no prizes
in classics, but won high honors in English com-
position. At that time the work in Latin and
Greek was almost entirely grammatical, and the
scientific study of language never appealed to
him as much as did the literature and history.
The year after his graduation he taught in the
Hartford High School. The next year he spent
in the Yale Divinity School ; the next two years
in graduate study in classics at Yale. At the
close of this period (in 1873) he received the de-
gree of Ph.D. During the year 1873-74 he was
tutor in Greek at Yale. Two more years at the
Hartford High School as assistant principal
were followed by two years of study at Tu-
bingen, Leipzig, and Berlin. On his return he
was again tutor in Greek at Yale from 1878 to
1879 and assistant principal of the Hartford
High School from 1879 to 1881. He was then
called to Western Reserve College as professor
of Greek, remaining there until 1893. From
1893 to 1909 he was at Yale, first as professor
of the Greek language and literature and after
1902 as Lampson Professor of Greek Literature
and History. He was public orator of the Uni-
versity from 1898 to 1908, fellow of the Ameri-
can Academy of Arts and Sciences, and presi-
dent of the American Philological Association
in 1896-97. His death occurred at Saratoga,
N. Y. Perrin married his second cousin, Luella
Perrin of Lafayette, Ind., on Aug. 17, 1881. She
died on July 23, 1889, and on Nov. 24, 1892, he
married Susan Lester, daughter of Judge C. S.
Lester of Saratoga, N. Y. She survived him to-
gether with two sons by his first marriage.
Perrin's undergraduate interest in literary ex-
pression rather than grammatical analysis was
indicative of the fundamental characteristic of
his mind — an intuitive appreciation of the beau-
tiful, and an artist's delight in the creation of
beauty. In all his writings and public addresses
he paid scrupulous attention to literary form.
The brief paragraphs in which, as public orator,
he Introduced the candidates far honorary de-
grees, are polished gems of expression. In the
daily business of teaching there was never any
mere routine. "Every recitation/* he said,
"shotdd be an event/* His scholarly publication
Perrine
was concerned chiefly with the field of ancient
history. A dozen or more papers, published in
the American Journal of Philology and in the
Transactions of the American Philological As-
sociation, deal with the analysis of the sources
of ancient historians and biographers. These
studies culminated in his three volumes of trans-
lations of Plutarch, with historical notes and in-
troductions on the sources. These volumes cov-
ered Themistocles and Aristides (1901), Gmon
and Pericles (1910) and Nicias and Alcibiades
(1912). His plan to extend this series was frus-
trated by failing eyesight. He was able to carry
through, however, the complete translation of
Plutarch's Lives (published in the Loeb Clas-
sical Library in eleven volumes, 1914-26). This
work stands as his great monument. It enabled
him to utilize at once his profound knowledge
of the sources of Greek history, his enthusiasm
for the heroes of antiquity, and his mastery of
the English language. The result is an artistic
and scholarly achievement of a high order.
[The principal sources are the autobiographies con-
tributed to the various records of the Yale College class
of 1869 ; they are collected in the Seventh Bi&g. Record
of the Class of 'Sixty-Nine, Yale Coll. (1910). These
can be supplemented by the catalogues and alumni rec-
ords of Yale College, and in particular by the Obit.
Record of Yale Grads., 1020-21 (1021). The address
delivered by his colleague, Prof. E» P. Morris, before
the Yale Classical Club on Jan. 4, 1921, is an appre-
ciative treatment of the man in his relation to his uni-
versity. It was privately printed with the title, Bertutr
dottePemn, 1847-1920 (New Haven, 1921).]
H.M.H.
PERRINE, FREDERIC AUTEN COMBS
(Aug. 25, i862~Oct 21, 1908), electrical en-
gineer, the son of John Anderson and Rebecca
Ann (Combs) Perrine, was born at Ma&alapan,
N. J. He was a descendant of Daniel Perrin, a
French Huguenot, who came to America in
1665. His early education was received at the
Freehold Institute in New Jersey, and In 1879
he entered the College of New Jersey (Prince-
ton), where he was graduated with the degree of
A.B. in 1883. He continued his studies in the
graduate school until 1885 when lie received the
degree of Doctor of Science. His broad educa-
tion in the arts as wel as in science developed
habits of study which were to contribute much to
his strength of character and to his achievements
in widely different types of activity. He adopted
as his line of special interest the study of elec-
tricity and the eqtapmest needed in its applica-
tion. His irst position after leaving college was
with tfae United States Electric Lighting Com-
pany ol New York, as assistant electrician. In
1^9^ he was employed by the John A. Roe%IiQg*s
Sons Company as manager of the wire
department in connection with which, fae dM spe-
479
Perrine
cial research to develop more scientific methods
for manufacturing the wire product He became
manager and treasurer of the Germania Electric
Company of Boston in 1892 and the following
year was appointed professor of electrical en-
gineering at Leland Stanford University. As
head of the department which he organized, he
achieved outstanding success as a teacher, both
his personality and his fine education admirably
fitting him for the position. He emphasized
strongly the need for a thorough study of theory,
adhering to the tenet that practical work should
only develop familiarity with processes. He him-
self, however, was intensely interested in the
practical application of electricity, and while he
was still teaching at Stanford he became the
chief engineer of the Standard Electric Company
of California, now a part of the Pacific Gas and
Electric Company. In this position he designed
the first long 60 kilovolt transmission line, for
which he received a gold medal at the Paris Ex-
position in 1900.
He resigned from his positions in California
in 1900 to become president and general manager
of the Stanley Electric Manufacturing Company
of Pitts field, Mass. This office he resigned in
1904 to enter into practice as a consulting engi-
neer in New York City. In addition to his other
duties, he served as one of the editors of the
Journal of Electricity from 1894 to 1896, and as
an editor of Electrical Engineering from 1896
to 1898. In 1903, he published Conductors for
Electrical Distribution. He presented a large
number of papers before various organizations,
was a member of several of the leading engineer-
ing societies including the American Society of
Civil Engineers, and was especially active hi the
affairs of the American Institute of Electrical
Engineers of which he served as manager and
member of council from 1898 to 1900. On June
28, 1893, he married Margaret J. Roebling, the
grand-daughter of John Augustus Roebling
[q.v.]. She, with their two daughters and a son,
survived him when he died at Plainfield, N. J.,
after an illness of several months.
[H. D. Perrine, Daniel Perrin "The Huguenot" and
His Descendants in Am. (1910) ; Proc. of the Am.
Inst. of Electrical Engineers, vol. XXIX, Nov. 1908 ;
Jour, of Electricity, Power, and Gas, Oct. 31, 1908;
Electrical World, Oct. 31, 1908; Daily True American
(Trenton, N. J.), Oct. 21, 1908.] H.H.H.
PERRINE, HENRY (Apr. 5, 1797-Aug. 7,
1840) , physician and plant explorer, was born at
Cranbury, N. J., the son of Peter and Sarah
(Rozengrant) Perrine. He was a descendant of
Daniel Perrin, a French Huguenot who settled
in New Jersey in 1665, As a youth he taught
school at Rockyhill, N. J., and later he studied
Perrine
medicine. In September 1819, he settled at Rip-
ley, 111., where he practised medicine energet-
ically for five years, earning the local sobriquet
"little hard-riding doctor." On Jan. 8, 1822, he
married Ann Fuller Townsend, the daughter of
the Rev. Jesse Townsend of Denham, N. Y. His
health had been very seriously affected by ar-
senical poisoning sustained accidentally in 1821,
and two years later, in an effort to improve his
condition, he sought the milder climate of Natch-
ez, Miss., practising there until 1827 when he ac-
cepted an appointment as United States Consul
at Campeche, Mexico. During ten years of con-
tinuous residence here he made botanical collec-
tions which are now preserved in the herbarium
of the New York Botanical Garden, but of far
greater importance was his persistent and en-
thusiastic effort to introduce useful tropical
plants into southern Florida. This project re-
sulted from a circular letter sent out in 1827, at
the instance of President John Quincy Adams,
calling upon consular officers to procure foreign
plants of known or probable utility for cultiva-
tion in the United States. Perrine took the re-
quest very seriously, and before long he was
flooding the Treasury, State, and Navy Depart-
ments with detailed reports on officinal and other
economic plants, especially those producing dur-
able fibers. Much of this matter is published in
government documents which relate to a plan,
proposed by Perrine in 1832, of establishing a
tropical plant introduction station in extreme
southern Florida upon land to be granted him by
Congress. Not until 1838, a year after his re-
turn to the United States, was the law finally
passed by which he and two associates received
the provisional grant of a township on Biscayne
Bay.
A nursery which he had begun on Indian Key
in 1833 contained, at the time of the grant, over
200 species and selected varieties of useful trop-
ical plants. He now removed to this location
with his wife and three children to wait until
the end of the Seminole War should permit oc-
cupying and planting out the mainland tract He
spent almost two years here, tending and extend-
ing the nurseries, but the period of happy activ-
ity was abruptly cut short by his death at the
hands of marauding Indians. His family es-
caped, but under the most harrowing and re-
markable circumstances. With the burning of
his house all of his collections, records, and man-
uscripts were destroyed. Subsequently the grant
was ceded outright to his family by Congress,
but his long-cherished plans never came to real
fruition. Of all the plants introduced by Penine
the sisal (Agave sisalana), which he first d&-
480
Perrot
scribed, is the most noteworthy. This and a
closely related species, the henequen (Agave
fourcroyodes) , he had introduced upon the Flor-
ida Keys in 1833. Fifty years later these two
fiber plants were recognized as being commer-
cially important to the British colonies, and when
attempts to obtain the jealously guarded propa-
gating stock from Yucatan had failed, recourse
was had to Florida, where Perrine's plants had
meanwhile run wild. Although the demand was
mainly for henequen, the sisal plant had spread
the more widely and now furnished easily the
huge quantity of bulbils needed for extensive
tropical planting. Perrine was noted for his
quick sympathies and devotion to duty. In Cam-
peche he had practised medicine gratuitously
and with great skill during a cholera epidemic,
his extreme popularity undoubtedly overcoming
local scruples against the exporting of useful
plants. He truly deserves to rank as a pioneer
of plant introduction in America.
[H. D. Perrine, Daniel Perrin "The Huguenot" and
His Descendants in Am. (1910) ; H. E. Perrine, A True
Story of Some Eventful Years in Grandpa's Life
(1885) ; Mag. of Horticulture, Aug. 1840, Jan. 1841 ; F.
C Preston, "A Hero of Horticulture/' Bull, of The Gar-
den Club of Am., Nov. 1931 ; C. H. Millspaugh, biog.
sketch (MS.) in library of N. Y. Botanical Garden; J.
H. Barnhart, biog. sketch in Jour, of The N. Y. Botan-
ical Garden, Nov.-Dec. 1921 ; Pensacola Gazette, Aug.
29, 1840.3 W.R.M.
PERROT, NICOLAS (1644-*. 1718), ex-
plorer, was born in France. While still a youth
he emigrated to New France and was in service
with the Jesuit missionaries ; later, for two years
he was with the Sulpicians of Montreal. These
services gave him opportunity to become ac-
quainted with the Indian languages. Leaving
the missionaries, he embarked in the fur trade,
and may have been one of the Frenchmen who
in 1663 went to Lake Superior with the Ottawa
trading caravan. In 1667 he signed a contract
with Toussaint Baudry for a voyage to the Ot-
tawa country, where, the following year, they
appeared at Green Bay, the first French traders
to the Algonquian tribes, recently settled in that
vicinity. Thenceforth they called Perrot their
"father," since he brought them iron implements
and weapons.
In 1670, after a very successful trade, Perrot
and Baudry returned to Montreal. That autumn
Governor Frontenac sent an expedition to take
possession of the West for France; writhe
commander he sent Perrot as interpreter since
"none better could be found." In the spring of
1671 Perrot visited Green Bay to secure dele-
gates to the pageant— the ceremony of annexa-
tion—which took place June 14, at ^Sautt Ste.
Marie. That autumn he was again in Canada,
Perrot
where he married Marie Madeleine Raclot (or
Raclos) and lived on a seignoiry at Becancour.
Little is known of his activities during the next
decade. Frontenac in 1674 awarded him a li-
cense for the fur trade and In 1681 lie was ac-
cused of sending peltry out of the country to the
English settlements. In 1683 the new governor,
La Barre, permitted Perrot to go West on a
trading expedition, then, In 1684, summoned Mm
to bring the western tribes to join his expedi-
tion against the Iroquols.
By his many trading excursions Perrot had
obtained great Influence with the western tribes-
men, and the year after his disastrous Iroquols
raid La Barre sent him West with a commission
as commandant of La Baye and Its dependencies.
Proceeding to the Mississippi, he built Fort St
Nicolas at the mouth of the Wisconsin and win-
tered in a trading post at Mount Trempealeau.
The next year he built Fort St Antoine on Lake
Pepin and opened trade with the Sioux. That
year, 1686, was signalized by his gift to the mis-
sion of St Francis of a silver ostensorium, fine-
ly chased and engraved This relic Is now in the
museum at Green Bay. In 1687 Perrot was called
upon to cooperate In another expedition against
the Iroquois. This year he assisted In arresting
two English fur-trading expeditions on the Great
Lakes. Having returned to Fort St Antoice
after adjusting Indian difficulties at Green Bay,
on May 8, 1689, he took possession of the region
of the upper Mississippi in a ceremony similar
to that of 1671 (Collections of the State ffts-
torical Society of Wisconsin, vol. XI, 1888, pp.
35-36). The next year, 1690, he discovered a
lead mine in what Is now southwest Wisconsin
and built a fort to aid In its exploitation.
For several years more Perrot was employed
among the western tribes, adjusting their dis-
putes, preserving their friendship for France;
then, in 1696, all licenses for trade were revoked
and all commissions canceled. He returned to
Canada, badly in debt and without resources.
During Denoninlle's expedition (1687) 40,000
livres worth of furs Perrot had left at Green
Bay were burned. In 1699 he requested permis-
sion for his sons to go West and collect his cred-
its but was refused. In 1701, at the great peace
treaty, he was employed as Interpreter and was
earnestly requested by the Indians to return
witib them as their ruler and guide. This request
the governor refused; some time thereafter he
was given employment in the militia service
along the St Lawrmce. His later years were
spent In writing his experiences. One fnetnoir
has snrviYed, which was published in 1867 at
Paris, His journals were also irtlEzei by
Perry
Bacqueville de la Potherie in his Histoire de
I'Amerique Septentrionale (4 vols., 1722). Per-
rot was one of the ablest Indian diplomats of the
seventeenth century. Suite called him "the great-
est Frenchman of the West" (post, p. 12), and
none ever had more empire over the fickle and
treacherous savages than he. He cooperated
with Duluth, Tonty, and other explorers and
discoverers. His name is perpetuated in the Per-
rot State Park, on the upper Mississippi, the site
of his Mount Trempealeau post.
[Parrot's "Memoire" was edited with copious notes
by R. J. P. Tailhan, Memoirs sur les Moeurs, Cous-
tumes et Relligion des Salvages de I'Amerique Sep-
tentrionale (1864); it is translated together with the
portions of La Potherie's history in E. H. Blair, The
Indian Tribes of the Upper Miss. Valley and Region
of the Great Lakes (2 vols., 1911) ; a sketch of Perrot
is in Appendix A (ii, 249-252). G. P. Stickney wrote
abiog. of Perrot in Parkman Club Papers (copr. 1896).
L. P. Kellogg, The French Regime in Wis. and the
Northwest (1925) contains the most complete account
of Perrot's career. See also Pubs. State Hist. Soc. of
Wis. . . . 1915 (1916) ; Benjamin Suite, "La Baie Verte
et le Lac Superieur," Proc. and Trans. Royal Soc. of
Canada, 3 ser., vol. VI (1913).] L. P.K.
PERRY, ARTHUR LATHAM (Feb. 27,
1830- July 9, 1905), economist, was born at
Lyme, N. H. His father, the Rev. Baxter Perry,
was a descendant of John Perry, a clothworker,
who, after the great London fire of 1666, emi-
grated to Watertown, Mass. His descendants al-
most a century later moved to Worcester, where
Baxter Perry was married to Lydia Gray, whose
ancestor, Matthew Gray, had come to Worces-
ter in a large company of Scotch-Irish in 1718.
The qualities of the Scotch-Irish — energy,
frankness, conviction — were conspicuous in the
character of Arthur Latham Perry.
He was a posthumous child, and the mother's
material need was relieved by neighbors, partic-
ularly Arthur Latham, the principal merchant
of Lyme, for whom the boy was named.
"Brought up in extreme poverty without being
in the least depressed by it," Arthur attended the
village school, and between the ages of thirteen
and sixteen, for a part of each session the Thet-
ford (Vt.) Academy, just across the Connecti-
cut River from his home. For the next two years
he taught village schools in Vershire, Vt., and
Bristol, N. H., and in September of 1848, having
been encouraged to do so by President Mark
Hopkins, he entered Williams College. In his
sophomore year he discovered John Stuart Mill's
System of Logic, upon which he battened, and
which became, he said, the subsoil of his intellec-
tual growth. At his graduation in 1852 he was
given the honor of making the "metaphysical
oration." He spent the next year teaching in
an academy in Washington, D. C, but was
Perry
promptly called back to Williams as tutor
political economy and history, and the next se
sion was appointed professor of these subjec
with the German language added. After i8<
he was able to concentrate upon political ecoi
omy, of which he held the chair until his retir
ment as emeritus professor in 1891. On Aug.
1856, he married Mary Brown Smedley of Wi
liamstown, and they had seven children.
Perry's service as an economist falls undi
three heads — teaching, writing, and prop;
ganda. His class-room instruction was clea
original, and spirited, and he was the cordi
friend of the individual students in innumerab
ways. His textbooks took the leading place j
America in his day; the first one, Elements <
Political Economy, appearing in 1865 when tl
field was scarcely occupied passed through
score of editions. He also published An Inin
duction to Political Economy (1877) and Prii
ciples of Political Economy ( 1891 ) . About 186,
through Amasa Walker [q.vf], he discovere
Frederic Bastiat's Harmonies of Political Ecoi
omy, and this work determined the direction <
his thought. Twenty years later he said, "I ha
scarcely read a dozen pages in that remarkabl
book, when the Field of the Science, in all ii
outlines and landmarks, lay before my mind ju
as it does to-day" (Elements of Political Ecoi
omy, i8th edition, 1883, Preface, p. ix). Tli
heart of his preachment, ethical as well as ecc
nomical, was the necessity of unhampered es
changes, which became, in practical applicatioi
an unremitting1 insistence upon free trade. Hi
devotion to free trade inevitably led, as a const
quence of his reformer's zeal, to wide popula
advocacy. Under auspices of the American Fre
Trade League he delivered 200 public addresse
across the Continent; he smote protection i
communications to the Springfield Republica
and the New York Evening Post; he debate
against Horace Greeley ; and his pamphlet, Th
Foes of the Farmers, had two printings. He wa
elected to the Cobden Club of Great Britain. I
all of his work, his scientific claims gave grottn
to his practical purpose. As one of his sons ha
said, he was not so much philosophical as "crea
tive, imaginative, humanistic" (A Professor c
Life, post, p. 92). His exaggerations, springin;
from intense belief, were honest on his part, bn
sometimes prompted hostility in others.
His avocation, the investigation of the k^ca
history of western Massachusetts, pursued indie
fatigably in state archives and country coEvei
sations, issued in his Origins in W%liams£of?<
(1894); continued in Williams-town and |f*2
liams College (1899) ; in his rediscovery olil
Perry
since famous Mohawk Trail ; and in his success-
ful resolve that the Bennington battle monument
should be simple and impressive. For fourteen
years he was president of the Berkshire Histor-
ical and Scientific Society. During- a long peri-
od he supplied two nearby churches, and he took
his turn in conducting the chapel exercises of the
college. He died at Wiiliamstown.
[Perry's Miscellanies (1902) ; Biographical Rev. . . .
Berkshire County, Mass. (1899) ; Springfield Repub-
lican,, July 10, 1905 ; Carroll Perry, A Professor of
Life (1923) ; John Bascom, Colls. Berkshire Hist, and
Scientific Society, vol. Ill (1899-1913), pp. 192-206;
Free Trade Broadside, vol. I, no. 3 ; Williams Alumni
Rev., vol. XV, no. 4, pp. 131-36, containing also a par-
tial Perry bibliog. ; Ibid., vol. XIX, no. 4, pp. 166-67;
Williams Coll. Bull., Apr. 1906 ; information from a
member of the family.] g. 3^
PERRY, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (Nov.
20, i8os~Dec. 3, 1886), governor of South Caro-
lina, was born in Pendleton District, S. C. His
father, Benjamin Perry, was a native of Massa-
chusetts and a Revolutionary soldier, who had
gone South in 1784 and married Anne Foster
of Virginia. The boy's early life was spent on
the farm with intermittent attendance at school,
but when he was sixteen he went to Asheville,
N. C., and was prepared to enter college. He
began to study law at Greenville, S. C., however,
and, admitted to the bar in 1827, continued there
in practice.
A nationalist in belief, he opposed vehemently
the policy of nullification, and in 1832 was a dele-
gate to the Union party convention and the same
year began to edit the Greenville Mountaineer, a
Union newspaper. As a Unionist, he was elected
to the nullification convention in 1832 and voted
against the nullification ordinance. In the sec-
ond session, 1833, which repealed the ordinance,
he was active in support of compromise. Dur-
ing this period, he very unwillingly accepted a
challenge from Turner Bynum, editor of the
GreeniMe Sentinel, resulting from a political dis-
agreement, and mortally wounded him. In 1834,
1835, and 1846, he was a candidate for Congress
but in each election was defeated. From 1836 to
1862 he was frequently elected to the legislature,
serving in both the House of Representatives
and the Senate. In these bodies he was a strong
friend of internal improvements and particularly
active in behalf of the Louisville, Cincinnati &
Charleston and the Greenville & Columbia rail-
roads. He also favored divorcing the banks from
the state. In 1848 Be was a Democratic elector.
He secured the establishment of the Southern
Patriot in 1850, the only Union paper ifi the
state, and edited it in spite of bitter opposition.
In the legislature of 1850 he was a strong a<lvo-
cate of a Sotctiiern oanreiitiofi, but lie opposed
Perry
secession as "merely revolution," and voted
against the calling of a convention. He was
elected to the convention of 1852, which was
called to secede but refused to do so, and he was
a member of the committee which considered the
whole question of secession. The report of the
committee, affirming the right and justification
of secession, declared that South Carolina fore-
bore for expediency only. Perry voted against
the report and offered a substitute opposing the
right of secession, affirming the right of revo-
lution, and vehemently defending slavery. He also
opposed an ordinance granting the legislature
the power to secede by a two-thirds vote. He
was a delegate to the Charleston convention of
1860, and, perfectly frank in his Union views,
refused to withdraw with the South Carolina
delegation. While to him secession was not only
"madness and folly" but rebellion, it did not occur
to him to do other than follow his state. Answer-
ing an inquiry as to his position, he said, "You
are all now going to the devil and I will go with
you. Honor and patriotism require me to stand
by my State, right or wrong (Reminiscences,
post, p. 1 6). He became Confederate commis-
sioner in 1862, district attorney in 1863, and dis-
trict judge in 1864.
In 1865 Andrew Johnson made him provisional
governor. He quickly excited criticism in the
North by his reappointment of all wte held office
at the time of the downfall of the state govern-
ment, but it was a wise and tactful move, en-
abling him to secure the adoption of popular elec-
tion of governor and presidential electors^ equal
representation throughout the state on the basis
of property and population, the destruction of the
parish system, the popular election of judges for
a term of years, and the ratification of the Thir-
teenth Amendment He declined to mn for gov-
ernor, but was elected United States senator,
He was denied his seat, however, and continued
in the practice of his profession. His activity in
politics continued and he was an enthusiastic
delegate to' the National Union Convemtios of
1866, and was a bitter and unrelenting opponent
of congressional reconstruction. He was a dele-
gate to the National Democratic Convention of
1868 and of 1876, and, in 1872, as a f orlocn hope,
lie ran for Congress,
Perry was not a brilliant man, bat lie had good
abilities, judgment, and poise, In spite of tes
independence, lie made many friends and few
enemies. He was an excellent anil very saccess-
M lawyer, a widb reader, and a prolific writer
of joftrnalistk sketches of men and events*
of wMcfa were published tinder the titles
of PMic
483
Perry
1889) and Biographical Sketches of Eminent
American Statesmen (1887). He was married
in 1837 to Elizabeth Frances, daughter of Hext
McCall of Greenville.
[H. M. Perry, Letters of My Father to My Mother
(1889), Letters of Gov. Benjamin Franklin Perry to
His Wife, Second Series (1890), and biog. sketch in
B. F. Perry, Reminiscences of Public Men (1883) ; Jour,
of the Convention of the People of S. C., 1832 . . . 1833
(1833) ; Jour, of the State Convention of S. C. (1852) ;
Jour, of the Convention . . . Held in Columbia . . .
Sept. 1865 (1865) ; J. S. Reynolds, Reconstruction in S.
C. (1905) ; J. P. Hollis, The Early Period of Recon-
struction in S. C. (1905) ; F. B. Simpkins and R. H.
Woody, S. C. During Reconstruction (1932) ; In.
Memoriam, Benjamin Franklin Perry . . . (revised ed.,
1887) ; News and Courier (Charleston), Dec. 4, 1886;
Diary of B. F. Perry in library of Univ. of N. C.]
J.G.deR.H.
PERRY, CHRISTOPHER RAYMOND
(Dec. 4, I76i-June i, 1818), naval officer, was
a descendant of Edward Perry, a Quaker leader
and pamphleteer, who emigrated from Devon-
shire, England, to Sandwich, Mass., about 1650.
Religious persecution caused several children of
the emigrant to seek a more tolerant neighbor-
hood at South Kingston, R. I. His great-grand-
son (or possibly grandson) Dr. Freeman Perry,
a physician, was for many years president of the
South Kingston council, and for eleven years,
1780-1791, chief justice of the court of common
pleas of Washington County. Christopher was
born at South Kingston, the third of the seven
children of Freeman and Mercy (Hazard) Per-
ry. A youth at the outbreak of the Revolution,
he had a varied service with both the land and
sea forces. He enlisted with the Kingston Reds
and was with the army of Gen. John Sullivan in
the Rhode Island campaign of 1778. He was on
board the privateer General Mifflin when that
vessel captured the Tartar and the Prosper and
he took part in the siege of Charleston, S. C. He
was at different times attached to the Continental
ships the Queen of France and the Trumbull, and
participated in the hard-fought battle between the
last-named vessel and the Watt. Four times
taken prisoner, he was confined on the Jersey
at New York, on the Concord at Charleston, S.
C., and in the prisons at Tortola, W. I., and
Kinsale, Ire., from which he escaped only after
a long period of confinement
He became acquainted, during his sojourn at
Kinsale, with Sarah Wallace Alexander, and
when he made a voyage to Ireland in 1784 as
mate of a merchant vessel, Miss Alexander em-
barked on board his ship for the return voyage
to visit friends in Philadelphia. Before the ship
reached America the young couple were be-
trothed and in August 1784, were married at the
home of Dr, Benjamin Rush. For fourteen years
Perry
after the Revolution Perry made voyages
master or supercargo to Europe, South Ameri
and the East Indies. In June 1798, he entered
navy as captain and was placed in command
the General Greene, then under construction
Warren, R. I. A year later he was employed si
pressing piracy on the north coast of Cuba, a
voying merchantmen to the United States, a
cruising on the Santo Domingo station. His 1;
voyage in the naval war with France was to 1
mouth of the Mississippi River, where he to
on board James Wilkinson [<?.z>.], whom he cc
veyed to the United States. He was retired fn
the navy under the peace establishment of i8<
and returned to the merchant service, making
least one voyage to the East Indies. He offer
his services to the secretary of the navy early
the War of 1812 and received a temporary a
pointment as commandant of the Charlesto\
navy yard. After the war he held the office
revenue collector at Newport. His five sons, i
eluding Oliver Hazard Perry [q.vj], and MJ
thew Calbraith Perry [g.'y.], were naval officei
and two of his three daughters married na\
officers — one, Ann Maria, marrying Georj
Washington Rodger s \_q.v. ~\. At one time the
were seventeen cousins of the Perry family
the Naval Academy, Annapolis.
[Record of Officers, Bureau of Navigation, 179!
1 80 1 ; Miscellaneous Letters, Navy Dept Archive
1812, vol. V, 1813, vols. I, II; C. E. Robinson, Ti
Hazard Family of R. L (1895) ; W. E. Griffis, Mattht
Calbraith Perry (1887) ; G. W. Allen, Our Naval W>
With France (1909) ; Newport Mercury, June 6, 1818
CO. P.
PERRY, EDWARD AYLESWORTH (Ma
15, i83i-Oct. 15, 1889), Confederate soldie
governor of Florida, was born in Richmon*
Mass., the son of Asa and Philura (Aylesworth
Perry. He received an elementary education i
the Richmond academy and entered Yale Colleg
in 1850 but withdrew the next year. After a bri<
sojourn in Alabama, where he taught school an
studied law, he removed to Pensacola, Fla., t
begin the practice of law in 1857. On Feb. :
1859, he was married to Wathen Taylor, wh
bore him five children. At the coming of th
Civil War he abandoned his law practice, raise
Company A of the 2nd Florida Infantry, and be
came the captain. His regiment was a part c
Lee's army in Virginia, and upon the death o
its commander he was promoted to the rank o
colonel in May 1862. He was badly wounded a
the battle of Frayser's Farm and was invalids
home. He was appointed brigadier-general i
August 1862 and, upon his return to active ctefey
took command of the little brigade of
Florida regiments, which he continued to
484
Perry
throughout the war. After the battle of Chan-
cellorsville he had typhoid fever and was again
forced to retire from active service, thus missing
the Gettysburg campaign. He returned to duty
and led his brigade in Lee's defensive campaign
until May 1864, when he was severely wounded
in the Wilderness fighting and again forced to
give up the service. During his absence his deci-
mated brigade was condensed into a regiment
and consolidated with another brigade. Upon
his recovery he was assigned to duty with the
reserves in Alabama.
At the end of the war he resumed the practice
of his profession at Pensacola and soon acquired
a wide reputation as a lawyer. He was an out-
spoken critic of Carpet-bag rule in the state, and
in 1884 he was elected governor of Florida on
the Democratic ticket, his selection "being due
largely to his fame as a soldier. His adminis-
tration was a successful one but not distinguished
for any great achievements; it was rendered
memorable in state annals by the yellow fever
ravages at Jacksonville and the disastrous St.
Augustine fire. At the end of his administration
he retired to private life and died as the result
of a stroke of paralysis while visiting in Kerr-
ville, Tex. He was buried in Pensacola.
[Confederate MiL Hist., ed. by C. A. Evans (1899),
vol. XI ; Soldiers of Fla. in the Seminole Indian-Civil
and Spanish-American Wars, prepared . . . under . . .
Board of State Institutions (1903) ; R. H. Rerick, Mem-
oirs of Fla. (1902), vol. I ; H. G. Cutler, Hist, of Flo.
(1923), vol. I; War of the Rebellion: Official Records
(Army), I ser., vols. XXXIX, pt 2, XL, pt. 2 ; Florida
Times-Union (Jacksonville), Oct. 16, 17, 19, 1889;
date of birth from H. E. Ayls worth, Arthur Aylsworfh
and His Descendants in America (1887).] R. 5. C.
PERRY, EDWARD BAXTER (Feb. 14,
i855-June 13, 1924), concert pianist, author and
lecturer, was born in Haverhill, Mass., the son
of Baxter E. and Charlotte (Hough) Perry. He
was blind practically all of his life, as he lost his
sight through an accident when he was only two
years of age, but this handicap in no wise de-
terred his activities as a student He was edu-
cated in the public schools of Medford, graduat-
ing in 1871. In the same year he went to Boston
to study piano — first at the Perkins Institute for
the Blind, in South Boston, then with J. W. HilL
Besides his music study, he specialized also in
English literature. He remained in Boston tin-
til 1875, when he went to Europe for further
study with Kullak in Berlin and Pnickner In
Stuttgart. Later he studied with Ckra Schu-
mann, and, in the summer of 1878, with Liszt at
Weimar. He also took courses at the University
of Berlin and at the Polytechnical Institute at
Stuttgart (1875-78) in literature, Mstory, and
philosophy. He gave occasional concerts and
Peny
played before the Emperor of Germany. Soon
after his return to America he was appointed
professor of music at Oberlin College ( 1881-
83), but from 1883 to 1885 he was again in Eu-
rope and again at the Polytechnical Institute in
Stuttgart. In 1885 he began to give concerts
over the entire United States. He was perhaps
the first to devote himself almost exclusively to
lecture recitals, and in the period from 1885 *®
1917 he gave more than three thousand, com-
prising practically the entire pianoforte litera-
ture available at that time. Besides this record
activity, he wrote several hundred articles for
magazines, principally for the Etude. In 1897-
98 he toured in Europe and was everywhere
greeted with enthusiasm.
Perry had an adequate technique ; his playing
was refined and facile, and his interpretations
were poetic. His loss of sight had made his other
senses particularly acute. But his description of
his ideas of physical beauty around him some-
times seemed fantastic to less sensitive persons,
and this quality was manifest to some degree in
his lecture recitals and in his writings. His De-
scriptive Analyses of Piano Works (1902) is
Interesting but too rhapsodical to be of depend-
able value to the student, for Perry read into
many of the compositions thoughts and emo-
tional qualities that probably never occurred to
the composers. The chief value of the work was
to stimulate the search for poetic content in
music, His Stories of Standard Teaching Pieces
(1910) possesses the same quality, but both
works had a large sale In their day. In Novem-
ber 1921 Perry went to Frederick, Md.? as In-
structor in piano at Hood College, where he re-
mained only one year. From 1922 until his death
he occupied a similar position at Lebanon Valley
College, Anville, Pa. On June 21, 1882, he mar-
ried Netta A. Hopkins of Peoria, III In 1898
he was decorated in Paris with the order of
Chevalier de Melwsime by Prince Lnslgnan In.
recognition of Perry's unpublished "Mdtisina
Suite," based upon a legend In the family of the
Prince. He died suddenly, of heart failure, at
his summer home in Camden, Me. Among Ms
published piano compositions are the following :
"Why/* "Mazurka Caprice/' "-SMienne/' "Au-
tumn Reverie/* "Hie Portent/' and "The Ballad
of Last Maud."
tWkefs Wko in America, 19x8-19, 1924-25 ; Internet.
Who's Who f in Mnsic (1918) ; L. C Elson^Tfce Hist,
of Am* Mnsic (1904) ; Grove's Diet, of Music and JW«-
sicwns (1928) ; JfmsicaJ C@mngrf June 26, 1924; tfee
Btttde* Aug. 1924 ; N* Y. Times, June 15, 1924.!
F.L.GLC
PERRY, ENOCH WOOD (July 31, 1831-
Dea 14, 1915), painter, was bom la Boston,
485
Perry
Mass., the son of E. Wood Perry of that city and
Hannah (Dole) Perry of Newburyport. When
he was seventeen he went to New Orleans, where
he worked in a grocery store for four years, sav-
ing from his meager earnings $1100 — no slight
achievement in a city presenting so many temp-
tations to prodigality. With his small capital he
sailed for Germany, to study art under Emanuel
Leutze, N.A., a well-known figure painter, and
remained there for more than two years before
going to Paris for a season in Couture's studio.
In 1856 he was appointed United States consul
in Venice, and even though his duties at that
post left him sufficient time to carry on his paint-
ing, he resigned in three years and returned to
the United States, doing some landscapes around
Philadelphia before joining his father who had
become a furniture dealer in New Orleans.
Young Perry hired a studio on St. Charles Street
and advertised himself as a portrait painter. He
evidently met with success, and one of his best
pictures, which now hangs in the Cabildo at New
Orleans, is of Senator John Slidell \_q.v. "\.
In January 1861 the Louisiana state legislature
in session at Baton Rouge signed the ordinance
of secession, and Perry made a preliminary
sketch in oil of the proceeding which is now in
the Cabildo. It contains likenesses of many of
the most important of the legislators. He also
painted about this time a large portrait of Jeffer-
son Davis standing before a map of the Confed-
erate States, Sitters became few, however, be-
cause men were too occupied with the grim busi-
ness of fighting ; so Perry went to California and
for awhile he painted in San Francisco. In 1863
he was in Hawaii where he did portraits of King
Kamehameha IV and his successor, Kamehameha
V. When he returned to the United States he
painted Brigham Young and other apostles of
the Mormon Church, staying in Salt Lake City,
Utah, until these commissions were finished. He
must have had great ability in salesmanship, for
he always contrived to have for sitters the most
important people in the cities where he happened
to be. His portrait of General Grant was done
when Grant was at the height of his military
glory.
After he settled in New York in 1865, Perry
acquired a reputation for his genre subjects.
Some of their titles, such as "Grandfather's Slip-
pers/1 "Too Little to Smoke/' "Good Doggie,"
and "Is Huldy to Home?," give an accurate idea
of them. Although as works of art they are quite
valueless today, they were painted with such
fidelity to detail that they are still interesting as
records of contemporary American interiors,
manners, utensils, costumes, household customs,
Perry
and even crafts, for he delighted in painting wor
en at work, spinning, hackling flax, makii
patchwork quilts, and performing other tas]
which have since completely disappeared fro
domestic life. He was an excellent draftsmz
and thoroughly trained in the technique of h
profession; his weakness lay in following tl
passing fashions of his day. In 1868 he w;
elected an associate of the National Academy ,
Design, and an Academician in the followii
year. He was most active on the Academy
school committee and served as its recordir
secretary from 1871 to 1873, a position he al:
filled for the American Art Union during its ei
tire existence. He died in New York, leaving
widow, Fanny F. Perry (death notice, New Yoi
Times, Dec. 15, 1915), and was buried at Ne\
buryport, Mass.
[J. D. Champlin and C. C. Perkins, Cyc. of Painte
and Paintings (4 vols., 1886-87) ', Senate Executv
Journal, 1855-58 (1887) ; G. W. Sheldon, Am. Painte
(1881) ; C. E. Clement and Laurence Hutton, Artis
of the Nineteenth Century and Their Works (1884) •
M. Cline, Art and Artists in New Orleans during ti
Last Century (1922) ; Am. Art News, Dec. 18, IQI<
Am. Art Annual, vol. XIII (1916); Who's Who''
America, 1914-15; death certificate, Health Dept, 1
Y. City.] E.L.T.
PERRY, MATTHEW CALBRAITH (Ap
10, 1794-Mar. 4, 1858), naval officer; fourl
child of Christopher Raymond Perry [qw.~\ ar
Sarah Wallace (Alexander) Perry, was born ;
Newport, R. I. After attending school in his nj
tive town, he entered the navy in 1809 as a mi<
shipman. He saw his first active service on tl
Revenge, commanded by his brother, Oliver Ha;
ard Perry \_q.v.]. In 1810 he was transferred 1
the President under Commodore John Rodgei
[#.z/.], a bluff disciplinarian who stamped mar
of his qualities upon the young subaltern. Perry
journal or logbook kept on board the Preside**
more informative than most writings of this kin
records several unusual experiences, includir
the action with the Little Belt in 1811, the figl
with the Belvidera in 1812, in which he w<
wounded, and the cruise off the coast of Noi
way in the following year, during which he WE
advanced to the grade of lieutenant. His na
vessel, the United States, was driven into Ne1
London and there remained until near the end <
the war. His enforced leisure he improved I
marrying on Christmas Eve, 1814, Jane Slide
of New York, a sister of John Slidell [g.vj an
of Alexander Slidell Mackenzie [q.v.].
In 1816 Perry, on leave from the navy, mac
a voyage to Holland as the master of a merdiai
vessel. His first active duty after his rettirii 1
the service was performed in 1820 as exe€$&&
officer of the Cyane when that vessel ai<te84i
486
Perry
establishing a colony of American negroes on
the west coast of Africa. In the following year
he returned to Africa in the Shark, his first com-
mand, conveying thither the United States agent
to the colony, later named Liberia. In 1822 he
cruised after pirates in the West Indies, cap-
turing five piratical craft. In 1825-26, as executive
officer of the North Carolina, 74, the flag-
ship of the Mediterranean Squadron, he partici-
pated in a visit to the headquarters of the Greek
Revolutionists and in an interview with the cap-
tain pasha of the Turkish fleet At Smyrna he
aided in the extinguishing of a disastrous fire and
by his extraordinary exertions brought on an
attack of rheumatism, from which disease he was
never henceforth entirely free. His promotion
to the grade of master commandant dated from
Mar. 21, 1826. In 1830 he conveyed to Russia,
on board the Concord, John Randolph of Roa-
noke, American envoy to that country. At St
Petersburg he was received by the Czar, who
invited him to enter the Russian naval service,
an invitation he declined. He next joined the
squadron in the Mediterranean and in 1832, as
commander of the Brcmdyurine, participated in
the naval demonstration made at Naples with the
object of compelling payment of spoliation claims.
In 1833 he was appointed second officer of the
New York navy yard and began a long and no-
table service on shore. He now became a resi-
dent of New York City, where henceforth he
made his home. Much interested in naval edu-
cation, he had in 1824 drawn up a plan for a
naval apprentice system and he continued his
agitation until an apprentice system was estab-
lished by Congress in 1837. He was a member
of the board of examiners that in 1845 prepared
the first course of instruction for the Naval Acad-
emy at Annapolis. In 1833 he took the lead in
organizing at the New York navy yard the
United States Naval Lyceum, to promote the
diffusion of knowledge among naval officers.
He was its first curator, in 1836 its vice-president,
and later its president He was much interested
in the Naval Magazine, an outgrowth of the
museum and the first American periodical con-
ducted by naval officers. He served on a com-
mittee that advised the secretary of the navy re-
specting the scientific work of the United State
Exploring Expedition, of which he was offered
the command.
Perry's interest in the revolution in naval
materiel that began in the 1830*$ exceeded that
of any other officer. An early advocate of naval
steamships, he is sometimes called the father of
the steam navy. Promoted to a captaincy f ram
Feb. 9, 1837, he was in the same year placed in
Perry
command of the Fulton, one of the pioneer naval
steamships, and it fell to Mm to organize the first
naval engineer corps. A report made by him in
1837 (Senate Document No. 375, 25 Cong., 2
Sess.) as a member of a naval board appointed to
study the water approaches to New York City
was used in Congress in behalf of an act creating
lighthouses. In the following year he was sent
on a mission to England and France to examine
the lighthouses of those countries and to collect
information on the use and construction of naval
steamships and ordnance. His reports made af-
ter interviewing many officials, including King
Louis Philippe, are valuable digests replete with
information and suggestions (for Perry's report
on lighthouses, see Senate Document No. 619,
26 Cong., I Sess.). In 1839-40 he conducted at
Sandy Hook and on board the Fulton the first
American naval school of gun practice. At Sandy
Hook he established an experimental battery for
the testing of guns, shells, and shot. One of his
papers to the department dealt with the use of
naval steamships as rams. In 1841 he was ap-
pointed commandant of the New York navy
yard, in which office he could readily serve the
department as technical expert on steamships
and naval inventions.
In 1843 he was chosen to command the African
Squadron organized that year to aid in the sup-
pression of the slave trade, under the provisions
of the Webster-Ashbtirton Treaty, and to pro-
tect the settlements of American negroes in
Africa. Cruising up and down the African coast
he held several palavers with the native chiefs,
one of which, that of Little Berribee, ended in a
fight with bloodshed and in the burning of sev-
eral towns. His "ball-and-ppwder policy" was
long remembered by the natives. His next im-
portant service was performed during the Mexi-
can War, first as commander of the Mississippi
and second officer in command of the squadron
operating on the east coast of Mexico, and later
as the commander-ia-cEief of the squadron. In
the latter part of 1846 lie commanded the ex-
pedition that captured Frontera, Tabasco, and
Lagtma, From Mar. 21 to Mar, a& 1847, ^€
commanded the naval forces that cooperated with
the army in the siege of Vera Craz and shared
mth Gen, Winfidd Scott for.] credit for the
capitulation of that city. Later he captured
Tuxpan and other fortified posts, and demanded
and 'received from Yucatan a promise of neu-
trality. His squadron is said to have been the
largest that tip to that time bad lown the Ameri-
can colors. .
From 1848 to 1852 Perry was oa special «3
at New York, chiefly engaged in
487
Perry
the construction of ocean mail steamships. In
the summer of the latter year he was once more
placed in command of the Mississippi and or-
dered to protect American fisheries oft the coast
of the British provinces in America, since re-
ports were current that Great Britain was seiz-
ing1 American fishing vessels. He visited the
fisheries off Cape Breton and Prince Edward
Island and, after reassuring and warning his
countrymen, returned home.
His part in the fisheries episode was a brief
interlude in the activities of a year spent in prepa-
ration for what proved to be the supreme work
of his life. In January 1852 he was selected to
undertake the most important diplomatic mis-
sion ever intrusted to an American naval officer,
the negotiation of a treaty with Japan, a coun-
try at this time sealed against intercourse with
the Occidental powers. He wrote to the secre-
tary of the navy that he was willing to undertake
the mission provided the East India Squadron
was greatly augmented. The suggestion was ac-
cepted, and the government decided to send to
Japan an imposing fleet, in the belief that a show
of naval power might facilitate negotiations. The
official documents relating to Perry's mission in-
cluded a letter of President Fillmore to the Em-
peror of Japan, and instructions from the State
Department. The last named stated that the ob-
jects of the expedition were the protection of
American seamen and property in Japan and
Japanese waters and the opening of one or more
ports to American vessels for the procuring of
supplies and for conducting trade. Perry was
directed to try first the efficacy of argument and
persuasion, but if these failed, he was to change
his tone and use more vigorous methods, always
bearing in mind however that his mission was
peaceful and that the President had no power to
declare war. No secret was made of the ex-
pedition, which aroused the interest of the whole
civilized world.
On Nov. 24, 1852, Perry sailed from Norfolk
for China on board the Mississippi. Late in May
of the following year he assembled his fleet at
Napa, Great Lu-chu Island, which he decided to
make a port of refuge for his vessels. Here he
spent several days calling on the prince regent,
exploring the island for scientific purposes, and
surveying harbors. While awaiting the arrival
of a collier, he visited Port Lloyd, Peel Island,
surveyed its harbor, explored the island, and
purchased a coaling depot. At length, on July 2,
1853, he sailed from Napa for Yedo, the capital
of Japan, with the Susquehanna, now his flagship,
and three other vessels. According to his plan,
he proposed to impress the Japanese by magni-
Perry
fying his mission, surrounding his person wi
an air of mystery, and declining to confer pe
sonally with subordinate officials. When on tl
morning of July 8 his ships approached Ye(
Bay, their decks were cleared for action, the
guns shelled, and their crews called to quartet
In the afternoon they anchored in Yedo Bay, c
Uraga, twenty-seven miles from Yedo, and we
soon surrounded by Japanese guard boats, 01
of which came alongside the flagship. A Jap:
nese official inquired for the commander of tl
squadron, but since the official was only a vie
governor Perry declined to see him, appointir
a lieutenant to inform him that the fleet came c
a friendly mission with a letter from the Pres
dent of the United States which the commande
in-chief wished to deliver to a dignitary of tl
highest rank. When the official replied that tl
fleet must go to Nagasaki, the only place i
Japan where foreign business was transacte
Perry sent word that he expected the letter 1
be received in Yedo Bay. On the following &
a governor came on board the flagship and agai
ordered the Americans to go to Nagasaki. Pen
sent word that the letter would be delivered whe]
he then was, and if a suitable person was n<
appointed to receive it he would go ashore wil
a sufficient force and deliver it, whatever tl
consequences might be. In the end his boldnei
and threats succeeded, and on July 14 the letfc
of the President and other documents were d<
livered with elaborate ceremonies by Perry bin
self on shore at the village of Kurihama to tf
princes Idzu and Iwami, representatives of it
Emperor. As it seemed best to give the goven
ment time for reflection and discussion, Perr
having informed the princes that he would r«
turn in the following year, sailed for China, afte
a stay of nine days in Yedo Bay.
Suspicious movements of French and Russia
naval ships caused him to return to Japan soone
than he had intended, and in February 1854 fr
once more anchored in Yedo Bay. The Japanes
were now conciliatory. The Emperor had issue
orders to receive the fleet in a friendly marine
and had appointed five commissioners to met
Perry and consider the proposals made in til
President's letter. The meeting took place c
Yokohama, where the Americans made a secon
landing marked by much pageantry. There, o
Mar. 31, 1854, was signed a treaty of peace, amifr
and commerce granting the United States trac
ing rights at the two ports of Hakodate and Shi
moda. On his return voyage to China Perr
stopped at the Lu-chu islands and negotiated wit
the islanders a treaty similar to that of yofcc
hama. Acting under his orders, one of hfe cop
Perry
tnodores took possession in behalf of the United
States of the Coffin Islands.
As one of the chief diplomatic achievements of
the nineteenth century, the opening of Japan will
long make the name of Perry memorable. His
expedition marked a departure in Occidental
policy respecting Japan, in American policy re-
specting the Orient, and in Japanese policy re-
specting the western world. Perry was an im-
perialist bent upon extending widely in the
Pacific the commercial and naval interests of
America. He has been called the first American
official, so far as is known, "to view not merely
the commercial but also the political problems of
Asia and the Pacific as a unity" (Dennett, post,
p. 270) . On his return to Hong Kong from Japan
the American merchants in China gave him an
elaborate candelabrum as an expression of their
appreciation of his diplomatic services. In ill
health and worn out by the labors of his mission
he sailed for home on the British steamer Hin-
dostan and arrived at New York on Jan. 12, 1855.
The federal government, whose politics had
changed during his absence, took no special no-
tice of its sailor diplomat The state of Rhode
Island, however, presented him with a silver
salver, New York City gave him a set of silver
plate, and the merchants of Boston had a medal
struck in his honor. In June 1855 he was ordered
to Washington as a member of the naval effi-
ciency board (see Samuel Francis du Pont), but
his chief duty for more than a year was the prepa-
ration of a report of his expedition, which was
published by the government in 1856 in three
large folio volumes under the title, Narrative of
the Expedition of an American Squadron to the
China Seas and Japan. In the preparation of the
first volume, consisting of the narrative itself,
he was assisted by Francis Lister Hawks [q.v."\.
He had previously sought the aid of Nathaniel
Hawthorne, upon whom he called in Liverpool
on his way home from Japan. Hawthorne de-
clined the task, suggesting that he ask Herman
Melville instead, a recommendation which did
not meet with Perry's approval.
Perry was of a rather heavy build, blunt, some-
thing of a martinet; "Old Bruin" the sailors
called him. Hawthorne described him as a "brisk,
gentlemanly, off-hand but not rough, unaffected
and sensible man" (Our Old Home and English
Notebooks, Riverside Edition, 1883, 1, 548). He
had ten children. One of his sons retired from
the navy as a captain, and Ms daughter Caroline
Slidell Perry married August Belmont fotr.].
He died in New York City, the third officer of
the navy, and was buried in the Island Cemetery,
Newport A statue to his memory was erected in
Perry
1868 in Touro Park, Newport, by Mr. and Mrs.
August Belmont. In 1901 a monument com-
memorating his first landing was unveiled in
Kurihama, a gift of the Japanese American As-
sociation of Japan.
LW- E- GrifEs, Matthew Calbraith Perry (1887) is
a friendly account, which, while not without slips and
extraneous information, contains most of the essential
facts. See also Record of Officers, Bureau of Naviga-
tion, 1809-63 ; Letters to Officers, Ships of War, Na^y
Dept. Archives, 1809-14, 1837-52; E.. W. Neeser, Sta-
tistical and Chronological Hist, of the U. S. Nmiy
(1909) ; I. O. NitoTbe, The Intercourse between the U.
S. and Japan (1891) ; Tyler Bennett, Americans in
Eastern Asia (1922) ; C. 0. Paullin, Diplomatic Nego-
tiations of American Naval Officers (1912) ; S. W. Wil-
liams [g.v.], "A Journal of the Perry Expedition to
Japan/' Trans. Asiatic Soc. of Japan, vol. XXXVII,
pt. II (1910), the journal of Perry's interpreter; Sen.
Ex. Doc. No. 34, 33 Cong., 2 Sess. ; N. F. Times, Mar.
4.1858.] CO. P.
PERRY, NORA (iSpi-May 13, 1896), poet,
journalist, author of juvenile stories, was the
daughter of Harvey and Sarah (Benson) Perry
of Dudley, Mass. In her childhood the family
removed to Providence, R. I., where her father
was a merchant. There she was educated at home
and in private schools. As a child of eight she
wrote a hair-raising romance, "The Shipwreck/'
which she read to her playmates with great ef-
fect. Her book favorites were the Arabian
Nights and boys* stories, and, as she grew older,
Emerson's essays and the poetry of the Brown-
ings. She was rather proud of the fact that she
never went through the "Byron age." When
only eighteen she began to write for magazines*
and her first serial, "Rosalind Newcomb," ran
in Harper's Magazine, 1859-60, She soon went
to live in Boston where she became correspond-
ent for the Chicago Tribune and the Providence
Journal, as well as a contributor of stories and
poems to many magazines. She was a favorite
among New England readers. One of her most
popular poems, "Tying Her Bonnet Under Her
Chin/* was declined by the Atlantic aad
was then published in the Em at Wash-
ington, D. C It took the public fancy and was
sung and parodied throughout the East The At-
lantic then made her an offer for a poem equally
good, and she wrote "After the Bal/r her best-
known piece, first published in the Atlantic for
July 1859 and sometimes printed tinder the title
"Maud and Madge." Although it was excessive-
ly sentimental and morbid, Longfellow is said to
have given it moderate praise as "a very clever-
ly versified poem that— a very artistic poeox**
Nora Perry later wrote stories for girls al-
most exclusively. Her volumes include: After
the Bdlf and Ofker P@mw ( 1875) ; Her Lvotf*
Friend, and Oiker Poems ( 1880) ; TM
&f lie Unexpected* and Otker Stories (1880) ; A
489
Perry
Book of Love Stories (1881) ; For a Woman, a
Novel (1885) J New Songs and Ballads (1887) ;
A Flock of Girls (1887) ) The Youngest Miss
Lorton and Other Stories (1889) ; Brave Girls
(1889) ; Lyrics and Legends (1891) ; Hope Ben-
ham, a Story for Girls (1894) ; Cottage Neigh-
bors (1899); That Little Smith Girl (1899);
May Bartlett's Stepmother (1900); Ju Ju's
Christmas Party (1901) ; and A New Year's Call
(1903) in the Children's Friend Series. Char-
acter portrayal is the chief merit of her stories,
which are very simple in plot but show a knowl-
edge of girls. She was never a systematic
writer but wrote only when she felt so inclined.
For some time before her death she made her
home in a hotel at Lexington, Mass. While on a
short visit to her old home at Dudley she suf-
fered a stroke of apoplexy and died.
[F. E. Willard and M. A. Livermore, Am. Women
(1897), vol. II; Arthur Oilman and others, Poets'
Homes, 2 ser. (1880) ; Critic, May 23, 1896; Boston
Daily Advertiser and Boston Post, May 15, 1896;
Alphabetical Index of Births, Marriages, and Deaths in
Providence, vol. XII (1908) ; Vital Records of Dudley,
Mass. (1908) ; names of parents and year of birth from
Am. Antiquarian Soc.] S. Qm jj,
PERRY, OLIVER HAZARD (Aug. 20, 1785-
Aug. 23, 1819), naval officer, was born in the
village of Rocky Brook, South Kingston, R. I.,
the eldest child of Christopher Raymond Perry
\_q.v.'] and Sarah Wallace (Alexander) Perry.
Matthew Calbraith Perry \_q.v. ,] was a younger
brother. After receiving elementary instruction
in his native town, Oliver was placed in school
at Newport, where he learned navigation, having
exhibited a liking for the sea. The entrance of
his father into the navy smoothed his way into
that service, and on Apr. 7, 1799, at the age of
fourteen, he was appointed midshipman. Joining
his father's ship, the General Greene, he saw ac-
tive service in the West Indies during the naval
war with France. During the war with Tripoli
he was twice stationed in the Mediterranean, first
in 1802-03 on board the Adams, and again in
1804-06 on board the Constellation and other ves-
sels of the squadron. In 1803 he was made an
acting lieutenant and four years later received a
permanent lieutenancy. From 1807 to 1809 he
was employed in building gunboats in Rhode
Island and Connecticut and for a time command-
ed a flotilla of such craft engaged in enforcing
the Embargo. In 1809 he was advanced to the
command of the schooner Revenge and in 1810
cruised off the coast of the southern states where
he effected the recovery of the Diana, an Ameri-
can ship sailing under English colors, a per-
formance that was regarded as highly creditable.
Early in the following year while under orders
Perry
to survey the harbors of New London and New-
port, the Revenge ran aground in a fog and was
lost. A court of enquiry acquitted Perry of
blame, since the vessel at the time was in charge
of a pilot. He next took command of the gunboats
at Norwich and Westerly, with headquarters at
Newport, where on May 5, 1811, he was married
to Elizabeth Champlin Mason.
Perry was now considered an excellent sea-
man and an efficient deck officer. Physically
handsome, with pleasing voice and manners,
he was professionally ambitious, quick in de-
cision, and willing to take risks. His stature was
slightly above the average; his body compact,
active, and muscular. When war with Great
Britain appeared inevitable, he wrote to the sec-
retary of the navy earnestly entreating that he
be called into active service. Later he went to
Washington to urge his claims, and was promised
the first vacancy suitable to his rank, that of mas-
ter commandant, which he attained in August
1812. Restless and dissatisfied with his post at
Newport, which gave him the command of a few
gunboats, he tendered his services to the depart-
ment and to Commodore Isaac Chauncey \_q.v.]
for duty on the Great Lakes. Chauncey wrote to
him that he was the very person that he wanted
for a "particular service/' which later proved to
be the command of the naval forces on Lake
Erie. On Feb. 8, 1813, the department ordered
him to proceed to Sacketts Harbor, N. Y., Chaun-
cey's headquarters. He reached his own head-
quarters, Erie, Pa., on Mar. 23 and spent the
spring and summer energetically employed in
building, assembling, equipping, officering, and
manning a small fleet — a most arduous task be-
cause a large part of his supplies had to be pro-
cured on the seaboard and transported through
the wilderness. In May for a brief period he was
on Lake Ontario where he took part in the cap-
ture of Fort George. Chauncey in acknowledg-
ing his assistance wrote that Perry was "present
at every point where he could be useful, under
showers of musketry, but fortunately escaped
unhurt" (Mackenzie, post, I, 147).
By August, Perry was ready for active opera-
tions. His fleet at Erie consisted of ten small
vessels, the largest of which were the sister-brigs
Lawrence and Niagara, each of 480 tons burden.
The fleet of the enemy blockading him was com-
manded by Commander Robert H. Barclay.
Perry could not cross the Erie bar in the pres-
ence of the enemy, for the water there was so
shallow that the guns and equipment of his heavi-
est vessels had to be removed before they could
pass over. For a reason never fully explained,
however, Barclay relaxed his blockade and
49o
Perry
Perry a chance to reach the open lake. The latter
described his task as one of almost incredible
labor and fatigue, but most of the ships were over
before the enemy arrived. It has been j ustly said
that the battle of Lake Erie was really won at
the Erie bar.
Perry was now joined by Master Commandant
Jesse Duncan Elliott [#.£>.] with one hundred
officers and men, and Elliott, as the second of-
ficer of the fleet, took command of the Niagara,
Perry having made the Lawrence his flagship.
On Aug. 12 the fleet sailed up the lake, unop-
posed by the enemy, who had retired to his sta-
tion at Amherstburg on the Detroit River. Perry
made Put-in-Bay his headquarters, some twenty
miles north of the present city of Sandusky, from
which position he could watch Barclay's move-
ments. He was also convenient to Gen. W. H.
Harrison [#.£>.] , commander-in-chief of the west-
ern army with headquarters at Seneca-town,
thirty miles to the southward. Twice he recon-
noitred Amherstburg and observed Barclay's
fleet, consisting of the new flagship Detroit, the
Queen Charlotte, and four other small vessels.
The completion of the Detroit and the urgent
need of supplies led Barclay to the decision to
contest with Perry the possession of the lake. On
Sept. 9 he weighed anchor and at sunrise on the
following day he was sighted by Perry, who at
once sailed out of Put-in-Bay to meet him. In the
early morning the British had the advantage of
the weather-gage, but before the battle was
joined the wind shifted and conferred on the
Americans the power of initiative. In weight of
metal the Americans had a decided superiority,
but in the number of effective men the difference
was not material. According to Perry's plan of
battle, the Lawrence was to fight the Detroit, the
enemy's most formidable vessel; the Niagara,
the Queen Charlotte ; and his smaller vessels, the
smaller vessels of the enemy. At 10 A.M. the
Lawrence was cleared for action and a battle flag
was hoisted upon which were inscribed the words
attributed to the dying Lawrence, "Don't give
up the ship."
The battle began a quarter before noon and
lasted until 3 P.M. During its major part the
brunt was borne by the Lawrence. When the
vessel had been shot to pieces, all her guns dis-
abled, and of 103 men, eighty-three killed or
wounded, Perry transferred his flag to the
Niagara, which up to this time had taken but a
small part in the battle. After he left the L(m-
rence she struck her colors, but as he soon brought
the Niagara into action the British were unable
to take possession of the former flagship. Tfie
ensuing minor part of the battle lasted about fif-
Perry
teen minutes and ended with the surrender of
the enemy's fleet Barclay's loss was forty-one
killed and ninety-four wounded including the
commander himself. Perry's loss was twenty-
seven killed and ninety-six wounded. More than
two-thirds of the casualties were suffered by the
Lawrence, The results of this decisive victory
were far-reaching. The Americans gained con-
trol of Lake Erie and held it until the end of the
war. Harrison crossed the lake and captured a
large part of Upper Canada. The American ne-
gotiators at Ghent were able to make good their
claims to the Northwest
In few general actions, according to Admiral
Mahan (post, II, 64), has the personality of the
commander after the battle was joined counted
for so much. Of Perry's laconic dispatches an-
nouncing his victory, the one beginning, "We
have met the enemy and they are ours" was ad-
dressed to General Harrison ; and the one be-
ginning, "It has pleased the Almighty to give to
the arms of the United States a signal victory
over their enemies on this lake" (reminiscent of
Nelson's dispatch after the battle of the Nile), to
Secretary of the Navy Jones. Scon after news
of the victory was received in Washington Presi-
dent Madison promoted Perry to the rank of
captain, his commission bearing the date of the
battle, Sept. 10, 1813. Later Congress added
$5000 to the $7500 which was his share of the
prize money. The capture of a British fleet by
the American navy was unprecedented and it at
once raised Perry to a position of renown. On
Jan. 6, 1814, Congress adopted a resolution thank-
ing him and requesting the President to give him
a gold medal. He received the thanks of the
legislatures of Pennsylvania and Georgia. Bos-
ton and Newport each gave him a service of
plate, several other cities voted him swords, aad
Baltimore, Washington, and Boston, dined and
toasted him. His efijo<yment of his well-deserved
fame was marred only by the acrimonious con-
troversy that arose with Elliott over the tetter's
part in the battle. (For an account of this con-
troversy, see sketch of Jesse Duncan Elliott)
After the victory, Perry cooperated with Har-
rison In taking possession of Detroit, in trans-
porting troops across the lake, and in fighting
the battle of the Thames, in which lie served as
aide-de-camp to the commander-in-chiel He
joined Harrison in issuing a proclamation to the
people of western Canada. On Get 25 he turned
the squadron over to Elliott and began Ms
triumphal journey to Newport In July 1814 lie
was ordered to Baltimore to take command of the
Java, 44 guns, but this ship was unable to go to
sea^ because of the blockade maintained % the
491
Perry
enemy. In September he commanded a battery,
with a detachment of seamen, and harassed the
British fleet in its passage down the Potomac
River from Alexandria.
In 1816-17 as commander of the Java, Perry
cruised in the Mediterranean. A difficulty that
he had at this time with Capt. John Heath of the
marines resulted in a court martial and a private
reprimand for both officers by the commodore
of the squadron, and later in a duel on the fa-
mous dueling grounds at Weehawken, N. J., in
which neither was injured, Perry declining to
fire. In May 1819 he was placed in command of
a small fleet and sent upon a delicate mission to
the republics of Venezuela and Buenos Aires,
whose vessels had been preying upon American
commerce. When descending the Orinoco River
after concluding negotiations at Angostura, the
Venezuelan capital, he fell ill of yellow fever and
died within a few days. His body was interred
at Port of Spain, Trinidad. In 1826 it was trans-
ported on the Lexington to Newport, where it
found its final resting place, later marked by a
granite obelisk erected by Rhode Island, a state
that has loyally cherished the name of its hero.
Perry had five children; one of his sons entered
the navy and one the army.
[There is a considerable literature on Perry and the
Battle of Lake Erie, ihost of which is listed in C. O.
Paullin, The Battle of Lake Erie (1918), pp. 205-12.
See also Records of Officers, Bur. of Navigation, 1798-
1825 ; Letters to Officers, Ships of War, X, XIII, and
Private letters, 1813-40, Navy Dept. Archives; A. S.
Mackenzie, The Life of Commodore Oliver Hazard
Perry * (2 vols., 1840); J. F. Cooper, Lives of Dis-
tinguished Am. Naval Officers (1846), II, 146-232; A.
T. Mahan, Sea Power in Its Relations to the War of
1812 (1905), II, 62-101 j Niles' Register, Oct. 2, 1819.]
CO. P.
PERRY, RUFUS LEWIS (Mar. ir, 1834-
Jtme 18, 1895), negro Baptist clergyman, mis-
sionary and educator, journalist, was born in
Smith County, Tenn. His parents were Lewis
and Maria Perry, the slaves of Archibald W.
Overton. Perry's father was a Baptist preacher
and such an able mechanic and carpenter that
he hired his time from his master and was allowed
to move to Nashville with his family. Here Rufus
was permitted to attend a school for free negroes
until his father ran away to Canada. After his
flight the other members of the family were de-
prived of their temporary freedom and forced to
return to their master's plantation. In August
1852 Rufus Perry, who was regarded as danger-
ous on account of his schooling, was sold to a
slave dealer who intended to take him to Missis-
sippi. After remaining in this man's custody for
three weeks he followed his father's example and
likewise fled to Canada. His goal was Windsor,
Ont, where he studied diligently and soon quali-
Perry
fied as a teacher among the fugitives of his race
Converted to the Baptist faith in 1854, he som<
years later studied for the ministry at the Kala
mazoo Theological Seminary and after gradu
ating from this institution, was ordained as pas
tor of the Second Baptist Church of Ann Arbo
on Oct. 9, 1861. Subsequently he served as pas
tor of churches at St. Catharines, Ont, and Buf
falo, and still later, of the Messiah Baptis
Church in Brooklyn, which he organized it
1887.
In 1865 Perry engaged in general missionar
work, laboring for the education and evangeli
zation of the members of his race. He superb
tended schools for f reedmen for a time, but ulti
mately devoted most of his energies to journal
ism. He served as editor of Sunbeam and of th<
People's Journal, was co-editor of the America)
Baptist, 1869-71, and in later years, 1872-95
was joint editor then editor-in-chief of the Na
tional Monitor, a Baptist organ. For ten yean
he was corresponding secretary of the Consoli-
dated American Baptist Missionary Conventioi
and he also served as corresponding secretary o:
the American-'Educational Association and oj
the American Baptist Free Mission Society. H<
was an eloquent preacher, a fluent debater, anc
an able writer with an entertaining style. Or
May 16, 1887, he delivered a lecture on "Light'
before the State University at Louisville, Ky.
which afterwards bestowed upon him the degree
of Ph.D. His only literary effort in book fonr
was The Cushite; or the Descendants of Hm
as Seen by Ancient Historians (1893). He diec
in Brooklyn, where he had made his home sina
about 1870. His wife was Charlotte Handy, bj
whom he had seven children.
[W. W. Brown, The Rising Son (1874) ; W. J. Sim-
mons, Men of Mark (1887) J Wm. Cathcart, The Bapt,
Encyc. (1881) ; Courier- Journal (Louisville, Ky.), Maj
1 8, 1887 ; Appletons' Ann. Cyc., 1895 (1896) ; Brooklyn
Daily Eagle, June 19, July 31, 1895.] H. G.V.
PERRY, STUART (Nov. 2, i8i4-Feb. 9.
1890), inventor, was born in Newport, N. Y
Here he obtained his early education, and then
entered Union College, where he was graduated
in 1837. Three years later he entered the whole-
sale butter and cheese commission house estab-
lished by his older brother and brother-in-law ID
Newport, with which he was associated for up-
wards of twenty years. Although he prospered
in his business, he was primarily interested in
mechanics and devoted most of his spare time to
study and invention in this field. After his re-
tirement, about 1860, he gave the remaining thir-
ty years of his life to this work. His first inven-
tion, now recognized as notable historically, was
a gas engine, for which he obtained United States
492
Perry
Patent No. 3,597 on May 25, 1844. It was oper-
ated by the expansion of the products of combus-
tion within the engine cylinder. The invention
was the first of the class of non-compression
gas engines that were so successfully introduced
by Lenoir in France about 1860. Perry's engine
utilized the explosive vapors obtained from rosin
heated by the exhaust gases in a retort which
was part of the engine. Again, in 1846, Perry
patented an improved gas engine, obtaining pat-
ent No. 4,800 on Oct. 7, 1846. This design in-
corporated a provision for water-cooling the
cylinder, an incandescent platinum igniter for
the gas, and a receiver for compressed air to be
used in starting the engine. In an effort to find
a market, Perry exhibited his engine in the New
York store of his brother's company in 1847 but
without success. He then turned his attention to
bank locks, inspired no doubt by the ingenious
work of his friend and fellow citizen Linus
Yale the elder. He obtained patents in 1857 for
a lock, key, and safe bolt, and in 1858, patent No.
20,658 for an improved bank lock. This was a
tumbler lock having no keyhole and a key made
up of component parts which could be separated
and reassembled to change the lock combination.
It is said to have been marketed as the "Great
American/* and was an improvement on the fa-
mous Yale "Infallible" and "Magic" bank locks.
Between 1860 and 1865 Perry worked on im-
provements in horse-powers and secured some
ten patents which he assigned to a local manu-
facturer. He also devised during the sixties a
milk-cooling apparatus, a stereopticon, saw-
mill machinery, and a velocipede. About 1870
he turned his attention to the manufacture of
agricultural implements, particularly hay ted-
ders of his own invention, and continued in this
occupation for the remainder of his life. He mar-
ried, in 1837, Amy Jane Carter of Newport, and
after her death in 1873 ^e married Jane W.
Maxson, who with a daughter by his first wife
survived Mm.
tHist. of Herkimer County, N. Y. (1879) ; New
York Journal, XLVII (1847), 511; correspondence
with Union College Graduate Council; Patent Office
records.] CW.M— n.
PERRY, THOMAS SERGEANT (Jan. 23,
i845-May 7, 1928), author, scholar, and educa-
tor, was born at Newport, R. I. His father,
Christopher Grant Perry, was the son of Oliver
Hazard Perry \_q«v.~]t of Lake Erie fame, whose
brother, Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry
[#.?7.], became equally famous because of bis ne-
gotiations with Japan. His mother was Frances
Sergeant, of Philadelphia, and on her side be
was, by direct descent, the great-great-grandson
Perry
of ^Benjamin Franklin, whose facial character-
istics he inherited to a degree that was frequent-
ly recognized. His early education was at pri-
vate schools. At the age of sixteen and a half
he entered Harvard College, graduating with
the class of 1866.
After graduation he went to Europe for fur-
ther study, with the intention of returning to a
position for life at Harvard as a tutor in French
and German. After holding this position from
1868 to 1872, however, he relinquished it and
became associated for a time with the North
American Review. Returning to Harvard In
1877 as instructor in English, he remained there
for five years. In 1874 be was married to Lllla
Cabot, daughter of Dr. Samuel Cabot of Boston,
and soon became an adopted Bostonian. As a
lecturer he was notably popular. A volume of
his lectures, English Literature of ike Eigh-
teenth Century (1883), is widely known and
read. For several years, at home and abroad, he
was engaged in an active literary life. In 1882
he published The Life and Letters of Francis
Lieberf which was issued also in a German
translation; in 1885 From Opite to Lessing ap-
peared. In 1887 he published a small volume in
a lighter vein, The Evolution of the Snobt which
is not, however, so trivial as the title sounds.
His History of Greek Literature, the most volu-
minous and comprehensive of bis works, ap-
peared in 1890. In addition to his original writ-
ings he published translations of contemporary
foreign authors, including Turgenev, and Saint-
Amand. Although Oliver Wendell Holmes called
him "the best read man I have ever known/* lie
refused to be ambitions, saying as he grew older
that writing was more a task than a pleasure. In
spite of his unusual equipment, which was en-
cyclopedic as well as scholarly, bis native tem-
per of the student and appreciator overcame by
degrees his interest in original work, and with
the exception of a brief biography of Ms old
friend, John Fiske, which appeared in 1906, be
published in bis later years only an occasional
short article.
In 1898 be went with Ms family to Japan,
where for tbree years be was professor of Eng-
lish at the University of Keiogtjifca. After his
return to Boston be remained to the end of Ms
life an omnivorous student and reader of man}
languages, including Sanskrit and Russian. Bj
nature a cosmopolite, and perhaps never quite a
home in America, lie lived to see himself
the last of "Old Boston/* of which he bad bee*
for years a distinguished and familiar figure. H
represented the perfection of a culture tfeat fa
passed* and be is remembered lor a
493
Perry
and engaging personality that was itself a sort
of genius. He was by nature what might be
called a rationalist, if not quite a materialist, and
yet was hospitable enough to say of Emerson,
whose optimistic unworldliness could hardly
have satisfied him, that he was "the only man I
ever knew who seemed to be different from the
rest of mankind." Though inclined to be ex-
clusive in his human relations, he was altogether
democratic in his appraisal of his fellow man,
frowning only on what he felt to be cheap or
mean or common. After a short illness he died
at his home in Boston.
[C. B. Perry, The Perrys of R. I. and Silver Creek
(1913) ; J. T. Morse, Jr., Thomas Sergeant Perry, A
Memoir (1929) ; Selections from the Letters of Thomas
Sergeant Perry (1929), ed. by E. A. Robinson ; Boston
Transcript, May 7, 1928.] E.A.R.
PERRY, WILLIAM (Dec. 20, 1788-Jan. u,
1887), physician, manufacturer of starch, was
born at Norton, Mass., the son of Nathan and
Phebe (Braman) Perry. His youth was passed
on the family farm and his preparation for col-
lege attained through a private tutor and a short
period at an academy at Ballston, N. Y., where
his brother, Gardner, was principal. He entered
Union College but remained only a year, trans-
ferring to Harvard where he was graduated in
1811. During the next three years he continued
medical studies at Harvard and tinder James
Thacher [#.z/.] of Plymouth and John Gorham
and John Warren [qq.v.] of Boston, all distin-
guished physicians in their day. In 1814 he re-
ceived the degree of M.D. at Harvard Medical
School and immediately opened an office at Exe-
ter, N. H. There he continued to practise until
almost the end of his extraordinarily long life.
Sound judgment, careful attention to his pa-
tients, and great professional skill quickly
brought him a wide practice and made him the
most distinguished physician and surgeon of his
time in that section of the country. In his late
eighties he was still performing difficult opera-
tions and at the age of ninety-two operated suc-
cessfully for strangulated hernia (Watson, post).
He was one of the first medical men in his state
to urge the establishment of an asylum for the
insane. Between 1830 and 1835 he was particu-
larly interested in the subject of insanity, and
it was mainly through his influence and exer-
tions that an asylum was erected at Concord.
His agitation included the delivery of two lec-
tures on insanity before the state legislature. In
1836 he was appointed lecturer at the Bowdoin
College Medical School and served one year ; in
1837 he was offered a professorship, but de-
clined.
Perry had a keen interest in chemistry, and
Perry
after a series of experiments became convinc
that "British Gum," an expensive imported prc
uct employed as a sizing by cotton manufacti
ers, could be produced by charring starch. Su
a substance he succeeded in making from pot
toes, and in the latter part of 1824 completed
mill for the manufacture of potato starch whii
was soon providing the cotton manufacturers
Lowell with a perfect substitute for "Britij
Gum," In 1827 and again in 1830 the mill w
burned to the ground, but within a short tin
was operating again. The secrets of the bus
ness were finally discovered, however, keen cor
petition developed, and Perry gave up the man
facture of starch as no longer remunerative.
Original in mind and straightforward in a
tion, he devoted his talents for over half a cei
tury to the highest interests of his communit
He lived to be ninety-eight, and few men hai
more completely won the respect and confiden<
of their neighbors. It is said that at the last t\v
presidential elections during his life his fellov
citizens waited to vote until he had cast the fir;
ballot He married, Apr. 8, 1818, Abigail Gi
man (1789-1860), the daughter of Nathani
and Abigail (Odlin) Gilman, and had by he
five children. His oldest daughter, Carolir
Frances, became the mother of Sarah Orr
Jewett [#.£>.].
[C. H. Bell, Hist, of the Town of Exeter, N, h
(1888) ; G. F, Clark, A Hist, of the Town of Norton
Bristol County, Mass. (1859) ; Arthur Gilman, The Gi
man Family (1869) ; Vital Records of Norton, Mass
to the Year 1850 (1906) ; I. A. Watson, Physician
and Surgeons of America (1896).] H U F
PERRY, WILLIAM FLAKE (i823-Dec. ri
1901), first state superintendent of public in
struction of Alabama, the son of Hiram an
Nancy (Flake) Perry, was born in Jacksoi
County, Ga. When he was ten years old the fam
ily moved to Chambers County, Ala. This coun
ty was a part of the cession of the Creek Indian
that had been made only a year earlier, and th
boy grew up in the most primitive frontier con
ditions, with little or no schooling. Poor a
his training was it was better than that of mos
of his neighbors, and he taught school in Talla
dega County, Ala., from 1848 to 1853, whil<
studying law. He was married in 1851 to Ellei
Douglas Brown in Talladega, Ala., the niece a
William P. Chilton [q.v.]. They had seven chil-
dren. He was admitted to the bar in 1854, bui
he never practised his profession, for in the
same year he was elected state superintended
of education and, twice reflected, served tmtil
1858. The office of superintendent of education
had been created in 1854 by an act of the Ala^
bama legislature providing for a free prf>lk
494
Perry
school system, and he was the first to hold the
office. Acting- tinder the law of 1854 he laid
the foundations for a strong public school sys-
tem of Alabama, which were, however, a few
years later swept away in the Civil War. He
entered upon the task with energy and enthu-
siasm, but the situation he faced was most dis-
couraging. The population was sparse and the
available funds were small. The people were In-
different, and he never had adequate popular
support. Teachers and administrators were in-
different and incompetent. In the face of these
difficulties he accomplished much. He was able
to build an organization and to persuade the leg-
islature to revise the law in 1856 in the interest
of greater efficiency of administration.
In 1858 he resigned his position as superin-
tendent of education to become president of the
East Alabama Female College at Tuskeegee. He
remained there until 1862, when he enlisted in
the Confederate army as a private in the 44th
Alabama Infantry. Within a few weeks he was
elected major by the men of the regiment His
promotion was rapid ; on Sept i, 1862, he was
made lieutenant-colonel and upon the death of
the colonel of the regiment at Sharpsburg he
was advanced to colonel. He led his regiment in
the assault on Round Top at Gettysburg and later
at Chickamauga, after which he was cited for
galantry by General Longstreet and recommend-
ed for promotion. He commanded his brigade
during 1864 and 1865, but his commission as
brigadier-general was dated Mar. 16, 1865. He
was paroled with his regiment at Appomattox*
After the war he returned to Alabama and spent
two years as a planter. In 1867 he took charge of
a military college in Glendale, Ky.y and went from
there to Ogden College at Bowling Green, where
he became professor of English and philosophy.
He published his own account of "The Genesis
of Public Education in Alabama" in the Transac-
tions of the Alabama Historical Society for
1898 (vol. II). He died in Bowling Green.
[T. M. Owen, Hist, of Ala. (1921), vol. IV; WilEs
Brewer, Alabama (1872) ; Wm. Garrett, Reminiscences
of Public Men in Ala, (1872) ; J. J. Garrett, "Forty-
Fourth Ala. Regiment," Aid. Hist. Sac. Trans., VOL II
(1898) ; S. B. Weeks, Hist, of Public School Education
in Ala. (1915) ; W. G» Clark, Hist, of Education in AU.
(1889).] H.F.
PERRY, WILLIAM STEVENS (Jan. 22,
i832~May 13, 1898), Protestant Episcopal bish-
op, church historian, was born in Providence,
R. I., the son of Stephen and Katharine WMtte-
more (Stevens) Perry. He attended the Provi-
dence High School and entered Brown Univer-
sity, but later joined as a sophomore the Har-
vard class of 1854, with whicli he graduate*!
Perry
He attended the Theological Seminary in Vir-
ginia for a time and continued his studies under
the special guidance of the Rev. Alexander H.
VInton, of Boston. While a candidate for orders,
he helped found Grace Church, Newton, Mass.
He was made deacon in Newton, Mar. 29, 1857,
and ordained priest, Apr. 7, 1858. He served as
rector of St. Luke's Church, Nashua, N. H.,
1858-61 ; St. Stephen's, Portland, Me., 1861-63 ;
St Michael's, Litchield, Conn., 1864-69; Trin-
ity Church, Geneva, N. Y., 1869-76. From 1871
to 1874 he was professor of history in Hobart
College, Geneva, and served for a short time as
president of the college (April-September 1876).
In 1868 he was appointed by the General Con-
vention, historiographer of the Episcopal Church,
and from 1865 to 1876 he was assistant secre-
tary or secretary to the General Convention. On
Jan. 15, 1862, he married Sara Abbott Woods
Smith, daughter of the Rev. Thomas Mather
Smith. He was consecrated bishop of Iowa in
1876, and continued until his death to adminis-
ter the affairs of his growing diocese. He found-
ed two church schools at Davenport, Iowa: St.
Katharine's Hall for girls and Kemper HaD
for boys.
Perry's most distinctive contribution to his
period was as a historical writer. He stimulated
the historical consciousness of the Episcopal
Church in America, and preserved material
which otherwise might have been lost He was
accurate, and in his work showed dear Judg-
ments seizing upon the important facts in rela-
tion to the development of the institution. A
student and investigator of early colonial sources,
he made many visits to England, and in the ar-
chives of the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel, Fulham Palace Library, and the Public
Record Office in London discovered valuable
manuscripts relating to the origin and develop-
ment of the Episcopal Church In America. These
were published in five volumes (1870-7®) tanks
the general title: Historical Collections
to the American He also pub-
lished in two volumes The History ®f the Atmr>
icam Episcopal Church, 1587-1883 (1885)
and The Episcopate m America (1895), a cot
lection of biographical sketches. He was in de
maud as a special preaclier and speaker cm man;
historical occasions and many of Ms adclresse
and sermons were printed in permanent fora
His literary activity is indicated by the fact tibs
a list of Ms separate publications includes 12
titles. A few of these indicate his interests; Ti
of the Siffmrs of lie Dtckaratto* of l*&
pmdence (1896?) ; Tie Ckrufmm i
George Washmffto* (1891); The Mm m
495
Person
Measures of the Massachusetts Conventions of
1784-85 (1885) ; A Discourse Delivered . . . at
Faribaultj Minn.} on the Eve of the Centenary
of the Consecration of the Reverend Samuel Sea-
bwry to the Episcopate of Connecticut ( 1884) ;
The Alleged "Toryism" of the Clergy of the
United States at the Breaking out of the War of
the Revolution ( 1895 ?) , and A Missionary Apos-
tle (1887), a sermon preached in Westminster
Abbey.
[The Harvard College Library has a complete col-
lection of Perry's publications. For biographical data
see Harvard College, Report of the Class of 1854
(1894) ; The Am. Church Almanac and Year Book for
1899 (1898) ; W. S. Perry, The Episcopate in America
(1895); Churchman, May 21, 1898; Dubuq-ue Daily
Telegraph, May 13, 1898.] D. D.A.
PERSON, THOMAS (Jan. 19, 1733-Nov. 16,
1800), North Carolina Revolutionary leader, was
born probably in Brunswick County, Va., but
lived from infancy in Granville (now Vance)
County, N. C. His father was William Person,
of Virginia, who went to North Carolina about
1740. The maiden name of his mother, Ann Per-
son, is not known. Thomas became a surveyor
for Lord Granville and in the course of years ac-
quired a landed estate" of more than 82,000 acres
lying in Granville, Halifax, Warren, Franklin,
Orange, Caswell, Guilford, Rockingham, An-
son, and Wake counties in North Carolina, and
in Davidson, Sumner, and Green counties in
Tennessee. He became a justice of the peace in
1756, sheriff in 1762, and was representative in
the Assembly in 1764 and frequently thereafter.
In the Regulation movement he was involved
somewhat deeply as counselor and adviser. He
was tried at the session of 1770 for perjury and
for exacting illegal fees but he was triumphant-
ly cleared. He was not present at the battle of
Alamance when the Regulation was suppressed,
but he was regarded as so important a leader that
he was included in Governor Tryon's list of
those excepted from the amnesty which was pro-
claimed. He was arrested and jailed but was re-
leased without trial, and his influence in the As-
sembly and in the colony grew steadily.
When the Revolutionary movement began
Person threw himself into it with intense fervor.
Ardently democratic, he believed the struggle to
be primarily one for popular government. He
headed the Granville delegation in all five pro-
vincial congresses, and he served on every im-
portant committee including the one which pro-
posed the Halifax resolution of Apr. 12, 1776,
instructing the delegates to the Continental Con-
gress to vote for a declaration of independence,
the one which drafted the bill of rights, and the
one which drew up the Constitution of 1776. In
Peter
the two congresses of 1776 he ranked with M
lie Jones as a leader of the liberal party. In r
he was elected a member of the provincial cot
cil and in 1776 of the Council of Safety. In r
he was elected also a general of militia, but thi
is no record that he saw active service. !
was again made a justice of the peace in 17
and a member of the council of state, and in i;
was elected to the Continental Congress but ne
took his seat. He was a member of the House
Commons from 1777 to 1786, 1788 to 1791, i;
to 1795, and in 1797 — seventeen years in aT
and a member of the Senate in 1787 and 17
In 1787 he became chief commissioner to set
the accounts of the state with the United Stat
In 1788 Person was one of the most influent
of those who opposed immediate ratification
the federal Constitution, and as a delegate to 1
Hillsboro convention voted against it. He ^
also a delegate to the Fayetteville convention
1789 where he again opposed ratification. T
legislature of 1789 named him one of the char
trustees of the state university and he held t
place until 1795 and was one of the institutio
earliest and most generous benefactors. Pers
in 1760 married Johanna Thomas of Granvi
County who died without issue. He died
Franklin County and was buried at Personton
Warren. His career in the General Asseml
was notable not only for its length, but for t
amount of legislative work which he did. ]
served on almost every important committee. ]
was a fighter and an able and adroit politi<
leader, but there was about him nothing of t
trickster. A zealous party man, he neverthel*
had a passion for justice, equality, and hones
in government which was always stronger th
party feeling.
[The Colonial Records of N. C., vols. I-X (188
90), and The State Records of N. C., vols. XI-XX'
(1895-1905) ; JT. S. Bassett, "The Regulators^ of N.
(1765-1771)," Ann. Report of the Am. Hist, As,
. . . 1894 (1895) ; S. A. Ashe, ed., Biog. Hist, of N. i
vol. VII (1908) ; Louise I. Trenholme, The Ratificati
of the Fed. Constitution in N. C. (1932) ; Hist. Papt
Pub. by the Trinity Coll. Hist. Soc.t ser. XIV (192;
PP. 79-8i.] J.G.deR.H.
PETER, HUGH (iS9&-Oct. 16, 1660), clerg
man, was the son of Thomas Dirkwood or Dye
woode, who subsequently assumed the surnar
of Peter, and Martha Treffry. He always sign
his name Peter but is often called Peters. I
was baptized at Fowey in Cornwall in Jtii
1598; entered Trinity College, Cambridge,
1613 ; received the bachelor's degree in 1617/1
and the master's, in 1622. He was ordained $e
con Dec. 23, 1621, and priest June 18, 1623, 1
George Montaigne, Bishop of London. Aft
496
Peter
preaching in Essex, he removed to London,
where he lectured at St. Sepulchre's, and became
associated with the Puritan feoffees who were
raising a fund to buy up impropriations in Eng-
land, and a member of the Massachusetts Bay
Company. The appointment of Laud as bishop
of London and the rise to power of the high
church party caused him to leave England about
1629. After traveling through Germany, he as-
sisted John Forbes in the congregation of Eng-
lish merchants at Delft and preached to an Eng-
lish congregation at Rotterdam. At the latter
place he was joined by William Ames, and per-
haps under Ames's influence drafted a covenant
for the church embodying the principles of Con-
gregationalism, and refused communion to all
who would not accept it. Hither he invited John
Davenport [#.£/.] when the latter failed to win
installation as co-pastor with John Paget of the
English church at Amsterdam, and liere he and
Davenport engaged Lion Gardiner [q.v,~\ to go
to New England for the Warwick patentees.
His movements in Holland were watched by
emissaries of Laud, now archbishop of Canter-
bury, and probably for this reason he placed John
Davenport in charge of his congregation in Rot-
terdam and departed for New England.
On Oct. 6, 1635, Peter arrived in Massachu-
setts Bay, and on Dec. 21, 1636, succeeded Roger
Williams as pastor of the church at Salem. He
was a firm supporter of non-separating Congre-
gationalism or the "New England way," and at
the time of his settlement at Salem, the church
adopted a covenant in some of its details resem-
bling the covenant that he had drafted for the
church in Rotterdam. On Mar. 3, 1635/36 he
was admitted a freeman of the Bay Colony, and
took an active part in the affairs of New Eng-
land. Soon after his arrival in Massachusetts he
and Henry Vane called a meeting to heal the
breach between John Winthropi and Thomas
Dudley. He served on committees appointed May
25, 1636, and Mar. 12, 1637/38, to draft a code
of laws for the colony. He concerned Mmseli
with the settlement of the Warwick patentees at
the mouth of the Connecticut River, and in the
summer of 1636 accompanied George Feawick
[q.v."] to Saybrook. He opposed seizing the com
of the defeated Pequot Indians, but asked for **a
young woman or girle and a boy" from among"
the captives for himself and John Endeoott In
November 1637 he attended the examination of
Anne Hutchinson by the court at Newtown, and
in the following March, her trial before the
church at Boston. He was a member of the com-
mittee appointed Nov. 20, 1637, **to take order
for a colledge at Newetowne,** was one of those to
Peter
whom the building of the college was intrusted,
and his name appeared as an overseer of the col-
lege on the theses printed in 1642. With others,
he was sent by the governor and council of Mas-
sachusetts to settle a dispute in the church at
Piscataqua and on leaving that place lost his way
and wandered for two days and a night in the
woods. He encouraged the fisheries, trade, and
shipbuilding of New England, and is character-
ized by Winthrop (post, II, 23) as "a man of a
very public spirit and singular activity for all
occasions." Against the will of his Salem con-
gregation, he was appointed one of three agents
to represent Massachusetts Bay and to further
the reformation of the churches in England, and
on Aug. 3, 1641, sailed from Boston for the
mother country.
In England he secured support for the Bay
Colony and Harvard College and assisted in ar-
ranging a settlement with the creditors of New
Plymouth. In negotiations with the Dutch West
India Company he failed to settle the "boundary
between New England and New Neiherland for
lack of a commission from Connecticut, although
one had been sent to him soon after his depar-
ture from New England (Documents Relative
to the Colonial History of the State of New York,
ed. by E. B. O'Callaglian, vol. I, 1856, p. 568).
He always intended to return to New England,
but with the outbreak of civil war in England he
became involved in the affairs of the mother
country, and made the poor health from which
he suffered all his life an excuse for delay. Dur-
ing the summer of 1642 he served as chaplain
with the forces of Alexander, Lord Forbes, in
Ireland; in 1644, with the forces of the Earl of
Warwick ; in 1645 and 1646, with the New Model
Army; and in 1649, with Crconwel In Ireland
With the duties of chaplain he combined those
of war correspondent and reported the activities
of the army to the House of Commons. IE ser-
mons preached during the trial of 'Charles I, h*
denounced the King, and in a letter to Qttees
Christina of Sweden some years later explalnec
the reasons for the execution of the monarch
He stood in high f aror with the Council of Stati
and tike Protector. He was one of the minister;
appointed to preach Before the Council, for wMd
fee received an annuity of £200 and lodgings t1
Whitehall, and so Impressed a visiting Ne*
Eijgfander witlt Ms Mgh station that lie was ac
dressed as ArdibisliCfp of Canterbury, wMc
"passed very we!LJ> With the overthrow of tl
Protectorate, he fell from power* On Jan, <
1659/60* he was tamed out of Whitehall ; cm 3fa
ii the Council of State, and on June 7 the If ote
of Commons ordered1 Ms apprehensioa; on An
497
Peter
29 he was excepted from the Act of Indemnity;
on Sept. 2 he was arrested and committed to the
Tower ; on Oct. 13 he was tried and condemned;
and on Oct. 16, 1660, he was executed at Charing
Cross. While awaiting- execution, he wrote A
Dying Father's Last Legacy to an Onely Child:
or, Mr. Hugh Peter's Advice to His Daughter
(1660). During his lifetime and after his death
he was cruelly maligned by both Anglicans and
Presbyterians, but he enjoyed the respect of such
men as the Winthrops of New England, the Earl
of Warwick, Fairfax, and Cromwell.
About 1624 Peter married Elizabeth, the
daughter of Thomas Cooke of Pebmarsh, Essex,
widow of Edmund Reade of Wickford, Essex,
and mother of the second wife of John Winthrop,
Jr. She did not accompany him to New England
and died in 1637 or 1638. Sometime before Sept.
4, 1639, ne married Deliverance Sheffield, a
widow, who was the mother of his only child,
Elizabeth, baptized at Salem Oct. I, 1640. His
later life was clouded by the insanity of this sec-
ond wife. In 1665 his daughter married Thomas
Barker at All Hallows, London Wall, and as a
widow in low circumstances, in 1703 laid claim
to his Salem estate.
[E. B. Peters, "Hugh Peter," Hist. Colls. Essex Inst.,
vol. XXXVIII (1902) ; William Harris, An Hist, and
Critical Account of Hugh Peters (1751, 1818) ; J. B.
Felt, A Memoir or De-fence of Hugh Peters (1851) ;
C. H. Firth, in Diet. Nat. Biog.; S. E. Morison, "Sir
Charles Firth and Master Hugh Peter, with a Hugh
Peter BibKog-.," Harvard Grads. Mag., Dec. 1930 ; G.
C. Boase, and Win. P. Courtney, Bibliotheca Cornulien-
sis (3 vols., 1874-82) ; John Venn and J. A. Venn,
Alumni Cantabrigienses, pt. i, vol. Ill (1924) ; Champ-
lin Burrage, The Early English Dissenters in the Light
of Recent Research (2 vols., 1912) ; British Museum,
Add. MSS. 6394, printed in Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., vol.
XLII (1909) ; Records of the Governor and Company
of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, vols. I-II
(1853), ed. by N. B. Shurtleff; Winthrop's Journal (2
vols., 1908), ed. by J. K. Hosmer; "Winthrop Papers/'
Mass. Hist. Soc. Colls., 3 ser. IX (1846), X (1849), 4
ser. VI (1863), VII (1865), 5 ser. I (1871), VIII
(1882) ; Thomas Lechford, Plain Dealing ; or,^ Nerves
from New-England (1642), repub. in Mass. Hist^. Soc.
Colls., 3 ser. Ill (1833) ; "Acts of the Commissioners
of the United Colonies of New England," Records of
the Colony of New Plymouth in New England, vols.
IX-X (1859) ; William Bradford, Hist, of Plymouth
Plantation, 1620-1647 (2 vols., 1912), ed. by W. C.
Ford; Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series; Acts
and Ordinances of the Interregnum (3 vols., 1911), ed.
by C. H. Firth and R. S. Rait.] I. M. C.
PETER, JOHN FREDERICK (May 19,
1746-July 19, 1813), school-master, preacher,
and musician, son of John Frederick and Susanna
Peter, was born at Hernndyck, Holland, where
his father was pastor of the Moravian congre-
gation. On the death of his mother in 1760, his
father was sent to America to assist in the Mo-
ravian work at Bethlehem, Pa. The boy con-
tinued his education in schools at Gros Henners-
dorf, Barby, and Niesky. Besides the usual
Peter
training for the ministry, he received instruc
on the violin and organ, and in harmony
musical composition.
In 1769 he followed his father to America
was for a year a teacher at Nazareth, Pa.
moving1 to Bethlehem in 1770, he became
countant and secretary of the Brethren's He
teacher in the boys' school, and organist oi
church. For fifteen years his was the inspire
that gave activity to the musical life of B
lehem. The Collegium Musicum, which had 1
founded in 1749 by Westerman, was expande
its aims, and works by Bach, Handel, and Gi
were rehearsed and performed, while the
chestra, consisting of the full complemem
strings, wood, and brass, played symphonic!
Haydn, Mozart, and their contemporaries.
1786 Peter was sent, in succession, to Hope
J., Lititz, Pa., Graceham, Md., and Salem, N,
where his musical activities were continued
where his talents made definite and permai
impression. In 1793 he returned to Bethlel
with his wife, Catharine Leinbach, a sin,
whom he had married in Salem, and became
countant for the diocese, resuming, also, con
of musical affairs.
During a life busied with many monoton
details, he composed more than thirty antb
for chorus, solo, and orchestra, and copied vi
and instrumental parts of works by the g]
composers of his day, for church and concert •
His only secular work is a set of six quinte
for two violins, two violas, and cello, writtei
the traditional sonata style ; they show not c
mastery of form, but also originality of melc
outline. Peter was well acquainted with the c
trapuntal music of Bach, but his own com
sitions reflect Haydn rather than the father
the moderns. His choruses are usually writ
in five parts and seldom pass very far into i
counterpoint, but his instrumental accomps
ments are always independent of the voices, ai
form. With respect to harmony, he very of
shows a strong tendency toward the modern hz
of chromatic alteration. In 1810 he copied all
vocal and instrumental parts of Haydn's Great
and in 1811, under his direction, the work \
given its first complete performance on
American continent, some years before its p
duction by the Handel and Haydn Society
Boston.
This talented musician, probably unknown o
side of his circle, was, undoubtedly, the first co
poser of serious concerted music in Ameri
Just what the technical quality of the perfor
ances of these pioneers of American music n
have been we have no means of knowing; 1
498
Peter
the seed whence sprang the Bethlehem Bach
Choir was in their spirit and in that of their self-
sacrificing leader. In the music library of the
Moravian Church at Bethlehem the perfectly
formed notes and the beautiful handwriting of
Peter covered many hundreds of pages. Some
of his copies of symphonies by Haydn are dated
between 1760 and 1/70 and reveal quite clearly
the nature of his early training", for the much
thumbed and marked copies speak eloquently of
hard rehearsals. One of the most significant re-
sults of Peter's life is seen In the list of names
of some six or eight local composers who fell un-
der his influence, though none of them equaled
their master. He died suddenly as he stepped
down from the organ bench after a rehearsal.
[Authorities include manuscript diaries of the Beth-
lehem Congregation, 1770-1813, and of the Brethren's
House, 1770—86, copies of the musical works of Peter,
and accounts of the Collegium Musicum, 1774-1813,
all in the Moravian archives, Bethlehem, Pa.; J. M.
Levering, Hist, of Bethlehem (1903) ; Raymond Wal-
ters, The Bethlehem Bach Choir (1923) ; J. T. Howard,
Our Am. Music (1930). The statement that Peter di-
rected a complete performance of Haydn's Creation^ in
1811 is supported by the testimony of one of the origi-
nal performers and by Peter's copy^of the score, which
bears marks in his handwriting indicating performance
of the entire work.] A. G. "SL
PETER, ROBERT (Jan. 21, i8os-Apr. 26,
1894), physician, chemist, was born at Launces-
ton, Cornwall, England, the son of Robert and
Johanna (Dawe) Peter. He came to Pitts-
burgh, Pa., with his parents in 1817, where from
necessity he sought employment and secured a
position in Charles Avery's wholesale drug store.
Here he acquired and diligently cultivated a de-
cided taste for chemistry. Soon after attaining
his majority he became a naturalized citizen, and
about that time attended the Rensselaer School
(now Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute), Troy,
N. Y. He was a member of the Hesperian So-
ciety and contributed to The Hesperus numerous
papers — scientific, literary, and poetical. In 1829
he gave a series of lectures on natural sciences
before the Pittsburgh Philosophical Society, of
which he was a member, and in 1830-31 he lec-
tured on chemistry in the Western University of
Pennsylvania.
In 1832 he went to Lexington, Ky., to be as-
sociated with Benjamin O. Peers iq.v-J in the
proprietorship of his "Eclectic Institute" and to
give a course of lectures. When Peers was made
proctor of Morrison College and acting presi-
dent of Transylvania University in 1833,. young
Peter was installed in the chair of chemistry in
Morrison College. He studied medicine in
Transylvania, receiving his diploma in 1834, tet
so intent upon Ms scientific pursuits was tie that
he soon gave tip the practice of medicine, OE
Peter
Oct. 6, 1835, he was married to Frances Paca
Dallam, and to this union were born six sons and
five daughters. To the Transylvania Journal of
Medicine and Associate Sciences,, of which he
was editor in 1837, ^ made numerous contri-
butions, among them being articles entitled
"Thoughts on Some Application of Chemistry to
Medicine" (October-December 1834), '"Notice
of the Crab Orchard Mineral Springs" ( Septem-
ber 1835), ai*d "A Summary of Meteorological
Observations Made During 1837 and 1838"
(January i837-July 1838). In 1838 Peter was
elected to the chair of chemistry and pharmacy
in the medical department of Transylvania Uni-
versity, which position he held until the closing
of the school in 1857. During the last ten years
he was dean of the medical faculty. He went to
London and Paris in 1839 an(^ expended $11,000
in books and apparatus for his department From
1850 to 1853 he also served as professor of chem-
istry and toxicology in the Kentucky School of
Medicine, Louisville. After his return from Eu-
rope he carried on much experimental work along
practical lines. He made a study of calculi and
published Chemical Examination of the Urinary
Calculi in the Museum of the Medical Depart-
ment of Transylvania University (1846). Hi
also experimented with gun-cotton.
A memorial to the Kentucky legislature, whld
Peter prepared, resulted in the Kentucky geo
logical survey of 1854, the first large state tin
dertaking of its kind in the West As chemist o
the survey, he made a valuable contribution t
knowledge of the minerals and soil of the state
the results of his studies being published in th
various reports of the survey. He was the fin
to call attention to the fact that the productivit
of the bluegrass soils of Kentucky is doe to the
high phosphorus content, and to report on tJ
phosphatic limestone which underlies much <
the bluegrass country. He was 31,50 chemist f <
the Arkansas and Indiana surveys directed f
David Dale Owen [f .F.].
During the Civil War he urns acting assists
surgeon in charge of military hospitals in Le
ingtofL When, in 1865, Transylvania, Kentticl
University, and the state Agricultural and M
chanlcal College were merged under the name
Kentucky University, Peter declined the pre
dency of the kst-aamecf and filled the chair
chemistry and experimental philosophy in 1
ether two schools of the University, la 1867-
he was assistant editor of the Farmer's HQ
I&nrmf^ and afterwards was a frequent comtrS
tor. When the Agricultural and Mechanical C
lege separated from the University in 1878, F*
chose to associate himself with the
499
Peter
professor of chemistry, remaining in that po-
sition until he retired as emeritus professor in
1887. He died at Winton, his country home, in
his ninetieth year, retaining almost to the end
his youthful appearance, mental and physical
vigor, and happy outlook upon life. His son, Dr.
Alfred M. Peter, was for forty-two years chem-
ist in the Kentucky Agricultural Experiment
Station. Father and son together gave nearly a
hundred years of service in chemistry to Ken-
tucky.
[Peter wrote Transylvania Univ., Its Origin, Rise,
Decline, and Fall (1896), Filson Club Pubs., no. n,
and The Hist, of the Medic. Dept. of Transylvania Univ.
(1905), Filson Club Pub., no. 20, published with biog.
sketch by his daughter, Johanna Peter ; see also J. N.
McCormack, Some of the Medic. Pioneers of Ky.
(1917) ; A. H. Barkley, Kentucky's Pioneer Lithotomists
(1913) ; Trans. Ky. State Medic. Spc., 1894; H. A.
Kelly and W. L. Burrage, Am. Medic. Biogs. (1920) ;
Courier-Jour. (Louisville), Apr. 27, 1894.] Q.R.
PETER, SARAH WORTHINGTON KING
(May 10, i8oo-Feb. 6, 1877), philanthropist,
was the daughter of Thomas and Eleanor (Van
Swearingen) Worthington. Thomas Worthing-
ton [g.^.] was a member of an old Virginia fam-
ily who freed his slaves and started life anew
in Chillicothe and Adina, Ohio, where he pros-
pered as a lawyer, and became a political leader.
Sarah, born in Chillicothe, was schooled in
Frankfort, Ky., and in a private institution near
Baltimore, receiving instruction chiefly in the
social usages becoming a girl of her position and
beauty. In 1816, she married Edward King, son
of Rufus King [q.v.] of New York, who had
completed the course at the Litchfield Law
School and settled in Chillicothe to practise his
profession. She became an ardent worker in the
local Episcopal Church, which she helped to
found in 1820, and maintained a cultivated salon
on the frontier where she entertained among
others Karl Bernhard, Duke of Saxe- Weimar-
Eisenach, who recorded his impressions of the
family in his Travels through North America
during the Years 1825 and 1826 (1828; II, 149-
50). In 1825, she accompanied her father to
New Orleans, where she was honored as one of
Lafayette's hostesses. Moving to Cincinnati in
1831, the Kings became prominent in social life,
aided in founding the Cincinnati School of Law,
and assisted in the establishment of the Protes-
tant Orphan Aslyum. In 1836, King died and
his widow moved to Cambridge, Mass., where
her sons were attending Harvard College. Wel-
comed by social leaders because of her family
connections in New York and Maine, she spent
her time in the service of Christ Church and in
mastering French, German, and Italian.
With her elder son settled in Cincinnati as a
Peter
lawyer and the younger in the Philadelphia com-
mercial house of his kinsman, Richard Alsop,
she felt free to follow her own bent, and in Oc-
tober 1844 she married William Peter, British
consul in Philadelphia. He was an Oxford schol-
ar, a translator of German poetry, and an essay-
ist, and had served as a Whig member of Parlia-
ment. The Peters became favorites in social and
intellectual circles, and their home was noted for
its collections of bronzes, prints, and paintings.
After the death of Sarah Peter's younger son, she
took his widow and three children to Europe
(1851-52). She organized the Philadelphia
School of Design for Women, promoted an as-
sociation for the advancement of tailoresses, and
materially aided the Quakers in the erection of
the Rosina House for Magdalens. On the death
of her husband, Feb. 6, 1853, she returned to
Cincinnati, where her home became a rendezvous
for artists and musicians. She soon brought
together a group of women interested in the fine
arts with whose assistance she founded a small
art museum, for which she collected masterpieces
and worthy copies on her frequent European
journeys. By 1876, this group had grown into
the Woman's Museum Association, which later
fostered the Cincinnati Academy of Fine Arts.
As a result of her sympathetic observations in
European Catholic countries, especially in 1854
when she met the American prelates who had
gone to Rome for the definition of the Immacu-
late Conception, she developed an interest in
Catholicism. In 1855 she was received into the
church at Rome by the picturesque Monsignor
Bedini. As a Catholic, her interest in magdalens,
orphans, and the indigent became more marked,
although her early services were given little sup-
port by Archbishop Purcell, who in time came to
trust her implicitly. In 1857, she brought the
Sisters of the Good Shepherd under Mother Mary
Ward from Louisville to Cincinnati and later as-
sisted them in establishing houses in Newport,
Ky., Cleveland, and Columbus (Catholiq Tele-
graph, Aug. 7, 1858, Mar. 12, 1859). She urged
successfully that they be given care of a prison
exclusively for women such as she had seen in
Paris. She secured a colony of Sisters of Mercy
from Kinsale, Ireland, who developed into a
strong community and during the Civil War ren-
dered able service as nurses under the leader-
ship of nuns who had served with Florence
Nightingale in the Crimea. In 1858 she brought
out the Franciscan Sisters from Cologne for
work among the Germans. To this community
she gave her home and much of her substance,
founding hospitals in Cincinnati (1859) and
Covington, Ky. (1861). During the Civil War,
5OO
Peterkin
she joined the Sisters of St. Francis at Pitts-
burg1 Landing as a nurse, criticized the ineffi-
ciency or corruption of the United States Sani-
tary Commission, and subsequently, despite
bitter criticism from Northern partisans, spent
herself in the care of prisoners in Cincinnati. As
a result of another trip abroad she induced the
Sisters of the Poor from France to join the Cin-
cinnati diocese, where in 1869 they established a
refuge for impoverished old people. On a jour-
ney to Europe in 1869-70, she was well received
by Pius IX and the American bishops at the
Vatican Council, who through Pur cell were
conversant with her charities and her self-sacri-
ficing life. Among" her manifold interests she was
active to the end ; her last efforts were in con-
nection with art exhibits at the Centennial Ex-
hibition. On her death, she was eulogized by
Archbishop Purceli and her remains were in-
terred in her mortuary chapel at St. Joseph's
Cemetery, Cincinnati,
[Margaret R. King, Memoirs of the Life of Mrs.
Sarah Peter (2 volsj., 1889), a biography toy her daugh-
ter-in-law, containing copious extracts from her Eu-
ropean letters ; J, G. Shea, //iVf. of the C&th, Ch, in the
U> S., IV (1892), 544 f. » Accords of the Am. Cath.
Hist. Soc.t Dec, 1923 ; N'» K* Pwman's Journal) Feb.
17, #4, 1877 ; Cincinnati Enquirer t Feb. 6-% 1877.]
R.J.P.
PETERKIN, GEORGE WILLIAM (Mar,
21, i84i~Sept. 22, 1916), clergyman, first bishop
of the Diocese of West Virginia, was born at
Clear Spring, Washington County, Md., the son
of the Rev, Joshua and Elisabeth Howard (Han-
son) Peterkin, During his boyhood he lived in
Maryland, New Jersey, and Virginia, and at-
tended private schools, notably the Episcopal
High School at Alexandria, Va,, where he won
high standing in his studies. lie attended the
University of Virginia in 1858 and 1859, taught
for one year, and then began a course of private
study in preparation for the ministry of the
Protestant Episcopal Church, Upon the out-
break o| the Civil War he enlisted as a private
in the sxst Virginia Regiment of Infantry, serv-
ing first under General Lee and later under
General Jackson, In June 1862 he received a com-
mission as first lieutenant, was appointed aide-
de-camp to Gen. William Nelson Pendleton
[q.v.], chief of artillery in the Army of Northern
Virginia, and served with that army until its
surrender In 1865,
He graduated from the Theological Seminary
in Virginia in 1868 and was ordained deacon by
Bishop Johns on June 24, 1868, and priest by
Bishop Whittle on June 25, 1869. He served his
diaconate as assistant to his father in Si James'
Church, Richmond, Va. His first rectorate was
Peterkin
St. Mark's Parish, Culpeper County, Va., where
he Jabored for four years to rebuild a parish
which had been devastated by war. From 1873
to 1878 he was Rector of Memorial Church, Bal-
timore, Md. In 1878 he was elected the first
bishop of the Diocese of West Virginia and was
consecrated in St. Matthew's Church, Wheel-
ing, W. Va., on May 30, beginning an episcopate
of thirty-eight years. The new diocese, cut off
from the mother Diocese of Virginia in 1877,
covered about 24000 square miles of sparsely
settled mountainous territory most of which was
inaccessible except on horseback over poor roads
and trails. The new bishop found fourteen cler-
gy, twenty-five churches, fewer than 1,200 com-
municants, and a people to whom his church was
little known. He was a true pioneer missionary,
indef atigably visiting every section of his diocese,
making frequent preaching trips on horseback to
remote villages in mountain communities, and
winning everywhere the loyal affection of his
people. An able organizer and administrator, he
laid the broad foundations of the present diocese
and became in the process an influential leader
in the religious life of the state.
He was deeply interested in foreign and do-
mestic missions, serving for twenty-six years as
a member of the national Board of Missions. In
1893, shortly after a mission of the Episcopal
Church had been established in southern Brazil,
he was sent by the Board to direct its develop-
ment* Much of the success of that missionary
district was due to the policies inaugurated and
executed during the six years of his supervision.
He was called by the presiding" bishop to visit
Puerto Rico in 1901, and the development of a
new missionary enterprise in that field profited
by his advice. He was an able preacher and
writer and published numerous addresses- and
pastoral letters. His most important works in-
clude A History and Record of the Protestant
Episcopal Church in the Diocese of West Vir-
ginia (1902) and the Handbook for Members and
Friends of the Protestant Episcopal Church
(1908). Until two years before his death, when
increasing ill health forced him into seclusion, he
was able to maintain an active contact with the
work of his church. He was buried in Holly-
wood Cemetery, Richmond, Va. Peterkin was
married on Oct. 29, 1868, to Constance Gardner
Lee of Alexandria, Va. She died in 1877 leav-
ing- three children. On June 12, 1884, he mar-
ried Marion Mclntosh Stewart of Brook Hill,
Henrico County, Va., by whom he had one child.
[Who's Who in America, 1916-17 ; R- E. L. Strider,
The Life and Work of George William Peterkin (capr.
1020) : Susan P. Lee, Memoirs of Williaw, Nefaon
Pendkton, D.D. (1893) ; W. A. JL Goodwin, Hist, of
501
Peters
the Theol. Seminary in Va.} vol. II (1924) ; Wheeling
Register, Sept. 23, 1916.] G.M.B.
PETERS, ABSALOM (Sept. 19, i;93-May
18, 1869), Presbyterian clergyman, editor, au-
thor, was born in Wentworth, N. H., the fourth
son of Gen. Absalom Peters, a Revolutionary
veteran, and his wife Mary (Rogers) Peters. His
first American ancestor in the paternal line was
Andrew Peters, whose name appears in Boston
records as early as 1659, while his mother's fam-
ily claimed descent from Rev. John Rogers who
was burned at Smithfield in 1555. Absalom be-
came a teacher at sixteen and followed this oc-
cupation during his own school days and his
years at Dartmouth College, where he was grad-
uated in 1816. Soon after his graduation at
Princeton Theological Seminary in 1819, he be-
gan preaching at the First Congregational
Church, Bennington, Vt., and was ordained there
by the Troy Presbytery in 1820. His Ben-
nington pastorate continued till Dec. 14, 1825,
when he became secretary of the United Mis-
sionary Society of New York, an interdenomi-
national agency working mainly in that state.
Under his leadership the American Home Mis-
sionary Society was established in 1826, with
which the New York society was merged. The
new organization, likewise interdenominational,
was nation-wide in its scope, having a board of
trustees representing sixteen different states.
During his twelve years as corresponding secre-
tary the income of the society was increased
threefold and the number of its missionaries was
quadrupled. He traveled about 7S,ooo miles,
largely under difficult frontier conditions, plant-
ed many churches, wrote all the society's annual
reports, and from 1828 to 1836 edited the Home
Missionary and Pastor's Journal.
During these years occurred the formation of
the Old and New School parties in the Presby-
terian Church, leading up to the schism of 1837.
Peters was a Calvinist, but of the more liberal,
or New England, type and naturally took his
place on the New School side. Never seeking
controversy, he did not shirk it when it appeared
to be his duty, and his skill in debate was an im-
portant factor in the defense of Albert Barnes
[#.#.] before the General Assembly of 1836. It
was during this period, also, that the Union Theo-
logical Seminary in New York was founded by
a group of Presbyterian clergymen and laymen.
Peters, who was one of the leading clerical
founders, was a member of several important
committees and chairman of the one which drew
up the constitution. He was also a director o£
the seminary from its foundation in 1836 to 1842.
In 1837 he retired from his secretaryship to- en-
Peters
gage in literary pursuits. He became editor of
the American Biblical Repository, a quarterly,
in 1838, and in 1841 founded the bi-monthly
American Eclectic. In 1842 he became financial
agent for Union Seminary and the same year
was appointed professor extraordinary of homi-
letics, pastoral theology, and church govern-
ment.
Relinquishing all his work in New York in
1844, he became pastor of the First Congrega-
tional Church in Williamstown, Mass. Though
not formally dismissed till 1857, he spent much
of his time during the latter years of his pas-
torate in duties devolving upon him as financial
agent for Williams College, of which he was a
trustee from 1845 till his death, and the presi-
dency of which he had declined in 1836. From
1856 he lived in New York, edited the American
Journal of Education and College Review, and
did much preaching and writing. Among his pub-
lished works are : Sprinkling the only Mode of
Baptism and the Scripture Warrant for Infant
Baptism (1848) ; and Life and Time, a Birthday
Memorial of Seventy Years (1866). The latter,
written in verse, contains notes of much bio-
graphical value. He published, also, numerous
sermons and other pamphlets, and left in manu-
script "Cooperative Christianity; the Kingdom
of Christ in Contrast with Denominational
Churches," a title suggestive of his position on
an important subject. On Oct. 25, 1819, he mar-
ried Harriet Hinckley Hatch, daughter of Reu-
ben Hatch of Norwich, Vt. Of their seven chil-
dren, three sons and two daughters survived their
parents.
[E. F. and E. B. Peters, Peters of New England
(1903) ; G. L. Prentiss, The Union Theological Sem. in
the City of N. Y. ; Hist, and Biog. Sketches of its First
Fifty Years (1889) ; G. T. Chapman, Sketches of the
Alumni of Dartmouth Coll. (1867); Isaac Jennings,
Memorials of a Century ; . . . the Early Hist, of Ben-
nington, Vt., and its First Church (1869) ; N. Y. Trib-
une, May 18, 1869.] F. T. P.
PETERS, CHRISTIAN HENRY FRED-
ERICK (Sept. 19, i8i3-July 19, 1890), astron-
omer, was born at Coldenbiittel, Schleswig, the
son of Hartwig Peters, a minister. Having stud-
ied at the Gymnasium in Flensburg from 1825 to
1832, he matriculated at the University of Ber-
lin, where he studied mathematics and astronomy
under Encke. After receiving his doctor's degree
in 1836, he went to Gottingen to study under
Gauss. From 1838 to 1843 he was engaged in
a survey of Mount Etna, as a member of the sci-
entific expedition organized by Sartorius von
Waltershausen. He declined an offer of the di-
rectorship of the Catania Observatory on account
of certain imposed conditions, but accepted the
502
Peters
very important governmental post o£ director of
the trigonometrical survey of Sicily. He was
deprived of this position and ordered to leave the
country when, in 1848, he sided with the Sicilian
revolutionists; but he soon returned to Sicily,
where he became naturalized and served as cap-
tain of engineers and later as major under
Mieroslawski. Catania and Messina were forti-
fied under his direction. After the fall of Palermo
in 1849 he fled to France and soon after went to
Constantinople. The Sultan planned to send him
on a scientific expedition to Syria and Palestine
but difficulties arose and eventually, with the be-
ginning of the Crimean War, the plan was
abandoned. During his stay here Peters acquired
a good working knowledge of Arabic and Turk-
ish, which was of great use to him in his later
studies on Ptolemy's Almagest.
He came to the United States in 1854 with let-
ters of recommendation from Alexander yon
Humboldt and obtained a position in the United
States Coast Survey. He was stationed for a
time at Cambridge, Mass., and at the Dudley
Observatory in Albany, N. Y. In 1858 he was
appointed director of the observatory at Hamil-
ton College and in 1867, Litchfiekl Professor of
Astronomy and director of the Litchfidd Ob-
servatory. His scientific interests were wide, his
ability and industry, marked. His researches on
the sun, begun in Naples in 1845, and carried on
until about 1865, blazed the way for further
studies. Some of his conclusions were published
in "Contributions to the Atmospherology of the
Sun," in Proceedings of the American Asso-
ciation for the Advancement of Science (vol IX,
1856). He described how sun spots were ap-
parently divided by bridges of luminous gas, and
investigated as far as his observational material
permitted the motion of sun spots on the solar
disk. After his death Hdiographic Positions of
Sun-Spots, Observed at Hamilton College from
1860 to 1870 ( 1907), edited by E, B. Frost, was
published. The task which he set himself m 1860,
to prepare charts of the Zodiac, to give the po-
sitions of all stars in this belt visible in his 13-
inch telescope, involved over 100,000 observa-
tions. Begun at a time when photography had
not yet come into its own, these charts were to
be a record of the sky at that time which could
be compared, for the detection of changes, with
similar charts made by future astronomers. The
immediate result, however, was the discovery of
forty-eight new asteroids— at that time a rela-
tively large addition to the list of these bodies.
He is said to have found recreation in comput-
ing their orbits. He also discovered two cornets,
one in 1846 while he was at Naples and one m
503
Peters
1857 when he was at Albany (Monthly Notices
of the Royal- Astronomical Society, vol. VII,
1847; Astronomical Journal, Aug. 28, 1857). In
1874 he was sent as chief of the United States
expedition to New Zealand to observe the tran-
sit of Venus. Observations were seriously ham-
pered by clouds but that of the first internal con-
tact with the sun's disk was successful. This
transit was observed by many parties in different
places, in the attempt to determine a more ac-
curate value of the sun's distance. In 1869 he
organized an expedition to observe the solar
eclipse at Des Moines.
Peters also did a great deal of valuable work
in the critical discussion and comparison of cata-
logues of star positions. About 1876 he started
his attempt to prepare a more trustworthy edition
of the star catalogue in the seventh and eighth
books of Ptolemy's Almagest. This is the oldest
catalogue containing positions of sufficient ac-
curacy to be useful in comparison with modern
catalogues for the detection of changes. The
original is lost and the catalogue survives in a
series of copyings and translations. The oldest
copy extant was made several centuries after
Ptolemy's time. Peters' task, therefore, was to
collate as many of the copies as possible, Greek,
Arabic, and Latin, decide what errors had been
introduced, identify the stars, and try to recover
the positions given in the original. He was well
qualified for this task, for he was fluent in most
of the European languages and had ample
knowledge of Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic,
Persian, and Turkish. He had, also, high mathe-
matical ability both in theory and computation.
His industry and quick perception enabled him
to give the problem the scrupulous study which
it required. The examination of manuscripts took
him to Vienna, Venice, Florence, Rome, and
Paris. He was fortunate in having the collabo-
ration of Edward B. Knobel who, equally inter-
ested in the problem, collated the British manu-
scripts, and, after Peters' death, edited the notes
and catalogue (Ptolemy's Catalogue of Stars; a
Revision of the Almagest, 1915)- Among other
records of Peters' work may be mentioned Ce-
lestial Charts . . . Made at the Litch field Observa-
tory of Hamilton College (1882) and "Corri-
genda in Various Star Catalogues," in Memoirs
of the National Academy of Sciences (voL 111,
p,t 2 1886). He was a member of the National
Academy of Sciences and a foreign associate of
the Royal Astronomical Society. On his visit to
Paris in 1887 to attend the convention to in-
augurate the international photographic survey
of the sky, the decoration of the Legion of Honor
was conferred on him by the French government.
Peters
He was a man of the highest integrity and hon-
or, courteous and kind and rich in friends.
[The Am. Jour. Sci., the Sidereal Messenger, and
Hamilton College bulletins use the English form of
Peters' name, while the German form is frequently used
elsewhere. For biographical data see J. G. Porter in
Sidereal Messenger, Dec. 1890; A. Krueger, in As-
tronomische Nachrichten, Aug. 1890, also in Bulletin
Astronomique, 1890; Monthly Notices Royal Astro-
nomical Society, Feb. 1891; Observatory, Sept. 1890;
Christian Heinrich Friedrich Peters, 1813-1890: In
Memoriam (1890). For references to Peters' many
articles in astronomical journals, see Royal Soc. of
London, Cat. of Scientific Papers, vol. IV (1870), vol.
X (1894)-] R.S.D.
PETERS, EDWARD DYER (June i, 1849-
Feb. 17, 1917), mining and metallurgical engi-
neer, son of Henry Hunter and Susan Barker
(Thaxter) Peters and a first cousin of John
Punnett Peters [q.vJ], was born in Dorchester,
Mass., a descendant of Andrew Peters who was
in Massachusetts as early as 1659. Upon his
mother's side he was descended from several old
Massachusetts families. His mother died soon
after his birth and his father married a second
time in 1854. Edward received his early educa-
tion in Massachusetts schools and at the Epis-
copal School for Boys, Cheshire, Conn. Near
the latter was an old tin mine, in exploring
which he spent many Saturday afternoons. In
1865 his family went abroad to remain for several
years and his technical education was obtained
at the Royal School of Mines at Freiberg, Sax-
ony, from which he graduated in 1869. Class-
room instruction was supplemented by actual
work in nearby mines and smelting works, and
during vacation trips he visited mines and metal-
lurgical plants, gathering valuable data on pre-
vailing practices. The fall of 1869 found him in
Colorado started on his active career, first as
millman and assayer, then as superintendent and
metallurgist at the Caribou silver mine. In 1872
he was appointed territorial assayer for southern
Colorado, the local press congratulating the dis-
trict upon obtaining the services of "so thorough
and correct a metallurgist." During 1872-74 he
designed, built, and successfully operated the
Mount Lincoln smelting works.
When, in 1874, mining went into a decline,
Peters returned East and, giving up hope of fol-
lowing his profession, entered the Harvard Medi-
cal School, graduating in 1877 at the head of a
class of sixty-two members. He practised medi-
cine in Dorchester, Mass., from 1877 until 1880,
when he returned to mining. In the years im-
mediately following he was associated with and
originated some of the largest American copper
and nickel smelting plants, including those of the
Orford Nickel & Copper Company, Bergen
Point, N. J., the Parrott Silver & Copper Corn-
Peters
pany, Butte, Mont., and the Canadian Copper
Company, Sudbury, Ont, where he "blew in"
the first blast furnace in December 1888 for the
production of nickel-copper matte. In 1892 he
was called to inspect the Mount Lyell mine, a
vast pyritic ore-body carrying some copper and
gold, in a most inaccessible part of Tasmania. In
Melbourne and other cities en route he was feted,
made an honorary member of the principal clubs,
and otherwise treated as a celebrity. The fol-
lowing year the results of his survey were pub-
lished in Report on the Property of the Mount
Lyell Mining and Railway Company, Limited.
In 1893 and 1894, in the interests of the Mount
Lyell company, he visited the Rio Tinto mines in
Spain, the Mansfield mines in Germany, and
various mines in the western United States.
Then for several years he was engaged in con-
sulting work in connection with numerous min-
ing enterprises in Mexico and the United States.
He lectured at Columbia School of Mines in
1901 and at Harvard in 1904. In the latter year
he was appointed professor of metallurgy at
Harvard and in 1909, Gordon McKay Professor
of Metallurgy. During his last few years he held
a professorship in the combined mining depart-
ments of Harvard and the Massachusetts In-
stitute of Technology. As an author he made
important contributions to technical literature,
his most valuable work being Modern American
Methods of Copper Smelting (1887), an authen-
tic and comprehensive treatise which ran through
fifteen editions, the last of which, 1895, bore the
title Modern Copper Smelting. This was re-
placed by a new book, The Practice of Copper
Smelting (1911). His other notable work was
The Principles of Copper Smelting (1907).
Peters was one of the commission to make the
annual assay (1910) of the coin of the United
States at the mint in Philadelphia.
On Sept. 28, 1881, he married his cousin, Anna
Quincy Gushing; they had no children. He was
something of a musician and in 'cello playing he
found relaxation and satisfaction. A farm at
Shirley, Mass., purchased in 1914, allowed him
to indulge in another hobby — poultry raising. He
died in Dorchester, Mass.
[E. F. and E. B. Peters, Peters of New England
(1903) ; E. B. Peters, Edward Dyer Peters, 1849-1917
(1918) ; Bull. Am. Inst. Mining Engineers, Aug. 1918 ;
H. L. Smyth, in Harvard Alumni Bull,, Mar, 8, 1917;
Who's Who in America, 1916-17.] B. A.R.
PETERS, JOHN ANDREW (Oct. 9, 1822-
Apr. 2, 1904), was born in Ellsworth, Me., the
son of Andrew and Sally (Jordan) Peters. His
father was a merchant and shipbuilder and one
of the most prominent men of Ellsworth. The
S°4
Peters
boy was educated at Gorham Academy and Yale
College, where he graduated In 1842 with an ora-
tion on "The Profession of Politics." He then
studied law at the Harvard Law School and in
the office of Thomas Robinson of Ellsworth, and
he was admitted to the bar in Ellsworth in 1844.
Moving to Bangor In that year he began the prac-
tice of law in the office of Joshua W. Hathaway,
whose partner he became. Later he entered into
partnership with Franklin Augustus Wilson.
On Sept 2, 1846, he was married to Mary Ann
Hathaway, the daughter of his partner, who died
the following year, leaving a son who died in
infancy. On Sept 23, 1857, he was married to
Fannie E. Roberts, the daughter of Amos M.
Roberts of Bangor. They had two daughters.
His first political offices were those of state
senator, 1862-63, and representative in 1864. In.
1864 he became state attorney-general and served
in that capacity until his election to Congress.
Reflected twice he remained in Congress from
1867 to 1873, working on the committee of pat-
ents and public expenditures, the committee on
the judiciary, and the joint committee on the con-
gressional library. lie was much interested in
national provision for the defense of the north-
eastern frontier and introduced bills for that pur-
pose. As a friend of Elaine, then speaker, he
several times sponsored measures that Blaine
wished passed. Having1 refused further election
to Congress he returned to Maine to be made at
once, 1873, associate justice of the supreme ju-
dicial court of the state, and he was again chosen
when his term expired in 1880. Three years
later, 1883, he was elevated by Gov. Frederick
Robie to the position of chief justice. His knowl-
edge of the law, remarkable even when he began
the practice of his profession, grew to be en-
cyclopedic, and his decisions as chief justice
•were marked by lucidity and liberalty. Because
of their concise and untraditional nature they
were much quoted in other states. His impar-
tiality and fairness on the bench were famous^ as
were his imperturbable dignity and never-failing
courtesy. A keen wit and overflowing humor,
said to have been inherited from his mother,
made him a most effective speaker both in cam-
paigns and in the court room. As an after din-
ner speaker, he was thought to have no equal in,
his state. In 1900 his failing health caused his
withdrawal from active public service. The re-
mainder of his life was spent in Bangor, where
he died,
tBiog. Record of th@ Class of 1842 <*f Yak College
(1878) ; Obit. Record of Grads. of Yale V«to.f 1904;
Who's Who in America, 1903-05? Hfc*, of Penooscot
County, Me. (1882) ; E. F. and E, B, Peters, Peters of
New England (1903) ; X. F. Jordan, The Jordan Memo-
Peters
rial (1882) ; The Peters' Banquet, Tendered the Hon*
John A, Peters . . . 2900 (1900) ; Daily Kennelec Jour.
(Augusta), Apr. 4, 1904; J. W. Porter, "Wayfarer
Papers, vol. I, a collection of clippings from Bangor
newspapers in Lib. of Me. Hist. Soc.] M E. L
PETERS, JOHN CHARLES (July 6^ 1819-
Oct 21, 1893), physician, medical writer, was
born in New York City. Apparently he was a
studious youth, brought up in a comfortable en-
vironment. His medical studies were pursued in
Berlin, Vienna, and Leipzig, On his return from
Europe he was examined by the Comitia Minora
of the Medical Society of the County of New
York in 1842 and licensed to practise medicine.
His associations were such that he soon acquired
a large private practice among the elite of New
York. In 1844, with a number of others, he
founded the New York Pathological Society;
later he was one of the founders of the Medical
Library and Journal Society, of which he wrote
a brief history (see Detroit Review of Medicine
and Pharmacy, November 1875) • This organiza-
tion in its turn contributed much to the greatness
of the New York Academy of Medicine and its
library. He took an early interest in homeopathy
and ere long identified himself with that school
of medicine and proceeded forthwith to make rich
contributions to its literature. Many of these, is-
sued between 1853 and 1856 from the press of
William Radde, were treatises based onTJ. Ruck-
erf s Klinische Erfahmngenin derHomoopathie.
They included discussions of headaches, apo-
plexy, diseases of women, diseases of the eye, and
nervous and mental disorders. Peters was the
author of The Science and Art or the Principles
and Practice of Medicine (1858-59), of which
only four parts, of ninety-six pages each, were
issued. He also wrote "A Review of Some of
the Late Reforms in Pathology and Therapeu-
tics" (North American Journal of Homoeopathy,
February 1860), reprinted separately the same
year with an appendix on the illnesses of Wash-
ington Irving; "Elements of a New Materia
Medica and Therapeutics, Based upon an En-
tirely New Collection of Drug-provings and
Clinical Experience/' in collaboration with E.
E. Marcy and Otto Fiillgraff, published as an
appendix to the North American Journal of
Homoeopathy, 1859-60, and never finished. From
1855 to 1861 Peters was a joint editor of the
North American Journal of Homoeopathy.
In 1861 the medical world was astonished by
the publication in the issue for Aug. 17 of the
American Medical Times, then the most influ-
ential medical journal in the United States, of
Peters' renunciation of homeopathy. Although
the article was simply a declaration of inde-
pendence to indicate the writer's belief that no
5°5
Peters
single system of treatment could be entirely ade-
quate in practice, it brought upon Peters most
severe criticisms from both sides. Many narrow-
minded views were expressed by critics and the
initial effect upon Peters was decided loss of pres-
tige and practice, both of which, however, were
regained within a few years. In his new environ-
ment he soon became an important factor. He
was president of the New York County Medical
Society, 1866-67, and continued his literary ac-
tivity, devoting himself especially to investiga-
tion of infectious diseases, especially cholera and
yellow fever. In collaboration with Ely McClel-
lan he contributed "A History of the Travels of
Asiatic Cholera" to The Cholera Epidemic of
18T3 in the United States (1875), published by
the United States Surgeon General's Office. He
was a firm believer in the filth origin of the acute
infections and was therefore prepared to accept
very early the theory of the bacterial origin of
disease.
Peters married, May 16, 1849, Georgina,
daughter of Andrew Snelling. He died at Wil-
liston, L. I.
[T. L. Bradford, "Biographies of Homoeopathic Phy-
sicians" (unpublished collection), in Library of Hahne-
mann Medic. Coll., Phila. ; T. L. Bradford, Homcep~
pathic BiUiog. (1892) ; Abraham Jacobi, in Medic.
Record (N. Y.), Jan. 26, 1907; Am. Physician, July
1907 ; V. S. Medic. Investigator, Dec. 15, 1877 ; Medic,
(md Surgic. Reporter, Aug. 24, 1861 ; Medic. Record
(N. Y.), Oct. 28, 1893 ; N. Y. Tribune, Oct. 24, 1893.]
C.B— t.
PETERS, JOHNPUNNETT (Dec. 16, 1852-
Nov. 10, 1921), Episcopal clergyman, archeolo-
gist, was born in New York City the second son
of the Rev. Thomas McClure Peters and Alice
Clarissa (Richmond) Peters, and a lineal de-
scendant of Andrew Peters, who came to Amer-
ica from Devonshire, England, appearing in Bos-
ton records as early as 1659, and became the first
treasurer of the town of Andover, Mass. John
attended church schools in New York until he
was thirteen years old, and though compelled to
abandon school for the next three years, occupied
his time so well in private reading, with some
aid from tutors, that he entered Yale University
at the age of sixteen. He was a member of the
first Yale football team, and a leader in intercol-
legiate football contests. After his graduation in
1873 he was a student in the Yale Divinity
School, 1873-75, and in the Yale Graduate
School, 1874-76, receiving the degree of Ph.D.
In the latter year. From 1876 to 1879 he was a
tutor in Yale College. In July 1876 he was or-
dained a deacon in the Protestant Episcopal
Church, and in 1877, a priest. From 1879 to 1883
he was in Germany, studying Semitic languages
at the University of Berlin, 1879-81 ; acting as
Peters
minister-in-charge and then as rector of St.
John's (American) Church, Dresden, 1881-82;
and studying at the University of Leipzig, 1882-
83. While in Dresden he translated Wilhelm
Miiller's Politische Geschichte der neuesten Zeit,
1816-1875 (1875), and to his translation, pub-
lished in 1882 under the title, A Political History
of Recent Times, he added an appendix which
continued the history to the date of publication.
On his return to New York he took charge, for
ten months, during his father's absence, of St.
Michael's Church, of which his father was rec-
tor. In 1884 he became professor of the Old
Testament language and literature in the Epis-
copal Divinity School in Philadelphia, and in
1886, professor of Hebrew in the University of
Pennsylvania, holding the positions concurrently.
In 1883 he had obtained from Catharine Loril-
lard Wolfe \_q.v. ~\ a gift of $5,000 to finance an
expedition of archeological reconnaissance in
Babylonia. Its success, under the leadership of
William Hayes Ward [#.#.], encouraged Peters
to interest certain Philadelphians in raising a
fund for archeological excavation in Babylonia
under the auspices of the University of Pennsyl-
vania. For two seasons, 1888-90, the mound of
Nuffar, the site of the ancient Nippur, was ex-
plored under his personal leadership, and al-
though after 1890 the field work was carried on
by John Henry Haynes \_q.v."], Peters remained
scientific director until 1895. The fruit of his
personal labors in this field was published in his
Nippur (2 vols., 1897).
In 1891 he was made assistant rector of St.
Michael's Church, New York, and resigned his
post at the Philadelphia Divinity School, al-
though he retained his professorship in the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania until 1893. In that year,
upon his father's death, he became rector of St.
Michael's Church. When he resigned the po-
sition in 1919, he, his father, and his maternal
grandfather, the Rev. William Richmond [<?.z/.],
had held the position in unbroken succession for
ninety-nine years. During his long service as
rector of St. Michael's, Peters exerted a strong
influence in behalf of missionary enterprise and
a broader outlook in the Episcopal Church, and
was a force in promoting social service and
laboring for clean politics in the city and state
of New York. In 1904, as vice-president of the
Riverside and Morningside Heights Association,
he began a long struggle against commercialized
vice. He was an outstanding leader in the effort
to bring about a better understanding between
capital and labor. Some of the papers which
this endeavor called forth from his pen were
published in 1902 under the title, Labor and Capi-
506
Peters
tal. On the centenary of St. Michael's Church in
1907 he published a history of the parish entitled,
The Annals of St. Michael's.
Through all his religious and social activities,
Peters pursued his Biblical and Oriental studies,
the results of which were embodied in the follow-
ing books: The Old Testament and the Nezv
Scholarship (1901); Early Hebrew Story
(1904) ; Religion of the Hebrews (19x4) ; The
psalms as Liturgies ( 1922) , and Bible and Spade
( 1922) . In collaboration with a German scholar,
Hermann Thiersch, he published Painted Tombs
m the Necropolis of Marissa (1905), a descrip-
tion of discoveries the two had made while travel-
ing in Palestine in 1902. In addition to these
books Peters was a collaborator in The Bible as
Literature (1896), The Universal Anthology
(33 vols,, 1899), and The Historians* History of
the World (25 vols,, 1905). After retiring from
the rectorship of St. Michael's, he traveled for a
year, then became professor of New Testament
exegesis in the University of the South at
Sewanee, Term., but in the autumn of 1921 his
heart failed and he died. On Aug. 13, 1881, he
had married Gabriella Brooke Forman, daughter
of Thomas Mansh Forman of Savannah and
Helen (Brooke) Forman of Virginia, Six of
Ms seven children survived him. He was a
combination of scholar and citizen of a type that
is rapidly becoming extinct in these days of spe-
cialization. He was quiet in manner, but dis-
played originality and determination in the way
in which he surmounted obstacles, both in his
civic work and in his enterprises as an explorer.
In his books he always had a fresh point of view
to present ; his writing was never an echo of the
work of other men,
[E. F. and B, B. Peters, Peters of New England
(1903) ; Yale Unw. ObiL Record. 1922; Who's Who in
America, 1950-21 ; Churchman, Nov. 19, 1921 ; AT. Y,
Times, Nov. x x , x 93 1 . ] G. A. B — n,
PETERS, MADISON CLINTON (Nov. 6,
i859~0ct 12, 1918), clergyman, lecturer, and
author, son of Morgan and Maria (Kemmerer)
Peters, was born in Lehigh County, Pa, He was
of German ancestry, a descendant of Caspar
Peter who came to Philadelphia in ^731, His
education was obtained under difficulties ; he was
unable to complete a college course, but studied
at Muhlenberg College and at Franklin and
Marshall College (1877-78). After graduating
from Heidelberg Theological Seminary, Tiffin,
Ohio, he was ordained in 1880 to the ministry of
the Reformed Church, and during the next four
years held a pastorate in Indiana and was minis-
ter to the Presbyterian Church at Ottawa, 111.
When only twenty-four years old he was called
to the pastorate of the "First Presbyterian
Peters
Church in the Northern Liberties," less than a
mile north of what is now the shopping district
of Philadelphia. For five years, as long as he
remained, the church building was filled to its
capacity every Sunday. In 1890 he left a pros-
perous church of nearly 500 members at Phila-
delphia to assume the pastorate of Bloomingdale
Reformed Church in New York, where his abili-
ties as a public speaker continued to attract much
attention. Having become convinced that infant
baptism is unscriptural, in 1900 Peters left the
Reformed Church and accepted the pastorate of
Sumner Avenue Baptist Church in Brooklyn.
The following year he published a small book,
Why I Became a Baptist. From 1904 to 1905 he
served Immanuel Baptist Church in Baltimore,
returning then to New York as pastor of the
Baptist Church of the Epiphany, on Madison
Avenue at Sixty-fourth Street. The organiza-
tion was compelled to sell its property late in
1906, and within a brief period it went out of
existence, after a history of nearly 120 years.
Feeling the constraint of what seemed to him
unnecessary sectarian intolerance, Peters soon
transferred his membership from the Baptist to
the Presbyterian Church, though without accept-
ing a regular pastorate, and continued a Presby-
terian until his death. For several years previ-
ous to 1907 he had been lecturing to large
audiences and holding popular services in thea-
ters and public halls. He now devoted himself
to these activities, and to preparing syndicated
newspaper articles and writing books. Calling
himself "the people's preacher," apparently be-
cause of a feeling that many of the city churches
were failing to reach the masses, he developed
through these mediums a considerable influence
among the unorganized religious-minded people
of America. Some of his books attained a grati-
fying circulation, and his manuscripts continued
to be welcomed by publishers until his death in
his fifty-ninth year, a victim of the war-time in-
fluenza epidemic.
Of the twenty-five or more volumes issued by
Peters, seventeen appeared during the last eight-
een years of his life. Among these were The
Birds of the Bible (1901) 5 The Mm Who Wins
(1905) ; Will the Cowing Man Marry? (1905),
a discussion of problems of home and marriage;
After Death What? (1908) ; Sermons That Won
the Masses (1908) ; How to Make Things Go
(1909) ; Abraham Lincoln's Religion (1909) J
Seven Secrets of Success (1916) ; and Americans
for America (1916). Several of his books were
written in behalf of the Jews, such as Justice to
the few (1899) ; The Jew as a Patriot (1902) ;
The Jews in America (1905) ; Haytn Salomon
Peters
(1911) ; and The Jews Who Stood by Washing-
ton (1915). la 1917, the year before his death,
he published All for America and The Masons
as Makers of America ; he had already published,
in 1913, The Mission of Masonry. By his con-
temporaries he was known as a vigorous thinker,
a popular and, at times, brilliant preacher, and
a sincere, friendly man. In 1890 he married Sara
H. Hart, by whom he had a son and two daugh-
ters.
[E. T. Corwin, A Manual of the Reformed Church in
America (1902) ; Alfred Nevin, Hist, of the Presby-
tery of Phila. and of Phila. Central (1888); W. P.
White and W. H. Scott, The Presbyterian Church in
Phila. (1895) ; Minutes of the Southern N. Y. Baptist
Asso. for 1906 and 1907 ; Proc. and Addresses. Pa.-
German Soc. of Phila., vol. XXX (1924) ; Examiner,
Aug. 3, 1905 ; Watchman-Examiner, Oct. 17, 1918 ; N.
Y. Times, Oct. 13, 1918 ; Who's Who in America, 1916-
17 ; biog. sketch in preface to Peters' Why I Became a
Baptist (1901).] P.P.F.
PETERS, PHILLIS WHEATLEY [See
WEEATLEY, PHILLIS, c, 1754-1784]-
PETERS, RICHARD (c. 1704-July 10, 1776),
clergyman, provincial secretary and councilor,
was born in Liverpool, England, the second son
of Ralph Peters, a barrister, and Esther Preeson.
Richard finished the academic course at West-
minster School before he was fifteen. While
there he entered into a clandestine marriage with
a servant maid. His parents hearing of it there-
upon removed him to Leyden to study for three
years. On returning to England he spent five
years, against his will, at the Inner Temple study-
ing law. A persistent desire to take orders finally
conquered him and he became a deacon in the
Church of England (1730) and a priest (I731)*
and in the latter year matriculated at Wadham
College, Oxford. But criticism of his early mar-
riage and the discovery that his second marriage,
to a Miss Stanley, was bigamous, caused him so
much unhappiness that about 1735 he decided to
emigrate to Philadelphia. There he became as-
sistant to the Rev. Archibald Cummings at Christ
Church (1736) and is said to have "wriggled
himself into the affections of the multitudes, who
have generally been bred dissenters" (Keith,
post, p. 236). An open quarrel with Cummings
soon led to his withdrawal from the post. Two
discourses, The Two Last Sermons Preached at
Christ' s-church in Philadelphia, July 3, IT 37
(*737)> were a defense against Cummings' at-
tacks upon his character and against charges that
he was a papist
Obliged to seek secular employment, Peters
accepted in 1737 ai* appointment as secretary of
the provincial land office which he held until
1760. He was also admitted to the Philadelphia
bar. When Cummings died (1741), Peters'
friends pressed his name as successor, but the
Peters
conservatives in the congregation, fearing a rec-
tor with such strong proprietary sympathies,
blocked his appointment. On Feb. 14, 1742/43,
he was appointed provincial secretary and pri-
vate secretary for the proprietaries, and clerk of
the council, and on May 19, 1749, provincial
councilor. As provincial secretary he superin-
tended Indian affairs and went on frequent mis-
sions to the Indians, including the Albany
Congress (1754) and the conference at Fort
Stanwix(i768). He was suspicious of the Quaker
hegemony in Pennsylvania, repeatedly wrote of
"Quaker plots" to injure the proprietors with the
King, and diligently endeavored to collect quit
rents and to prosecute Scotch-Irish and German
squatters. He retired as secretary and clerk of
the council early in January 1762 with a com-
fortable fortune acquired from the Indian trade,
but remained provincial councilor until 1776.
In 1762 Peters returned to the ministry, as
rector of Christ and St. Peter's churches, though
not actually receiving his license until he visited
England in 1764-65. He was assiduous in build-
ing up the churches spiritually and numerically
and toward their financial needs contributed gen-
erously from his own purse. For a zealous High-
churchman he was exceedingly tolerant, espe-
cially in later life. Toward the Quakers, whom
he earlier viewed with distrust, he later developed
a warm feeling, and he incurred the displeasure
of the Archbishop of Canterbury for opening his
churches in 1763 to George Whitefield, whose
teachings he had actively opposed at an earlier
time. Failing health compelled him to resign his
rectorship on Sept. 23, 1775. Sincerely pious
without ostentation, Peters was a polished and
erudite scholar and a sound thinker, though
sometimes given to quixotic views. He firmly
believed that a thorough classical education was
the best means of remedying existing social evils.
Oxford conferred on him the degree of D.D.
(1770). Loyal to the proprietaries to the last,
he could not sanction separation from the mother
country, but he accepted the change with a spirit
of resignation. He was one of the first trustees
of the Philadelphia Academy which later grew
into the College of Philadelphia and from 1756
to 1764 was president of the board of trustees.
He helped to organize the Library Company of
Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Hospital.
Among his publications are A Sermon on Edu-
cation (1751) and A Sermon Preached in the
New Lutheran Church of Zion, in the City of
Philadelphia, 1769 (1769),
[The best account of Peters' life, though hardly ade-
quate, is printed in C. P. Keith, The Provincial Coun-
cillors of Pa. (1883). See also the Peters Papers, 12
vols., and Letter Books of Richard Peters, 1737-1750,
in the library of the Hist. Soc. of Pa., Philadelphia;
508
Peters
N. P. Black, Richard Peters: Hu Ancestors and De-
scendants, 1810-1899 (1904) ; C. P. B. Jefferys, "The
Provincial and Revolutionary Hist, of St. Peter's Ch.,
Phila,, 1753-83," Pa. May. of Hist, end Biog., Jan.
1024 ; W, S. Perry, The Hist, of the Am. Bpisc. Ch.
(1885), vol. I; Pa. Archives, i ser. II-IV (1853);
Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pa., vols, IV-X
(1851-52) J P&* Mag. of Hist, and Biog.f Oct. 1886, July
1899, Oct. 1905, Apr., Oct. 1907, Oct. 1914.]
J. H. P — g,
PETERS, RICHARD (June 22, i744~Aug. 22,
1828), lawyer, Revolutionary patriot, judge,
farmer, son of William Peters and his second
wife, Mary Brcintnall, was born at "Belmont,"
the family home, in Philadelphia. His father, an
elder brother of the Rev. Richard Peters [#.*?.],
was a lawyer, was born in England, and came to
Pennsylvania some time prior to 1739. He was
register of admiralty (1744-71) and judge of
the court of common pleas, quarter sessions and
orphans court. In his youth Richard was great-
ly influenced by his uncle from whom he acquired
a thorough knowledge of the classics and of
whom he later wrote : "I was his adopted son and
constant companion. With no man . . , have I
ever enjoyed more pleasure, or solid instruction,
or delight" (Octavitis Pickering and C. W.
Upham, The Life of Timothy Pickering, IV,
1873, P» 20S) • At his uncle's home he met Wash-
ington, George Whitefield, and -other prominent
men. He attendee! the Philadelphia Academy
and graduated from the College of Philadelphia,
now the University of Pennsylvania, in 1761.
Ambitious to follow the profession of his father,
he then studied law, was admitted to the bar in
1763, and soon acquired a successful practice. He
was a commissioner to the Indian conference at
Fort Stanwix (1768) and from 1771 to 1776 was
register of admiralty.
Although previously associated with the pro-
prietaries, at the outbreak of the Revolution
Peters aligned himself with the Whigs and in
May 1775 was chosen, captain of militia. His
military career, however, was short-lived. On
June 13, 1776, Congress elected him secretary
of the board of war of which he became a full-
fledged member on Nov. 27, 1777. Much of the
drudgery of the board's work fell upon him and
after the summer of 1780 he seems to have man-
aged the war office alone (The Life of Timothy
Pickering, I, 1867, pp. 216, 329), He was par-
ticularly diligent in exposing the peculations of
Benedict Arnold and in the latter part of the war
in raising money and provisions for the army.
He resigned from the board in December 1781
when a single-headed department of war was in-
augurated. On Nov. 12, 1782, he was elected to
Congress for one year. In 1785 he traveled in
Europe, and while in England was instrumental
in obtaining the ordination of three bishops for
Peters
the Episcopal Church in America. He was a
member of the Pennsylvania Assembly (1787-
90), serving as speaker the last two years, and
of the state Senate (1791-92), serving as speak-
er there also. When the new federal government
was organized he was tendered the appointment
of comptroller of treasury but declined the post.
On Apr. ii, 1792, Peters was commissioned
judge of the United States district court of Penn-
sylvania. He held this office for the remainder
of his life. In the controversy between the fed-
eral and state judiciaries the former received his
ardent support and in the sphere of admiralty law
his decisions have served to distinguish between
the judicial and political authorities of the gov-
ernment. Justice Joseph Story later declared
himself indebted to Peters "for his rich contri-
butions to the maritime jurisprudence of our
country" (W. W. Story, Life and Letters of
Joseph Story, 1851, I, p. 540). His opinion
(United States vs. Worrall, April 1798) that
there was a common law of the United States
from which the federal courts acquired a juris-
diction over crimes in addition to that bestowed
by federal statute was the basis for prosecutions
for libel against the federal government by the
Federalists prior to the passage of the sedition
law (1798). He published Admiralty Decisions
in the District Court of the United States for the
Pennsylvania District, 1780-1807 (1807).
Peters was also a practical farmer. The "Mem-
oirs" of the Philadelphia society for the promo-
tion of agriculture, of which he was the first
president, contain more than one hundred papers
by him on the subject of agriculture. On his es-
tate he experimented with new agricultural meth-
ods, with different breeds of sheep and cattle,
with dairy products, and continually exchanged
ideas with Washington and his other farmer
friends. His Agricultural Enquiries on Plaister
of Paris (1797) exercised a wide influence in in-
troducing the culture of clover and other grasses.
A Discourse on Agriculture; its Antiquity
(1816), an exposition of agricultural develop-
ment from earliest times, stresses the need for
scientific farming, urges the use of plaster of
Paris and other fertilizers, the growth of clover,
scientific drainage, premiums for excellence in
production, and a state-planned system of roads
and canals to give a "more elastic spring" to
agriculture. Peters was a brilliant conversa-
tionalist, noted for his witticisms, and beloved
by his friends for his kindliness and sympathetic
feeling. Both in public and private matters he
was punctual, painstaking, and patient His es-
tate, "Belmont/1 inherited from, his father, and
standing high on the west bank of the Schuylkill,
S°9
Peters
was the scene of frequent visits by his large
circle of prominent friends. From 1788 to 1791
he was a trustee of the University of Pennsyl-
vania. His wife was Sarah Robinson, whom he
married in August 1776 and by whom he had six
children. Richard Peters, 1810-1889 [gw]» was
a grandson.
Peters5 son Richard (Aug. 4, 1779-May 2,
1848) succeeded Henry Wheaton as reporter for
the United States Supreme Court and compiled
the Reports of Cases in the Supreme Court of
the United States, 1828 to 1842 (16 vols., 1828-
42). His other published works include: Re-
ports of Cases in the Circuit Court of the United
States for the Third Circuit . . . District of New
Jersey, 1803 to 1818, and in the District of Penn-
sylvania, 1815 to 1818 (1819) ; Reports of Cases
. . . in the Circuit Court of the United States,, for
the Third Circuit . . . from the Manuscripts of
. . . Biishrod Washington (4 vols., 1826-29) ;
Condensed Reports of Cases in the Supreme
Court of the United States . . . from its Organi-
zation to the Commencement of Peters' s Reports
(6 vols., 1830-34) ; The Public Statutes at Large
of the United States . . . 1789 to Mar. 3, 1845
(1848) ; and A Practical Treatise on the Crimi-
nal Law (3 vols., 1847), an edition of the work
of Joseph Chitty.
[See : Samuel Breck, Address Delivered . . . on the
Death . . . the Hon. Richard Peters (1828), reprinted
in Reg. of Pa.t Nov. r, 1828; N. P. Black, Richard
Peters: His Ancestors and Descendants, 1810-1889
(1904) ; A. J. Dallas, Reports of Cases Ruled and Ad-
judged in the Several Courts of the U. S. (4 vols,, 1790-
1807) ; J. W. Stinson, "Opinions of Richard Peters
(1781-1817)," Univ. of Pa. Law Rev., Mar. 1922; H.
D. Eberlein and H. M. Lippincott, The Colonial Homes
of Phila. (1912) * J. T. Scharf and Thompson West-
cott, Hist, of Phila. (1884), vol. I; Minutes of the
Provincial Council of Pa., vols. X-XVI (1852-53) ; Pa.
Archives, i ser. V-XII (1853-56) ; Pa. Mag. of Hist,
and Bioff., July 1899, July 1916, Oct. 1920; and Pout-
son's Am. Daily Advertiser, Aug. 23, 25, 1828. There
are 12 volumes of Peters Papers in the library of the
Pa. Hist. Soc. at Philadelphia.] j. jj. P g.
PETERS, RICHARD (Nov. 10, i8io-Feb. 6,
1889), civil engineer, railroad superintendent,
agriculturist and financier, was born in German-
town, Pa., of English-Irish and Scotch-Irish an-
cestry. His parents were Ralph and Catherine
(Conyngham) Peters; his paternal grandfather
was Richard Peters, 1744-1828 \_q.v.], Revolu-
tionary leader and federal district judge. His
formal education began at the age of five and
continued until his family, after financial re-
verses, moved first to Wilkes-Barre (1821) and
then to Bradford County (1823 or 24), where
Richard worked on a farm and led an outdoor
life. With a few dollars which he had made in
the maple-sugar business he went to Philadel-
phia, where for eighteen months he studied
mathematics, drawing, and writing, to prepare
Peters
himself for work in the office of William Strick-
land [q.v.~\, the architect; here he spent six
months. Being predisposed to a more active life,
and, according to his own account, unfitted for
architecture, he assisted in the construction of
the Delaware Breakwater, and then for a short
time became an assistant engineer in the loca-
tion of the Camden & Amboy Railroad, An old
friend, J. Edgar Thomson [q.v."], the chief en-
gineer of the newly organized Georgia railroad,
made him an assistant engineer. Peters went to
Georgia in 1835, having landed at Charleston
and continued his journey over the new Charles-
ton & Hamburg Railroad. He was so successful
in surveying the Georgia road, carrying on his
work as far as Madison, that two years later he
was made superintendent. He immediately be-
came intensely interested in this road, and showed
his faith in its future by investing his savings in
it. He gave full sway to his inventive genius by
devising a spark arrester, and he arranged for
running trains in the night by improvising sleep-
ing quarters in the coaches and constructing a
headlight on the locomotive by burning pine
knots on a sand bed, constructed in front of the
smokestack.
On the completion of the Georgia Railroad to
Marthasville (1846), a name which he soon
changed to Atlanta, he resigned the superin-
tendency. In the meantime (1844), he had set
up a stage line from Madison, Ga,, to Mont-
gomery, Ala., a business which he continued un-
til the competition of the Atlanta & West Point
Railroad, completed a few years later, led him to
transfer his stages to a route from Montgomery
to Mobile. He continued the latter route until
the outbreak of the Civil War. His interest in
promoting transportation facilities westward was
shown further by his election in 1860 to the
presidency of the Georgia Western Railroad
(Phillips, post, pp. 370-72), and after the Civil
War by his directorship of the Atlanta & West
Point Railroad. Moving to Atlanta soon after
the completion of the railroad to that point, he
developed an unbounded faith in that growing
railway center and he continued as one of its
greatest promoters until his death. Here in 1856
he set up the largest flour mill south of Rich-
mond, and for a source of wood supply he bought
400 acres of land, which later became the heart
of Atlanta and greatly enhanced his fortune. In
1847 he had bought 1,500 acres of land in Gordon
County and with slave labor developed it into a
model plantation. Here he experimented with
the best strains of live stock and introduced new
plant crops to the South. He bought from the
Ural Mountains Angora goats, and he brought
to the South some of the finest breeds of horses
Peters
and cattle ; he promoted the raising of sorghum
in the South, and reestablished silk culture. He
promoted these interests by occasionally con-
tributing1 articles to various magazines.
In politics he was a conservative Whig, who
opposed secession but loyally accepted the new
order when Georgia seceded. During the war he
responded to all calls for aid, and at the same
time greatly increased his wealth by organizing1
a blockade-running company. When Sherman
burned Atlanta he fled to Augusta, but he was
among the first to return and help rebuild the
city when connections were reopened. He worked
for the removal of the capital from Milledgeville
to Atlanta in 1868, and throe years later he was
a chief promoter in the construction of eleven
miles of street railway, becoming president of
the company the following" year. In 1870 he be-
came one of the lessees and directors of the West-
ern & Atlantic Railway, running from Atlanta
to Chattanooga. Though he had no political am-
bitions, he became a member of the city council
soon after the war, and in, the early eighties he
was elected a county commissioner.
With all his wealth, estimated at over a mil-
lion dollars, and with his varied interests, Peters
found time to be extremely kind and considerate
in all his business and social dealings. He was
an Episcopalian, and, after the Civil War, a
Democrat, lie had a robust physique and hand-
some features. On Feb. 18, 1848, he married
Mary Jane Thompson of Atlanta, and to them
were born nine children, three daughters and
six sons. Seven survived him on his death in
Atlanta.
[Atlanta Constitution, Feb. 6, 1880 ; W. J, Nortlien,
ed., Men of Mark in Georgia (1911), III, 495-97; A.
D. Candler and C. A. Evans, eds,, Georgia (1906), III,
87-89 ; U. B. Phillips, A Hist of Transportation in the
Eastern Cotton Belt to lS6o (1908) ; N. P. Black, Rich*
ard Peters. His Ancestors and Descendants, 18 io~i#0p
(1904) ; H. W. Grady, Forty Tears All Told Spent in
Live Stock^ Experiments in Ga» : Richard Peters' Ex-
periments in Lwe Stock Farming (n.d.)» and article in
Atlanta Constitution, Oct. 12, 1884,] E.M. C.
PETERS, SAMUEL ANDREW (Nov. 20,
1735-Apr. 19, 1826), Anglican clergyman, Loy-
alist, son of John, and Mary (Marks) Peters, was
born at Hebron, Conn,, a descendant of Andrew
Peters whose name first appears in Massachu-
setts records in 1659, He was educated at Yale
College, receiving- the degrees of bachelor of arts
in 1757 and master of arts in 1760, King's Col-
lege conferred the degree of M.A. on him in 1761
and in later life he claimed to have received that
of LL.D. from the University of Cortona in Tus-
cany, although no such institution seems ever to
have existed. In 1758 he went to England to re-
ceive holy orders in the Anglican church and in
Peters
the following year was ordained deacon and
priest and appointed missionary by the Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign
Parts. In 1760 he returned to America and for
the next fourteen years served as rector of the
Anglican church at Hebron and ministered to the
surrounding country. On Feb. 14, 1760, he was
married to Hannah Owen, who died Oct. 25,
1765; on June 25, 1769, to Abigail Gilbert, who
died July 14, 1769 ; and on Apr. 21, 1773, to Mary
Birdseye, who died June 16, 1774.
As the controversy between Great Britain and
the colonies approached a crisis, he was suspect-
ed of informing the Bishop of London and the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in
Foreign Parts of events in America, and on the
morning of Aug. 15, 1774 he was visited by the
Sons of Liberty, who examined his papers and
forced him to sign a declaration that he had not
written and would not write to England. Fol-
lowing a sermon in which he advised his con-
gregation not to contribute aid or supplies for
the relief of Boston, he was again visited by a
mob, Sept. 6, 1774, and upon the discovery that
he had arms in his house, he was carried to the
meeting-house green and forced to sign and read
a declaration and humble confession. Shortly
after this incident he fled to Boston, leaving be-
hind him a twelve-year-old daughter, an infant
son, and some twenty slaves, eleven of whom
were liberated by the General Assembly of Con-
necticut in 1789. On Oct. 25, 1774, he sailed from
Portsmouth, N. H., for England, where he re-
ceived a small pension from the Crown.
He took up his residence in London and oc-
casionally preached in the churches of the city.
He wrote for British periodicals and in 1781 pub-
lished A General History of Connecticut, con-
taining his famous account of the "blue laws"
which, he alleged, were in force then. It is a
highly unfavorable description of the colony of
his birth but not as false as some of its critics in
New England have maintained. In 1785 he pub-
lished A Letter to the Rev. John Tyler, A.M.:
concerning the Possibility of Eternal Punish-
ments, and th\e Improbability of Universal Salva-
tion. He hoped to obtain an American bishopric
and in 1794 he was elected bishop of Vermont
by a convention of Episcopal clergymen which
met at Rutland, and sent John A. Graham to
England to secure his consecration at the hands
of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Peters ac-
cepted the bishopric and prepared to sail for
America in the following spring but on the plea
that he was limited by the Act of Parliament of
January 1786, and could create no more Ameri-
can bishops, the Archbishop of Canterbury re-
Peters
fused to consecrate him. About 1804 Peters lost
his pension. He had known Jonathan Carver
[q.v.~], the explorer, in England, and at the re-
quest of Carver's American heirs returned to
America in 1805 to further their claim to a large
tract of land to the east of the Mississippi River
at the Falls of St. Anthony, which they claimed
Carver had received from the Sioux Indians in
1767. In March 1806 Peters appeared before a
committee of the United States Senate in behalf
of Carver's heirs, and in November 1806 he
bought their claim. He succeeded in interesting
a company of New York merchants in a scheme
to settle the territory on the Mississippi and in
the summer of 1817 he himself set out to visit the
region and spent the following winter at Prairie
du Chien, but in 1826 Congress disallowed the
claim. After Peters' return to America he pub-
lished A History of the Reveretid Hugh Peters,
AM. (1807). He claimed Hugh Peter [q.v.]
as his great-grand-uncle, but the relationship
has been disproved. Peters died at New York
in his ninety-first year and was buried at Hebron.
[E. F. Peters and E. B. Peters, Peters of New Eng-
land (1903) ; F. B. Dexter, Biog. Sketches Grads. Yale
Coll., vol. II (1896) ; Zadock Thompson, Hist, of Vt.
(1842); W. W. FolweU, A Hist, of Minn., vol. I
(1921); W. B. Sprague, Annals Am. Pulpit, vol. V
(1859) J W. S. Perry, The Hist, of the Am. Episcopal
Church (2 vols., 1885) ; E. E. Beardsley, The Hist, of
the Episcopal Church in Conn. (2 vols., 1866-68) ; I.
W. Stuart, Life of Jonathan Trumbull, Sen., Gov. of
Conn. (1859) ; The True-Blue Laws of Conn, and New
Haven and the False Blue-Laws Invented by the Rev.
Samuel Peters (1876), ed. by J. H. Trumbull; J. H.
Trumbull, The Reverend Samuel Peters, His Defenders
and Apologists (1877) ; W. F. Prince, "An Examination
of Peters's 'Blue Laws,' " Ann. Report Am. Hist. Asso.
for 1898 (1899) ; D. S. Durrie, "Captain Jonathan
Carver, and 'Carver's Grant,' " Report and Colls., State
Hist. Soc. of Wis., vol. VI (1872) ; Milo M. Quaife,
"Jonathan Carver and the Carver Grant," Miss. Valley
Hist. Rev., June 1920; Am. Archives, ed. by Peter
Force, 4 ser. I (1837), II (1839) ; Am. State Papers,
Public Lands, vol. IV (1859) ; The Correspondence of
John A. Graham, with His Grace of Canterbury, When
on His Mission as Agent of the Church of Vt., to the
Ecclesiastical Courts of Canterbury and York, for the
Consecration of Dr. Peters, Bishop Elect of Vt., 1794-95
(1835); S. J. McCormick, "Dr. Samuel Peters,
Churchman, May 26 and June 2, 1877.] J. M. C.
PETERS, WILLIAM GUMMING (Mar. 10,
i8o5-Apr. 20, 1866), music publisher, musician,
was born in Woodbury, Devonshire, England.
Between the years 1820 and 1823 he came to
America with his parents and lived for a short
time in Texas. During1 these same years he
studied music with his father, although as a mu-
sician he was largely self-instructed. From 1825
to 1828 he taught music in Pittsburgh, and in
1829 moved to Louisville, Ky., where he opened
a music store. In 1839 he opened a branch house
in Cincinnati, and in 1849 another branch in Bal-
timore. His home during his later years was in
Cincinnati, and it was there that he died sud-
Peterson
denly of heart disease at the ag^ of sixty-one.
Peters was an important factor in the musical
life of the cities in which he lived, and he was
especially significant because of his connection
with Stephen Collins Foster [#.£/.]. According
to evidence and tradition it was Peters who was
among the first to profit by Foster's songs. When
Foster lived in Cincinnati during the years 1846
to 1849 he was a song writer by avocation rather
than by profession. He had written several songs
which were sung by minstrel performers, and
they were so successful that Peters asked Foster
to let him publish them. Accordingly Foster gave
Peters a number of songs, among them "Su-
sanna," "Louisiana Belle," and "Old Uncle Ned."
In spite of other, pirated editions of "Susanna,"
it is said that Peters made over $10,000 from the
sale of Foster's songs. It was probably this suc-
cess that enabled Peters to expand his business,
and to become one of the leading music publishers
of the Mid- West. Foster received little, if any-
thing, from Peters. According to one tradition
he was paid one hundred dollars for "Susanna"
and nothing for "Uncle Ned" (R. P. Nevin,
"Stephen C. Foster and Negro Minstrelsy," At-
lantic Monthly f November 1867). Other reports
state that Foster made Peters an outright gift of
all the songs. For one year in Baltimore Peters
edited and published a musical magazine, the
Olio. In the final issue, December 1850, a state-
ment was made that the magazine would be dis-
continued, not because of lack of support, but be-
cause of the editor's health, and the difficulty of
procuring music plates in Baltimore.
Peters was active as a leader of concerts and
choirs, and in composing and writing. He wrote
music for the Roman Catholic Church, including
a Mass in D. He compiled Peters' Catholic Har-
monist '(1848); Catholic Harp (1862), and a
number of educational works, among them the
Eclectic Piano Instructor (1855)* He was the
editor of a revised and enlarged edition of Bur-
r awes' Piano Forte Primer (1849, again re-
vised, 1869). Among his original compositions
were "Citizens Guards' March" (1841) ; "Sweet
Memories of Thee" (1839), a song, and "Kind,
Kind and Gentle is She" (1840), "a favourite
Scotch ballad."
[Information regarding Peters is meager. A number
of his compositions are available in collections of old
music. For biographical material see W. A. Fisher,
One Hundred and Fifty Years of Music Publishing in
the U. S. (1033) ; E. J. Wohlgemuth, Within- Three
Chords (1928) ; Cincinnati Daily Cassette, Cincinnati
Commercial, Apr. 21, 1866; Appletons* Cyc. Am. Biog.
A complete file of the Olio for 1850 is in the collection
of Foster Hall, Indianapolis, Ind.] j_ «r. H.
PETERSON, CHARLES JACOBS (July 20,
i8io-Mar. 4, 1887), editor, publisher, and au-
512
Peterson
thor, was born in Philadelphia, Pa., the eldest of
the five sons of Thomas P. and Elizabeth Snelling
(Jacobs) Peterson. Three, of his brothers, The-
ophilus B., Thomas, and George W,, later formed
the book-publishing house known as T. B. Peter-
son & Brothers; Henry Peterson [q.vJ], editor,
publisher, and poet, was his cousin. They were
descended from Erick Pieterson (a godson of
Archbishop Laurence Pieterson of Sweden) who
settled with a Swedish colony on the Delaware
in 1638, Charles was a non-graduate member of
the class of 1838, University of Pennsylvania,
studied law, and was admitted to the bar, but
never entered upon legal practice.
When George R, Graham [q.v>"\ purchased
Atkinson's Casket (later Graham's Magazine)
in May 1839, he associated the twenty-year-old
Peterson with him in its editorship — a relation
maintained until the founding of Peterson's own
magazine. It has been said that a quarrel with
Peterson was the reason for Poe's leaving his
editorial position on Graham's (John Sartain,
Reminiscences of a Very Old Man, 1899), though
different reasons have been assigned for that rup-
ture by other observers. In March 1840 Peter-
son purchased the interest of John DuSolle in the
Saturday Evening Post, thereby becoming doubly
the partner of Graham, this time in, both editing
and publishing. After just three years of this lat-
ter connection, he sold his interest to Samuel D.
Patterson, In 1840, acting upon a hint from
Graham, he founded the Lady's World> the name
of which was changed in 1843 ^° ^ne Ladies' Na-
tional Magazine and in 1848 to Peterson's Maga-
zine. In this venture he took as an associate Ann
Sophia Stephens [#.#.] » who had been connected
with Grahmn's, and who remained a, leading con-
tributor to Peterson's until her death in 1886,
Though she was sometimes listed as editor,
Peterson himself was do facto editor for the for-
ty-seven years from the founding of the maga-
zine until his own death, Peterson's was an imi-
tator of the successful Godcy's Lady's Bookf
which it underbid in subscription price, and out-
stripped in circulation and influence shortly af-
ter the Civil War* In the seventies it gained a
circulation — unusual at that time — of 150,000
copies. Peterson was also actively engaged in
daily and weekly journalism at various times,
and wrote sketches and verse for periodicals. He
was an editor of Joseph C Neat's Saturday Ga-
zette in the middle forties. When the Philadelphia
Bulletin was begun m 1847, he was one of its
editorial writers ; he also worked in that capacity
for the Public Ledger, He wrote The Military
Heroes of the Revolution, with a Narrative of the
War of Independence (1848) and similar treat-
Peterson
ments of the War of 1812 and the Mexican War.
In 1849 Grace Dudley, or Arnold at Saratoga
appeared. This was followed by several other his-
torical novels, including Kate Aylesford, a Story
of the Refugees (1855), Mabel, or Darkness and
Dawn (1857), and The Old Stone Mansion
( 1859 ) . His most important work was a history
of the American navy, first published as The
Naval Heroes of the United States (1850) and
later, in more comprehensive form, as A History
of the United States Navy (1852) and The Amer-
ican Navy, Being an Authentic History (1856).
Peterson's was an expansive and genial person-
ality, and he had a notable capacity for friend-
ship. He belonged to that group of litterateurs
and magazinists who made Philadelphia a lit-
erary center in the forties. His friends have
eulogized his cultivation, refinement, and studious
habits. He died in Philadelphia, his last days
shadowed by the accidental death of an only son.
His wife was Sarah Powell, daughter of Charles
Pitt Howard.
[Univ. of Pa., Biog. Cat. of Matriculates of the Col-
lege (1893) 5 A. H. Smyth, The Phila. Mags, and Their
Contributors (1892) ; Phila. Inquirer and Public Ledger
both Mar. 7, 1887 ; Press (Phila.), Mar. 6, 1887 ; Peter-
son's Mag., May 1 887.] ^ L Mj
PETERSON, HENRY (Dec. 7, i8i8-0ct, 10,
1891), editor-publisher and poet, was born in
Philadelphia, Pa., the son of George and Jane
(Evans) Peterson. He was a cousin of Charles
Jacobs Peterson [q.v.]. Henry Peterson was
largely self-educated, being compelled to go to
work in a hardware store at the age of fourteen.
He formed a partnership with Edmund Deacon
for the publication of cheap manuals and reprints
when he was twenty-one. For a short time he
was connected editorially with Joseph C. Neal's
Saturday Gazette, and in 1846 he succeeded
George R. Graham as editor of the Saturday
Evening Post, In February 1848 Deacon &
Peterson bought the Post from Samuel D. Pat-
terson & Company and became sole owners and
editors. For twenty-five years, with some changes
in partners, Peterson remained the controlling
personality in the Post, reducing its attention
to news and increasing its emphasis on fiction
and verse. It was an eight-page folio, of news-
paper format, and the oldest of the many Ameri-
can weekly story papers. In April 1873 Peterson
sold his interest in this periodical to the Sat-
urday Post Publishing Company, but he remained
with it in an editorial capacity for another year.
Thereafter he devoted himself to the writing of
poetry and fiction. He had already published
Poems (1863), and The Modern Job (1869), a
dramatic and philosophical poem of three thoti-
Petigru
sand blank-verse lines with its setting1 in Penn-
sylvania. Pemberton (1873), a historical novel
of the Revolution, was reprinted in 1887 and
1900. Fwre-moimt (1874) is a historico-philo-
sophical poem in couplets. Helen; or, One Hun-
dred Years Ago, a poetical drama, was produced
in Philadelphia in 1876. Confessions of a Minister
(1874) and Bessie's Lovers (1877) are novels.
They were foil owed by Caesar: A Dramatic Study
(1879), Poems: Second Series (1883), including
The Modern Job and Faire-mount, and the post-
humously published Columbus (1893), a dra-
matic poem in six acts. On Oct. 28, 1842, Peter-
son married Sarah Webb, of Wilmington, Del.,
a poet, who edited from 1864 to 1874 the Lady's
Friend, a fashion magazine published by Deacon
& Peterson and modeled upon Godetfs Lady's
Book, Peterson's verse, while not distinguished,
has ease and thoughtfulness ; his chief service
was that which he rendered to popular literature
in connection with the Satiirday Evening Post.
He died at his home in Germantown, Pa.
[There are no complete files of the Saturday Evening
Post, but the connections of Henry Peterson with it
may be noted in the file in possession of the Post itself.
For biographical details see J. W. Jordan, Encyc. of Pa.
Biog., vol. X (1918) and the Pub. Ledger (Phila.), Oct.
12, 1891.] F.L.M.
PETIGRU, JAMES LOUIS (May 10, 1789-
Mar. 9, 1863), lawyer, political leader, was born
in Abbeville District, S. C. He was the son of
William Pettigrew, a native of Virginia, and
Louise Guy Gilbert, the daughter of a Huguenot
minister. He bore the names of his two grand-
fathers: James Pettigrew, who came to Penn-
sylvania in 1740 from County Tyrone, Ireland,
and moved successively to Virginia, North Caro-
lina, and South Carolina ; and Jean Louis Gibert,
who brought a party of Huguenots to South
Carolina in 1763. Since the family was large and
means were small, he worked from childhood, se-
curing such schooling as he could. In 1804 he
entered the famous school of Dr. Moses Waddell
at Willington, and two years later South Caro-
lina College, where, supporting himself by teach-
ing in Columbia, he finished the course and re-
ceived the A.B. degree in 1809. About this time,
apparently, he changed the spelling of his name
(Carson, post, p. 35). He taught in St. Luke's
Parish and at Beaufort for the next three years,
studying- law the while, and was admitted to the
bar in 1812. In that year, although as an in-
tense Federalist he opposed the war, he served
for a short while in the militia. Settling at
Coosawhatchie, in 1816 he was elected solicitor,
and, on Aug. 17, he married Jane Amelia Postell,
the daughter of a nearby planter. In 1819 James
Hamilton, Jr. [q.v.] offered him an attractive
Petigru
partnership and he moved to Charleston, where
he spent the rest of his life. Rapidly gaining
reputation, in 1822 he was elected attorney gen-
eral, a post much to his liking which he unwill-
ingly resigned in 1830 to become a Union candi-
date for the state Senate. He was defeated, but
within a few weeks was elected to fill a vacancy
in the lower house. A thorough-going national-
ist, he was an intense opponent of nullification,
for which he could find no justification in law,
logic, or morals. He wrote a friend, "I am
devilishly puzzled to know whether my friends
are mad, or I beside myself (Carson, p. 79).
He disliked politics but felt compelled to par-
ticipate in such a crisis, and, making many
speeches, writing numerous newspaper articles,
and contributing much wise counsel, found him-
self in 1832 the leader of the Union party. He
wrote the address to the people issued by the
Union convention in September (Southern Pa-
triot, Sept. 15, 1832) and the protest against the
nullification ordinance in December. In the peri-
od which followed, he naturally opposed the im-
position of the test oath and won the decision
from the court of appeals which declared it un-
constitutional (2 S. C., I, 113). During the
resulting bitter struggle, he and Hamilton, by
cooperation, prevented any collision between
their excited followers and finally effected a sat-
isfactory compromise.
From the close of the nullification controversy
to the end of his life Petigru held no office, save
for two years that of United States district at-
torney, which he accepted as a matter of duty at
the earnest request of President Fillmore when
no one could be induced to do so. In 1859 he
was elected code commissioner and by annual
election retained the position until the completion
of the work in 1863 (Portion of the Code of
Statute Law of South Carolina, i86o-€2). He
opposed secession but was hopeless of checking
the movement. Asked by a stranger in Columbia
in December 1860 the location of the insane
asylum, he pointed to the Baptist church where
the secession convention had just assembled and
said: "It looks like a church, but it is now a
lunatic asylum ; go right there and you will find
one hundred and sixty-four maniacs within"
(Lewis, post, IV, 71-72). But he could not al-
ways joke about it. Mistaking the bells for a
fire alarm and being told that they announced
secession, he exclaimed: "I tell you there is a
fire ; they have this day set a blazing torch to the
temple of constitutional liberty, and please God,
we shall have no more peace forever" (Ibid., p.
72). Yet coercion surprised and grieved him,
and, in spite of his intellectual belief, passion-
Petigru
ately held, that the cause was bad, his heart was
with the Southern rather than the Northern
arms. But his heart was not with the Confed-
erate government. He opposed the Confederate
sequestration act in the district court, because,
he said, he was free born. During the war his
home in Charleston was lost by fire and a house
on Sullivan's Island was destroyed in the erection
of fortifications.
Petigru was known and admired all over the
country. Lincoln seriously considered appoint-
ing him. to the Supreme Court to replace Justice
McLean or Justice Campbell but the difficulties
in the way, combined with Pctigru's age, dissuad-
ed him. Petigru's position as "the greatest pri-
vate citizen that South Carolina has ever pro-
duced," was unique. An admirer thus describes
it: "He never occupied high public station, and
yet he was a statesman. He never held judicial
positions, and yet he was a great jurist He
never wrote books, and yet his life itself is a vol-
ume to be studied. He never founded a charity,
and yet he was a great-hearted philanthropist"
(Lewis, IV, 30-31). A superb advocate, he was
the undisputed head of the state bar for nearly
forty years. The profound legal learning he dis-
played in a case was matched by the simplicity
of his deductive reasoning. He "turnpiked the
legal pathway out of the most complicated laby-
rinth of law and fact" (Memorial,, p. n). In
public affairs Petigru was doomed to the minor-
ity because of his nationalism. In other things
he largely agreed with his neighbors, He op-
posed protection vigorously, and, while he did
not like the institution of slavery, he was no
abolitionist and owned slaves and approved of
the domestic side of slavery. Politically, he was
perhaps more sympathetic with free-soil ideas
than his associates. A friend, always, of the low-
ly and oppressed, having1 a passion for mercy
combined with his love of justice, he was ready
in defence of the slave, the poor white, or the
free negro who sought his aid. His manner was
hearty, even inclined to be hilarious, but scrupu-
lously courteous. He wrote well and had an
unusual voice, capable of expressing every shade
of feeling, that made him a really great speaker.
In the heart of bitter controversy he retained the
respect and the affection of his opponents, and
the lasting quality of his fame is evidence of the
dynamic character of his personality.
[J. P. Carson, Life, Letters and Speeches of James
Louis Petigru . . . (1930) ; W, J. Grayson, James Louis
Petigru. A Biog, Sketch (1866); W. D. Lewis, ed,
Great American Lawyers, IV (1908), "James Louis
Petigru" by J. D. Pope ; Memorial of the Late James
L. Petigru. Proc. of the Bar of Charleston, S. c->Maf;
25, 1863 (1866) ; Charleston Mercury, Mar. n, 1863.]
J.G.deR.H.
Pettigrew
PETTIGREW, CHARLES (Mar. 20, 1743-
Apr. 7, 1807), Episcopal clergyman, was born in
Chambersburg, Pa. His family was of remote
French origin with Scotch and Irish branches.
Charles Pettigrew's father, James, of the Irish
branch, became estranged from his people be-
cause ^of religious differences and emigrated to
America with his wife, Mary Cochran, from
County Tyrone, Ireland, in 1740. The family
later moved to Virginia and in 1768, to North
Carolina where Charles studied under the Rev.
Henry Patillo [g.^.], who was serving the Pres-
byterians of that state. Five years later, although
still a Presbyterian, he was appointed principal
of the academy at Edenton, a school which was
practically Episcopalian and which had marked
influence on the early history of North Carolina.
Here he became an Episcopalian and decided to
take orders. He sailed for England in 1774, was
ordered deacon by the Bishop of London, and
advanced to the priesthood by the Bishop of
Rochester in 1775. He returned to America in
the last ship that sailed before the Revolution,
and became rector of St. Paul's Church in Eden-
ton.
In the fall of 1789, when Bishop White of
Philadelphia wrote to Governor Samuel Johnston
[#.z/.] , of North Carolina to request that the cler-
gy of the Episcopal church in that state meet to
take steps to revive the church organization there,
the Governor referred the matter to the Rev.
Charles Pettigrew, whom he called "his Pastor
and Friend." Pettigrew called a meeting of the
clergy, each of the six in the state being asked to
bring one layman. Only two clergymen and two
laymen, both residents of Tarboro, were pres-
ent at the meeting in that town on June 5, 1790.
They proceeded to organize and to elect deputies
for the General Convention of 1792. It was a day
of small beginnings, no notice of organization or
attendance of delegates appearing in the records
of the General Convention, and a permanent or-
ganization was not effected until 1817. At a state
convention held in Tarboro on May 28, 1794,
comprising five clergymen and eight laymen, Pet-
tigrew was elected bishop. He expected to be
consecrated at the Convention of 1795, which met
at Philadelphia, but he was stopped in Norfolk,
Va., by an epidemic of yellow fever, and was de-
layed until the Convention was adjourned. He
returned to his home on the family estate,
"Bonarva" in Tyrrell County, N. C, where he
built a chapel on his own grounds to serve the
surrounding countryside and where he died be-
fore being consecrated bishop.
He was twice married, first on Oct 28, 1778,
to Mary Blount who died in 1786, leaving him
515
Pettigrew
two sons, one of whom was Ebenezer, the father
of James Johnston Pettigrew \_q.v.'], and second,
on June 12, 1794, to Mary Lockhart His letters
to his sons written while they were students at
the University of North Carolina, 1795 to 1797,
throw an interesting light on the student life of-
the period, and are quoted at length in Battle's
history of the University. Pettigrew was in-
strumental in founding the University in 1789,
and was one of the trustees from 1790 to 1793.
[M. D. Haywood, biog-, sketch in S. A. Ashe, Biog.
Hist, of N. C.t vol. VI (1907) J J. W. Moore, Hist, of
N. C. (2 vols., 1880) ; W. M. Clemens, ed., North and
South Carolina Marriage Records (1927) ; W. S. Perry,
The Hist, of the Am. Episc. Ch., 1587-1883 (2 vols.,
1885) ; K. P. Battle, Hist, of the Univ. of N. C. (2 vols.,
1907-1912) ; The Early Conventions Held at Taw-
borough, A. D., 1790, 1793, and 1794 - • .- Collected
from Original Sources and NOTV First Published. With
Introduction and Brief Notes by Joseph Blount Cheshire,
Jr. (1882) ; W. B. Sprague, Annals of the Am. Pulpit,
vol. V (1859)-] C.L.W.
PETTIGREW, JAMES JOHNSTON (July
4, i82&-July 17, 1863), lawyer and soldier, was
born at the family estate, "Bonarva," Lake Scup-
pernong, Tyrrell County, N. C., the son of
Ebenezer and Ann B. (Shepard) Pettigrew. He
was the great-grandson of James Pettigrew who
emigrated to America in 1740, and the grandson
of Charles Pettigrew [#.#.], the first bishop-elect
of the Episcopal Church in North Carolina, His
mother died when he was two years old. He of-
ten missed periods of schooling on account of ill
health, but he rendered such a brilliant account
of himself scholastically under the tutelage of
William James Bingham of Hillsboro, N. C., that
he was ready to enter the University of North
Carolina at the age of fifteen. In his four years
at the university he showed exceptional talent
and upon his graduation in 1847, he was award-
ed by President Polk an assistant professorship
at the Naval Observatory in Washington. He
relinquished this position after two years and
commenced the study of law, first in Baltimore,
then in Charleston, S. C, where he was asso-
ciated with his father's cousin, James Louis Peti-
gru [g.z/.]. In 1850 he took a long European tour
with the particular object of studying Roman
law in Germany for two years. He then resumed
the practice of law in Charleston. He was elected
to the General Assembly in 1856 and rapidly be-
came an outstanding figure in the controversy
over the slave trade. His minority report against
a resumption of the traffic reads today as a
thoughtful, well-balanced document. In 1861 he
published a book, Notes on Spain and the Span-
iards, based on his observations of manners and
customs in that country.
Prior to the Civil War he was colonel of the
ist Regiment of Rifles of Charleston, and when
Pettigrew
Major Anderson immured himself within Fort
Sumter, Pettigrew took over Castle Pinckney
and later fortified Morris Island. When his own
regiment was not able to enter the army of the
Confederate states upon its own terms, he went
to Richmond and enlisted in Hampton's Legion.
After the secession of North Carolina in May
1861, he was elected colonel of the I2th Regiment.
He first saw service at Evansport, Va,, where
his regiment was engaged in blocking the Po-
tomac. His services were so conspicuous that
President Davis himself wanted to make him a
brigadier-general, but he refused on the grounds
that he had never led troops in action. His of-
ficers and friends, however, persuaded him to ac-
cept later, and he served under Johnston through-
out the Peninsular Campaign, was severely
wounded at Seven Pines, bayonetted, and cap-
tured. In two months' time he was exchanged,
whereupon he took command of the defenses of
Petersburg. In the spring of 1863 he displayed
at Blount's Creek his capacity for independent
command, and his brigade formed part of the
division of Henry Heth [#,£/.] at Gettysburg.
After Heth was wounded on the first day of the
battle, Pettigrew took over the command of the
division, and directed an advance on the left of
Pickett in the famous charge. He was again
wounded at the head of his troops near the Stone
Wall, but was able to display conspicuous ability
as a rear-guard commander during the retreat.
On the night of July 14, he was wounded by a
small raiding party of Federal cavalry. He died
three days later, and was buried at Raleigh, N. C.,
but in 1866 his body was removed to "Bonarva."
IS. C. Gen. Assembly, House of Rep., Special Com-
mittee on Slavery and the Slave Trade, Report of the
Minority (1858) ; H, C. Graham, biog. sketch in Ladies
Memorial Asso., Confcd. Memorial Addresses (1886) ;
J, W. Clark, memorial address at the unveiling of a
tablet and marble pillar in honor of General Pettigrew,
Bunker Hill, W. Va., N. C. Booklet, Oct. 1920, Jan.-
Apr. 1921, pub. by The N. C. Soc. of the D. A. R. ; Mrs.
C. P. S. Spencer, biog. sketch in W. J. Peele, Lives of
Distinguished North Carolinians (1808); S. A. Ashe,
Biog. Hist, of N. C., vol. VI (1907).] D, Y.
PETTIGREW, RICHARD FRANKLIN
(July 23, i848-Oct. 5, 1926), delegate from the
Territory of Dakota, first senator from South
Dakota, was born in Ludlow, Vt, the son of
Hannah B. (Sawtell) and Andrew Pettigrew,
who was an abolitionist and maintained a station
on the Underground Railroad. The boy's youth
was spent on his father's farm in Evansville,
Wis., where he attended the public schools and
local academy. He entered Beloit College tut
left in 1867. He studied law at the University
of Wisconsin and with John C. Spooner [#.#,],
and he settled in Sioux Falls in 1870, where he
516
Pettigrew
became one of the leaders in the development of
the town. He was admitted to the bar in 1871,
practised law, engaged in government surveying,
and was interested in real estate. He was a mem-
ber of the House of Representatives of the terri-
torial legislature in 1872 and a member of the
territorial council in 1877 and 1879. On Feb. 27,
1879, he was married to Elizabeth V. Pittar, the
daughter of John Pittar of Chicago, who bore
him two sons. Elected a delegate to the Forty-
seventh Congress in 1880, he served from March
1881 to March 1883. He was again a member of
the territorial council in 1885. He advocated the
division of Dakota Territory into two states, and,
when North and South Dakota were admitted in
1889, he was chosen one of the first senators from
South Dakota, to serve from October 1889 to
March 1901. His most important service in the
Senate was in the promotion of legislation re-
serving from sale the forest lands owned by the
federal government He studied carefully the
forestry methods used in Europe, and, with the
aid of Charles D, Walcott of the United States
geological survey, he drafted an amendment to
the timber culture act of 1891 authorizing the
president by proclamation to reserve public lands
covered by forests. As a result of this legislation
150,000,000 acres were reserved.
He was a non-conformist in politics and re-
ligion. He was feared in the Senate because of
his bitter personal attacks. One senator de-
scribed him as "pale malice" and another asked
him if he "spit lemon juice" (Beer, post, pp. 220,
221 ). On the other hand he was remembered for
his charities and for the efforts he made to im-
prove sanitation and to obtain grain elevators in
a small town, and he had many friends who were
surprised by his public bitterness. He was a
believer in the single tax and opposed the private
ownership of land. He favored the government
ownership of railroads and telegraphs, and he
prepared bills for their purchase and operation.
He held the opinion that such public utilities
should be operated for service rather than for
profit These views alienated him from his Re-
publican associates, and in addition his^opinions
about monetary problems brought him into con-
flict with the sound-money members of the party.
He was a delegate to the Republican National
Convention at St. Louis in 1896 but left the meet-
ings after the rejection, of a resolution in favor
of free silver. He also opposed the annexation of
the Hawaiian Islands and was a leader in the
Senate in opposition to the annexation of the
Philippine Islands. His position upon the cur-
rency and imperialism led to his defeat for re-
election in 1900. He joined the Democratic par-
Pettit
ty for a time and was a delegate to the national
convention in 1908. He opposed entrance into
the World War and expressed himself bitterly
on the subject. He was indicted, but he was
never tried The indictment, engraved and
framed, became one of his valued possessions.
After retirement from Congress he practised
law in New York for several years and accumu-
lated a comfortable fortune. Later he returned
to Sioux Falls, where he built a large house. He
traveled widely and gathered a collection of fos-
sils, flints, and similar objects which, with his
house, he bequeathed to the city. He published
two volumes : one on The Course of Empire in
1920 and the other Triumphant Plutocracy in
1922, both largely made up of the materials used
in his speeches in the Senate. He was survived
by his widow Roberta A. (Hallister) Smith Pet-
tigrew to whom he had been married on Feb. 2,
1922.
[South Dakota, ed. by G. M. Smith (1915), vols. I-
IV; D. R. Bailey, Hist, of Minnehaha County, S. D.
(1899); Who's Who in America, 1926-27; Thomas
Beer, Hanna (1939) ; Ren. of Rev. (N. Y.), July 1896,
p. 10, Apr, 1900, pp. 394-95 ; N. Y. Times, Oct. 6, 1926 ;
JDcvily Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls), Oct. 5, 6, 7, 9;
information from his widow, Mrs. Richard F. Petti-
grew, Chicago, 111.] p. £. H s.
PETTIT, CHARLES (i736-Sept. 3, 1806),
merchant, Revolutionary patriot, son of John Pet-
tit, was born near Amwell, Hunterdon County,
N. J., of French Huguenot stock. His father,
whose family emigrated to southern New York
about 1650, was a Philadelphia importing mer-
chant and an underwriter of marine insurance.
Charles received a classical education. His mar-
riage, Apr. 5, 1758, to Sarah, daughter of An-
drew Reed, a Trenton merchant and also his fa-
ther's business associate in Philadelphia, gave
him important connections which opened the way
to a public career. Through the influence of
Joseph Reed [g.<], his wife's half-brother, he
held minor public offices in New Jersey and was
appointed a provincial surrogate Nov. 19, 1767.
On Apr. 3, 1770, he was admitted to the bar as
an attorney and on Nov. 17, 1773, as counselor.
He succeeded Reed as deputy secretary of the
province, clerk of the council and of the supreme
court, Oct. 27, 1769, and was appointed aide to
Gov. William Franklin in 1771, with the rank of
lieutenant-colonel. When Franklin was arrested
as a Loyalist in 1776, Pettit cast in his lot with
the colonies and continued as secretary tinder the
new state government until 1778. On Oct. ^8,
1776, he was appointed aide to Gov. William Liv-
ingston with the rank of colonel, and in the fol-
lowing year drafted a plan for oyer and termmer
courts for the new state regime.
5*7
Pettit
On Gen. Nathanael Greene's recommendation
Pettit was appointed assistant quartermaster-
general of the Continental Army, Mar. 2, 1778.
His experience with administrative details and
his exacting methods well qualified him for the
post. In the keeping of accounts and cash, the
particular duties assigned to him, he inaugurated
many needed reforms. In the face of congres-
sional interference and a treasury "wretchedly
poor" he found his duties exceedingly difficult,
and in 1780 would have quit the place if he could
have done so "without evident impropriety." He
was suspicious of congressional schemes for re-
modeling the quartermaster's department, but did
not, like Greene, think the new plan inaugurated
in 1780 was impossible of execution. When
Greene resigned as quartermaster-general, Pet-
tit was offered the post, but emphatically de-
clined it. He retained his assistantship, however,
feeling that the prompt settlement of all accounts
in the department would be facilitated by his re-
maining. He finally resigned June 20, 1781.
After the war he became an importing mer-
chant in Philadelphia. During 1784-85 he was
in the Pennsylvania assembly and in the former
year was chairman of a committee of merchants
appointed to find means for improving national
commerce. From 1785 to 1787 he was a member
of Congress. Although a Constitutionalist in
Pennsylvania politics and opposed to parts of the
federal Constitution, he urged the adoption of the
instrument and at the Harrisburg convention of
1788 called to discuss measures for securing its
revision, he was largely instrumental by his con-
ciliatory conduct in placating the Pennsylvania
opposition. He was the author of Pennsylvania's
funding system and of a pamphlet, View of the
Principles, Operation and Probable Effects of the
Funding System of Pennsylvania ( 1788) , urging
support of the plan. During 1790-91 he was
delegated to present to Congress Pennsylvania's
Revolutionary claims against the federal govern-
ment. As a Jeffersonian Republican, he joined
with other Philadelphia merchants in opposing
the Jay Treaty (1795) and in 1802 headed a com-
mittee appointed to secure relief against French
spoliation of American commerce. Much of his
later life was devoted to the business of the In-
surance Company of North America, of which
he was an original director and from 1796 to
1798 and from 1799 to his death, president. He
was a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania
(1791-1802) and a member of the American
Philosophical Society. Recognized as an author-
ity on financial questions, Pettit was a shrewd
business man and possessed a calm dignity, a
genial manner, and sound practical judgment.
Pettit
He died in Philadelphia. One of his four chil-
dren, Elizabeth, married Jared Ingersoll [1749-
1822 ; q.vJ\ ; another, Theodosia, married Alex-
ander Graydon [q.v.~\. Thomas McKean Pettit
[q.v.] was a grandson.
[Archives of >the State of N. /., i ser., vols. X (1886)
XVI (1902); G. W. Greene, The Life of Nathanacl
Greene t vol. II (1871) ; T. H. Montgomery, A Hist, of
the Insurance Company of North America (1885) ; W.
C. Ford and Gaillard Hunt, Jours. Continental Cong.]
1774-1789, vols. X-XXI (1908-12) ; Minutes of the
Provincial Council of Pa., vol. XVI (1853) ; Pa.
Archives, i sen, vols. X (1854), XI (1855) ; Poulson's
Am. Daily Advertiser (Phila.), Sept. 9, 1806; W. B.
Reed, Life and Correspondence of Joseph Reed (2 vols.,
I847)J J.H.P— g.
PETTIT, THOMAS McKEAN (Dec. 26,
1797-May 30, 1853), jurist, son of Andrew and
Elizabeth (McKean) Pettit, was born in Phila-
delphia of Scotch-Irish and French Huguenot
stock. His father was the son of Charles Pettit
[#.#.], merchant and Revolutionary patriot, and
his mother, the daughter of Gov. Thomas Mc-
Kean [q.v!\. Andrew Pettit, a Philadelphia mer-
chant and insurance man, was for many years a
director of the Insurance Company of North
America, and held the post of flour inspector un-
der Governor McKean. Thomas received a classi-
cal education and graduated from the University
of Pennsylvania in 1815. Upon leaving college
he studied law in the office of his uncle, Jared
Ingersoll (1749-1822; #.?;.), and was admitted
to the bar Apr. 13, 1818. In 1819 and again in
1821 he was appointed secretary of the Phila-
delphia board of public education. He was city
solicitor (1820-23) and on Feb. 9, 1824, was ap-
pointed deputy attorney-general of Pennsylvania,
which post he held until 1830. Although a mem-
ber of the intellectual aristocracy, he adhered to
the traditional party affiliations of his family and
became a Jacksonian Democrat. He was an ac-
tive member of the Hickory Club, which pro-
moted Jackson's election to the presidency in
1824, and soon came to enjoy wide influence in
the councils of the Democratic party in Penn-
sylvania both because of his ability and his family
connections. He was elected to the lower house
of the legislature in 1830 and in the following
year became a member of the select council of
Philadelphia.
His chief ambition, however, was a career on
the bench, and on Feb. 16, 1833, Gov. George
Wolfe appointed him an associate judge of the
district court for the city and county of Phila-
delphia. He held this office until 1835, at which
time the term for which the court was constituted
expired. When the legislature passed a new law
extending the life of the court for ten years more
he was recommissioned associate judge, Mar.
518
Pettus
1835, and on the following Apr. 22 was ap-
pointed presiding judge, serving in this capacity
until 1845. He declined rcappointment on the
expiration of his term and returned to his law
practice. During Van Buren's administration,
iS^Q he was one of the board of visitors to West
Point, and, together with Gov. William L. Marcy
Fa v ] of New York, prepared the report of the
board. Under President Polk he was United
States district attorney for the eastern Pennsyl-
vania district (1845-49)- On Mar. 29, 1853,
President Pierqe appointed him superintendent
of the Philadelphia mint and the appointment was
confirmed on Apr. 4, but his duties at this post
were cut short by his death a month and a half
later. , ,
Pettit's published writings and speeches ^in-
clude A Discourse before the Historical Society
and the Philomathcan Society of the University
of Pennsylvania (1830); "Memoir of Roberts
Vaux" in" the Memoirs of the Historical Society
of Pennsylvania (vol. IV, pt I, 1840) ; An An-
nual Discourse Delivered before the Historical
Society of Pennsylvania (1828) ; and The Com-
mon Law Reports of England (1822), the last
named having been prepared for publication in
collaboration with Thomas Sergeant. Pettits
judicial decisions reflect a high degree of ability
and broad legal training. By temperament he
was well fitted for the bench. Because of his
patience and composure and his willingness to
compromise lie was not the stormy petrel in state
politics that his grandfather. Governor McKean,
had been. He entertained broad ideas on popular
education and worked earnestly for its advance-
ment as a citizen, while in the legislature, and as
a member of the Philadelphia board of education.
He manifested a deep interest in the history ^ of
Pennsylvania and was one of the most active
members of the Historical Society of Pennsyl-
vania. His wife, whom he married Feb. 7, 1828,
was Sarah Barry Dale, daughter of Commodore
Richard Dale [>.<!, distinguished naval officer,
She died in 1839. Of their seven children, three
survived him.
[Roberdeati Buchanan, GeneaL of the
ily of Pa, (1890) ; Samuel Hazard,
Feb. - - "
K ft
sylvcman (Phila.), J^e *» l853-l J.H.B— g.
PETTUS, EDMUND WINSTON (July 6,
i8ai-July 27, 1907), soldier, senator from Ala-
bama, was born in Limestone County, Ala,, tne
youngest child of John and Alice (Winston) * -
Pettus
Clinton College, Smith County, Tenn. After
completing his studies there he read law in the
office of William Cooper of Tuscumbia, Ala., and
in 1842 was licensed to practise his profession.
He selected Gainesville, Ala., as the seat of his
efforts. In 1844 he was elected solicitor of the
7th judicial circuit On June 27 of the same year
he married Mary, the daughter of Samuel Chap-
man of Sumter County, Ala. They had six chil-
dren. During the Mexican War he served as
lieutenant in the "United States Army and short-
ly thereafter went to California. Failing to find
a fortune in the distant West he returned to
Alabama and in 1851 settled at Carrollton in
Pickens County. Two years later he was again
made solicitor and in 1855 was elected judge of
the 7th circuit. Resigning this office in 1858 he
removed to Cahaba, Dallas County, and practised
law there until the outbreak of the Civil War.
During the struggle over the question of seces-
sion he was sent as commissioner from Alabama
to Mississippi, of which state his brother, John
J, Pettus, was governor at the time. Shortly af-
terward he assisted in the organization of the
20th Alabama Infantry and was elected a major
in that command. He was soon promoted to the
rank of lieutenant-colonel, and in this capacity
he served in General Kirby-Smith's Kentucky
campaign and later in the defense of Vicksburg.
He was taken captive at the fall of Port Gibson
but escaped. During the campaign he succeeded
to the command of his regiment, and he acquired
military distinction by leading a desperate and
successful assault upon a part of the works that
had been captured by the Federals. He was again
made captive when Vicksburg fell, but he was
exchanged, promoted to the rank of brigadier-
general, and assigned to Stevenson's division at
Chattanooga. He took part in the battles of Look-
out Mountain and Missionary Ridge. After the
retreat upon Atlanta he followed Hood into Ten-
nessee and participated in the battle of Nashville
He later joined Johnston on his retreat through
the Carolinas and finally laid down his arms when
his commander surrendered to Sherman.
Returning to Alabama at the close of the con-
flict he took up his residence in Selma and re-
sumed the practice of law. Though he refrained
from seeking public office, he represented his
state in the National Democratic Convention
from 1876 until 1896, and in that year he became
a candidate for the United States Senate. He
was elected without difficulty on the Democratic
ticket and at the end of his term was chosen to
succeed himself. He served from^Ma, ^1897,
youngest child of John and Alice ( w insum; * - — r^. death at Hot Springs, N. C. He was
z££SZ&'££z*£ «• - tew h *• Live Oat Cemtt°J at Setoi> *•
519
Peyton
He typified much that was characteristic of his
section and generation. He possessed a vigor of
character that was more common in the South
than is generally supposed. As he sat in the Sen-
ate during his old age, he still exhibited a manly
independence of spirit, a ready, fervid, and stilt-
ed oratory, a somewhat rustic and old-fashioned
style of dress, his feet being clad in the only pair
of boots then worn in the Senate, and an urbanity
and chivalry of bearing that have gone with the
passing of the "Confederate Brigadiers."
[An unsigned manuscript and other material in the
files of the Alabama Department of Archives and His-
tory; Willis Brewer, Alabama (1872); Confederate
Mil. Hist., ed, by C. A. Evans (1899), vol. VII ; Who's
Who in America, 1906-07; John Tyler Morgan and
Edmund Winston Pettus — Memorial Addresses (1909) J
Ala. Hist. Soc. Trans., vol. II (1898) ; Montgomery Ad-
vertiser, July 28, 1907.] T. P. A.
PEYTON, JOHN LEWIS (Sept. 15, 1824-
May 21, 1896), Confederate agent, author, was
born at "Montgomery Hall" near Staunton, Va.,
the son of John Howe and Anne Montgomery
(Lewis) Peyton. He was descended from Henry
Peyton who was born in London and died in
Westmoreland County, Va., about 1659. His fa-
ther was a distinguished lawyer and public serv-
ant. His mother was the daughter of John
Lewis, a Revolutionary officer and friend of
George Washington. At the age of fifteen he en-
tered the Virginia Military Institute but with-
drew in his second year on account of his lack of
health. In 1844 he received the degree of Bache-
lor of Law from the University of Virginia and
practised his profession at Staunton until 1852,
when he was sent on a secret mission to England,
France, and Austria for the Fillmore adminis-
tration. From 1853 to 1856 he lived in Illinois,
where he was prominent in local military affairs.
He was married on Dec. 17, 1855, to Henrietta
E. Washington of Vernon, N. C., and to them
was born one son. Refusing the appointment as
federal district attorney of Utah, tendered him
on the recommendation of Stephen A. Douglas,
he returned in 1856 to Staunton and there en-
gaged in many enterprises. A Whig in politics,
he supported the Bell-Everett presidential ticket
in 1860 and opposed the secession of Virginia in
1861. He did not regard the election of Lincoln
as a cause for secession and believed that the in-
augural address promised sufficient protection for
slavery within the Union. In fact he "opposed
Secession as unconstitutional, or, if consti-
tutional, unnecessary, and the worst of remedies
for the South" (American Crisis, post, I, no).
Upon the secession of his state, however, lie
helped organize a regiment, mainly at his own
expense, but was physically incapacitated from
serving with it in the field. Instead, he accepted
Phelan
an appointment from North Carolina as her state
agent abroad. Embarking from Charleston, S.
C., in October 1861, he reached England in No-
vember 1 86 1 and remained there until 1876. In
his reminiscences of his service abroad he was
very critical of the foreign policy of the Davis
government and accused it of apathy at the be-
ginning of the contest. Recognition, he thought,
might have been obtained then if the commis-
sioners Yancey and Mann, who had to a large
extent overcome the opinion that the South was
fighting for slavery, had been energetically sup-
ported by the home government. During the
Trent crisis he found that "English admiration
of the South was a thing separate and apart from
anything like kindred love. . . . They patted her
on the back as the weaker of the two combatants.
... It was not because they loved her, but be-
cause they disliked the Yankees" (American
Crisis, post, II, 101). After an unofficial inter-
view with Lord Palmerston in May 1862 he was
convinced of Great Britain's determination to
maintain strict neutrality and communicated this
conviction to his Southern friends.
He retired to the Island of Guernsey in 1866
and resided there, with the exception of his
travels on the Continent, until his return to
"Steephill" near Staunton, where he devoted
himself to literary and agricultural pursuits. He
enjoyed membership in several learned societies
at home and abroad, among them the Royal Geo-
graphical Society, contributed to several periodi-
cals of his period, and was the author of many
books, perhaps the most important of which are :
'A Statistical View of the State of Illinois (1855) ;
The American Crisis; or Pages from the Note-
Book of a State Agent during the Civil War in
America (2 vols., 1867) ; Over the Alleghanies
and Across the Prairies — Personal Recollections
of the Far West, One and Twenty Years Ago
( 1869) , an excellent description of the old North-
west in 1848 ; Memoir of William Madison Pey-
ton (1873) '> History of Augusta County, Va.
(1882) ; Rambling Reminiscences of a Residence
Abroad (1888), full of charming observations on
social England ; and Memoir of John Howe Pey-
ton (1894), the biography of his father and a
record of life in Virginia.
[Autobiog. material in own writings ; H. E. Hayden,
Va. Geneal. (1891) ; Men of the Time, 9th ed., rev. by
Thompson Cooper (1875), I4th ed., rev, by V. G, Plarr
(1895) ; Bezer Blundell, The Contributions of John
Lewis Peyton to the Hist, of Va>. and of the Civil War
(1868) ; an estimate of his ability by W. Hepworth
Dixon quoted in footnote in New-Eng. Hist, and Geneal.
Reg., Jan. 1 88 1 , p. 20. ] *W. G. B — n.
PHELAN, DAVID SAMUEL (July 16, 1841-
Sept. 21, 1915), Catholic priest and journalist,
son of Alexander and Margaret (Creedon)
520
Phelan
Phelan, was born at Sydney, Nova Scotia, from
which place his family removed to St. Louis, Mo,,
in 1853. Trained in local schools and by wide
reading, he studied theology in the diocesan semi-
nary and was ordained a priest by Bishop P. R.
Kenrick [q.v.] on May 20, 1863. After serving
a few months as a curate at the Cathedral and at
Indian Creek, he was assigned to a pastorate at
Eclina, where as editor of the Edina or Missouri
Watchman he was imprisoned for his refusal to
take the test oath prescribed by the Drake con-
stitution, which he attacked in his journal. A
horseman, he was also arrested for violating a
town ordinance which limited the speed of riding
to ten miles an hour. When the case came to trial
he was acquitted largely because the petty perse-
cution involved was obvious. In 1868 he was
transferred to the Church of the Annunciation
in St. Louis and brought with him his paper,
which afterwards was known as the Western
Watchman. In a sense he was fostered by Ken-
rick, although the Bishop regarded him as some-
what dangerous as an editor. An excellent ortho-
dox priest, beloved by the poor, a good preacher,
a fair German scholar, and a pleasant, witty com-
panion, Fhelau was a laborious man. He built
the Church of Our Lady (if Mount Carmcl in
North St. Louis, 1872, which he served as pastor
until his death; he also organised, in 1881, St.
James's Church at Ferguson. As a writer, he at-
tracted favorable attention through The Gospel
Applied to Ow Times (1904), Christ the Preach-
er ( 1905 ) , and translations of three French works
on ascetic theology.
While Phelan regarded journalism as merely
an avocation, it was for his editorial independ-
ence, his somewhat unscrupulous quotation of
private conversations, and his caustic criticism
of priests and bishops with whom lie clicl not agree,
as the fiery editor of the Western Watchman for
fifty years that he was known and dreaded. His
paper is a chronicle of the Church in the West,
but it must be read with discrimination. Anti-
Catholic papers culled his columns and found
good copy for their purposes, especially when he
supported priests in trouble with their bishops.
He regarded himself as a defender of the clergy
against episcopal arbitrariness. He did not hesi-
tate to censure episcopal interference in the af-
fairs of patriotic societies and American Catholic
meddling in the Roman question. A Democrat,
he advocated free silver and opposed the war with
Spain, though he accepted our colonial policy. A
liberal, he advocated Catholic schools for Catho-
lics and public schools for all other citizens, while
he supported Archbishop Ireland's Faribault
School plan. His defense of the tango and the
Phelan
right of girls to use cosmetics aroused some re-
forming- Protestant ministers, and the Christian
Endeavor Society at one time urged his unfrock-
ing. Becoming a teetotaler, he condemned drink-
ing. A militant campaigner against intolerance,
he destroyed the American Protective Associ-
ation in St. Louis by printing the denial of mem-
bership on the part of a number of merchants and
then ruthlessly publishing their activities in the
association from its official record, which he ob-
tained irregularly. He was always in ecclesi-
astical difficulties, but he accepted censure with
equanimity, even printing the official letter. In
1893 he was reproved by Archbishop John J.
Kain for an imprudent attack upon a recent
episcopal appointment as a lowering- of the in-
tellectual level of the hierarchy. Phelan there-
upon retorted that since Kain was from a slave
state he must be taught how to rule freemen. He
was answered by an episcopal proscription of his
paper, but Archbishop Ireland, an admirer who
was known to have inspired some of Phelan's
editorials, especially at the time of the Third
Council of Baltimore, compromised the difficulty.
Phelan joined Ireland in his condemnation of
Cahenslyism and said bitter things relative to
German lay and clerical leaders. With Bishop
Schrenibs he came into open dispute ; Archbishop
Glennon in a friendly way frowned upon his ac-
tivities. In spite of his failings, however, he ac-
complished much good. At his death he was the
oldest and best-known Catholic editor of the pass-
ing school of militant, independent writers. Rev.
David Phelan, editor of the Antigonish Cabinet,
was his cousin,
[J. E. Rothensteiner, Hist, of the Archdiocese of St.
Louis (1928), vol. II; Am. Cath. Who's Who (1911) ;
Cath. Fortnightly Rev., Oct. 15, 1915; St. Louis Globe
Democrat, Sept. 22, 23, 1915; information from life-
long associates. ] R. J. P.
PHELAN, JAMES (Apr. 23, i824-Dec. 23,
1892), pioneer San Francisco merchant and capi-
talist, was born in Queen's (now Leix) County,
Ireland, In 1827 his father emigrated to America,
taking with him James and his two older broth-
ers, John and Michael, and settled in New York.
Such formal education as James received was se-
cured in the public schools of that city. After a
few years he became clerk in a grocery store, ac-
quiring much practical experience and develop-
ing unusual business capacity at an early age.
With his savings, he started a general merchan-
dising business of his own, and was successful
from the beginning. His trading operations ex-
tended to Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and even to
New Orleans. By the time he was twenty-four
years of age he had accumulated about $50,000,
the foundation of his later fortune.
521
Phelan
News of the gold discoveries roused his inter-
est in merchandising possibilities in the new com-
munities springing up in California. According-
ly, in 1849, he disposed of his eastern business
interests and started for California via Panama.
With keen discernment respecting the needs of
early California settlers, he shipped, before leav-
ing the East, a large stock of miscellaneous goods
on three different ships. One sank at sea, but the
other two reached San Francisco about the time
when he himself arrived (Aug. 18, 1849). He
and his brother Michael, who had come to San
Francisco in the preceding June, formed the
partnership of J. & M. Phelan, and carried on
a thriving and highly profitable trade until
Michael's death in 1858. Thereafter, James con-
tinued the business, enlarging the scope of the
enterprise and planning all his ventures with rare
judgment and foresight. During the Civil Wai-
he was among the first of California merchants
to include in his operations exportations of large
quantities of California wool and wheat to New
York and even to foreign markets — always at a
handsome profit. For some years, success in the
wholesale liquor business added to his rapidly
accumulating fortune. He was no less shrewd
and successful in real-estate investments, not
only in San Francisco and other parts of Cali-
fornia, but also in Oregon and in New York City.
So conservatively were his purchases made that
it is said no mortgage was ever recorded or made
against any of his property. At the same time he
loaned large sums on first and second real-estate
mortgages. On land owned by him, he erected
(1881-82) the Phelan Building, one of the first
of modern buildings in San Francisco. He also
erected a number of blocks in San Jose.
By 1869, his fortune had become so great that
he retired from commercial pursuits, spent a year
in European travel with his family, and, upon his
return, entered the field of banking, which was
to be his chief interest during the rest of his life.
In November 1870 he made a trip to Washington
and obtained the charter for the first national
bank in California, the First National Gold Bank,
which is now (1934) operating as the Crocker
First National Bank, Phelan was its first presi-
dent and for many years was a director. In 1889,
with James G. Fair \_q.v.~\ and others, he helped
organize the Mutual Savings Bank in San Fran-
cisco, and was its first vice-president. He was
also vice-president of the American Contracting
& Dredging Company for dredging the French
Panama Canal, a project which brought him
large returns. He was identified with the organi-
zation of the Firemen's Fund Insurance Com-
pany, and later with the Western Fire & Marine
Phelan
Insurance Company. By 1890 his financial in-
terests had become so extensive that he formed a
partnership with his brother John, who had been
his New York agent in earlier years ; and later,
with his only son, James Duval Phelan [q.v.].
On May 12, 1859, he married Alice Kelly, daugh-
ter of Jeremiah Kelly of Brooklyn, N. Y. She, a
son, and two daughters survived him. He died
at his unpretentious San Francisco home, and
was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery, San Mateo
County. His will, disposing of an estate valued
at nearly $7,500,000, contained generous bequests
for churches, schools, orphanages, and asylums
both in California and in his native country. He
was a Catholic in religion and an independent
Democrat in politics.
[S. B. F. Clark, How Many Miles from St. Jo? The
Log of Sterling B. F. Clark a Forty-Niner . . . together
with a Brief Autobiography of James Phelan . . .
(1929) ; In Memoriam: James Phelan — Read at a Meet-
ing of the Society of California Pioneers, San Fran-
cisco, Apr. 3, 1893 (n.d.) ; W. F. Swasey, The Early
Days and Men of Cat. (1891); Alonzo Phelps, Con-
temporary Biog. of California's Representative Men
(1881) ; The Builders of a Great City: San Francisco*' s
Representative Men (1891) ; H. H. Bancroft, Hist, of
Cal.f vol. VII (1890) ; San Francisco: Its Builders Past
and Present (1918), vol. T ; R. D. Hunt, Cal. and Cali-
fornians (1926), vol. V ; I. B. Cross, Financing an Em-
pire: Hist, of Banking in Cal. (1927), vols. I, III ; Ex-
aminer (San Francisco), Evening Bulletin (San Fran-
cisco), and San Francisco Chronicle, Dec. 24, 1892;
date of birth established by photographic reproduction
of autograph MS., at the Soc, of Cal. Pioneers.]
P.O.R.
PHELAN, JAMES (Dec. 7, i8s6-Jan. 30,
1891), author, congressman from Tennessee, was
born at Aberdeen, Miss., the grandson of John
Phelan, an Irish immigrant who settled in Ala-
bama. His parents were Eliza Jones (Moore)
and James Phelan, a lawyer, editor, and Confed-
erate States senator from Mississippi. In 1867
he was sent to school in Huntsville, Ala., and
after the family removed to Memphis, Tenn., the
next year, he was taught by his father and by
private teachers there. Later he attended Ken-
tucky Military Institute. In the winter semester
of 1874-75 he became a student at the University
of Leipzig and in 1878 was granted the degree of
Ph.D. In his dissertation of sixty-four pages,
printed in 1878, On Philip Massinger, the Eliza-
bethan playwright, he wrote that "the author
imagines he has possibly discovered a key for
that most intricate problem, in what plays Mas-
singer and Fletcher wrote together" (p. 64).
With the exception of delightful allusions to the
Elizabethans in subsequent political utterances,
he forsook the drama and, returning to Memphis,
studied law.
In 1881 he purchased the Memphis Avalanche.
To the promptings of friends that he enter poli-
522
Phelan
tics, he was unresponsive till in 1886 lie consent-
ed to enter the race for the Democratic congres-
sional nomination from the district that included
the city of Memphis, and he was nominated over
Josiah Patterson, With acutely developed ideas
of propriety, he refused to permit his own paper
to promote his candidacy, and the editor con-
tinued to express views divergent from his on
the sectional issue and the negro question. Where-
as the editor regarded negro suffrage as "the
irritating menace to peace and good order"
(Memphis Avalanche, Aug. 14, 1889) and urged
that the South could not "afford to divide on any
question" (Ibid., July 13, 1889), Phelan accept-
ed "the citizenship of the negro race" and des-
Phelan
PHELAN, JAMES DUVAL (Apr. 20, 1861-
Aug. 7, 1930), mayor of San Francisco, United
States senator, was born in San Francisco, the
only son of James [1824-1892, q.v.'] and Alice
(Kelly) Phelan. He was graduated from St.
Ignatius College, San Francisco, in 1881, studied
law for a year at the University of California,
then traveled for two years. Influenced by his
father, he abandoned his early ambition to become
a lawyer and writer for a business career, first as
partner with, later as heir and successor to his
father in the banking business. Eventually, he
became president of the Mutual Savings Bank,
chairman of the board of directors of the United
Bank and Trust Company, and a director of the
ignatecl negroes as "'our fellow- Americans, our First National Bank and First Federal Trust
fellow-Tennesseeans" with rights "as sacred as Company. As vice-president of the California
fellow-Tennesseeans" with right
ours/' who "can demand . , . all the privileges
that flow from a free ballot and a fair count"
(The New South . „ . Speech . . . at Coving ton,
Tcnn. on . . . 2nd of Oct. 1886, 1886, p. 4), Not
only on the negro question but on the tariff issue,
he opposed Southern agricultural interests. He
supported not free trade but a revision of the tar-
iff by which protection would be accorded to in-
fant Southern industries. He defeated his Repub-
lican opponent, Zachary Taylor, by a large major-
ity. In 1888 he was renommatcd without opposi-
tion and was reelected His seat was contested,
however, by his Republican opponent, Lucian B.
Eaton, "a Carpet-bagger" and the author of a
letter, "worthy of a Bvownlow" aiming to stir up
race trouble and sectional prejudice (Memphis
Avalanche, Oct. 3 1 Jam 25, 1888) . Eaton charged
the Democrats with the use of fraudulent ballots,
the employment of disreputable election officers,
the voting of repeaters and, above all, with the
intimidation of negroes. Phelan published coun-
ter charges that specified the persons bribed by
Eaton and the exact amounts of the bribes (Ibid.,
Jan. 25, 1889). The case was still pending when
Phelan died, a victim of tuberculosis in Nassau,
New Providence, where he had gone for his
health. He was survived by his widow, Mary
(Early) Phelan, the niece of Jubal Early [g,v.]
and by three children, He left as a monument to
his training and industry a History of Tennessee
(1888), in which he "endeavored to be accurate
and impartial . . . to show the simple grandeur
and homely nobility of the men who shaped the
early destinies of the state of Tennessee" (Mem~
phis Avalanche, Mar. 27, 1889),
{Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of
James Phelan ...in the House of Representatives and
. . . Senate (1891) ; "Vita" in dissertation, on**; J. M.
Keating, Hist. of... Memphis (x888),pt. 3,W>- *3*~43 J
Contested-Election Case of L B, Eaton vs. *<***£/»'*£»
(2 pts., 1889) ; Chattanooga Daily Times and Mempnis
Appeal-Avalanche for Feb. 8, 1891.] M.B.H.
World's Columbian Exposition Commission, in
1893, he personally attended to the details of con-
structing the California Building at Chicago, and
so wisely managed the affair that $20,000 of the
original appropriation was returned to the state
treasury. The following year, he took an active
part in organizing the Midwinter International
Exposition in San Francisco.
During the early nineties, San Francisco was
one of the most boss-ridden and corruptly gov-
erned cities in the country. Without previous po-
litical experience, Phelan was in 1897 selected by
the reform element as its candidate for mayor.
Elected and twice reelected, he placed San Fran-
cisco in the forefront of well-governed cities.
From the beginning, he pugnaciously attacked
the corrupt board of supervisors, striking at graft
wherever it showed its head. He was credited
with saving the city over $300,000 a year by
vetoing "jobs" in the board of supervisors. His
most enduring achievement was his effective
leadership in the drafting and adoption of a new
charter for the city, which was adopted over the
opposition of both old party machines. ^ Other
constructive work distinguished his administra-
tion—the beautification of the streets, the build-
ing of parks and playgrounds, the erection of
fountains. Later, he was personally responsible
for the "Burnham plan," from which ultimately
came the present civic center of San Francisco.
The chief criticism of his administration came in
its last year (1901), when, during the strike of
the teamsters' union, he placed policemen on
trucks driven by non-union men. This led to nu-
merous outbreaks of violence and earned for him
the bitter hostility of organized labor— a fact
which played a part in the election of his suc-
cessor. In the fight against the notorious Schmitz-
Ruef regime which followed, especially during
1906-08, Phelan took a prominent part, aggres-
5*3
Phelan
sively backing Rudolph Spreckels in the cam-
paign which resulted in the prosecution and con-
viction of Schmitz and Ruef. During his term
as mayor, Phelan took important steps at his own
expense whereby San Francisco was eventually
able to acquire the right to bring its water supply
from the Hetch Hetchy Valley. Afterwards, in
1903 and again in 1913, he headed a San Fran-
cisco delegation to Washington on behalf of the
project In the earthquake and fire of April 1906,
he lost much but gave unstintedly of his time and
means to the work of aiding the suffering and re-
building the city. To him personally, rather than
to the untrustworthy city government, President
Roosevelt sent a national relief fund of $10,000,-
ooo, which, with a vast amount of supplies, was
distributed by the relief organization of which
Phelan was president. In 1913 he was appointed
commissioner to Europe to support the invitation
of the President to foreign countries to partici-
pate in the Panama-Pacific International Expo-
sition of 1915.
Apart from serving as delegate to the Demo-
cratic National Convention in 1900, Phelan' s po-
litical activity prior to 1914 had been restricted
to the field of municipal government. In that
year, however, he was the successful Democratic
candidate for the United States Senate, serving
from 1915 to 1921. Before commencing his term,
he was appointed by Secretary of State, Robert
Lansing, commissioner to investigate charges
against James M. Sullivan, American minister
to the Dominican Republic; and in his report
(May 9, 1915) he recommended the minister's
recall. Chief among the committees on which he
served in the Senate were those on railroads,
coast defense, interoceanic canals, public lands,
and naval affairs. He participated in debates
upon various measures, and vigorously advocated
exclusion of Orientals. He gave the Wilson ad-
ministration his undivided support until the close
of the war ; but he favored divorcing the Cove-
nant of the League of Nations from the Treaty
of Versailles. He was candidate for reelection
in 1920, but was defeated by his Republican rival,
Samuel M. Shortridge. At the conclusion of his
senatorial term, he retired from politics, though
appearing as the head of the California delega-
tion to the Democratic National Convention of
1924, where he made the speech nominating Wil-
liam Gibbs McAdoo for the presidency.
Phelan's was a many-sided career. In 1898 he
was appointed regent of the University of Cali-
fornia for a sixteen-year term. On important
public occasions, he was an exceptionally pleas-
ing speaker. He also contributed to the field of
letters, both in prose and verse, although much
Phelps
that he wrote was never published. He gave dis-
cerning and substantial encouragement to many
young painters, sculptors, musicians, and poets,
and bequeathed his beautiful Spanish-Italian vil-
la, "Montalvo," at Saratoga, Cal., to the San
Francisco Art Association. He was a collector
of art treasures, arid to him San Francisco is
indebted for large gifts of statuary and other
works of art. He died, unmarried, at "Montalvo."
[R. D. Hunt, Cal. and Californians (1926), vol. IV;
Complimentary Banquet Given to Hon. James D. Phelan
by the Officials of the City of San Francisco . . . Dec.
28 j 1901 (1901) ; Meetings of the Board of Supervisors
of the City and County of San Francisco: Memorial
Services in Honor of the Late Senator James D. Phelan
(1930) ; Fremont Older, My Ozvn Story (and ed.,
1926); Overland Mo.f Nov. 1930; San Francisco
Chronicle, Aug. 8, 14, 1930 ; Who's Who in America,
1928-29 ; San Francisco: Its Builders Past and Present
(1918), vol. I.] P.O.R.
PHELPS, ALMIRA HART LINCOLN
(July 15, 1793-July 15, 1884), pioneer educator,
author, the daughter of Capt. Samuel and Lydia
(Hinsdale) Hart, was born in Berlin, Conn. On
her father's side she was a descendant of Thomas
Hooker [#.z>.], one of the original proprietors of
Hartford. The education of her early years, un-
der the care of unusually sympathetic and intel-
lectual parents, was supplemented later in more
formal fashion at the "select" school of her sister,
Emma (Hart) Willard [<?,<!, at Middlebury,
Vt, at Berlin Academy, and in 1812 at the Fe-
male Academy of Pittsfield, Mass. Later she
acquired a knowledge of Latin, Greek, French,
and Spanish, the sciences — including botany,
chemistry, and geology — and mathematics. Mean-
time, at the age of sixteen, she began teaching,
first in a district school near Hartford, where
she "boarded round," then, in rapid succession,
at Berlin and New Britain, Conn., and in an
academy at Sandy Hill, N. Y., of which she was
principal.
Her career as teacher was interrupted by her
marriage in 1817 to Simeon Lincoln, editor of
the Connecticut Mirror (Hartford). To them
were born three children. After the death of her
husband in 1823, she began educational work of
importance in association with her sister at Troy
Female Seminary, 1823-31, where she served as
acting principal while her sister was in Europe.
In 1831 she became the wife of Judge John
Phelps of Vermont, who was a sympathetic and
interested associate in her work as author and
teacher till his death in 1849. To them were born
a son, Charles E. Phelps [g.^.], and a daughter.
Returning to teaching in 1838, she became prin-
cipal of the West Chester (Pa.) Young Ladies'
Seminary, later accepted a position at Rahway,
N. J., and in 1841 began her service at Patapgco
Phelps
•R le Institute, Ellicott City, Md., where she
hided active teaching in 1856. Removing
+\ r? to Baltimore she devoted her energies to
sional writing and speaking till her death.
°C<R rlv'o-ivinff proof of a brilliant mind, she en-
* itrl ttefield of authorship with an essay, "On
the Duties and Responsibilities of the Teacher,"
wJh she read as a substitute when, a candidate
7n a teacl h g position, she could not tell her
examiners th?ixact distance of the largest fixed
tir from the planet Mars." Under the Influence
Stai tlommcpicUiLi Rctisselaer
of Prof. Amos Eaton q.v..\ ot tne iicnsseiaei
Institute she perfected her knowledge Of the SCI-
££s and' puWished a scries «***«*^*
became popular in the schools; they included
Phelps
which carried the renown of her Institute to many
parts of the United States. During her lifetime
the content of girls' education changed from "po-
lite" folderol to a substantial "mental discipline,"
based -on the sciences, mathematics, modern and
ancient languages. Through her books and the
institutions she served, she was an influential
contributor to this change. In the Female $tu-
dent; or Lectures to Young Ladies her concep-
tion of formal discipline of the mmd is best set
forth.
[Valuable biographical material may be found in
^.^ phelps>s snumerous books and articies ; see also
Emma L Bolzau, "Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps" (MS.,
.
Jof Wo\ncn>s Education in the v. S. (2 vols., 1929);
of Chemistry ,
nf T N Vauciuclin ; Botany jar Beginners
America ( j899) ; , ,
mantlScript material relating to her work at Patapsco
nf T auciuc mantlScp mae
(1833) •Geology jor Beginners (1834) 5 Cfcm- Female Institute is in the Md. Hist. See., Baltmjore.]
PHELPS, ANSON GREENE (Mar. a4> 178.-
Nov.30,I853),merchantandphilanthropistWas
Education (.835
Gloucestershire En,-
tures to .
t836 under the title Th
to Fo«^ Ladies', Ida
otwcAoMj (1858) ; Hours vnth My
(I8S9) ! and 0«r C^««r »**«
to the Past, Present and Ptiturc (1864), of which
she was editor. She also contributed artcles on
various phases of ednatkm to P«^«g"J
newspapers. In 1838 she addressed the Co lege
ofProfcssionalTeacherson'FemaleEducation
in :866 she spoke before the American Asso-
ciation for the Advancement of Sc«nce on the
"Work of Edward Hitchcock," and, late, on the
"Infidel Tendencies of Modern Science She
became the second woman member of this Asso-
ciation, and was also long active m the Maryland
Academy of Science.
Her career as educator was noteworthy, for
her popularization of the sciences as fit subjects
for girls' education ; for her championship , of i to
movement for physical education; for her pro-
motion of a school for girls, Patapscc .Female
Institute, which became to the South what Troy
Female Seminary was to the North-the best
substitute for college in a day when colleges for
women were unknown; and finally, for ^h« _em-
phasis on training young women for teaching,
Ate harents dial his father in
his mother in i79S, the orphaned hoy
79 an h» mom /^ { ^ local
ent the next ew r ^
Shortly
, he 8etflfid
after the open mg ^ ^
S 806. ^™ married t0 °Uvia
^ ijoo, daughters and one son.
°mercantile operation was in manu-
™ number ofFsaddles and shipping
His business prospered; he estab-
charleston, S. C, and soon he
^ .^^ ^ ^ B
was 5 merchandising and importing of
*»^ other metals. About 1812 he re-
moved to New York, where he associated himselt
™°^ NwithElishapeCk under the firm name
'nb™ peck & Company. This company
°* ™ J m one of the leading concerns in the
soon D ^ merchandismg of
country m P tQ extend a.
various , me manufacturing at Haver^raw
tions ^ into ^^ ^^
ud I esewje ^ ^^ The ddrf tfeack ^
of almost uninterrupted success
Phelps
came in 1832, when a large warehouse he had
recently constructed at the corner of Cliff and
Fulton streets collapsed with the loss of several
lives. At this time he invited his two sons-in-law,
William Earl Dodge [#.«/.] and Daniel James,
the father of Daniel Willis James [q.v,~\, to join
him as partners in the firm of Phelps, Dodge &
Company. Under the direction of Phelps and
Dodge the firm expanded its interests from mer-
chandising into manufacturing, mining, and rail-
roads. In the middle thirties it became interested
in copper manufacturing at Birmingham on the
Naugatuck River in Connecticut. Prevented
from extending north along the Naugatuck,
Phelps and his associates purchased a site farther
south, erected a dam, a factory, and some dwell-
ing houses. From this grew the1 city of Ansonia,
named in his honor. Later the B irmingham Cop-
per Mills were consolidated with the Ansonia
Manufacturing Company as the Ansonia Brass
and Copper Company. Phelps, Dodge & Com-
pany was Important in the development of Lake
Superior copper and Pennsylvania iron, and its
loans to George W. Scranton [#.#.] and his
brother were important to the growth of the city
of Scranton (Martyn, post, pp. 146-47).
Phelps was as well known in his lifetime as a
philanthropist as he was as a business man. Ex-
tracts printed from his diary indicate a man with
an intense desire to follow the Christian teach-
ing, and his life did not belie his piety. He spent
an hour each morning in prayer and other devout
exercises, and he frequently presided at the week-
ly prayer-meetings of the Presbyterian Church.
He generously supported and at some time acted
as president of the American Bible Society, the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign
Missions, the American Home Missionary So-
ciety, the New York Institute for the Education
of the Blind, and the Colonization Society of the
State of Connecticut. He was particularly in-
terested in the latter as affording the best method
of dealing with negro slavery. After an extended
European trip in pursuit of health he died in New
York leaving almost $600,000 of his large for-
tune to religious and benevolent purposes (Mar-
tyn, post, p. 154).
[G. E. Prentiss, A Sermon Preached on the Death of
Anson G. Phelps 'with some Ex-tracts -from his Diary
(1854) ; J. L. Rockey, Hist, of New Haven County,
Cowi. (1892), vol. II, 479; Carlos Martyn, Wm. E.
Dodge (1890) ; D. S. Dodge, Memorials of Wm. E.
Dodge (1887), pp. 17-19 ; O. S. Phelps and A. T. Serv-
m, Phelps Family (1899), vol. II.] H.U F
PHELPS, AUSTIN (Jan. 7, i820-Oct. 13,
1890), Congregational clergyman, homilete, son
of Rev. Eliakimatxd Sarah (Adams) Phelps, and
a descendant of William Phelps who came from
Phelps
England to Massachusetts in 1630 and was on<
of the first settlers of Dorchester, was born ir
West Brookfield, Mass. His early experience:
and schooling were determined largely by th<
peregrinations of his father, who moved to Pitts-
field, Mass., in 1826, where he was principal oi
a young ladies' high school; and in 1830, tc
Geneva, N. Y., where he was pastor of the Firsl
Presbyterian Church. While the family was in
Pittsfield, Austin attended the Berkshire Gym-
nasium, conducted by Dr. Chester Dewey [g.z/.],
and spent a year at Wilbraham Academy, Wil-
braham, Mass. After the removal to Geneva, he
entered Hobart College, being at that time thir-
teen years old. At the close of his second year
there, he transferred to Amherst, and in Decem-
ber 1835, his father having taken up his resi-
dence in Philadelphia, he enrolled in the Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania, from which he graduated
in 1837. Following a year of historical reading
under Professor Henry Reed, he studied at Union
Theological Seminary and the Yale Divinity
School, but without having completed a regular
theological course he was licensed to preach by
the Third Presbytery of Philadelphia in 1840,
and on Mar. 31, 1842, ordained as pastor of the
Pine Street Congregational Church, Boston. In
September of this year he married Elizabeth
Stuart, daughter of Moses Stuart [#.#.], profes-
sor at Andover Theological Seminary, where
Phelps was for a short time a resident licentiate.
His wife was later a writer of popular stories
and sketches under the pseudonym "H. Trusta,"
and one of their three children, Elizabeth Stuart
Phelps Ward [<?.?'.], also became a writer. After
the death of his first wife in 1852, Phelps mar-
ried, April 1854, her sister Mary, then suffering
from tuberculosis, and cared for her until she
died some two years later; and in June 1858, he
married Mary A., daughter of Samuel Johnson
of Boston.
After a successful six years' pastorate, in 1848
he was called to Andover Seminary to be profes-
sor of sacred rhetoric and homiletics. This po-
sition he held for three decades, during the last
of which he was also chairman of the faculty. In
1879 he was made professor emeritus, having re-
signed because of ill health, and the remainder
of his life was spent in semi-invalidism, although
he was able to do much writing. In the theo-
logical war waged at Andover during the last
years of his life he aligned himself prominently
with the conservatives. His published works
were numerous, and are devotional, homiletical,
and theological in character. With E. A. Park
and Lowell Mason he prepared The Sabbath
Hymn Book; for the Service of Song in the
526
Phelps
House of the Lord (1858), and with Park and
D L. Furber, Hymns and Choirs; or the Matter
and the Manner of the Service of Song in the
House of the Lord (1860). Another book, The
Still Hour; or Communion with God, which ap-
peared in 1860, was also issued in London and
Edinburgh, and circulated to the extent of 200,-
ooo copies. In 1867 The Netv Birth, or. the Work
of the Holy Spirit was published, and Sabbath
Hours in 1875. In the early eighties came a series
of widely read homiletical works : The Theory
of Preaching; Lectures on Homiletics (1881) ;
Men and Books; or Studies in Homiletics
(1882) ; English Style in Public Discourse; with
Special Reference to the Usages of the Pulpit
(1883), reissued in 1895, with alterations and
additions, as Rhetoric; Its Theory and Practice.
Subsequent works were My Study and Other Es-
says (1886) and My Note-book; Fragmentary
Studies in Theology and Subjects Adjacent
Thereto (1891). He also contributed much to
the Congregationalism His death occurred at Bar
Harbor* Me., in his seventy-first year.
TF S Phelps, Austin Phelps; a Memoir (1891) ; Q.
S Piielm and A. T. Servin, The Phelps Family of
Lc S (2 vols: 1899) ; Eighth Gen. Cat of the Yale
Divinity School . . . x***-W* (*9**J > G™ C(a\&
the Thcolog. Scm., Andovcr, Mass.,x8o8-xoo8 (n.d.) ;
Congregational***, Oct. 23, 1890; Boston Transcript,
Oct. 13, 1890,] H.E,S.
PHELPS, CHARLES EDWARD (May i,
i833-Dec. 27, 1908), jurist, soldier, congress-
man, author, was born in Guilford, Windham
County, Vt, the son of John and Almira (Hart)
Lincoln Phelps [#.*;.], and a descendant of Wil-
liam Phelps who emigrated from England to
Dorchester, Mass., in 1630. His father was a
lawyer of reputation in Vermont and his mother
was a teacher and the author of a series of popu-
lar scientific textbooks. In 1841 she assumed
charge of the Patapsco Female Institute at Elli-
cott City, Md. TT
Phelps attended school at St. Timothy s Hall,
near Catonsvfflc, Mel, and graduated from the
College of New Jersey in 1852. The following
year he spent at the Harvard Law School and
then studied in the office of Robert J. Brent of
Baltimore, a former attorney general of the state.
After traveling abroad, he began the practice oi
law in Baltimore in 1855 and was admitted to
practice in the United States Supreme Court in
1859. He was a major In the Maryland National
Guard (1858-61), which he helped to organize
to suppress the Know-Nothings ; in 1860 he was
elected to the city council of Baltimore on a re-
form ticket. When as a child he visited an elder
brother at Fortress Monroe, he had acquired a
taste for military life, but he was so out of sym-
527
Phelps
pathy with the outbreak of hostilities in 1861 that
he disobeyed orders and resigned from the Mary-
land National Guard. Later, however, Aug. 20,
1862, he accepted a lieutenant-colonelcy in the
7th Maryland Volunteers. Twice when in action
horses were shot from under him, one at the bat-
tle of the Wilderness and one at Laurel Hill, near
Spotsylvania on May 8, 1864, where he was
wounded, captured, and then recaptured by Cus-
ter's cavalry. He had been promoted to colonel
on Apr. 13 of the same year ; on Sept. 9, he was
honorably discharged and on Mar. 13, 1865, bre-
vetted brigadier-general for "gallant and mer-
itorious service." Thirty-three years later, Mar.
30, 1898, he was awarded the Congressional
Medal of Honor.
During four years in Congress (1865-69), be-
ing elected the first time as a Union war candi-
date and the second as a Union conservative,
Phelps opposed radical measures, for his po-
sition, he said, was "radical in war and conserva-
tive in peace." The duty devolved upon him of
supporting the claims of Annapolis as the site of
the United States Naval Academy which, during
the war, had been temporarily removed to New-
port, R. I. He voted for issues regardless of
party lines, served on the committees on naval
affairs, militia, and appropriations, and was con-
spicuous as an antagonist of James G. Blaine.
He declined an executive appointment as judge
of the court of appeals of Maryland in 1867. On
Dec. 29, 1868, he married Martha Woodward,
and at the expiration of his second term in Con-
gress returned to Baltimore, where he resumed
practice of the law in association with John V.
L. Findlay. In 1876 he served as commissioner
of public schools and the following year com-
manded the 8tih Maryland Regiment, which was
called out to preserve order during the strike
riots. He was president of the Maryland Asso-
ciation of Union Veterans and a member of vari-
ous scientific, historical, military, and social
organizations. In 1872 he read a paper on Plan-
etary Motion and Solar Heat" before the Ameri-
can Association for the Advancement of Science.
His later years were occupied with work as
judge, professor, and author. From 1882 until
his retirement, Mar. i, 1908, he was a judge of
the supreme bench of Baltimore, an incumbency
which was extended beyond the age limit by an
act of the Maryland legislature ; for twenty-three
years (1884-1907) he filled the chair of equity
jurisprudence and pleading and practice in the
aw school of the University of Maryland. An
able and hard-working jurist ^ neveiihdcss
found leisure to write two books of considerable
merit, Juridical Equity (1894), a treatise om
Phelps
equity jurisprudence, and Falstaff and Equity
(1901), which was first published as a series of
articles in Shakespcariana (July, October 1892,
April 1893), and is an analysis of the meaning
of the phrase "An the Prince and Poins be not
two arrant cowards, there's no equity stirring"
(i Henry IV, Act II, scene 2). Phelps died in
Baltimore, and was buried in Woodlawn Ceme-
tery. He had four sons and two daughters.
[Phelps's carefully compiled scrapbooks are in the
possession of his son, F. H. Phelps, Baltimore, Md ;
for published biog. material, see O. S. Phelps and A. 1.
Servin, The Phelps Family of America (2 yols., 1899) ;
Biog. Dir. Am. Cong. (1028) ; Proc. of the Memorial
Meeting of the Bench and Bar of Baltimore City in
Memory of Charles Edward Phelps, Late Judge of the
Supreme Bench of Baltimore City, January the Eleventh,
Nineteen Hundred and Nine (n.d.) ; Report of the
Fourteenth Ann. Meeting of the Md. State Bar Asso.
(1909) ; J. T. Scharf, Hist, of Md. (1879), vol. Ill ;
H. E. Shepherd, The Representative Authors of Md.
(1911) ; Sun (Baltimore), Dec. 27, 1908.] H.C.
PHELPS, EDWARD JOHN (July 11, 1822-
Mar. 9, 1900), lawyer, diplomat, was born in
Middlebury, Vt., the son of Samuel S. and
Frances (Shurtleff) Phelps and a descendant of
William Phelps who emigrated from England in
1630 and was one of the founders of Windsor,
Conn. His father graduated from Yale College
in 1811 and the following year removed to Mid-
dlebury, Vt., where he resided until his death in
1855. He won distinction at the Vermont bar,
served from 1831 to 1838 as a judge of the su-
preme court of Vermont, and for thirteen years
as United States senator from Vermont. Ed-
ward J. Phelps graduated from Middlebury Col-
lege in 1840 and attended the Yale Law School
in 1841-42. He completed his preparation for
the bar in the office of Horatio Seymour of Mid-
dlebury, was admitted to the Vermont bar in
1843, and began practice in Middlebury. In 1845
he removed to Burlington, Vt., whioh was his
home thereafter. In politics he was a Whig, like
his father, until the disintegration of that party,
when he became a Democrat. In 1851 he was
appointed by President Fillmore second comp-
troller of the United States Treasury, holding
that office until the close of the Fillmore admin-
istration. As a Democrat in a strongly Repub-
lican state he naturally enjoyed slight political
preferment in Vermont. He served as state's
attorney of Chittenden County, and sat in the
state constitutional convention of 1870. In 1880
he was the Democratic candidate for the gover-
norship, and in 1890 and again in 1892 the can-
didate of his party for the United States senator-
ship.
At the Vermont bar he attained a position of
leadership in a group of lawyers wihich included
such distinguished men as Luke P. Poland, Jacob
Phelps
Collamer, and George F. Edmunds. While in
active practice he appeared in most of the im-
portant cases before the Vermont courts, includ-
ing the litigation concerning the Vermont rail-
roads, which at intervals for a quarter of a
century engaged the attention of both the state
and federal courts. He also appeared in impor-
tant cases before the United States Supreme
Court. His acknowledged strength and success
as a lawyer lay in his grasp of fundamental prin-
ciples rather than in mastery of legal technicali-
ties or factual details. His legal career culmi-
nated in his service, under appointment of
President Harrison, as counsel for the United
States in the fur-seal arbitration of 1893 between
the United States and Great Britain, his asso-
ciate counsel being Frederic R. Coudert and
James C. Carter [##.z'.]. His closing argument
before the arbitral tribunal, extending over a
period of ten days, was an elaborate and able
digest of the American case. He was the first
president of the Vermont Bar Association, and
in 1880 he was elected president of the American
Bar Association. In 1888 his appointment to the
office of chief justice of the United States Su-
preme Court, made vacant by the death of Mor-
rison R. Waite, was seriously considered by
President Cleveland, but political considerations
growing out of his diplomatic service in Eng-
land were successfully urged against him.
In 1881 he became Kent Professor of Law in
Yale University, continuing to hold that chair
until his death except for the period of his resi-
dence in London. From 1880 to 1883 he was
professor of medical jurisprudence in the Uni-
versity of Vermont, his lectures on that subject
having been published; and in 1882 he lectured
on constitutional law at Boston University. His
public career culminated in his appointment by
President Cleveland, in 1885, as minister to Great
Britain as the successor of James Russell Lowell.
Although he was without previous diplomatic
experience, his mission at the Court of St.
James's was eminently successful. By his tact
and ability in the discharge of his official duties,
his personal charm, broad culture, and felicity
as an occasional public speaker, he won for him-
self an assured place in the official and social life
of England, materially strengthening the ties of
friendship between the two countries. Among
the important diplomatic matters with which he
was called upon to deal were the question of
American fishery rights in Canadian North-At-
lantic waters, the Bering Sea fur-seal question,
which later went to arbitration, the boundary
dispute between Venezuela and Great Britain,
which in Cleveland's second administration oc-
528
Phelps
casioned strained relations between the United
States and Great Britain, and the negotiation of
an extradition treaty. His diplomatic service
terminated early in 1889. As a public speaker
he appeared on several notable occasions, among
,his better-known addresses being one on Chief
Justice Marshall delivered in 1879 before the
American Bar Association ; an address on "The
Law of the Land" delivered in 1886 before the
Edinburgh Philosophical Institution ; an address
delivered in New York, in 1890, at the centennial
celebration of the federal judiciary; and an
address on the Monroe Doctrine before the
Brooklyn Institute oE Arts and Sciences in 1896.
He wrote occasional essays dealing chiefly with
legal and political subjects. He died at New
Haven, Conn., in his seventy-eighth year. He
had married, on Aug. 13, 1845, Mary L. Haight,
by whom he had four children.
[There is a memoir of Phelps by J. W. Stewart in
Phelps's Orations and Jtoow (1901), ed. by J, G. Me-
CullouRh. See also: M. H. Buckham, 'The Life and
Pub Services of Eclw. John Phelps," Iroc. Vt. Hist.
Soc:. . , I899-MQO OooO J W- H. Crockett, Vermont:
The Green Mountain Stale, vol. IV (1921) , and D. L.
Cady's biography of Phelps in Crockett s Vermonters:
A Book of B'w gs. (193*) *•> P^crs Relating to the for-
eign Relations of the U. S., 1886-88 ; Cat. of . . .. Mid-
dlcbury Coll . . . /tfoo-.ro 15 (W7) J W[i0 * ^ho in
"tea , ?8<w-iooo- O. S. Phelps and A. T. Servm,
The Phelps Family of America (2 vols., 1899) ; N. Y.
Tribune Burlington* Daily Free Press, Mar. xo, 1900.
Phelps's argument in the fur-seal arbitration is con-
tained in Senate. Executive Document 177, 53 Cong., 2
Sess.] E.C.M.
PHELPS, ELIZABETH STUART, 1815-
1852, and
PHELPS, ELIZABETH STUART, 1844-
1911 [See WARD, ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS,
1844-1911].
PHELPS, GUY ROWLAND (Apr. i, 1802-
Mar. 18, 1869), founder of the Connecticut Mu-
tual Life Insurance Company, was born at Sims-
bury, Conn., the seventh of eight children of Noah
Amherst and Charlotte (Wilcox) Phelps. He
was the descendant of William Phelps who,
with his brother George, emigrated from Eng-
land to Dorchester, Mass., about 1630 and later
was one of the first settlers of Windsor, Conn.
The boy was graduated from the Medical Insti-
tution of Yale College in 1823 and taught school
for several winters, devoting his summers to the
Phelps
returning to New York and again to Simsbury
he was convinced that he lacked the physique
necessary for the duties of a successful physi-
cian. About 1837 he removed to Hartford and
opened a drug store. His drug business prospered
from the start. One of his formulas, "Phelps's
Tomato Pill," had an extended sale, and the re-
turns from this with the profits of his drug store
laid the basis for his fortune.
The delicate health that had proved a handi-
cap to his career as a physician early aroused
his interest in life insurance. That business was
then in its earliest infancy in America and was
eyed dubiously by the general population. How-
ever, he made a diligent study of life insurance
as carried on in England and the United States,
became convinced of the soundness of the idea,
and determined to found a mutual company to
promote it. After interesting a number of friends
and relatives in the project, he wrote a charter
for the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Com-
pany and fought through two sessions of the leg-
islature to have it granted in 1846. In the sum-
mer of that year the company was organized
with him as secretary. Until his death, twenty-
three years later, he remained the dominating in-
fluence in the organization, acting as secretary
of the company until 1866 and as president from
1866 to 1869. Though not the originator of the
mutual system of insurance, he did much to pop-
ularize it. For its day, the charter was unusual in
the care with which it safeguarded the interests
of the policy holders, and the business methods
of the company were based on the conservative
English practice with some slight modifications
to meet American conditions. Before business
was started, nineteen men, six of whom were his
relatives, guaranteed $50,000, and no ponies
were issued until applications for $100,000 had
been received. Shortly after the organization he
went to England to make a further study of Eng-
lish insurance practice. Good financial manage-
ment and rigid economy carried the company
successfully through the panic of 1857 and the
boom period of the Civil War. The economy of
the company is illustrated by the fact that in the
early years Phelps swept out his own office, and
friends often met him on the street carrying kin-
dling under his arm to light his office fire. He
was a man of quiet habits and studious mind, par-
for several winters, devoting ma sumu*** o •*, -~ wa& a man ot quiet naDUS ami atuui^ *«*«-, r—
study of medicine. After this training under local ticdarly interested in languages ^and history
doctors he went to New York to study under D j concemed with public affairs, he served
Valentine Mott [«.*.] and Alexander Mott He - - - - — ™'-
opened an office in New York and practised for
a time there and later in Simsbury, when the
failure of his health forced him to return there.
On Mar. 20, 1833, he was married at Simsbury
to Hannah, the daughter of Wait Latimer. After
his townsmen as a member of the city council,
1846-47, and as alderman, 1856-5?. He was
survived by his wife and one of their four chil-
Com.
Record
A *«*.
S29
Phelps
P. H. Woodward, Insurance in Conn. (1897); The
Conn. Mutual Educational Course, published by Conn.
Mutual Life Insurance Co. (1920) ; O. S. Phelps and
A. T. Servin, The Phelps Family in America (1899),
vol.1.] H.U.F.
PHELPS, JOHN SMITH (Dec. 22, 1814-
Nov. 20, 1886), congressman, governor of Mis-
souri, was born at Simsbury, Conn., the son of
Lucy (Smith) and Elisha Phelps, a member of
Congress from 1819 to 1821 and from 1825 to
1829, He was the descendant of William Phelps
who emigrated from England about 1630 and the
cousin of Guy Rowland Phelps [#.z/.]. He at-
tended common school at Simsbury and then en-
tered Washington College at Hartford, now
Trinity College. He left before graduating- on
account of his refusal to take the part assigned
to him on the Commencement program. In 1859
he was given the degree of A.B. as of the class
of 1832. He studied law under his father and
was admitted to the bar in 1835. On Apr. 30,
1837, he married Mary Whitney of Portland, Me.
Later in the same year the bride and groom set-
tled at Springfield, Mo., where their five chil-
dren were born. In the small frontier town he
prospered and quickly became a leading lawyer
of southwest Missouri. He was elected to the
state legislature in 1840.
Four years later he was elected to Congress
as a Democrat and served in that body continu-
ously for eighteen years thereafter. Within a
short time he won distinction as an able and in-
fluential debater. Among the leading policies and
projects that he advocated were the allotment of
adequate bounties to soldiers, government aid for
railroads, the establishment of an overland mail
service to California, and cheaper postage. After
a long fight the postage on ordinary letters was
reduced to three cents. He was a leading advocate
of the early admission of Oregon and California
to the Union. For ten years he was a member of
the committee on ways and means and from 1858
to 1860 was its chairman. Although he was not
counted as extraordinarily brilliant, nevertheless,
his contemporaries appreciated his faithfulness
and his efficiency as well as his friendliness. Dur-
ing the last six or seven years of his service in
Congress his ability as well as his position of sen-
iority made him the logical candidate for the
speakership, but his Northern birth and his
Union political convictions caused him to be de-
feated for the place. When the Civil War broke
out he went home, organized the Phelps Regi-
ment, and led it in some of the hardest fighting
at the battle of Pea Ridge, Ark. In July 1862 he
was appointed by Lincoln military governor of
Arkansas, but he soon resigned the position on
account of the failure of his health. In his wife
Phelps
he had an able helpmate. During the war her
home was turned into a hospital, and she took
care of the body of Gen. Nathaniel Lyon [q.v.]
after the battle of Wilson's Creek. For such serv-
ices Congress voted her the sum of $20,000,
which she used to establish an orphans' home at
Springfield for the children ot both Union and
Confederate soldiers.
In 1864 he resumed his law practice in Spring-
field. He was the Democratic candidate for
governor of Missouri in 1868, but owing to the
wholesale disf ranch isements of the Drake con-
stitution he was defeated. Under the more lib-
eral constitution of 1875 be became an ideal can-
didate because he could unify the Northern and
Southern factions in Missouri Democracy. In
1876 he was easily elected, and he served the full
four-year term. During his administration there
was much agitation over strikes, chiefly of rail-
way employees, and over the Greenback move-
ment. He suppressed the strikes with vigor. The
movement for currency reform, thanks to the
steady economic recovery from the panic of 1873,
produced no acute problem for him to solve. He
was in hearty accord with the strong contempo-
rary movement looking* toward a more liberal
support of the public schools of the state. Upon
his retirement from office the St. Louis Globe
Democrat said that "it will hardly be disputed
that Missouri never had a better governor than
John S. Phelps'' (Jan, 12, 1881).
[Walter Williams and F. C. Shoemaker, Missouri
(1930), vols. I, II; The Bench and Bar of St. Louis
. . . and other , . . Cities (1884) ; W. B. Stevens, Cen-
tennial Hist, of Mo, (1931), vol. II; H. L. Conard,
Encyc. of the Hist, of Mo. (1901), vol. V; F, C. Shoe-
maker, A Hist, of Mo. (1922) ; O. S. Phelps and A. T.
Servin, The Phelps Family (1899), vol. I; Booncville
Weekly Advertiser, Nov. 26, 1886; minutes of trustees
of Trinity College through the courtesy of Professor
Arthur Adams.] H. E. N.
PHELPS, OLIVER (Oct. 21, i749~Feb. 21,
1809), merchant and land promoter, was born
on a farm near Poquonock, Conn,, the seven-
teenth child of Thomas Phelps and the ninth of
Ann (Brown), Thomas' second wife. He was a
descendant of George Phelps who, with his
brother William, came to America in 1630, lived
in Dorchester, Mass., and in 1635 moved to
Windsor, Conn. Oliver's father died when the
boy was but three months old, leaving the mother
to bring up the large family. At the age of seven
he started work in a general store at Suffield.
Without formal instruction, the quick-witted lad
picked up his education at odd moments, mean-
while reinforcing his natural instincts as a
trader. Self-confident and energetic, he went to
Granville, Mass., in 1770, and before the out-
break of the Revolution had built up a prosper-
530
Phelps
nus mercantile business. After a brief military
service he was appointed by Massachusetts su-
perintendent of purchases of army supplies
(•1777) This office he fi led energy and
success until the end of the war.
Meanwhile he had entered the lower house of
the state legislature (i778-So) ; later he served
in the constitutional convention (1779-80), in
the Senate (1785), ™cl in the governor's council
/I7g6) A prosperous, if not a rich man now he
Md already proven himself a bold operator in
various speculative fields. The great post-war
boom in wild lands was just beginning and
Phelps saw his opportunity in the desire of Mas-
sachusetts to sell its huge holdings in western
New York— all the laud in the state west of Sen-
eca Lake. After much bargaining he and Na-
thaniel Gorham [</.?'.! purchased the preemp-
tive rights to these six million acres (Apr. i,
1788) for £300,000 in state notes. This sum,
eaual at the 'time to about $175,000, was to be
paid in throe yearly instalments. The following
My Phelps bought the Indian rights to the
easternmost third of this purchase and arranged
for its survey and division into tiers of town-
ships six miles square. Tn the meantime he and
Gorham sought feverishly to sell enough shares
in their enterprise to make possible their pay-
ments to the state. They failed, however, and by
the successful assertion of the federal govern-
ment's claim to the triangular tract on Lake Erie,
they were also disappointed in a sale they had
expected to make of this land to Pennsylvania
(Massachusetts Archives, House File 3208).
Even with an extension of time they were unable
to make their first payment as agreed. With the
second instalment soon falling due, m March
1700 they turned back to Massachusetts two-
' "^ _ .„ » « ... i.. ^..^ ^.,^i,*\ 2«m*"mr fan <9*1Y1««
Phelps
eral extended visits to the Genesee, he took up
his residence in 1802 at Canandaigua. Here he
passed his last years managing the remnants of
his once extensive land holdings and promoting
the interests of the Jeff ersonian party. He served
one term in Congress from 1803 to 1805. By his
wife, Mary Seymour of Hartford, Conn., whom
he married Dec. 16, 1773, he had a son, Oliver
Leicester, and a daughter, Mary.
[0. S. Phelps and A. T. Servin, The Phelps Family
of America, vol. II (1899) ; Orsamus Turner, Hist, of
the Pioneer Settlement of Phelps and Gorham's Pur-
chase (1851) ; G. S. Conover and L. C. Aldrich, Hist,
of Ontario County (1893) ; R. L. Higgins, Expansion
in N. Y. (1931) ; Phelps Papers in the N. Y. State
Library at Albany.] p. D. E.
PHELPS, THOMAS STOWELL (Nov. 2,
i822~Jan. 10, 1901), naval officer, was born at
Buckfield, Me., the son of Stephen Decatur and
Elisabeth Nixon (Stowell) Phelps, and descend-
ant of George Phelps, who came with his brother
William from England to America in 1630 and
settled at Windsor, Conn., in 1635. He was ap-
pointed midshipman on Jan. 17, 1840, served five
years chiefly in the Mediterranean and Brazil
squadrons, studied further at the Naval Acad-
emy, and was then made passed midshipman. He
was wrecked in the Boston on Eleuthera Island,
West Indies, in the winter of 1846, served in the
Polk in Mexican waters from February to April
1847, and was then assigned to the coast sur-
vey, in which, except for another Mediterranean
cruise in the Independence and Constitution, he
until the close of 1852. A year in the
at Philadelphia was followed by
in the Decatur of the Pacific
inciuc u^uMuu^t His experiences ^defending
the settlements in Washington Territory dur-
H tne geuucmcuto ^ ,,™ — 0 — . «-D~m,
JL/UU uicjr !.******.>* — . in P- the Indian uprising, are tola in nis Kemi-
thirds of the original purchase retainm g an em- ^^J^ . .S'and the U. S. Sloop-of-
barrassed title to that already bought of the In- mscences 01 ,= , „___.__ ^
dians. Payment for this remaining third was in War
fact long drawn out, for by 1791 state notes
were worth nearly double their value in 1788
and the debt of Phelps and Gorham was propor-
tionately increased. ,.
Though Phelps thus saw a huge profit slip
through his fingers, he retained his buoyancy
and his speculative fervor. Within five years he
had acquired title to nearly a million acres along -» --- ^ ^ month in ^ steamers emur
the lower Mississippi, to a share in the Western P AMCOStia. He was frequently in
Reserve, and to lands in many other sections. «*7J™ batteries at Aquia Creek and
He was operating largely on credit, however, l?*s . , ._ _....„„ K^ato afmarentlv not being
and when the land bubble was pricked in 1796,
his affairs became hopelessly involved. Fearful
of following William Duer and Robert Morris,
fellow land speculators, to the debtors' prison he
went for a time into hiding. Eventually, after sev-
531
Eutie . . • <iUU iuc vj. *->* w*~~jr ~
war u^™*, I8SS-S6" (United Service, De-
cember 1881). After two years' ordnance work
in Washington, D. C., and service in the Para-
quay Expedition, 1858-59, I* commanded the
rJen in survey duty till the opening of the Civil
WHis experience and special skill in this field
led to his selection, June i, 1861, to make a care-
- the Potomac, a task which he com-
• the month in the steamers PMor
Jiver boats apparently not being
of hostile activities. During the au-
ingwas shifted to the approaches
SoJund where preparations for the
were being made, *
Phelps
plans again being successfully executed despite
skirmishes between his steamer, the Corwin, and
the Confederate "mosquito" flotilla. Thereafter
he carried on similar work in Virginia waters
until the Peninsular Campaign of April-May,
1862, when the Corwin was employed in recon-
naissance and in support for the army. The Cor-
win captured several enemy small craft in York
River on May 4, after the evacuation of York-
town, and on May 7 it ran up the Mattapony
River during the battle of West Point and thus
prevented a considerable Confederate force from
joining the main body of troops. He was made
lieutenant commander in July 1862, was engaged
from then until March 1863, in a more complete
survey of the Potomac, and afterward made vari-
ous surveys in anticipation of military and naval
movements. At the close of 1864 he joined Por-
ter's squadron, commanding the steam-sloop
Juanita in the second attack on Fort Fisher, Jan.
13-15, 1865. He was made commander in 1865,
captain in 1871, commodore in 1879, and rear
admiral in 1884, eight months before his retire-
ment. His sea commands after the war were the
Saranac in the North Pacific, 1871-73, and the
South Atlantic Squadron, 1883-84. In inter-
vening periods he had duty at the Mare Island
navy yard, San Francisco. On Jan. 25, 1848, he
married Margaret Riche Levy, daughter of Capt
John B. Levy of Virginia. They had five chil-
dren, one of the boys, Thomas Stowell, Jr., en-
tering the navy and rising to the rank of rear ad-
miral. After retirement he made his home in
Washington, D. C. His death from pneumonia
occurred at a hospital in New York City only
a month preceding his wife's death from the same
cause.
[Phelps's "Reminiscences of the Old Navy" appeared
serially in United Service, Apr.-Dec. 1882; see also,
Who's Who in America, 1899-1900, and for family
data, O. S. Phelps and A. T. Servin, The Phelps Fam-
ily of America and their English Ancestors (2 vols.,
1899) ; personal narratives of his Civil War service ap-
pear in E. S. Maclay, A Hist, of the U. S. Navy front
1775 to 1893 (2nd ed., 1899), vol. II ; the N, Y. Herald,
Jan. n, 1901, and the Army <&• Navy Tour., Jan. 12,
1901, contain obituaries.]
PHELPS, WILLIAM FRANKLIN (Feb. 15,
i822-Aug. 15, 1907), educator, was born in Au-
burn, N. Y., the son of Halsey and Lucinda
(Hitchcock) Phelps, and a descendant of Wil-
liam Phelps, who came from England to Massa-
chusetts in 1630 and later settled in Windsor,
Conn. While William was still in the district
school he was impressed by the absurdity of the
methods of education then in use, which fact
doubtless influenced his career as an educator.
In 1834 he entered the newly established Auburn
high school, an excellent institution, where he
Phelps
learned useful lessons in method and the value
of kindness as an educational force. In 1838 the
master told William's father that his son was
fully able to take a school and in the next fall,
before he was seventeen, he taught sixty boys
and girls of all ages, attainments, and conditions
in a primitive one-room schoolhouse. For the
next five summers he attended the Auburn Acad-
emy and had instruction from efficient teachers.
During the winters he taught in various rural
schools, acquiring the reputation of being one
of the best teachers in that part of the country.
In 1844 he was called to a large public school
in the city of Auburn, where in one room he
taught 140 pupils of all ages. He was soon ap-
pointed state student from Cayuga County to the
normal school in Albany, from which he gradu-
ated in 1846. In 1845 he organized a model prac-
tice school, which was formally opened in 1846,
and which he conducted for seven years. His
health requiring that he have rest and change,
from 1852 to 1855 he engaged in business and
travel. In the latter year he organized the state
normal school at Trenton, N. J., serving as prin-
cipal and professor of the science of education.
He was also principal of the Farnum Prepara-
tory School at Beverly, N. J., which he organized
in 1856. Removing to Minnesota in 1864, he re-
organized the state normal school at Winona and
was its head until 1876, when he became presi-
dent of the normal school at Whitewater, Wis.,
which position he occupied for two years. From
1881 to 1886 he was secretary of the Winona
board of trade; from 1886 to 1887, secretary of
the St. Paul chamber of commerce; and from
1887 to 1889, of the Duluth chamber of com-
merce. He then returned to St. Paul, where he
was connected successively with a number of
business enterprises. He died in St. Paul, in his
eighty-sixth year.
Phelps published The Teacher's Hand-book
(1875), which was translated into Spanish for
use in the Argentine Republic. He was editor-
in-chief of the Educational Weekly, Chicago,
1877-78. In 1879 he published six brochures—
What Is Education?, Socrates, Pestalosszi, Hor-
ace Mann, Froebel, and Roger Aschom and John
Sturm — all prepared for use as Chautauqua text-
books. He also revised and edited, 1902, H. W.
Pearson's A NebuLo-Meteoric Hypothesis of
Creation. He was one of the organizers of the
American Normal School Association, and its
first president (1858-63) ; he also served as pres-
ident of the National Education Association
(I^75-76). At the Centennial Exhibition in
1876 he presided at the first international con-
ference of educators. He was awarded a diploma
532
Phelps
and silver medal at the French exposition in 1878
for his work as an educator. Among his other
achievements was the invention of a map-sup-
port for the exhibition of maps and charts of
different sizes. He was married in 1854 to Caro-
lyn, daughter of William Chapman of Albany,
N. Y., and widow of Crawford Livingston.
[Am. Jour, of Education, Dec. 1858 ; An Hist Sketch
of the State Normal College at Albany, N. Y. (1894) ;
Hist, of Winona County (1883) [ C, O. Ruggles, Hist.
Sketch and Notes, Winona State Normal School
(IQIQ) ; Bull, of the Winona State Normal School ',
Oct. 1907; "Minn. Biogs,," Colls* Minn. Hist. Soc.,
vol'XIV (1912); Who's Who in America, 1906-07;
School four.', Aug. 31, 1907; St. Paul Dispatch, Aug.
16, i9°7«] J. S — 11.
PHELPS, WILLIAM WALTER (Aug. 24,
jg^cKFtrae *7» 1894), lawyer, business man, con-
gressman, diplomat, was born in Dundaff, Sus-
quehanna County, Pa. He was a descendant of
William Phelps, an English emigrant who came
with his brother George to America in 1630 and
who settled in Connecticut in 1635. John Jay
Phelps, his father, left Connecticut to live for
a short time in Pennsylvania and then moved to
New York City where he built up a great for-
tune as an importer and railway promoter. His
mother was Rachel Badgerly (Phinncy). He
attended the Mount Washington Institute, New
York City, and then a private school at Golden
Hill, near Bridgeport, Conn. He entered Yale
before he was sixteen years of age and was grad-
uated second in 1he class oE 1860. On Commence-
ment clay, July 26, 1860, he was married to Ellen
Maria Sheffield, daughter of Joseph Earl Shef-
field [0.V.], founder o£ the scientific school bear-
ing his name. After an extended bridal tour of
Europe, he entered the law school of Columbia
University and received the degree of LL.B. in
1863 as valedictorian of the class. A highly suc-
cessful career in New York City as legal repre-
sentative of several large corporations was cut
short by the death of his father in 1869, when he
rethed to devote himself to the management of
family properties and his own business interests.
He transferred his residence to an estate at Tea-
Phelps
of 1880 and 1884. He was appointed minister to
Austria-Hungary on May 5, 1881, but resigned
the post within the year and returned to reclaim
his seat in Congress, holding it thereafter for
three terms. In the convention of 1888 he was
supported by Elaine for the vice-presidential
nomination (Edward Stanwood, James Gillespie
Elaine, American Statesmen, 2 ser., vol. Ill,
1908, p. 309).
The interest taken by Phelps in the Samoan
question during his service on the Committee on
Foreign Affairs qualified him for an appointment
by President Harrison on Mar. 18, 1889, as com-
missioner to the Berlin Conference on that ques-
tion. His judgment in reconciling the conflicting
views of his colleagues, John Adam Kasson and
George Handy Bates [gg.z>.] and in conceding
enough minor points to assure fulfillment of the
German government's substantial concessions
without permitting it to dictate the settlement,
was largely responsible for the measure of suc-
cess attained (Alice F. Tyler, The Foreign Pol-
icy of James G. Blaine, 1927, p. 241). Although
the outcome was not wholly satisfactory to Sec-
retary Blaine, the quality of -Phelps's work war-
ranted his appointment as minister to Germany
in 1889. His principal task during four years'
tenure of that post was, as it had previously been
at Vienna, the presentation of arguments in favor
of the removal of the prohibition against im-
portation of American pork products. Success
crowned his efforts in September 1891. His cul-
tivated and genial personality and his familiarity
with the language of the country made him a
popular representative not only among the Ger-
mans, but also among the rapidly increasing
American colony in Berlin.
Upon his return to America, in the summer of
1893, he accepted an appointment on the New
Jersey Court of Errors and Appeals. The con-
fining duties of the position hastened his death
within a year of pulmonary tuberculosis. He
died at Englewood, N. J., and was survived by
his wife and three children. His continued inter-
est in his alma mater was most effeetivdy_dem-
neck near Englewood, N. J., from which district onstrated when he became a leader in the "Young
he was elected as a Republican to Congress in Yale" movement which reflected the dissatisfac-
1872. In the House of Representatives he distin-
guished himself by vigorous speeches on finan-
cial subjects and denunciations of the White
League, Yet his independence of judgment led
him to turn against his party in the contest over
the Civil Rights Bill, with the result that he was
defeated for reelection by seven votes. He re-
candidacy for the presidency in the conventions
tion of the young alumni with the staid policies of
the trustees. A thoroughly stimulating, if some-
what bombastic address delivered by Phelps at
an alumni dinner during the Commencement ex-
ercises in 1870, was largely responsible for the
vigor with which the movement was charged
from that date (H. E. Starr, Wittiam Graham
Sunwer, 1925, PP* 82-90). He was notably^
forceful and witty speaker, equally popular in the
intimate circle and on the platform. His bene-
533
Philip
factions from abundant wealth were wisely and
gracefully given in many directions,
[H. M. Herriclc, William Walter Phclps, His Life
and Public Service (1904) ; Foreign Relations, 1891,
pp. 505-17 ; Obit Record of Grads. of Yale Univ.,.
1890-1900 (1900) I N- Y. Times, June 17, 1894; N. Y.
Tribune, Tune 18, 1894.] J.V.F.
PHILIP (d. Aug. 12, 1676), Sachem of the
Wampanoag Indians, was the leader of the most
severe Indian war in the history of New Eng-
land. The son of Massassoit [g.z/.], his Indian
name was Pometacom, Metacom, or Metacomet,
but the colonists dubbed him "King Philip." As-
suming the position of Sachem of the Wampa-
noags at the time of his brother Alexander's
death in 1662, for which many Indians believed
the Plymouth authorities responsible, Philip re-
newed his father's treaty with the settlers and
conducted himself in a generally peaceful man-
ner for the following nine years. The frequent
land sales, which were necessitated by the na-
tives' growing dependence upon English guns,
ammunition, blankets, and liquor, restricted the
Wampanoags, Narragansetts, and Nipmucks to
ever narrowing territories and scarcer game, al-
though the lands seem to have been fully paid
for by the whites (S. G, Drake, Old Indian
Chronicle, p. 3). Philip acted in a haughty and
arrogant manner and considered himself on
terms of equality with his "brother," King
Charles II. Suspected of plotting against the
settlers, he was summoned to Taunton in 1671,
forced to surrender part of the firearms of his
tribe, and fined. The execution in 1675 of three
of his warriors for the murder of Sassamon, his
former secretary, who had revealed his plots to
the English, provoked the conflict known as
King Philip's War. Starting in June 1675 *n
the vicinity of Narragansett Bay, the war
spread rapidly through the Plymouth and Mas-
sachusetts colonies, and extended westward as
far as the settlements on the Connecticut River.
The Wampanoags with their Nipmuck allies as-
saulted most of the outlying towns, burned sev-
eral and slaughtered countless men, women, and
children, while the troops of the United Colonies
tried in vain to engage them in a decisive conflict.
After an unsuccessful attempt to win the Mo-
hawks to his side (Mather, post, p. 38), Philip
again fell upon the Massachusetts towns in the
spring and summer of 1676, but with less success
than formerly. The colonial troops now adopted
the policy of destroying the Indians' corn, cap-
turing their women and children, and offering
immunity to warriors who would desert Philip.
Deprived of most of his followers, including his
wife, Wootonekanuske, and son, Philip took ref-
uge in a swamp near Mount Hope (Bristol,
Philip
R. I.), where he was shot Aug. 12, 1676, by an
Indian serving under Capt. Benjamin Church
[q.v.]. As a traitor to the King, he was behead-
ed, drawn, and quartered, and his head exhibited
at Plymouth for many years. He was an able and
crafty leader, according1 to Indian standards, and
not without some elements of human kindness.
Much of his success, however, was due to the in-
efficiency of the colonial officers, and there is lit-
tle evidence that he planned a wide-spread con-
spiracy to exterminate the white settlers. New
England paid dearly for her victory, with the
destruction of twelve towns, several thousand
deaths, and a debt estimated at £100,000.
[The outstanding- contemporary works dealing with
King Philip's War have been edited by Samuel G.
Drake. Among these are : William Hubbard, The Hist,
of the Indian Wars in New England (2 vols., 1865) ;
Increase Mather, The Hist, of King Philips War
(1865) ; The Old Indian Chronicle (1867), a collection
of contemporary tracts and letters ; and The Book of
the Indians (1841). The last-named contains letters,
documents, and a biography of King Philip. Thomas
Church's Entertaining Passages Relating to Philip's
War (1716) is the account of Capt. Bcnj. Church. John
Easton's account of the war was edited by B, F, Hough
and published under the title : A Narrative of tha
Causes Which Led to Philip's Indian War (1858). It is
also included in Narratives of the Indian Wars (1913),
ed. by C. H. Lincoln, a volume in Scribner's Original
Narrative Series. Relations between the Indians and
the New England Confederation will be found in Rec-
ords of the Colony of New Plymouth, vol. V (1856).
The introduction to George M. Bodge's Soldiers in King
Philip's War (1891) gives a good secondary account]
H P S
PHILIP, JOHN WOODWARD (Aug. 26,
1840- June 30, 1900), naval officer, was born at
Kinderhook, Columbia County, N. Y., the son
of Dr. John Plenry and Lucena (Woodward)
Philip, and a descendant of the distinguished
colonial Dutch family of Philipse. The final let-
ters of the name were dropped by some branches
of the family after the Revolution. After attend-
ing Kinderhook Academy he was appointed mid-
shipman, and graduated from the Naval Acad-
emy on June i, 1861. Extremely shy in feminine
society, he was in academy days and later a very
genial soul, overflowing with humor, trenchant
in speech, one of the best loved men in the navy,
Despite his youth, his Civil War service was en-
tirely as executive, or second in command, firsl
in the sloop Marion in the Gulf, and then in the
Sonoma in the James River. From his promotion
to the rank of lieutenant in July 1862, until the
close of 1864 he was in the Chippewa, Pawnee,
and in the monitor Montauk on the southeast
coast blockade, where he was frequently in actior
and where he was wounded, July 16, 1863, in ar
engagement with shore batteries in the Stone
River. He was executive of the Wachusett dur-
ing an Oriental cruise, 1865-67, and was trans-
ferred from her to be executive of the Hwtford
534
Philip
flagship of the China Squadron. After two years
in the Richmond of the European Squadron he
was again in the Hartford, 1872-73. He was
made commander in December 1874 and was for
two years thereafter on leave as captain of the
Pacific mail liner City of Nezv York, which he
took through Magellan to the west coast. He
then commanded the Adams, 1876-77, and the
Tuscarora and Ranger, 1877-83, in survey work
on the west coast of Mexico and Central Amer-
ica,
In 1882 he was married at San Francisco to
Mrs. Josepha Francesca (Tate) Cowan. Then
followed his first extended shore duty as light-
house inspector, I2th District, 1884-87, and as
commander of the receiving ship Independence,
Mare Island, 1887-90, He was promoted to the
rank of captain on Mar. 31, 1889, spent a year in
the Atlanta, became construction inspector of the
cruiser New York, and commanded her until
August 1894. In 1894-97 he was captain of the
Boston navy yard, and afterward commanded the
Texas from October 1897, through the Spanish-
American War, Early in the hostilities he de~
voted himself energetically to making much-
needed repairs in his ship, especially improve-
ments in the rate of fire of the turret guns, the
results of which were demonstrated effectively
at Santiago. The Texas operated with the Fly-
ing Squadron, then joined the Santiago blockade,
and was next to the Brooklyn at the west end of
the blockading line on July 3, 1898, when the
Spanish fleet emerged. Collision with the Brook-
lyn, when she made her much-discussed eastward
turn at the opening of the battle, was averted by
Philip's "quick appreciation and instant seaman-
like action," to quote Admiral Mahan (Maclay,
Life, post, p. 15), in backing and shifting course.
When his crew shouted as one of their salvos hit
a Spanish ship, Philip tittered his characteristic
words, "Don't cheer, men, those poor devils are
dying/' He was made commodore on Aug. 10,
1898, and rear admiral Mar. 3, 1899, From Jan-
uary 1899, until his death he was commandant
of the Brooklyn navy yard, where his warm sym-
pathy and earnest religious feeling led him whole-
heartedly into the movement for the construction
of a Sailors' Rest building near the yard. His
death occurred suddenly from heart failure, and
he was buried in the Naval Cemetery at Annapo-
lis, being survived by his wife, a son, John Wood-
ward Philip, and a stepson, Barrett Philip.
[Many tributes and recollections of fellow officers are
included in E. S. Maclay, Lift and ^^7^'J
"tack" Philip, Rmr- Admiral (1903), which was first
published in the IltottrMtd Nwy, a n^^JWJ??
in four numbers. May-Aug. 1003, ed.by.E. S. Maclay
and Barrett Philip : a record of his cru^e m the W actor
sett is also printed in this publication* Family data were
Philipp
contributed by J. W. Philip, a son. See also E. H. Hall,
Philipse Manor Hall at Yonkers, N. F. (1912), Who's
Who in America, 1899-1900, and obituaries in the
Army 6- Navy Jour., July 7, 1900, and the N. Y. Times,
July i, 1900.] A.W.
PHILIPP, EMANUEL LORENZ (Mar. 25,
iS6i-June 15, 1925), governor of Wisconsin,
was born in Sauk County, Wis., the son of Swiss
emigrants. His parents, Luzi and Sabina (Lud-
wig) Philipp, were members of an agricultural
colony that has contributed a vigorous element
to the life of Wisconsin. The boy attended the
public school of his district and was licensed to
teach without further formal training. He soon
learned telegraphy and was train dispatcher and
station agent for the Chicago, Milwaukee &
Saint Paul Railway at Baraboo, Wis. In this
service he obtained a transfer to Milwaukee. He
became a contracting freight agent, took charge
of the Gould freight interests, and also was traf-
fic manager for the Schlitz brewery. On Oct. 27,
1887, he was married to Bertha Schweke of
Reedsburg, Wis. They had three children. In
1893 he became interested in the lumber business
and founded the town of Philipp in Tallahatchie
County, Miss. During the following decade he
devoted his energies and activities largely to. this
business. It proved profitable, and he rapidly in-
creased his private estate. However, he retained
his connection with transportation. In 1897 he
became president of the Union Refrigerator
Transit Company and six years later became its
manager and proprietor. In 1904 he published
The Truth about Wisconsin Freight Rates. This
was followed in 1910 by Political Reform in Wis-
consin, in which he was assisted by Edgar T.
Wheelock, and which deals with the primary
election law, the problems of taxation, and of
railway regulation. These titles reveal the tran-
sition of his interests from business to politics.
He had become actively interested in politics
and was a delegate to the Republican conven-
tions of 1904 and 1908. There he formed ac-
quaintances with the leaders of the nationd ad-
ministration. The division of the Republican
party, especially in Wisconsin, gave opportunity
for leadership of a faction that would cooperate
with the national administration, and he seized
this opening. Meanwhile, he also became fire
and police commissioner of Milwaukee. By 1914
he was fully intrenched in the local machine and
was able to obtain the nomination for governor.
Reflected in two successive campaigns to this
position, he served from 1915 to 1921. His
work as governor was distinguished. He entered
upon the task with slight experience in politics
and served throughout a period of great stress
and agitation. He was pledged to economy aaft
535
Philips
to reduction of the costs of the state institutions.
However, he permitted no action until investi-
gation of the institutions had been conducted.
This procedure was beneficial and in many in-
stances resulted in definite gains for the institu-
tions. As war governor of a state with a large
population of foreign origin, he reflected the
sentiments of his people and was critical of the
national administration. He had favored an em-
bargo on goods to the Allies, opposed conscrip-
tion, and opposed sending an army to France.
In spite of his pronouncement of his views, Gen-
eral Crowder credited him with the most com-
mendable record of any governor for cooperation
in enforcement of the draft law (Milwaukee Sen-
tinel, Nov. 5, 6, 1918). He gave every assistance
in carrying the war to a successful termination.
With the coming of peace he had a constructive
plan for getting the soldiers back to the soil by
assisting them to procure tracts of cut-over land
in Wisconsin. He gave his support to a generous
educational bonus for soldiers. Although he was
not a Progressive but "an out-and-out corpora-
tion man" according to LaFollette (post, p.
229), the Progressive leaders admitted that no
recognized progressive measure was repealed
during his administration. Although a man of
limited schooling, he was one of broader inter-
ests than his mere profession.
He was a regent of Marquette University, ac-
tive in the work of the humane society, and a
promoter of civic activities and progress. He
procured and took great pride in the mainte-
nance of a splendid farm. In appearance he was
below average stature, broad and powerfully
built. His whole appearance radiated strength
of body and character. He was not given to
great freedom of expression but on occasion
could give vent to deep and moving emotions.
He had those qualities that make and retain loyal
friends.
[Messages to the Leg. and Proclamations of Emanuel
L. Philipp (1920); E. B. Usher, Wisconsin (1914),
vol. VII ; Who's Who in America, 1922-23 ; A Stand-
ard Hist, of Sauk County (1918), vol. II, ed. by H. E.
Cole ; R. M. LaFollette, LaFollette' s Autobiog. (1913) ;
Milwaukee Sentinel, June 16, 1925.] J.L. S.
PHILIPS, JOHN FINIS (Dec. 31, i834-Mar.
X3> X9i9); soldier, congressman, jurist, was born
in Boone County, Mo. His parents, John G. and
Mary (Copeland) Philips, were Kentuckians
who went to Missouri in 1817. Although he
spent his boyhood in a simple pioneer community,
the educational and religious influences of his
home were strong and the discipline severe. Af-
ter graduating in 1855 from Centre College in
Kentucky, he read law in the office of Gen. John
B. Clark, a leading lawyer and politician of cen-
Philips
tral Missouri. In 1857 he married Fleecie Bat-
terton of Kentucky and commenced practice at
Georgetown, Mo., attaining a large and lucra-
tive business and devoting considerable time and
attention to politics and to the Whig party. His
career was interrupted by the Civil War which
shattered the social, professional, and political
life of the state, and forced a decision for or
against secession. Philips soon decided, and put
at the disposal of the Union his ability and his
fine eloquence. As an opponent of secession he
was elected a member of the state convention
which governed Missouri from 1861 to 1863. He
consistently supported the provisional state gov-
ernment and the Lincoln administration. Gov-
ernor Gamble commissioned him colonel of the
7th Regiment of the state militia, a cavalry regi-
ment. He commanded it with courage and skill
until the close of the war, seeing service in sev-
eral western campaigns.
Philips moved to Sedalia in 1865 and formed
a law partnership with George G. Vest. In com-
mon with many former Whig leaders, who op-
posed the rule of the Radical Republicans in the
state and nation, he became a Democrat. The
test oath and registration system were respon-
sible for his defeat for Congress in 1868. When
the Democracy regained control in 1874, he be-
came one of the "Big Four," sharing with Vest,
T. T. Crittenden, and F. M. Cockrell the leader-
ship of the party in Missouri. Nominated for
Congress in 1874, after 691 ballots were taken,
Philips was elected and served during the critical
years 1875-77. A member of the committee to
investigate the election of 1876 in South Caro-
lina, he ably exposed the shocking and grotesque
character of the government there (Congres-
sional Record, 44 Cong., 2 Sess., Appendix, pp.
102-06). Certain that Tilden had been elected,
he supported with reluctance the electoral com-
mission bill and was convinced that Hayes's title
was "grounded and steeped in fraud and per-
jury" (Ibid.). He was elected in 1880 to the
Forty-sixth Congress, to fill an unexpired term.
Familiar with conditions in the depressed South
and debtor West he urged that the tariff be
sharply reduced and that the government "do
something for silver."
He became a commissioner of the state su-
preme court in 1882, three years later being ap-
pointed a member of the Kansas City court of
appeals. He liked appellate work and won rec-
ognition for his thoroughness and discrimina-
tion. At the instance of his former law partner,
Senator Vest, he was named by Cleveland in
1888 to the federal bench for the western district
of Missouri. He occupied this position until his
536
Philips
retirement in 1910. As a judge, Philips was es-
sentially conservative in his economic and social
point of view. He was a master oE the technical
side of the law and of judicial detail, being sel-
dom reversed by a higher court. Lawyers and
laymen alike admired and respected his ability
and sense of justice. He practised law after re-
tirement from the bench until his sudden death.
He was a man of striking personal charm, whose
wit and eloquence won him a large number of
friends. His formal speech was effective and
adorned with classical allusions but he was best
known as a raconteur of note.
[For the period of 1888, tlie files of the Jefferson-
City Tribune and the Mo. Statesman are valuable. See
also: F. C Shoemaker, "hi Meiuoriawi: Judge John F.
Philips," Mo. ///,v/. AVn, Apr, 1919; Jowir. and Proc.
of the Mo. State Convent ion r 1861-63; Who's Who in
America f 1918-19; Philips' Speeches (1918); Kansas
City Star, Mar. 13, M, 1919.] x. S. B.
PHILIPS, MARTIN WILSON (June 17,
i8o6-Feb. 26, 1889), Southern planter, agricul-
tural writer, and reformer, was born in Colum-
bia, S. C, of Irish descent, though his father and
grandfather were both born in Virginia. He is
said to have graduated from the old South Caro-
lina College at Columbia and in 1829 he gradu-
ated from the medical department of the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania, In this same year he
settled in Mississippi and married Mary Mont-
gomery, daughter of William Montgomery. Af-
ter practising medicine for a short time with
small success, he turned to farming and in 1836
purchased a tract of land in Hinds County, Miss,,
removing there with his wife and the family of
William Montgomery* Philips1 new home was
a well-built log house of considerable preten-
sions, and to his plantation he gave the name of
"Log Hall" Here he won fame as the "Sage of
Log Hall" and was familiarly known as "Log
Hall" Philips, lie took great pride in his planta-
tion, making it one of the most attractive places
in the state. lie raised fruit trees, sold them,
and wrote about them, urging the raising of
more fruit in the South. In his orchards were to
be found the most desirable varieties. He was
also a successful cotton planter and a stockbreed-
er. A believer in gocxl implements, he was large-
ly instrumental in introducing into Mississippi
many of an improved type and in having them
exhibited at the Natchez fair. He was preemi-
nently an investigator but not a successful farmer
in the opinion of his neighbors, who were in-
clined to make sport of his extravagant expendi-
tures of money on blooded stock and agricultural
experiments and regarded him as a man who
farmed on paper.
He kept a diary of his farm operations from
Philips
1840 to 1863, which has been published under the
title "Diary of a Mississippi Planter" (Publica-
tions of the Mississippi Historical Society, vol.
X, 1909). In 1863 he was forced to flee from
"Log Hall" before the invading army from the
North. His plantation suffered greatly from the
ravages of war and he never returned to it after
the close of hostilities, settling at Magnolia,
where he engaged in the nursery business. In
1872 he was asked to take charge of the newly
created department of agriculture in the Univer-
sity of Mississippi with the title of adjunct pro-
fessor of agriculture and superintendent of the
university farm. Although the agricultural de-
partment did not succeed, it was due to lack of
support rather than to any lack of ability on
Philips' part. After its abolition in 1875, he
became proctor of the University, in which po-
sition he served with ability until 1880. He died
and was buried m Oxford, Miss. His first wife
died in 1862 and he was later married in Colum-
bia, S. C., to Rebecca Tillinghast Wade yho
survived him.
Philips was a prolific contributor to the farm
press. Among the dozen or more journals, both
in the North and in the South, to which he con-
tributed most frequently were the American
Farmer, Cultivator, American Agriculturist,
Southern Cultivator, American Cotton Planter,
and De Bow's Review. From 1843 to 1845 he
was one of the editors of the South-Western
Farmer, published at Raymond, Miss. After the
death of Willis Gaylord [q.v."\ of the Cultivator
(Albany), he acted as editor until a successor
was appointed. From 1867 to 1873 he edited
Philips' Southern Farmer, published at Mem-
phis, Tenn. He was greatly interested in the
cause of education and did much philanthropic
work. A prominent member of the Baptist de-
nomination, he served as treasurer of the Mis-
sissippi Baptist State Convention for twelve
years, contributing liberally of his time and
means to advance the educational and missionary
enterprises of that body. He was one of the
founders of the oldest existing college for women
in Mississippi, the Central Female Institute, now
Hillman College at Clinton, established in 1853*
and was a member of its first board of trustees ;
he was also one of the early members of the board
of trustees of Mississippi College after it passed
into the possession of the Mississippi Baptists.
In politics he was an uncompromising Demo-
crat. Honest, kind, generous, progressive, and
scholarly, he was also somewhat irascible, im-
petuous, selfwilled, and impatient. No man in Ms
day contributed more to the material and edu-
cational development of Mississippi.
537
Philipse
[Pubs. Miss. Hist. Soc.f vol. X (1909) ; U. B. Phil-
lips, Life and Labor in the Old South (1929) ; Cultiva-
tor and Country Gentleman, June 6, 1889 ; L. H, Bailey,
Cyc. Am. Agriculture , vol. IV (1909).] c. R. B.
PHILIPSE, FREDERICK (Nov. 6, 1626-
1702), landed proprietor in New Netherland,
was a native of Friesland, Holland, son of Fred-
erick and Margaret (Dacres) Philipse, and
grandson of Viscount Philipse of Bohemia. His
name also appears as Vreedryk or Vrederyck
Felypsen. His father removed with his family to
New Amsterdam, probably with Stuyvesant in
1647. The son engaged in trade and rose to af-
fluence. When New Netherland became an Eng-
lish province, he accommodated himself to the
new regime. Trade with the Five Nations, the
East and West Indies, and Madagascar swelled
his profits, further increased by importation of
slaves. He also engaged in the manufacture of
wampum.
During the years from 1664 to 1674, when
Dutch and English authority alternated, Philipse
preserved his political equilibrium, unaffected by
excessive zeal for either cause. From 1675 to
1688 he served in the council of the colony. When
the revolt in New York City made Jacob Leisler
\_q.v.~] its head, Philipse and Stephen Van Cort-
landt were in charge of administration, com-
mitted to them by Nicholson, the retiring lieu-
tenant-governor. Yielding to the storm, they
withdrew from public responsibility. On the res-
toration of regular government, Philipse returned
to the council, where he voted for the execution
of the death penalty against Leisler and Mil-
bourne. He served in this body until 1698, when
his close relations with Governor Fletcher and
reputed dealing with Madagascar pirates pre-
pared the way for his final retirement His res-
ignation was ascribed to a discovery that the
home government had determined to order his
dismissal. The enterprise of Capt. William Kidd
[g.£>.], originally legitimate, had enlisted the co-
operation of leading figures in the English gov-
ernment, besides Lord Bellomont, then governor
of New York and New England, Robert Living-
ston of New York, and probably others in the
latter colony. The formal charge of complicity
in Kidd's lawless acts, leveled at certain men in
high places, broke down in the Commons; but
trie Lords of Trade, reporting on the affairs of
the province of New York, thought Philipse's
connection with illegal trade sufficiently clear to
warrant Jus, removal. One signature to this re-
port was that of the celebrated John Locke.
In 1672 JEtias Doughty sold one-third of the
former Adriaen Van der Donck estate, known
as upper Yonkers or ihe Yonkef § plantation, to
Phillips
each of three men, one of whom was Frederick
Philipse, who thus acquired the nucleus of a
magnificent property. The remainder of the es-
tate subsequently became his. By an Indian deed
in 1680 he acquired title to land on both sides of
the Pocantico River, and by a second deed four
years later to all that tract between the Yonkers
Creek and Bronck's River. Philipse's total
acquisitions were consolidated in 1693 in the
Royal Patent of Philipsburgh. The history of
this manor is interwoven with the chronicles of
the American Revolution and with American
literature. Philipse's skill in building was much
prized during his first years in the colony, and
he was commonly styled Stuyvesant's "architect-
builder." He was a carpenter by trade. In ro-
mantic Sleepy Hollow he erected a church and
also the stone mansion, Castle Philipse. The
Manor Hall of Yonkers, which he reared, has
been purchased by the state for perpetual preser-
vation in the city of his founding. His New York
town house, at Whitehall and Stone streets, was
confiscated after the War of the Revolution.
Philipse married in December 1662, Margaret
Hardenbrook (the name is variously spelled),
widow of Pieter Rudolphus (de Vries), who
was "a very desirable business partner as well as
wife" (Hall, post, pp. 39, 61) ; for his second
wife, he married Nov. 30, 1692, Catharine Van
Cortlandt, widow of John Dervall. His wealth
was increased by his marriages.
[I. N. P. Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Isl-
and, 1498-1909 (6 vols., 1915-28) ; E. B. O'Callaghan,
Documents Relative to the Colonial Hist, of the State
ofN. Y., vols. II-IV (1858, 1853, *8fi4) ; J- T. Scharf,
Hist, of Wcstchcstcr County, N. Y. (1886); Robert
Bolton, A Hist, of the County of Wcstchcster (1848) ;
Minutes of the Common Council of the City of N. Y.f
1675-1776 (8 vols., 1905), esp. vols. I and II; E. H.
Hall, Philipse Manor Hall at Yonkers, N. Y. (1912) ;
B. B. James and J. F. Jameson, Jour, of Jasper Danck-
aerts (1913) ; Colls. N. Y. Hist. Sec., Pub. Fund Ser.f
XXV, for 1892 (1893), 369-73-] R.E.D.
PHILLIPS, DAVID GRAHAM (Oct. 31,
i867-Jan. 24, 1911), journalist, novelist, the son
of David Graham and Margaret (Lee) Phillips,
was born in Madison, Ind., where his father was
a banker. Educated at the public schools and
privately instructed in languages, he matricu-
lated at Indiana Asbury University (later De
Pauw) but after two years transferred to the
College of New Jersey, whence he was graduated
in 1887. The following July he became a re-
porter on the Cincinnati Times-Star and showed
such unusual talents for journalism that within
a year he was employed at a higher salary by the
Cincinnati Coiwmerciol Gazette* In the summer
of 1890 he went to New York City, where he
joined the staff of the Sim. Again distinguish-
538
Phillips
ing himself, he soon became one of the paper's
most valuable reporters. In 1893 he left the Sun
for the World, which he first served as London
correspondent. After a few months he returned
to the United States to do general reporting until
i895> when he was assigned to feature writing.
In 1897 Joseph Pulitzer transferred him to the
editorial department, later giving him charge of
the editorial page in the absence of W. H. Mer-
rill.
Despite the progress that he had made In jour-
nalism, Phillips was not satisfied with newspaper
work. In 1901 he published his first novel, The
Great God Success, under the pseudonym of John
Graham, and early in the next year he left the
World to devote himself to the writing of maga-
zine articles and fiction. He was a diligent work-
er, and by the time of his death he had published
seventeen novels, a play, and a book of non-fic-
tion. He had also written nearly forty articles
for the Saturday Evening Post and at least as
many more for the Cosmopolitan, Success, the
Arena, and other magazines. In addition to all
this he had completed six novels that were pub-
lished posthumously. His death came suddenly.
In the later months of 1910 he received a series
of threatening notes, to which he paid little at-
tention. On Jan. 23, 1911, as he was on his way
from lunch, a young musician named Fitzhugh
Coyle GoMsborough suddenly confronted him
and fired six shots into his body, Immediately
thereafter killing himself. Phillips died the next
day. Goldsborough's motive, as revealed in the
notes to Phillips and in his private papers, was
the desire to avenge the insults that he main-
tained Phillips had directed against the Golds-
borough family in his novels. There was no basis
for Goklsborough's charge, and his papers point-
ed to insanity.
Though Phillips wrote many different kinds
of novels, his more characteristic work aimed at
the exposure of contemporary evils in business
and government- In many articles, and especial-
ly in the sensational series called "The Treason
of the Senate/1 which he contributed to the Cos-
mopolitan in 1906, he took a direct part in the
muckraking movement; but his fiction of the
same type was more voluminous and probably
more effective. In The Cost (1904) and The
Deluge (1905) he dealt with financial manipu-
lators, and in Light-Fingered Gentry (1907) he
capitalized the insurance scandals. In The Plwm
Tree (1905), The Fashionable Adventures of
Joshua Craig (1909), George Helm (1912), and
The Conflict (19x1) he treated national, state,
and municipal corruption. As his interest^ in
muckraking declined, he began to concern hira-
Phillips
self with such problems as sexual standards
for women (The Worth of a Woman, a play,
1908), women's social ambitions (The Husband's
Story} 1910), and feminine independence (The
Price She Paid, 1912). Even into these stories,
however, he often introduced exposure of indus-
trial and political corruption, as in his most am-
bitious novel, Susw Lenox: Her Fall and Rise
(1917), though it is primarily concerned with
the position of women in society.
In his own day Phillips achieved considerable
popularity. There can be no doubt of the sincer-
ity of his attacks on corruption, nor is it possible
to deny that he had a comprehensive knowledge
of many aspects of American life. His work is
seldom, however, more than journalism. Judged
by esthetic standards his literary powers were of
a low order, especially his powers of ^characteri-
zation, and he made many concessions to popular
taste. The crudities even of Susm Lenox, which
is much his best work, are often distressing,
though the book is vigorous, honest, and some-
times impressive. Indeed, it may be said of Phil-
lips' books taken as a whole that, however biased
they may be and whatever literary faults they
may have, they do constitute a substantial and
not wholly inaccurate record of the social move-
ments of his day.
[The only full-length biography is I. F. Marcosson,
David Graham Phillips and His Times (1952). There
is information about him in Don C. Seitz, Joseph Pu-
Ktgor: His Life 6- Letters (1924) and in Frank M.
O'Brien, The Story of the Sun (1918), The New-
York papers of Jan. 24 and 25, 1911, contain long but
not completely accurate accounts of his life, and there
is an obituary in the Princeton Alumni Weekly, Feb. i,
ion. Among contemporary magazine articles the most
useful are in the Book News Monthly, Apr. 1907, the
Arena, Mar. 1906, and the Bookman, Mar. 1911.
Critical estimates may be found in Frank Harris, Latest
Contemporary Portraits (1927) and F. T. Cooper, Some
Am. Story Tellers (1911). The present article is to
some extent based upon letters from or interviews
with I. F. Marcosson, C. E. Russell, E. F. Flynn, T. A.
Green, G. H. Lorimer, and other friends of Phillips.
The author has also published a longer study of the
man and his work in the Bookman for May 1931. The
manuscripts of Phillips' novels are in the Princeton
Library.] G.H.
PHILLIPS, FRANCIS CLIFFORD (Apr.
2, i850-Feb. 16, 1920), chemist, son of William
Smith and Fredericka (Ingersoll) Phillips, was
born at Philadelphia, Pa., and died at Ben Avon,
a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pa. His early education
was received at home from his mother. He com-
pleted his preparation for college at the Academy
of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Philadel-
phia, entered the University of Pennsylvania in
1866, but left in his junior year. During a part
of 1870 he was instructor in chemistry at Dela-
ware College, Newark, Del. Soon aftento<l fat
went to Germany to continue his study of cfem-
539
Phillips
istry. From 1871 to 1873 he studied with Karl
R. Fresenius in his private laboratory at Wies-
baden and the following year was fortunate in
having the opportunity to be an assistant of the
famous analytical chemist. He studied the next
year with Landolt at the Polytechnic School in
Aachen. Owing to the illness of his father he
was unable to complete his work in Germany for
the doctor's degree. In 1875 he became a mem-
ber of the chemistry staff of the Western Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania — now the University of
Pittsburgh — where he remained until his retire-
ment in 1915. During his forty years of service
he not only taught all branches of chemistry but
for much of the time also geology and mineral-
ogy. For one year (1878-79) he lectured in
chemistry at the Pittsburgh College of Phar-
macy.
His contact with the German system of uni-
versity education stimulated him to continue his
studies and as one result he received the degree
of A.M. in 1879 and Ph.D. in 1893 — both from
the University of Pittsburgh. Moreover, the zeal
for research which he acquired in Germany led
him to undertake investigations which were orig-
inal, particularly in the fields of natural gas and
petroleum. He did not publish many articles, but
his notes show that in his early work he antici-
pated principles which have been patented in
commercial processes. The failure to publish was
due partly to modesty and partly to interest in
the scientific rather than the commercial aspects
of investigations. Again, the skill acquired in
analytical procedure under the eye of Fresenius
was the basis of a lifelong interest in methods
of analysis. He worked continuously on the im-
provement and standardization of methods, and
many details which he established are an integral
part of the accepted chemical process for the de-
tection and determination of certain elements.
In connection with this work he edited the sec-
ond edition of Methods for the Analysis of Ores,
Pig Iron, and Steel in Use at the Laboratories of
Iron and Steel Works in the Region about Pitts-
burgh, Pa. (1901). At the time of his death he
had nearly completed "Qualitative Gas Reac-
tions." Another result of his studies in Germany
was his knowledge of the literature of chemistry.
In order to help his students and others in utiliz-
ing German journals he wrote a textbook enti-
tled Chemical German (1913, 2nd ed., 1915).
Besides chemistry, geology, mineralogy, and
crystallography, he was well informed in botany
and bacteriology. The last-named science he
utilized in his extensive work on drinking water,
studies which led to fundamental improvements
in the water supply of Pittsburgh.
Phillips
Phillips was deeply interested in Joseph Priest
ley, had a large collection of Priestleyana, anc
planned to write a biography of Priestley, foi
which he had accumulated sufficient material
He was the originator of the movement whicl
resulted in the establishment by the Americai
Chemical Society of the Priestley Gold Medal
The medal is awarded triennially "for distin-
guished services in chemistry," and althougl
Phillips did not live to see the culmination of hi<
efforts his name will always be associated witt
this memorial to Priestley. In 1881 he marriec
Sarah Ormsby Phillips, daughter of Ormsb}
Phillips, a former mayor of Allegheny. There
were two children. He was a member of numer-
ous scientific societies including the American
Philosophical Society (1894) and the Americai;
Chemical Society (1894).
[Sources include : obituary notices by Alexander Sil-
verman. in Jour. Industrial and Engineering Chemistry }
Apr. 1920, and in Science, May 7, 1920 ; Jour, of Chem-
ical Educ.t Apr. 1932; the Pittsburgh Post, Feb. 17,
1920; autobiographical notes supplied by Frank H.
Ramsay, Pittsburgh, Pa., and additional information
from Alexander Silverxnan.] L. CN
PHILLIPS, GEORGE (i593-July r, 1644),
clergyman, was born probably at South Rain-
ham, Norfolk, England, and died at Watcrtown,
Mass. His father was Christopher Phillips. He
matriculated at Gonville and Caius College,
Cambridge, in April 1610; received the degree
of B.A. in 1613, and that of M.A. In 1617. He
took orders in the Church of England, and served
for some years as vicar at Boxted, Essex, though
the length of his incumbency is uncertain, owing
to the loss of the parish registers. Among Phil-
lips' parishioners was John Maidstone, a nephew
of John Winthrop's second wife, and later an of-
ficer in Cromwell's household. On Nov. 4, 1629,
Maidstone wrote Winthrop stating that Phillips
was resolved to go to Massachusetts, and highly
commending him. Phillips sailed on the Arbella
in April 1630, and there are frequent references
to him in Winthrop's Journal, He was one of
the seven signers of The Humble Request, which
is dated April 7, on the eve of sailing, and which
was printed that same year. This noble state-
ment has been attributed to Rev. John White of
Dorchester, but there seems to be much better
ground for believing that Phillips drafted it
(Foote, post, pp. 196-201).
Phillips was accompanied on the voyage by
his wife, daughter of Richard Sergeant, and
two children. His wife died a few weeks after
landing at Salem. Phillips went with Winthrop
to Charlestown early in the summer, and thence
with Sir Richard Saltonstall to Watertown,
where a settlement was begun in the fall of 1630.
540
Phillips
He presumably drafted the covenant of the Wa-
tertown Church, of which he remained minister
until his death. Soon after settling at Watertown
he married Elizabeth, probably widow of Capt.
Robert Welden, by whom he had seven children.
Phillips was the first minister of the Massachu-
setts Bay Colony to put into practice the congre-
gational form of church polity (Foote, pp. 202-
07) , doing so before the arrival of the Rev. John
Cotton in 1633, to whom the initiation of the
congregational polity has been commonly attrib-
uted. In 1632 he was one of the leaders in the
protest made by Watertown against the action of
the governor and assistants in arbitrarily levy-
ing a tax on the town. He and Richard Brown
were summoned to Boston, where the matter was
debated. The tax was not remitted, but within
three months an election of representatives to
the General Court was agreed upon, with the
understanding that in future no taxes should be
levied without the consent of the Court. To this
Watertown protest is rightly traced the begin-
ning of representative government in Massa-
chusetts. Phillips also had a hand in drafting
the compilation of laws published in 1641.
He was a man of learning, and brought an
excellent library to Watertown. Although a
sturdy independent he was not aggressive, but
was notably modest and courteous. He published
nothing in his lifetime, but soon after his death
a pamphlet by him was printed with a title page
beginning A Reply to a Confutation of Some
Grounds for Infants Baptisms (1645). It con-
tains three short treatises clearly setting forth
Phillips' theory of the church, in reply to a pam-
phlet printed in London by an Anabaptist, m
which Phillips was singled out for attack. His
eldest son, Samuel, became an eminent minister
at Rowley, Mass,, and was the progenitor of
Samuel and John Phillips [«.«.], the founders
of the academies at Andover, Mass., and Exeter,
N. I-L, and of Wendell Phillips
[Cotton Mather, MagnaUa Christi
1853)* vol. I, pp. 37S-79* i*1 some statements — yt
rate * W B Spraguc, Annals Am. Pulpit, vol. I \l£&7) '
H. W. Foote, ''George Phillim First IVBmster of Wa-
tertown," Proc* Mw. Hwf. $ac>> vol. LXIII ^193* )•
PHILLIPS, HENRY (Sept. 6, i8s8~June 6,
1895), numismatist, philologist, and translator,
was born in Philadelphia, Pa., a member ol a
cultured Jewish family whose traditions destined
him for the study of law. His father, Jonas Alta-
mont Phillips (1806-1862), a graduate of the
. „ . — . t * __.- « « /->«*/«/**aooTl1 IflW—
Phillips
criminal lawyer of the city. His mother was
Frances (Cohen) Phillips, of Charleston, S. C.
He received his elementary education in a
Quaker school conducted by Hannah and Mary
Gibbons and prepared for college in the classical
academy of Henry D. Gregory, to whom he at-
tributed his devotion to scholarly pursuits. He
entered the University in 1853, graduated in
1856, studied law, and was admitted to the bar
in 1859. From the first, however, he lacked the
interest in the law that was characteristic of his
family and began to give his attention to an-
tiquarian scholarship. Becoming interested in
numismatics, he undertook studies which result-
ed in the publication in 1865 of his Historical
Sketches of the Paper Currency of the American
Colonies and in 1866 of his Continental Paper
Money. These studies were accepted as authori-
tative. They were followed by many other works
on numismatic subjects.
Phillips mastered foreign languages with ease
and was widely read. He published various philo-
logical papers and was one of the most active of
American contributors of readings for the Ox-
ford Dictionary. At the request of L. L. Zamen-
hof, of Warsaw, inventor of Esperanto, he trans-
lated that author's Attempt towards an Interna-
tional Language (1889) and supplied an Eng-
lish-Esperanto vocabulary. In 1877 he was one
of a committee of three appointed by the Ameri-
can Philosophical Society to examine into the
scientific value of Volapiik. He was also inter-
ested in folk-lore, serving for a time as treasurer
of the American Folk-Lore Society, and was the
author of a number of papers on the subject. His
facility as a linguist was applied to translations
of European poetry, including among others the
Faust of Adalbert von Chamisso (1881), Span-
ish poems by Fra Luis Ponce de Leon (1883),
and selections from the works of Alexander
Petofi and Hermann Rollett In 1887 he trans-
lated Antonio Gazzaletti's La P atria deW Itdiano
and in 1892 a finely printed volume of German
lyrics. He also published articles on Amer-
ican archeology. These scholarly achievements
brought him recognition both at home and
abroad. In 1862 he was made treasurer and in
1868 secretary, of the Numismatic and An-
tiquarian Society of Philadelphia. He became a
member of the American Philosophical Society
as its curator in 1880, one of
84, and from 1885 until his
of the society. From 1892 to
Phillips
suffered during his last ten years from heredi-
tary gout, which induced arteriosclerosis. In
the winter of 1894-95 he was ordered south for
his health and on June 6, 1895, died of uremic
poisoning. He was never married.
[See: A. H. Smyth, "Obit Notice of Henry Phillips,
Jr.," Proc. Am. Phil. Soc. . . . Memorial Vol. I (1900) ;
J. L. Chamberlain, Universities and Their Sons: Univ.
of Pa,., vol. II (1902) ; The Jewish Encyc.; the Press
(Phila.), June 8, 1895.] J.C.R
PHILLIPS, JOHN (Dec. 27, i;i9-Apr. 21,
1795), founder of the Phillips Exeter Academy,
was the second son of the Rev. Samuel and Han-
nah (White) Phillips, of Andover, Mass. Pre-
pared by his father, he entered Harvard College
before he was twelve, receiving four years later
the degree of MA. At graduation, in 1735, he
delivered the Latin salutatory oration. For some
months he taught school, studying theology and
medicine, and settling in Exeter as a teacher at
least as early as 1740. Although he made some
attempts at preaching, he turned ultimately to
business and carried on a country store. On
Aug. 4, 1743, he married Sarah (Emery) Gil-
man, a widow some years older than himself,
whose first husband, Nathaniel Oilman, of Exe-
ter, had left her more than eight thousand
pounds. Enterprising and thrifty, Phillips soon
accumulated a large property, chiefly through
speculation in real estate and the lending of
money at high rates of interest. Mrs. Phillips
died, Oct. 9, 1765, and on Nov. 3, 1767, he was
married to the widow of Dr. Eliphalet Hale, the
local physician. He had no children.
Phillips was interested in town and state af-
fairs and held several offices, among them that
of moderator of town meeting in 1778 and 1779.
He served for three years in the General Court
(1771-73) and was colonel of the Exeter Cadets.
His chief claim to distinction, however, rests
upon his philanthropies. He made liberal gifts
to Dartmouth College, including a professorship
of Biblical history and literature, and he became
in 1773 a trustee. In 1781, shortly after the
founding of Phillips Academy, Andover, he cor-
responded with his nephew, Samuel Phillips
[g.z>.], regarding the establishment of a similar
school in Exeter. The act of incorporation for
the new institution, to be called the Phillips Exe-
ter Academy, was dated Apr. 3, 1781, but the
school was not opened until 1783. In drafting
this constitution, John Phillips, who was the
chief contributor to the endowment, followed in
general the ideas and phrasing of the Andover
"deed of gift/' but reserved to himself much
power that, in the Andover plan, had been dele-
gated to the trustees. He contributed approxi-
mately $30,000 to the establishment and develop-
Phillips
ment of Phillips Academy, Andover, and gav
much of his remaining fortune to the Phillip
Exeter Academy. He was the first president o
the Exeter board of trustees and was also ;
member of the Andover board, and its presiden
from 1791 to 1794.
Formal in his manners and austere by temper
ament, Phillips was thoroughly Puritanical ii
spirit and was frugal, conscientious, and reli
gious. The epitaph written for him by Principa
Pearson, of Andover, said of him : "Without nat-
ural issue, he made posterity his heir."
[G. E. Street, Hist. Sketch of John Phillips (1805)
A. M. Phillips, Phillips Gcncals. (1885) ; L. M. Crosbie
The Phillips Exeter Academy: A Hist. (1923) ; J. G
Hoyt, "The Phillips Family and Phillips Exeter Acad-
emy," North Am. Rev., July 1858; C. M. Fuess, An
Old New England School (1917).] CMF
PHILLIPS, PHILIP (Aug. 13, i834-June 25;
1895), singing evangelist, composer of sacred
music, was born in Cassaclaga, N. Y., the son oi
Sawyer and Jane Parker Phillips. When he was
nine his mother died and a few years later he left
home to attend a country school, working on a
neighbor's farm to pay for his living. His early
interest in music was encourag'ed by his em-
ployer who bought him a melocleon, for which
Phillips paid in labor. He learned to play the in-
strument and to sing and before he was twenty
he had organized a singing school of his own in
Allegany, N. Y. He built up a small trade in
music and instruments by taking his melodeon to
the house of a prosperous farmer, where he would
play and sing to the members of the household.
Later he went into business with D. J. Cook of
Fredonia, N. Y. On a business trip to Ohio,
when he visited various towns, organized sing-
ing schools, and sold his goods, he met Ollie M.
Clarke, of Marion, whom he married on Sept.
27, 1860. He had been converted to the Baptist
faith, but after his marriage he joined the Meth-
odist church. After living in Marion for two
years he moved to Cincinnati to join the music
firm of William Sumner & Company. Within the
next year or two the firm became Philip Phillips
& Company. The "singing pilgrim," as he was
called, used the same advertising technique in
the cities as he had in the country. He would
place his melodeon at the most conspicuous cor-
ner, play and sing for passersby, and sell them
his wares.
About 1860 Phillips published his first sacred-
song collection, Early Blossoms. It was followed
some two years later by Musical Leaves, of
which several hundred thousand copies were
sold. During the Civil War Phillips held song-
services in the principal Northern cities, in con-
nection with the Christian Commission, the cli-
542
Phillips
max of which was a meeting ^ in Washington,
D C, over which Seward presided. In 1866 he
published The Sine/ing Pilgrim, or Pilgrim's
Progress Illustrated in Song. The following
year he moved to New York City where he be-
came the musical editor of the Methodist Book
Concern. He published his New liymn and Tune
Book (1867) and in 1868, as the culmination of
a series of song services in England, his Ameri-
can Sacred Songster, of which more than a mil-
lion copies were sold. Many other works fol-
lowed, including The Gospel Singer (1874);
Song Ministry (1874); Gem Solos (1887);
Six* Song Serviees with Connective Readings
( 1802) ; 'and, in collaboration with his son, Phil-
ip Phillips, Jr., Our New Hymnal (1894). Al-
though his books represent a large output, they
were for the most part compilations of existing
hymns. The popularity of his sacred-song books
was aided by his song services. Of these he gave
more than 4,000 during his life, their returns de-
voted to charity. His most ambitious song-serv-
ice tour was that which in 1875 carried him to
the Sandwich Islands, Australia, New Zealand,
Palestine, Egypt, India, and Continental Europe.
Its experiences were embodied in his Song Pil-
grimage Round the World (1882). Phillips died
in Delaware, Ohio, at the age of sixty.
f Alexander Clark, Philip Phillips: The Story of ^
Life (1881)' J. II. Hall, Mag. of Gospel Song and
J/iiW Ww (1914) ; A. M. Phillips, PMMPS Gmofr.
(1885); Appktons* Ann, Cyc., 1895; Cincinnati £w-
quircr, June 26, 1895.] F.HH.
PHILLIPS, SAMUEL (Feb. 5, W-Feb. 10,
1802), founder of Phillips Academy, Andover,
was born in North Andover, Mass., the sixth
child of Samuel and Elizabeth (Barnard) Phil-
lips, and the sixth in direct descent from the Rev.
George Phillips, XS93~^44 [</•«'•], the first cler"
gyman of Watertown. At thirteen he entered
Dummer Academy at South Byfield, Mass.,
where he studied under the gifted but eccentric
Master William Moody. At Harvard College,
where he graduated in 1771, he was faithful and
painstaking rather than brilliant, with a tendency
toward morbid introspection. He was married,
on July 6, 1773, to Phoebe Foxcroft, youngest
daughter of the Hon. Francis Foxcroft, of ^ Cam-
bridge, by whom he had two children,
Phillips
nition. In 1777 he moved to the South Parish of
Andover, where, in 1782, he erected an imposing
mansion, which was his home until his death.
He was a delegate to the state constitutional con-
vention in 1779-80 and served in the state Sen-
ate, with the exception of one year, from 1780
until 1801. In 1785 he was chosen to succeed
Samuel Adams as president of the Senate. He
was appointed in 1781 as justice of the court of
common pleas for Essex County and was there-
after usually known, as Judge Phillips.
At least as early as 1776, Phillips began to
plan for a new type of school and induced his fa-
ther, whose fortune he did not inherit until 1790,
and his uncle, John Phillips [#.#.], of Exeter, to
be his financial backers. In 1777 he purchased in
their names a sufficient tract of land and after
consultation with his friend, Eliphalet Pearson
[#.£>.], he drafted a "deed of gift," or constitu-
tion, which was one of the significant documents
in the history of American education. It provid-
ed for the establishment of an endowed academy,
controlled by a board of trustees, the majority
of whom should be laymen. It explicitly stated
that the "first and principal object" of the insti-
tution was to be "the promotion of true Piety
and Virtue," and that the teachers should point
out to their pupils "the great end and real busi-
ness of living." In thus emphasizing the impor-
tance of character, Phillips was undoubtedly in-
fluenced by John Locke and the English non-
conformist academies. He himself was strongly
Calvinistic in his theology.
Phillips Academy was the earliest of the en-
dowed academies which, until the public high
school began to develop about fifty years later,
had such great influence on American educa-
tion. It was opened, Apr. 30, 1778, with thir-
teen pupils, under Eliphalet Pearson as princi-
pal. Phillips was a member of the original board
of trustees and later, in 1796, became its presi-
dent, devoting much of his time to its affairs.
He had previously enjoyed the friendship of
George Washington, who visited him at Ando-
ver in 1789 and who sent to Phillips Academy
one nephew and eight grand-nephews. Phillips
was tall and dignified, and rather unbending- in
his manner. Extraordinarily industrious, he be-
his father. Phillips Brooks
ant. t
Settling in North Andover, Phillips was elect-
;re of gold . Mtkmgh he was
even-tempered, he had little sense of humor and
Settling in North Andover, Phillips was elect- ^™J^ ew Sver ions. He was a
ed in 1775 as delegate to the Provincial Congress. J™^™ JJ^ and aiiberal donor
At the outbreak of the Revolution he hastily con- stanch supporter 01 in astfama in
eu in A//O &a uot^auc IA/ WAV * *"*»«-««• — - «
At the outbreak of the Revolution he hastily con-
structed a powder-mill on the Shawsheen River
and after some prolonged experimentation was
able to supply the American armies with ammu-
sa
to benevolent projects. Afflicted with
his later years, he sought to improve
by travel, but in vain. He was elected « 1801
543
Phillips
as lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts on the
Federalist ticket but died shortly after his inaugu-
ration and was buried, with public ceremonies,
in the cemetery of the South Church, in Andover.
He left in his will generous bequests, not only to
Phillips Academy, but also for other philan-
thropic purposes ; and his name is still perpetu-
ated in various memorial funds and in the chief
recitation hall at Phillips Academy.
{.Biog. Cat. of . . . Phillips Academy, Andover (1903) ;
J. L. Taylor, A Memoir of His Honor f Samuel Phillips,
LL.D. (1856); A. M. Phillips, Phillips Gcncals.
(1885) ; C. M. Fuess, An Old New England School
(1917) ; manuscript collections owned by Phillips Acad-
emy, Andover.] C. M, F.
PHILLIPS, THOMAS WHARTON (Feb.
23, i835-July 21, 1912), oil producer, congress-
man, religious writer, and philanthropist, was
born on a farm near Mount Jackson, Lawrence
County, Pa., the son of Ephraim and Ann (New-
ton) Phillips. He was a descendant of the Rev.
George Phillips [#.^.] who came to Massachu-
setts in 1630 and was one of the founders of Wa-
tertown. Ephraim Phillips died when Thomas
was less than a year old, leaving the mother to
struggle with the problem of rearing her eight
children on the one-hundred acre farm. Poverty
constrained her to limit Thomas' formal school-
ing to that provided by the district schools but
he supplemented his meager opportunities by
earnest study and wide reading. His ambition
was to obtain a college education and enter the
ministry. He made preliminary preparation to
that end and preached frequently in his early
manhood, but the uncertainty of his health dic-
tated the adoption of a more active outdoor life.
He was attracted to the new petroleum indus-
try, and after unsuccessful efforts to produce oil
in Lawrence County, went in 1861 to Oil Creek,
where Col. Edwin L. Drake \_q.vJ\ had driven
the first successful well two years before. Here,
with his three brothers, he engaged in oil pro-
duction. The firm at first met with great suc-
cess and the brothers disbursed their profits gen-
erously in religious and philanthropic benefac-
tions, but the panic of 1873, together with the
discovery of new oil fields and the consequent
fall in the price of oil, made a dramatic change
from prosperity to adversity in their fortunes.
The payment of their indebtedness, with interest,
absorbed the next fourteen years of Phillips'
life. In 1887 he was made president of the Pro-
ducers' Protective Association, a secret organi-
zation of some two thousand oil men in thirty-
six local assemblies organized primarily to com-
bat the Standard Oil combination ; he was at this
time one of the largest individual producers in
the oil country. When in 1888 the Association
Phillips
made an agreement with the Standard Oil Com
pany to reduce production, Phillips insisted as ;
prerequisite to his assent that t^o million bar
rels of oil be set aside for the benefit of the drill
ers who would be thrown out of employment b1
the shutdown. At the time of his death the T. W
Phillips Gas & Oil Company, of which he wa
president, owned 850 gas and oil wells, 900 mile
of gas lines, and valuable leaseholds of gas an<
oil lands in Pennsylvania.
Phillips' political career began through his as
sociation with James A. Garfield as close per
sonal friend, confidant, and political adviser
When Garfield was nominated for the president
in 1880, Phillips dropped all business and devotee
his entire time to the canvass. It was at his sug
gestion and with his assistance as author anc
financial backer that during this campaign th<
first Republican Campaign Text Book was pub
lished. He was defeated as a candidate for Con
gress in 1890 but was successful in 1892 and was
reflected in 1894. He voluntarily retired at th<
close of his second term. While in Congress ht
had formulated plans for the appointment of ai
Industrial Commission "to investigate questions
pertaining to immigration, to labor, to agricul-
ture, to manufacturing, and to business," but th(
act authorizing its creation was not passed unti
1898. President McKinley appointed him a mem-
ber of the Commission and he had an importanl
part in the preparation of its nineteen volumes
of reports, which appeared in 1900-02. This
service entailed four years of the hardest worl
of his laborious life. The adequacy of the inves-
tigation as well as the constructive character oJ
the conclusions and recommendations presentee
was perhaps due more to his efforts than to those
of any other one man. The Bureau of Corpora-
tions was a direct result of this investigation,
and the federal departments of labor and com-
merce carry forward the investigations which
Phillips' inventive mind conceived and initiated,
In the midst of his business and political activ-
itives, Phillips found time to continue his reli-
gious study and writing. In 1866 he was instru-
mental in forming the Christian Publishing As-
sociation for the purpose of issuing a weekly
journal, the Christian Standard. To this paper,
which soon made a name for itself under the edi-
torship of Isaac Errett [gw.], he was a friend
and contributor during the rest of his life. In
1905, in the seventieth year of his age, he pub-
lished The Church of Christ, an exposition of
the principles of the Disciples of Christ He
gave liberal financial support to Bethany and
Hiram colleges, and was the virtual founder of
Oklahoma Christian University, renamed Phil-
544
Phillips
lips University after he died. His name was also
given to Phillips Bible Institute, Canton, Ohio,
opened after his death. He established minis-
terial loan funds at Bethany and Hiram colleges
and at Drake, Phillips, and Eugene Bible univer-
sities. For many years he supported a mission-
ary in the Northwest, and the local, state, and
national Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A. had cause
to remember him gratefully as a generous friend.
Death found him at New Castle, Lawrence Coun-
ty, Pa., busily engaged in writing an article on
the Resurrection.
Phillips married, in 1862, Clarinda, daughter
of David and Nancy Rebecca ( Arter) Hardman.
She died in 1866, and in 1870 he married her
younger sister, Pamphila, who survived him.
To the first marriage two sons were born, and
to the second, three sons and a daughter.
[Bioflr. sketch by T. W, Phillips, Jr., m T. W. -Phil-
lips The Church of Christ (xsth ed, 191$); Who s
Who in America, 1910-11; Biog. Dir. Am, Cong.
(1028) • I M. Tarbell, The Hist of the Standard Oil
Co (1004), II, 158 ff. ; "Supplementary Statement of
Thomas W. Phillips," in Final Report; of the Industrial
Commission, Vol. XIX of the Commission's Reports
(1002) pp. 652-85 j Pittsburg Dispatch, July 22, igiz.l
C.E.P.
PHILLIPS, WALTER POLK (June 14,
i846-Jan. 31, 1920), telegrapher, journalist, the
son of Andrew Smith and Roxena Minerva
(Drake) Phillips, was born on a farm near
Grafton, Mass,, to which town his parents re-
moved when he was eleven years of age. As
a boy he became a messenger for the telegraph
at Providence and, being permitted to practise at
the key, quickly made himself proficient in the
art His rapidity and precision in taking mes-
sages by sound won him first place in a speed
contest, in recognition of which Samuel F. B.
Morse presented him with a testimonial gold
pencil. Attracted to journalism, in 1867 he com-
menced to devote his nights to reporting for the
Providence Journal and, the following year, be-
came city editor, then managing editor, of the
Providence Herald. In 1871 he was a reporter on
the New York Sun. At intervals, however, he re-
turned to telegraphy. For a time he was a fellow
operator with Edison in Boston ; during the win-
Phillips
became the associate editor of the Electrician,
then the leading trade journal. His stories,
sketches, and paragraphs, which had been signed
"John Oakum," were issued as a little book in
1876, Oakum Pickings, and were republished in
part twenty years later as Sketches, Old cmd
New, with some additions, including an essay,
"From Franklin to Edison/' He also was the
author of My Debut in Journalism (1892) , a vol-
ume of newspaper-office tales.
When the original United Press emerged with
apparent suddenness into the arena of news-
gathering in the early eighties and began to
challenge the entrenched Associated Press, Phil-
lips was the managerial head of the former. He
had recently scored brilliantly as the Washing-
ton representative of tlie New York Associated
Press through the Hayes administration, from
which position he had been called to help perfect
the opposition association for papers arbitrarily
excluded from the long-established news source.
Such was his exceptional organizing ability and
grasp of the telegraph situation that, within a
short time, by utilizing the independent wires
and by making alliances with news agencies
abroad operating in rivalry to those supplying
the Associated Press, he was delivering regular
reports to nearly one hundred dailies on a far-
flung network of leased lines. A little later he
had obtained a secret arrangement for pooling
with the Associated Press and was carrying on
an extensive and lucrative sale of exclusive fran-
chises to receive the service. In 1892-93, the
United Press under Phillips' management ab-
sorbed the New York Associated Press and had
practically concluded negotiations for a huge
merger with the Western Associated Press pa-
pers when irreconcilable disagreements arose
over division of territory and matters of control.
In the great "War of the News Giants" which
followed (1893-97), Phillips was the field mar-
shal for the United Press forces. Success seemed
near when he annexed the Southern Associated
Press and again when he won over the New
England Associated Press, but the endurance
and persistence of the new Associated Press
' -' United Press, The col-
ithc
eijrni experts cnvscu uu AUUJU mO nrst leasea preoo u _
wire, which was installed in 1875, connecting
New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Wash-
ington. He devised a code for news transmis-
sion, "The Phillips Telegraphic Code" (1879), j~~- - ^UC11_ _
and a system for facilitating delivery of de- ^J^^aJControlh&^s active ___
graphic copy more fully punctuated and better ™^ Spanish-American War. He was
edited. Interested in telegraphy and Journalism, period ot «* P rf ^ ^ qrf) o{
he contributed regularly to the Telegrapher and one ot tne eariy
5*5.
as general
Press, Hifflips was prom-
with ^Columbia Grapho-
an ^cutive officer for fif-
American Red Cross, in
Phillips
New York City. Although large and rotund of
form, he became an enthusiastic bicycler and his
Songs of the Wheel, mostly humorous in tone,
which he gathered together in his zeal for the
sport, was published in 1897. In this volume he
inserted some rhymes of his own set to music,
notably "The Stout Man's Conquest." Depressed
by the loss successively of his wife, Francena
Adelaide Capron, and his son, he spent his clos-
ing years in Bridgeport, Conn., and at Vineyard
Haven, Mass., where he died.
[In addition to Phillips' works see : Jas. D. Reid, The
Telegraph in America (1879) J Victor Rosewater, Hist.
of Cooperative News- Gathering in the U. S. (1930) ;
A. M, Phillips, Phillips Centals. (1885) ; N. Y. Times,
Feb. i, 1920.] V.R.
PHILLIPS, WENDELL (Nov. 29, 1811-
Feb. 2, 1884), orator and reformer, was the
eighth child and fifth son of John and Sarah
(Walley) Phillips, and traced his ancestry back
to Rev. George Phillips [g.1^.], who landed at
Salem on the Arbella in June 1630. He inherit-
ed not only a superb physique and family tradi-
tions of a high order, but also ample wealth and
an excellent social standing in Boston. At the
Boston Latin School, to which he was sent in
1822, he won distinction in declamation; and
later, at Harvard, where he graduated in the
class of 1831, he showed ability as a debater and
a student of history. He was obviously a patri-
cian, animated by chivalric ideals and a spirit of
noblesse 'oblige. After three years at the Har-
vard Law School, he was admitted to the Suffolk
County bar and at once opened an office in Bos-
ton. Although he was never enthusiastic about
his profession, he was able during his first two
years of practice to pay his expenses, and he
later enjoyed a fair clientage. He married, Oct.
12, 1837, Ann Terry Greene, orphan daughter of
Benjamin Greene, a wealthy Boston merchant.
She soon became a nervous invalid, confined usu-
ally to her room and often to her bed, but their
domestic life was very happy. They had no chil-
dren.
Even before his marriage, Phillips had become
identified with the anti-slavery movement, and
his wife encouraged him in his abolitionist views.
On Mar. 26, 1837, at a meeting of the Massachu-
setts Anti-Slavery Society in Lynn, he spoke
for twenty minutes announcing his allegiance to
the cause, but he at first took no part in the work
of the organization. His real opportunity pre-
sented itself on Dec. 8, 1837, at a public meeting
held in Faneuil Hall to protest against the mur-
der of Elijah P. Lovejoy [#.#.], the abolitionist
editor, at Alton, III Phillips listened in the au-
dience while James T. Austin [<g.u], attorney
general of the commonwealth, compared the as-
Phillips
sassins of Love joy to the Revolutionary patri
then, urged by friends, he responded with a
ring indictment of the outrage. His person;
and passionate eloquence caught the imag
tions of the audience, and his impromptu add
was received with cheers. Thus, at the ag
twenty-six, he took his place in the front i
of the leaders of the anti-slavery protest.
Possessing an adequate private income w!
made it unnecessary for him to rely on his
fession, he now became a lecturer on the lye
platform, speaking mainly on the slavery q
tion. His relatives thought him fanatical,
his wife's encouragement counteracted theii
fluence. His ability and family prestige, as
as his charm and persuasive power, made
invaluable as a champion. Broadly speaking
followed William Lloyd Garrison [#;z/.] in
refusal to link abolitionism with the prograr
any political party and like Garrison he <
demned the Constitution of the United St
because of its compromise with the slave po1
but he was never a non-resistant, and he
Garrison occasionally differed on this p<
Phillips contributed frequently to Garris
Liberator and, in 1840, went to London <
delegate from Massachusetts to the World's A
Slavery Convention, where he supported (
rison in the latter's insistence that wo
should have the same rights on the floor as r
On Oct. 30, 1842, speaking in Faneuil Hal
the fugitive-slave issue, he said, "My c\
be on the Constitution of these United Sta
(Sears, post, p. 102), As time went on, he
came more denunciatory in his language, ar<
ing such hostility that on several occasion*
was almost mobbed. He opposed the acquisi
of Texas and the war with Mexico j and he <
demned Webster bitterly for his "Seventt
March" speech, in 1850. Ultimately Phillips,
Garrison, demanded the division of the Un
During the Civil War, he was frequently a
vere critic of the Lincoln administration, but
Emancipation Proclamation met with his
proval as marking a victory for freedom. W]
in 1865, Garrison urged the dissolution of
American Anti- Slavery Society, Phillips i
cessfully maintained that It should not be
banded, and was himself chosen president.
Regarding his mission as one of educat
he devoted himself after the Civil War to ac
eating- other moral causes, including prohibit
a reform in penal methods, concessions to
Indians, votes for women, and the labor me
ment He was nominated in 1870 by the La
Reform Party and the Prohibitionists for
governorship of Massachusetts and polled 20,
546
Phillips
votes; the following year he presided over the
Labor Reform convention at Worcester and drew
up its platform, which contained these words:
"We affirm . . . that labor, the creator of wealth,
is entitled to all it creates . . , we avow ourselves
willing to accept ... the overthrow of the whole
profit-making system We declare war with
the wages system . . . with the present system of
finance" (The Labor Question, 1884, p. 4; Aus-
tin, post, p- 264). In this same year (1871) he
supported Gen. B. F. Butler \_q.v.1 for the gov-
ernorship. His denunciation of the moneyed
corporations and his urging that the laboring
class organize to further its own interests were
regarded by some of his contemporaries as mark-
ing aberrations of a noble mind. Actually he
seems to have had an unusually clear perception
of national trends, but he was even further ahead
of his time in his labor agitation than he had
been when he championed abolition in 1837. In
his seventieth year, he delivered the Phi Beta
Kappa Centennial Oration at Harvard College,
and showed himself to be still uncompromising
by denouncing the timidity of academic conserv-
atives. His last public address was delivered at
the unveiling of a statue of Harriet Martineau
on Dec. 26, 1883. He died after a week's suffer-
ing from angina pectoris, and after lying in state
in Faneuil Hall his body was interred in the
Granary Burying Ground.
Phillips was an aristocratic-looking man, with
a rich, persuasive voice and a graceful, self-as-
sured manner. Although famous as an orator,
he was seldom rhetorical, and he was amazingly
free from verbosity and pomposity. His subjects
were many, among the most popular being "The
Lost Arts," on which he spoke more than two
thousand times ; "Street Life in Europe" ; "Dan-
iel O'Connell"; "The Scholar in a Republic' ;
and "Toussaint L'Ouverture." He spoke before
all kinds of audiences, large and small, sympa-
thetic and hostile, and, in his prime, he seemed
untiring. An omnivorous reader and a thorough
scholar, he knew how to impart his knowledge
in an easy and appealing way. His mission was
that of an agitator, aiming to stir his country-
men to eliminate the evils in their midst. Like
all extremists, he was frequently sharp of tongue
and unfair to his opponents, but he was cour-
ageous, self -sacrificing, magnanimous, and lofty
in his ideals, and has been rightly called the
"Knight-Errant of unfriended Truth."
[Two volumes of Phillips' Speeches, t
Letters were published, the first in 1 863 and the second,
after his death, in 1891. The best biographies are Lo-
renzo Sears, Wendell Phillips (1909) j G. L. Atistin,7|?
Ufe and Times of Wendell Phillips (1884) ; and C. E.
Russell, The Story of Wendell PMkps (1914)- See
also T. W. Higginson, Contemporaries (1900), reprint-
Phillips
ing a paper first published in the Nation (N. Y.), Feb.
7, 1884; G. E. Woodberry, "Wendell Phillips," in his
Heart of Man and Other Papers (1920) ; and Carlos
Martyn, Wendell Phillips (1890).] C.M.F.
PHILLIPS, WILLARD (Dec. 19, 1784-Sept.
9; 1873), lawyer, author, was born in Bridge-
water, Mass., and spent his early years in Hamp-
shire County, where he received a common-
school education. His father, Joseph, was a de-
scendant of John Phillips who settled in Dux-
bury, Mass., before 1640 ; his mother was per-
haps the Hannah Egerton whose marriage to a
Joseph Phillips in 1784 is recorded in the Vital
Records of Bridgewater, Mass., to the Year
1850 (1916,11,296). Willard graduated as vale-
dictorian from the Bridgewater Academy and
at eighteen became a teacher. Meanwhile, he
prepared for college and in 1806 was admitted
at Harvard, where he graduated with high rank
in 1810. From 1811 to 1815 he was a tutor there
and concurrently studied law with William Sul-
livan. He records in his diary for this period:
"I very much regret having lost so much of my
life both in regard to improvement and enjoy-
ment. For this I am indebted to my excessive
passions and appetites." He resolved to lead an
abstemious life and "not to yield to the impor-
tunities of my hosts/' In politics he believed that
"the general spirit and principles" of the Fed-
eralists were good, but urged the disbanding of
the party as a step toward placating partisan
strife and arriving at a condition where individ-
ual merit would count for more. He had a taste
for writing which led him into an editorial con-
nection with the General Repository and Review,
the North American Review, and the American
Jurist. In 1818 he began to practise law in Bos-
ton. During 1825-26 he was a member of the
legislature. Together with Theophilus Parsons
[q.v."] he bought the New-England Galaxy in
November 1828, and its publication continued
for six years thereafter. He was chairman of a
commission to codify the criminal law of Massa-
chusetts (1837-42), but the commission's report
was not adopted. In 1839 he was appointed pro-
bate judge for Suffolk County, resigning in 1847
to accept the presidency of the New England
Mutual Life Insurance Company. This post he
held until he had reached an advanced age.^He
was honored with membership in the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences.
From youth Phillips confided to a voluminous
set of notebooks his reflections on what he read,
from Weems's life of Washington to Coke's
commentary on Littleton. He thought Adam
Smith's Wealth of Nations "remarkably pro-
found and ingenious." Later, he became a zealot
for protective tariffs, and defended &e faffi m
547
Phillips
his Manual of Political Economy (1828) and a
catechism of protective orthodoxy entitled Prop-
ositions Concerning Protection and Free Trade
(1850). He also published A Treatise on the
Law of Insurance in two volumes, which ap-
peared in 1823 and 1834 respectively. This work
ran through five editions. In 1837 he published
a little book called The Inventor's Guide, and
also The Law of Patents for Inventions. His
declining years were spent in the enjoyment of
his friends and books at his home in Cambridge,
where he died without symptoms of any acute
disease. He was married in 1833 to Hannah
Brackett Hill, daughter of Aaron Hill of Bos-
ton ; she died three or four years later, and sub-
sequently he married her sister Harriet.
[A. M. Phillips, Phillips Gencals. (1885) ; Proc. Am.
Acad. Arts and Sciences, vol. IX (1874) ; W. T. Davis,
Professional and Industrial Hist, of Suffolk County,
Mass. (1894), vol. I; John Livingston, Portraits of
Eminent Americans, vol. I (1853) } Boston Daily Globe,
Sept. ri, 1873; collection of Phillips' early MSS. in
the Harvard Coll. Lib.] Qjrg
PHILLIPS, WILLIAM (Mar. 30, 1750 o.s.-
May 26, 1827), merchant and philanthropist,
lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts, was the
only son of William Phillips (1722-1804), a
brother of John Phillips [#.z/.], and of Abigail
(Bromfield) Phillips, of Boston. He was sent to
the Boston Latin School, but the feebleness of
his constitution, especially a weakness of the
eyes, repeatedly interrupted his education. He
early entered business with his father, who was
a prosperous merchant. In 1773 he made an ex-
tended tour of Great Britain, Holland, and
France, returning in December of that year on
one of the "tea ships." He married, Sept. 13,
1774, Miriam Mason, third daughter of Jona-
than Mason of Boston, and they had seven chil-
dren. At the outbreak of the Revolution, he re-
moved his family to Norwich, Conn., but he him-
self labored assiduously for the colonial cause.
At the death of his father in 1804, he inherited a
large fortune. In the same year he became presi-
dent of the Massachusetts Bank. In 1805, he
was elected to the Massachusetts General Court
and served until 1812, when he was chosen as
lieutenant-governor on the Federalist ticket, with
Caleb Strong as governor. To this office he was
reflected for eleven successive terms. In 1816
and 1820, he was a presidential elector at large.
At the election of delegates to the state consti-
tutional convention of 1820, he received the lar-
gest vote of any of the Boston candidates; and
it was he who called the convention to order
on Nov. 15, 1820, in the Hall of Representatives.
His political career ended in 1823, with a term
in the Massachusetts Senate.
Phillips
Phillips was one of the most generous ben
factors of his time. Elected in 1791 a trustee
Phillips Academy, Andover, founded by I
cousin Samuel Phillips [#.?/.], he was made pre
ident of the board in 1821, being the fifth of t
family to hold that office. From 1812 to 18:
he supplied the sum of $500 annually for the su
port of needy students in that school, and
1818 gave more than $5,000 towards the erecti<
of a new brick academy building. It was sa
that over a period of years he devoted fro
$8,000 to $11,000 annually to charitable pu
poses, and his bequests in his will totaled $6;
ooo, including $15,000 to Phillips Academy ai
$10,000 to Andover Theological Seminary. I
was an original incorporate*!" of the Americ;
Board of Foreign Missions, and was preside
of the American Bible Society, the Massach
setts General Hospital, the American Educatit
Society, the Society for Propagating the Gosp<
and many other charitable or philanthropic o
ganizatkms. He was a member of the O
South Church, being one of the deacons fro
1794 until his death.
Phillips was a man of domestic tastes, fond <
retirement and averse to publicity. He w;
sound in his judgments, independent in his opi]
ions, and devoted to duty. His conservatism at
caution inspired and helcl the confidence -
others. His portrait, by Gilbert Stuart, own*
by Phillips Academy, shows a man much r
sembling George Washington in features ar
bearing.
[H. A. Hill, William Phillips and William Phillip
Father and Son, 1722-1827 (repr. from Ncw-Eng. Hit
and GencaL Rcg.t Apr. 1885) ; B. B. Wisner, A Scrmi
Occasioned by the Death of the Hon. William Philli,
(1827) ; Biop. Cat. of . . , Phillips Academy, Andovc
1778-1830 (1903); C. M. Fuess, An Old New En,
land School (1917) ; Columbian Ccntinel (Boston
May 30, 1827-] CM.F.
PHILLIPS, WILLIAM ADDISON (Ja;
14, i824-Nov. 30, 1893), soldier, congressma
from Kansas, author, was born at Paisley, Sco
land, the son of John Phillips. He emigrate
with his parents to the United States about 18;=
and settled in Randolph County in southern 111
nois, where he was reared in the strictest tene
of Presbyterianism. He went to the local schoo
and acquired some training in Latin and math<
matics. He became editor of a newspaper <
Chester, 111., studied law, and was admitted 1
the bar. In 1855 he went to Kansas as a sped;
correspondent of the New York Tribune an
became conspicuous as a radical anti-slaver
journalist and politician. He wrote The Cot
quest of Kansas by Missouri and her AlUt
(1856) in the interest of Fremont's candidac
for president. He was a participant in many c
548
Phillips
the important political gatherings in Kansas
Territory and became a member of the state leg-
islature. In 1858 he and four associates founded
the town of Salina. In 1859 he married Carrie
Spillman, who died in 1883. They had four chil-
dren. At the outbreak of the Civil War he be-
came an officer in the Union Army, winning
prominence as a commander of Indian troops in
Indian Territory and Arkansas. He was mus-
tered out as colonel of the 3rd Indian Regiment
on June 10, 1865.
After the Civil War he returned to law and
politics. While most of the anti-slavery radicals
became conservatives, he merely transferred his
radicalism to economic issues. His economic
theories were given formal statement in a book
called Labor, Land and Law; a Search for the
Missing Wealth of the Working People (1886).
Repudiating Henry George's single tax, he pre-
sented a program including: a graduated land
tax for the purpose of reducing the size of hold-
ings, preservation of public timber and reforesta-
tion Vf cut-over land, lease of grazing rights on
public domain in tracts large enough to support
a family, reservation in the public interest of
subsoil rights to minerals, postal-savings banks
through which the government might borrow
from its people in national emergencies, organi-
zation of all labor, graduated taxation of large
fortunes and inheritances, and regulation of pub-
lic utilities. He was elected to Congress from
Kansas in 1872, 1874, and 1876, and while there
he was interested chiefly in land legislation, pos-
tal-savings banks, postal telegraphy, green-
backs, and silver. He was a Republican in poli-
tics, and, when he found it necessary to choose
between his party and his principles, he support-
ed the party. On questions that were not parti-
san issues he was independent His Civil War
experiences resulted in close association with
problems relating to Indians, especially the Cher-
okee After his retirement from Congress he be-
came attorney for the Cherokee and engaged in
law practice in Washington, D, C. In 1890 he
was again nominated for Congress but was de-
feated by the candidate of the People's party.
He wrote voluminously, fiction, verse, and es-
says, as well as economic and political discus-
sions. From 1885 to 1887 he published several
articles in the North American Review (Nov.
,oos July Sept 1886, AUF 1887). However,
Phinizy
bell, Jr., Salina, Kan. ; Cherokee material in the Lib. of
the Univ. of Okla.; Kan. Hist. Soc. Colls., vol. V
(1896); Biog. Directory Am. Cong. (1928); A. H.
Abel, The Am. Indian . . . in the Civil War (1919) and
The Am. Indian under Reconstruction (1925) ; Wiley
Britton, Memoirs of the Rebellion on the Border
(1882), The Civil War on the Border (2 vols., 1890-
99), and The Union Indian Brigade (1922) ; Daily Re-
publican (Salina, Kan.), Dec. i, 1893.] J. C. M.
PHINIZY, FERDINAND (Jan. 20, 1819-
Oct. 20, 1889), cotton merchant, financier, was
of Italian ancestry on his father's side, Ms grand-
father, Ferdinand, having come to America dur-
ing the latter part of the eighteenth century. He
was the eldest son of Jacob and Matilda (Stew-
art) Phinizy and was born at Bowling Green
(now Stephens), Oglethorpe County, Ga. After
attending the county schools he entered the Uni-
versity of Georgia, at Athens, whither his fam-
ily had moved. Here he was graduated with hon-
ors in 1838. For the next few years he managed
the family plantation at Bowling Green, but his
business enterprise and sagacity soon led him into
a venture of his own. He secured the contract for
grading the first eleven miles of the new Geor-
gia Railroad, leading out of Athens to Augusta.
With the profits from this work, he entered the
cotton trade in Augusta, setting up first with his
classmate Edward P. Clayton under the firm
name of Phinizy & Clayton. When by mutual
agreement this partnership was dissolved, he or-
ganized with two of his kinsmen the firm of -F.
Phinizy & Company. His business ability was
evident from the first, and before the outbreak
of the Civil War he had amassed a fortune. In
the struggle that followed, he did not enlist in the
Confederate army, but instead became a fiscal
agent of the Confederate government, and in the
course of the four years of the war collected vast
amounts of cotton which was run through the
Federal blockade. He also marketed many Con-
federate bonds.
The war levied heavily upon his fortune, but
he was able to regain his financial position and
at his death handed down an estate estimated to
be worth $1,300,000. He rehabilitated his for-
tune largely through wise management of the
cotton trade and through sagacious investments.
He bought many railway stocks and bonds, and
at various times was a director of the Georgia
Railroad & Banking Company, the Augusta &
Savannah Railroad, the Atlanta & West Point
Railroad, the Northeastern Railroad of ^Georgia
be identified.
He MS survived by hs ieco»l
ttr md
force
Phipps
est In his former slaves, moving one couple to
Athens, where he cared for them throughout
their lives. Being emphatically a business man,
he had no political ambition. Though he did
not belong to a church until late in life, when he
joined the Methodists, he was always interest-
ed in religious affairs and often entertained in
his home visiting Methodist bishops and other
churchmen. His religious tastes were simple —
almost primitive — and in the rural churches he
found his greatest delight He was much op-
posed to instrumental music in the churches, and
his support of certain congregations was based
on their agreement to refrain from introducing
it. In 1849 he married Harriet H. Bowdre, of
Augusta, and to this union were born eight chil-
dren. His wife died Feb. 7, 1863, and on Aug.
II, 1865, he married Anne S. Barrett, of Au-
gusta; of this union three children were born.
He made Athens his home after the Civil War,
and there he died.
[F. P. Callioun, The Phinizy Family in America
(1925) ; W. J. Northen, Men of Mark in Ga., vol. Ill
(1911); A. L. Hull, Annals of Athens, 1801-1901
(1906) ; In Memoriam: Ferdinand Phinisy (Augusta,
1890) ; Athens Weekly Banner, Oct. 29, 1889; Athens
Weekly Chronicle, Oct. 26, 1889; Atlanta Constitution,
Oct. 21, 1889.] E.M.C.
PHIPPS, HENRY (Sept. 27, i839~Sept. 22,
1930), manufacturer, philanthropist, was born
in Philadelphia, the son of Henry and Hannah
Phipps, emigrants from England. In 1845 the
family moved to Allegheny City, Pa., where they
became next-door neighbors of the Carnegie
family. In his Autobiography, Andrew Carnegie
says that his mother often added $4.00 a week
to the family income by binding shoes for Henry
Phipps's father, who was a master shoemaker.
Henry's education in the public school was sup-
plemented by the influence of his mother, who
inspired in him a fondness for poetry. His first
regular employment, when he was thirteen years
old, was in a jewelry store ; then for a time he
worked for a news and merchandise dealer. At
seventeen he obtained work with Dilworth &
Bidwell, dealers in iron and spikes, the Pitts-
burgh agents of the DuPont powder mills. At
first he was office boy and clerk, and later book-
keeper, which position he held until 1861.
In 1859 he became a silent partner in the
firm of Kloman Brothers, manufacturers of
scales, and in 1861, borrowing $800, purchased
a one-sixth interest in the firm, which was re-
organized in 1863 as Kloman & Phipps ; he kept
the books and acquired practical experience with
iron forgings and the manufacturing of axles.
When the demand for their products created by
the Civil War had lessened, Kloman & Phipps
Phipps
found it expedient to join forces with Anc
Carnegie [(?.£',], and a company, the Union
Mills, was formed in 1867. From this time
they both retired in 1901, Phipps was an ;
ciate of Carnegie. He was naturally caui
and disliked change of any kind; moreovei
was content with his income from the iroi
dustry; nevertheless, in 1874, when Cam
foreseeing the importance of steel, formed
Edgar Thomson Steel Company, Ltd., foi
manufacture of steel exclusively, Phipps toe
interest. He was a partner in Carnegie Brol
& Company Ltd. (1881), in Carnegie, Phip
Company ( 1886) , and in the Carnegie Steel (
pany, Ltd., recorded in Pittsburgh in 1892 w
capital of $25,000,000, which embraced all o
possessions acquired since the days of the Klc
forge. During all this time, Phipps's cont
tion to the industry was the steering1 of a dis
financial course. The fact that his firm i
safely through the fluctuations of the post
iron trade, the establishment of the new
business, and the business depressions and
ics of the period is due in no small Dart t<
careful and accomplished management. Hij
contribution to the technical vsicle of steel n*
f acture was a measure of economy : recogn!
the value of the chemical expert, he was re?
sible for the discovery of a use for scale, hit!
a waste product
In 1899 Carnegie, wishing" to retire,
Phipps and Henry C, Frick [<?,*>,] an optic
his interest in the Carnegie Steel Company,
but even with the aid of W. H. Moore [<
Phipps and Frick were unable to raise the i
necessary to effect the purchase. In 1900
Carnegie Steel Company, Ltd., was reorgai
as the Carnegie Company, and a year later,
all its subsidiaries, passed into the hands o
United States Steel Corporation,
After his retirement Phipps devoted hii
to the utilization of his wealth for humanit
purposes. Among his early gifts were p
baths, reading rooms, playgrounds, and con
atories in the parks of Allegheny and Pittsbi
His philanthropies of greatest interest, how
were foundations for combating tuberculosis
mental disease* With the caution of th<
quiring business man, he first studied at a
tance and helped anonymously the tuberct
work of Dr, Lawrence F. Flick, When he
satisfied himself as to the wisdom of the co
after a trip of investigation in Europe, he e
Kshed in 1903 at Philadelphia the Henry PI
Institute for the Study, Treatment, and Pr<
tion of Tuberculosis, which in 1910 passed
the control of the University of Pennsyh
55°
Phips
In 1905 at Baltimore he founded the Phipps Tu-
berculosis Dispensary at the Johns Hopkins
Hospital, tinder Dr. William Osier [g.z>.] and
Dr. L. V. Hamman. He also made possible the
sixth International Congress on Tuberculosis
held in 1908 in Washington. His interest in
mental disease was the result of consultation
with Dr. William H. Welch of the Johns Hop-
kins University, and bore fruit in the foundation
of the Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic of the
Johns Hopkins Hospital, opened in 1913. In ad-
dition to these foundations Phipps gave $1,000,-
ooo for the erection of sanitary tenement houses
in New York City. He married, on Feb. 6, 1872,
Anne Childs Shaffer, the daughter of a Pitts-
burgh manufacturer, and they had three sons and
two daughters. His well-preserved constitution
carried him through more than ninety years of
life- he died just before his ninety-first birthday
at his home, "Bonnie Blink," Great Neck, L. I.
[ Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie (1920). ed. by
T C Van Dyke ; Harvey Gushing, The Life ofSirWm.
Osier (2 vote., WS) ; B. J. Hendrick, The Life of An-
drew Carnegie O vols., 1 93 a) ; manuscript notes on
PHpps In the steel industry from B. J. Hendnck, Esq. ;
Cosmopolitan, Dec, 1902; Who's Who in America,
1930-31 ; N. F. Times, Sept, 23, 1930.] A.M.
PHIPS, Sir WILLIAM (Feb. 2, 1650/51-
Feb. 18, 1694/95). fi^t royal governor of Mas-
sachusetts, was born on the Maine frontier, of
humble parents, James and Mary Phips. At an
early age he was apprenticed to a ship's carpen-
ter, and later practised his trade in Boston for
many years. Here he married Mary (Spencer)
Hull, the daughter of Capt. Roger Spencer and
the propertied widow of John Hull. He became
a contractor for building ships and, for a time
at least, commanded a sailing vessel. Coming
into contact with sea rovers who talked of treas-
ure fishing and the fabulous wealth of sunken
Spanish vessels, Phips determined to search for
one of these ships reported to have sunk near the
Bahamas. He succeeded in interesting Charles
II, who equipped him with a vessel, H. M. S.
Rose, and set forth on his quest in September
1683. This venture failed, but a second, backed
by a company under the patronage of the Duke
of Albemarle, was successful in finding a vessel
off the coast of Hispaniola (Haiti) and raised a
considerable treasure. For this achievement
Phips was knighted in 1687. .
With wealth and newly acquired social po-
sition Sir William returned to Boston to become
provost marshal-general, a post which James 11
had granted him as a further reward, m the new
dominion government under Sir Edmund An-
dros [g.z/.]. Because he was ill received he hur-
ried to England to complain, and there came
55
Phips
into touch with Increase Mather [#.z>.], who was
seeking governmental changes. After the Revo-
lution of 1688 the two worked together for res-
toration of the old charter rule. Phips was again
in Boston just after the overthrow of Andros,
where he found himself in high favor with the
Mather faction, which had come into control.
Early in 1690 he joined the Second, or North,
Church (Congregational), thereby becoming a
parishioner of the Mathers, and at the same time
was made a freeman of the colony. He was im-
mediately chosen to command the expedition
which Massachusetts was raising against Nova
Sootia and won a spectacular victory there by
surprising the French and capturing Port Royal.
Upon his return to Boston, he found he had
been elected magistrate in the provincial gov-
ernment of Massachusetts. Soon afterward he
was chosen commander of another expedition
against the French, this time consisting of forces
sent by the northern colonies against Canada.
Chagrined by the failure of this ill-starred ex-
pedition, he hastened to England to seek aid in.
another attempt. Decision at court on the mat-
ter was delayed until the king should determine
whether to establish dominion or charter gov-
ernment in New England, since if dominion gov-
ernment were established, the new governor
general would command the military forces in
the war. Finally the king determined on a com-
promise. He agreed to grant a new charter,
based largely on the old one, but reserving to
himself the appointment of the governor. In-
crease Mather, quick to seize every advantage
for the colony, agreed to the king's plan but
asked and was granted the privilege of nomi-
nating the first governor. His choice was Sir
William.
The task of the new governor was not easy.
The policy which the king desired him to uphold
was bound to clash with what Mather expected
of him, and party conflicts over religious, eco-
nomic, military, and political affairs were in-
evitable. He arrived in the colony m May 1692,
when the witchcraft delusion was at its height
After a period of bewilderment, he made a sud-
den decision and brought the persecution to an
abrupt end (CafaaAir of State W»*>Cfi%*
Series America <wd West Indies, 1689-1692,
1™V-W3~1696, §§ 33, 545). He favored
legislation requiring universal taxation for sup-
port of the Congregational church, but his ad-
ministration had to face the bitter i opposition .*
those of other faiths who claimed liberty of con-
science as their charter right In cornmerc^
Matters he stood for the old free-trad. , pohcy,
thwarted the customs officials at every turn,
Phips
connived at piracy, and neglected to reserve the
king's share in condemnations (Ibid., 1693-1696,
§§ 214, 826, 838, 879). As for his military policy,
he failed to protect his frontiers and to send the
aid which neighboring colonies desired. Al-
though he petitioned the Lords of Trade for
permission to conduct another campaign against
Canada, he refused to cooperate in the expedition
under Sir Francis Wheler against the French
in America, claiming that his orders did not ar-
rive in time (Ibid., §§ 545, 578). Probably his
greatest mistake lay in crushing party opposi-
tion instead of attempting conciliation. He was
disliked both by the advocates of the old charter
regime and by those who favored dominion gov-
ernment. By using every means to keep these
men out of the Council and House of Represen-
tatives, he was able to control the majority vote
in the General Court, but he thereby gave them
one more grievance about which to complain to
England.
Socially Sir William seems always to have
been at a disadvantage. A "self-made" man, he
made a display of fraternizing with ship carpen-
ters and former friends of lowly station, a trait
as irritating to the aristocracy as his pompous
manner or the undignified outbursts of temper
with which he met opposition to his will. At
times he could not resist resorting to brute force.
He publicly caned a captain of the royal navy
who refused to obey his orders, and on another
occasion dragged the collector of customs around
the wharf for attempting to seize a vessel sus-
pected of illegal trading. In 1694 he was or-
dered to England to answer a number of charges
brought against him by his enemies. His sudden
death in London before his case was concluded
was doubtless the only thing which prevented
his recall, for the evidence of maladministration
was very strong against him (Ibid., 1693-1696,
§§ 1298, 1507). His failure was a great blow
to the Mathers, who had expected him to unite
all factions and by a sympathetic interpretation
of his instructions to restore as nearly as possible
the conditions existing in 1684, before the revo-
cation of the charter.
[Cotton Mather's biography, Pietias in Patriam: The
Life of His Excellency Sir William Phipps, Knt.
(1697), repr. in Magnalia Christi Americana, (1702)
and as The Life of Sir William Phips (1929), ed, by
Carl Van Doren, is totally unreliable, written as it was
to defend Increase Mather for his responsibility in Sir
William's appointment as governor. Francis Bowen's
"Life of Sir William Phips," in Jared Sparks, The
Lib. of Am. Biog., vol. VII (n.d.), is only partly re-
liable, depending too greatly on Mather's account. Other
lives are, William Goold, "Sir William Phips," Me.
Hist. Sec. Colls., vol. IX (1887) ; H. 0. Thayer, Sir
William Phips (1927) ; C. H. Karraker, The Htspaniola
Treasure (1934); and sketch by J. A. Doyle in Diet.
Nat. Bi&g. See also the following articles in the New
England Quarterly : V. F. Barnes, ^The Rise of Wil-
Phisterer
Ham Phips" and "Phippius Maximus," July and
tober 1928 ; C. H. Karraker, "The Treasure E
dition," Oct. 1932 ; and R. H. George, "Treasure T
of William Phips," June 1933. For source mate
probably the most interesting is the Knepp Journ;
1683-84, in the British Museum, Egerton MSS., 2
and the log of the James and Mary in the British
seum, Sloane MSS., 50 or 1070; but the follo^
material will be found valuable: Journal and C(
spondence of the Lords of Trade, in the Public Re
Office ; Mass. Archives ; Calendar of State Pat
Colonial Series, America and West Indies, i68>
(1901), 1693-1696 (1903); "Andros Records," 1
Am. Antiq. Soc., n.s., vol. XIII (1901); "Diar
Samuel Sewall," Mass. Hist. Soc. Colls., 5 sei
(1878). For genealogy, see F. L. Weis, The Ancc.
and Descendants of John Phipps of Shcrborn (192
V.F.
PHISTERER, FREDERICK (Oct. n, ii
July 13, 1909), soldier and author, was bor
Stuttgart, Wiirttemberg, Germany, the soi
Frederick and Frederiki Halm Phisterer.
received his early education in the Ger
schools until his nineteenth year, when he c
alone to New York City, landing1 on June
1855. Within a few months he enlisted at PI
delphia in the United States Army, In M;
1856, he joined Company A of the 3rd Arti!
was advanced to the rank of corporal on Oct
1858, and to sergeant on July 10, 1860. He
ticipated in Wright's expedition against
Spokane Indians, in Indian fighting at 3
Lakes and at Spokane Plains in September i
in the occupation of the San Juan Islands i
July to December 1859, and in Stein's exped:
in eastern Oregon and Idaho in the summe
1860. On Dec, 6, 1860, he was honorably
charged at Vancouver and came east to enj
in business in Ohio.
After the first battle of Bull Run in the <
War, he reenlisted and was made sergeant
jor, 1 8th Infantry, on July 31, 1861. He
commissioned 2nd lieutenant, Oct, 30, 1861,
moted ist lieutenant, Feb. 27, 1862, and cap
Feb. 15, 1866. He fought with the i8th Ir
try throughout the Civil War, and at Stc
River on Dec. 31, 1862, he won lasting fam
volunteering to carry a message, under h
fire, to a battalion commander whose tr
faced capture or annihilation unless warne
their danger. In recognition of his valor
was presented with the Congressional Med
Honor on Dec, 12, 1894. He later won the <
mendation of his superior officers for his
lantry in action during the Chattanooga-B
gold Campaign of 1863, and in the Atlanta C
paign of 1864.
After the Civil War, he served with the
and with the 7th Infantry regiments until <
4, 1870, when he resigned his commission tc
ter civil pursuits in New York, in Brookly
various cities in New Jersey, and in Colun
552
Phoenix — Phyfe
Ohio. He commanded a company of citizens'
police in the Columbus railroad riots in 1877
and was commissioned captain of the Gov-
ernor's Guards, Ohio National Guard, on Aug.
27, 1877, resigning in January 1879. He en-
tered New York State military service on Jan.
i 1880, as colonel and acting assistant adjutant-
general, was made assistant adjutant-general
on Nov. 22, 1892, and was reappointecl on Jan.
i 1897." He served in this capacity through the
Spanish-American War, being1 brevetted briga-
dier-general on Dec. 22, 1898. He became colo-
nel on the staff of the major-general of the New
York National Guard on Mar. 5, 1903, and
was brevetted major-general, Jan. 2, 1905. He
was given original rank as lieutenant-colonel
on 'the National Guard divisional staff on Jan.
30, 1908, and served as adjutant-general of New
York until his death at Albany in 1909. His
wife, Isabel kiley, whom he had married at Co-
lumbus, Ohio, on Nov. 1.4, 1867, and two sons,
survived him. He is buried in Grecnlawn Ceme-
tery, at Columbus, He was a member of the
Military Order of the Loyal Legion, the Order
of Indian Wars oE the United States, the So-
ciety of the Army of the Cumberland, and the
Medal of Honor Lcgkm of the United States.
He wrote, The National Guardmnn on Guard
and Kindred Ditties (1879),^ National
Gwtrdstnan as a Non-Commissioned Officer of
Infantry (1885), Statistical Record of the Ar-
mies of the United States (1883), and New
York in the War of the Rebellion, 1861 to 1865,
the first edition of which was published in 1890.
[Who's Who in JV, F. City and State <4th cd., 1909) ;
General Orders ^go. 4^ Gene ra Hto^uart 'ffifi^f,
juiy__i3» ,^w"» * n „,.. , ^MJ>* /*«./( ^,1 *• lynic and index,
ttoR$*iMli*6tto IMS (3«i «L, 5 voK andmdex,
i9ia) ; records of the city historian of A$^£j£
personal letter from his son, Col. F. W. f^terer,
TJ. S. A. ; Albany Ewninff Journd, July 13, i9°9-J
C. C. B.
PHOENIX, JOHN [See DERBY, GEORGE HO-
RATIO, 1823-1861].
PHYFE, DUNCAN (i7<58-Aug. 16, 1854),
cabinet maker, was a member of a Scotch fam-
ily named Fife that, in 1783 or 1784, left; their
home at Loch Fannich, thirty miles northwest
of Inverness, and sailed for America. The par-
ents (or possibly only the widowed mother)
were accompanied by several children, one or
two of whom died during the voyage. They set-
tled in or near Albany, N. Y., and there the
second son, Duncan, then sixteen years ol : age,
became an apprentice to a cabinetmaker. Upon ^ ^ ife Ughtnes8 m g«^
attaining his majority he moved to New 'J «*, ** deeenerated finally into heavy, commoopkce
and the directory of 179* *"£**£ %£ g£S5, Phyfe himself called "butcher fur-
a joiner's shop at 2 Broad Street. On MD. i«ni
5.53
Phyfe
I7> I793) he married Rachel Lowzade, a native
of Holland, who bore him four sons and three
daughters. At about the time of his marriage he
changed the spelling of his name to Phyfe, and
so it appears in the 1794 directory. His busi-
ness apparently prospered, for in 1795 he moved
to larger quarters at 35 Partition Street, and
between 1802 and 1816 he purchased the houses
on each side and one across the street. In 1816
the name of the street was changed to Fulton.
Phyfe's shops and warehouse were on the pres-
ent site of the Hudson Terminal Building. At
the height of his prosperity he is said to have
employed over one hundred workmen. He took
two of his sons, Michael and James D., into
business with him and in 1837 the firm became
Duncan Phyfe & Sons. On the death of Michael,
in 1840, the name was changed again to Duncan
Phyfe & Son. In 1847 Phyfe sold his interest
and retired, but continued to live at 193 Fulton
Street until his death, which occurred in 1854, in
the eighty-sixth year of his age. He was buried
in Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn.
Duncan Phyfe was described by members of
his family who remembered him as a man of
slight build— "a very plain man, always work-
ing and always smoking a short pipe." He was
quiet, independent, and a man of strict and me-
thodical habits. He combined the talents of an
artist and a business man to a remarkable de-
gree. He apparently had few interests outside
his family and his work. He was a member of
the Brick Presbyterian Church and a strict Cal-
vinist. His fame rests upon the excellence^ his
furniture. Competent critics agree that in de-
sign and workmanship it is not surpassed by the
finest products of the eighteenth-century cabinet
makers of England. He was a master of propor-
tion, line, and detail, and probably himself an
expert carver. In the handling of mahogany to
bring out its highest values of texture and color
he never had a superior. His early work shows
his indebtedness to Hepplewhite, Adam, and
Sheraton, whose design books he undoubtedly
possessed, though at no time was he a copyist
The characteristic curves of much of his work
appear to have been derived from the French
styles of the Directoire and the Consulate, fol-
lowed by features strongly Empire in character.
These elements he combined gracefully and suc-
cessfully in a style all his own. Gradually, how-
ever, he acceded to the popular demand for for-
tiitiirp in the style commonly called Amencaa
HI LUI C HA W*v« " J *j.l_ 4, vit'
Empire. The first of this was not wthout ment
but it began to 1™ its hehtness and grace
Physick
niture." His work may be divided for conven-
ience into the following periods : Adam-Shera-
ton, 1795-1802; Sheraton-Directoire, 1802-18;
American Empire, 1818-30; "butcher furni-
ture," 1830-47. His fame rests upon the furni-
ture made prior to 1825, and the best of it was
probably produced before 1814. Chairs, sofas,
and tables formed the bulk of his output, though
he made other pieces also. The lyre form and
crossed slats in his chair backs, outward sweep-
ing curves in chair and table legs, parallel rows
of beading, and acanthus carving on pedestal
tables are among the more familiar features. He
worked almost exclusively in mahogany until
the later period of rosewood and black walnut.
Duncan Phyfe unquestionably exerted a cor-
rective and restraining influence on American
taste, kept alive the classic tradition well into
the nineteenth century, and did more than any
other man to postpone the decadence of style
that was inevitable with the development of the
machine age. In a very real sense he was the
last of the great Georgians, the artistic heir of
Chippendale, Hepplewhite, Adam, and Shera-
ton.
[Walter A. Dyer, Early Am. Craftsmen (1915,
1920) and "Duncan Phyfe Furniture," House Beauti-
ful, Mar. 1915; C. O. Cornelius, Furniture Master-
pieces of Duncan Phyfe (1922) and "The Distinctive-
ness of Duncan Phyfe," Antiques, Nov. 1922 ; R. T, H.
Halsey and C. 0. Cornelius, "An Exhibition of Furni-
ture from the Workshop of Duncan Phyfe," Bull, of
the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oct. 1922; W. R.
Storey, "Duncan Phyfe Enters on New Renown," N. Y.
Times Sunday Mag., Dec. 20, 1925 ', W. M. Hornor,
Jr., "A New Estimate of Duncan Phyfe/' the An-
tiquarian, Mar. 1930; N. Y. Tribune, Aug. 19, 1854;
manuscript notebook of Ernest Hag-en, a disciple of
Phyfe.] W.A.D.
PHYSICK, PHILIP SYNG (July 7, 1768-
Dec. 15, 1837), surgeon, was born in Philadel-
phia, the son of Edmund and Abigail (Syng)
Physick. His father was keeper of the Great
Seal and receiver-general of Pennsylvania, and
later agent for the Perm estates. He was anxious
that his son should study medicine, but the son
was not eager to do so, preferring the art of
the goldsmith practised by his maternal grand-
father, Philip Syng [q.v.~\. Many of the inven-
tions and improvements that Physick made in
surgical procedures and instruments show that
he had strong mechanical leanings. He attend-
ed a local school and took his college course at
the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in
arts in 1785. Yielding to his father's desire, he
then began the study of medicine under Dr.
Adam Kuhn [#.#.], who had been a pupil of
Linnaeus, and in 1788 went to London, where
John Hunter accepted him as a house pupil and
later invited him to remain in London as his as-
Physick
sistant. The American youth was fortunal
being associated with Hunter, who had or
the most fertile surgical brains the world
ever possessed. Physick studied at the C
Windmill Street School established by Wil
Hunter, and it is probable that he and Jc
were fellow pupils. In 1/90 he was appoinl
house-surgeon to St. George's Hospital, \v
position he held for a year. He then wei
Edinburgh, where he graduated in mcclicii
1792, his thesis, Disscrtatio Mcdica Inaugu
dc Apoplcxia (i792)> being dedicated to
Hunter.
On his return to Philadelphia after recei
his degree he began practice, but at first pat
came so slowly that he was greatly di scour.
He rendered good service in the yellow-:
epidemics of 1793 and 1798, contracted the
ease himself and, it is said, oven had a secon
tack. He gained one powerful friend, Dr. B<
min Rush [<7,?f.l, who did much to atlvanc
fortunes, and came into contact with Stc
Girarcl ["<?•?'•]» who gave material aid to the
low-fever hospital during the epidemic. He
sequently served as Giranl's physician. He
elected to the staff of the Pennsylvania HOJ
in 1794, holding this position until 1816,
clinical teaching there was renowned anc
much to increase his reputation. In 1800 he
appointed surgeon to the Almshouse and ;
the same time he gave lectures in surgery <
University of Pennsylvania. At that tinn
subjects of anatomy and surgery were coml
in one chair, but in 1801, Physick was ask<
the University students to give inclepentlen
tures in surgery at the Pennsylvania Hos
and these were so successful that in 1805 a
rate chair of surgery at the University was
ated for him. He retained this chair until
when failing health compelled his resignati
Physick has many advances in surgery t
credit. The use of manipulation instead oi
chanical methods of traction in the reductii
dislocations, new methods in the trcatme
hip-joint disease by immobilization, a moi
splint for certain fractures of the femur ai
the ankle, were improvements in which he
largely concerned, He is said to have bee:
of the first in America to use the stomach
He invented needle forceps, which enabled
ly placed vessels to be tied, and the guill
tonsillotome. He also used a form of sna
the removal of tonsils. He had much to do
the introduction of animal ligatures in su
and with establishing the practice of le;
them in the tissues to become absorbed,
early experiments showed the value of c
554
Physick
ligatures* In 1804 lie reported a successful oper-
ation on an arteriovenous aneurism which had
followed venesection (Philadelphia Medical Mu-
seum, vol. I, 1805, pp. 65-67). He did notable
work in surgery of the urinary tract ; he devised
new forms of catheters, especially the bougie-
tipped form, and became celebrated for his abil-
ity in operating for stone in the bladder.^ In 1831
he performed lithotomy on Chief Justice Mar-
shall, removing, it is said, nearly a thousand
calculi. The patient was seventy-three years of
age at the time, but he made a complete recovery
and lived four years longer, Physick persistent-
ly believed in the virtues of venesection, and is
said to have regretted in his later years that he
had bled not too much, but too little.
Physick was not a prolific writer; his publica-
tions were chiefly reports in medical journals.
His mind was evidently disposed more toward
the invention and perfection of mechanical de-
vices and the designing of improved methods of
mechanical treatment than toward writing. His
views are well represented, however, in The Ele-
ments of Surgery (1813), by his nephew, John
Syng Dorsey [$.*'.], and in The Institutes and
Practice of Surf/cry (1824), by his successor,
William Gibson i>/.?'.1. He was honored by elec-
tion to English and French medical societies and
to the American Philosophical Society. Contro-
versies over the cause of the yellow-fever epi-
demic engendered dissension and bitter feeling
among the members of the profession in Phila-
delphia, with the result that Physick did not be-
come a member of the College of Physicians, but
was first president of the Academy of Medicine,
a short-lived rival institution.
On Sept. 18, 1800, Physick married Eliza-
beth, (laughter of Samuel Emlen of Philadel-
phia; they had seven children, of whom, four
survived infancy, Physick had many illnesses
Piatt
were fitted to cultivate it. Throughout his life
his talents led him to originate new procedures
and improve methods, and "his chief organ of
publicity was his class of students" (Homer,
post). While the accounts of his times speak of
him as a conservative surgeon, it is evident that
he could be bold when necessary and there is
good reason for the title "Father of American
Surgery" frequently bestowed upon him,
[W. E. Homer, Necrological Notice of Dr. Philip
Synff Physick (1838) ; Jacob Randolph, A Memoir on
the Life and Character of Philip Syng Physick (1839),
abridged in Am. Jour. Medic. Sci., May 1839; S. D.
Gross, Lives of Eminent Am. Physicians and Surgeons
(1861) ; F. P. Henry, Standard Hist, of the Medic.
Profession of Phila. (1897) ; R. H. Harte, ''Philip Syng
Physick," Univ. of Pa. Medic. Bull, Feb. 1906 ; H. A.
Kelly and W. L. Burrage, Am. Medic. Biogs. (1920) ;
W. S. Middleton, "Philip Syng Physick, Father of
American Surgery," Annals of Medic. Hist., Sept.
1929 ; P. S. P. Conner, Syng of Phila. (1891) ; Poi-
son's Am. Daily Advertiser, Dec. 16, 1837.] T.M.
PIATT, BONN (June 29, iSig-Nov. 12, 1891),
journalist, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son
of Judge Benjamin M. and Elizabeth Barnett)
Piatt The former was the grandson of John
Piatt, a Huguenot refugee who married Frances
(Van Vliet) Wykoff in Holland, emigrated to
the West Indies, and finally came to New Jer-
sey. His son, Jacob, moved to Kentucky in 1795
and later settled in Ohio. Benjamin and Eliza-
beth Piatt possessed the hardy spirit of pio-
neers, tempered somewhat by an untutored ap-
preciation of literature and the arts. Bonn was
the ninth of their ten children. In 1827 the fam-
ily moved to a homestead, "Mac-o-cheek," near
West Liberty, Ohio, where at the district school
he laid the foundations of his education, which
was continued in the public schools of Urbana
and at the Athenaeum, now St. Xavier College,
Cincinnati. At each of these institutions he gave
evidence of brilliant but erratic abilities. Des-
tined by his father for the law, he soon developed
an ungovernable distaste for the machinery of
Ihcfi .sufcod f, re»l cal-
i. «**
carried away.
In estimating Physick's „
can surgery, much importance should be
to his association with John Hunter. Stimulated
by that great activator of surgical thought, he
came to an untilled field as one of the few who
to various newspapers. In
.nted judge of the court of
common pleas of Hamilton County, a position
from which he resigned the following year in
order to take his wife to Paris for medical treat-
555
Piatt
ment. In France he served with distinction as
secretary to the American legation until his re-
turn to "Mac-o-cheek" in 1855.
At the outbreak of the Civil War he was com-
missioned captain in the I3th Ohio Infantry,
Apr. 30, 1861, and the following year, Nov. 4,
was promoted to the rank of major. On Jan. I,
1863, he was made a lieutenant-colonel and later
acted as chief of staff to Gen, Robert C. Schenck
[#.£>.]. In the absence of General Schenck, he
ordered Col. William Birney [g.z/.], who was
in Maryland recruiting a colored brigade, to
enlist slaves only. For this unauthorized action
President Lincoln reprimanded and threatened
to cashier him, but he was saved by the inter-
cessions of Stanton and Chase. He was active
in the campaign of 1863, when he showed his
soldierly acumen by ordering Milroy to evacu-
ate Winchester. This order was overruled by
Schenck with the result that Milroy was cut off
and his regiments almost annihilated by Lee.
Aiter the war he returned to his old pursuits,
and in 1865 was elected to the Ohio legislature,
where he served one term. His wife having died
in 1864, he married in 1866 her sister, Ella
Kirby, whose injuries two years later in a rail-
way accident necessitated their removal to New
York. There he was involved more extensively
in journalism. In 1868 he moved to Washing-
ton as correspondent to the Cincinnati Commer-
cial] for a few months in 1871 he was also editor
of a department in the Galaxy known as the
"Club Room." In 1871 he became, with George
Alfred Townsend, co-editor and founder of the
weekly Capital, and his work for this paper is
the real basis of his reputation. Townsend with-
drew a few weeks after the first number was
published, but Piatt continued in active editor-
ship for nine years. The Capital affiliated itself
with neither political party, but attempted to ex-
pose the weaknesses and corruptions of the mem-
bers of both. So vigorous and pointed were
many of Piatt's denunciations that while they
brought popularity to the paper, they won for its
editor the enmity of many politicians. After the
Presidential election of 1876 he denounced the
formation of the Electoral Commission as rob-
bing the people of the right of self-government
and condemned its subsequent actions as defeat-
ing the will of the people. On Feb. 18, 1877, he
printed an editorial, entitled "The Beginning of
the End," in which he declared : "If a man thus
returned to power can ride in safety from the
executive mansion to the Capitol to be inaugu-
rated, we are fitted for the slavery that will fol-
low the inauguration." This remark was inter-
preted by President Grant and others as a threat
Piatt
to assassinate Hayes, and Piatt was indie
Feb. 21, 1877, on the charge of inciting rehell
insurrection, and riot. The prosecution ^
dropped, however, immediately after Hay
inauguration. Piatt's complete frankness
outspoken honesty made him one of the n
formidable and conspicuous editors of his ti
On his withdrawal from Washington in li
he devoted himself to literary composition.
1887 he published Memories of the Men Vi
Saved the Union, a group of essays on Line
Seward, Chase, Thomas, and others. Its si:
criticisms and its unpopular depreciation
Grant and Sherman attracted considerable
tention. The following year The Lone Grav
the Shcnandoah and Other Talcs appeared.
ter his death, Poems and Plays ( 1893), The J
erend Mclancthon Poundcx (1893), a nc
and General George PL Thomas (1893), a <
ical biography with concluding chapters by
V. Boynton, were issued. Piatt died at his cc
try house, "Mac-o-chee," where his last y<
had been spent.
[C. G. Miller, Donn Piatt: His Work and His J4
(1893), fulsome but accurate; F. B, Heitman, }
Reg. and Diet. U. S. Arwy, vol. I (1903) ; War o1
Rebellion: Official Records (Army) ; S. B. Hcdgei
Catholic World) Oct. 1893; Cincinnati Inquirer f ]
PIATT, JOHN JAMES (Mar. i, 1835-!
16, 1917), poet, journalist, was born at Jai
Mills (later Milton), Ind., the son of John I
and Emily (Scott) Piatt. The former w£
second cousin of Donn Piatt ["(?•*'•]• They v
descendants of John Piatt, a French Hugu<
who emigrated first to the West Indies and f
there, some time prior to 1670, came to 1
Jersey. When John James was six years old
parents moved to Ohio, establishing themse
near Columbus. The boy attended the 1
school in that place, ancl later, Capital Uni
sity and Kenyan College. Apprenticed to
publisher of the Ohio State Journal to learn
printer's trade, he became acquainted with \
liam Dean Howells [#.#.], who was then a
ciated with that paper, and the two formed a 1
ing friendship. Some of Piatt's verses appej
in the Louisville Journal in 2857, an<3 soon ai
ward he accepted an editorial position on it
1859 he began contributing to the Atlct
Monthly. His poem "The Morning Str
evoked Howells' praise and the statement
he himself wished he could write sometl
worthy of inclusion in the Atlantic (Life
Letters, post). The following year (1860)
two published in collaboration Poems of j
Friends*
On June 18, 1861, he married Sarah Mor
Piatt
•Rrvan poet and contributor to the Louisville
Journal ['see Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt]. They
went to live in Washington, where Piatt was a
clerk in the United States Treasury Department
from 1861 to 1867. During this period he be-
came acquainted with Walt Whitman \_q.v.], who
frequently referred to Piatf s writings (Barrus,
tost). In 1867 Piatt joined the staff of the Cin-
cinnati Chronicle, and removed to North Bend,
just below Cincinnati, on the Ohio River. From
1869 to 1878 he was literary editor and corre-
spondent of the Cincinnati Commercial, but also
served as assistant clerk (1870) and as librarian
(1871-75) of the United States House of Repre-
sentatives. From 1882 to 1893 he was United
States consul at Cork, Ireland and for a few
months in the latter year at Dublin.
During all these years he was writing and
publishing poetry and some prose, Among his
books, in addition to several prepared in collabo-
ration with his wife, are Poems in Sunshine and
Firelight (1866) ; Western Windows, and Other
Poems (copyright 1867) ; Landmarks, and Other
Poems (1872); Poems of Home and Home
(1879) ; Pencilled Fly-Learns: a Book of Es-
swsin Town and Comtry (1880); Idyls and
Lyrics of the Ohio Valley (1881) ; At the Holy
Well, with a Handful of New Verses (1887) ;
A Book of Gold, and Other Sonnets (1889X5
Little New-World Idyls (1893); The Ghoshs
Entry and Other Poems (1895) ; Odes. in Ohio,
and Other Poems (1897). He also edited sev-
eral collections of poems, and from 1907 to 1909
Midland, first a weekly, then a monthly, publica-
tion which was merged into Uncle Remus s
Home Magurin*. Piatf s poetry shows the reg-
ular meters of his time, but is original and varied
in subject matter and appreciative of natural
beauty, literary associations, and human feel-
ing. His best-known poem is "The Mormng
Street" a bit of good realism; "The Night
is of the same type; "The Western Pio-
Piatt
William Dean Howells (1928) ; Clara Barrus, Whit-
man and Burroughs Comrades (1931) ; D, A. R. Line-
age Books, vols. Ill (1893), LIX (1906) ; Who's Who
in America, 1916-17; Cincinnati Enquirer, Feb. 17,
S.G.B.
PIATT, SARAH MORGAN BRYAN (Aug.
u, iSsoXDec. 22, 1919), poet, was born in Lex-
ington, Ky., the daughter of Talbot Nelson and
Mary (Spiers) Bryan. Her grandfather, Mor-
gan Bryan, was a relative of Daniel Boone
[q.v.], and one of a party that went from North
Carolina to Kentucky with him, where Bryan
settled what was known as Bryan's Station. Be-
fore Sarah was eight years old her mother died,
and subsequently the girl lived with the maternal
grandmother at Lexington, with friends near
Versailles, Woodford County, briefly with her
stepmother, and finally with an aunt, at New
Castle, Ky. There she was graduated from
Henry Female College. Always a devoted read-
er of poetry, she especially loved Shelley, Byron,
Coleridge, Moore, and Scott, and early began
herself to write verse. Her first productions ap-
peared in the Galveston, Tex., News. Some of
her work came to the attention of George D.
Prentice, editor of the Louisville Journal, who
published it and prophesied for her the first
place among American poets of her sex. On
June 18, 1861, she was married to the poet John
James Piatt Ig.O, whom she had met at New
Castle after her own writings had become widely
known through the South. They lived in Wash-
ington, D. C, until 1867, then in North Bend,
Ohio, and for thirteen years, beginning in 1882,
in Ireland, where Piatt was United States con-
sul. There she counted among her friends Jean
Ingelow, Edward Dowden, Edmund Gosse,
Austin Dobson, Alice Meynell, and PMip
Bourke Marston.
During these years she published some sev-
enteen volumes of poems. Two of them , The
Nests at Washington and Other Poems ^(1864)
and The Children Out-of -Doors, a Book oj
one daughter surviving him.
CW. T CoKgeshall, The Potts and Poetry o^tte
West: With Bloy. «**£"*!«* $°%L "At (1875) *vol,
J J J
United OLCLLCD. ^"~ ,.~- r *
teemed in Great Britain, where she w^ U
to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, than
ssfsssss^sx—
tlUJLio<^i*'Jf «*«»• *•
Pickard
nine, it reflects the joys, griefs, and aspirations
of the ordinary woman's life. Much of it was
inspired by her own children. Howells com-
mended her for not writing like a man. Kath-
arine Tynan said she had "a gift as perfect and
spontaneous as the song of a blackbird" (Irish
Monthly, July 1886, p. 389). Today she ranks
as a minor poet of some excellence. On their
return to America the Piatts lived in North Bend,
Ohio. Sarah survived her husband and after
his death lived with her son in Caldwell, N. J.,
where she died.
[F. E. Willard and M. A. Livermore, Am. Women
(1897) ; Emerson Venable, in Lib. of Southern Lit.,
vol. IX (1909) ; E. A. and G. L. Duyckinck, The Cyc.
of Am. Lit. (1875), vol. II ; Katharine Tynan, Twenty-
five Years; Reminiscences (1913); Who's Who in
America, 1912-13 ; Woman's Who Who of America,
1914-15 ; N. Y. Times, Dec. 24, 1919.] S.G.B.
PICKARD, SAMUEL THOMAS (Mar. i,
i828-Feb. 12, 1915), printer, editor, biographer,
author, son of Samuel and Sarah (Coffin) Pick-
ard, was born in Rowley, Mass. When he was
four years old, his family removed to Auburn,
Me., where his father became treasurer of the
Lewiston Manufacturing Company, a position
he held for forty years. The boy spent his youth
in Auburn and secured his education in the ele-
mentary schools of that city and at Lewiston
Falls Academy. In 1844, after he had com-
pleted his course of study at the academy, he
went to Portland and there learned the printer's
trade. When he had finished his apprenticeship,
he became associated with Benjamin P. Shillaber
[g.#.] in the publication of a humorous paper,
the Carpet Bag, at Boston, Mass. In 1852 he
sold his interest in this paper to Charles G. Hal-
pine [#.z>.] and returned to Portland, where in
January 1853 he joined E. P. Weston in the pub-
lication of the Eclectic. In April 1855 this jour-
nal was merged with the Portland Transcript,
and Pickard became one of its editors and joint
owner with Weston, whose interest was later
purchased by Pickard's brother, Charles W.
Pickard, and with Edward H. Elwcll. Under
the editorship of Elwell and the Pickard broth-
ers, the Portland Transcript became one of the
most influential papers in New England. Its
subscribers exceeded in number by thousands
those of any other paper in Maine. It was a
clean, sane, interesting, and wholesome family
paper. It early espoused the causes of abolition
and prohibition. Its weekly advent into the home
brought accurate information, interesting stories,
bits of good poetry, wise teachings, knowledge
of books and men, and withal good cheer, After
nearly forty years, Pickard retired from the edi-
torship of the Transcript and went to live in
Pickens
Amesbury and Boston, Mass., where during
remainder of his life he was engaged in lite
work.
On Apr. 19, 1876, Pickard married Eliz;
Hussey Whittier, a niece of John Gree
Whittier [q.v.~\ and a daughter of Moses F,
JaneE. (Vaughan) Whittier. By this man
he had one son. His wife died in Boston,
9, 1902. For many years Samuel Pickard v
close personal friend and great admirer oj
Quaker Poet, and on Whittier's death, ir
oordance with his expressed desire, becam<
literary executor and biographer. It prove
be a happy choice. Pickard's Life and Lettc,
John Grccnleaf Whittle rt which was publi
in 1894 and has passed through several edit
is written with excellent taste and simple
cerity such as the poet would have desired. '
was his most important book. In 1897 he
lishcd a little volume, Hawthorne* $ Pint D
which purports to contain several authentic
cerpts from a journal which Hawthorne
supposed to have kept during1 his boyhood i
in Raymond, Me. Later Pickard became dc
ful of the genuineness of this diary and withe
the book from further sale. In 1900 he publi;
Whittier as a Politician, presenting the
in a somewhat new light, and in 1904, Whit
Land, a Handbook of North Essex, "contaij
many anecdotes of and poems by John Gr
leaf Whittier, never before collected," Bes
these he was the author of numerous revi
and monographs, two of which are "Portia
published in 1898 in The Historic Towns of 1
England, and "Edward Henry Elwell," \
lished in the Collections and Proceedings of
Maine Historical Society (2 ser. Ill, 1892,
1-12). After a long life of useful activity
died in Amesbury, Mass., in Whittier's old he
[G. T, Little, m OUt. Record Gratis. Bawdrin C
1915 ; Biog. Rcc&rd , . , of Leading Citizens of C
bcrland County, Me, (1896) ; Joseph Griflin, Hisi
the Press of Jkfo (1875) ; Boston Transcript, Feb,
W.BJ
PICKENS, ANDREW (Sept, 19, 1739-^
ri, 1817), Revolutionary soldier, was born r
Paxtang, Pa,, the son of Nancy and And
Pickens, who, having emigrated from Irels
drifted south with the Scotch-Irish, sojour
eight miles west of Staunton, Va,, obtained
acres in Anson County, N. C, and in 1752 Vv
on Waxhaw Creek, S. C. He volunteered
James Grant's expedition in 1761 against
Cherokee under Oconostota [<?.^,]« Two ye
later he and his brother sold their Waxhaw
heritance and obtained lands on Long C
Creek in South Carolina, There he married,
558
Pickens
Mar. 19, 1765, Rebecca, daughter of Ezekiel Cal-
houn who was a brother of John C. Calhoun's
father ; at the opening of the Revolution, with
a wife and four small children, he was a farmer
and a justice of the peace. As captain of mili-
tia in the first fight at Ninetysix fort in No-
vember I77S, he helped to negotiate the treaty
with the Loyalists that followed. During the
next two years his services on the frontier
brought promotion, and, when Williamson be-
came brigadier-general, Pickens became colonel.
His defeat of Colonel Boyd at Kettle Creek, he
himself considered the severest check the Loy-
alists ever received in South Carolina or in
Georgia. After the capitulation of Charleston in
1780, he surrendered a fort in Ninetysix District
and with 300 oE his men returned home on parole.
When his plantation was plundered, however,
he regarded himself as released from his parole,
gave notice to that effect, and rejoined the pa-
triots. His part in the victory at Cowpens brought
him a sword from Congress and a brigadier's
commission from the state. In April 1781 he
raised a regiment, in which the men were en-
listed as state regulars for ten months' duty and
were paid in negroes and plunder taken from the
Loyalists. Active in the capture of Augusta, he
cooperated with the Continentals in Gen. Na-
thanael Greene's unsuccessful siege of Ninety-
six and in the drawn battle of Eutaw Springs,
in which he was wounded. Thereafter he was
occupied mainly with Indian warfare.
Elected to represent Ninetysix in the Jack-
sonboro Assembly in 1782, he continued in the
legislature until sent to Congress for the ses-
sion of 1793-95. The South Carolina legislature
voted him thanks and a gold medal in 1783 for
his services in the Revolution and later elected
him major-general of the militia. In 1785 he
was chosen by Congress to treat with Southern
Indian tribes that had been at war with the
United States, and, until he declined further
service in 1801, he was repeatedly appointed to
deal with Indian relations. His most laborious
service was in 1797, when for six months he was
engaged in marking treaty boundaries. In 1792
he declined a command in the western army.
For a number of years he lived at "Hopewell,"
his plantation in Ocotiee, where he had a store.
He also carried on business in Charleston under
the firm name of Andrew Pickens & Co. Later
he settled at Tomassee in Pendleton District,
where he lived in retirement except during a
brief interval in the War of 1812, There he
cliecl suddenly and was buried at the Old Stone
Church, of which he was an elder and a founder.
Strict in family devotions and church observ-
Pickens
ances, he was reputed so Presbyterian that he
would have suffered martyrdom before he would
have sung one of Watt's hymns. Of medium
height, lean and healthy, with strongly marked
features, he seldom smiled and never laughed,
and conversed so guardedly that "he would first
take the words out of his mouth, between his
fingers, and examine them before he uttered
them" (Wm. Martin to L. C. Draper, Jan. i,
[Draper MSS. in Wis. Hist. Soc. Lib. ; papers, chiefly
of talks" with Indians, not yet calendared in Charles-
ton Lib. Soc. ; A. L. Pickens, The Wizard Owl of the
Southern Highlands (1933), a biog. tracing his career
through the battle of Cowpens and Skyagunsta
J. B. Grimes, Abstract of N. C. Witts (1910) ; A. S.
Salley, Jour, of the House of Representatives of S. C.
Jan. 8, i?82-Feb. 26 1 1782 (1916) ; Thomas Cooper,
Statutes at Large of S. C., vol. IV (1838) ; R. W.
Gibbes, Documentary Hist, of the Am. Revolution (3
vols., 1853-57) ; R. N. Brackett, The Old Stone Church,
Oconee County f S. C. (1905).] A K G
PICKENS, FRANCIS WILKINSON (Apr,
7, i8o5~Jan. 25, 1869), congressman, governor
of South Carolina, was born in St. Paul's Parish,
Colleton District, S. C., the son of Susannah
Smith (Wilkinson) and Gov. Andrew Pickens
and the grandson of Andrew Pickens [g.z>.]. He
was educated at Franklin College, Ga., now a
part of the University of Georgia, and at the
South Carolina College, withdrawing from the
latter institution in 1827 while a senior because
of dissatisfaction with mess hall regulations. He
subsequently studied law at Edgefield under El-
dred Simkins, was admitted to the bar in 1828,
became Simkins' partner, and married the lat-
ter's daughter, Margaret Eliza. Through the
study of Aristotle, Rollin, the classic orators,
and the state-rights doctrines of Thomas Cooper
[q.v."] he became passionately fond of the type
of republicanism most acceptable in his state.
He was proud of his ancestors and of his own
abilities, dogmatic in beliefs, impressive in
speech, but prudent in action. Inheriting wealth
from both parents and through his wife, he es-
tablished near Edgefield Court House "Edge-
wood," a large estate with several hundred
slaves. Surrounded by a large library and the
luxuries of a Southern gentleman, he^ enter-
tained lavishly. John C. Calhoun, a relation, de-
clared that he was the most promising young
man in the state.
While still in college he began his public ca-
reer by writing a series of anonymous letters to
the Charleston Mercury upholding Thomas
Cooper's doctrines of state sovereignty under
the pseudonym of "Sydney" (quoted in Hayne,
post, pp. 4-5). In 1830 in anonymous letters ¥>
559
Pickens
the Edge field Carolinian under the pseudonym
of "Hampden," he declared that the time had
come for South Carolina to put its nullification
principles in action. "If we do not succeed con-
stitutionally and peaceably," he wrote, "I am
free to confess that I am for any extreme, even
'war up to the hilf" (Boucher, post, p. 56). In
1832 he was elected to the state legislature.
There he gained distinction by replying to Jack-
son's nullification proclamation and by defending
the right of the state to exact an oath of allegi-
ance from its officers. To defend the state
against threats of federal coercion he raised,
among his Edgefield constituents, a contingent
of 2,158 men. In December 1834 he succeeded
George McDuffie in Congress, where he served
until March 1843. £^s speeches on foreign rela-
tions, treasury reforms, and in favor of slavery
and state rights placed him among the leaders
of that body. He bitterly protested against the
acceptance of petitions asking the abolition of
slavery in the District of Columbia and warned
the South of the danger from the growth of abo-
litionist sentiment in 1844. He became a mem-
ber of the state Senate. He was a leader of the
South Carolina secession movement growing
out of dissatisfaction with the compromise meas-
ures of 1850. He was a delegate to the Nash-
ville convention of June 1850, where he declared,
"Equality now ! Equality forever ! or Independ-
ence!" (Hayne, post, p. 23). He was the pre-
siding officer of the state convention of 1852
and drew up its ordinance favoring secession.
When this secession movement proved abor-
tive, he became more conservative, foreseeing the
folly of South Carolina's going to extremes with-
out the cooperation of the other Southern states ;
his enemies said that he was an aspirant for fed-
eral office. He cooperated with James L. Orr
and the other National Democrats and in 1856
presided over the state convention to send dele-
gates to the convention that nominated Bu-
chanan. In 1857 he was defeated for the United
States Senate by the extremist, James H. Ham-
mond, and in 1859 urged that South Carolina
fully participate in the National Democratic
Convention of 1860. Although he had previously
refused missions to France and England, in 1858
he accepted Buchanan's proffer of the Russian
mission. He served in St. Petersburg for two
years without special distinction. Foreseeing a
crisis in South Carolina, he resigned in the fall
of 1860 and returned home. At first he was in-
clined to oppose precipitate action on the part
of the state, declaring, in a speech at Edgefield,
that secession should not be made effective until
the inauguration of Lincoln ; but, carried along
Pickens
with the tide, he later, in a speech at Columb
espoused the cause of immediate secession. I
was nominated for governor by the conservati
secessionists. The legislature, after three da
of balloting, elected him, and on Dec. 17 he b
gan his two-year term.
He showed great ability in guiding the sta
in the perilous adventure of secession. In t
inaugural address he averred that the North
electing Lincoln had committed "the great ove
act" and that South Carolina was ready for i
compromise short of secession. He clearly for
saw that the safety of South Carolina as an i
dependent government was dependent upon t)
possession of the Charleston forts and immec
ately asked Buchanan to surrender Fort Sur
ter. This demand, however, was withdraw
when the governor was informed from Was'
ington that the status of the forts would not 1
disturbed. Believing it a breach of the agre
ment with Buchanan, he was angered wh<
Major Anderson, on Dec, 26, concentrated h
garrisons in Fort Sumter. When Anderson r
fused to reoccupy his former positions, the go-
ernor seized the evacuated forts and the feder
arsenal and strengthened the harbor batterii
so as to put Sumter at their mercy in case i
hostilities. He was responsible for the firing <
the first guns of the war when, on Jan. 9, Morr
Island batteries prevented the passage of tl
Star of the West, a ship sent to relieve Sumte
When pressed by Anderson to deny responsibi
ity for this act, he replied with a justificatic
(War of the Rebellion; Official Records (Army,
i sen, I, 135) and sent a messenger to Wasl
ington demanding the surrender of the for
However, on the suggestion of Southern leadei
this demand was not delivered. He then becarr
convinced that the fort should be immediate]
reduced. To forestall rash action on his pa;
the newly created Confederate government, o
Feb. 12, took over the responsibility for all d<
cisions relating to the forts. The only part th<
Pickens played in the fateful step of openin
fire on Sumter was the transmission to the Cor
federate authorities of Lincoln's repudiation <
whatever words or deeds of his confident
agent, Ward H. Lamon [#.#.], had conveyed th
impression that the fort would be evacuated, an
Lincoln's notice that an attempt would be mad
to relieve the fort
Alarmed over the capture of Port Royal i:
November 1861 and the apparent inability of th
governor to provide adequately for the defens
of the state, the convention that had passed th
ordinance of secession erected in Decembie
1861 an executive council composed of th
560
Pickens
governor and four others. This body virtually
usurped the functions of the governor. Pickens
perforce submitted, protesting that there would
"now be great imbecility in acting1 as Commander
in Chief (White, post, p. 759)- Although the
executive council was unpopular, it was not
abolished until the end of his term of office in
1862. He retired to his Edgeficld estate, emerg-
ing in the public eye only once more to urge the
state constitutional convention of 1865 to accom-
modate the state to President Johnson's recon-
struction plans. His first wife died in 1842, He
then married Marion Antoinette Bearing of
Georgia. After the death of his second wife he
married in 1858 Lucy Petway Holcombe, the
daughter of Beverly Lafayette Holcombe, a
Virginian who had emigrated to Texas. Her
influence was responsible for his acceptance of
the Russian mission. Beautiful and accom-
plished, she made a splendid appearance in the
official circles of St. Petersburg and of the Con-
federacy. A regiment of South Carolina troops
was named the Holcombe Legion in her honor,
and her picture was engraved on Confederate
currency, Piekeus died deeply in debt owing to
personal extravagance and to the reverses of
war. For thirty years afterward his widow,
assisted by their only child, made "Edgewood"
the center of a lavish hospitality unique in upper
South Carolina*
[Some correspondence m the Lib, of Duke Univ. ;
Hammond Papers and other manuscript material m
Lib. of Conff.; information from Mrs. Sarah L. Sun-
kins, Bdgefidd, S. C. ; articles by J. K. Aiill ;n State
(Columbia), Jan. 1920; P. H. Haynt, Pokttc* •** £• C.,
P. W. Pickcns' Speeches, Reports, etc, (1864) ; LeRoy
F. YoutnanH, A Sketch of the Life and Services of,
Fronds W. Pickens (1869) ; C, S. Boucher, TheNuto'
fcation Controversy in S. C. (xoi6) ; L. A. White,
"The Kate of Calhoun'8 Sovereign Convention m b. v,.,
l. Rcv.t July
Am.
F.B.S.
PICKENS, ISRAEL (Jan, 30, *78o-Apr. 23,
1827), third governor of Alabama, was born
near Concord, Mecklenburg County, now in
Cabarras County, N. C., the son of Samuel and
Jane (Carrigan) Pickens. His father was a
Revolutionary soldier and was a cousin of An-
drew Pickens [?.v.]. The boy enjoyed unusual
educational advantages, at a private school in
Iredell County, N, C., and at Jefferson College
in Canonsburg, Pa,, from which he was gradu-
ated in 1802. He studied law, removed to Mor-
ganton in Burke County, N. C., and was ad-
mitted to the practice of his profession. In x8ps
and 1809 he sat In the upper house of the legis-
lature of his state. From there he was sent to
Congress, where he served in the House of Kep-
resentatives from x8n until 1817. Heyoted^for
the war with Great Britain and throughout that
Pickens
struggle favored the measures of the adminis-
tration. At his retirement from Congress he
became register of the land office at St. Stephens
in the new Territory of Alabama. On June 9,
1814, he had been married to Martha Orilla, the
daughter of William Lenoir of North Carolina,
and with her he removed West. In 1818 lie was
made president of the Tombeckbee Bank of St.
Stephens and the next year represented Wash-
ington County in the convention that framed the
first constitution of Alabama. Shortly thereafter
he removed to Greene County, where he resided
for the remainder of his life.
In 1821 the anti-Crawford forces elected him
governor of the state. At this time Alabama,
with the West in general, was in the throes of
the financial depression that followed the panic
of 1819. Banks were badly needed to ease the
credit situation, and the Alabama constitution
provided for the creation of a state institution.
Pickens' first legislature chartered such a bank
with the preexisting, privately owned banks as
the basis of its organization. The governor ve-
toed this measure, and no further progress was
made during his first administration. He was
a candidate for reelection in the campaign of
1823, in which the bank question was the lead-
ing issue. He won his race, and during the same
year a state-owned, state-directed bank was char-
tered. In 1824 it went into operation for the re-
lief of impoverished landowners. This was one
of the devices of the rising Democracy of the
West, but one that its chief, Andrew Jackson,
opposed. Pickens was not originally a Jackson
supporter, but he was too good a politician to
continue to oppose a movement that was irresis-
tible in his state. During his administration the
University of Alabama was definitely incor-
porated, and he became the first ex-officio presi-
dent of its board of trustees (Minute book,
University of Alabama archives). He was an
efficient administrator, and much of the funda-
mental work of organizing the governmental
machinery of the state is credited to him. Re-
tiring from the gubernatorial chair in 1825, he
was appointed to the United States Senate in
1826, but an infection of the lungs forced his
withdrawal from office after a brief issue.^ De-
clining an appointment as federal district judge
for Alabama, he went to Cuba in search of
health but died near Matanzas. He was buried
near the place of his death, but later his remains
were removed to Alabama and buried in the fan*,
ily cemetery near Greensboro.
s if -
561
Pickering
M. Owen, Hist, of Ala. and Diet, of Ala. Biog. (1921),
vol. IV ; T. P. Abernethy, The Formative Period in Ala.
(1925) ; Biog. and Hist. Cat. of Washington and Jeffer-
son College (1889) ; Southern Advocate (Huntsville,
Ala.), June i, 1827.] T.P.A.
PICKERING, CHARLES (Nov. 10, 1805-
Mar. 17, 1878), physician and naturalist, was
born in Susquehanna County, Pa., near Starucca.
His father, Timothy Pickering, Jr., who was a
Harvard graduate and for a time a midshipman
in the navy, died in 1807, and Charles was
brought up on a farm in Salem, Mass., under the
guidance of his mother, Lurena (Cole), and his
distinguished grandfather, Col. Timothy Pick-
ering [q.v.~\. From boyhood he had a keen in-
terest in natural sciences and in his youth made
botanical excursions into the White Mountains.
He entered Harvard College with the class of
1823 but transferred to the medical department
without graduating and was graduated M.D. in
1826. In 1849 he was granted the degree of A.B.
as of the class of 1823. In 1827 he settled in
Philadelphia where, in addition to practising
medicine, he began active work with the Acad-
emy of Natural Sciences of which he was al-
ready a corresponding member. For ten years
he diligently used the excellent resources of the
Academy to improve his knowledge; he was ac-
tive on the zoological and botanical committees,
and held the offices of librarian (1828-33) and
curator (1833-37).
Pickering's ability and attainments were recog-
nized in his appointment to the post of chief
zoologist of the United States Exploring Expe-
dition which sailed to the South Seas in 1838 un-
der the command of Lieut. Charles Wilkes [#.#.].
During the voyage, Pickering gave special atten-
tion to anthropology and to the geographical dis-
tribution of plants and animals, subjects which
held his interest for the rest of his life. As a re-
sult of studies made on the voyage and on a visit
to the East in 1843, he published his first impor-
tant work, Races of Men and Their Geographical
Distribution (1848), issued as the ninth volume
of the report of the United States Exploring
Expedition. The fifteenth volume of the same
report was a treatise by Pickering entitled The
Geographical Distribution of Animals and Plants
(1854), which was later supplemented by Plants
in Their Wild State (1876), published by the
Naturalist's Agency in Salem. After his voyage
to the South Seas, Pickering made his home in
Boston. In 1851 he married Sarah Stoddard
Hammond, daughter of Daniel Hammond. The
last sixteen years of his life he devoted to pains-
taking research, the results of which are given
in his monumental publication, The Chronologi-
cal History of Plants: Man's Record of His Own
Pickering
Existence Illustrated through Their Names, Usi
and Companionship. His death, in 1878, left th
work unfinished, but the editing was carried o
by his widow and the book was published in 1871
In addition to his books, he wrote a number c
papers contributed to scientific publications an
to the learned societies of which he was a men
ber. Despite the wide scope of his interests, hi
work was scrupulously accurate. As a man h
was characterized by sincerity, steadiness c
purpose, reticence, and evenness of disposition.
[Biog. sketch in Charles Pickering, The Chrono
logical Hist, of Plants (1870); W. S. W. Ruschen
berger, in Proc. A cad. Nat. Sci. of Phila., 3 ser. VII
(1879) ; Asa Gray, in Proc. Am. Acad. Arts and Sci,
n.s., vol. V (1878) ; J. W. Harshberger, The Botanist,
of Phila. and Their Work (1899) ; H. A, Kelly and W
L. Barrage, Am. Medic. Biogs. (1020) ; Anniversary
Memoir of the Boston Soc. of Nat. Hist, (1880) ; Bull
Essex Inst.t vol. XII (1881) ; Harrison Ellery and C
P. Bowditch, The Pickering Ccncal. (3 vols,, 1897)
Boston Transcript, Mar. 19, 1878.] F.E.W.
PICKERING, EDWARD CHARLES (Jul3
19, i84(5-Feb. 3, 1919), astronomer, was born or
Beacon Hill, Boston, Mass., the son of Edwarc
and Charlotte (Hammond) Pickering". He was
a great-grandson of Col. Timothy Pickering
[#.?;.] of Salem, Mass., who served in the cabi-
nets of Washington and John Adams ; his f athet
and grandfather were Harvard graduates; his
father held various offices of trust in large busi-
ness enterprises which he administered with
marked ability ; and his uncle, Charles Pickering
[#.#.], was a naturalist of note.
From such men young Pickering acquired a
broad outlook, a spirit of initiative, and a keen
sense of business. Proceeding from the Boston
Latin School to Harvard, he entered the Law-
rence Scientific School, where in 1865 he was
graduated S.B., smnma cum laude, at the age of
nineteen. After a year of teaching mathematics
in that institution he became assistant instructor
in physics, and in 1868 Thayer Professor of Phys-
ics, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technol-
ogy. Here he served till 1877, introducing the
laboratory method of instruction. He established
a physical laboratory in which the students, guid-
ed by his excellent manual, Elements of Physical
Manipulations (2 vols., 1873-76), made experi-
ments for themselves, being encouraged to pub-
lish papers on their original researches. In 1869-
70 he constructed an apparatus for the electrical
transmission of sound which he described before
the American Association for the Advancement
of Science, but he sought no patent, for he be-
lieved that "a scientific man should place no
restriction on his work."
In 1874, he married Elizabeth Wadsworth
Sparks, daughter of Jared Sparks [q.v.], a former
562
Pickering
president of Harvard, and in 1876 he was called
to be director of the Harvard Observatory. On
Feb. i, 1877, he entered upon the duties which
were to be his for forty-two years. The appoint-
ment by President Eliot of so young a man, a
physicist and not an astronomer, to such an im-
portant position aroused some criticism from
astronomers of the old school, but the wisdom of
the choice was soon justified. Astronomical sci-
ence had learned much from the so-called "old
astronomy" of position, but was then on the
threshold of the une\v astronomy," which seeks
a knowledge of stellar structure and its evolution.
Physics held the key to these mysteries, and Pick-
ering was the man to use physical methods with
the Harvard equipment
At the Observatory he found two instruments
of large sixe and finest quality. To avoid dupli-
cation of work done elsewhere, he selected pho-
tometry as his field of observation, a field almost
unexplored with largo instruments. He gave an
immediate demonstration, measuring by an in-
genious photometric method the diameters of
Phobos and Demies, the tiny moons of Mars,
then just discovered. Among the scientific
achievements of his directorate, stellar pho-
tometry should be ranked first. At the time he
entered the field* even the magnitudes (bright-
nesses) of the stars were not fixed on any gen-
erally accepted scale, Pickering established a
satisfactory scale and substituted instrumental
accuracy for uncertain eye estimates. To this end
he invented the meridian photometer and em-
ployed other similar devices. The magnitudes of
80,000 stars were thus catalogued on the basis of
over two million photometric settings, of which
more than half were made by him personally.
A second important achievement was the com-
pilation of a "photographic library," as Picker-
ing called it, giving a complete history of the
stellar universe down to the eleventh magnitude,
written by the stars themselves on some 300,000
glass plates, a history duplicated nowhere else in
the world. Photographic images of stars had
been obtained at Harvard as early as 1850; with
the advent of the dry plate, experiments were
resumed about 1882; but it was in 1885 that
Pickering began his intensive system of charting
the heavens. From these plates the past record
of the stars may be studied; Pickering himself
was able to plot the path of Eros in the sky from
photographs taken four years before this asteroid
was known to exist*
He was also a leader in stellar spectroscopy.
Stellar spectra indicate the composition, tempera-
ture, and physical conditions of the stars. With
a prism placed over the camera lens he photo-
Pickering
graphed the spectra by wholesale; laid the foun-
dation of spectral classification now universally
accepted, and obtained the material for the new
Draper Catalogue containing 200,000 stars. An-
other important accomplishment of his regime
was the establishment in 1891 of an observing
station at Arequipa, Peru, to extend his surveys
to the southern stars. His achievements in pho-
tometric magnitudes, in photography and photo-
graphic magnitudes, and in the classification of
variable stars as well as of spectra, set a world-
recognized standard. Eighty volumes of the An-
nals of the Astronomical Observatory of Har-
vard College (1855-1919) contain the record of
this work. Moreover, tinder his administration,
the Observatory's endowment rose to a million
dollars. While not a rich man, he was himself
always a large donor, and in later life regularly
turned in his salary to increase the institution's
scientific output. Twice he received the gold
medal of the Royal Astronomical Society; sci-
entific honors came to him from all over the
world. He was a founder (1898) and was chosen
president in 1906 of the American Astronomical
Society, and was beloved of all its members. At
the time of his death he was. recognized as the
"dean of astronomical research in America."
Pickering seldom took a vacation, but found
relaxation and inspiration in the music his wife
played to him on the piano. He liked chess as a
pastime. He made local explorations on a bicycle
and founded and was first president of the Appa-
lachian Mountain Club. In this connection he
devised the micrometer level, by which he plotted
mountain topography. He had no children, but
was fond of young people, and with his wife dis-
pensed a stately yet cordial hospitality. Of large
stature and commanding presence, he was a gen-
tleman of the older school, combining dignity
and social grace with a kindly spirit, eager to
give time, data, or financial aid to promising
and enthusiastic investigators.
[Harrison Ellery and C. P. Bowditch, The Pickering
Geneal. (3 vols., 1897) ; S. I. Bailey, m Astrophysical
Jour., Nov. 1919; W. W. Campbell, in Pubs. Astron.
Soc. of the Pacific, Apr. 1919 ; A. J. Cannon, in Popular
Astronomy, Mar. 1919; E. S. King ; in Jour. Royal
Astron. Soc. of Cmada, Apr. .1919 ;J- H. Metcalf, in
Proc. Am, Acad. Arts and Sci., vol. LVII (1922) ; H.
N. Russell, in Science, Feb. 14, 1919 J H. H. Turner,
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astron. Soc.f Feb.
E. S.K.
1920 ; Boston Transcript, Feb. 4>
PICKERING, JOHN (c. 1738-Apr. H, 1805),
judge, the son of Joshua and Mary Deborah
(Smithson) Pickering, was born at Newington,
N. H. He was descended from John Pickering,
who settled at Portsmouth about 1633, and was
not connected with Timothy Pickering. After
graduation at Harvard in 1761, abandoning Ms
563
Pickering
plan of entering the ministry, he studied law and
became one of the few really learned lawyers in
New Hampshire at this period. After a brief
period of practice in Greenland he settled in
Portsmouth and resided there for the rest of his
life. He married Abigail, daughter of Jacob
Sheafe of Portsmouth, but the date is a matter of
uncertainty. His practice is said to have been
large but not particularly remunerative in view
of the petty nature of much of the litigation at
this time. His name appears in the early records
of the Revolutionary contest as a holder of sun-
dry civil posts, but he took no important part in
developments until 1781, when he was a member
of the constitutional convention. From 1783 to
1787 he served repeated terms in the legislature
as the representative of Portsmouth, declined
service as a delegate to the Federal Convention
at Philadelphia in 1787, and in 1788 was an in-
fluential member of the New Hampshire conven-
tion that ratified the United States Constitution.
He was a presidential elector in 1788 and 1792,
served in the New Hampshire Senate and Coun-
cil, and in the constitutional convention of 1791-
92.
He was appointed chief justice of the superior
court of judicature on Aug. 7, 1790, serving un-
til February 1795, when appointed judge of the
United States district court. William Plumer,
who had served with him in the legislature and
the constitutional convention of 1791-92, has
recorded some of Pickering's peculiarities, his
timidity, his dread of crossing rivers, his tend-
ency to seek seclusion at periodic intervals, and
other characteristics which show a somewhat
abnormal mentality. His failure to perform
regularly the duties of chief justice had on at
least one occasion attracted the attention of the
legislature (House Journal, Dec. 22, 1794). For
some years his duties on the federal bench were
satisfactorily performed, perhaps as Plumer
points out, because it was no longer necessary
for him to go on circuit, but in 1801 he suffered
a mental breakdown and a member of the fed-
eral circuit court was obliged to take over his
duties in the district court at Portsmouth.
The abolition of the circuit courts soon after
the opening of Jefferson's administration neces-
sitated Pickering's resumption of duty and the
situation was obviously incompatible with the
proper administration of justice. On Feb. 3, 1803,
the President in a special message laid the mat-
ter before the House of Representatives (Annals
of Congress, 7 Cong., 2 sess., p. 460). Lacking
precedent for dealing with such a matter and ap-
parently influenced by the bitter party animosity
of the day, the House promptly voted articles of
Pickering
impeachment, charging "loose morals and in-
temperate habits" and conduct "disgraceful tc
his own character as a judge and degrading tc
the honor and dignity of the United States." He
had unquestionably been guilty of intoxication
and profanity in the court room, but his friends
and associates presented evidence of exemplary
character prior to his mental collapse. After a
perfunctory trial in which the defendant did not
appear, the Senate formally voted his removal on
Mar. 12, 1804. He did not long survive his un-
merited disgrace.
[William Plumer, Jr., Life of William Plumer
(1857), ed. by A. P. Peabody ; brief sketch by William
Plumer, in N. H. State Papers, XXII (1893), 839-43 ;
letter of Pluraer, with characterization of Pickering, in
Pubs. Colonial Soc. of Mass., XI (1910), 389-90 ; short
paper, dealing with Pickering's character and the
charges against him, by A. P. Peabody, in Proc, Mass
Hist. Soc.f XX (1884), 333-38; C. H, Bell, The Bench
and Bar of N. H. (1894) ; C. W. Brewster, Rambles
about Portsmouth, 2 ser. (1869) ; R. H. Eddy, Genea-
logical Data Respecting John Pickering of Portsmouth,
N. H. and His Descendants (1884), and Supplement
(1884). Pickering's career in the legislature can be
traced in the N, H. State Papers. For his impeachment,
see Annals of Congress, 7 Cong,, 2 sess., and 8 Cong,.,
i sess. ; and Extracts from the Journal of the U, S.
Senate in All Cases of Impeachment . . . 1798-1904
(1912), 62 Cong., 2 sess., Senate Doc. Afo, 876,]
W.A.R.
PICKERING, JOHN (Feb. 7, i777~May 5,
1846), lawyer, philologist, was born at Salem,
Mass., the eldest of the ten children of Timothy
[q.v.'] and Rebecca (White) Pickering, and the
fifth in descent from John Pickering (1615-57),
presumably a Yorkshireman, by trade a carpen-
ter, who settled in Salem in 1637. At the time of
John's birth his father was colonel of a Massa-
chusetts regiment quartered in New Jersey. John
entered Harvard College in 1792 and early
gained a reputation for his devotion to the
classics and, in lesser degree, to French. His
cousin, John Clark (1755-98), William Emer-
son's predecessor in the First Church in Boston,
addressed to him his Letters to a Student in the
University of Cambridge, Massachusetts (1796),
a little book still useful for the light it casts on
the literary culture of that period. After his
graduation in 1796, Pickering began the study
of law in Philadelphia in the office of Edward
Tilghman [q.v."] but in July 1797 he embarked
at New Castle, Del., for Lisbon to become secre-
tary to William Smith of South Carolina, the
American minister to Portugal. He spent two
happy years in Portugal, with ample leisure to
enjoy the social life of the capital and of Cintra,
to study the Romance languages, Turkish, and
Arabic, and to continue his reading of the law.
In November 1799 he went to London, where he
was welcomed by Rufus King and, some months
later, became his secretary. He spent much time
564
Pickering
in the law courts and in the House of Parliament,
enjoyed the theatres, visited Paris, Brussels, and
the Dutch cities, collected a remarkable library
part of which he was compelled to sell on his
return to the United States^ — and made the ac-
quaintance of various scholars. On Oct. 8, 1801,
he landed once more in Boston. His Wander-
jahrc were over; thereafter his longest, almost
his only, absence from Boston and Salem was a
five weeks' trip to New York, Philadelphia, and
Washington in 1832. In 1804 he was admitted
to the Essex County bar ; and on Mar. 3, 1805, he
married Sarah White, who was his first cousin
once removed through his father's family, and
his second cousin through his mother's. His wife,
with their two sons and a daughter, survived
him. To her wise management and self-effacing
devotion he owed the leisure that enabled him to
attain eminence both in the law and in philology.
Pickering moved to Boston in 1827 and in
1829 was made city solicitor, an office that he
held until a few months before his death. His
reputation as a lawyer was higher with his col-
leagues than with the public at large, but he was
much sought a [tor as a counselor, and his ar-
ticles on legal subjects most of them contributed
to the American Jurist;, are the work of a scholar.
He was one of the few Americans deeply inter-
ested in Roman Law, His political horizon lay
somewhere in the western suburbs of Boston, but
he represented Salem in the General Court in
1812, 1814, aticl 1826, was a member of the Gov-
ernor's Council in 18x8, was a senator from Suf-
folk County in 1829, and drafted Part First: Of
the Internal Administration of the Government
(1833) of the Revised Statutes of Massachusetts.
His office library contained only law books,
but in his study at home he devoted himself to
linguistics. His permanent fame in this depart-
ment has suffered from the fact that his main in-
terest lay more in learning languages than in
elaborating* theories about them. Like so many
American scientists of his generation and the
one following, he was overpowered by the wealth
of material unexplored. He acquired, with vari-
ous degrees of thoroughness, all the principal
European and Semitic languages, was acquaint-
ed with several of the Chinese group, and was
the leading authority of his time on the languages
of the North American Indians. His two closest
correspondents, on linguistic subjects, were
Pierre fitienne Du Ponceau [q.v.] and Wilhelm
von Humboldt ; his greatest admiration, in law
as well as languages, was Sir William Jones.
His chief service to his own time was his Com-
prehensive Lexicon of the Greek Lmguage
(1826; 1829; 1846), which was the best Greek-
Pickering
English dictionary before Liddell and Scott. In
collaboration with Daniel Appleton White he
prepared the first American edition of Sallust
( Salem, 1805), and he is still remembered as the
author of the first published collection of Ameri-
canisms, real or fancied, his Vocabulary or Col-
lection of Words and Phrases which Iwve been
supposed to be peculiar to the United States of
America (1816). His own style was that of the
most eminent British reviewers. Most of his
articles and monographs on linguistic subjects
are scattered through the volumes of the North
American Review, the Memoirs of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Collec-
tions of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
It was said of him, with pardonable exaggera-
tion, that he spent his life in declining honors.
Both for his personal qualities and his attain-
ments he was one of the most highly regarded
Bostonians of his day. He died in Boston, after
a year of declining health, and was buried in
Salem.
[Mary Orne Pickering, Life of John Pickering (pri-
vately printed, 1887), reviewed in Nation (N. Y.),
Sept. 29, 1887 ; Charles Stunner, "The Late John Pick-
ering," Law Reporter, June 1846, and The Scholar, the
Jurist, the Artist, the Philanthropist (1846) ; D. A.
White, Eulogy on John Pickering (1847) ; W. H. Pres-
cott, memoir, Colls, Mass. Hist. $&c., sen 3, vol. X
(1849), with a useful, though inaccurate, list of his
publications ; A. P. Peabody, Harvard Graduates Whom
I Have Known (1890) ; Harrison Ellery and C. P.
Bowditch, The Pickering Geneal (3 vols., 1897) ; esp.
I, 258-62; H. S. Tapley, Salem Imprints, 1768-1825
G.H.G.
PICKERING, TIMOTHY (July 17, 1745-
Jan. 29, 1829), soldier, administrator, and poli-
tician, was born at Salem, Mass., where the
Pickering family had been prominent since the
first years of settlement, An ancestor, John Pick-
ering, was living there in 1637. Timothy was the
eighth of the nine children of Timothy and Mary
(Wingate) Pickering. His father had sufficient
means to give him and his only brother a good
education. After graduating at Harvard College
in 1763, he returned to Salem and became a
clerk in the office of the register of deeds for Es-
sex County, where he was employed at intervals
for more than ten years. He studied law and
was admitted to the bar in 1768, but, although he
held Several minor judicial posts in the course
of his career, he never attained distinction as a
lawyer. He was an early supporter of the Revo-
lutionary movement in Massachusetts, and in
this, as in sundry local disputes, displayed great
ability as a newspaper controversialist and
pamphleteer. He served on various committees
engaged in Revolutionary agitation and drafted
several notable addresses and petitions* IE air
565
Pickering
dition he held various Salem offices, including
those of selectman, town clerk, and representa-
tive in the General Court, until summoned to
more important duties after the outbreak of wan
In 1766 he had received a commission as lieu-
tenant in the Essex County militia and he be-
came a devoted student of military history and
tactics. Although unsuccessful in his endeavor
to place the Massachusetts militia on a really
effective war footing, he performed useful serv-
ice in drilling the local levies and his activity
bore fruit in 1775 when he published An Easy
Plan of Discipline for a Militia, adopted by Mas-
sachusetts in 1776 and widely used in the Ameri-
can army until replaced by the famous manual
of Baron Steuben. He was elected register of
deeds in October 1774 and, in February of the
following year, colonel of the 1st Regiment of
Essex County militia. He took part in the mili-
tary operations in April 1775, and performed
varied services, civil and military, during the
early months of the war. On Apr. 8, 1776, he
married Rebecca White, a woman of great abil-
ity and strength of character who had been born
in Bristol, England. Their married life con-
tinued over fifty years and they had ten children,
among them John, 1777-1846 [q.v.~\, and Tim-
othy, father of Charles and grandfather of Ed-
ward Charles Pickering [qq.vJ].
After a brief assignment to coast defense duty
he led a Massachusetts contingent to join Wash-
ington's army and participated in the winter
campaign of 1776-77 in New York and New
Jersey. His creditable services and military tal-
ents led to Washington's offer of the post of
adjutant-general of the United States Army. Af-
ter some delay he resigned his place as register
of deeds and, in a letter of May 7, 1777, of which
Congress was informed May 24, accepted the
military position. He served with distinction
and in November was elected to the newly or-
ganized board of war, although continuing to
serve as adjutant-general until the following
January. Selected on Aug. 5, 1780, as quarter-
master-general, he held this important post until
after the conclusion of peace, While his conduct
of the department was frequently criticized, he
performed great services in the face of tre-
mendous obstacles and showed himself to be a
man of indefatigable industry and iron determi-
nation. His letters constitute an invaluable com-
mentary on the course of the Revolution. He
had no illusions as to the character of his coun-
trymen and the real causes of much of the suf-
fering and the prolongation of the war. "If we
should fail at last/' he wrote, Mar. 6, 1778, "the
Americans can blame only their own negligence,
Pickering
avarice, and want of almost every public virtue"
(Pickering and Upham, post, I, 211).
On the restoration of peace and after winding
up the affairs of his department he engaged in
mercantile business in Philadelphia, but because
of the post-war depression decided to move with
his growing family to the Wyoming Valley. At
this time he repeatedly, with voice and pen, ex-
pressed disapproval of the harsh treatment of the
Loyalists, declaring the policy pursued to be a
national disgrace, of which "the vestiges will re-
main to the most distant age" (Ibid., II, 132).
After a preliminary visit to the Wyoming
region in 1786, he moved there early in 1787,
charged by the government of Pennsylvania with
the duty of organizing the new county of
Luzerne. He was thus involved in the protract-
ed and bitter dispute between the Connecticut
settlers and the Pennsylvania authorities. Al-
though he did his best to settle jurisdictional
quarrels and quiet disputed land titles, the dila-
tory tactics and suspected bad faith of Pennsyl-
vania authorities brought upon him the wrath of
the settlers and caused him to be subjected to
outrageous treatment on several occasions. He
realized the grievances of the settlers, however,
showed magnanimity toward offenders, and rep-
resented Luzerne County in the convention that
ratified the Constitution of the United States, and
in the state constitutional convention of 1789-90.
His personal finances being badly involved,
apparently because of insufficient capital and ex-
cessive purchases of land, he determined to seek
public office under the newly organized federal
government. On Sept. 8, 1790, he applied to
Washington for the postmaster generalship but
was first sent on a special mission to the Seneca
Indians, who were threatening to join the west-
ern tribes in the war then in progress. After the
successful conclusion of this mission, he was ap-
pointed postmaster general, Aug. 12, 1791. He
was repeatedly assigned on missions to the In-
dians during the next few years, his temperament
and sympathies making him an admirable nego-
tiator. He endeavored to protect the tribes from
outrage and exploitation by the settlers but his
suggestions for an enlightened Indian policy,
like those for an effective military establishment,
were too advanced for the opinion of his times.
His recommendation for the establishment of a
military academy, however, was at length ac-
cepted by the government. The Post Office De-
partment was still in a rudimentary stage and
Pickering's work was necessarily of pioneer
character. For over three years he wrestled with
its administrative problems. On Jan* 2, I795» ^e
became secretary of war and his capacity for
566
Pickering
administrative detail was soon severely tested.
In addition to military and Indian affairs, the
department included the infant navy, and Picker-
ing" performed important services in connection
with building and equipping several of the fa-
mous frigates which afterwards did so much to
establish the naval reputation of the Republic.
In August 1795 the secretary of state, Edmund
Randolph [#.#.], was forced to resign, owing to
the discovery of dubious transactions with the
French minister, and Pickering, who had been
prominent in bringing the matter to the Presi-
dent's attention, succeeded to that portfolio. He
had, naturally enough in view of his personal and
official associations, together with his tempera-
ment, become a bitter and uncompromising Fed-
eralist, The French Revolution filled him with
dread and loathing. The foreign complications
accompanying the outbreak of war in Europe
convinced him, as they did many of his asso-
ciates, that France had malevolent designs on
American independence and that "French in-
fluence" meant the subversion of American in-
stitutions and mob rule. As a corollary he be-
came convinced that the British navy constituted
the chief barrier against French designs, For
more than twenty years his views of French
influence and policy constituted an obsession
which warped his judgment, weakened his polit-
ical scruples, and involved him in sundry tran-
sactions which clouded his reputation and ob-
scured his great services. He continued in the
State Department after John Adams' accession
to the presidency and took a prominent part in
the turbulent foreign policy of that adminis-
tration. He entered with enthusiasm into the
preparations for hostilities with France in 1798,
although protesting- vigorously against British
encroachments on American rights. While he
had never held Washington in the exalted
estimation of many contemporaries, he had ap-
parently been greatly influenced by the awe-
some presence, calm judgment, and iron will of
the great Virginian. He had no such sentiments
towards Adams* For Hamilton, however, he
had unbounded admiration, and, like many lead-
ing- Federalists, regarded the latter as the real
leader of the party. Pickering, on intimate terms
with Hamilton, followed a course which a man
of finer scruples would have shunned While
retaining his place in the Cabinet, he correspond-
ed with the President's party enemies, intrigued
against his appointments to the army then being
organized, and in the face of the President's de-
sire to settle difficulties with France, endeavored
to widen the breach. The effect on Federalist
party fortunes was disastrous, and Pickering
Pickering
was abruptly dismissed from the State Depart-
ment, May 10, 1800.
He resumed farming operations in western
Pennsylvania but his Federalist friends were
determined that his talents should not be lost to
the party. His lands were purchased by sub-
scription and Pickering, after twenty-four years'
absence, returned to his native county in Mas-
sachusetts, taking up farming, first in Danvers
and later at Wenham. He was defeated as a can-
didate for the federal House of Representatives
in 1802, but served in the Senate from Mar. 4,
1803, to Mar. 3, 1811. His controversial talents,
developed in years of partisan activity, had not
hitherto been tested in legislative halls, but he
soon became a formidable debater. He was a
bitter opponent of most of the measures of Jef-
ferson and Madison. Republican opponents re-
garded him with malevolence equal to his own.
He was repeatedly burned in effigy, and was the
subject of continual caricature and slander in
newspaper and pamphlet. The acquisition of
Louisiana and other Jeffersonian policies con-
vinced him that the interests of the commercial
states could no longer be properly maintained
within the Union. With Hamilton's death, Pick-
ering's position of leadership among the Fed-
eralists made his attitude very significant. His
correspondence shows that he was urging on
many of his colleagues the desirability of a
northern Confederacy, and that he considered
peaceful separation entirely feasible (Henry
Adams, Documents relating to New England
Federalism, passim).
Defeated for reelection to the Senate in 1811,
he served as a member of the Executive Council
of Massachusetts in 1812-13. In the meantime
he was reflected to the House, serving from
Mar. 4, 1813, to Mar. 3, 1817, and distinguishing
himself by the virulence of his opposition to the
War of 1812. His expectation that the Union
would dissolve was apparently never wholly
abandoned until the restoration of peace. He
retired at the close of his second term, but made
an unsuccessful contest for election to the Seven-
teenth Congress. He moved from Wenham to
Salem in 1820 and spent the rest of his life in Ms
birthplace, where in 1829 he died. Of powerful
physique and sound health, Pickering remained
active to the end of his life. He presents a
pteasanter side in his work for agricultural im-
provement, and in his correspondence on crop*
rotation, soil fertility, and animal husbandry. He
deserves an important place in the history of
New England agriculture and Timothy PftdRT-
ing the farmer, winning a ploughing wafim in
his seventy-fifth year, is a more attractive igtos
567
Pickering
than Timothy Pickering- the politician, when al-
most eighty, fanning the dying embers of his
controversy with Adams.
He was deeply interested in American history
and planned extensive literary work. His cor-
respondence with Governor Sullivan on the Em-
bargo (Interesting Correspondence between His
Excellency Governour Sidlivan and Col. Pick-
ering . . ., 1808), which was widely circulated
as a campaign document; his Political Essays.
A Series of Letters Addressed to the People of
the United States (1812) ; and A Review of the
Correspondence between the Hon. John Adams
. . . and the Late Wm. Cunningham, Esq. (1824),
disclose a mastery of English and a high order
of polemical ability. His more ambitious lit-
erary projects failed to materialize. Throughout
his career, however, he had been a prodigious
letter writer, and his carefully preserved papers
and notes are of unusual interest. Through his
letters and journals move the great figures of
the early days of the Republic. There are also
glimpses of the soldiers shivering in their huts
at Valley Forge, the officers cursing the ingrati-
tude of their country at Newburgh, the Indians
in council, the sailors crowding the smoky gun-
decks of the frigates and privateers, the fron-
tiersmen and teamsters struggling to open the
roads to the West, the people dying of yellow
fever in the great Philadelphia epidemic of 1793.
His judgments of contemporaries are frequently
prejudiced and worthless, but his keen observa-
tions of places, customs, and conditions render
his writings in the aggregate extremely valu-
able to the historian.
He had great administrative ability, industry,
and personal integrity. Although an outstanding
member of the die-hard school of Federalism, he
was democratic in his personal relations and
simple and unostentatious in his hatits. His in-
terests were broad and varied, but he had too
large a share of the Puritan temperament to be
an attractive figure. His portrait by Stuart seems
to reveal the harshness, narrowness, and in-
tolerance so often noted by contemporaries. Life
to him was a serious matter, "a probationary
state, a school of discipline and instruction, in
which we are to be prepared for admission into
the assembly of the saints and angels, to spend
an eternity in the presence and worship of the
Great Source of being and happiness" (Picker-
ing and Upfyam, IV, 73). It was quite in keep-
ing with such views that Hamilton, Stephen
Higginson, George Gabot, and other very human
associates became saints and angels in advance
of their translation, and that Jefferson, John
Adams, and Governor Sullivam seemed destined
Picket
to a very different region. He performed great
services for his country ; his defects of character:
and his political mistakes were common to the
group of New England Federalists to which he
naturally belonged.
[The great collection of Pickering Papers is for the
most part in. the custody of the Mass. Hist. Soc,, which
published a valuable index in its Collections, 6 ser.
vol. VIII (1896); this volume contains information as
to other depositaries of Pickering material. The Life of
Timothy Pickering (4 vols., 1867-73) by his son Oc-
tavius Pickering, who completed vol. I, and C. W.
Upham, who finished the work, contains copious ex-
tracts from the original manuscript collections. It is
a useful biography but glosses over or omits certain
aspects of his character and career. See also: M. O
Pickering, Life of John Pickering (1887); Harrison
Ellery and C. P. Bowditch, The Pickering Genealogy
(3 vols., 1897), containing a sketch, vol. I, 133-159;
H. C. Lodge, in Atlantic Monthly, June 1878, the best
short sketch. Henry Adams, Documents Relating to
New England ^ Federalism (1877), throws considerable
light on certain aspects of Pickering's career neglected
by his biographers. George Gibbs. Memoirs of the Ad-
ministrations of Washington and John Adams, Edited
from the Papers of Oliver Wolcott (2 vols,, 1846), the
biographies and published works of his chief contempo-
raries, and the more important collections of official
papers during the period of his public life contain fre-
quent references to him. There is an obituary in
(Salem) Essex Register, Feb. 2, 1829,] ^, ^. R.
PICKET, ALBERT (Apr. 15, I77i-Aug. 3,
1850), teacher and writer, was a pupil of Noah
Webster in Connecticut in 1782 and studied from
the manuscript sheets of the famous spelling
book. He was largely self-educated. He mar-
ried Esther Rockwell Hull on May 8, 1791, and
about 1794 he began to teach in New York City.
Preparation for his work as an organizer was
obtained in the Incorporated Society of Teach-
ers, of which he was twice elected president, His
Manhattan School, at first for girls only, had a
reputation extending beyond the city. It was not
only large and successful but was also a pioneer
in offering advanced instruction to girls. Like
Noah Webster he began writing by compiling
a spelling book, the Union Spelling Book ( 1804) •
Its success led him to the preparation of a series
of elementary English texts for spelling, reading,
and grammar, which were widely adopted in both
the East and the West. Their rapid introduction
into schools in the West was certainly one of
the influences that led to his later removal to Cin-
cinnati. To make a knowledge of progressive
educational ideas more widely available, he un-
dertook the establishment of a teachers' maga-
zine. With the aid of John Picket, the eldest of
his five children, he edited and published in New
York The Academician, a semi-monthly paper,
one of the first educational periodicals in the
United States. Inexperience and the fact that
the editors themselves had to write almost, all
tfae copy caused delays in publication* It ran
568
Pickett
from Feb. 7, 1818, to Jan. 29, 1820, and developed
a theory of education based upon psychology,
introduced the views of Pestalozzi, Fellenberg,
and Lancaster, published school news, and gave
practical advice on teaching. ^
Removing to Cincinnati in 1826, he estab-
lished another school for girls, was elected to the
board of education, and became a trustee of Cin-
cinnati College. When the city established a pub-
lic school system, he united the teachers of the
local private and public schools in 1829 to form
an association that soon became the Western
Literary Institute and College of Professional
Teachers. This body, centering in Cincinnati,
had members and affiliated societies in eighteen
states in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys and
remained active until about 1845. His Presi"
dcntiat addresses und his reports as chairman of
the executive committee, printed in the Trans-
actions of the . . . Western Literary Institute and
College of Professional Teachers, 1834-40 (6
vols., 1835-41), are admirable statements of his
program for the teaching1 profession^ Influential
in many states, the association was in Ohio one
of the deciding factors in establishing a state
school system and obtaining the passage of the
school law of 1838. He also attempted to estab-
lish a normal school and with others obtained
a charter for one from the Ohio legislature in
1834, but the institution was still-born. Whether
as organizer, journalist, or protagonist of pro-
fessional education, he aimed to raise the status
of teaching- and to develop a profession that
should be able to guarantee the competence of
its members. Those who knew him well speak
of his clear mind, his ability as a teacher, dig-
nified presence, and "pure, disinterested zeal m
the cause of education'* (E. D. Mansfield, Per-
sonal Memories, 1879, p. 269).
[B, A. and M. I, Htowtote, "The Western Literary
Institute and College for Professional Teacli m,Re
pert of the Commissioner of Edu c. (U.J 3.),*8p 8-9£
vol. I 'Ohio School Jour. (Columbus), Sept 1848, Com
mon School Hmr. (Bortem), Dec 1850 j Cut* Wykto
Advertiser (Cincinnati), Aug. 16, 1850; N. 7. H&M,
Oct. 18, 1817, N. Y. Ewning Post, Aug. 45, '8*4 J w^'
cm Spy (Cincinnati). June ap, 1817; —
Chronicle, May 10, 1834? OwwwwoH Da
TW TA tfia^ Anr <. 1812 1 Olontato0y **&.
S£, 8w8 ?'A8 *9, i853o birtMate an4 ^er mate-
rial from Ms great-Rrand-daughter, Mrs. Thomas E.
Rardin, Columbus, Ohio.) H.G.G.
Pickett
traders made the store their headquarters, and
Indians, especially the Creeks, came frequently
to the store. The boy became familiar with
them, often accompanied the traders on their
journeys into the wilderness, and visited the In-
dians in their villages. For formal education
there was little opportunity. He attended the
schools opened irregularly in communities near
his home. He was eighteen years old when his
father sent him to Middletown, Conn., to military
school. He reached Wadesboro, N. C., in safety
after a journey on horseback, exchanged his sad-
dlebags for a trunk, sold his horse, and made the
rest of the journey to Connecticut by stage.
Finding that the school at Middletown had been
reorganized, he went on to Cambridge, Mass.
He spent the next two years in school there and
in Stafford County, Va. In 1830 he returned
to Alabama and studied law with his brother.
Law had little attraction for him, however, and
he never took the examination for admission to
the bar. He was married to Sarah Smith Har-
ris on Mar. 20, 1832. They had twelve children,
nine of whom lived to maturity. Until his death
he lived the life of a gentleman planter in Au-
tauga County, spending his winters in Mont-
gomery and his summers on his plantation. He
was a military aide to Gov. Clement C. Clay and
was active in the preparations for war with the
Creeks in 1836.
He early became interested in writing and
wrote much for the newspapers on historical and
economic subjects. He was interested in experi-
ments for improving agriculture and wrote for
the Southern Cultivator and other agricultural
journals. In politics he was an ardent Demo-
crat and an enthusiastic admirer of Andrew
Jackson, declaring that he agreed Srith that
eminent person in every political opinion he ever
held— in every military movement he ever made,
and in his whole career through life-both civil,
religious, military and political" (Woods, post,
p 605). Although interested in politics, office
had no attraction for him, and, when his friends
proposed to nominate him for governor in 1853,
he resolutely refused to allow his name to be
considered. His chief literary work was his H**-
tory of Alabama and Imidentally of Georgia and
Mississippi fr°m th* Earliesf Period (?81I):
carries the history of Alabama through the ter-
PICKETT, ALBERT JAMES (Aug. 13,
iSto-Oct 28, 1858), historian, was born m An-
son County, N. C, the son of Frances (Dickson)
and William Raiford Pickett who m *8i« re-
moved to Autauga County, Ala. There his fa-
ther entered a large tract of land, opened a^tore,
and engaged actively in the Indian trade. Indian
the
Of much of the
^
obtain 'accurate inforrna don Ifcjpj
^ purchase of books and
pts, and he traveled^
569
Pickett
dreds of miles to interview people who might
give him information. The organization of the
book is poor, and its literary style is cumbersome
and involved, but it contains invaluable material.
He expected to follow this book by a history of
the Southwest, but he died before this work was
completed. The papers he left form one of the
most valuable collections in the Alabama State
Department of History and Archives.
[M. L. Woods, "Personal Reminiscences of Col. Al-
bert James Pickett," Trans, Ala. Hist. Soc.f vol. IV
(1904) ; C. M. Jackson, A Brief Biog. Sketch of the
Late Colonel Albert James Pickett (1859) ; B. F. Riley,
Makers and Romance of Ala. Hist, (n.d.) ; T. M. Owen,
Hist, of Ala. and Diet, of Ala. Biog. (1921), vol. IV;
The Smith in the Building of the Nation, vol. XII
(1909)-] H.F.
PICKETT, GEORGE EDWARD (Jan. 25,
i825-July 30, 1875), Confederate soldier, the
son of Colonel Robert and Mary (Johnston)
Pickett, and a descendant of William Pickett of
Fauquier County, Va., was born in Richmond,
Va. He received his early education in the
Richmond Academy and the law office of his
uncle, Andrew Johnston, in Quincy, 111., from
which state he was appointed in 1842 to the
United States Military Academy. He graduated
in 1846, the last of his class of fifty-nine mem-
bers, and went directly from school into the
Mexican War. He was commissioned second
lieutenant, 2nd Infantry, Mar. 3, 1847, and was
transferred in July, first to the jth and then to
the 8th Infantry. He served from the siege of
Vera Cruz to the capture of Mexico City. For
gallantry at Contreras and Churubusco he was
brevetted first lieutenant, Aug. 20, 1847. He was
first to go over the parapets of Chapultepec on
Sept. 13, 1847, and under the menace of enemy
fire, he lowered the Aztec emblem and hoisted
the flag of his infantry. From 1849 to 1856 he
did garrison duty in Texas, receiving the rank
of captain on Mar. 3, 1855.
In January 1851, he married Sally Minge of
Richmond, who died the following November.
He was assigned frontier duty in 1856 in the
Northwest and was engaged almost constantly
in Indian fighting. In 1859 American settlers on
San Juan Island (Puget Sound) complained of
Indian outrages and threatened British aggres-
sion. Pickett was ordered to take possession of
the island, which he did promptly with a force
of sixty soldiers. Three British warships an-
chored broadside to the camp and warned him
off the island, and later the British magistrate
aboard the flagship summoned him for trial, but
he disregarded both messages. The British next
proposed landing a force equal to Pickett's for
joint military occupation. To this he replied,
Pickett
"I am here by virtue of an order from my go-v
eminent, and shall remain till recalled by th
same authority" (Ann. Reunion, Asso. Gradt
U. S. Mil Acad., 1876, p. 12). He further an
nounced he would fire upon any landing force
This dangerous mission was accepted by Picket
with full knowledge that his orders were inspire
by Democratic officials who hoped to weld to
gether the disintegrating bonds of the Union b
the threat of a foreign war. Joint occupation b
British and American forces was the solutioi
reached, and Pickett remained in command o
the American forces there almost continuousl1
until 1861 when he resigned from the Federa
forces. He went to Richmond, was commis
sioned colonel, and assigned to duty on the lowe
Rappahannock.
He was made a brigadier-general in Februar
1862, and his command, by the chvsh and courag'
displayed at Williamsburg, Seven Pines, am
Gaines's Mill, earned the sobriquet, "The Gam<
Cock Brigade." At Gaines's Mill, on June 27
1862, he was severely wounded in the shoulde
and did not rejoin his command until after th
first Maryland campaign. He was promote*
major-general in October 1862, and given com
niand of a Virginia division. At Predericksburj
he held the center of Lee's line and later serve<
creditably in the campaign against Suffolk. A
Gettysburg, on July 3, 1863, with a strength o
4,5°° niuskets, his command advanced over hal
a mile of broken ground against withering artil
lery and musket fire. With the precision of pa
rade drill they descended one slope, ascendet
the next, and, with unmatched courage of indi
vidual gallantry, assaulted the formidable Unioi
line only to be forced back in defeat. Scarcely
a fourth of his command returned from thii
memorable charge, After the Gettysburg cam
paign, he commanded the Department of Vir
ginia and North Carolina* His advance frorr
Petersburg on Feb. i, 1864, to free New Bern
N. C., failed of its objective but secured 500 pris*
oners and valuable stores. Late in April 1864
his troops, with Robert Frederick Hoke [g.<
commanding, recaptured Plymouth, N. C., jus
as Pickett was ordered to Richmond. Before h<
could start, however, General Butler's fleet ap-
peared off Citypoint in the James River, anc
threatened the back door of the Confederate cap-
ital, Butler's sluggish action enabled Pickett tc
turn the command over to Beauregard with But-
ler's troops still bottled up at Bermuda Hundred
In the final Union offensives near Petersburg
his division bore the brunt of the attack at Five
Forks on Apr. i, 1865, where he made the great-
est fight of his career. He joined Longstreel
570
Pickett
with the remnants of his command and remained
with him until the surrender at Appomattox.
On Sept. 15, 1863, he married the young and
beautiful La Salle Corbell of Chttckatuck, Va.
Two children, one ol whom lived to maturity,
were born to them. Peace found him in poverty
and deprived of his profession. The Khedive of
Egypt offered him a commission as brigadier-
general, hut he refused service which would sepa-
rate him from hivS beloved wife. When Grant
became president, he offered him the marshal-
ship of Virginia, hut he declined. Instead he
accepted the Virginia agency of the Washing-
ton Life Insurance Company of New York and
was so employed at the time of his death. He
died at: Norfolk, Va., where his body was placed
temporarily in a vault On Oct. 25, 1875, his re-
mains were borne to Hollywood Cemetery, Rich-
mond, Va., and there buried with full military
honors,
[Personal papers in llut possession of a member of
the family; T, U Hnnm, "The Pickett Family," in the
Times-/) is patch (Richmond, Va.)» Apr. u, 1909; La
Salic Corbell 1'ickdt, Wckctt and His Men (1899), in-
cluding in appendix a WOK, aketch by G. B, McClellan;
A, C. Immm, eil.^oM/tr of the South, Gen. Pickcttfs
War Letters to Ills Wife (10:28) ; Ann. Reunion, Asso.
Crads. U. & Mil. stead., i$?6 ; G. 0. Haller, San Juan,
and Seeession (sB()6) ; J. C, Mayo, "Pickett's Charge
at Gettysburg," Southern Jfist. Soc. Papers, vol.
XXXIV (1906) j Richmond llnqiiircr, Aug. i, 1875,]
C.C.B.
PICKETT, JAMES CHAMBERLAYNE
(Feb. 6, T793-July 10, 1872), diplomat, was
born in Pauqmer County, Va,, the grandson °^
William S. Pickett, and the son of Jolin and
Elizabeth (Chamberlaync) Pickett, Some three
years after his birth the family moved to Mason
County, Ky., but it was from Ohio that he was
appointed, Au#. 14, 1813, to be third lieutenant
in the 2nd United States Artillery. He left the
service in 1815 at the end of the war with Great
Britain only to recnter it June 16, 1818, as cap-
tain and assistant dcputy-quartermaster-general.
He served until June 1821, Meanwhile he had
tried his hand at editing the Eagle, at Mays-
ville, Ky,, had read law, and on Oct. 6, 1818,
had married Ellen Dcsha, daughter of Gov. Jo-
seph Desha of Kentucky. Two sons were born
to this marriage. In 1821 he returned to the
practice of the law and the next year sat in the
state legislature as his father had done before
him. He achieved the reputation of being one
of the foremost scholars of his state. After
three years as secretary of state of Kentucky
( 1825-28), he was ready for the first of a series
of federal appointments.
His appointment, on June 9, 1829, to be sec-
retary of legation in Colombia, was the^ begin-
ning of a diplomatic career of some distinction.
Pickett
He traveled about Colombia, reporting to the
American minister at Bogota his fears of
British commercial aggression and his doubts
whether even the sway of Spain could have been
more tyrannical than the last five years of re-
publican rule. He found the country still suf-
fering from twenty years of civil war. Return-
ing to the United States, he served for three
months in 1835 as superintendent of the United
States Patent Office and in January 1836 was
appointed fourth auditor of the Treasury De-
partment. Two years later (June 1838) he re-
sumed his diplomatic career. As charge d'af-
faires of the United States, he was authorized to
conclude treaties of commerce with the Peru-
Bolivian Confederation and with the Republic
of Ecuador, to which he was appointed special
diplomatic agent By June 13 of the next year,
a treaty of peace, friendship, navigation, and
commerce with Ecuador, with its "most-favored-
nation" clause and its definitions of neutral
rights in wartime, was ready for signature. It
was proclaimed in September 1842 (8 U. S.
Statutes at Large, 534). With Peru, Pickett
was somewhat less successful. After substan-
tial concessions by the United States, a claims
convention providing for the adjustment of the
claims of citizens of the United States against
Peru was signed on Mar. 17, 1841, but it was
not proclaimed until Feb. 21, 1844 (Ibid., 570).
It called for a total payment by Peru of $300,000,
to be met in ten annual instalments. Pickett found
the youthful and tumultuous Peruvian republic
no easy country with which to deal, for it was
constantly on the verge of insurrection or in-
volved in civil war ; and when he returned to the
United States late in 1844, he left three claimants
contending for the presidency of the nation.
Pickett appears to have been a warm expansion-
ist who urged the desirability of an isthmian
canal and who approved as early as 1842 of the
plans of an American naval officer for detaching
San Francisco from Mexico (Memoirs of John
Qmncy Adams, vol. XI, 1876, p. 367). After the
close of his diplomatic career he settled in Wash-
ington where for some years (c. 1848-53) he ed-
ited the Daily Globe. He was also concerned in
a short-lived magazine venture, the National
Monument, suspended in 1851 for lack of funds
(W. B. Bryan, A History of the National Cap-
ital, 1916, II, 422 n.). After this time, however,
he lived in relative obscurity until his death, in
Washington, in 1872.
[Pickett's dispatches and the Departmental instruc-
tions to Pickett in the archives of the Dert. of ^*e,
records of Appointment Office, Dept of State, The
Pickett Family," Times-Dispatch (Richmond Va.},
Apr n, 1909; W. M. Pwtpn, The MwshdlFm^h
(1885) ; F! B. Heitmaa, Hist. Reg. <rnd Dwt. W, £
S71
Picknell
Army (1903), vol. I ; The Biog. Encyc. of Ky. (1878) ;
H. Levin, The Lawyers and Law-Makers of Ky. (1897),
p. 435; Evening Star (Washington, D. C), July 10,
E.W.S.
PICKNELL, WILLIAM LAMB (Oct. 23,
i853-Aug. 8, 1897), landscape painter, born
at Hinesburg, Vt, was the son of the Rev. Wil-
liam Lamb Picknell and Ellen Maria (Upham)
Picknell. His father, a Baptist minister, was of
Scotch descent. His mother was a descendant
of one of the settlers of Weyniouth, Mass. Upon
the death of his father, Picknell, then about
fourteen years old, went to Boston, and, after a
brief interval of business, in 1874 traveled to
Rome. There he met George Inness [tf.z/.] and
under his tutelage did his first experimental work
at painting on the Campagna. After two years
In Italy he went to Paris and worked under J. L.
Gerome in the ficole des Beaux-Arts. He then
proceeded to the fishing village of Pont-Aven,
Brittany, where he came under the influence of
Robert Wylie and put in four years of patient
and concentrated work. In 1880 he sent to the
Paris Salon his "Road to Concarneau," which
made a name for him. It was followed in 1881
by another excellent landscape. The artist then
went to England and painted for two winters
near the south coast and in the New Forest.
"Bleak December," now in the Metropolitan
Museum, New York, and "Wintry March," be-
longing to the Walker Gallery, Liverpool, were
conspicuously successful works of this period.
After a decade abroad Picknell returned to
America and painted at Annisquam, Mass., for
several summers, usually going to the Mediter-
ranean shores for his winter work. He spent
one winter in Florida and another in California,
where he painted his "In California," which
brought $2,025 at the executor's sale of his works,
in New York, 1900. He married Gertrude Pow-
ers in 1889 and a year later went abroad and
remained in France until 1897. Efe worked in
Moret in the summer and at Antibes in the win-
ter. The pictures painted there served to in-
crease his reputation in France, especially the
"Declin du Jour." The death of his only child
at Antibes in 1897 was a heavy blow. Picknell
was himself far from well, but he sailed for
America in July and got to Marblehead, Mass.,
to die there of heart disease in August, at the
age of forty-three. A memorial exhibition of
forty-four of his paintings was held at the Bos-
ton Art Museum in 1898 and at that time Saint-
Gaudens' bronze medallion portrait of the artist
was shown. At a sale of his works in New York
in 1900, fifty-six pictures fetched a total of $ro>
520 (American Art Awmd* vol. Ill, 1900, p,
Picton
46). His "Road to Concarneau" and "En Pro
vence" are in the Corcoran Gallery, Washington
"Morning on the Loing at Morct" and "San
Dunes of Essex" arc in the Boston Museum o
Fine Arts ; "Morning on the Mediterranean, An
tibes," is in the Luxembourg Museum, Paris
and other good examples are to be seen in th>
Pennsylvania Academy, Philadelphia, the Brook
lyn Museum, and the Carnegie Institute, Pitts
burgh. His landscapes are virile. Nothing ii
extenuated. His style is naturalistic and large
the construction is notably firm, and there is ai
invigorating atmosphere in his canvases of fresl
air and strong sunlight.
[E. W. Emerson, "An Am. Landscape Painter,'1
Century Mag,, Sept. 1901, and Foreword in the cata-
logue of the memorial exhibition, Boston, 1898; Ncu
England Mag,t Apr. 1896; P. K. Upham, The De-
scendants of John Upham (1892) ; Boston Transcript^
Aug. 9, 1897, Feb. is, 1898; catalogues of executor's
sale, 1900; T. B. Clarke sale, 1899; G, I. Seney sale,
1891; E. McMillin sale, 1913; exhibition at Avery
Gallery, N. Y., 1 890,] W> H< ^
PICTON, THOMAS (May 16, xSaa-Feb. 20,
1891), soldier of fortune, journalist, was Thomas
Picton Milner, the son of Jane Milner (Gen-
eral Alumni Catalogue of Nctv York Univer-
sity, 1906), who, shortly after his birth, was
listed in New York City directories as "widow."
Nothing is known of his father. He spent his
youth in the home of his maternal grandmother,
a woman of wealth, who provided him with a
good education. Later in life he dropped his last
name, becoming known to his contemporaries as
Thomas Picton. After graduating in 1840 from
New York University he spent several years
abroad. While in France he became an officer in
the French army under Louis Philippe, who is
said to have made him a knight of the "Legion
of the Stranger." With the fall of Louis Philippe
in 1848 he returned to New York, but an adven-
turous spirit still dominated him, and probably
toward the close of 1850 he joined the force
which Narciso Lopez was collecting in the Unit-
ed States to lead against Cuba, Barely escaping
capture when Lopez was taken prisoner, Picton
sought refuge from his enemies in the steamer
Palmer o, which was pursued by a Spanish man-
of-war. He finally succeeded in reaching New
York and for a few years busied himself in jour-
nalistic pursuits. But the preparations which
William Walker was making for the invasion of
Nicaragua once more aroused his filibustering
instincts, and he attached himself to Walker's
force, becoming for a time paymaster in the Gen-
eral's army. After the shooting of Walker he re-
turned to the United States and with the out-
break of the Civil War raiaed a company of sol-
572
Picton
diers which was later incorporated in the 38th
New York Infantry, but Picton himself seems to
have played no part in the war.
Picton's career as a journalist began as early
as 1850 when for a short time he edited in con-
junction with his teacher and friend, Henry
William Herbert ("Frank Forester"), a peri-
odical called the Era. He had already become
associated with Edward Z. C. Judson ("Ned
Buntlme"), active in the organization of the
Native American movement, and during the early
fifties he became an editor of the Sachem, and
on its discontinuance, the founder of the True
American, both organs of the new movement.
His love of sports also found expression through
journalistic channels, and during his later years
he contributed to the Clipper; Turff Field, and
Farm ; and the Spirit of the Times. For the last-
named periodical he wrote a series of articles,
beginning with the issue of Feb. 19, 1881, called
"Reminiscences of a Sporting Journalist." These
articles, which appeared intermittently until a
short time before his death, dealt with sporting,
social, and historical topics having reference to
the New York of Picton's youth and early man-
hood. During his years as a journalist, he was
also connected with the True National Demo-
crat f the Sunday Dispatch , and the Sunday Mer-
cury. He frequently wrote under the pseudonym
of "Paul Preston," Among his publications so
designated were Paid Preston's Book of Gym-
nastics: or Sports for Ymth (n.dL) and The
Fireside Magician (1870). His interest in the
history of old New York led to the publication
in 1873 of a small pamphlet called Rose Street;
its Past, Present, and Future. He also contrib-
uted a biographical sketch of Henry Herbert to
the Life and Writings of Prmk Forester (1882).
Among- his more creative efforts were two light
dramas: A Tempest in a Teapot (copyright
1871), and There's No Smoke Without Fire
(copyright 1872). A volume of poems. Acrostics
from Across the Atlantic, published in London
in 1869 and signed "A Gothamlte," has also
Pidgin
tions, and he was buried in the lot of the Press
Club in Cypress Hills Cemetery
[Obituaries in the N. Y. Recorder, Feb. 25, 1891 ;
Jv. Y. Tribune, Feb. 22, 1891 ; Spirit of the Times, Feb.
28, 1891 ; Masonic Chronicle and Official Bulletin, Mar.
I89lj N.F.A.
PIDGIN, CHARLES FELTON (Nov. n,
i844~June 3, 1923), statistician, inventor, au-
thor, was born in Roxbury, Mass., the only son
and only child surviving infancy of Benjamin
Gorham and Mary Elizabeth (Felton) Pidgin.
His father is designated at different times as a
"turner," "varnisher," or "finisher," and though
he may have been of New England origin, he
apparently did not have as long an American de-
scent as his wife, who was of the seventh gen-
eration of the Felton family in Massachusetts.
Charles Felton Pidgin received in boyhood an
injury to his hip that paralyzed one of his legs
and necessitated the use of artificial support for
it throughout his life, but despite this handicap!
he entered the Boston English High School in
1860 and graduated from it in 1863. He then
secured employment as a bookkeeper in Boston,
and he also did a certain amount of writing for
newspapers in Boston and elsewhere. In 1870
he became junior member of the firm of Young
& Pidgin, manufacturers of linen collars and
cuffs, but his connection with this business last-
ed only two years, and he resorted to newspaper
writing for a time. In 1873 he was appointed
chief clerk of the Massachusetts Bureau of Sta-
tistics of Labor, probably as a result of the rec-
ommendation of Carroll D. Wright, who had
just been made director of the bureau, and^was
impressed by Pidgin's ability. In this position
he found an outlet for his inventive talent, and
he showed great ingenuity and resource in de-
vising methods and instruments for the mechan-
ical tabulation of statistics, some of which were
intended to meet the special needs of his own De-
partment, but others were patented and exploited
commercially.
In the report of the 1885 census of Massachu-
setts, Pidgin is credited with an important part
in organizing and directing it, and until after he
was fifty his interest was chiefly in statistics and
in machines of his invention for computing and
he published Practical Sto-
pany and at another was city paymaster For
some years, too, he acted as assistant cashier rf ract = ««
the Nassau Bank. About ^emrneda^
Gardner, daughter of a Confederate officer of
that name, but a few years later the couple sepa-
rated. At the time of his death in New York
City he was without immediate family connec-
573
had f
dramateed. The success o
&* led
. (*oo>,«
This book
also
veatoe
Pieper
field of creative literature spurred him to further
efforts, and he published several other works of
fiction within the next few years, the best known
being Blennerhasset (1901), which dealt with a
period and characters he found particularly in-
teresting. In 1903 he was made chief of the Bu-
reau of Statistics of Labor but in July 1907 his
reappointment by the governor was not con-
firmed and he was retired on a pension. The rest
of his life he devoted to authorship and inven-
tion. He wrote two more volumes in which
Quincy Adams Sawyer was the hero, one of
which was a detective story, and other works of
a varied nature.
In 1917 Pidgin perfected what he called 'Vis-
ible speech," a system designed to make possible
the photographing of words as if issuing from
the mouths of motion-picture actors. There was
no form of communicating thought or recording
information in which he did not show aptitude,
but his main interest was in what was practical
and utilitarian. He did not lack esthetic percep-
tions, but he was more disposed to make his
means of expression effective than he was to take
delight in what it expressed. He foresaw the
need imposed by the increasing complexity of
mechanical civilization for rapid means of accu-
mulating, condensing, and displaying involved
records, and he played a part in developing the
present methods of mechanical computation and
graphic presentation of results. He died in Mel-
rose, Mass., in 1923. He was married on July 3,
1867, to Lizzie Abbott Dane, who died in 1868;
on Nov. 25, 1873, to Lucy Sturtevant Gardner,
M.D., who died in 1896 ; and on July 21, 1897, to
Frances Fern Douglas, who survived him. In
1906 he adopted a daughter, who also survived
him.
[There are obituary notices of Pidgin in the Boston
Transcript, June 4, 1923, and in the N. Y. Times, June 5,
1923. See Who's Who in America, 1922-23, for the list
of his books ; Cyrus Felton, A GcneaL Hist, of the Pel-
ton Family (1886) ; Vital Records of Roxbury, Mass,,
vol. I (192$) ; and Boston Advertiser, June 28, 1907,]
S.G.
PIEPER, FRANZ AUGUST OTTO (June
27, i852-June 3, 1931), Lutheran theologian,
was born at Carwitz, Pomerania, Germany, the
son of Augustus and Berta (Lohff) Pieper. Au-
gustus Pieper, a town mayor, sent his sons to the
junior colleges at Koeslin and Kolberg. In 1870
his widow took the family to America and Franz
attended Northwestern University at Water-
town, Wis., where he received the A.B. degree
in 1872. He then attended Concordia Theolog-
ical Seminary at St. Louis, and was graduated
in 1875, being ordained in July of the same year.
After serving a small congregation at Center-
Pi eper
ville, Wis., for a little over a year, he went
November 1876, to Manitowoc, where he •
mained until he was called to Concordia Ser
nary to teach dogmatics and to be an understu
of Dr. Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther [q.v
He arrived in St. Louis on Oct. 2, 1878, a
remained there until his death. In 1880 a stoi
which had been brewing* for three years bro
about the head of Dr. Walther. Pieper loyal
rushed to his assistance and became involved
a controversy on predestination which was
occupy him actively for the next thirty-fi-
years. By a fine-spun scholastic logic, backed 1
copious quotations from the sixteenth-centui
Lutheran fathers, the American Lutheran the
logians on both sides tried to establish then
selves in the eyes of a church rooted in a Eur<
pean culture. That Pieper was successful in h
appeal is seen by the prodigious growth of tf
Missouri Synod at this time. He wrote tirelessl
on this and related subjects in the organs of hi
synod, his last important word being' the genij
booklet, published in 1913, Zur Rinigung dc
Amerikanisch-luthcrischcn Kirchc in dcr Lchr
von der Bckchrung und GnademwM (translate'
as Conversion and Election; a Pica for a Unite*
Luthcranism in America), in which he made ai
eloquent plea for peace. This book heralded \
new day, and in spite of the failure of efforts t<
make peace with the Ohio, Iowa, and Buffalc
synods, Pieper lived to see his synod adopt <
very irenic attitude towards its former antag-
onists,
Pieper was an able administrator. When he
became a member of the very distinguished fac-
ulty of Concordia Seminary there were sixty-
nine students enrolled at the institution. At his
death there were 534 enrolled, of whom 432 were
in attendance, making Concordia the largest
Protestant seminary in the United States. Pie-
per was one of the magnets that attracted this
large group of students, just as he was one of
the magnets that had drawn into the member-
ship of the Missouri Synod, of which he was
president from 1899 to *9**, 1,200,000 souls.
This rapid expansion gave rise to many prob-
lems, the most important of which were precipi-
tated by overcrowded quarters. In 1882 the Mis-
souri Synod had built a splendid compound of
buildings, but Pieper, who was president of the
Seminary from 1887 to 1931, found it necessary
to erect a new set of fireproof buildings in 1907,
and more during a period from 1923 to 1926, the
latter project involving an expenditure of about
three and a half million dollars. Besides being
president of the Seminary and of the Missouri
Synod, he served on innumerable committees.
574
Pierce
The work of his church among the colored peo-
ple was his hobby. He traveled in Europe twice,
in 1898 and in 191 T, seeking both times to re-
store his impaired health. Of his numerous writ-
ings, his ChrMichc Dogniatik (1917-1924), in
three large volumes, will probably have the most
enduring value. On Jan. 2, 1877, he was married
to Minnie Koehn. They had thirteen children,
three of whom became pastors, and five, pastors'
wives.
[Who's Who in America, i 930-3 * J The Concordia
Cyc, (1027), eel by L. Fttcrbrmger, T. Engelder, and
P E. Kretssmann * Theodore Graebner, Dr. Francis
Picpcr, A BtOQ* Skiteh (1031)' P. E. Kretzmann,
"Prof. Franz August Olio Picpcr, Dr. TheoL," Con-
cordia Theol, Monthly, AUR, 1931; L. Ftierbringer,
"Dr. R Pieper Als Tlieolog,," Ibid., Oct. and Nov.
1931 ; St. Louis Globe- Democrat, June 4,^ 1931. Com-
ments upon his life and work were made in practically
all the religious journals of the Lutheran Church in
America and iu sonic periodicals in Europe.]
J.M.It
PIERCE, BENJAMIN (Dec. 25, i7S7~Apr. i,
1839)1 governor of New Hampshire, the son of
Benjamin and Kliaabcth (Merrill) Pierce, was
born in Chelmsford, Mass, He was descended
from Thomas Pierce, an English emigrant of
1633-34 who settled in Charlestown, Mass. His
father died when the boy was six, leaving him to
the care of an uncle ; his education consisted of
a few weeks' schooling anct much farm labor.
When the news of the battle of Lexington came,
Pierce immediately joined the Massachusetts
militia as a private. Remaining in the army until
February 1784, he participated in the maneuvers
around Boston and in the Saratoga campaign,
and was stationed at Valley Forge and in the
Hudson Valley; during these years he rose to
the rank of lieutenant in command of a company,
receiving one promotion for bravery in the bat-
tle of Saratoga, When he was mustered out he
became an agent for Samson Stoddard of
Chelmsford, Mass., who had large tracts in New
Hampshire and Vermont. He explored much of
this land and in the course of his wanderings
picked out a frontier farm in Hillsborough,
N. H., where he settled in 1786. On May 24,
1787, he married Elizabeth Andrews, who died
the following year ; and on Feb. i, I79<>> he mar"
ried Anna Kendrick (1768-1838), who became
the mother of Franklin Pierce [#.z/.].
In 1786 Pierce was appointed to organize the
militia of Hillsborough County as brigade-major
and served until 1807, when he resigned with the
rank of brigadier-generaL He began his polit-
ical career in 1789, when he was elected to the
lower house of the legislature; he was chosen
annually for thirteen years and, in i?9*, served
as a member of the state constitutional conven-
tion. In 1803 he was elected a member of the
575
Pierce
governor's council, and in 1809 he was appoint-
ed sheriff of his county. During these years he
had become an intensely active supporter of
Thomas Jefferson and as a plain farmer warred
against the aristocratic Federalists. He strong-
ly supported the War of 1812 but New Hamp-
shire returned to the Federalist fold in opposi-
tion to that contest. One of the first things the
victorious Federalists did was to remove a num-
ber of Republican office holders, among them
Benjamin Pierce, in 1813, ostensibly because he
refused to recognize the new courts estab-
lished by the Federalists to eliminate Republi-
can judges. The next year his friends elected
him to the governor's council as a vindication
and when the Republicans regained power he
was reappointed sheriff of Hillsborough County,
serving from 1818 to 1827.
Party lines were indistinct in New Hampshire
as elsewhere in the 'twenties ; new groups were
forming. Isaac Hill \_q.v."] was marshaling a
farmers' party in the interior of the state, and,
recognizing Pierce's vote-getting strength as a
Revolutionary veteran and an agrarian leader,
brought him forward as a candidate for the gov-
ernorship in 1827, 1828, and 1829. He was
elected in 1827 and 1829 and, since the governor
of New Hampshire had little power, he was con-
tent with a few recommendations for the im-
provement of the militia and local education. By
this time he was an ardent Jacksonian; his last
public service was as a Democratic elector hi
1832. During these years of political activity he
had been fairly prosperous as a farmer and had
become a local magnate in the town of Hillsbor-
ough, where he kept a tavern in his large dwell-
ing on the turnpike. He was a rugged, unlet-
tered pioneer, dominating and patriarchal, who
bore the hardships of frontier life easily and
maintained a constant interest in the growth of
the government he had helped to establish.
TA COTJV of Pierce's autobiography and a number
nf w« Vffpr*? are in the N H. Hist. Soc. Biographical
M^^^^F^^ M™™? V™tor> Apr-
iT 1839 p 49, and July 1852, p. 193. An obituary ap-
pearedmN H. Patriot and State Gazette, Apr. 8,
?839. See also A. S. Batchellor, ed, "^arlySUte Pa-
pers of N H.," N. H. State Papers, vols. XXI, XXII
? 180^93) ; G W. Browne, The Hist, of HiUsborwgh,
N H 173^1921 (* vols. 1921-22) ; F. B. Pierce,
Pierce Genlalogy ...the Posterity of Thomas Pwrce
(1882).] K-F.N.
PIERCE, EDWARD LILLIE (Mar. 29,
1829-Sept. 5, 1897), lawyer and biographer,
brother of Henry Lillie Pierce [g.w.], was bom
at Stoughton, Mass., where his father, Jesse, was
a fanner, militia colonel, and sometime teacher
and legislator. His mother, Elizabeth, was^ffie
daughter of Maj. John Lillie of the staff ••*«*•
Henry Knox. Pierce always took a fceea n-
Pierce
terest in his family history, which on both sides
ran back to the earliest days of the Massachu-
setts Bay Colony. He was educated by his father
and in the academies at feridgewater and Easton.
He graduated from Brown University in 1850
and from the Harvard Law School two years
later. At both institutions he was a prize es-
sayist As a boy he heard Charles Sumner de-
liver his address on "The True Grandeur of Na-
tions," and later paved the way to a personal ac-
quaintance by sending him some college essays.
Sumner's friendship became one of the deepest
influences in his life. On leaving the law school
Pierce spent some time in Salmon P. Chase's law
office in Cincinnati and later was his secretary
in Washington. In 1855 ne returned to Boston.
In these years before the war he emerged from
his Democratic and Free-Soil background to be-
come active in Republican politics ; he attended
his first national convention in 1860. In the first
week of the war he enlisted for three months as
a private in the 3rd Massachusetts Regiment and
participated in the destruction of the Norfolk
Navy Yard. In July he was placed in charge
of General Butler's "contraband" negroes at
Fortress Monroe. In 1866 Secretary Chase sent
him to Port Royal, S. C, to supervise the raising
of cotton by freedmen (The Negroes at Port
Royal: Report of E. L. Pierce, 1862, and The
Freedmen of Port Royal, S. C.f Official Reports,
1863). He declined the appointment as military
governor of South Carolina.
Pierce held many civil offices : collector of in-
ternal revenue at Boston, 1864-66; district at-
torney of Norfolk and Plymouth counties, 1866-
70; secretary of the Board of State Charities,
1870-74; member of the legislature in 1875,
1876, and again in 1897. From 1888 to 1897,
except for the year 1894, he was annually chosen
moderator of the Milton town meeting. During
his second term in the legislature he carried
through an important act to limit municipal in-
debtedness. In 1871 he was nominated but not
confirmed as judge of the superior court. He
declined an offer of an assistant treasurership
from President Hayes. He had large capacities
for public service and aspired to a seat in Con-
gress, but he lacked the faculty of vote-getting,
and when he was nominated for Representative
in 1890 he was defeated. For many years he lec-
tured in the Boston Law School. Sumner
named Pierce one of his literary executors, and
after the other two executors, Henry W. Long-
fellow and Francis V. Balch, had declined the
opportunity to write an official biography, Pierce
undertook the task. The first two volumes ap-
peared in 1877; the latter two he tvas not able to
Pierce
complete until 1893. The painstaking prepan
tion involved the examination of many thousan
letters, and of newspaper files and congression;
debates for a quarter-century. In the estimatio
of James Ford Rhodes, "one of the most truth
ful of men, was fortunate in having one of th
most honest of biographers" (Proceedings of th
Massachusetts Historical Society, 2 ser. XI]
1899, p. 11).
Pierce was married to Elizabeth H. Kings
bury of Providence, R. I., on Apr. 19, 1865. Sh
died on Mar. 30, 1880, leaving five sons and <
daughter. On Mar. 8, 1882, he was married t<
Maria L. Woodhead of Huddersfield, England
They had a son and a daughter. He died whil<
on a visit to Paris. It was one of his markec
characteristics that he sought and was receivec
into the society of famous men. In almost z
score of trips to Europe he came to know man}
notables, most important in his regard being
John Bright. In his profession he became an au-
thority on railroad law. His published writings
include, besides his Memoir and Letters oj
Charles Siimncr, A Treatise on American Rail-
road Law (1857) ; Index of the Special Railroad
Laws of Massachusetts (1874) ; A Treatise on
the Law of Railroads ( 1881 ) ; Major JoJm LillieJ
1755-1801 (1896), and Enfranchisement and
Citizenship: Addresses and Papers (1896)*
[See J. F. Rhodes, "Memoir of Edward L. Pierce/'
Proc. Mass, Hist. Sec., 2 ser, XVIII (1905); G, F.
Hoar, "Edward Lillie Pierce," Proc, Am, Antiquarian
$oc,f New Ser, vol. XII (1899) I Remarks of A. B. Hart
in Proc. Mass, Hist, Soc,f % ser. XIII (1900) ; Dinner
Commemorative of Chas. Sumnsr and Complimentary
to Edward L, Pierce, Bostonf Dec. 29, 1894 (1895) ;
F. C. Peirce, Peirce Geneal, (1880) ; Boston Tranr
•##, Sept. 7, 1897.] C.F.
PIERCE, FRANKLIN (Nov. 23, i8o4-0ct
8, 1869), fourteenth president of the United
States, was of English ancestry. The son of Ben-
jamin Pierce [#.£>.] and Anna Kendrick, he was
born at Hillsborough, N. H*, on the New Eng-
land frontier. His father not only gave him a
good education at Bowdoin College, where he was
in the class of 1824, but also thoroughly imbued
him with nationalism and military interests and
provided him with an excellent start in law and
politics. He studied law under Levi Woodbury
at Portsmouth, attended the law school of Judge
Howe at Northampton, Mass,, and was admitted
to the bar of Hillsborough County in 1827, Im-
mediately he entered politics, and In 1829 he was
elected a member of the New Hampshire Gen-
eral Court at the same time that his father was
elected governor of the state for a second term.
With this auspicious start he served four years
In the legislature aad in spite of his youth was
576
Pierce
speaker in 1831 and 1832. In 1833 lie was elect-
ed to Congress and after two terms in the House
was sent to the Senate (1837-42). During his
nine years* service in the two houses of Con-
gress he made few speeches hut was diligent in
committee. He was a loyal, consistent Jack-
sonian Democrat who followed his party leaders
without question on all issues except internal im-
provements, to which he was ever opposed. He
consistently respected Southern rights and de-
veloped a settled antipathy for political abolition-
ists, whom he considered dangerous trouble mak-
ers who might bring about the destruction of the
Union. While he was an ardent nationalist, he
believed in promoting the public welfare by har-
monizing the conflicting ideas of the sections.
The last years of his service in the Senate were
very distasteful His wife, Jane Means Apple-
ton, daughter of Jesse Appleton f/jw.1, former
president of Bowdoin College, whom he had mar-
ried Nov. 19, 1834, was not well and disliked
congressional life, especially as her husband's
convivial nature was on occasion too much stimu-
lated by the gay life of the capital The needs of
his growing family could not be fully met as a
politician, so he resigned from the Senate in 1842
and joined his family in Concord, N. II. In the
course of the next: ten years he became a noted
local lawyer, largely because of his success with
juries. His clear and simple statement of legal
principles, combined with oratorical skill and
personal magnetism, made him convincing.
Though but of middle height, he cultivated an
erect military bearing; he dressed well and was
considered handsome ; and he was studiously po-
lite in manner. He delighted in approbation and
sought to attune himself to the spirit of any gath-
ering in which he participated As a result he
was popular, whether in polite society or at hotel
tnost of the
, forcing strides-
cipline to keep the party united and victorious,
private but was not called to service until 1847,
when he was appointed colonel and tea b».
Pierce
because of accident and illness was prevented
from effectual participation in the battles that
followed. As soon as the war was over he re-
signed from the army.
Returning to local politics in defense of the
compromise measures of 1850, he took the lead
(1850-51) in disciplining a gubernatorial candi-
date, John Atwood, who appeared to repudiate the
Fugitive-slave Law, and attracted much South-
ern attention. When New Hampshire's candi-
date for the Democratic presidential nomination,
Levi Woodbury, died in 1851, some of the local
bosses, thought of proposing Pierce's name. The
active campaigns of Buchanan, Douglas, Marcy,
and the friends of Cass seemed to show clearly
that none of these rivals could secure the re-
quired two-thirds of the convention of 1852.
Pierce's friends carefully planned to take ad-
vantage of this situation. He himself was not
enthusiastic and did little to aid them except
write a letter pledging loyalty to the compromise
measures. Their plans, however, were success-
ful After many ballots the national convention
was hopelessly deadlocked and at the suggestion
of New England delegates the Southern bloc
finally agreed to try Pierce's name; Dobbin of
North Carolina led a successful stampede in his
favor. William R. D. King [q.v."]9 a friend of
Buchanan, was then nominated for the vice-
presidency. The platform pledged the party to
abide by the compromise measures of 1850.
During the campaign, Pierce made no speeches.
No issues were presented either by the opposition
candidates, Winfield Scott, Whig, and John P.
Hale, Free-Soiler, or by his own party, so point-
less personalities were the chief materials for
press writers and orators. Pierce carried every
state but four although his popular majority over
the field was small, less than 50,000 out of 3,100,-
ooo votes. While he was busy with the perplex-
ing problems of framing his inaugural address
and choosing his cabinet, he was in a railroad
accident and suffered the unutterable horror of
seeing his only remaining son, a lad of eleven,
killed before his eyes. This terrible event com-
pletely unnerved Pierce and his wife. He was
compelled to enter upon the trying duties of the
presidency in a state of nervous exhaustion.
Determined to make permanent the party har-
mony that had been displayed in his triumphant
election, Pierce decided to regard all who had
voted for him in 1852 as Democrats worthy of
patronage. He made up a cabinet representing
all sections: WilHam U Marcy of New To*
577
Pierce
bin of North Carolina, Robert McClelland of
Michigan \_qq.v.]. With their aid he endeavored
to distribute the patronage equitably among all
sections and all factions. The policies of his ad-
ministration were to be strictly orthodox: a
vigorous foreign policy; laissez-faire and a re-
spect for state rights in domestic matters ; econ-
omy and honest administration. His foreign
policy was to consist of a vigorous defense of
American rights, especially against British or
French encroachment, and a wide expansion of
American interests, territorial and commercial.
He set out to make Great Britain live up to his
interpretation of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty by
withdrawing from Nicaragua and Honduras.
He also was anxious to settle the Newfoundland
fisheries dispute which made naval forces neces-
sary at the fishing grounds and might easily lead
to trouble. James Buchanan was sent to Eng-
land to settle the Central American problem,
while Secretary of State Marcy concluded in
Washington in June 1854 a treaty whereby the
United States granted Canada commercial re-
ciprocity and in return obtained favorable fishing
rights. James Gadsden was sent to Mexico to
purchase land for a right of way for a southern
railroad to the Pacific and negotiated in Decem-
ber 1853 the purchase known by his name. The
outbreak of the Crimean War and a change in
Spanish politics together with the Black Warrior
incident convinced Pierce and Marcy in April
1854 that the time was ripe for another attempt
to purchase Cuba, so Pierre Soule, minister to
Spain, was instructed to make an offer to that
country. At the same time, negotiations were
begun to acquire Hawaii and a naval base in
Santo Domingo, and inquiries were made of Rus-
sia about purchasing Alaska.
Pierce sought to reduce the treasury surplus
by paying off the debt and urging upon Congress
a lower tariff. He recommended a larger army
and navy and suggested plans for better organi-
zation, better discipline, and better officers. Plans
were drawn up for improving the services of the
interior and post-office departments, getting rid
of the deficit in the latter, and creating a new
department of law for the attorney general.
Western development and military efficiency
were to be promoted by government aid to a rail-
road to the Pacific. Sectionalism was to be ban-
ished from government and politics. Such were
Pierce's plans, few of which he was destined to
carry out.
In the first place, his policy of recognizing all
factions of his party proved disastrous, for when
he attempted to make the New York leaders
recognize former Free-Soilers he raised so much
Pierce
opposition in the South that it was doubt
whether the Senate would confirm some of 1
appointees. Worse still was the unexpected i
vival of the slavery issue. The leading Dem
cratic senators were interested in a bill to c
ganize Kansas and Nebraska as territories ai
to repeal the Missouri Compromise. They nee
ed executive aid to insure its passage, so throuj
Jefferson Davis they arranged a conferenc
They convinced Pierce that the measure was ii
dorsed by the platform of 1852 and he, realizir
the necessity of Senate approval of his appoin
ments and foreign policies, accepted it. The Kai
sas-Nebraska bill became law. The Senate rat
fied the Gadsden and Canadian reciprocil
treaties and confirmed his appointees. Howeve
Congress was so distracted by the fight over tli
Kansas bill that practically none of his legist
tive policies were adopted. On the negative sid<
he was successful in his effort to prevent leg
islative jobbery and the appropriation of govern
ment money for subsidy purposes. His vetoe£
in this session, of a large land grant for th
ultimate benefit of the indigent insane (Nichols
post, p. 349) and of a general rivers and harbor
bill, and his refusal, in the next, to sign bills sat
isfying the French spoliation claims and con
tinning a subsidy to the Collins steamship line
were all sustained by Congress. Finally, in th<
last session of his first Congress, some proposal*
looking to the reform and enlargement of th<
army and navy were acted upon favorably. Dur-
ing the summer of 1854 popular opinion in the
North flared up at the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise and new political organizations,
anti-Nebraska and anti-Catholic, prepared the
ground for the germination of the Republican
party; in the meantime the Democrats were bad-
ly defeated in the congressional elections of that
year. His second Congress paid scant heed to
Pierce's recommendations.
In this unfortunate period, Pierce's worst dis-
appointments were diplomatic. Negotiations-
with Great Britain over Central America were
hampered when in July 1854 Captain Hollins
destroyed a British protectorate, Grey Town,
Nicaragua, in retaliation for an insult to the
American minister, The hope of acquiring Cuba
was blasted by blunders. In August 1854 Marcy
authorized Pierre Soul6 [g.z>,], the minister to
Spain, to consult about Cuba with the ministers
to Great Britain and France, James Buchanan
and John Y. Mason [qq.v.]. The conference was
held in October, at Ostend and Aix-la-Chapelle.
It was supposed to be secret, but, unfortunately,
news of it leaked out, The tangible results were
a somewhat ambiguous report prepared by Bu-
578
Pierce
chanan, signed Oct. 18 by the three ministers,
and a covering: letter from Soule, in which he
intimated that French and British preoccupation
with the Crimean War might make this an op-
portune time to consider acquiring Cuba, if
necessary by force. Word of all this in garbled
form was featured in the American press in Oc-
tober and November ; Northern prejudices were
further aroused against acquiring Cuba ; and the
loss of Congress by the Democrats put the ac-
quisition of the island beyond the realm of pos-
sibility. The plans for annexing Hawaii and se-
curing a coaling station in Santo Domingo also
failed.
Meanwhile, difficulties were piling up for
Pierce in Kansas. Determined to administer the
popular-sovereignty law as fairly as possible, he
sought a Southern governor for Nebraska and
a Northern executive for Kansas and divided the
other offices equally between the sections, For
governor of Kansas he chose Andrew H. Reeder
[flw,], a Pennsylvania lawyer. Reeder, however,
entered into some illegal land operations in the
Indian reserves which were especially distasteful
to the administration, and was already due for
discipline of some sort when trouble developed
in the territory between the Northern and South-
ern settlers. Conditions became so bad that in
the summer of 1855 Pierce removed the governor
and two judges (one a Southerner) and had an
army officer courtmartialccl, all for land specu-
lating.
By the fall of 1855 Pierce had rallied some-
what from these successive disappointments and
was determined to seek renomination. He be-
came more decisive in his actions and prepared
his annual message of 1855 a^ his platform. It
consisted of a vigorous condemnation of the new
Republicans as sectionalist agitators, and a strong
statement of nationalism. When the House of
Representatives failed to organize in December
he attempted, by means of vigorous messages
describing the need for congressional action, to
bring the Southern members of the American
party to join the Democrats in supporting an
anti-Republican candidate for speaker. In the
meantime, civil war had broken out in Kansas.
The free-soil group had organized a government
independent of the president's territorial officers,
and Missourians were threatening" to invade Kan-
sas in order to disperse this new organization.
The situation became so desperate that in Feb-
ruary Pierce issued a proclamation, on the one
hand ordering the treasonable free-state govern-
ment to disperse, and on the other commanding
the Missourians to stay in Missouri, To back up
this proclamation he placed federal troops at the
Pierce
disposal of Wilson Shannon [^.], his second
governor.
During his campaign for renomination he also
pursued a vigorous policy toward Great Britain.
Late in December 1855, he had requested Great
Britain to recall her minister, Crampton, for
sponsoring in the United States the illegal re-
cruiting of troops to be used in the Crimea ; after
a series of unsatisfactory negotiations he dis-
missed him summarily, meanwhile continuing
negotiations in regard to Central America. These
decisive acts showed a more vigorous grasp of
the problems of administration but they were
not sufficient to restore popularity. The Demo-
cratic convention of 1856, uncertain as to the
strength of the newly organized Republican
party, fell back upon the idea that an old, tried,
conservative, and safe man alone could save them
from defeat ; so they nominated James Buchanan
who had been abroad during the heated contro-
versies of the preceding years. Pierce was bit-
terly disappointed at the result but turned him-
self whole-heartedly to settling up as many of
the problems of the nation as he could before
March 4. In Kansas more bloodshed was immi-
nent. Pierce still endeavored to be impartial and
to give support to the regular and legal (though
pro-slavery) territorial government. He main-
tained troops in Kansas, and removed Shannon,
whose successor, John W. Geary [q*v.~], went
vigorously to work and by October could report,
"Peace now reigns in Kansas." The difficulty
with the British was finally settled as far as
Pierce was concerned by the negotiation of the
Dallas-Clarendon treaty in which Great Britain,
indirectly and without apology, agreed to leave
Central America except for British Honduras;
the treaty later failed of ratification. Pierce re-
tired, regretting that Congress had failed to carry
out most of his recommendations for adminis-
trative reform, but rejoicing in the fact that his
party was still in power and had regained Con-
gress.
After his release from responsibility he made
an extended tour of Europe and then settled down
in Concord, N. H. As the Civil War approached
he still deplored the "folly" of the Republicans
but resented the hasty action of the South in
leaving the Union. At first he gave lukewarm
support to the government but it was not long
before he was bitterly opposing the^ Lincoln ad-
ministration because of its usurpations and de-
struction of personal and property rights. He
became very unpopular even at home and died
in social and political obscurity. As a national
political leader Pierce was an accident. He was
honest and tenacious of his views but, as ip made
579
Pierce
up his mind with difficulty and often reversed
himself before making a final decision, he gave
a general impression of instability. Kind, courte-
ous, generous, he attracted many individuals, but
his attempts to satisfy all factions failed and
made him many enemies. In carrying out his
principles of strict construction he was most in
accord with Southerners, who generally had the
letter of the law on their side. He failed utterly
to realize the depth and the sincerity of Northern
feeling against the South and was bewildered at
the general flouting of the law and the Consti-
tution, as he described it, by the people of his
own New England. At no time did he catch the
popular imagination. His inability to cope with
the difficult problems that arose early in his ad-
ministration caused him to lose the respect of
great numbers, especially in the North, and his
few successes failed to restore public confidence.
He was an inexperienced man, suddenly called
to assume a tremendous responsibility, who hon-
estly tried to do his best without adequate train-
ing or temperamental fitness.
[More complete details are found in R. F. Nichols,
Franklin Pierce. Young Hickory of the Granite Hills
(1931), which contains an extended bibliography. The
Pierce MSS. are divided into three parts, one in Lib, of
Cong., one in N. H. Hist. Soc.f one in possession of
the family. A large file of Pierce letters is in the Burke
MSS., Lib. of Cong., and a smaller group in the Law-
rence MSS., Mass. Hist. Soc. The collections most
valuable for a study of Pierce's administration are the
Marcy Collection, Lib. of Cong., and the Buchanan Pa-
pers, Hist. Soc. of Pa. His ancestry is described in F.
B. Pierce, Pierce Genealogy (1882), and his early life
in the campaign biographies by Hawthorne (1853) and
D. W. Bartlett (1852), and in J. R. Irelan, The Repub-
lic, vol. XIV (1888), "Hist, of the Life, Administra-
tion, and Times of Franklin Pierce." The records of
his early political life are found in the N. H. local
newspapers, especially the New Hampshire Patriot. His
Mexican War Diary is in the Huntingdon Library
(photostat copy in Lib. of Cong,). His legal career is
best summed up in Davis Cross, "Franklin Pierce the
Lawyer," Proc. of the Bar Asso. of the State of JV. H.f
vol. I, no. i (1900). The situation in his party which
produced his nomination is detailed in R. F. Nichols,
The Democratic Machine, 1850-1834 (1923). His
diplomacy is best described in S. F. Bemis, ed., The
American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy,
vol. VI (1928), article by H. B. Learned on "William
Learned Marcy/' Materials on the administrative his-
tory of his presidential term are in the archives of the
various departments and in the attorney general's MSS.
in Lib, of Cong. The newspapers most valuable for
comment on his policies are the Washington Star, the
Washington Union, the Baltimore Sun, and the New
York Herald.'] R> F> N>
PIERCE, GEORGE FOSTER (Feb. 3, i8n-
Sept 3, 1884), bishop of the Methodist Episcopal
ChurchJ South, educator, was born in Greene
County, Ga. His parents were Lovick Pierce, a
well-known Methodist preacher, and Ann (Fos-
ter) Pierce. In 1826 he entered Franklin Col-
lege, Athens, where he was graduated with hon-
ors in 1829. He began the study of law in the
Pierce
office of his uncle, Thomas Foster, but feeli
called to preach, abandoned his legal studies a
in January 1831 was admitted on trial to t
Georgia Conference of the Methodist Episcoj
Church. His ability as a preacher was imn
diately recognized and within the next five yea
he served such leading stations as Augusta a.
Savannah, Ga,, and Charleston, S. C. At the a,
of twenty-five he was presiding elder of the A
gusta district. On Feb. 4, 1834, he married Ai
Maria Waldron of Savannah, and to this uni<
seven children were born. In 1838 Pierce w
elected president of Georgia Female Collej
(now Wcsleyan College), at Macon, the fir
American college for women empowered I
charter to confer a degree. Endeavoring •
arouse public sentiment in favor of female edi
cation, he presented his views in the Southcj
Ladies' Bookf which for ten months in 1840 1;
edited. It cannot be said that he made a succe<
in his initial attempt as a college executive; li
refused to discontinue his evangelistic activitk
even while prevsident, and as a result the wor
of the college was somewhat neglected. In 184
he resigned the presidency, although he serve
for two years thereafter as the financial agent c
the institution.
Upon his return to the itinerancy in 184
Pierce became recognized as the leading prcache
of the Georgia Conference. He was a delegate t<
the General Conferences of 1840 and 1844, and a
the latter conference, which marked the divisioi
of the Church, Pierce, although only thirty-thre<
years old, was one of the outstanding leaders ir
the defense of Bishop J. O, Andrew and one o:
the chief spokesmen of the viewpoint of the
Southern clergy on the slavery issue, He was %
member of the convention held at Louisville, Ky.;
in May 1845, which organized the Methodist
Episcopal Church, South, and was a delegate to
the General Conferences of 1846, 1850, and 1854.
In 1848 he returned to the educational field as
president of Emory College, Oxford, Ga* Here
he remained until 1854, when he was elected
bishop. Upon his elevation to the episcopacy he
moved to his plantation, "Sunshine," near Sparta,
Ga., which with the exception of one year was
his home until his death. It was at "Sunshine"
during his spare moments that he had opportu-
nity to engage in his hobby of agriculture. Prior
to the Civil War he took little part in politics,
but at the outbreak of armed hostilities he held
that the Southern states were justified in seces-
sion arid during the war he devoted a large part
of his time to the raising of food supplies for the
Confederate army.
As a bishop, he was noted for bis pulpit oratory
Pierce
and his kindness to the preachers, but was often
in conflict with the progressive groups in his de-
nomination. He believed in retaining the char-
acteristics o£ early Methodism, He fought
against granting lay representation, and opposed
the pew system, long pastorates, choirs, and the
establishment of a theological seminary for the
Southern church. Concerning the latter pro-
posal he wrote In 1872 : "It Is my opinion that
every dollar invested in a theological school will
be a damage to Methodism. Had I a million, I
would not give a clime for such an object"
(Smith, post, p. 558). He resisted all moves
leading toward the organic union of the two
branches of Episcopal Methodism. Pierce's writ-
ings consisted mainly of open letters to the re-
Hgiotts periodicals of his denomination. Much
of his work as bishop was done in the Western
conferences, and his experiences on these trips
were related in a series of letters published in the
Southern Christian Advocate. Some of these
were collected in 1857 wider the title Incidents
of Western Trawl, edited by T. 0, Summers,
and in 1886, Bishop Picrcc's Sermons and Ad-
dresses, edited by A. G. llaygood, appeared. He
kept a diary between the years 1836 and 1866,
and left in manuscript an account of the early
life of his father.
EG. G, Smith, Th® Life and Times of George Foster
Piorc® (1888); "Bfohop Fierce as a Farmer/1 Meth.
Quart, Rw,f Apr, *w ; "Bishop George F, Pierce/1 in
Quart. Rw, Meth. Mpuc, Church, South, Oct. 1884; O.
P. Fitzgerald, Bishop George F, Pierce (1896) ; Obse-
quies of George Poster Pierce (1884) j Atlanta Consti*
tutionf Sept 4, 1884.] P.N.G*
PIERCE, GILBERT ASHVILLE (Jan. n,
i839-Feb. 15, 1901), author, governor of Dakota
Territory, and first senator from North Dakota,
was born in East Otto, Cattaraugus County, N.
Y,, the son of Sylvester and Mary Olive (Treat)
Pierce, both natives of New York. He received
a common-school education, and, when the family
removed to Indiana in 1854, he became a clerk
for his father in a general store ten miles south
of Valparaiso, In, 1858 he married Anne Maria
Bartholomew and removed to Valparaiso, where
he began to read law. He studied in the old Uni-
versity of Chicago for two years and was later
admitted to practice in Indiana, When the Civil
War broke out he enlisted in the 9th Indiana
Volunteers and was elected second-lieutenant
At the end of the three months* term of enlist-
ment, Lincoln appointed him captain and assists
ant quartermaster,, He served under CJewral
Grant in the West until the capture of Vicfcs-
burg. In November 1863 he wa$ promoted to
the rank of lieutenant-colonel and 'Served 4" Mala*
Pierce
£orda Island, Tex. The following year he was
appomted inspector of the quartermaster's de-
partment with the rank of colonel. After serving
m South Carolina he was ordered to the depart-
ment of the Gulf, where he remained till the close
of the war. After retiring from the army he
again took up his residence in Valparaiso and
devoted himself to law and journalism. In 1869
he was a member of the Indiana House of Rep-
resentatives. At the close of his term he became
secretary to Oliver P. Morton [g.<]. This
brought him into contact with a more influential
group of public men, among whom he was soon
weU and favorably known. He kept up his inter-
est in journalism and was a correspondent on
several important dailies. For two years he
served as assistant financial clerk in the United
States Senate but resigned in 1871. Shortly af-
ter this he returned to Valparaiso and in 1872
obtained a place on the editorial staff of the
Chicago Inter Ocean through the good offices oi
E. W. Halford, then editor of this paper. He
had considerable literary ability and was the
author of a number of books. In 1872 he pub-
lished The Dickens Dictionary, which went
through several editions and is now issued uni-
formly with the library edition of Dickens by
Houghton Miffin Company. In 1876 he pub-
lished Zachariah, the Congressman and in 1883
A Dangerous Woman. Both novels were on
Washington political life, ran through two edi-
tions, and were highly praised by the critics of
the time. One of his plays, One Hmdred Wives
( 1880) , was a still greater success and was played
for two seasons by De Wolf Hopper, as leading
actor, with the Gosche-Hopper Company.
After serving as managing editor of the Inter
Ocean for a number of years, he became a mem-
ber of the editorial star! of the Chicago Daily
News. He took an active part in the Republican
campaigns of 1880 and 1884 and was especially
prominent in the movement to nominate Presi-
dent Arthur at the Republican convention of
1884. When the need arose for a new governor
of the territory of Dakota, he was named as the
most available man for the position. He was at
this time a national figure of considerable promi-
nence with many friends in the Northwest and
at Washington. He accepted the position in
1884 and moved his family to Bismarck, tfien a
frontier city just coming into notice as the po-
litiqal center of the new territory. It was dur-
ing fiis administratipm that the governor's gttarf
was organized, a;nd this group of young bttsiaep
ipen of Bismarck afterward became Company- A
rf the territorial militia. In November /igftS ''fe;
resigned his position. During his fetr y&x& /,e£
581 '
Pierce
service he made an important place for himself
in the territory. His fine presence and magnetic
personality as well as his administrative ability
made him the natural leader of his party at this
time. When the territory was divided in 1889 he
was chosen as one of the senators from North
Dakota. The short term fell to him, and he stood
for reelection in 1891. Owing to a misunder-
standing over senatorial patronage he found him-
self opposed by a group of state politicians, chief
among whom was Alexander McKenzie. They
were able to control the elections for members
of the House and the Senate, and he lost the elec-
tion to his opponent, Henry Clay Hansbrough.
His defeat for reelection closed his political
career.
In 1891 he moved his family to Minneapolis
and devoted himself, thereafter, to the field of
journalism. He was first connected with the
Daily Pioneer Press as special writer in the Da-
kota department, but later he became half owner
and publisher, with W. J. Murphy, of the Min-
neapolis Tribune. Failure of health, in the fall
of 1891, compelled him to give up his editorial
work and seek a warmer climate, first in Florida
and then in Colorado. On Jan. 6, 1893, hfi was
appointed by President Harrison as minister to
Portugal but was compelled to resign on Apr*
26, on account of continued lack of health. On
his return to Minneapolis he found himself un-
able to continue his editorial work. He died at
the Lexington Hotel, Chicago.
[A. T. Andreas, Hist, of Chicago, vol. Ill (1886) ;
The Biog. Encyc. of III. (1875) ; Biog. Directory of
Am. Cong. (1928) ; Once a Clown, Always a Clown:
Reminiscences of De Wolf Hopper, written in collabo-
ration with W. W. Stout (1927), p. 15; information
from son, Paul A. Pierce, N. Y. City; Minneapolis
Tn*&MH0, Feb. 16, 1901.] 0. G.L.
PIERCE, HENRY LILLIE (Aug. 23, 1825-
Dec. 17, 1896), manufacturer of cocoa, mayor
of Boston, congressman, was born in Stough-
ton, Mass., the son of Jesse Pierce and Elizabeth
Lillie and a descendant of John Pers (or Peirce)
who emigrated to New England in 1637, Edward
Lillie Pierce [#.z>.] was his younger brother. The
father was ultra-conscientious and sensitive ; the
mother was more forceful, plain-spoken, and with
strong prejudices. This environment was scarce-
ly cheerful, but it was tempered with fair edu-
cational advantages at home and at Bridge^
water and Milton academies. At seventeen,
Pierce suffered an illness which ended his for-
mal education and from which he never fully
recovered* Even as early as this, however, his
interest in public affairs showed itself in the
form of contributions to the county paper. By
1848 he was serving as a member of the school
committee of Stoughton and was working hard
Pierce
for the Free-Soil party in the national electio
This interest in freeing the slaves was for so,
time the dominant note in his outlook on pub
affairs. For a number of years he engaged
light farm work but in 1849 he moved to D(
Chester and there worked in the cocoa factory
his uncle, Walter Baker. Save for one sh<
period, this association continued till his dea
In 1854, after the death of Baker ancl his pa:
ner, Sidney B. Williams, the trustees leased t
plant to Pierce. From that time till his death
worked to make ancl then to keep his factory t
leader in its field, ancl saw its business grc
forty times over. In 1884 he became full own
of the plant. He was progressive in his met
ods and constantly alert to discover ancl intr
duce improved processes. In all the years ]
never had any trouble with his employees, I
took particular pride in the fact that his proi
ucts were awarded a gold medal at the Paris E;
position of 1867.
Pierce's political career included four yea;
as representative to the Gcnernl Court, whej
he served as chairman of its committee on finan<
in 1862; three years (1869-71) as alderman <
Boston; two years (1872, 1877) as mayor <
Boston, and two terms, from 1873 to 1877, as
member of Congress. He opposed the Knov
Nothing movement at the height of its powe
As mayor he set his face against the vested ir
terests in administration which had been ac
quired by the city council He was instrument*
in furthering the movement, general throughot
the country, which resulted in the transfer c
administration from committees of the counc
to boards set up for special purposes. The healt'.
and fire departments were so reorganized clurini
his first term and the police department durini
his second, These boards were made respon
sible to the mayor, and he restored to that oflSc
its former prestige* In Congress his chief serv
ice was as a member of the committee on com
merce and was directed toward relieving coasta
vessels from state pilotage fees. In the Hayes
Tilden controversy, he and one other Massa
chusetts Representative were the only Republi-
cans to vote to throw out the Louisiana electora
vote which the electoral commission had countec
for Hayes* His voluntary retirement from Con-
gress soon followed as he found himself in manj
ways out of harmony with his party. In the 1884
campaign he refused to support Blaine and from
then till 1896, in presidential elections, he voted
with the Democrats. In 1887 he became presi-
dent of the Massachusetts Tariff Reform League,
which was formed to secure general reductions
in the tariff. His refreshing sincerity and inde-
pendence made him a more than usually out-
582
Pierce
standing1 local personality at a time when public
life generally throughout the country was at a
low ebb.
Pierce was a man who acted upon impulses,
often odd ones. He masked his keen judgment
behind a kindly and innocent-appearing exterior.
Wendell Phillips said of him that if Diogenes
came to Boston he would find his honest man in
the mayor's chair. Particularly in his later years,
he became a liberal giver, especially to strug-
gling colored schools in the South and to small
Western colleges. He never married, and at his
death more than half his large estate was care-
fully apportioned to various charitable, educa-
tional, and religious institutions. In the latter
group, he left money to Catholic and Unitarian
churches alike.
[J. M. Bitffbec, "Memoir of Henry Lillie Pierce,"
Proc. Mass, If if I. Soc.fi2 set. XI (1897) ; Justin Wm-
sor, ed.» The Memorial Hist, of Bostonf vol. Ill (1881) ;
T. T. Hunger, "An American Citizen ; The Late Henry
L. Pierce/' the Century, July 1897; "A Model Citi-
zen," tlic Critic t Jan, 9, 1807 ; Boston Transcript, Dfic.
18. 1806; Boston UcrMt Dec. 18, 19, 1896.]
E. S. G.
PIERCE, JOHN DAVIS (Feb. 18, i797~Apr.
S, 1882), Congregational clergyman, educator,
was born in Chesterfield, N. H., of old New Eng-
land stock. His father, Gad Pierce, died two
years after John's birth, leaving the mother,
Sarah (Davis) Pierce, with two small children
and no provision for their livelihood, John was
sent to his paternal grandfather in Worcester
County, Mass., with whom he spent a cheerless
childhood. At the grandfather's death when he
was ten years old, the hoy went to work on his
uncle's farm. Only eight weeks a year of school-
ing were permitted him, but at twenty he deter-
mined to seek an education, bought a Latin gram-
mar, and began its study under the kindly tute-
lage of RCY. Enoch Pond [$.*'.]. In less than a
year, with his grandfather's legacy of $100 which
he received upon attaining his majority, he was
able to enter Brown University, He spent a
portion o! each year in teaching, and graduated
in 1822. After another year of teaching in an
academy at Wrcntham, Mass., he studied for
a few months in Princeton Theological Semi-
nary. In 1825 he was ordained and became pas-
tor of a Congregational church in Sangerfield,
Oneida County, N. Y. He was a Freemason,
and in 1830 this pastorate was terminated by the
fury of the Anti-Masonic movement Pierce
thereupon accepted a call to service as a mis-
sionary in Michigan. In the fall of 1831 he
moved his family to the little pioneer settlement
of Marshall, Mich., where there were fewer
than a dozen houses but the settlers included
Pierce
being Sunday, he conducted church services in
a log dwelling, and he is said to have been the
first Protestant clergyman to solemnize a mar-
riage or conduct a funeral in Western Michigan
(Cooley, post, p. 318).
When the state government of Michigan was
organized in 1836, Pierce was appointed super-
intendent of public instruction. The first work
devolving upon him in this office was to draft
plans for the organization of the primary schools
and the state university and for the disposal of
public-school lands. In preparation for this work
he went East to consult eminent educators, Ed-
ward Everett [q.v."\ and others, and after inten-
sive study he presented a plan which was adopt-
ed by the legislature with virtually no change.
This plan forms the basis of the present school
system of Michigan and the foundation of its
university. While superintendent of public in-
struction Pierce began the publication of the
Journal of Education (1838-40), the first edu-
cational paper in the old Northwest Territory.
In 1841 he returned to Marshall to resume the
life of a village preacher. In 1847 he was elect-
ed to the state legislature and in 1850 served on
a committee to frame a new state constitution.
This work was the end of his public career. Im-
paired health forced him soon afterward to re-
tire to a farm near Ypsilanti. He contributed a
paper on the "Origin and Progress of the Michi-
gan School System" to the Pioneer Collections:
Report of the Pioneer Society of the State of
Michigan (vol. 1, 1877). Though physically fee-
ble, he retained his mental powers, and his in-
terest in education remained alert until his
death, which occurred in Medford, Mass. He
was buried in Marshall, Mich. Pierce was mar-
ried three times : on Feb. i, 1825, to MilKcent
Estabrook of Holden, Mass.; on Oct. 28, 1829,
to Mary Ann Cleveland of Madison, N. Y. ; and
in 1833 to Harriet, daughter of Calvin and Eliz-
abeth (Barrett) Reed of Waterville, N. Y. She,
with two of his four children, survived him.
[Mich. Biogs., vol. II (1924) ; Am. Biog. Hist, of
Eminent and Self-Made Men, Mich. F0J. (1878) ; C O.
Hoyt and R. C. Ford, John D. Pierce (1905) ; T. M.
Cooley, Mich., A Hist, of Govts. (1885) ;G. L. Jackson,
The Development of State Control of ^.w^£«ff**f:
tion in Mich. (1926) ; A. C. McLausWm, Hist, of
Higher Educ. in Mich. (1891) ; Hut. of Calhoun Coun-
ty Mich. (1877); The Congreg. Yew Book, 1883
Prowdenc
R.H.K
y . .
Boston Daily Advertiser, Apr. 6, 1882; Prowdence
Daily Journal, June *i, 1882.]
PIERCE, WILLIAM LEIGH (c. i74o-Dea
10, 1789), Revolutionary soldier, member of tke
Federal Convention, was born probably in Geor-
gia, although he entered the Continental Ararjr as
from Virginia and spoke of himself as, a Vir-
, _ _ . f A .* , fjf£mJ.Jk*l*m 'MtftuM
583
Pierce
cember 1881, p. 439). Nothing is known of his
parents and his early life. About 1783 he mar-
ried Charlotte, daughter of Edward Fenwick, of
South Carolina. One of their two sons died as
a child and the other was William Leigh Pierce,
author of a volume of verse, The Year, published
in 1813. During the war, William Pierce — as
he is known in contemporary documents —
served as aide-de-camp to General Greene, and
for his conduct at the battle of Eutaw Springs
on Sept, 8, 1781, received the thanks of Congress
and was presented with a sword. He left the
army as a brevet major in 1783, and engaged in
business in Savannah, Ga., as the head of the
house of William Pierce & Company.
In 1786 he was elected to the Continental Con-
gress, took his seat in January 1787, and attend-
ed the sessions until late in May, His chief claim
to remembrance, however, is as a member of the
Federal Convention at Philadelphia. He was
elected one of Georgia's delegates in the early
spring of 1787 and took his place on May 31, six
days after the opening session. Although he
played no conspicuous role in the proceedings of
the Convention, he was not without influence.
He took part in the debates on three different oc-
casions, speaking once in favor of the election
of the first branch of a federal legislature by the
people and of the second branch by the states ;
he spoke again favoring a three-year term in-
stead of a seven-year term for the second branch ;
and finally, he recommended the strengthening
of the federal government as against the state
governments. In a letter to St. George Tucker,
of Virginia, he registered his general impres-
sions of the Convention and his approval of the
new Constitution. Parts of this letter appeared
in the Georgia Gazette, Mar. 20, 1788 (reprint-
ed in American Historical Review, January
1898). He left the Convention in the midst of
the proceedings and did not return to sign the
finished document. Business misfortunes and
the subsequent failure of his firm probably ac-
count for his absence.
Pierce's notes on the Convention debates add
little to the information contained in the notes of
Madison, Yates, and King. They were first pub-
lished in the Savannah Georgian, Apr. 19, 21-26,
and 28, 1828, and were printed in the American
Historical Review, January 1898, from a bound
volume of personal papers in manuscript known
as "Pierce's Reliques." Much more important
are the character sketches which he wrote about
his fellow members. They are short, pithy, and
decidedly readable. Even more valuable than the
descriptions of leaders such as Madison and
Franklin are his observations on less prominent
Pierpont
delegates, who, without Pierce's commen
would be little more than names. As for \
own character, he remarks simply that his rea
ers are left "to consider it in any light that the
fancy or imagination may depict."
[The manuscript volume of Pierce's papers is in t
possession of a descendant of his widow. For ad(
tional data, see: Max Far rand, ed,, The Records of t
Federal Convention of 1787 (3 vols., 1911) ; Am, Hi
Rev., Jan. 1898; Mag. of Am. Hi$t.t Dec. 1881 ; D
Huger Smith, "An Account of the Tattnall and Fe
wick Families in S, CM" S. C. Hist, and GcncaL Ma,(
Jan. 1913 ; Fairfax Harrison, The John's Island St\
(1931) ; C. C. Jones, Bioff. Sketches of the Dclcgat
from Ga, to the Cont, Cong. (1891) • W, B. Burrougi
sketch in Men of Mark in Ga.r vol. I (1907) ; A. i
Candler and C. A. Evans, ed., Cyc. of Ga, (1906'
Georgia Gazette, Dec, 24, 1789.] E K A
PIERPONT, FRANCIS HARRISON (Jai
25, i8i4-Mar. 24, 1899), governor of the "n
stored" state of Virginia, 1861-68, was the sc
of Francis and Catherine (Weaver) Pierpoin
The name was spelled Picrpoint by the Virgin!
branch of the family until 1881 when Franc
Harrison returned to the older spelling-, Pie]
pont His grandfather, John Pierpont, remove
from New York State in 1770 and established
farm near Morgantown, Monongalia County, i
western Virginia. Here young Francis wa
born in 1814, but during the same year his fathe
removed from the old homestead to the neigh
borhood of Fairmont, in what is now Mario
County, W. Va. As the boy grew up he helpe
his father on the farm and in his tannery, I:
1835 he entered Allegheny College, Meadville
Pa., and was graduated with the bachelor's de
gree in 1839. For two years he taught school i:
Virginia and in 1841 went to Mississippi to en
gage in the same occupation, but his father'
poor health necessitated his return home th
next year- Having read law in his spare time
he was now admitted to the bar. In 1848 he be
came local attorney for the Baltimore & Ohi<
Railroad, and in 1853 engaged in mining an<
shipping coaL
"From 1844 to 1860 Pierpont took an activ<
interest in politics as an adherent of the Whi|
party, serving as a presidential elector on th<
Taylor ticket in 1848. Being an ardent anti
slavery and Union man, he supported Lincoli
in 1860, When Virginia in 1861 decided in favoi
of secession, Pierpont organized a mass meet-
ing at Wheeling in May which called a conven-
tion to meet in that town during the following
month. This convention, holding that the seces-
sionist officials of the state had vacated their of-
fices, elected Pierpont provisional governor oi
Virginia. He thereupon organized the Unionisl
members of the legislature from the western
counties into a rump legislature; a constitution
584
Pierpont
was framed, and the name West Virginia adopt-
ed. Representatives from this government were
seated in the Federal Congress, and in 1863 the
state was admitted to the Union. A new gov-
ernor was elected for the new state, but mean-
while Picrpont had been granted a four-year
term as governor of the "restored" state of Vir-
ginia; that is, governor of the few counties
which were in Federal hands and not in West
Virginia. He now moved his capital to Alexan-
dria and carried on under military protection.
Upon the fall of the Confederate government,
he moved his capital to Richmond and became in
fact the governor of Virginia. Under the John-
son regime he conducted the affairs of the state
until the reconstruction act went into effect and
he was replaced by a military commander on
Apr. 16, 1868, While at the head of affairs in
Richmond he did what he could to alleviate the
suffering and the bitterness which oppressed
the people (luring those ghastly years. Upon his
retirement from office, he returned to his home
in West Virginia and resumed the practice of
law. Subsequently he sat for one term in the
legislature (1870) and was collector of internal
revenue under Garficld* He died in Pittsburgh,
Pa., where for two years he had lived in the home
of a daughter. He was buried at his home near
Fairmont, W. Va.
Picrpont was apparently one of that large class
of men who are selected as leaders in troubled
times because they possess strength of convic-
tion rather than strength of intellect. In 1910 a
statue of him was placed by West Virginia in
Statuary Hall at the United States Capitol. In
1854 he married Julia Augusta Robertson,
daughter of Samuel and Dorcas (Platt) Robert-
son of New York
[The material dealing with the establishment of
West Virginia is voluminous and largely of a partisan
nature ; the best study is J. C. McGregor, The Disrup-
tion of Va. (1923). There are sketches of Pierpont m
T. C, Miller and Hit Maxwell, W. Va. and Its People
(1913), vol. II ; M, V. Smith, Va.. A Hist of the Ex-
ecutives (1893); R- A, Brock, Va, and Virginians
(1888), vol. 1 ; L. G, Tyler, Encyc. of Va. Biog. ( JQis),
vol. Ill; Encyc. of Contemporary Bwg, of W. Va.
(1894) ; Statue of Got/, Francis Harnson Pierpont:
Proc. in Statuary Hall (1910), being Sen. Doc. No.
(556*. 6 1 Cong., 2 Sess. ; F, S. Reader, Hist, of the Fifth
W. Va. Cavalry (1890); Pittsburgh Post, Mar. 25,
1899 ; Wheeling Register, Mar. 25, 1899.] T.P. A.
PIERPONT, JAMES (Jan. 4, i6S9/6o-Nov.
22, 1714), Congregational clergyman, one of the
founders of Yale College, was born in Roxbury,
Mass., the son of John Pierpont and Thankful
Stow, daughter of John Stow of Kent, England.
John Pierpont, born at London in 1617, came to
Massachusetts in 1640 and in 1656 purchased
three hundred acres of land lying in what is now
Pierpont
Roxbury and Dorchester. His father, James,
was a cousin of Robert Pierrepont, first Earl of
Kingston, and owned a considerable estate in
Derbyshire. The business in which he was en-
gaged, involving trade with Ireland, was ruined
during the Protectorate, and he came to Amer-
ica to visit his sons, Robert and John, where,
at Ipswich, he died. His grandson, James, grad-
uated from Harvard College in 1681. Recom-
mended as "a godly man, a good scholar, a man
of good parts, and likely to make a good instru-
ment," he was invited in 1684 to preach as a can-
didate for the pastorate of the First Church,
New Haven. He arrived in that town the fol-
lowing August, and his ministrations gave such
satisfaction that he was urged to remain and a
house was built and furnished for him. On July
2, 1685, he was ordained pastor, which office he
held until his death a little more than twenty-
nine years later. He married, Oct. 27, 1691, Abi-
gail, daughter of John and Abigail (Pierson)
Davenport, a grand-daughter of John Daven-
port and of the elder Abraham Pierson [gg.vj.
The following February she died, her illness, it
is said, having been caused by exposure to cold
on the Sunday following her marriage, when she
went to meeting attired, according to custom,
in her wedding dress. On May 30, 1694, he mar-
ried Sarah, daughter of Joseph and Sarah
(Lord) Haynes, and a grand-daughter of Gov.
John Haynes [g.z>.]. She, too, died early, Oct.
7, 1696, leaving him a daughter, Abigail. His
third wife, whom he married July 26, 1698, was
Mary Hooker, daughter of Rev. Samuel Hooker
and grand-daughter of Rev. Thomas Hooker
[g.#.]. Sarah, a child of this union, married
Jonathan Edwards [g.vj.
Not of extraordinary intellectual endowment,
but genuinely good and possessing personal
charm, force of character, discretion, and sound
judgment, Pierpont had a peaceful and success-
ful pastorate and became highly influential in
the colony. In the establishment of the Colle-
giate School of Connecticut, the beginning of
Yale College, chartered in 1701, he was the lead-
ing spirit, and as one of the original trustees he,
more than any other, directed its course through
the critical opening years of its existence. He
had much to do with shaping its charter and in-
suring the school against state or church con-
trol; he selected its first president; and through
Jeremiah Dummer [q.v.J he secured a library
for it from English benefactors and probably
brought it to the attention of Elihu Yale. His
influence in ecclesiastical affairs is attested by
the fact that at the famous Saybrook Synod of
1708 he was one of the leading members and is
585
Pierpont
traditionally credited with having drawn up the
original draft of the articles for the administra-
tion of church discipline, known as the "Say-
brook Platform." His death came in his fifty-
fifth year when he was at the height of his pow-
ers. One sermon, Sundry False Hopes of Heav-
en, Discovered and Decryed, preached at the
North Assembly, Boston, on Apr. 3, 1711, was
published with a preface by Cotton Mather the
following year.
[R. B. Moffat, Picmpcmt Genealogies (1913) I Leon-
ard Bacon, Thirteen Hist. Discourses (1839); J. L,
Sibley, Biog. Sketches Grads. Harvard Univ., vol. Ill
(1885) ; W. B. Sprague, Annals Am. Pulpit, vol. I
(1857) ; New Haven Colony Hist. Soc. Papers, vol.
Ill (1882), vol. VII (1908); F. B. Dexter, Bioff.
Sketches Grads. Yale Coll. with Annals of the College
Hist.} vol. I (1885) ; Edwin Oviatt, The Beginnings of
Yale (1916).] H.E.S.
PIERPONT, JOHN (Apr. 6, i7SS~Aug. 27,
1866), Unitarian clergyman, poet, reformer,
great-grandson of James Pierpont and grand-
father of John Pierpont Morgan [qq.v."], was
born in Litchfield, Conn., the second of the ten
children of James Pierpont, a clothier, by his
wife, Elizabeth Collins. He graduated from
Yale College in 1804, in the same class with John
C. Calhoun, and, after assisting Azel Backus
\_q.v. ~\ for a few months in an academy at Beth-
lehem, went to South Carolina as tutor, 1805-09,
in the household of William Alston, father of
Joseph Alston [#.£>.]. On his return he studied
in the Litchfield Law School under Tapping
Reeve and James Gould [qq.v.~\ and on Sept. 23,
1810, married his fourth cousin, Mary Sheldon
Lord, who bore him three sons and three daugh-
ters. Their eldest child was named for William
Alston. Having been called to the bar in 1812,
he opened a law office at Newburyport, Mass.,
and, in the leisure afforded by a total absence of
clients, composed The Portrait (1812), a poem
surcharged with Federalist sentiment, which he
declaimed Oct. 27, 1812, before the Washington
Benevolent Society of Newburyport. It brought
him renown as a bard but no retainers, and in
1814 he and his brother-in-law, Joseph L. Lord,
went into the retail dry-goods business in Bos-
ton and soon took John Neal [#.^.] into the firm.
They started a branch in Baltimore and for a
while the venture flourished, but the dizzy fluc-
tuations of wartime prices were more than they
could cope with, and in 1815 the business col-
lapsed. Still in Baltimore, Pierpont published
the next year his beautifully executed Airs of
Palestine (Baltimore, 1816), which was reprint-
ed twice in Boston in 1817, and which put him
for the time being in the front rank of American
poets. Two later volumes, Airs of Palestine and
Other Poems (1840) and The Anti-Slavery
Pierpont
Poems of John Pierpont (1843), comprise tl
bulk of his verse. He was an accomplished prose
dist In some of the temperance pieces he is ur
intentionally humorous, but as the expression c
a vigorous, witty, noble mind his poetry ha
character and is continuously interesting.
Having graduated in October 1818 from th
Harvard Divinity School, he was ordained Ap:
14, 1819, as minister of the Hollis Street Churc
in Boston, He edited two school readers, Th
American First Class Book (1823) and The Nc
tional Reader (1827), which went through man
editions and were the first American readers t
include selections from Shakespeare ; visited Et
rope and Palestine in 1835-36; published variou
sermons and lectures ; and grew steadily in repu
tation as an eloquent, thoughtful minister. Hi
penchant for reform was also growing steadily
He worked for the abolition of the state militi
and of imprisonment for debt; became an en
thusiastic propagandist for phrenology and spir
itualism; and pressed to the forefront of th
peace, the anti-slavery, and the tcnipcranc
movements. The pew-holders of the Holli
Street Church did not share these enthusiasms
their temper may be deduced from the fact tha
the church cellar was rented out to a rum mer
chant for a warehouse. Several rum merchant
who did not attend Pierpont's preachings bough
pews in the church; and in 1838 there began ;
concerted movement, known locally as th'
"Seven Years' War/' to oust him. Pierpont re
sisted with wit, eloquence, pertinacity, and <
fixed determination to maintain the freedom o
the Unitarian pulpit. As the war proceeded i
became an unscrupulous attempt to destroy hii
character. He was vindicated by an ecclesias
tical council before which he was tried in Jul]
1841, but his enemies continued their carnpaigt
against him. Finally, with his back salary pak
in full and all the honors on his side, he resignec
in 1845. Subsequently he was pastor of th<
newly organized First Unitarian Society o;
Troy, N. Y., 1845-49, and of the First Congre-
gational (Unitarian) Church of West Med-
ford, Mass., 1849-58. His first wife having1 diec
on Aug. 23, 1855, he married, on Dec. 8, 1857
Harriet Louise (Campbell) Fowler of Pawling
N. Y., who survived him. For two weeks oi
1861 he was chaplain of the 22nd Regiment oJ
Massachusetts Volunteers, but the post was toe
strenuous for his seventy-six years. From thet
until his death, which took place at Medford, he
was a clerk in the Treasury Department al
Washington. He was known throughout the
eastern United States as a lecturer, and by those
who came into immediate contact with him he
586
Pierrepont
was remembered as a man with more than a
touch of genius.
[F. B. Dexter, Bioy. Sketches Crads. Yale Coll, vol.
V (191*), with list of sources and a Inbllog. of Pier-
pant's writings; C. R. Rliot, sketch in S. A. Eliot,
Heralds of a Liberal Faith, vol. 11 (1910), with list of
sources ; O. B. Frotliintfham, Boston Vnitarianism
1820-50 ('&)<>)» pp. 184-86; A. A. Ford, John Pier-
pontr a Bioy, Sketch (1909) ; Henry Ware, A Sermon
Delivered in Boston, Apr. r/jt, i#io, at the Ordination
of the Rev. John 1'ierpont (1819) ; Proceedings in the
Controversy between a Part of the Proprietors and the
Pastor of llollh Street Church, Boston, 1838 and 1839
(Boston, n.d) ; S. 1C Lothrop, Proceedings of an Ec-
clesiastical Council in the Case of the Proprietors of
jflollis-S't'reet Meeting-House and the Rev. John Pier-
pout (1841) ; G. L. Chancy, Ho His Street Church from
Mather llyks to Thomas Starr King (1877) ; H. W.
Simon, The Rcadiny of Shakespeare in American
Schools and Colic yc-s (i93»)» PP- 20-22; J. R. Dix,
Pulpit Portraits (1834) ; Boston Transcript , Aug. 27,
1866.] G.H.G.
PIERREPONT, EDWARDS (Mar. 4, 1817-
Mar. 6, 1892), lawyer, attorney-general of the
United States, foreign minister, was born at
North Haven, Conn,, the son of Giles and Eu-
nice (Mttnson) Pierpont and a descendant of
James Pierpont [<pvK <>no of the founders of
Yale College. At baptism he was called Mun-
son Edwards Pierpont, but he later dropped his
first name and adopted an early spelling of his
surname. lie was educated in the schools of his
native town and at Yale College, being graduat-
ed in 1837, After spending some time in the
West he returned to study at the New Haven
Law School In 1840 he was admitted to the
bar. He was a tutor at Yale, 1840-41, and then
went to Columbus, Ohio, where he became a
partner of Phineas B, Wilcox, one of the ablest
lawyers of the state. In 1846 he moved to New
York City and almost immediately established
a successful practice. On May 27, 1846, he was
married to Margaretta Willoughby of Brook-
lyn, N. Y.
After moving to New York he became an ac-
tive participant in the campaigns of the Demo-
cratic party, though he never held office until
1857* In that year he was elected judge of the
superior court of the city of New York but re-
signed in i860 to resume his practice. Early in
1861 he took a determined stand in favor of coer-
cive measures to preserve the Union. He was a
member of the Union Defence Committee which,
in the early months of the war, raised several
regiments, and also helped to finance movements
in favor of the Union in the border slave states.
In 1864 he publicly expressed his disappoint-
ment at the nomination of McClellan and helped
to organize the War Democrats in support of
the reelection of Lincoln. After the close of the
war he remained for a time an independent
Union Democrat He approved President John-
Pierson
son's policy of reconstruction and strongly op-
posed the program of the radical leaders in Con-
gress. In the election of 1866 he cooperated with
the regular organization of the Democratic
party; but after the nomination of Seymour and
Blair in 1868 he announced that he would sup-
port Grant because he had been a former Dem-
ocrat who had stood by the Union. From that
time his political fortunes were bound up with
Grant's. He served for a year as United States
district attorney for the southern district of New
York, 1869-70, and was appointed minister to
Russia, 1873, but declined to serve. In 1875 he
became attorney-general of the United States,
an extremely difficult position, since it involved
the prosecution of members of the "whiskey
ring," some of whom were close personal friends
of the President Pierrepont brought the offend-
ers to trial and, with the exception of his cir-
cular letter to the district attorneys of Milwau-
kee, Chicago, and St. Louis, denying- immunity
to those who would testify against the ring, his
conduct of the prosecutions was satisfactory to
the public. In May 1876 he was appointed min-
ister to Great Britain and served until Decem-
ber 1877.
As a lawyer, Pierrepont attained a high posi-
tion, appearing for clients in many important
cases. With John A. Dix [g.^J he was appoint-
ed in February 1862 to examine the cases of
state prisoners in the custody of the federal mil-
itary authorities. In 1867 he assisted the United
States district attorney in prosecuting John H.
Surratt for complicity in the assassination of
Lincoln (see sketch of John Wilkes Booth).
Among his other public services, he was a mem-
ber of the state constitutional convention, 1867-
68, and one of the Committee of Seventy (1870)
which assisted in freeing New York City from
the "Tweed ring." In his later years he pub-
lished numerous pamphlets on financial ques^
tions, most of which advocated the adoption of^a
bimetallic standard of currency. He died in
New York City where he had lived and practised
law since his return from England in 1878.
[R. Burnham Moffat, Pierrepont Centals, from Nor-
W Times to ip/j? (1913) ; **<***$ %eClf *&* 8£
in Yale Univ. (7th ed, 1887) ; Ofc*. Record of Grads.
of Yale Univ. Deceased During the Academical Year
ending in June 1892 (1892) ; Argument^ efJ*f*rB£
wards Pierrepont to the Jury, on the Trial of Mn H.
Surratt for the Murder of President Lincoln (1867) ;
N. Y. Herald, Apr. 27, 1869; Feb. 7-Apr. x, 1876,
Mar. 7, 1892 ; N. Y. Tribune, Mar, 7, 1892.]
K. C. S.
PIERSON, ABRAHAM (i6oo-Aug. 9, 1678),
clergyman, first pastor of the settlements at
Southampton, L. I., Stanford, Conn., and New-
ark, N. J., was born in Yorkshire, England pW
587
Pierson
ably at Bradford, since he was baptized there on
Sept. 23, 1609. He matriculated as a pensioner
at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1629 and was
graduated A.B. in 1632, his name appearing on
the rolls as Pearson or Peirson. On Sept 23,
1632, he was ordained deacon at the Collegiate
Church, Southwell, Nottingham, under the ju-
risdiction of York (John and J. A. Venn, Alwnm
Cantabrigienses, pt. I, vol. Ill, 1924, p. 330, and
Institutional Act Books of York Cathedral cited
by L. H. Patterson, in The Pageant of Newark-
on-Trent, 1927, p. 4). Strongly Puritan in his
convictions, he left England for the more salu-
tary ecclesiastical atmosphere of Massachusetts,
and was admitted to the church at Boston, Sept.
5, 1640, Earlier in the year "divers of the inhab-
itants of Linne, finding themselves straitened,
looked out for a new plantation" (J. K. Hos-
mer, Winthrop's Journal, 1908, II, 4), and going
to Long Island founded what is now the town of
Southampton. Hugh Peter [g.#.] records that
in November 1640 he attended the formation of
a church at Lynn, composed of persons connect-
ed with this enterprise and on the same occasion
took "part in the ordination of Abraham Pier-
son as their guide in the spread of Gospel knowl-
edge and influences" (J. B. Felt, "Memoir of
Hugh Peters," New-England Historical and
Genealogical Register, April 1851, p. 233). The
following month this "church formed at Lynn
under Rev. Abraham Pierson moves to S.
Hampton, L. Island" (J. B. Felt, Annals of
Salem From Its First Settlement, 1827). About
this time, or not long afterward, he was married,
it is said to a daughter of Rev. John Wheel-
wright [<?.#.], though available information re-
garding Wheelwright's children makes the truth
of this tradition doubtful (see James Savage, A
Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of
New England, vols. Ill, IV, 1861-62).
Pierson was a stern, unbending Puritan whose
piety and learning came to be held in high es-
teem by the early New England clergy. His
conviction that church and state should act in
harmony, the latter being governed in its pro-
cedure by the law of God, and that church mem-
bers only should be freemen, was unshakable.
The town records of Southampton contain an
"Abstract of the Lawes of Judgement as given
Moses to the Commonwealth of Israel," written
it is said, in Pierson's hand, which the inhabi-
tants adopted for their guidance, though none
of its drastic provisions were ever put into
effect (J. T. Adams, History of the Town of
Southampton, 1918, p. 55). He was strongly op-
posed to Southampton's uniting with Connecti-
cut, which union was effected in 1644, because
Pierson
in Connecticut those not church members niigh
become freemen; and in 1647 he removed t
Branford, New Haven Colony, where John Da
venport's church-state views prevailed. In thi
new settlement he organized a church of whicl
he was pastor for about twenty years, and wa;
prominent in the general affairs of the colony
He also engaged in missionary activities amonj
the neighboring Indians, and acquired som<
knowledge of their language, receiving financia
compensation for this work from the Commis-
sioners of the United Colonies. By their ordei
and with the cooperation of the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel in New England, he
translated a catechism he had prepared into the
Quiripi dialect, assisted by Thomas Stanton, in-
terpreter-general to the United Colonies for the
Indian language. It was entitled Some Helps for
the Indians Shewing Them Plow to Improve
their Natural Reason, to Know the True God,
and the True Christian Religion, The first sheet
(sixteen pages) was printed late in 1658 and
sent to England, where it was reprinted, and the
title page bears that date, although the catechism
was not published complete until the following
year. Pierson also seems to have had aspirations
as a poet, for he wrote "Lines on the Death of
Theophilus Eaton," a crude composition in thir-
ty-one stanzas, and a ten-line stanza on the death
of Robert Coe. Unwilling to remain in Bran-
ford after the absorption of New Haven by Con-
necticut— which he had vigorously opposed — in
the summer of 1667, with practically his entire
congregation, he again sought a new settlement
where his views of church and state could be put
into operation, and established himself at New-
ark, N. J. Here he remained as pastor until his
death, assisted during the last nine years of his
life by his son Abraham [#.#.], to whom he left
his library of more than 400 books, one of the
most extensive in the colonies.
["Some Helps for the Indians" is reprinted in the
Conn, Hist. Soc. Colls,, vol. Ill (1895), and "Lines on
the Death of Theophilus Eaton," in the Mass. Hist,
Soc. Colls., 4 sen, vol. VII (1865). See also in addi-
tion to references above, Benj, Trumbull, A Complete
Hist, of Conn., Civil and Ecclesiastical (1818) ; Cotton
Mather, Magnolia Christi Americana (1820 ed,)» I,
359; D. D. Field, A Statistical Account of the County
of Middlesex, Conn. (1819) ; Ebenezer Hazard, Hist.
Colls.t vol. II (1794) ; Alexander MacWhorter, A Cen-
tury Sermon, Preached in Newark, JV» /,, Jam. it I&Q7
(1807) »' J. F, Stearns, Hist. Discourses Relating to
the First Presbyt. Ch. in Newark (1853); W. B.
Sprague, Annals Am, Pulpit, vol. I (1837) J E. E, At-
water, Hist, of the Colony of New Haven to Its Ab-
sorption into Conn. (1881) ; J. C. Pilling;, Biblioff. of
the Algonquian Languages (1891) j B, F. Thompson
and C J. Werner, H ist, tf Long Islwd (1918), vol. II.]
H, E. S,
PIERSON, ABRAHAM (c. i64S-Mar, 5.
1707)1 Congregational clergyman, first rector of
Pierson
Pierson
exceeding pious, and an excellent preacher;
kind and charitable to the poor and indigent,
«v.t«A JJ- „ * 1 ,---. 1 ,11* 1 _ ,1 f T
the Collegiate School in the Colony of Connec-
ticut, of which Yale College was the outgrowth, _ w _ ^w ttJUVl _i&_,
was the son of Abraham Pierson [g.-z/.], who in who in a special manner lamented his death (J.
1640 came from England to Boston, and is said F, Stearns, Historical Discourses Relating to the
to have married a daughter of Rev. John Wheel- «-•-•«,..
wright [#.z>.], though the tradition seems doubt-
It is commonly stated that Abraham the
ftll.
younger was born at Lynn, Mass., in 1641, but
according to his tombstone in the graveyard at
Clinton, Conn., he "deceased March ye 5th,
1706/7, aged 6 1 years." If the inscription there
is to be trusted, he must have been born some
time between Mar. 5, 1644/5 and Mar, 5, 1645/6.
At this period his father, having- left Lynn in
December 1640, was still pastor of the Church
at Southampton, L. L, from which he moved in
1647 to Branford, Conn. Iti the latter settlement,
only recently established, the boy grew up. He
received his early instruction, first, from his fa-
ther and later, it is thought, from Rev. John Da-
venport and some of the early schoolmasters of
New Haven. Graduating from Harvard in 1668,
with a classmate, John Prudden, he studied the-
ology for about a year under Rev, Roger New-
ton of Milford, Conn, In the summer of 1669
he was called to the pastorate of the church at
Woodbridge, N. J,, but declined, and became as-
sistant to his father, now pastor of the church
at Newark In March 1672 he was made co-
pastor. The year following he married Abigail
Clark, with whom he had become acquainted in
Milford, a daughter of George Clark, one of the
first settlers of that town. After the death of
the elder Pierson, in 1678 his son became sole
pastor, remaining in that capacity for nearly
fourteen years. Differing convictions with re-
spect to ecclesiastical polity on the part of min-
ister and people severed their relationship early
in 1692, Pierson favoring a moderate ^ form of
presbyter ian government, while a majority of
his parishioners were strongly congregational.
Returning to Connecticut, he was immediately
called to the church in Greenwich, but declined to
be installed there, although he agreed to supply
the pulpit. Two years later he accepted an invita-
tion from the people of Killmgworth, now Clin-
ton, to become their pastor. Here he brought
peace and unity into a disrupted congregation,
and had a successful pastorate which lasted until
his death, The old church building was torn
down and a new one erected in 1700, for which a
bell, probably one of the first in Connecticut to
summon people to worship, was secured m 1703.
According to a description given, it is said, t>y
one who had seen and heard him often, Pierson
was "something taller than a middle size, a
fleshy, well formed and comely looking man,
First Presbyterian Church, Newark, 1853, p.
91). He was also reputed to have been a hard
student and a good scholar, and was prominent in
all the activities of the little group of Connecti-
cut ministers who laid the foundations of Yale
College. In the charter establishing a collegiate
school, granted by the General Court of Connec-
ticut in October 1701, he was named one of the
ten trustees, and at their first meeting, which
began on Nov. n, he was elected rector. The
official location of the school was Saybrook, but
since the Kiliingworth people objected to their
pastor's removing thither, the students were in-
structed in the Kiliingworth parsonage, and the
commencements were held in Saybrook. His
connection with the school caused serious fric-
tion between himself and his parishioners, but
before the questions involved could be settled
Pierson was seized with a violent illness which
resulted in his death. So far as is known he pub-
lished nothing; although he prepared a textbook
on physics which in manuscript was long used in
the early days of Yale. A letter to Increase Ma-
ther is printed in the Collections of the Massa-
chusetts Historical Society (4 ser. VIII, 1868),
two letters to Fitz-John Winthrop are printed in
the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical
Society (2 ser. XII, 1899) and several of Pier-
son's manuscripts are in the possession of Yale
University.
[In addition to references cited above see Ttomas
Gap, The Annals or Hist, of Yale Coll. to the Year 1766
(1766) : Alexander MacWhorter, A Century Sermon
Preached in Newark, N. L, Jan i, 1807 (1807) ; D. D.
Field, A Statistical Account of the County of MMle-
* Conn. (1819) ; J. L. Sibley, Biog. Sketches Grads.
^ vol. II (1881) : W . B. Sprague Annals
vol I (1857) ; D. M. Mead, A Hist, of the
1 OWn Of \jr7Heww*«'«' \*"j//» -~- - Q/-CA . -Tf T>
versary of the Clinton Congreg. Church (1868) , F. B.
Dexter, The Literary Diary of Biro Sties (1901), , voL
II, and Biog. Sketches Grads. YaleC off., vol. 1 Ci8»5J ,
Edwin Oviatt, The Beginnings of Yale (*9™)-l
xl. E. 5.
PIERSON, ARTHUR TAPPAN (Mar. 6,
i837-June 3, 1911), Presbyterian clergyman,
promoter of missionary activities, editor and
writer was born in New York City, the son of
writer, _ ^ , ^ (Wheeler) Pier-
-0,0 « _-~~idant of Abraham
ricrbuu «« ^ L4.<1, through his son Thomas
Up to the time of the financial panic of 1837
Stephen Pierson had been the cashier an* confi-
dential clerk of Arthur Tappan [g<K A* *
ase of eleven young Pierson entered the Moun
Washington Collegiate Institute and two year
589
Pierson
later, the Collegiate Institute at Tarrytown-on-
the-Hudson, from which he shortly transferred
to the Ossining" School, Sing- Sing, of which his
brother-in-law, Rev. J. P. Lundy, was principal.
Completing his course in the winter of 1852-53,
he entered Hamilton College the following Sep-
tember. Here he took high stand as a scholar,
was active in religious work, and contributed
much verse and prose to New York periodicals.
He graduated from Hamilton in 1857, and from
Union Theological Seminary in 1860. On May
13 of the latter year he was ordained by the
Third New York Presbytery and 'on July 12
married Sarah Frances Benedict. After having
supplied a Congregational church in West Win-
sted, Conn., on Sept. 5, 1860, he was installed as
pastor of the First Congregational Church, Bing-
hamton, N. Y. Later he served the Presbyterian
Church at Waterford, N. Y. (1863-69), and the
Fort Street Church, Detroit (1869-82). During
these years he became an effective and popular
preacher. In 1876 his church edifice in Detroit
burned, and while it was being" rebuilt services
were held in an opera house. He had already
become convinced that his ambition for literary
excellence diminished his spiritual power, and
from this time on his preaching was extempo-
raneous, expository, and evangelistic. He also
came to feel keenly that the chief w6rk of the
Church is "to rescue unsaved souls," and that
conventional church buildings with elaborate
architecture and rented pews hinder access to
the common people. Expecting a greater field
of usefulness along lines in harmony with these
views, in the fall of 1882 he accepted a call to
the Second Presbyterian Church, Indianapolis,
but, disappointed in the cooperation he received,
he remained but a few months. From 1883 to
1889, however, he had a fruitful pastorate at
Bethany Church, Philadelphia.
He was a man of intense zeal, profoundly con-
vinced of the inspired truth of the Bible, of the
efficacy of prayer, and of the second coming of
Christ; graphic in his preaching; and with a
gift for drawing which enabled him by charts
and pictures to illustrate his discourses. As time
went on, concern for speedy world-wide evangeli-
zation possessed him with increasing force, and
during his Philadelphia pastorate he became na-
tionally known as an inspiring leader at mission-
ary and Bible conferences. A friend of Dwight
L. Moody [#.<], he was prominent at Northfield
gatherings and it was in no small part through
the enthusiasm which he aroused that the Stu-
dent Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions
was started. In 1886 he published The Crisis of
Missions, which did much to arouss missionary
Pierson
activity in the churches. This was followed by
The Divine Enterprise of Missions (1891), The
Miracles of Mission (4 vols., 1891-1901), The
New Acts of the Apostles (1894), Forward
Movements of the Last Half Century (1900),
and The Modern Mission Century (1901). In
1888 he became associated with James M. Sher-
wood in the editorship of the Missionary Review,
and after Sherwood's death, two years later, he
was sole editor for the rest of his life. Under
his supervision the periodical became a pic-
turesque and popular organ. After attending the
World Missionary Conference at London in 1888,
he made a tour of Scotland with Rev. A. J.
Gordon in the interest of missions. His success
was such that the next year, resigning his pas-
torate, he again visited Great Britain, and there-
after devoted himself to evangelistic activity, lec-
turing and preaching both in the United States
and abroad. When Charles H. Spurgcon became
ill in 1891 he called Pierson to take his place at
the Metropolitan Tabernacle, London, and he
continued to supply there for two years, Spur-
geon having died in the meantime. Finally con-
vinced that the views on baptism held by the
Baptists were Biblical, on Feb. i, 1896, he was
immersed, This fact led to his separation from
the Philadelphia Presbytery, and he never there-
after had formal ministerial standing in any de-
nomination. In the latter part of his career he
adopted and promulgated the views on personal
holiness held by the Keswicfc Convention, and
in 1903 published The Keswick Movement in
Precept and Practice, He also published Life
Power; or, Character, Culture, and Conduct
(1895); The Second Coming of Our Lord
(1896); Catharine of Siena, an Ancient Lay
Preacher (1898) ; In Christ Jesus; or, the Sphere
of the Believer's Life (1898) ; George Mulkr of
Bristol (1899) J James Wright of Bristol
(1906) ; Seven Years in Sierra Leone; the Story
of the Work of William A. B. Johnson (1897) ;
The Gardian Knot; or, the Problem Which Baf~
ftes Infidelity (1902); God's Living Oracles
(1904); The Bible and Spiritual Criticism
(1905), and numerous other works of a similar
character. In October 1910 he started on a tour
of the missions in the Far East, but after visiting
Japan and Korea was forced by the condition of
his health to return to his home in Brooklyn,
where he died. He was buried in Greenwood
Cemetery.
CD. L, Pierson, Arthur T< Pierson (1912); J. K.
Maclean, Dr. Pierson and His Message (ipn) ; A. G.
Wheeler, The Gemal. and Encyc. Hist, of the Wheeler
Family in America (1914) ; L. B, Pierson, Pierson
Geneal Records (1878) : Missionary Review. Aug. xoxx,
memorial number ; N. Y. Times and N. K. Herald, June
H.E.S.
590
Pierson
PIERSON, HAMILTON WILCOX (Sept.
22, t8i7-Sept. 7, 1888), Presbyterian clergyman,
author, was horn in Bergen, N. Y,, the son of
Rev. Josiah Pierson, grandson of Samuel and
Rebecca (Parmele) Pierson, and a descendant
of Abraham Pierson [<?.z/.]. Throughout his life
he had to contend with a weakness of the lungs
which more or less determined the course of his
whole career. After graduating from Union Col-
lege in 1843, partly for his health he traveled in
Virginia for two years as an agent for the Amer-
ican Tract Society. He then entered Union
Theological Seminary, New York, from which
he graduated in 1848. Impressed, during a visit
to the West Indies, with the religious tolerance
in the recently established Dominican Republic,
he became agent for the American Bible Society,
and distributed Bibles in the French language to
schools and individuals (Thirty-fourth Annual
Report of the American Bible Society, 1850).
He returned to the United States in 1850, and
spent the next three years in travel and literary
work. On Nov. 13, 1853, he was ordained by the
Presbytery of New York. He had hoped to be-
come a foreign missionary, but physicians had
informed him that his physical condition would
not permit, and that neither would he be equal to
the duties of a permanent pastorate. According-
ly, he went to Kentucky as agent of the American
Bible Society. In this capacity, for five years,
he traveled through the back country, covering
several thousand miles annually on horseback,
holding religious services, and distributing
Bibles. From the knowledge thus gained he
published some time later, In the Brush; or, Old-
Time Social, Political, and Religious Life in the
Southwest ( 1881 ) , a lively narrative which gives
a valuable portrayal of pioneer conditions and
habits. In, 1858 he became president of Cumber-
land College, a Presbyterian school at Princeton,
Ky. In addition to his administrative duties he
traveled extensively "electioneering for students"
and collecting funds. During his term of service
an additional building was erected. The outbreak
of the Civil War compelled the closing of the ^in-
stitution and Pierson returned North. During
the war he served as agent of the American
Tract Society in Washington, D. C., and as seo
Pierz
The remainder of his life was made up of periods
of illness, travel, and literary work. From 1885
to 1886 he was state librarian of Ohio. He pub-
lished American Missionary Memorial,, Includ-
ing Biographical and Historical Sketches ( 1853) ,
and in 1862, Jefferson at Monticello: the Private
Life of Thomas Jefferson, based upon informa-
tion and unpublished documents furnished by
Capt. Edmund Bacon, a former overseer of Jef-
ferson's estate at Monticello. He contributed
to periodicals and was a member of the New
York Historical Society. The last two years of
his life were spent in Bergen, N. Y., the place of
his birth.
t [Considerable autobiog. material is to be found in
his writings ; see also Gen. Cat. of Union Theolog. Sem.
(1919) ; and the Thirty-eighth to ibe Forty-third Ann.
Report Am. Bible Soc. (1854-59).] H.E.S.
PIERZ, FRANZ (Nov. 20, i;85-Jan. 22,
1880), Roman Catholic missionary, was born
near Kamnik in the Austrian province of Carni-
ola. The Slovenian form of his family name was
Pirc, but in the United States he used the spelling
Pierz. Little is known of his parentage and early
life. After an education in the gymnasium and
the diocesan seminary in Laibach, he was or-
dained in 1813 and served successively thereafter
three local parishes. He took a keen interest in
agriculture and horticulture, and in 1830 pub-
lished Krajnski vertwr, a work on gardening
which has remained of importance not only
among horticulturists but also among philolo-
gists because of its early use of a local dialect
At the solicitation of a missionary among the
Chippewa Indians, Pierz set out in 1835 for the
United States as a missionary supported mainly
by the Leopoldinen-Stiftung, a Viennese board
of missions. His work for many years was with
the Indians and settlers about the mission^ at
Arbre Croche, now Harbor Springs, Mich. Prior
to 1839, however, he served at Saulte Ste. Marie
and established important stations on Lake Su-
perior. He was particularly successful in in-
ducing the Indians to become an agricultural
people. In 1852 he departed for the upper Mis-
sissippi, a large field hitherto neglected by his
church. Despite his advanced age he traveled
hundreds of miles every year to visit bands of
among the freedmen In Virginia and Georgia,
His activities In Andersonville, Ga., caused him
been, in interesting — . .
dians and thus in providing funds for his work.
of Outrages upon
Georgia md <w Account of My
from Andersonville, Ga., by the
Kim.
iiajuig OAQ^J. »f*— .- - — — - • ,
he secured in Europe in 1863 he continued to
labor among the Indians until 1871, In W3
59*
Piggot
he returned to his native land, where he died.
He was an immigrant agent as well as a mis-
sionary. Perceiving that white men would in-
evitably settle close to his Indians, he determined
to see that they were German Catholics. Ac-
cordingly he sent out a prospectus and published
many letters describing central Minnesota in
terms calculated to attract this class. The pro-
spectus appeared in his Die Indianer in Nord-
Amerika (1855), and together with his letters,
printed in many European and American peri-
odicals, brought great numbers of Germans to
central Minnesota. He apparently published
nothing in Ottawa or Chippewa, though his
letters of 1843 and 1845 mention a life of Christ,
a catechism with prayers and hymns, seventy In-
dian sermons, and a "Way of the Cross," ready
or in preparation for printing.
[Sister Grace McDonald, "Father Francis Pierz,
Missionary," Minn. Hist., June 1929 ; unsigned article
by John Seliskar, "The Reverend Francis Pirec., In-
dian Missionary/* in Acta et Dicta, July 1911 ; Fr.
Chrysostomus Verwyst, Life and Letters of Rt. Rev.
Frederic Baraga (1900) ; A. I. Rezek, Hist, of the
Diocese of Sault Sts. Marie and Marqitette, vol. I
(1906) ; Constant von Wurzbach, Biographisches Lcxi-
kon des Kaiserthums Oestcrreich, vol. XXII (Vienna,
1870); many letters by Pierz in Berichte dcr Leo-
poldincn-Stiftung (Vienna), in Annalcn dcr Vcrbrti-
ttmg des Glaubens (Freiburg, Baden), and in Wahr-
hcitsfrcund (Cincinnati) ; a brief biography and original
letters cpntrib. by the Rev. Hugo Bren, in Zentralblaft
and Social Justice, Jan. 1934 ff. ; miscellaneous items in
the possession of the Minn. Hist. Soc,]
PIGGOT, ROBERT (May 20, i;95-July 23,
1887), stipple engraver, Episcopal clergyman,
was torn in New York City and at the age of
seventeen went to Philadelphia, Pa., where he
was apprenticed to David Edwin [q.v.] to learn
the art of stipple engraving. When he became of
age, he formed a partnership with his fellow
student, Charles Goodman [q.v.], and together
they engraved many plates for the Port Folio,
the Analcctic, and other publications. Virtually
all of their works were signed Goodman & Pig-
got or C. Goodman & R. Piggot, but the former
was the better engraver and artist. After a few
years m business the firm was dissolved when
the senior partner decided to study law. Piggot
then opened a bookstore in Philadelphia and act-
ed as agent to the Adult Sunday School of the
city. He placed himself under the instruction of
the Rev. James Wiltbank, who taught him the
classical languages, and he received deacon's or-
ders on Nov. 30, 1823. The same year he asso-
ciated himself with the newly organized church
of St. Matthew's, Francisville, Philadelphia, as
lay reader, and in 1824, on the day the church
was consecrated, he was elected its first rector,
although he was not ordained a priest by Bishop
William White until May n, 1825. Before that
PiggOtt
time he had resigned his rectorship and had a<
cepted a call to another Pennsylvania churcl
He served in various Episcopal parishes in Penr
sylvania and in Smyrna, Del., having become
missionary of the Society for the Aclvancemer
of Christianity in Pennsylvania. Later he wer
to Maryland, and after having had charge c
several churches in that state, in 1869 becara
rector of the parish of the Holy Trinity, Sykes
ville, Md. He retired in 1883 and died in Sykes
ville, on July 23, 1887, at which time he was th
last surviving clergyman of those ordained b
the first bishop of Pennsylvania. On the occa
sion of the fiftieth anniversary of St. Matthew'
Church, Francisville, in 1874, Piggot preache
the memorial sermon in the church.
[D. M, Stauffer, Am. Engravers upon Copper an\
Steel (2 vols., 1907) ; W. S. Baker, Am. tingraver
(1875) ; Mantle Fielding, Am. Engravers upon Coppc
and Steel (1917) ; F. S. Kdmomis, Hist, of St. Mat
thew's Ch.t Prancisinllc, Phila. ( 1925) ; the Churchman
Aug. 6, 1887; Baltimore American, July 25, 1887,]
JJ-
PIGGOTT, JAMES (c. i739-Feb. 20, 1799)
Illinois pioneer, was born in, Connecticut and i:
said to have been a privateer in the fore part o;
the Revolution. In April 1776 he appears as i
captain from Westmoreland County, Pa., to serve
under Gen. Arthur St. Clair until Oct. 22, 1777
According to family tradition, ill health follow-
ing the Lake Champlain march caused him tc
resign his commission and as a volunteer to ac-
company George Rogers Clark to Kaskaskia,
Although it has not been substantiated by records
("Caholda Records," post, p. 190), Reynolds
says that Piggott was in command of Fort Jeffer-
son, near the mouth of the Ohio, during the siege
of the Chickasaws, which occurred in 1780. This
was the year, according to Piggott's later testi-
mony, in which he became a resident of Illinois
("Kaskaskia Records," post, p. 421). Whether
he was the builder, in 1783, of "Piggott's Fort,"
a stockade for colonists at Grand Ruisseau, near
what is now Columbia, 111. (Reynolds, p, 59), or
merely one of the settlers there ("Cahokia Rec-
ords," p. 191), it is a matter of record that in
1787 he led a movement against the French au-
thority for which he was placed in irons for
twenty-four hours (Philbrick, post, p* cclxi),
On Aug. 27 of that year he was one of the signers
of the contract appointing* Bartholomew Tar-
diveau agent to Congress ("Kaskaskia Records/'
P- 443), and May 23, 1790, he "and forty-five
others" at Grand Ruisseau petitioned the gov-
ernment relative to claims for land which they
had risked their lives to improve (American
State Papers, Documents . . . in Relation to the
Public Lwids, 1, 1834, p, 15).
592
Pike
With the arrival of St, Clair in the territory as
governor in 1790 Piggott rose to the place of
importance which he had yearned for under
French control. Forthwith appointed a militia
captain and justice of the peace at Cahokia, he
was, Sept. 28, 1795, made judge of the common
pleas. The next year as justice of the quarter
sessions, he proclaimed the opening of the or-
phans' court. Meanwhile, 1792-95, he had built
a bridge across the River Abbe, later Cahokia
Creek, opposite St. Louis, opened a road to the
Mississippi bank, and erected two log cabins for
the convenience of travelers bound for the Louisi-
ana territory, the origin of the present city of
East St. Louis. Ferry service was the next step
and this Piggott established in 1797, pledging
to Zenon Trudeau, governor of Louisiana terri-
tory, "timber at lowest rates" and "products" in
return for ferriage rights on the St. Louis side.
Piggott's enterprise led Trudeau to make him an
honorary citizen of St, Louis.
After operating the ferry for two years, Pig-
gott died of "a fever" at his bark, and was buried,
according to one belief, at Kaskaskia. His first
wife, Reynolds relates, was buried within Fort
Jefferson, during the siege; his second wife,
Francies James of Virginia, who bore him eight
children, survived him and married again.
Threefold was Piggott's contribution to the es-
tablishment of American life in Illinois — as a
wilderness breaker, as a pioneer officer in the
territorial government, and as the founder of a
business, which as the Wiggins ferry, became a
most lucrative monopoly.
CSee John Reynolds, My Own Times (1855) ; C W.
Alvord, "Cahokia Records/' ///, State Hist. Lib. Colls.,
vol. 11 (1907) and "Kaskaskia Records/' IUa>, vol. y
(toco) ; F. S. Philbrick, "The Laws of Indiana Terri-
tory, x 801-09," /Mf., vol. XXI (1930); Robert A.
Tyson, Hist, of East St. Louis (1875); and J. 1.
Scharf , 7/w*. of St. Louis City «wf County (2 vote.,
1883). The Appendix to L, U. Reavis, St. Louis: The
Future Great City of the World (1876), contains a
historical lecture about the origin of East St. Louis
by Dr. Isaac N. Pijcgott, James Piggott's son. Infor-
mation for this sketch was supplied by Mrs. Alice Jones
Wientge, of St. Louis, Piggott's great-great-grand-
daughter.] I.D.
PIKE, ALBERT (Dec. 29, i8o9~Apr. 2, 1891),
lawyer, soldier, author, and exponent of Free-
masonry, was bom In Boston, Mass., the son of
Benjamin and Sarah -(Andrews) Pike. He was
a descendant of John Pike, born in Landford,
England, who emigrated to America with his
wife, Dorothy Daye, and five children in 1635,
and died at Salisbury, Mass. Soon after Albert's
birth the Pikes returned to the family home in
Byfield, and later moved to Newburyport, in the
schools of which town and at an academy m
Framingham, Mass., he received his early edu-
593
Pike
cation. From 1824 to 1831 much of his time was
spent in teaching and private study ; in his spare
moments he wrote poetry. He acquired an ex-
cellent knowledge of the classics and in his remi-
niscences he states that he spent a year at Har-
vard (New Age Magazine, August 1929,^462),
but there is no record of his enrollment there,
though in 1859 Harvard conferred upon him the
honorary degree of A.M. As a teacher he was
connected with schools in Gloucester, Fairhaven,
and Newburyport. He Had unbounded physical
energy, an avid mind, an adventurous dispo-
sition, marked independence, and great determi-
nation.
The restraints of New England life becoming
irksome, in March 1831, with little money and
no very definite plans, he started West Reach-
ing St. Louis by various means of transportation,
he then went to Independence, where he joined
a party of hunters and traders going to Santa
Fe. After some time in that town he accom-
panied another expedition into the Staked Plains,
and finally arrived at Fort Smith, Ark, having
passed through many hardships and exciting ex-
periences. In 1833 he was teaching school in
Pope County, Ark. During this year, under the
nom-de-plume of "Casca," he wrote for the
Arkansas Advocate of Little Rock a series of
political articles, entitled "Intercepted Letters/*
supporting Robert Crittenden, a Whig, who was
opposing Ambrose H. Sevier [#.#.], a Demo-
crat, for election as delegate to Congress. These
articles were of such merit that through Critten-
den's influence the editor of the paper, Charles
P. Bertrand, invited Pike to become his asso-
ciate. He accepted the position and was also
made an assistant clerk in the territorial legis-
lature, then in session. On Oct 10, 1834, he mar-
ried Mary Ann, daughter of James Hamilton,
She had some property, which enabled him to
purchase an interest in the Advocate, and in 1835
he became sole owner and editor. In 1834 there
was published in Boston his Prose Sketches and
Poems Written in the Western Country. It con-
tained a vividly written account of his recent
adventures, "Narrative of a Journey in the
Prairie," which also appeared as a serial in the
Advocate, Apr. 17 to 19, 1835 (reprinted inPiA-
lications of the Arkansas Historical Association,
vol. IV, 1917). Although a Massachusetts man,
he supported the slavery provision in the Arkan-
sas constitution of 1836, on the ground that since
Arkansas bordered on slave states and was set-
tled largely by slaveholders, freedom there would
be inexpedient. . . •
In 1837 he sold the Advocate, having m fee
meantime been licensed to practise law. In the
Pike
years that followed he became one of the best-
informed and most capable lawyers of the South-
west He was the first reporter of the Arkansas
supreme court, his work appearing in the first
five volumes of Reports (1840-45). In 1842 he
published The Arkansas Form Book, containing
legal forms and a summary of ordinary legal
principles. That same year he was admitted to
practice before the United States Supreme Court.
He took an active part in the Mexican War as
commanding officer of a cavalry troop which he
had recruited His criticism of the conduct of
the regiment commanded by Col. Archibald Yell
[#.#.], published in the Arkansas Gazette in 1848,
involved Pike in a duel with Lieutenant-Colonel
John Selden Roane [#.z/.]. Two shots were fired
by each participant without either being hit, af-
ter which, through intervention of the surgeons,
the affair was settled peaceably, (See account
in the Arkansas Gazette, Apr. 2, 1893.) He was
a stanch Whig in a Democratic stronghold, and
later one of the prominent promoters of the
Know-Nothing party in his section of the coun-
try. He believed himself to be the first to suggest
a Pacific railroad convention and he vigorously
advocated the building of a Southern line. In
1853 he transferred his practice to New Orleans
but returned to Little Rock in 1857. Throughout
these years his feelings frequently found ex-
pression in published verse.
His career during the Civil War was an un-
fortunate one. Although not friendly to slavery
and claiming to be opposed to secession except
as a last and necessary resource, he cast in his
lot with the Confederacy rather than desert his
friends and abandon his property. In the sum-
mer of 1861 he was sent as a commissioner to
negotiate treaties with the Indian tribes west of
Arkansas. In this enterprise he was partially
successful. Later he was commissioned briga-
dier-general, and under orders of Nov. 22, 1861,
the Indian country west of Arkansas and north
of Texas was constituted the department of In-
dian Territory and Pike was assigned to com-
mand the same (Official Records, I ser, VIII,
690). It was his understanding, he claimed, that
the Indians recruited would be used only in de-
fense of their own territory. They were em-
ployed, however, in the battle of Pea Ridge, Ark.,
Mar, 7-8, 1862, where they played an inglorious
part and committed some atrocities for which
Pike was unjustly criticized. Feeling that he
occupied an independent command and that the
safety of the Indians was in his keeping, he re-
sented exercise of authority over his area by Gen.
Thomas C. Hindman [#.#.], in command of the
Trans-Mississippi district This resentment led
Pike
to much friction between the two, and on July
1862, Pike issued a printed circular regardi]
the situation, entitled Letter to the President
the Confederate States. President Davis wrc
him under date of Aug. 9, that the publicatii
of this circular was a grave military offense, ai
that if the purpose was to abate an evil "t]
mode taken was one of the slowest and wot
that could have been adopted" (Ibid., i ser. LI]
822). On July 12, 1862, Pike resigned his cor
mission, but his resignation was not accept*
until Nov. 5. In the meantime he aired his gric
ances in letters to various officials, and und*
date of July 31, 1862, wrote an address to tl
chiefs and people of the Indian tribes (printed :
Official Records, 1 ser, XII I, 869-71 ). The cha
actcr of this address was such that CoL Dough
H. Cooper ordered his arrest and wrote Preside)
Davis that Pike was "either insane or untrue 1
the South" (Ibid., i ser. LI II, 820-21). T*
arrest was never actually effected, however, an
he was granted leave and permitted to return 1
his home* He was vigorous in denouncing th
spirit and acts of his superiors and publishe
Charges and Specifications Preferred Attgttst 2.
1862, by Brigadier General Albert Pike> again
Major General Thomas C, Hindman (1863)
In October, at the expiration of his leave, he ai
tempted to resume command of the Indian de
partment On Nov. 3, General Hindman ordere
his arrest, which in this instance was eifectec
for on Nov. 19 he wrote President Davis fron
Warren, Tex,, that he was there a prisone
(Ibid,, I ser. XIII, 921-22). His resignatioi
had before this been accepted and he was late
released. During much of the remainder of th
war he seems to have been in retirement h
Arkansas and probably for a time in Texas
though for a brief period toward the close o
hostilities he served as associate justice of th<
Arkansas supreme court
For several years after the war he was some-
thing of a wanderer. His property had beer
confiscated and he was looked upon with sus-
picion both in the South and in the North. He
went to New York in 1865, but fearing arrest or.
the charge of inciting the Indians to revolt, he
fled to Canada. His friends made persistent ef-
forts to secure his pardon, and on Aug. 30, 1865,
President Johnson Issued an order permitting
him to return to his home on condition that he
take the oath of allegiance and give his parole
of honor that he would conduct himself as a loyal
citizen. While so conducting himself he was not
to be molested by civil or military authorities,
These conditions he fulfilled Indicted for trea-
son by the circuit court of the Eastern District of
594
Pike
Arkansas, lie pleaded the President's order. Ap-
parently he was ultimately restored to full civil
'rights (JVrza 'Age Magazine, June 1930, pp. 425-
26 ; September 1930, p, 534) - In 1867-68 he was
in Memphis, Term., where he practised law and
for a time was editor of The Memphis Appeal.
In 1868 he moved to Washington, D. C. Here
hcwcontinuccl his practice, was associate editor of
The Patriot' (1868-70), studied much and wrote
much, and devoted a large part of his attention
to the interests o£ Freemasonry.
He had been made a Mason in 1850, a Scottish
Rite Mason in 1853, and in 1859 he was elected
sovereign Grant! Commander of the Supreme
Grand Council, Southern Jurisdiction of the
United States, an office which he held for thirty-
two years* As an administrator, a student and
interpreter of Masonry, and as an author, he
rendered an invaluable service to Scottish Rite
Masonry, becoming1 highly revered in the United
States and widely known abroad. While his
services were numerous and varied, his greatest
achievements, perhaps, were the rewriting of the
rituals, a work upon which lie was laboriously
engaged over a period of many years, and his
Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted
Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1872, 1878, 1881,
1905).
More than six feet tall, of large frame and
Jovian countenance, with flowing locks reaching
to his shoulders, and a long beard, Pike presented
an impressive appearance. His genius was many-
sided and his mind ranged over a wide field of
subjects. He had a working knowledge of San-
skrit, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and French, and in
his later clays he spent much time in studying
and translating Eastern writings. To periodicals
he contributed* numerous articles on diverse sub-
jects. In his own profession he was not only an
able practitioner but a student of the law. He
prepared a work of considerable length, "Maxims
of the Roman Law and Some of the Ancient
French Law, as Expounded and Applied in Doc-
trine and Jurisprudence/1 which "had it been
published, would have placed him in the front
rank of American writers on Civil Law (u b.
Lobingier, in American Bar Association Journal,
April 1927, p, 208). His reputation as a poet
was considerable. Early In his Arkansas career
he had sent to Btackwood's Edinburgh Maga-
*fo*, "Hymns to the Gods," which the editor,
Christopher North (Dr. John Wilson), published
in the June 1839 issue of that periodical with the
t" "These " * " -«+'«* ™eir
Pike
printed. A collection under the same title, also
privately printed, appeared subsequently in two
parts (part I, 1873; part II, 1882). He had
previously issued Huge (1854), and after his
death three volumes of selections — Gen. Albert
Pike's Poems (1900), Hymns to the Gads and
Other Poems (1916), 2&& Lyrics and Love Songs
(1916)— were published by his daughter, Lilian
Pike Roome. Time has not confirmed Chris-
topher North's rating of Pike as a poet He had
imagination and skill in versification, but was
endowed with a better sense of rhythm than of
euphony. Some of his poems have a lusty vigor,
and of the different versions of "Dixie" his is
perhaps the best. His work as a whole, however,
is uneven, has little originality, and is frequent-
ly reminiscent of other writers.
Pike died in the house of the Scottish Rite
Temple, Washington, in his eighty-second year.
He left a written communication directing that
his body be cremated and his ashes be put
around the roots of two acacia trees in front o£
the home of the Supreme Council ; but these in-
structions were not complied with, and he was
buried in Oak Hill Cemetery, Washington. The
Supreme Council, Southern Jurisdiction, erected
a heroic statue of him in Washington on a reser-
vation designated for the purpose by Congress.
His wife had died in 1876 and he had lost three
children, one son having been killed in the Con-
federate service and one drowned in the Arkan-
sas ; two sons and a daughter survived him.
[Pike's unpublished MSS. are in the library of the
Supreme Council, Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, South-
ern Jurisdiction, Washington, D. C; W L. Boyden,
Bittiog. of the Writings of Albert Pike (1921), lists
published and unpublished works ;^ extracts from his
manuscript autobiography are published by C. S. Lo-
bingier in New Age Mag., Aug. ipap-Sept 1930 ; ales
of this magazine contain much other biographical ma-
terial; see also J. L. Elwell, The Story of By field
(1904) ; W. F. Pope, Early Days w Ark. (1895) ; John
Hallum! Biog. and Pictorial Hist, of Ark. (1887) ; Fay
Hempstead, A Pictorial Hist, of Ark. (1890) : V. Y.
Thomas, Ark. in War and Reconstruction (19*6) ; Ark.
and Its People (1930), vol. IV ; W. S. ^acNutt and
others, A Hist, of Ark. (1932) ; War of the Rebellion.
Official Records (Army); C A. Evans Confederate
Military Hist. (1899), vols. IX, X; F. W. Allsopp,^-
bert Pike (1928) ; Evening Star (Washington, D. C),
Apr, 2, 3, 1891.3 H.E.S.
PIKE, JAMES SHEPHERD (Sept. 8, 1811-
Nov. 29, 1882), journalist, author, was born in
Calais, Me., the son of William and Hannah
(Shepherd) Pike, and died in that town in his
seventy-second year while en route from his home
at Robbinston, Me., to tbe South for the winter
months. He was a descendant of John Pike and
his son Robert [g.<l, who came to Massacati-
595
Pike
instrumental in establishing the first schools
(1810). In these, maintained with difficulty
through the War of 1812, young Pike received
his only formal education, which he later de-
scribed as "not worth mentioning." The sudden
death of his father in 1818 left the family in
straitened circumstances, and, at the age of
fourteen, James entered upon a series of busi-
ness ventures in his native town, first as a clerk,
later in a grain and shipping business, and in
1836, as cashier of the short-lived St. Croix
Bank.
By 1840 his success in business was such as
to permit him to devote himself to the more
congenial work of journalism, in which he had
already shown an interest by editing the Bound-
ary Gazette and Calais Advertiser (Apr. 12,
i835-July 28, 1836), distinguished for its Whig
sympathies and its early advocacy of Harrison
for the presidency. Despite his limited educa-
tion, he had acquired literary taste, a vigorous
and picturesque diction, and forceful style.
After 1840 he lived during the winter months
in Boston, New York, and Washington, be-
coming actively associated with newspaper
work. As correspondent for the Portland Ad-
vertiser, and especially for the Boston Courier,
he became familiarly known through letters
signed "J. S. P." As Washington correspondent
for the Courier he described with characteristic
vigor and effectiveness the persons and events
in Washington during the debates on the com-
promise measures of 1850. Of Henry Clay, on
the occasion of the Compromise speech, he said,
"he was neither profound, brilliant, nor soul-
stirring/' and he characterized Robert Toombs
as "burly, choleric, and determined," while
Foote was described as "the coltsfoot of the bed
of senatorial eloquence." The embarrassed edi-
tor of the Courier was moved to explain that "we
do not look singly at the dark side, which he
presents in his letter" (Boston Courier f Apr.
10, 1850, p. 2). In 1850 he was the Whig
candidate for Congress from the seventh district
of the state of Maine in opposition to T. J. D.
Fuller. Although this district had been strongly
Democratic, the seat was closely contested and
it was not until ten days after the election that
Fuller's victory was assured (Portland Adver-
tiser, Sept. 11-13, 1850). In April of that year
Pike was invited by Horace Greeley to become
a regular correspondent of the New York Trib-
une, and in 1852 he was made an associate
editor. Most of the time between 1850 and
1860 he was Washington correspondent for the
Tribune.. His letters during that period, to-
gether with the earlier letters to the Boston
Pike
Courier, are the most interesting of his journa
istic achievements, a vivid and colorful descri]
tion of official Washington during the decac
preceding the Civil War. Widely quoted, bi
terly attacked or enthusiastically praised, the
exerted a profound influence upon public opir
ion and gave to their author national prom
nence, first as an uncompromising anti-slaver
Whig, and later as an ardent Republican.
When Lincoln was elected to the presidenc
he named Pike as minister rCvSiclcnt to The Hagu<
and on Mar. 28, 1861, the Senate confirmed hi
appointment. He arrived at The Hague on Jun
i, 1861. His diplomatic correspondence reveal
him chiefly as an observer of the economic el
fects of the Civil War upon Europe. The rel
atively quiet life in a country which offered bt
few diplomatic problems proved uncongenial
and he returned to the United States on Ma;
17, 1866, although his recall was not presents
to the King of the Netherlands until Dec. i
The remaining years of his life were clevota
chiefly to writing, to collecting and publishing
his earlier correspondence, and to the attrac
tions of his summer home in Robbinston, Me
He was twice married : first, in 1837, to Char
lotte Grosvenor of Pomfret, Conn.; second, ii
1855, to Elizabeth Ellicott of Avonclale, Chestei
County, Pa. He published successively Th*
Financial Crisis: Its Hints and Their Remedy
(1867) ; The Restoration of the Current
(1868) ; and Horace Grcclcy in 1872 (1873)
All of these works were based upon what he hac
previously written for the New York Tribune
In 1873 he published his Chief Justice Chase^
and in the following year, The Prostrate State,
South Carolina under Negro Government, the
result of his observation of the working of the
reconstruction government in South Carolina,
also published in a Dutch translation in 1875,
In 1875 his Contributions to the Financial Dis-
cussion, 1874-1875, appeared, and was followed
in 1879 by The Nctv Puritan, a study of seven-
teenth-century New England, based primarily
upon the career of Robert Pike, and by First
Blows of the Civil War, a contemporaneous
exposition of the ten years of preliminary con-
flict in the United States from 1850 to 1860.
[G. F. Talbot, "James Shepherd Pike/' Colls, and
Prpc. M$. Hist, Soc,, 2 ser. X (1890) ; New-England
Hist, and Gencal. Reg., Apr, 1883; C, W, Evans,
Bioff. and Hist, Accounts of the fox, Ellicott, ana
Evans Families (1882). Joseph Griffin, Hist, of the
Press of Me, (1872) ; L C. Knowlton, Aimals of
Calais, Me,, and St. Stephen, New Brunswick (1875) ;
Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, x86i~>6? (1861-
68) ; Portland Advertiser, Apr. so-ao, r8$o, Nov. 29,
1882; Boston Courier, esp, Apr. xo, 1850, and Nov.
30, 1882 ; N. Y, Tribune, Mar. 39, 1861 ; Sun (N» Y.)>
Nov. 30, 1 88*,] T.C.V-C.
596
Pike
PIKE, MARY HAYDEN GREEN (Nov. 30,
i824-Jan. 15, 1908), novelist, was born in East-
port, Me., the daughter of Deacon Elijah Dix
and Hannah Claflin (Hayden) Green, both of
early Puritan stock. The family moved to
Calais, Me., when she was quite young, and
there she attended public school. Her girlhood
was marked by strong religious influences. At
the age of twelve she formally joined the Baptist
Church, the immersion being performed after
ice had been cut: from the river for the occasion.
At the Charlestown (Massachusetts) Female
Seminary, from which she graduated in 1843,
her religious convictions deepened under the
leadership of its president, the Rev. William
Phillips. Abolitionism soon became a focus for
her spiritual energy. In 1846 she married
Frederick Augustus Pike, a lawyer of Calais,
who became a member of the Maine state legis-
lature. Her anti-slavery sentiments were further
confirmed by her husband's opinions and by the
views of Hannibal Hamlin and James G. Elaine,
intimate family friends. After a residence in
Augusta, she visited in the South where she
made direct observations of slavery. She lived
in Washington between 1861 and 1869, when
her husband was a member of Congress. The
loss of her only brother in the war intensified
her feeling against slavery.
Mrs* Pike's first book, Ida May (1854), which
appeared under the name of Mary Langdon,
dealt with a child of wealthy parents who was
sold into slavery, It was melodramatic in style
and episode, and more than sixty thousand
copies were sold in America. It probably de-
rived some of its popularity from the turmoil
made by Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. It
was widely read abroad and was reprinted in
London and Leipzig. The cruelty of race dis-
crimination is the theme of Casts (1856), in
which a quadroon girl is forbidden to marry
her betrothed who is a white man. This novel
appeared under the pen-name Sydney A, Story,
Jr. ; it was not so popular as Ida May, Her next
book, Agnes (1858), "by the author of Ida
May,* attempted a truthful picture of the Indian
interwoven with a plot of the American Revolu-
tion. These were her best-known works. At
the close of her husband's term in Congress she
accompanied him on a journey to Europe. They
maintained their residence in Calais, Me., until
his death in 1886. She was left a considerable
estate and lived for the next nine years with her
adopted daughter in Plainfield, N. J. She had
become interested in painting: and did some
creditable landscape canvases, The closing
years of her life were spent in retirement and
Pike
poor health. She lived with her sister in Balti-
more and occupied herself in various religious
works. She died in Baltimore at the home of
her niece, Katherine C. Oudesluys, and was
interred at Calais, Me., beside her husband.
[There is considerable confusion in accounts o£
Mrs. Pike concerning her printed works, caused by
erroneous identification of her with a niece and others.
Information has been derived chiefly from family
correspondence. For printed sources see: I. C. Knowl-
ton, Annals of Calais, Me., and St. Stephen, New
Brunswick (1875) ; S. A. Allibone, A Critical Diet.
of English Lit.; and British and Am. Authors, vol. II
c l87VJ1J?w*onN rrawcrifo Jan. 12, 1889; and the
Sun (Baltimore), Jan. 16, 1908.] R.W B
E.P.*wi
PIKE, NICOLAS (Oct. 6, i743-Dec.9, 1819),
teacher, arithmetician, was born at Somers-
worth, N. H., the son of Rev. James and Sarah
(Oilman) Pike, and a descendant of John Pike
who emigrated from Landford, England, to
Massachusetts in 1635. Nicolas graduated from
Harvard College in 1766, and later received the
degree of A.M. there. He married in Newbury-
port, Mass., Hannah Smith, and between Jan. i,
1769, and Jan. 7, 1778, five sons were born to
them. Hannah died July 7, 1778, and on Jan. 9
of the following year Pike married Eunice
Smith, by whom he had one son. For many
years he was master of the Newburyport gram-
mar school, occupying that position at least as
early as 1773. He also* conducted a private
evening school (1774-86) and for a time, a
school for young ladies. He was town clerk of
Newburyport from Mar. 14, 1776 to 1780, served
as selectman in 1782-83, and for a considerable
period was justice of the peace. Testimony con-
cerning the quality of Pike's teaching is given
by Gen. Henry Sewall, who stated that in 1769
and several years previously he had studied
under Pike at York, in what is now Maine, par-
ticularly "arithmetic and trigonometry." Pike,
Sewall says, made some improvement in the
school there "with the accession of a new spell-
ing-book, but did not make grammar and geog-
raphy any part of school studies" (letter printed
in New-England Historical and Genealogical
Register, post, p. 310).
Pike's fame rests chiefly upon his treatise, A
New and Complete System of Arithmetick,
Composed for the Use of the Citisens of the
United States . . . (1788). In the year 1793
he published a smaller work, Abridgement of the
New and Complete System of Arithmetick, Com-
posed for the Use, and Adapted to the Com-
merce of the Citizens of the United States
For the Use of Schools, and Will be fomd to
be An Easy and Sure Guide to the Scholar*
Both were first printed by John MycaE to
597
Pike
Newburyport, but the second was printed for
Isaiah Thomas [g.^.], who acted as publisher
and distributor. This famous publisher con-
tinued to issue the book for many years. Three
years elapsed between the recommendation of
the original edition written by Benjamin West,
a well-known teacher and mathematician, and the
book's appearance. Pike was able to secure, also,
the hearty recommendations of the work by the
presidents of Yale, Harvard, and Dartmouth,
several of their professors of mathematics, and
Governor Bowdoin of Massachusetts. Even
Washington gave a guarded recommendation
when a copy was sent to him (quoted in Blake,
post, pp. 327-28). The author's confidence in
the value of his work was evidenced by the fact
that he registered as author in Pennsylvania,
South Carolina, Massachusetts, and New York,
such registration serving as copyright notice.
His confidence was fully justified, for the orig-
inal work went through eight editions, and the
Abridgement continued to appear until 1830. He
also edited, 1794, Daniel Fenning's The Ready
Reckoner or the Trader's Useful Assistant, On
Aug. 20, 1788, he was elected a fellow of the Am-
erican Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Pike was the first American arithmetician to
attain wide popularity in the field of school text-
books. In his arithmetics the orderly presenta-
tion of the subject to children is stressed, the
Federal money (then new) is given adequate
treatment, and the applications of arithmetic to
business are well indicated. The larger edition
was an admirable effort, furnishing excellent
material in geometry and trigonometry; the
abridged edition was particularly well suited to
instruction in elementary schools. In these text-
books Pike made an enduring contribution to
American education.
[Vital Records of Newburyport f Mass. (1911) ;
Arthur Oilman, The Oilman Family (1869) ; Joshua
Coffin, A Sketch of the Hist, of Ncwbury, Newbury-
port, and West Ncwbury , from 1635 to 1845 (1845) ;
J. J. Currier, Hist, of Ncwburyfrort, Mass., 1764-1909
(2 vols., 1906-09) ; E. V. Blake, Hist, of Newburyport
(1854) ; New-England Hist, and Gencal. Reg., July
1880; Boston Daily Advertiser, Dec. n, 1819.]
L. C. K.
PIKE, ROBERT (c. i6i6-Dec. 12, 1708),
colonial official, the second son of John Pike and
Dorothy Daye, was born in Whiteparish, Wilts,
England, probably spent part of his childhood in
Landford, and arrived in Boston with his father,
his brother John, and three sisters, on June 3,
1635. They went first to Ipswich, but soon after-
ward moved to the newly settled town of New-
bury, Mass., where Robert lived until 1639, when
he joined the colony which founded Salisbury.
He took the oath as freeman on May 17, 1637,
Pike
just before the exciting election at which Wi
throp defeated Vane for governor, and is said
have been of the Winthrop faction. On Apr.
1641, he married Sarah Sanders, and they h;
eight children ; she died Nov. i, 1679, and on O<
30, 1684, he married in Salisbury Martha Moy(
widow of George Goldwyer.
Pike deserves a high place among the d
fenders of civil and religious liberty in coloni
Massachusetts. Elected to the General Con
in 1648, he criticized it in 1653 because it ma<
preaching by one not a regularly ordained mi
ister a misdemeanor. The law was designed
prevent certain Baptists from exhorting in tl
absence of a minister. For his action, which w
also to the advantage of the Quakers, he was a
raigned before the General Court, tried, co
victcd, fined, and disfranchised. As a result
his protest, however, the General Court at i
next session repealed the law. Ncverthcle?
Pike's disfranchiscnicnt remained and fifteen
the numerous petitioners in his behalf were boui
over for trial in the county courts. Whetb
they were actually tried or punished does not a
pear. Pike's civil disabilities were removed
1657. He was immediately elected by the pcop
of Salisbury to represent them again in the Ge:
eral Court. In 1675 he was engag-ed in a co;
troversy with his pastor, John Wheelwrigl
[#.?/.], who sent him a document containir
criticisms of his conduct and a warning that 1
might be excommunicated. Pike, as magistrat
summoned Wheelwright to appear before him
account for the document. Wheelwright th(
excommunicated Pike. Appeals to the Gcner
Court resulted in the admonition of both partie
the lifting of the excommunication, and the r
ceiving back of Pike into the fellowship of tl
church. In 1692, at the height of the witchcra
delusion, Pike raised his voice against the cha
acter of the legal evidence upon which the coi
victions were based. The argument is contain*
in a letter addressed to Magistrate Jonathan Co
win and signed by the initials, "R. P." Thoug
attributed by some to Robert Paine, the evident
indicates, according to Upham (post), that Rol
ert Pike was the author. The argument w*
directed not to proving1 that witchcraft was
delusion, but to stressing1 the invalidity of specti
testimony. "Is the Devil a competent witness i
Pike asks. Pike's biographer describes this le
ter as a cool, close, and powerful argumentatn
appeal to the judges who were trying the witcl
craft cases.
In spite of his controversies with the powea
of authority, Pike was not fundamentally oj
posed to the existing regime and was evident!
598
Pike
valued as a man of force and character. He
served as major in the Indian wars. During- a
period of fifty years, except for short intervals,
lie held public office continuously. In 1688-89,
after the revolution in England and the deposi-
tion of Andros in Massachusetts, Pike was elect-
ed near the head of the poll at a popular election
of magistrates* Later, when a list of appointees
to fill the same offices was decided on by the
Crown, Pike's name was on the list though the
names of several of his conspicuous colleagues
were omitted. From 1689 to 1696 he was a mem-
ber of the Governor's Council. He was one of a
group who bought the island of Nantucket from
Thomas Mayhew [#.?/.] in 1659 and had pecu-
niary interests there at the time of his death. He
appears to have lived and died in comparative
affluence. He headed the list of commoners of
Salisbury after the minister, paid the largest tax
in 1652, and he and his wife were first in the list
of members of the Salisbury church in 1687. He
educated his son John, later minister at Dover,
N. H., at Harvard, and defrayed the expenses of
a medical education for his grandson Robert
After 1696 he retired to private life and was en-
gaged in giving" away to his heirs the property
which he had accumulated during his lifetime.
[D, W. Hoyt, The Old Families of Salisbury and
Anwsburyt Mass. (3 vols,, 1897-1917) ; Joshua Coffin,
A Sketch of the Hist, of Ncwbury, Newburyport, and
West Ncwbury from 163 5^x8 45 (1845); J- S. Macy,
GeneaL of the Macy Family from 1635-1868 (1868) ; J.
S. Pike, The New Puritan . . , ; Some Account of
the Life of Robert Pike (1879) J Records of the Pike
Family Asso.t 1900-1901 and 1902; James Savage, A
Gcneal. Diet, of the First Settlors of New England,
vol. Ill (i860, PP. 436-37; C. W. Upham, Salem
Witchcraft (1867), vol. II.] H. S. W.
R. M. W.
PIKE, ZEBULON MONTGOMERY (Jan.
5, i779~Apr, 27, 1813), soldier, explorer, was
bred to a military career. His father, Major
Zelmlcm Pike, served in the Revolution and after-
ward as an officer in the United States Army;
an ancestor, Capt John Pike, had fought in the
early colonial wars ; he was a founder of Wood-
bridge, N. J., in 1666, and the son of John Pike,
first of the family in America, who emigrated to
New England in 1635. Zebulon Montgomery
Pike, whose mother was Isabella Brown, was
bom at Lamberton, now a part of Trenton, N. J,
His childhood was spent in New Jersey and
Pennsylvania, where he attended country school.
While yet a boy he entered his father's company
as a cadet, and at twenty was commissioned a
first lieutenant, For several years he served with
the frontier army, restlessly awaiting an oppor-
tunity to distinguish himself. At length it came,
when Gen. James Wilkinson [#.*/.] directed him
to lead an exploring party to the source of the
Pike
Mississippi. At the head of a company of twenty
men Pike set out from St. Louis on Aug. 9, 1805,
with four months' provisions store3 away in his
seventy-foot keelboat. When they were some
distance beyond the Falls of St. Anthony, winter
weather set in. Leaving some of the men in a
rude stockade, Pike and the others continued the
journey, dragging their goods on sleds. They
reached what Pike mistakenly took for the source
of the river, and after visiting some British trad-
ing posts and holding councils with the Indians
of the region, returned to St. Louis on Apr. 30,
1806.
The young lieutenant was soon dispatched up-
on a longer and more important expedition, set-
ting out from St. Louis on July 15, 1806. He was
instructed to explore the headwaters of the Ar-
kansas and Red rivers and to reconnoitre the
Spanish settlements of New Mexico, being warned
to "move with great circumspection . . . and to
prevent any alarm or offence" (Coues, post, II,
563). After visiting the Pawnee villages on the
Republican River, Pike (whose promotion to a
captaincy occurred by routine on Aug. 12, 1806)
moved up the Arkansas to the site of the present
Pueblo, Colo. Here, on a side trip, he made an
unsuccessful attempt to reach the summit of the
peak that bears his name. After exploring South
Park and the head of the Arkansas, he turned
southward, seeking the source of the Red River.
He crossed the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and
on the Cone j os branch of the Rio Grande con-
structed a fort of cottonwood logs. The Span-
iards of New Mexico, learning of his presence
within their territory, sent a body of troops to
fetch him to Santa Fe. He acceded without op-
position, for he desired to visit the region and
study its geography and resources. From Santa
Fe he was taken on to Chihuahua, where he was
examined by the commandante general. Here
he was well treated, except that his papers were
taken from him. (These were destined to rest
for a hundred years in the Mexican archives and
then to be discovered by an American scholar;
see H. E. Bolton, in American Historical Re-
view, April 1908, especially p. 523, and "Papers
of Zebulon M. Pike, 1806-07," HM-> J^J *9<>8.
The papers have since been returned to the
United States and are now in the Archives Di-
vision of tihe Adjutant-General's Office, in the
War Department)
After returning to the United States, Pike
found his name coupled, in some quarters, with
the Burr- Wilkinson scheme for empire in tbe
Southwest. There seems little doubt that Wil-
kinson ordered the tour with the expectation fct
its findings would be helpful in prOTiatpg te
599
Pilat
designs, but whether or not young Pike was
aware of the connection cannot be determined.
He protested his innocence and Henry Dearborn,
the secretary of war, in a formal statement gave
him a clean slate. Nevertheless, historians con-
tinue to differ in the conclusions they draw from
the circumstantial evidence. The information
Pike gathered was of value to his government,
his conduct was not incompatible with patriotic
motives, and his subsequent career evidences
genuine patriotism. He was commissioned ma-
jor in 1808, colonel in 1812, and, following the
outbreak of the second war with Great Britain,
brigadier-general in 1813. When the attack on
York (now Toronto), Canada, was launched
in April of that year the immediate command of
the troops was entrusted to Pike. He led his
men to victory, but was killed in the assault
(Apr. 27) when the enemy's powder magazine
exploded. He had married in 1801 Clarissa
Brown, daughter of Gen. John Brown of Ken-
tucky. Several children were born to them, only
one of whom, a daughter, reached maturity. She
married Symmes Harrison, a son of William
Henry Harrison [q.v."]. In 1810 Pike published
An Account of Expeditions to the Sources of the
Mississippi and through the Western Parts of
Louisiana, which is the principal source for the
story of his explorations. A London edition was
published in 1811, and the work was translated
into French (1812), Dutch (1812), and German
(1813).
[Biographies include Zebulon Pike's Arkansas Jour.
(1932), ed. by S. H. Hart and A. B. Hulbert; Henry
Whiting, "Life of Zebulon Montgomery Pike," in Jared
Sparks, The Lib. of Am.Eiog., 2 ser., vol. V (1845) ;
Elliott Coues, The Expeditions of Zebulon Montgomery
Pike (3 yols., 1895) J article in Analcctic Mag., Nov.
1814, copied in the Supplement to vol. VII (1814-15)
of Nilcsf Weekly Register, in the appendix to Naval
Biography (1815), and in J. M. Niles, The Life of
Oliver Hazard Perry (1820). See also Nilcs* Weekly
Register, June 5, 1813, Oct. 28, 1815 ; I. J. Cox, "Open-
ing the Santa F£ Trail," Mo. Hist. Rev., Oct. 1930;
Records of the Pike Family Asso, of America, 1900-04.
A contemporary Spanish sketch of the Pike expedition,
with collateral correspondence, is in the Archivo His-
torico Nacional at Madrid, and a transcript of this is
in the Library of Congress.] L R H.
PILAT, IGNAZ ANTON (June 27, 1820-
Sept 17, 1870), landscape gardener, was born at
St. Agatha, Austria. He received a general edu-
cation of collegiate rank at the University of
Vienna, studied at the botanical gardens con-
nected with the university and also at the Im-
perial Botanical Gardens at Schonbrunn, and
for some years subsequently remained connected
with the latter garden. His first important com-
mission, and probably his greatest Austrian
work, was the laying out of a park for the famous
Prince Metternich. Political troubles induced
Pilat
him to come to America in 1848, and the yean
immediately following he spent largely in thi
South, where his name is connected with the lay
ing out of the grounds of several estates n
Georgia, including the garden of the Gumming
Langdon house at Augusta. During this perio<
he also made a brief visit to Vienna, where h<
was appointed director of the Botanical Gardens
but he resigned in either 1856 or 1857 at tin
call of the commissioners of Central Park, Nev
York City.
Pilat's botanical survey of the Central Pai'l
site, made in collaboration with Charles Rawolle
resulted in the publication of a Catalogue o
Plants Gathered in August and September 185't
m the Ground of the Central Park (1857), <
thirty-four-page pamphlet. A later survey en
titled "Catalogue of Trees, Shrubs, ancl Herba
ceous Plants on the Central Park, Dec. 31, 1861
with the Months of Flowering ancl Fruiting o
such as have Conspicuous Blossoms or Fruits,'
was published in the Seventh Annual Report o
the Board of Commissioners of Central Park
covering the year 1863. These surveys and <
book on elementary botany, issued in Austria
were his only publications.
His lasting memorial is his work on Centra
Park, where his experience and knowledge o
plant materials, his cultivated taste, and his grea
zeal resulted in his successful interpretation o:
the plans of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calver
Vaux [qq.y,']. The landscape architect Sarnue
Parsons was of the opinion that neither Olmsted'!
nor Vatix's knowledge of plants was sufficient tc
enable them to work out the details of the plant-
ing without the assistance of a plant expert wh<
was also a landscape gardener (Parsons, post)
That Pilat, a true artist, was of the greatest as-
sistance to the designers is attested by them-
selves. Olrnstecl and Vaux having resigned a;
landscape architects of Central Park in May 186;
were reappointed to the position in 1865 and a-
that time wrote to Pilat as follows: ", . . Befort
going on to the work again, we desire, as artists
to express our thanks to you, a brother artist
for the help you have so freely rendered to th<
design in our absence" (Frederick Law Olm-
stcd, Landscape Architect, ed by F, L. Olmsted
Jr., and Theodora Kimball, voi II, 1928, p. 76)
In 1870 the Board of Commissioners of Cen-
tral Park was dissolved and its work was taker
over by the newly organized Department of Pub-
lic Parks whose first annual report (1870-71)
contains Pilat' s plans for the improvement oi
several of the smaller parks and squares of the
city, among them the plan for the developmenl
of Mount Morris Park. At the time of his deatt
600
Pilcher
in 1870 preliminary planting sketches of most o£
the parks under improvement had been com-
pleted. During the last years of his life he also
engaged in private practice, doing professional
work for William Cullen Bryant, the Massachu-
setts Agricultural College, Cyrus W. Field, and
others. He died at his home in New York City
of consumption, thought to have resulted from
his untiring" devotion to the interests of the Cen-
tral Park and the exposure consequent thereon.
He was survived by a widow, Clara L. (Rittler)
Pilat, and by five children.
[Unpublished data in possession of Pilat's son,
Oliver I, Pilat, and his nephew. Cad F. Pilat; I. N.
Phclps Stokes, Iconography of Manhattan Island, III,
(19*8), 7^3 I Mabel Parsons, Memories of Samuel Par-
sons (19-6) ; Alice G. B, Lockwootl, Gardens of Colony
"and State (Garden Club of America, 1934), vol. II;
K. H. Hall, "Central Park in the City of New York,"
Am>. G, in Sixteenth Ann. Report, ipu, Am. Scenic
and Hist. Preservation Sac. (if) it); "New York City,
Parks/1 in Twentieth Ann, Report . . . Am. Scenic
and Hist. Presentation $oc. (1915) ; Still. Torrcy Bo-
tanical Chih, Sept, 1870; AT. y. Times, Sept, so, 1870;
j\T. y, Herald , Sept. 20, 1870 ; AT. F. Tribune, Sept. 20
and si, 1870; N. Y. limning Post, Sept. 19 and 21,
1870.] K.McN.
PILCHER, JOSHUA (Mar. 15, i79o~June 5,
1843), fur trader, superintendent of Indian af-
fairs, the son of Joshua and Nancy Pilcher, was
born in Culpcpcr County, Va., to which his
grandfather is said to have emigrated early in
the eighteenth century. The family removed to
Fayettc County, Ky., where the father died in
1810. The son studied medicine but soon drifted
into the mercantile business and the fur trade.
He removed to St. Louis from Nashville, Tenn.,
about 1815. Ho became senior warden of the
Missouri lodge of Masons organized under a
Tennessee charter approved on Oct. 8, 1816.
With others, by consent of the legislature, he
conducted a lottery for the benefit of this lodge
and paid prises aggregating $60,000.^ In St.
Louis he was associated in busines with N. S.
Anderson and, after the latter's death, became a
partner of Thomas F. Rklclick, a relative, under
the name of Ricldick & Pilcher. He was one of
the directors of the Bank of St. Louis.
He joined in the reorganization of the Mis-
souri Fur Company in 1819, and in 1820 he be-
came president after the death of Manuel Lisa
fov.]. In 1823 he was conspicuous in Henry
Leavenworth's campaign against the Ankara
Indians. He went on yearly expeditions into the
Indian country and spent three years, from 1827
to 1830, with an outfit of forty-five men trading
and trapping, going up the Platte River to its
source, and penetrating the country beyond tne
Rocky Mountains, On this journey he was m- ^^^^^^ ^ Europe
defatlgable and obtained information of great the cystoscope. wn
601
Pilcher
value for subsequent expeditions. Joining the
western department of the American Fur Com-
pany after the dissolution of the Missouri Fur
Company, he took charge of their post near
Council Bluffs in 1831. He spent a number of
years in the fur trade of the Upper Missouri and
acquired a knowledge of the various tribes of
that region. In 1837 he became Indian agent
for the Upper Missouri tribes, having served
several years previously in similar capacity for
the Sioux of the Missouri, Cheyenne, and Ponca.
When William Clark [q.v.'] died, Pilcher suc-
ceeded him as superintendent of Indian affairs
and served from Mar. 4, 1839, until Sept. 6, 1841.
He was intelligent, Industrious, and liberal. He
was very enterprising and gave vitality to all
undertakings in which he was engaged. He was
never married, though he was once on the verge
of a duel over a young lady to whom he was en-
gaged. He was a devoted friend of Thomas H.
Benton and consequently drew the opposition of
Benton's enemies. In 1817 he was his second in
Benton's first duel with Charles Lucas. In his
will he left a note of Benton's for $3500 to the
senator's daughter and his dueling pistols to
Benton's son. He died in St. Louis of lung
trouble.
[St. Louis Probate Court Records ; John Dougherty
and Chouteau collections in Lib. of Mo. Hist. Soc. ; H.
M. Chittenden, The Am. Fur Trade of the Far West
(1902), vols. I, II; F. L. Billon, Annals of St. Louis
. . . x8o4-i82i (1888) ; Mo. Grand Lodge Bulletin,
Nov. 1927, pp. 167-68, Aug. 1928, pp. 132-38 ; J- H. S.
Ardery, Ky. Records, vol. I (1926) ; Doane Robinson,
"Official Correspondence of the Leavenworth Expedi-
tion ... in 1823," S. D. Hist. Colls., vol. I (1902);
Am. State Papers: Indian Affairs, vol. II (1834) ; M.
C. Pilcher, Hist. Sketches of the Campbell, Pilcher, and
Kindred Families (copr. ign) ; Mo. Gazette and Pub-
lic Advertiser (St. Louis), Aug. 24, 1816, Mar. 29,
1817; Mo. Intelligencer (Franklin), Nov. 25, Dec. 2,
o 16 1823 ; Mo. Reporter (St. Louis), June 8, 1843;
Mo. Republican (St. Louis), June 7, 1843-] S. M. D.
PILCHER, PAUL MONROE (Apr. 11, 1876-
Jan. 4, 1917), surgeon and urologist, was born
in Brooklyn, N. Y., the son of Lewis Stephen
Pilcher, himself a distinguished surgeon, and
Martha S. (Phillips) Pilcher. After studying
at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, he entered
the University of Michigan where he graduated
with the degree of B.S. in 1898. Two years later
be received the degree of M.D. from the Collie
of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. For
following graduation, he was an intern
" 1, Brooklyn, of which insti-
wc,j senior surgeon. He then
,ou a*** for a year studied in clinics in
xen Vienna, and Berlin, his work hemg
'in pathology and in the diagnostic use of
mite
Pilkington
the influence and teachings of Koenig, Orth,
Nitze, and Von Fritsch.
Returning to Brooklyn in 1903, he received ap-
pointments to the Seney, German, St. John's, and
Jewish hospitals. He resigned these positions in
1910, however, to join his father and brothers
in the development of a private hospital. With
a splendid surgical training as a background,
Pilcher worked with enthusiasm and soon be-
came well known and respected for his thorough-
ness and skill. He introduced methods for the
investigation of patients which have been widely
adopted by others. His frequent visits to clinics
kept him well-informed as to medical progress
elsewhere. His Practical Cystoscopy and the
Diagnosis of Surgical Diseases of the Kidneys
and Urinary Bladder (1911) went through two
editions and was widely acclaimed. Besides be-
ing an exposition on the comparatively new
science of cystoscopy, it was written in a clear,
lucid style that reflected a highly cultured back-
ground. Following a visit to Copenhagen, he
published Abdominal Surgery,, Clinical Lectures
for Students and Physicians (1914), a transla-
tion of the work of N. T. Rovsing. He also con-
tributed an important chapter, entitled "Prostatic
Obstructions," to Modern Urology (1918), ed-
ited by Hugh Cabot. He was also the author of
many scientific contributions to medical publica-
tions, and from 1907 to 1911, edited the Long
Island Medical Journal. He was operating sur-
geon at Eastern Long Island Hospital, Green-
port ; chairman of the section in surgery of the
New York State Medical Society; and a member
of numerous other professional societies.
Although he died of pneumonia at the com-
paratively early age of forty, he had already won
recognition both as a skilful surgeon and by rea-
son of his original researches in urology, which
were pioneer work of their kind in the United
States. In 1905 he married Mary Finlay of
Montclair, N. J. She, with their two sons, sur-
vived him.
[Annals of Surgery, May 1917 ; Long Island Medic.
Jour., May 1917 ; H. A. Kelly and W. L. Burrage, Am*
Medic. Biogs, (1920) ; Trans. Am. Surgic, Asso., vol.
XXXV (1917); AT. y. Times, Jan. 5, 1917.]
G.M.L.
PILKINGTON, JAMES (Jan. 4, i8si-Apr.
25, 1929), athlete, was born in Cavendish, Wind-
sor County, Vt, the son of Thomas Pilkington,
a farmer, and his wife, Anne Cusack. He never
revisited his birthplace, and his earliest recollec-
tions were of Hillsboro, Highland County, Ohio,
where his parents settled while he was still an
infant. He lost no time in growing up. Giving
his age as fifteen, he enlisted June 5, 1863, as
bugler in the 24th Independent Battery of Ohio
Pilkington
Volunteer Light Artillery and spent the nex
two years guarding prisoners on Johnson's Islanc
near Sandusky and at Camp Douglas, 111. Whei
his battery was mustered out in 1865, he set fortl
in search of the adventure that the war hat
denied him, wandered through the Southwest
tarried awhile in New Orleans, worked his wa:
up the Mississippi, tried life in Chicago, an<
finally reached New York, which was his hom<
thereafter. For a number of years he was on th<
police force. Endowed with a superb body ant
the generous instincts of a great sportsman, In
excelled at boxing, wrestling, rowing, bowling
trapshooting, and all track and field sports. Witl
William Mulcloon [(/.?'.] he was one of th<
founders of the Police Athletic Association an<
the Empire Athletic Association. On Mar. u
1882, at the old Madison Square Garden, he woi
the national amateur heavyweight boxing an<
wrestling championships, competing in and win
ning both events on the same night. He wa
most famous, however, as an oarsman. At a re
gatta at Greenwood Lake, N. J., in July 1882
he rowed in singles, doubles, six-oared gig, an<
eight-oared vshell on a mile-ancl-onc-half course
his boat winning every race. As the doubles wa
first declared a dead heat ancl had to be rowc<
over, this meant seven ancl one-half miles a
racing speed. With Jack Nagle, then cighteci
years old, as his partner in the national cham
pionship doubles at Pullman, III, Aug. 8, i88c;
he set a record that stood over forty years. H<
was president of the National Association o
Amateur Oarsmen from 1900 to 1920 and re
mained on the executive committee until hi
death. For a number of years he was a membc
of the American Olympic Committee, He work
ed constantly to interest young- men in rowing
and was especially successful in encouraging th<
sport in the New York high schools. When hi
grew too old to row he became a coach. Hi
training rules were of the simplest : "You wan
to eat good food and do lots of hard work ati<
get lots of good sleep. And when you're fighting
fight; when you're walking, walk; and whei
you're rowing, row 1" The notion that there wa
such a thing as "athlete's heart" made him jeet
When his fame as an athlete brought him friend
and financial backing, he became a contractor
His firm did work in various parts of the corni
try, but chiefly in New York, where "Big JimJ
himself did the first actual work for the origina
New York subway, beginning* the excavation ii
Bleecker Street Mar. 26, 1900. Later he buil
part of the Broadway subway north of i3Stl
Street and a section of the Catskill Aquedud
Failing eyesight compelled him to give up hi
602
Pilling
business activities in 1923, and thereafter he sel-
dom left his home on Scdgwick Avenue opposite
the Bronx reservoir, but lie continued to accom-
pany the Columbia University crews to Pough-
keepsie when they were in training-. He died
after a brief illness in his seventy-ninth year.
His first wi Cc, whom he married in 1877, was Con-
stance Burke; his second wife, Kate Lysaght,
and a daughter by his first marriage, survived
him.
[AT. F. Times, Apr. 26 , 27, igzg; N. Y. Hcratd-
Tribune, Apr. 26, 1929 ; Official Roster of the Soldiers
of the State of 0/j.iV>V» the War of the Rebellion, X
(iStSg), 630, 633; R. F. Kcllcy, American Rowing
(1932), pp. 61— (>4 ; James Pilkint/ton (booklet issued by
the*. Nat. A.SHO. of AuKitettr Oarsmen); information
from his daughter, Lily L. Hlkington.] G.H, G.
PILLING, JAMES CONST ANTINE (Nov.
16, i846-J"uly 26, 1895), ethnologist, was born in
Washington, 1 ). C., the son of James and Susan
(Collins) Pilling, lie received his education in
the public schools and Gonyaga College, a Jesuit
institution at Washington, He worked in a book
store for a time and became proficient in stenog-
raphy, which qualification, rare at the time, was
to lead to important results in his life work.
Beginning as stenographer in the courts of the
District of Columbia when he was twenty, he
later became an employee of congressional com-
mittees and commissions. He was asked by John
W, Powell [tf.7',1 to join the survey of the Rocky
Mountains in 1875. His imagination was stimu-
lated by this field work with Powell, during which
he was one of the party to explore the Grand
Canyon, and his interest in the diverse languages
of the Indians was aroused by contact with the
little-known tribes of the Rockies. He began the
life work he was henceforth inclefatigably to
pursue. The next five years, 1875 to 1880, he
spent in collecting ethnological material concern-
ing the Indians and acquiring skill in biblio-
graphical method. He was then appointed chief
clerk of the geological survey, and he also served
as chief clerk of the ethnological bureau.
His preoccupation with the Indian was mainly
in the literature on the languages of the various
groups, At the inception of the Bureau of Amer-
ican Ethnology this groundwork was especially
needed, and in 1892 he began to devote his whole
time to bibliographical work. He produced in a
few years an unparalleled work on the bibliog-
raphy of the Indian tribes. As a preliminary he
had begun a "Catalogue of the Linguistic Manu-
scripts in the Library of the Bureau of Ethnol-
Pillow
American Indians (1885). This preliminary
work was in the nature of a record of the titles
he was able to collect from his own research
and from other investigators. The first definite
work on a single linguistic stock was the "Bibli-
ography of the Eskimo Language" in 1887, fol-
lowed by the "Bibliography of the Siouan Lan-
guages" the same year, the "Bibliography of the
Iroquoian Languages" in 1888, and the following
year the "Bibliography of the Muskhogean Lan-
guages." Bibliographies of the Athapascan Lan-
guages in 1892, the Chinookan in 1893, the
Salishan in 1893, and the Wakashan in 1894
completed his great works. These were all pub-
lished in the series of United States Bureau of
Ethnology Bulletins (numbers i, 5, 6, 9, 14, 15,
16, 19). The last article from his pen was pub-
lished in the American Anthropologist in Janu-
ary 1895, entitled "The Writings of Padre An-
dres de Olmos in the Languages of Mexico,"
Other articles by him had appeared from time to
time in journals and magazines. Without his
proficiency as a stenographer the task of pre-
paring these bibliographies would have been im-
possible. This work traced for scholars a vast
mass of literature, much of which was difficult
of access in the libraries of the world. Inci-
dentally it led, in great measure, to the gather-
ing of the comprehensive library of the Bureau
of American Ethnology, which is regarded as
unexcelled in rare books and manuscripts on the
Indians. In his work he visited most of the im-
portant libraries of the United States, and by
correspondence he added material from foreign
libraries. Although bibliographical accretions
are endless, his work of recognizing and record-
ing so much of the source material for the study
of Indian culture will remain a permanent con-
tribution to science. Much of his later work was
accomplished in a struggle against advancing-
disease. He died at Olney, Md., survived by his
wife, Minnie L. (Harper) Pilling, to whom he
was married in 1888, and by their one daughter.
[Marcus Baker, In Memoriam: James Comtantine
Pillina (1895): Johnson's Universal Cyclop., new ed.,
vol VI (1896) ; W. J. McGee, Am. Anthropologist, Oct.
J895-] W'H*
PILLOW, GIDEON JOHNSON (June 8,
i8o6-0ct 8, 1878), soldier, son of Gideon and
Anne (Payne) Pillow, was born in Williamson
County, Tenn. Graduating from the University
shville in 1827, he became a shrewd and
sf ul, but not a profoundly learned, cnmm^
. /-. _t — -u:aj Tenn., with James K. Polk
603
Pillow
no very prominent part in political affairs, but
he delighted in under-cover political manipula-
tions, in which he considered himself adept. He
claimed for himself the major responsibility for
the nomination of Polk for the presidency in
1844, though this claim was disputed by others.
In 1852 he took an important part in negotiations
that resulted in the nomination of Franklin
Pierce, and in this year and four years later he
intrigued unsuccessfully to secure his own nomi-
nation for the vice-presidency.
Pillow's claim to notoriety, however, is not
based on his activities as a politician, but on his
career as a vain, ambitious, quarrelsome, and
unsuccessful soldier. Despite his lack of military
training or experience, President Polk appointed
him a brigadier-general of volunteers in 1846,
for service in the war with Mexico, and subse-
quently advanced him to a major-generalship.
After a brief and inactive period of service on
the Rio Grande under General Taylor, he was
transferred to General Scott's army and took
part in the campaign that resulted in the capture
of Mexico City. He fought at Vera Cruz, Cerro
Gordo, Contreras, and Chapultepec, and was
twice wounded. He considered himself Folk's
special representative and maintained a confi-
dential correspondence with him. He quarreled
violently with Gen. Winfield Scott [#.#.]> who
charged him with the authorship of a letter,
signed "Leonidas," in the New Orleans Daily
Delta of Sept. 10, 1847, in which Pillow's mili-
tary activities at Contreras were praised and
those of Scott belittled. The charges were ex-
amined by two successive courts of inquiry who
decided that no further proceedings should be
taken against Pillow. Polk took pleasure in ac-
quitting his friend "of any censure," considering
him "a gallant and highly meritorious officer"
who had been "greatly persecuted" by Scott
(Diary, post, IV, ?, 17).
On the question of secession, Pillow's position
was conservative. He took a prominent part in
the Southern Convention which met in Nashville
in June and November 1850, and opposed the
proposals of extremists from the Lower South.
In 1860 he was a Douglas Democrat, and he re-
fused to view the election of Lincoln as in itself
a justification of disunion, proposing to save the
Union by compromise. When war began, how-
ever, he gave his support to the cause of the
South and was appointed senior major-general
of Tennessee's provisional army. When his
troops were transferred to Confederate service,
he was greatly chagrined that he was not con-
tinued in command of them, but he accepted a
brigadier-generalship in the Confederate army.
Pillsbury
He fought at the battle of Belmont, Mo., Nov. ;
1861, and was second in command at Fort Done
son. He proposed that the weary and close)
beset army holding this important position <
defense attempt to cut its way through Grant
superior forces, but other officers counseled sui
render. When Gen. John B. Floyd [#.z/.] the
relinquished command, Pillow passed it to Ge]
Simon B. Buckner [#.?>.], and he and Floyd mac
good their escape before the surrender was e
fected (February 1862). He was suspended froi
command for some months (March-Augui
1862) and the Confederate secretary of wa
George W. Randolph, held him guilty of "gra\
errors of judgment in the military operatior
which resulted in the surrender of the army" bi
found no reason "to question his courage an
loyalty" (Official Records, I ser. VII, 313). B
protested bitterly, threatened to resign ; and dui
ing the remainder of the war was given no in
portant command. For some years after the wa
he practised law in Memphis, with Tsham (
Harris as his partner. He died in Helena, Arl
[C. M. Polk, Some Old Colonial Families of V<
(1915) ; J. H. Smith, The War itrith Mexico (2 vols
1919) j E. I. McCormac, fames K, Polk (1922) ; R. 3
Nichols, Franklin Pierce (1931) ; P. M. Hamer, Tcnn,
a Hist. (1933), vols. I, H ; The Diary of James K. Poll
(4 vols.j 1910), eel, by M. M. Quaife; proceedings c
inquiry m Sen. Bx. Doc, No. 6$f 30 Cong., i Sess,, We
off the Rebellion: Official Records (Army) ; "Letters c
Gideon J. Pillow to James K. Polk, 1844," Am. His
Rev,f July 1906; unpublished letters by Pillow in Lil
of Cong,, N. Y. Pub. Lib,, and library of the Hist. So«
of Pa. ; Daily Arkansas Gaxctte (Little Rock), Oct. i<
l8?8'} P.M.H.
PILLSBURY, CHARLES ALFRED (De<
3, i842-Sept. 17, 1899), flour miller, the eldes
son of George Alfred Pillsbury (Aug, 29, 1816
July 15, 1898) and Margaret Sprague (Carlton
Pillsbury, was born at Warner, N. H. His fa
ther was a grocer in Warner until 1851, when h
became purchasing agent for the Concord Rai]
road, a position he held for twenty-five yean
Charles attended the public schools at Warne
and at Concord, prepared for college at Ne\
London Academy, and then attended Dartmouth
earning at least part of his college expenses b
teaching. After his graduation, in 1863, he wen
to Montreal where he was a clerk in a produc
commission store for about three years. H
acquired a share in the business but shortly sol
it in order to go West, following his uncle, Joh:
Sargent Pillsbury [#,#.], who had settled in Min
neapolis in territorial days.
Soon after his arrival in Minneapolis in 186$
Charles Pillsbury purchased a share in one o
the flour mills utilizing the water power of th
Falls of St. Anthony, It was a small and no
particularly successful enterprise, and his part
604
Pillsbury
ners, because of other interests, left the manage-
ment to him. At first Pillsbury knew nothing of
milling, but he was a man of keen mind, great
energy, and physical strength, and soon acquired
a working knowledge of the business. He en-
tered the industry at the moment when revolu-
tionary changes were about to transform it and
had a large share in bringing these changes
about. When Edmond La Croix produced his
purifier, making possible the manufacture of a
high-grade lircad Hour from Northwestern spring
wheat and introducing "New Process" milling,
Pillsbury was one of the first to see the possibili-
ties of the machine. He induced George T.
Smith, who claimed to be its co-inventor, to be-
come head miller at the Pillsbury Mill and to
install the new machines there. A few years later
Pillsbury was one of the leaders in the introduc-
tion of the roller process. In consequence, his
profits were large and his fortune grew rapidly.
In 1872 he organized the firm of C. A. Pills-
bury & Company, the other members being his
father and uncle; two or three years later his
brother, Fred C. Pillsbury, became a member.
In the next decade six more mills were purchased
or built by the Pillsbury s, including the Pillsbury
"A" Mill (completed in 1883), which was ad-
vertised to be the largest in the world. In 1878
one of their mills was destroyed by fire, in De-
cember 1881 three were burned, but by 1889 they
had three mills in operation with a total capacity
of 10,000 barrels a day. Their flour brands were
widely advertised, they were leaders in building
up the flour export trade, and leaders also in ex-
periments with wheat and flour testing, out of
which modern systems of laboratory control have
been developed,
Charles Pillsbury seems also to have taken a
prominent part in organizing the grain trade of
the Northwest, through the Millers' Association
(Minneapolis) and later the chamber of com-
merce, so as to concentrate this trade at Minne-
apolis, The growth of the Minneapolis mills was
in part due to extremely favorable freight rates,
and Pillsbury was instrumental both in securing
such rates and in the building of the Minneapolis,
Saulte Sainte Marie, & Atlantic Railway, by
which the Minneapolis millers sought to free
themselves from their dependence on the Chicago
lines. The large scale of his operations forced
him to strengthen his sources of supply by build-
ing up a subsidiary grain elevator company which
owned both country and terminal elevators. He
was always greatly interested in the wheat
market, and his dealings in it were frequently
spectacular if not always financially successful.
Curiously, he was usually a bull in the market—
Pillsbury
was generally boosting the price of wheat and
was quite convinced that short selling should be
prevented if possible.
t In his later years Pillsbury became interested
in a number of other enterprises such as rail-
roads, banking, and lumbering, though milling
always claimed the major share of his attention.
His strong and winning personality, his travels,
and his public utterances made him the best
known of American millers. He was usually on
very friendly terms with his employees. For five
years the firm experimented with a profit-shar-
ing plan under which over $150,000 was paid to
the employees. Similarly he aided the Minne-
apolis coopers to start their cooperative shops,
which were for years a notably successful ex-
ample of producers* cooperation. He made large
gifts to charitable and philanthropic undertak-
ings. He was also somewhat interested in poli-
tics but played a relatively smaller part in that
field than his uncle or his father, who after re-
moving to Minneapolis in 1878 held several
municipal offices. From 1878 to 1885 Charles
A. Pillsbury was a member of the state Senate,
but he held no other official position.
In 1889 an English syndicate purchased the
Pillsbury mills, together with those of Senator
W. D. Washburn and the water power of the
Falls of St. Anthony, combining them to form the
Pillsbury- Washburn Flour Mills Company, Ltd,
Charles A. Pillsbury retained a large interest in
the new company and was made managing direc-
tor. In this position he was not so successful as
in his earlier years. A new type of leadership
which emphasized small economies as well as
bold pioneering was required, and he had little
taste for these. On the other hand, his bold
speculations in the wheat market were some-
times disastrous. Nevertheless, under his man-
agement the Pillsbury- Wasliburn Company waj
the largest milling firm in the world, and at th<
time of his death, in Minneapolis, the North
western Miller characterized Pillsbury himsel:
as "easily the foremost figure in the Americai
milling trade."
On Sept 12, 1866, Charles Pillsbury mania
Mary A. Stinson of Dunbarton, N. H. Of th
four children born to them, twin sons, John S
and Charles S. Pillsbury, survived their fathei
in whose memory they founded the Pillsbtir
Settlement House in Minneapolis,
[Isaac Atwater, Hist, of the City of Minnea&oli
inn. (1893) ; C. B. Kufclmana, The Development t
he Flour-Milling Industry in the U. S. (1929) ; D. J
Minn.
the Flour-Milling Industry in
Pilsbury and E. A. Getchell, The Pillstmry
(1898) ; "The Early History of New Process MMxsg
Northwestern Miller, Aug. 24, 1883; oMtary at
editorial, Ibid., Sept 20, 1899; Minneapolis
Sept. 1 8, 1899.1
605
Pillsbury
PILLSBURY, HARRY NELSON (Dec. 5,
i872-June 17, 1906), chess player, was a de-
scendant of William Pillsbury who was living1 in
Dorchester, Mass., as early as 1641. The son of
Luther Batchelder and Mary A. (Leathe) Pills-
bury, he was born in Somerville, Mass., where
his father was a teacher in the high school. His
interest in chess began when he was sixteen and
for the next five years he was active in Boston
chess circles. After two years' attendance at
high school and some slight training in com-
mercial subjects, he abandoned his intention to
prepare for business and devoted himself to
chess, beginning a career which brought him
international distinction. In April 1893 he de-
feated in Boston the Berlin master, C. Walbrodt,
2-0, and later A. Schottlander of Breslau. He
was the first American to engage professionally
in extended chess exhibitions. At Philadelphia,
in 1893, he played four games blindfold, winning
three and losing one. He was also an expert in
checkers and bridge, and all three games, as well
as memory feats, figured in his exhibitions. Af-
ter reading once a list of fifty numbered words
he could give the word corresponding to any
number, the number of any word, or repeat the
list backwards. In blindfold play he could re-
peat from memory the game at any board, or,
indeed, begin at almost any point in each game
a discussion of it. One of his greatest exhibitions
of blindfold play took place at the Franklin Chess
Club, Philadelphia, on Apr. 28, 1900, when he
conducted twenty games simultaneously (British
Chess Magazine, June 1900). His ability to re-
member the sequence of moves in such cases he
compared (in a personal talk with the writer of
this sketch) to the ability to recall the sequence
of the discussions in a series of business inter-
views. At one time he played as "Ajeeb, the
Automatic Player" in the Eden Musee, Boston,
obtaining some regular income in this way.
In master tournament play, his success in 1893
in finishing in the first half of a group including
Emanuel Lasker (later world's champion), A.
Albin, F. J. Lee, and J. W. Showalter, was his
first notable achievement He won first place in
1895 in the Hastings Tournament in England,
thus establishing himself among the great mas-
ter-players of the world. At Vienna in 1898 he
tied for first with Siegbert Tarrasch, but lost the
play-off. He stood among the first three in twelve
tournaments between 1894 and 1904, tying for
first at Munich in 1900. In match play he de-
feated Showalter in 1897 and in 1898, thus ac-
quiring- the title of United States champion. He
was always a serious student, and contributed to
the theory of chess in the defense against the
Pillsbury
Ruy Lopez, in the Petroff defense, and in intro-
ducing the modern aggressive Queen's pawn
opening. Both as the greatest native genius
since Paul C. Morphy \q.v:\ and by his personal
charm and versatility, he revived American in-
terest in the noble game.
On Jan. 17, 1901, Pillsbury married Mary El-
len Bush, daughter of Judge Albert J. Bush of
Monticello, N. Y. He made the effort demand-
ed by his family tradition to maintain a dignified
place in life and was constantly distressed^ the
difficulty of earning a decent living by chess.
The blindfold exhibitions from which he prin-
cipally derived his income required many hours
of concentrated mental effort, sometimes twelve
at a stretch, and during- this time he smoked
strong cigars and sometimes, took alcoholic stimu-
lants; to his physical condition he gave little
thought. His death at thirty-three, in the
Friends' Asylum, Frankford, Pa,, was due pri-
marily to a disease contracted in Russia, but re-
sulted in part from the lack of resistance clue to
his irregular habits.
[P. W. Sergeant and W. H, Waits, Pillory's Chess
Career (1933) ; Am. Chess Bulletin, July 1906; Lask-
crs Chess Magazine, May 1906; personal letter from
Pillsbury's brother, Dr, G. J). HILslmry; 1) B Pils-
606
VY nv -ITI> simvrica, 1900-07 ; jv, r. / tmr.
Pub. Ledger (Phila.), June 18, ipo&J L,C K "
PILLSBURY, JOHN ELLIOTT (Dec, 15,
i846~Dec. 30, 1919), naval officer and occanog-
rapher, was a native of Lowell, Mass., the son of
John Oilman and Elizabeth Wimble (Smith)
Pillsbury, and a descendant of William Pillsbury
who emigrated to Massachusetts about 1640, At
the ^ age of fourteen he was made a page in the
United States House of Representatives and
served till appointed to the Naval Academy by
President Lincoln in 1862. His training took
place at Newport and Annapolis, and in the sum-
mers of 1863 and 1864 on the Marion and Saco
respectively as they cruised in search of the
Tacony and other Confederate raiders. He
graduated from the Academy in 1867, was made
an ensign in 1868, and subsequently advanced
through the grades until July 4, 1908, he became
rear admiral After two years at the Boston
Navy Yard, he was sent to the Orient on the
Colorado, participated in a futile attempt to open
Korea to the world, and then returned to San
Francisco on the Benicia* In 1873 he was at
the Torpedo Station, Newport, and on Aug. 26
of that year married Florence Greenwood Aitchi-
son, of Portland, Me.
Pillsbury's first contact with the scientific
work of the navy was made in 1874-75, when
Pillsbury
he went on the Swatara to Tasmania and
New Zealand with a party of scientists to ob-
serve the transit of Venus. When he returned
he began service with the Coast Survey, which
lasted for fifteen years. His chief work was in
the Gulf Stream. In 1876 he invented a current
meter for determining the flow of ocean currents
at various depths — an instrument which was used
till his death (sec Encyclopedia Britannica, i4th
edition, V, 305), While in command of the
Coast Survey steamer Blake (1884-89) he an-
chored his ship in water two miles deep, and
determined the axis of the Gulf Stream and
many of the laws governing its flow — work
which has been of permanent value. The record
of it appeared first in Report of the Superin-
tendent of the United States Coast and Geodetic
Survey . . . 1890, and was later published sepa-
rately under the title, The Gulf Stream (1891).
Pillsbury returned to active duty in the navy
in 1891, attended the Naval War College in
1897, and when the Spanish-American War
broke out was already in command of the dyna-
mite cruiser Vesuvius, which was engaged in the
blockade of Santiago from June 13, 1898, until
after the destruction of Cervera's fleet. Armed
with three guns operated by compressed air, the
Vesitmits would stand in close to the shore on
dark nights and fire three dynamite shells at the
Spanish batteries. The effect was slight, except
that this new form of attack shattered the Span-
ish morale and dug huge holes where the shells
landed. In 1905-07 Pillsbury served under Rob-
ley I). Evans [#.#.] as chief of staff of the North
Atlantic Squadron, where he is credited by his
superior with keeping the fleet in fine condition.
He then served until 1909 as chief of the Bu-
reau of Navigation, although he was retired on
Dec. 15, 1908, and he was also on the board
which decided against the claims of Dr. Frederick
A. Cook that he had reached the North Pole.
He became one of the managers of the National
Geographic Society and held various offices in
that organization till elected president in April
" . j. . . 0.4 *•*
Pillsbury
Reg., Jan. 3, 1920 ; Army and Navy Jour.. Jan. 3, 1020 :
Evening Star (Washington), Dec. 30, 1919; L R!
Hamersly, Records of Living Officers of the U. S. Navy
(7th ed igosh F. E. Chadwick, The Relations of the
U. 6. and Spain: The Spanich- American War (ion),
I, 379-So ; Seaton Schroeder, A Half Century of Naval
Service (1922); R. D. Evans, An Admiral's Log
W.B.N.
PILLSBURY, JOHN SARGENT (July 29,
i828~Oct 18, 1901), flour-miller, governor of
Minnesota, one of five children of John and
Susan (Wadleigh) Pillsbury, was born at Sut-
ton, N. H. On his father's side he was descended
from William Pillsbury (or Pilsbury) who came
to Massachusetts as early as 1641, settling first
in Dorchester and then in Ipswich; on Ms
mother's side he was also of Massachusetts Puri-
tan stock. After a common-school education, he
started to learn a trade, but abandoned it to be-
come a clerk in his brother's general store. Soon
after reaching his majority he opened a store of
his own in partnership with Walter Harriman
[#.£>.] ; two years later he was a merchant tailor
and cloth dealer in Concord.
In 1855, after a tour of the West, Pillsbury
settled at St. Anthony, Minn, (now a part of
Minneapolis), as a hardware dealer, in partner-
ship with his brother-in-law, Woodbury Fisk,
and George A. Cross. Moderate success was in-
terrupted by a fire which destroyed a season's
stock and by financial panic which prevented re-
habilitation for some years. In 1875 ne s°ld n^s
hardware interests in order to devote more time
to the lumber and real-estate businesses which he
had developed, and especially to the milling en-
terprise in which, in 1872, he had embarked to-
gether with his nephew, Charles A. Pillsbury
[#.?/.] , and his brother George A. Pillsbury. About
1875 another nephew, Fred C. Pillsbury, joined
the firm. Their milling business grew to be the
most extensive in the world for a period, and the
products of the Pillsbury Mills were known
wherever men used wheat. Their energy and
ability in realizing the opportunities of a rela-
tively unexploited region built up for each of the
partners a considerable fortune. John Sargent
* _ -. A.d « 4*j1_X-
^ __________
1919, a few months before his death, which oc- Pillsbur/s seemed vast, in those days and in that
curred in Washington from paralysis of the piace, although his multifarious benefactions
heart He was survived by his wife and one
daughter. Besides The Gulf Stream, he pub-
lished "Wilkes and D'Urville's Discoveries in
Wilkes Land" (National Geographic Magazine,
February 1910), "The Grandest and Most
Mighty Terrestrial Phenomenon: the Gulf
Stream" (JM&, August 191*), and "Charte and
Chart Making" (Proceedings of the Umted
States Naval Institute, vol. X, no. 2, 1884).
CD. B Pilsbury and E. A. GetcMV The Pillsbury
" ' a 1*8-1 ;#*•
caused him to leave an estate of only about a mil-
lion and a half.
Pillsbury was far more, however, than a suc-
cessful exploiter of a new country ; he was a pub-
lic-spirited citizen in the best sense of the word
For six years (1858-64) he was a member of
the city council of St. Anthony. He helped or-
ganize the first three regiments which Minnesota
sent to serve in the Civil War and the battalqa
recruited in 1862 to deal with the Indian r
LJLI* JtS Jt llSPliry auu A>« .TV. \JW»WMV**J * »•- - "•f J.CVJLU..II.\*VJ. J.A* *w— — •
Family ("1898) ; Who'* Who in America, 19*8-19 ;#*• . „ j l8g3 he was elected one of the Hennorn
tional Geographic Mag., Apr. 1920 ; Army and Navy &
607
Pillsbury
County state senators, and, reflected, served
1864-68, 1871, 1874, 1875. With no special ef-
fort on his own part he was nominated for gov-
ernor by the Republican party in 1875 and elect-
ed to the office for three successive terms, serving
as chief executive from Jan. 7, 1876, to Jan. 10,
1882, As governor, his most significant triumph
was his success in persuading the legislature to
provide for the redemption of an issue of railroad
bonds authorized in 1858 and repudiated in 1860.
This bond issue had been a bone of political con-
tention for twenty years (W. W. Folwell, "The
Five Million Loan," Collections of the Minne-
sota Historical Society, vol. XV, 1915), but
Governor Pillsbury, after persistent urging, had
the gratification in 1881 of signing a measure
satisfactory to the claimants and, in his eyes, re-
storing the honor of the state. It was during this
period that Minnesota, in common with other
states of the Northwest was plagued with the
"grasshopper scourge" which destroyed, season
after season, all vegetation over wide areas.
Pillsbury was energetic in personally investi-
gating the seriousness of the situation and in se-
curing relief, as well as in coordinating the ac-
tivities of several states. Essentially a business
man and not a politician, he did much to elimi-
nate inefficiency and corruption in both state and
local governments. From his own means he
kept the penitentiary in operation when the legis-
lature had neglected to make the usual appro-
priation, and advanced money to replace the
burned hospital for insane in order to save the
state the expense of a special session.
Significant as was his work in these ways, his
most lasting public service was one he rendered
the state university. In 1851 Congress had
granted two townships of public lands for a uni-
versity ; this land was mortgaged to erect a build-
ing which, in turn, bore a mortgage when it was
completed in 1857. The crash of that year found
the embryo university laden with debt and its
regents in despair of ever extricating it. In 1862
the legislature was ready to sell the land to sat-
isfy the creditors. It was at this point that Pills-
bury, made a regent in 1863, resolved that some-
thing should be done to save the institution. As
state senator he was instrumental in securing an
act (approved Mar. 4, 1864) by which an emerg-
ency board of three, with full powers, was cre-
ated, and as one of these regents he set himself
to the task of satisfying the creditors; he was
successful to the extent that when all obligations
were met the state still held some 30,000 acres of
university lands. In 1895 the legislature made
Pillsbury regent for life. For nearly forty years,
in the midst of his manifold interests, the univer-
Pillsbury
sity engaged the best of his abilities. He took
personal interest in its plant, its faculty, and ii
students. During the last decade of his lif
when he had withdrawn to a considerable degre
from active business, he rarely let a day pa;
without visiting the campus to consult with Pres
dent Cyrus Northrop [#.?'.], and he continued 1
follow in every detail the life of the institutio
he had rescued. He died in Minneapolis at th
age of seventy-three.
On Nov. 3, 1856, Pillsbury married Mahal
Fisk of Warner, N. H. They had a son and tw
daughters. Both Pillsbury and his wife wer
lavish in their benefactions of private and publi
character.
[C. W. G. Hyde and William Sloddard, Hist, of tl
Great Northwest and Its Men of Progress (1901) : V\
W. Folwell, A Hist, of Minn., vols. HI, IV (ip2<
1930) ; Encyc. of Biog. of Minn. (1900) ; H. B. Hue
son, "A Public Servant of the Northwc\sl," Rev. c
Revs. (N. Y.)» I>cc. 1901; D, B, Pilsbury and B. /
Gctchell, The Pillsbury Family t (1898) ; J. K, Bake:
"Lives of the Governor^ of Minnesota/' Minn. His
Soc. Colls,, vol. XIII (1908) ; Who's Who in Atncrici
1901-02; Isaac Atwater, Hist, of the City of Minnt
apolis (1893) ; Dedication of the Piltsbiiry Mcmorit
Town Hall in Sittton* N. H. (1893) ; K. 'B. Johnsot
Forty Years of the l/niv, of Minn, (ipio) ; Minneapoh
Jour.f Oct. 18, 19, 1901,] L.B,S.
PILLSBURY, PARKER (Sept, 22, iSoo-Jul;
7, 1898), reformer, was born at Hamilton, Mass
the son of Oliver Pillsbury, a blacksmith am
farmer, and Anna (Smith) Pillsbury. He wa
a descendant of William Pillsbury who came t
Massachusetts about 1640. Parker's parent
moved to Henniker, N. H., in 18x4 and the boy'
early education was limited to what the distric
school of that town had to offer. Until he wa
well past twenty years of age he worked on farm
in New Hampshire and as a wagoner in Massa
chusetts. In 1835 he entered Gilmanton Theo
logical Seminary, graduating in 1838. Afte:
studying- a year at Andovcr Theological Semi
nary, he was engaged to supply the Congrega
tional church at Loudon, N. H, ; but in i84<
opposition to his denunciations of slavery fron
the pulpit led him to give up the ministry ant
devote himself to social reform. On Jan. i, 1840
he married Sarah H, Sargent of Concord, N. H.
who cooperated ardently in his activities.
He was an abolitionist of the Garrisoniai
type, and from 1840 until the emancipation o:
the slaves was lecture agent for the New Hamp-
shire, Massachusetts, and American anti-slaver^
societies. An admirer of John Brown, he spoke
at a demonstration meeting in Rochester, N. Y.
following Brown's execution. In 1840 and agair
in 1845-46 he edited the Herald of Freedom, ai
Concord, N. H., and from January to May i866;
the National Anti-Slavery Standard, New York
608
Pilmore
City. After the Civil War, he labored for negro
suffrage, believing that the right to vote was
necessary for the negro's protection. He was
also interested in temperance, political reform,
international peace, and woman's rights. To the
last-named cause he gave his longest service,
being one of the earliest and most uncompromis-
ing nineteenth-century advocates of justice to
women. He severed his connection with the
Standard, because its managers were more favor-
able to votes for the negro than to votes for wom-
en, long served as vice-president of the New
Hampshire Woman Suffrage Association and
helped draft the constitution of the American
Equal Rights Association. For a year and a half
(1868-69) he was joint editor with Elizabeth
Catly Stanton [#.?'.] of the Revolution, a radical
weekly. Though he held no regular pastorate,
he preached for free religious societies in Toledo,
Ohio, Battle Creek, Mich., Rochester, N. Y., and
elsewhere. In addition to contributions to the
papers with which he was identified, he wrote
and published a large number of tracts on re-
forms, and was author of the Acts of the Anti-
Slavery Apostles (1883), a history of the abo-
lition movement in New England. As a public
speaker he was fluent, sarcastic, and thunderous
in his denunciations. James Russell Lowell in
1846 referred to him ("Letter from Boston,"
Complete Poetical Works, 1896, p. 112) as
". „ » brown, broad-shouldered Pillsbuty,
Who tears up words like trees by the roots,
A Theseus in stout cow-hide boots."
His interest in the work for human betterment
continued to the last, and at the age of eighty-
eight he wrote a letter to the convention of the
National American Woman Suffrage Associ-
ation. His death occurred at Concord, N. H.
He had one daughter.
fD. B. Pilsbury and E. A, Getchetl, The Pillsbury
Family (1898) ; E. (X Stanton, S. B. Anthony, and M.
J. Gage, The Hist of Woman Suffrage, vols. MV
(x88i-X90a)j I, H. Harper, The Life and Work of
Susan B. Anthony (3 vols., 1899-1908) ; People and
Patriot (Concord, N. H,), July 7> 1898 ; Concord Eve-
ning Monitor, July 7, 1898,] M. W. W.
PILMORE, JOSEPH (Oct. 31, i739"Ny *4,
1825) , Protestant Episcopal clergyman, was born
at Tadmouth, in Yorkshire, England. His name
also appears as Pilmoor. At the age of sixteen
he was converted tinder the preaching^of John
Wesley, who regarded him as a promising re-
cruit and sent him to the school at Kingswood,
near Bristol Here Pilmore acquired a fair Eng-
lish and classical education. At an early age he
Pilmore
Wesley issued a call for volunteers to go to the
American colonies and Pilmore and Richard
Boardman offered themselves. They were ac-
cepted and at once sent out, arriving in Phila-
delphia in October of the same year.
Boardman went to New York, where there
was a society already organized; Pilmore re-
mained in Philadelphia, where he found about a
hundred Methodists. He was not, therefore, the
founder of Methodism in that city but was the
first Methodist preacher there, though he had
never been ordained by Wesley. He was re-
markably successful, his willingness to adapt
himself to any situation standing him in good
stead ; his first preaching was from an improvised
stand in the race track. He later itinerated from
Boston to Georgia, meeting with all sorts of ad-
ventures. On Jan. 2, 1774, he returned to Eng-
land, probably because of the disturbed condition
of the colonies and the fact that he was a stanch
Loyalist. He was assigned work first at London
and subsequently on the Norwich circuit and at
Edinburgh, Nottingham, and York He vigor-
ously opposed Wesley in the matter of the Deed
of Declaration of 1784, and as a consequence of
the resulting friction he abandoned Methodism
and returned to America. Here he joined the
Protestant Episcopal Church which was just
then in the process of organizing. He was or-
dered deacon on Nov. 27, 1785, by Bishop Sam-
uel Seabury ; his ordination to the priesthood oc-
curred two days later.
Pilmore then returned to Philadelphia where
he at once became rector of the United Parish
of Trinity (Oxford), All Saints' (Lower Dub-
lin), and St. Thomas's (Whitemarsh), all in the
vicinity of Philadelphia. He added to these
duties that of assistant minister, or evening
preacher, of St. Paul's, Philadelphia. In 1789 he
was a delegate from the diocese of Pennsylvania
to the General Convention sitting at Philadel-
phia. Here he served on the committee on the
revision of the Book of Common Prayer and^on
the sub-committee on the Communion Service.
From 1793 to 1804 he was rector of the newly
organized Christ Church in New York City,
formed by seceders from Trinity Church, who
were offended by the refusal of the vestry to call
Pilmore as assistant minister of Trinity and eve-
ning lecturer. In 1804 he returned to Phila-
delphia as rector of St Paul's Church and re-
tained this cure until the end of his life, though
he did little work after 1821. About 1790 he
married Mary (Benezet) Wood, daughter of
_ _ . 4 * 1 _r T>^,» «.*%>» \Y00cI*
609
Pilsbuiy
constitution. His bearing was dignified and his
voice described as sonorous. He must have been
an amiable, kindly man, for there is a tradition
in Philadelphia that he was known popularly as
"Daddy Pilmore." He retained throughout his
life his early evangelical views, which he set
forth with much vigor and fervid eloquence, and
he did much to give to the Episcopal churches in
Philadelphia the evangelical character for which
they were long noted.
[Manuscript sermons of Pilmore may be found in
the Pa. Hist. Soc. in Phila. ; portions of his journal as
an itinerant preacher are given in J. P. Lockwood,
Western Pioneers (London, 1881) ; personal remi-
niscences of Pilxnore by the Rev. R. D. Hall appear in
W. B. Sprague, Annals Am. Pulpit, vol. V (1859). See
also, Benjamin Allen, Sketch of the Life of Dr. PUmorc
(1825) ; The Jour, of Rev. John Wesley (1909), eel by
Nehemiah Curnock; W. J. Townsend, H. B. Workman,
and George Eayrs, A New Hist, of Methodism (Lon-
don, 1909), vol. II ; W. S. Perry, Hist, of the Am. Epis-
copal Church (1885); ft. S. Barnitt, Outline of the
Hist, of Old St. Paul's Church, Phila. (1917) J Samuel
Small, Gcneal. Records of George Small . . . Daniel
Ecnczct , . . (1905) ; Poulson's Am. Daily Advertiser
(Phila.), July 30, 1825.] J.C.A.
PILSBURY, AMOS (Feb. 8, i8o$-July 14,
1873), prison administrator, was born in Lon-
donderry, N. H,, the son o£ Moses Cross and
Lois (Cleaveland) Pilsbury. He was a de-
scendant of William Pilsbury, or Pillsbury, who
came to Boston late in 1640 or early in 1641, and
married Dorothy Crosbey after an unconven-
tional courtship. Amos spent his early years on
the home farm, but when his father became
warden of the New Hampshire state prison in
1818 and the family moved to Concord, he was
sent to the academy there. He was known as a
"dull scholar" and his father soon apprenticed
him to a tanner and currier. When at the end of
his apprenticeship he was unsuccessful in his at-
tempt to find a journeyman's place at a living-
wage, he returned home and was in 1824 ap-
pointed guard in his father's prison and a year
later, deputy warden.
His father had already achieved a more than
local reputation, having made his prison a finan-
cial asset to the state instead of a liability. For
this reason, perhaps, he was called to the warden-
ship of the new Connecticut prison at Wethers-
field in 1826, where Amos soon joined him. When
his father retired in 1830, because of ill health,
Amos succeeded him, his youth causing the board
of directors to express some misgivings about
his election. Dissension between him and the
directors soon ripened into warfare. In 1832 he
demanded a legislative investigation of his work,
was removed from office by a new board of direc-
tors, exonerated by the investigating committee,
and reinstated in 1833, the Assembly compen-
sating him both for the loss of his time and the
Pilsbury
cost of his defense (Minutes of the Testimon
Taken Before John Q. inison, Joseph Eaton, <
Morris IVoodniff, Committee from the Gencn
Assembly, to Ijujuin* into the Condition of Coi
ncclicnt Slate Prison, Together with Their Ri
fort and Remarks upon the Same, 1834). H
remained in office until 1845 when political foi
tunes caused his removal (Memorial of Amc
Pilsbury r Late Warden of the State Prison, t
the General Assembly, May Session, 1845, 1845]
His abilities and experiences were not to be lo«
to the prison world, however. He was immc
tliately called to Albany, N, Y., to supervise th
construction of the new county penitentiary, c
which he later served as warden, exeept for
brief period, until his last illness prompted hi
resignation. Urged to accept the superintend
cncy of the New York City institutions o
Ward's Island, he was absent from his positiop
from 1855 to 1860, the last eight months of thi
period being1 spent as general superintendent o
the metropolitan police, from which position h
resigned in protest against the efforts of Mayo
Fernando Wood to secure political control o
the department At his death in 1873 he wa
survived by his wife, Kniily (Heath) Pilsbury
whom he had married in 1826, and who ha<
borne him five children, three of whom died ii
infancy,
The Pilsburys, father and son, are said to hav<
been the first professional prison wardens in th<
United States, Amos' service in three state!
covering1 a period of fifty years. In spite of th<
early accusations which challenged his com
patency, all commentators upon his life worl
unite in approval of his humane attitude towarc
his prisoners, albeit he was a strict disciplinarian
The two institutions which he headed wen
spoken of as models in their day and were
sources of financial profit to the states. In the
seventeen years he spent at Wethers field thai
prison earned $93,000 above all expenses. His
interest in jail reform made him propose to the
General Assembly that each county be given a
thousand dollars from the prison's surplus earn-
ings on condition that its jail be rebuilt on the
plan of the model jail at Hartford, and he was
authorized to make such payments. In his 1841
report to the directors he also urged that the
surplus be used to erect and maintain a special
asylum for the criminal and pauper insane. His
advice was widely sought He shared in the
work of launching the National Prison Asso-
ciation of the United States (1870), now the
American Prison Association, and he represented
the State of New York at the International Peni-
tentiary Congress in London in 1872. At least
6lO
Pinchback
one of his officers became widely known, Zebu-
Ion Reed Brockway [#.#.], who began his prison
career under Pilsbury as a guard at Wethers field
and Albany.
[D. B. Pilsbury and E. A. Getchell, The Pillsbury
Family ("1898) ; Tribute to the Memory of Amos Pils-
bury (1873) ; Trans, of the Third National Prison Re-
farm Congress . . . 1874 (1874), PP- 31-33; David
Dyer, Hist, of the Albany Penitentiary (1867) ; Biog.
Sketch of Amos Pilsbury, and a Brief Account of the
Albany County Penitentiary (1849) ', Sketch of the Life
and Public Services of Amos Pilsbury, Superintendent
of the Albany Penitentiary, and Late General Superin-
tendent of the Metropolitan Police (1860) ; Joel Mun-
scll, Albany Ann. Reg., 1849; O.^F. Lewis, The De-
velopment "of Am. Prisons and Prison Customs, 1776-
j&/5 (1922) ; AT. Y. Times, July 15, 1873.]
T. S— n.
PINCHBACK, PINCKNEY BENTON
STEWART (May 10, i337-Dec. 21, 1921),
politician, was born at Macon, Ga., the son of a
white Mississippi planter, said to be William
Pinchback, and of Eliza Stewart who had been
a slave. He is sometimes referred to by the
nickname "Percy Bysshe Shelley Pinchback."
He was born free, because his mother had been
emancipated by the father of her children and
later sent to Ohio to educate them. About 1847
he was sent to high school in Cincinnati and in
1848 became a cabin boy and, later, a steward on
rivcrboats. He was married to Nina Emily Haw-
thorne probably in 1860. In 1862, running the
blockade at Yazoo City, he reached New Or-
leans, which was already in possession of the
Union forces. He enlisted, raised a company of
colored volunteers, known as the Corps d'Af-
riquc, but resigned his commission in September
1863 because of difficulties over his race. Sub-
sequently he was authorized to raise a company
of colored cavalry.
At the close of the war he threw himself into
Louisiana politics. Shrewd, energetic, aggres-
sive, he represented the typical negro politician
of the Reconstruction period. In 1867 he organ-
ized the fourth-ward Republican club, became
a member of the state committee, and was sent
to the constitutional convention of 1868. in IBOB
he was elected to the state Senate, where he was
elected president pro tcmpore in the exciting ses-
sion of December 1871, and became, by virtue of
that office, lieutenant-governor at the death ot
the mulatto incumbent, 0. J. Dunn, m 1871. For
the brief period from Dec. 9, W*> *° J
1873, he filled the gubernatorial omce
Henry Clay Warmoth [g.«0 was debars
servii on account of impeachment proceed^
Though he had been originally nominatea 101
governor by his wing of the Republican party m
** • -P 1872 he consented, in the
Pinckney
congressman-at-large on the Republican ticket.
He was declared elected, but he was never seat-
ed because his Democratic opponent contested
and ultimately won the seat. His experience in
the Senate was similar, for, although elected
senator by the Louisiana legislature in January
1873, after a contest of three years he was de-
nied the seat by a close vote. He was, however,
allowed payment equal to salary and mileage up
to the termination of the contest. In 1877 he
left the Republican party to support Governor
Nicholls and the Democrats. The last office in
his public career was that of surveyor of cus-
toms in New Orleans, to which he was appoint-
ed in 1882. He was, however, later recognized
by several honorary posts. When fifty years old,
turning from politics to law, he took the law
course at Straight University, now Straight Col-
lege, in New Orleans, and won admission to the
bar, though he never practised his profession. In
1890 he removed to Washington, where he lived
until his death.
[W J. Simmons, Men of Mark (1887) ; Ella Lonn,
Reconstruction in La. (1918) ; H. C Warmoth, War,
Politics, and Reconstruction (1930) ; Tines-Picayune
(New Orleans), Dec. 22, 1921; Washington Post
(D. C.), Dec. 22, 1921; Afro-American (Baltimore;,
Dec. 30, 1921.] E.L-
PINCKNEY, CHARLES (Oct. 26, i757~Oct
29, 1824), author of the 'Tinckney draught" of
the federal Constitution, governor of South
Carolina, senator, minister to Spain, was born
in Charlestown (Charleston), S. C. He was the
fourth and eldest surviving child of Col. Charles
and Frances (Brewton) Pinckney, and a sec-
ond cousin of Charles Cotesworth and Thomas
Pinckney [qq.v\. His father (1731-1782), a
wealthy lawyer and planter, first opposed the
Revolutionary movement, then accepted the
cause and labored actively in its behalf, but after
the fall of Charlestown (1780) resumed alle-
giance to the British Crown and suffered two
vears later the amercement of his estate (Salley,
tost, pp. 135-38). Though his name appears in
the list of Americans admitted to the ^Middle
Temple (May 4, 1773. American Histonc^
Review, July 1920, p. «?), &* yow^£
seems to have been educated wholly m Charles-
town, where in due course he was admitted tc
the bar (Ford Transcripts, post, Jdy 8> 1801)
' to October 1779,
eu™, w — Charlestown Regimen
in the siege of Savannah (Charleston
3, 1818). When captured a
the capiiuiiiuuu w Charlestown, he refused t
accep^protection" and remained a pnaooer*
1781- From 1779 to 1780 be wasatBOT
6n
Pinckney
ber of the state House of Representatives, and
on Nor. i, 1784, he took his seat as a delegate
to the Congress of the Confederation, a position
which he occupied until Feb. 21, 1787. When it
was proposed (1786) to abandon the claims of
the United States to navigate the Mississippi in
return for commercial concessions from Spain,
he led the opposition which eventually defeated
the measure (American Historical Review,
July 1905, pp. 817-27). Having become con-
vinced that to continue its existence the federal
authority must be strengthened, he joined in the
memorable plea of Feb. 15, 1786, for a more ef-
fectual revenue. A month later, in an address by
which he persuaded the New jersey legislature
to rescind its resolution refusing to pay the fed-
eral quota, he urged the calling of a general con-
vention to revise and amend the Articles of Con-
federation (American Museum, July 1787, pp.
153-60). In May, he moved in Congress the
appointment of a grand committee "to take into
consideration the affairs of the Nation," and he
probably had a large share in preparing the re-
port which, on Aug. 7, recommended a compre-
hensive series of amendments to the Articles
(McLaughlin, post, p. 738).
Besides submitting his celebrated plan for a
constitution to the Federal Convention of 1787,
Pinckney was a member of the committee that
prepared the rules of procedure, and he partici-
pated frequently and effectively in the debates
throughout the session. It is in the first that his
main contribution lies, but it is difficult to de-
termine exactly what this document contained
and how much influence it had upon the final
result. Thirty-one years after the convention, to
supply an omission in the records then being
prepared for publication, Pinckney, who had
kept no copy of his plan (Pinckney to Mathew
Carey, Aug. 10, 1788, manuscript in Library of
Congress), sent to the editor from "4 or 5
draughts'7 in his possession the one which he
believed to be his (Nation, May 23, 1895, pp.
398-99). This was printed in the Journal (Far-
rand, Records, III, 595-601), but it has been
proved to be not the Pinckney plan but instead
a slightly altered copy of the report of the com-
mittee of detail of a later period of the conven-
tion's proceedings (Jameson, post). From a va-
riety of sources, however, it has been possible to
reconstruct in considerable measure the "Pinck-
ney draught" and to show that it contained at
least "thirty-one or thirty-two provisions" that
were finally accepted ( McLaughlin, post, p. 741 ) .
This text (Farrand, Records, III, 604-09), in-
complete though it is, together with what is more
perfectly known concerning his part in the de-
Pinckney
bates of the convention, makes it appear not irr
probable that Pinckney had a larger share tha
any other individual in the determination of th
form and content of the finished Constitution.
At home Pinckney labored for ratificatioi
which was finally accomplished in spite of oppc
sition, especially from the back-country sectio
of the state. After a year in the state privy cour
cil he was for two vsuccessive terms elected go\
ernor (January 1789-December 1792). Fitting
ly enough, it fell to him to guide the first step
in the adjustment of the relations between th
South Carolina and the federal Union (Mes
sages to the General Assembly, MS. Hous
Journals, 1790, 1791). His success in this re
spect is reflected principally in the new stat
constitution which was evolved (1790) in ;
convention of which he was president from ;
plan which he had apparently modeled as fa
as possible after the federal instrument (Charles
ton City Gazette, May-June 1790; MS. Journa
of the Convention . . . for the Purpose of Revis
ing, Altering, or Forming a New Constitutioi
of the State).
By many considerations Pinckney belonge<
with the Federalists, who could claim at this tim<
most of the men of property and talents in th<
South Carolina low-country. To his Pincknej
kin, who contributed in Charles Cotesworth anc
Thomas two of the major chieftains of the party
he added the wide-spreading family of the mer-
chant prince, Henry Laurens ["<M'Oi % marry-
ing (Apr. 27, 1788) the latter 's twelfth child
Mary Eleanor. Henry Laurens Pinckney [g.-z/.]
was their son. Until reduced through the mis-
management of his agents, his estate enabled
him to live in lavish style. Disregard in 1791 oi
his request for a diplomatic post, preferably
London (Ford Transcripts, Aug. 6, 1791), and
the appointment instead of Thomas Pinckney,
may have begun his alienation from the party,
But more important was the fact that he was
coming to oppose Federalist policies, In 1795,
he denounced Jay's Treaty. The next year he
was elected governor for the third time, defeat-
ing his brother-in-law Henry Laurens. Now
vigorously supporting reforms favored by the
Republican back-country (Charleston City Go
zette, Dec. 6, 1798), he won in 1798 the seat in
the United States Senate that was commonly al-
lotted to that section. He became at cmce the
leader among the Republican senators in attacks
upon the administration, and later assuming the
management of Jefferson's campaign in South
Carolina he secured the choice of Republican
electors. Among other consequences of this ac-
tivity was estrangement from "many of his rela-
6l2
Pinckney
lives," one of whom (Charles Cotesworth) was
the Federalist candidate for the vice-presidency
(American Historical Review, October 1898, p.
122).
Pinckncy's reward was the appointment
(March 1801) as minister to Spain. After a
leisurely journey through the Netherlands and
France, he addressed himself in Madrid to the
original object of his mission and was able to
send home on Aug. n, 1802, a convention pro-
viding for a joint tribunal to settle claims aris-
ing from spoliations committed in recent years
upon American shipping by Spanish cruisers,
and leaving- open for future negotiation similar
claims for French depredations carried out with-
in Spain's jurisdiction (American State Papers.
Foreign Relations,, vol. II, 1832, pp. 475-76, 482-
83). Unfortunately, the administration permit-
ted delays in ratification which allowed this
agreement to become entangled with the larger
difficulties which were even then developing be-
tween the two countries. One cause of ill feeling
he successfully removed by securing, with the
aid of the Spanish minister to the United States,
the restoration of the right of deposit at New
Orleans which had been withdrawn by the m-
tcndant. When Pinckney was on the point of
renewing his efforts to have the French spolia-
tions included in the claims convention, Bona-
parte reached the momentous decision to sell
Louisiana to the United States. To Pinckney's
cares was now added the task of inducing Spain
to acquiesce in this transaction (Ibid., II, 570-
71). Having been met with an even more stub-
born resistance than hitherto in the claims mat-
ter and having good reason to believe that the
time was ripe to press for the cession of the
Floridas to the United States, a subject which
had long been included in his instructions but
which of late he had been ordered not to urge
without the concurrence of Monroe who was at
this time in London, Pinckney combined these
three points in a positive note to the Spanish gov-
ernment on Jan. n, 1804 (Ibid., II, 616-17).
A month later Spain, acting under French com-
pulsion, acceded to the sale of Louisiana, but the
unexpected decision of the United States to ac-
cept the claims agreement in its original form
and the passage of the Mobile Act authorizing
the erection of a part of West Florida into a
United States customs district left Pinckney no
ground to stand upon in the other two matters.
His request for Spain's renewal of the ratifica-
tion of the convention being met with refusal un-
less the United States abandon altogether the
French spoliations and repeal the Mobile Act, he
now threatened to ask for his passports, believ-
Pinckney
ing that his government was prepared to defend
its actions with war (Ibid., II, 618-24; Ford
Transcripts, July 30, 1804). Thus matters stood
until the arrival of Monroe. Together the two
ministers renewed the negotiations but accom-
plished nothing. In October 1805, Pinckney
sailed for home. His mission had not been suc-
cessful. In the Florida matter he had exceeded
his instructions, but the main cause of failure
lay with the administration.
^On his return to Charleston (January 1806)
Pinckney resumed his position as head of the
state Republican party. His personal affairs had
become sadly disordered during his absence, but
he returned to his old seat in the General As-
sembly^ and on Dec. 9, 1806, accepted the gov-
ernorship for the fourth time. Having advanced
from liberalism to democracy, he supported the
constitutional amendment which in 1808 gave
the back-country increased representation in the
legislature and urged another which, when rati-
fied two years later, established universal white
male suffrage (Charleston City Gazette, Dec 7,
1808). Twice subsequently (1810-12, 1812-14)
he sat in the General Assembly and then declined
reelection. In 1818, however, when it appeared
that otherwise the Federalists would elect the
congressman from the Charleston district, he
entered the lists once more and in the face of
bitter assaults upon his private and public life
defeated two opponents. In opposition to the
proposed Missouri compromise he delivered one
of his ablest addresses (Nttes* Weekly Register,
July 15, 1820, pp. 349-57). But his ardor could
not withstand "the dreadfully rigorous Climate"
of Washington, and he decided not to be a candi-
date again. His death occurred on Oct. 29, 1824.
Handsome, vain, and, doubtless, something of
a roue, though capable of the tenderest devotion
to his three young children after the death of
their mother (1794), Pinckney possessed that
iridescent genius which offends some and daz-
zles others. To his Federalist contemporaries
he was "Blackguard Charlie/' a demagogue, a
spoilsman, and a corruptionist; to his followers
he was a demi-god fit for the presidency. His
great egoism induced in him a habit of seeing
his own deeds in heroic dimensions. He honestly
believed that he had virtually written the federal
Constitution, and this, together with other ex-
travagant claims that he made for himself, has
raised doubts in the minds of historians which
have obscured his real achievements.
[Biographical articles appear in J. B O'Neall, Btof.
Sketches of the Bench and Bar of S. C. (1859), H, 13*-
4*. W S. E Elliott], in DeBoix/s Re-mew, July--A«g.
1864 and Hon. Charles Pinckney of South Cm-afma
(pamphlet, n.d.) ; B. F. Perry, Biog. Sketches of Btow
Pinckney
ncnt American Statesmen (1887); and E. A. Jones,
American Members of the Inns of Court (1924). Mabel
L. Webber, manuscript notes on the Pinckney family,
and A, S. Salley, 51. C. Hist, and Gcneal. Mag., Apr.
1901, pp. 133—38, 144-48, contain genealogical mate-
rial. The "Pinckney Draught" has been critically
studied by J. F. Jameson, in Annual Report of the Am.
Hist, Asso. . . . 1902 (1903), I, 111-32, and Am. Hist.
Review, April 1903, pp. 509-11; A. C. McLaughlin,
Am. Hist. Review, July 1904, pp. 735-47 ; C. C. Nott,
The Mystery of the Pinckney Draught (1908) ; Max
Farrand, The Records of the Federal Convention of
1^87 (1911), III, 595-611 ; and T. D. Jervey, Charles
Pinckney's Constructive Mind (MS.). A selection of
private letters is printed in Am. Hist. Review, Oct.
1898, pp. 111-29. Transcripts of other letters to Jef-
ferson, Madison, and Monroe, prepared by W. C. Ford,
are in the S. C. Hist. Society. Episodes in Pinclcney's
career are treated in T. D. Jervey, Robert 7. Haync and
His Times (1909), and U. B. Phillips, "The S. C. Fed-
eralists/' Am. Hist. Review, April, July 1909. Pinck-
ney wrote copiously for the Charleston newspapers,
especially the City Gaacttc, and not infrequently re-
printed his articles in pamphlet form. An obituary arti-
cle was published in the City Gazette, Nov. 9, 1824.]
J.H.E.
PINCKNEY, CHARLES COTESWORTH
(Feb. 25, i746~Aug, 16, 1825), soldier, states-
man, diplomat, was born in Charlestown
(Charleston), S. C. His father, Charles Pinck-
ney, was for a short time chief justice of the
province. His mother, Elizabeth (Lucas) Pinck-
ney [#.#.], a woman of unusual force of charac-
ter, is well known for her part in developing and
promoting the culture of indigo in South Caro-
lina. In 1753 Charles Pinckney was appointed
agent of the colony in London and went thither
with his family, planning to educate in England
and on the Continent his sons, Charles Cotes-
worth and Thomas [q.v.']. In 1758 he left the
boys there and, returning with his wife to South
Carolina, died within a few months. The elder
son studied under a tutor, attended a school in
Kensington, and then entered the Westminster
School in 1761. After making a high record
there, he matriculated at Christ Church College,
Oxford, Jan. 19, 1764, and on Jan. 24 was ad-
mitted to the Middle Temple. While at Oxford
he attended the lectures of Sir William Black-
stone. Called to the English bar Jan. 27, 1769,
he rode one circuit for experience and then trav-
eled widely on the Continent In France he
studied botany under Charles, chemistry under
Fourcroy, and military science at the royal mili-
tary academy at Caen. He returned to America
late in 1769 and, admitted to the South Carolina
bar Jan. 19, 1770, at once began successful prac-
tice. On Sept. 28, 1773, he married Sarah, the
third surviving daughter of Henry Middleton,
1717-1784 \_q.vJ], and sister of Arthur Middle-
ton, 1742-1787 [#.*/.]. She died May 8, 1784,
and on June 23, 1786, he married Mary, the
daughter of Benjamin Stead.
Immediately after his return Pinckney en-
Pinckney
tered upon a career of public service. He ^
elected a member of the provincial Assembly
1769; he was made acting attorney general
1773 for Camclen, Georgetown, and the Cherav
and in January 1775 he became a member of 1
provincial congress, in which he took an acti
and prominent part A devoted member of i
Church of England, and all his life zealous
church work, he, nevertheless, strongly advoc
cd disestablishment. He was made a member
the committee of five and of the special comm
tee, both of them charged with the responsibil
for local defense. On Fob, 3, 1776, he w
elected to the council of safety, and, on Feb. :
chairman of the committee of eleven to draft
plan for the temporary government of the prc
ince. He was a member of the lower house of t
legislature in 1778 and of the Senate in 17;
being chosen president of the latter body. In t
same year he was again a member of the coun
of safety*
After his return from England Pinckney h
kept up his interest hi military affairs and h
soon been made a lieutenant in the militia. Up
the organization of the 1st Regiment of Sot
Carolina troops in June 1775 he was chosen t
ranking captain, quickly became major, and
September 1776 was promoted colonel With 1
regiment he took part in the defense of Fc
Sullivan in June 1776, but when hostilities we
suspended in the South his eagerness for acti
service caused him to secure leave from his re$
ment and to go north where he served for a tir
as aide to Washington and was present at t!
battles of Brandywine and Gcrmantown. He w
again in command of his regiment in the Flori<
campaign of 1778 and in the siege of Savanna
During the attack on Charlestown he was in cor
mand of Fort Moultrie, In the council of w
called by General Lincoln to discuss the surre
der of Charlestown, he vehemently but vain
opposed the suggestion. As a prisoner he w;
treated with great courtesy by the British of
cers who sought to detach him from the Amei
can cause, To one of these he wrote: "The fre
dom and independence of my Country are tl
Gods of my Idolatry." To another he said ; "If
had a vein that did not beat with the love of n
Country, I myself would open it. If I had a dr<
of blood that could flow dishonourably, I rayse
would let it out" (Ravenel, post, p. 297), Lat<
he was sent to Philadelphia where he and h
brother were together for a time. Exchanged i
1782, he rejoined the army, and on Nov. 3, 178
just before his discharge, he was commission*
brigadier-general by brevet
Once more he began the practice of his pc<
614
Pinckney
fession in Charleston, but he was frequently in
the public service. In 1782, before he left the
army, he was elected to the lower house of the
legislature. In 1787 he was a delegate to the
Federal Convention and was prominent in its
deliberations. He opposed the imposition of any
religious test for office; he suggested the year
1808 as the date at which Congress should as-
sume power over the foreign slave trade ; he ar-
gued strongly for giving the Senate power to
ratify treaties as a wholesome check on the pres-
ident; and he urged without success that sena-
tors should serve without pay. In the following
year he was a member of the state convention
which ratified the Constitution, and was one
of the ablest defenders of the new system of
government He was also a member of the con-
stitutional convention of 1790. He was a strong
advocate of locating the state capital at Charles-
ton and was a member of the committee, chosen
to reconcile the conflicting claims of the low
country and up country, which practically estab-
lished two seats of government. In 1791 he was
offered and declined the command of the army
afterward conferred on Gen. Arthur St. Clair. On
May 24, Washington wrote a remarkable joint
letter to Pinckney and Edward Rutledge, his
brother-in-law and partner, urging that one of
them accept appointment as associate justice of
the Supreme Court of the United States to suc-
ceed John Rutledge (W. C. Ford, Writings of
Washington, XII, 43-44) . Both declined. Jeffer-
son might well write Rutledge (Aug. 29, 1791, P.
L. Ford, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, V, 1895,
p. 376) : " Would to God yourself, Genl Pinkney
["Pinckney], Maj, Pinkney [Pinckney] would
come forward and aid us. ... What is to become
of us, my dear friend, if the vine & the fig-tree
withdraw & leave us to the bramble & thorn?"
On Jan. 22, 1794, Washington renewed an offer
previously declined to make Pinckney secretary
of war. He replied* "Of all the public offices in
our country, the one you mention to me is that
which I should like best to fill" (W. C. Ford,
ante, XII, 405, footnote), but he declined it, as
he did the secretaryship of state in August 1795.
Finally, however, when Washington, in July
1796, offered him the mission to France to suc-
ceed Monroe, and urged it upon him in a most
complimentary letter, Pinckney at once accept-
ed. He had been friendly to the revolutionary
movement in France from 1789 until 1793, hut
his sympathies had since become considerably
alienated.
He arrived in Paris in December and Hie Di-
rectory declined to recognize Ms official 'stasis.
He lingered on until February when he was floti-
Pinckney
fied by the police that unless he secured a per-
mit he was liable to arrest Then in a proper
rage he left Paris for Amsterdam. In 1797
Adams nominated him to serve on a special mis-
sion to France with John Marshall and Elbridge
Gerry [qq.v.] ; in September he left The Hague
and in October joined his colleagues in Paris.
The X. Y. Z. affair followed in which Hottinguer
(X,) approached Pinckney with a statement
of the terms upon which negotiations would be
undertaken by the French government When
pressed for a reply, Pinckney exclaimed vehe-
mently : "It is No ! No I Not a sixpence I* The
familiar slogan, "Millions for defence but not
one cent for tribute," is ascribed to Robert Good-
be Harper (South Carolina Historical and
Genealogical Magazine, Jan. 1900, p. 101 ; July
1900, p. 264). After the failure of the mission,
Gerry remained in Paris, Marshall sailed imme-
diately for America, and Pinckney, with an ill
daughter, went to the south of France where he
remained for several months before returning
home. When, under the stress of the feeling ex-
cited by the revelation of the affair, preparations
for war began, Washington selected Pinckney
for major-general, hesitating for a long time,
because of his place and influence in the South,
about giving him a lower rank than Hamilton.
When the appointments were made by Presi-
dent Adams, Pinckney offered no objection, and,
when General Knox declined to accept the lower
rank, offered to yield him precedence, saying,
"Let us first dispose of our enemies, we shall
then have time to settle the question of prece-
dence" (Ravenel, post, p. 318). Commissioned
July 19, 1798, he was placed in command of all
the posts and forces south of Maryland and also
of those in Kentucky and Tennessee. Later he
was given specific direction of all the cavalry.
He was discharged from service, June 18, 1800,
In politics Pinckney was a Federalist of tibte
conservative state-rights group and was never
partisan. In the election of 1800 he was tfoe
choice of his party for vice-president and, like
his brother in 1796, was the innocent party in am
unsuccessful scheme of Alexander Hamilton to
defeat Adams. In 1804 and 1808 he was the
Federalist candidate for president During these
years, so far as his public service f>ermitted, hie
was busily engaged in tibe practice of law. He
was not a brilliant lawyer, but, learned and es-
sentially sound, possessed of sane common sense,
he was effective and had an immense practice.
Of imposing figure, genial and full of fun and
humor, liberal in opinion, independent and oeco-
trating in his judgment of men ami movetoii^
universally trusted and admired, he was, also cc»-
Pinckney
stantly engaged in public undertakings. In the
legislature of 1801 he was a strong supporter of
the movement which led to the establishment of
the South Carolina College and was the first
elected member of its board of trustees. In 1810
he became the first president of the Charleston
Bible Society and held the office until his death.
From 1795 until 1798 he was major-general
of the state militia. He was president of the
Charleston Library Society. Owning a fine plan-
tation, "Belmont," near Charleston, he had a
lively and intelligent interest in agriculture and
was a member of the South Carolina Agricul-
tural Society. He was the first president of the
South Carolina Society of the Cincinnati, re-
signing in 1805 to become the third president
general of the Society, a position which he held
until his death. At "Belmont" and at his home
on East Bay in Charleston he dispensed a ready,
kindly hospitality. He died in Charleston. Two
of his three daughters died unmarried ; the third
had no children.
Charles Cotesworth and Thomas Pinckney
well deserved the characterization of them by
William H. Trescott (The Diplomatic History
of the Administrations of Washington and
Adams, 1857, p. 170) : "Cultivated in their tastes
and simple in their manners, placed by fortune
where the exercise of a graceful hospitality was
the habit of their daily life, and the assumption
of high duties the natural consequence of their
position, brave and gentle, free, with all the gen-
uine frankness of the Southern nature, and yet
grave as became earnest men in trying times,
able, unselfish, active, their success in life was
free from all the feverish excitement of political
adventure. They sought neither place nor pow-
er, but rose gradually from duty to duty, illus-
trating in the fulness of their lives and services
the virtues of the class to which they belonged/'
[Pinckney papers in the S. C Hist. Soc. and in the
possession of various members of the Pinckney fam-
ily; Am. State Papers. Foreign Relations, vols. I, II
(1832) ; C. C. Pinckney, Life of Gen, Thomas Pinck-
ney (1895) ; H. H. Ravenel, Elixa Pinckney (1896) ;
H. C. Lodge, ed., The Works of Alexander Hamilton
(8 vols., 1885-86) ; W. C Ford, ed., The Writings of
George Washington (14 vols,, 1889-93) J Max Far-
rand, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787
(3 vols., 1911); Alexander Garden, Eulogy of Gen,
Chs. Cotesworth Pinckney (1825) ; C. E. Gadsden, A
Sermon Preached . . . on the Occasion of the Decease
of Gen. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (1825) • U. B,
Phillips, ''The South Carolina Federalists/' in Am.
Hist. Review, Apr., July 1909 ; F. J. Turner, ed,, "Cor-
respondence of the French Ministers, 1791-1797" in
Ann. Report of the Am. Hist. Asso, . . . 1003 (1904),
II ; J. B. O'Neall, Biog, Sketches of the Bench and Bar
of S. C. (1859), II, 130-37; Cyc. of Eminent and Rep~
resentative Men of the Carolina* (1892), I, 117-20;
obituary in Charleston Courier, Aug. 17, 19, 1825.]
J.G.deR.H.
Pinckney
PINCKNEY, ELIZABETH LUCAS (c
1722-May 26, 1793), also known as Eliza Lucas
Is identified with the development of indigo as ;
staple of colonial South Carolina. She was bon
probably In Antigua, where her father, Lieut/
Col. George Lucas, had been stationed and latei
became lieutenant governor. She was educatec
in England and arrived in South Carolina ii
1738, when her father brought his wife anc
daughters to "Wappoo" plantation, near Charles-
town (Charleston), inherited from his father
John Lucas. Upon Colonel Lucas' return to An-
tigua, Elizabeth was left at the age of sixteen tc
manage the business of three plantations. Popu-
lar in Charlestown society, she yet held hcrseli
to a systematic schedule of duties, music, anc
reading, and even studied sufficient law to clrafi
wills for her poorer neighbors. She loved the
plant world and soon was enthusiastically set-
ting out live-oaks for future navies. As "Wap-
poo" and its twenty slaves were mortgaged, hei
problem was to find a profitable crop. Hei fa-
ther sent her a variety of West Indian seeds foi
experiment and about 1741 she first tried indigo,
which theretofore had never been a success ir
South Carolina. She persevered to the third sea-
son before she ripened seed, and then her father
sent a man from Montserrat to teach her the
preparation for market. Upon her happy mar-
riage, May 27, 1744, to Charles Pinckney, a
prominent lawyer and a widower of more than
twice her age, her parents presented him with
the indigo then growing at "Wappoo" and
wished to give her the plantation as a marriage
dower. Creditors absorbed the plantation, but
Pinckney distributed some of the Indigo seed
among his neighbors, and, after learning all he
could from the French prisoners in Charlestown,
published his information for the benefit of all.
After her marriage, Mrs. Pinckney lived at
"Belmont" plantation on Charlestown Neck,
where in consultation with her father's overseer
she directed experiments with flax and hemp,
She also revived silk-culture ; dresses made from
her silk are still exhibited. In March 1753, her
husband having been appointed colonial agent
for South Carolina, she and their children ac-
companied him to London* After considerable
travel in England and a brief sojourn in London,
they bought a home at Ripley, intending to re-
main until the children were educated. Five
years later she returned with him to Charles-
town for a visit, but he was taken with malaria
and died in Mt Pleasant, July 12, 1758, His wiH,
finally probated in London in 1769, named as
executors his wife, and their sons Charles Cotes-
and Thomas [jgw) when of age. Ttoe
616
Pinckney
burden of a very large property, therefore,
Pinckney
Charleston.
assisted by a competent overseer, she took'up J^^^^^JZ^^^**
once more the round of plantation duties Al- tion SS ^ P-°llCy °f nu!Ilfica-
though she did not see her sons again unS'ttey ampS" he ^wt°r"±dTt?U '£ *" *?
HHS2±? a stro- inta u- ^*5=«^«S£S
After the Revolution, she went to live with
her widowed daughter, Mrs. Daniel Horry, at
"Hampton" plantation on the Santee, and there
welcomed President Washington in 1791. Soon
her health failed, and in April 1793 she sailed
for Philadelphia in hope of surgical relief. There,
on May 26, she died in her seventy-first year.
She was buried in St. Peter's churchyard, Wash-
ing-ton at his own request serving as a pallbearer.
No portrait of her exists, but she is described as
a small woman, with an unrivaled talent for
conversation. Her extraordinary charm is re-
flected in her letters, which have both literary
and historical value.
[C. C. Pinckney, Life of Gen, Thomas Pinckney'
(1895) j II, H. Ravencl, Elisa Pinckney (1896) ; S. C.
Hist, <$• Genual. Maff.^ Oct. 1907, pp. 217-19 ; Jan. 1913,
p. 39; July 1916, pp, 101-02; Jan. 1918, pp. 31, 34;
July 1918, p, 134; Oct. 1920, pp. 158-59, reprinting
obituary in Charleston City Casctte <$* Daily Adver-
tiser, July 17, 1793.3 A.K.G.
PINCKNEY, HENRY LAURENS (Sept.
24, 1794-Fcb. 3, 1863), editor of the Charleston
Mercury, congressman, mayor, was born in
Charleston, S. C., a child of Charles Pinckney
[#.#.] and Mary Eleanor Laurens, who died at
the time of her son's birth. His early education
was directed by his father and the Rev. George
Buist In 1812 he was graduated from South
Carolina College and later had legal training
under his brother-in-law Robert Y. Hayne [q.v.~\
but did not follow the law professionally. At the
first opportunity (1816) he secured a seat from
Charleston in the state House of Representa-
tives to which he was regularly elected for the
next vSeventcen years, serving acceptably a large
part of this time as chairman of the ways and
means committee and as speaker during the
last three years (1830-1832). In June 1823, he
became the proprietor and principal editor of the
Charleston Mercury, established the previous
year, and despite the competition of three other
dailies he had soon enlarged its size and added
a "country" edition. When in October 1832 he
severed connections with it, the Merely had
probably the largest circulation of any news-
paper of the state and was the most uncompiro-
mising' champion of "Southern rights," haying
just concluded a successful agitation in favor of
nullification of the tariff acts.
Meanwhile, Pinckney had been elected (1829)
to the Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth con-
gresses (1833-1837). Throughout his first term
he was m complete accord with the Calhoun
state-rights faction, defending- at every oppor-
tunity the doctrine of nullification as recently
applied by his state at the obvious sacrifice of his
chances of securing the navy yard and other fed-
eral works desired by his Charleston constitu-
ents. Early in the next Congress, however, in
securing the passage of resolutions which ulti-
mately led to the adoption by the House of the
policy of laying on the table "without being
either printed or referred" all petitions for the
abolition of slavery (see his report, May 18,
1836, 24 Cong., I sess., House Report No. 691),
he brought himself into sharp conflict with the
Calhounites who were contending for the out-
right rejection of these offensive memorials. He
was unjustly denounced by the latter as a traitor
to the South, the suggestion even being made
that he was selling his principles for a navy
yard (Elizabeth Merritt, James Henry Ham-
mond, 1807-1864, 1923, p. 38). Largely in con-
sequence of this, he lost the support of the coun-
try parishes of his district and was defeated for
reelection in 1836. Having retained, however,
his popularity with the city electorate, especially
the plebeian element, he was again chosen mayor
in 1837, 1838, and 1839. During this and his for-
mer period in this office he accomplished much
in the way of civic improvement, notably the con-
version of the College of Charleston (1837)
into the first municipal college in the United
States and the construction of the White Point
or Battery Gardens, the most distinctive feature
of Charleston's topography. During the re-
mainder of his life he occupied public offices of
only minor importance: collector of the port
(1840-1841), member of the state House of
Representatives (1844-1845), and city tax col-
lector from 1845 to tie time of his deafh.
He was twice married: to Rebecca Pincfaej
Elliott and Sabina Elliott Ramsay, a first cousin
in each instance, and by the first marriage l--ad
two sons and a daughter,
[Mabel L. Webber; mantiscript notes on ffce Pmcfe;-
ney family; W. L. K«r, Tfe Newspaper Press of
Charleston, S. C (187*) ; ©bftuarfes m^OwrW
Mercury and Charleston Daily Conner, Feb. 4,
PINCKNEY, THOMAS (Oct. 23, 17.
2, 1828), soldier, diplomat, governot ; «*
617
Pinckney
Carolina, was a native of Charlestown (Charles-
ton), the son of Charles and Elizabeth (Lucas)
Pinckney [q.v.]f and the brother of Charles
Cotesworth Pinckney [q,v.~]. In 1753 he was
carried to England and in 1765 entered the
Westminster School. There he took a high stand,
particularly in Greek, in which he was the first
scholar of his year. He matriculated at Christ
Church College, Oxford, Nov. 23, 1768, and on
Dec. 1 6 was admitted to the Middle Temple. He
was called to the bar Nov. 25, 1774. He spent
an intervening year on the Continent in travel
and in study at the royal military academy at
Caen, France.
Late in 1774 he returned to South Carolina
and was immediately admitted to the bar. Early
in 1775 he joined a company of rangers as lieu-
tenant, and upon the organization of the 1st
South Carolina Regiment he was chosen a cap-
tain. On account of his previous military train-
ing he was employed in drilling officers and
men. Later he was sent out on recruiting serv-
ice, at which he proved successful. For a year he
was stationed at Fort Johnson in Charlestown
harbor and was employed as an engineer in con-
structing fortifications. In August 1776 he was
sent to Fort Moultrie where he remained for
two years with the exception of some months
spent in recruiting in Maryland, Virginia, and
North Carolina. On May 17, 1778, he was pro-
moted major, and on account of his proved skill
in handling troops he was constantly called upon
to organize and drill new detachments. He took
part in the ill-fated Florida campaign of 1778,
participated in the battle of Stono in 1779, and,
on account of his knowledge of French, was sent
as a special aide to Count d'Estaing at Savannah
and was thus present during the siege of the city
and took part in the assault. In the interval be-
tween the British attacks on Charlestown, he
practised law, served in the legislature of 1778,
and on July 22, 1779, married Elizabeth, the
daughter of Jacob and Rebecca (Brewton)
Motte. He was in command of part of the de-
fenses of Charlestown during the siege of 1780
and with his brother strongly opposed the sur-
render of the city. Before its fall he was sent
out to hasten the troops expected for relief and
thus escaped capture. He immediately went
north to join Washington's army but soon re-
turned on the staff of General Gates. He was
severely wounded at Camden and was captured,
He was, however, soon taken to the home of his
mother-in-law, where he slowly recovered,
though his wound was to trouble him for years
to come. He was then sent with his brother to
Philadelphia where they were paroled until they
618
Pinckney
were exchanged. In September 1781 he was re-
cruiting in Virginia where he met Lafayette, foi
whom he formed a warm attachment and witt
whom he served at Yorktown. He then returnee
to South Carolina where he published a defense
of Gates.
General Provost, after his repulse frorr
Charlestown in 1779, burned "Auckland," Pinck-
ney's home on the Ashepoo, and took away al
the servants and stock, so Pinckney now tool
up his residence in Charleston where he prac-
tised law successfully. On Feb. 20, 1787, he wa;
elected governor and served, according to Soutl
Carolina custom, for two terms of a year each
during this time he did much to restore order ir
the state, which still suffered from the results o:
foreign invasion and even more from the civi
war that had prevailed during the closing year
of the Revolution. Severe with criminals, h<
was inclined to leniency with respect to the Loy>
alists, and sought to soften the harshness of th<
laws against them and the asperities of populai
feeling towards them. lie was president of the
convention of 1788 which ratified the Constittt
tion, and in 1789 declined Washington's offer o:
a federal juclgeship. In 1791 he was a membei
of the lower house of the legislature and dre\\
the bill creating the court of equity,
In November 1791 Washington offered hin
the appointment as minister to Great Britain
and Pinckney accepted, his nomination being
confirmed m January 1792. His instructions
prepared by Jefferson, ordered him to express
"that spirit of sincere friendship which we beai
to the English nation." He was further instruct-
ed to seek the liberation of American commerce
from British restrictions and the protection o;
American seamen from impressment Thanks tc
his personal qualifications, English education
and knowledge of English thought, he was per
sona grata in London, but his ministry, viewec
in the large, was not highly successful Fore-
seeing war in Europe, he labored to secure i
prompt settlement of all questions in dispute
bombarding the Foreign Office with protests anc
demands that were usually, though not always
ignored. The appointment of Jay to negotiate t
treaty hurt his feelings, as he frankly admitted
and he doubtless welcomed his appointment ir
April 1795 as special commissioner and envoj
extraordinary to Spain to negotiate a treaty set
tling all matters in dispute between the twc
countries.
In Spain, Pinckney carried on his negotia-
tion^ entirely with Godoy, the Duke de la Al-
cudia, better known as the Prince of Peace. It
the face of the seemingly insuperable difficulties
Pinckney
which at first confronted him, due chiefly to
the Spanish policy of indefinite delay, Pinckney
was bold, persistent, obstinate, and unfailingly
tactful On August 10, 1795, he submitted to the
Spanish government an able state paper dealing
with the southern boundary of the United States
and the navigation of the Mississippi River.
Time and international circumstances combined
with his able efforts to bring Spain finally to
agreement, and on Oct. 27, 1795, the treaty of
San Lorenzo el Real was signed. The boundary
settlement was in accordance with the treaty of
peace between the United States and Great Brit-
ain ; the right of free navigation of the Missis-
sippi was recognized ; and the privilege of a port
of entry at New Orleans and the right of deposit
for three years were granted. The treaty also
provided for the establishment of a court for
the settlement of American claims against the
Spanish, and obligated both parties to restraint
of the Indians. The treaty signed, Pinckney re-
turned to London, Under special instructions
from Washington, and with personal interest and
zeal, he exhausted every possible device to se-
cure the release of Lafayette, but without suc-
cess. On Oct. 10, I79S, he had asked for recall;
he now resumed the request, and came home in
September 1796.
Before his return the Federalist party had
chosen him as candidate for vice-president. He
was defeated, however, through the machina-
tions of Alexander Hamilton in his attempt by
stratagem to defeat Adams and elect Pinckney
president. He received fifty-nine electoral votes.
In 1794, while they were in England, Mrs. Pinck-
ney died. On Oct. 19, 1797, he married her sis-
ter, Frances, the widow of John Middleton.
About the same time he was elected to Congress
and took his seat Nov. 23, 1797- A Federalist,
though strong in, state-rights feeling, he in gen-
eral supported the administration, but he was
not always in agreement with it. He was not
eager for war with France in 1798 and doubted
the wisdom of elaborate military preparations.
He also voted against the Sedition Act. He
served until March 4, 1801, when he voluntarily
retired. Pinckney's only other public service
was in the War of 1812 when he was commis-
sioned major-general and placed in command of
the district extending from North Carolina to
the Mississippi River. He was active and efr
cient, but won no special distinction, never see-
ing active service. He joined Jackson, took com-
mand of the forces at the end of the Creek War,
and negotiated the treaty which concludedpeace.
For Jackson he conceive4 a great admiration
Pinckney
and recommended that he be placed in command
of a new military district.
Deeply interested in agriculture, Pinckney was
a scientific planter. He wrote frequently for the
Southern Agriculturist, and in October 1828
published there a report to the South Carolina
Agricultural Society on diversification of crops
in the low country, based upon the results ob-
tained at an experimental farm which he oper-
ated. On his plantations on Santee River, first
at "Fairfield," and later at "Eldorado," he dem-
onstrated his ability as a practical farmer as well.
Owning a vast area of salt marsh, he remem-
bered his observations in Holland, and, with the
aid of a Dutch engineer whom he brought over,
he constructed a system of dykes and reclaimed
the land for immensely productive rice-planting.
He also imported improved breeds of cattle.
Pinckney was a wide reader and possessed a
large private library. In November 1822, after
the Denmark Vesey insurrection, he published,
over the pseudonym "Achates," a pamphlet, Re-
flections Occasioned by the late Disturbances in
Charleston; in this, after attacking the move-
ment for the abolition of slavery, he made a plea
for replacing the negro artisans and mechanics
in Charleston with white freemen, arguing the
advantages which would result from immigra-
tion. In 1806 he was elected president of the
South Carolina Society of the Cincinnati, suc-
ceeding his brother, and held the position until
1826 when he succeeded him as president general
of the Society.
Pinckney was taU and spare in figure, poised
and self -controlled, with great personal dignity,
but with delightfully easy and courteous man-
ners. A contemporary comment (Robert Good-
loe Harper, Annual Report of the American
Historical Association for the Year 1P13, 1915,
vol. II, 24-25) gives a just appraisal in dwelling
on his "prudence, moderation, sound judgment,
great coolness and discretion, calm steady firm-
ness of character, and uniformity of conduct"
Many of his contemporaries found in him &
strong resemblance to Washington. He died in
Charleston after a long and painful illness. By
his first marriage he had four children: Thomas,
who left daughters only; Charles Cotesworth,
through whom all of his name and line descend-
ed; Elizabeth, who married William Lowndes
[q.v.] ; and Harriott (or Harriotta) Lucas, wtio
married Francis K Huger [g.tf.].
[Papers in the S, C Hist Soc., In tbe poss <«oao£
^«**^?£*ftZ£*S£:
Pinckney (1895); H. H. Ravend, Blisa
(1896); A. S. Salley, Jr., Jour of the
S. C 1788 (facsimile, 1928) ;
House of Representatives of S.-C.
Pine
tution Framed for the U.-S. (1831) ; Am. State Papers.
Foreign Relations, vols. I, II (1832) ; S. F. Bemis, "The
London Mission of Thomas Pinckney, 1792— 1796," in
Am, Hist. Review, Jan. 1923, and Pinckncy's Treaty
(1926) ; U. B. Phillips, "The S. C. Federalists," in Am.
Hist. Review, Apr., July 1909 ; W. H. Trescott, The
Diplomatic JHist. of the Administrations of Washington
and Adams (1857), p. 170 ; Cyc. of Eminent and Rep-
resentative Men of the Carolina^ (1892), vol. I ; J. B.
O'N^eall, Bioff. Sketches of the Bench and Bar of S. C.
(1859), H, 111-14; "The Pinckney Family of S. C,"
in Historical Mag., Sept. 1867; obituary in Charleston
Courier, Nov. 4, 1828.] j . G. deR. H.
PINE, ROBERT EDGE (i730-Nov. 19,
1788), painter, was born in London. He came
of an artistic family and was associated from
childhood with artists. His father, John Pine
[see Dictionary of National Biography], a well-
known engraver, was stout and jovial, but the
son, Robert Edge, is recalled as a small man of
sensitive temperament and irritable disposition.
His brother, Simon, was a successful miniature
painter at Bath. Instructed by his father, Pine
early attained recognition in England as a painter
of ability. He was always interested in the thea-
tre, and his first paintings were of actors and
actresses in well-known characters. One of his
earliest works was a painting of Thomas Lowe
and Mrs. Chambers as Captain Macheath and
Polly, engraved by McArdell. In 1760, to the
first exhibition held in London by the Society
for the Encouragement of Arts (now Royal So-
ciety of Arts), he contributed a full-length por-
trait of Mrs. Pritchard as Hermione and also a
large painting, "The Surrender of Calais," re-
ceiving for the latter a prize of one hundred
guineas offered for the best historical work ; he
won the same prize again in 1763 by his painting,
"Canute Rebuking His Courtiers." In 1772, be-
cause of "an insult from the president/' he with-
drew from the Society, and thereafter exhibited
in the Royal Academy until 1784.
While in England Pine painted four portraits
of Garrick, one of which is now in the National
Portrait Gallery, London, and another in the New
York Public Library. He also did a large sub-
ject picture of Garrick reciting an ode to Shake-
speare, which was engraved in stipple by Caro-
line Watson. Among his other well-known works
from this period are a full-length portrait from
memory of George II (at Audley End) and a
full-length portrait of the Duke of Northumber-
land (at Middlesex Hospital) . In 1782 he showed
in London a series of paintings illustrating
scenes from Shakespeare, which collection in
whole or part he brought with him to America
two years later and exhibited in the State House
in Philadelphia — one of the earliest, if not the
earliest, exhibition of paintings ever held in the
United States. At the Royal Academy, 1784, he
Pine
exhibited portraits of Lord Amherst and th
Duke of Norfolk, as well as a "Portrait of Lor<
Rodney in Action, aboard the Formidable;
which was later hung" in the Town Hall at Kings
ton, Jamaica. His paintings were popular ant
were engraved by such well-known engraven
as J, McArdle, C. Watson, Valentine Green
Aliamet, Lomax, and Dickinson.
After the death of his brother Simon in 1772
Pine resided for five years in Bath, then re-
turned to London. He was a clOvSe friend of Johr
Wilkes, whose principles he espoused, and IK
was deeply in sympathy with the Americar
cause. In 1784 he came to America, intending
to produce a series of historical paintings illus-
trative of the Revolution. The exact time of his
arrival is uncertain, but he was in Philadelphia
in November. His portrait of Francis Hopkin-
son, the first he painted after reaching- Pennsyl-
vania, bears the date 1785. He spent several
weeks at Mount Vcrnon in April and May of
that year, painting portraits of Washington and
members of his family — notably Fanny Bassett
Washington and young George Washington
Parke Custis. A portrait of Washington's mother,
Mary Ball Washington, is also attributed to him
(see New York Genealogical and Biographical
Record, April 1918). In 1787 he made some
changes in his portrait of Washington, which is
now in Independence Hall, Philadelphia.
Pine did not succeed in carrying out his am-
bitious plan for a series of historical paintings,
although he never completely abandoned it. Be-
fore he went to Mount Vernon he spent some
time at Annapolis painting portraits of promi-
nent men and women which he intended to use
in his larger pictures. Washington, in a private
letter, said : "Mr. Pine has met a favorable recep-
tion in this country, & may, I conceive, command
as much business as he pleases" (W, C Ford,
The Writings of George Washington, vol X,
1891, p, 467). There are contemporary records
of portraits by him of General Gates, Charles
Carroll, Baron Steuben, Mrs. John Jay, Robert
Morris, and others, but his only historical pic-
ture completed in America was "The Congress
Voting Independence/' painted in Congress Hall,
and this was finished, presumably after his death,
by Edward Savage [#.#,]. It is now owned by
the Historical Society of Pennsylvania* Rob-
ert Morris, the financier, was one of his best
patrons and built a house for him "suitable to his
objects" on Eighth Street, Philadelphia,
When Pine came to America he brought with
him his wife and two daughters, all of whom are
said to have been diminutive, like himsdt He
also brought, as an art treasure, one of the ear-
620
Pingree
liest casts of the Venus de Medici, but since, in
the words of Joseph Hopkinson, "the manners
of our country, at that time, would not tolerate
the public exhibition of such a figure" (Dunlap,
post, I, 378), it was kept shut up in its case and
only shown privately. After Pine's death, in
Philadelphia, from a stroke of apoplexy, his
widow, who had assisted him in his drawing
classes, secured permission to dispose of his
works by lottery. A considerable number of them
went to the Columbian Museum, Boston, and
there Washington Allston saw them and is said
to have been strongly influenced by them, but
when the Museum burned the entire collection
was destroyed. Joseph Hopkinson, second presi-
dent of the Pennsylvania Academy, wrote in
1833 that Pine's works "were scattered about in
Virginia where he went occasionally to paint
portraits" (Dunlap, I, 377), and comparatively
few can now be located. Portraits of one of the
Lees, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Huntington,
and George Reid, all well authenticated, have
been exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy;
the Metropolitan Museum, New York, owns
Pine's "Mrs. Reid in the Character of a Sul-
tana" ; his "General Gates" belongs to the Amer-
ican Scenic and Historic Preservation Society,
New York ; his portraits of George Washington
Parke Custis and Elizabeth Parke Custis are at
Washington and Lee University; "Martha
Washington" is at the Virginia Historical So-
ciety, Richmond; "Francis Hopkinson" and
"Robert Morris" are in the collection of the His-
torical Society of Pennsylvania, and the por-
traits of Charles Carroll and Polly Carroll (Mrs.
Richard Caton) are still in the possession of the
Carroll family of Maryland.
^William Dunlap, A Hist, of the Rise and Progress
of the Arts of Design in the U. S, (3 vols., 1918), ed.
by F. W, Bayley and C. E» Goodspeed; Samuel Red-
grave, A Diet, of Artists of the English School (1874) ;
H. T. Wood, A Hist, of the Royal Soc. of Arts (1913) J
C. H. Hart. "The Congress Voting Independence/' Pa.
Mag, of Hist, and Biog.t Jan. 1905 ,* J. H. Morgan and
Mantle Fielding, The Life Portraits of Washington
(1931) ; W. S. Baker, The Engraved Portraits of Wash-
ington (1880) ; L, A. Hall, Cat. of the Dramatic Por-
traits in the Theatre Collection of the Harvard College
Library (4 vols., 1930-34) ; sketch by L. H, Oust, in
Diet, Nat, Biog, ; Fed, Gazette and PUla. Evening Post,
Nov. 20, 1788; Catalogues of Independence Hall, Met-
ropolitan Museum of Art, Lenox Library, Panama-
Pacific Exposition, Hist. Soc. of Pa.] L. M.
PINGREE, HAZEN STUART (Aug. 30,
i840-June 18, 1901), manufacturer, mayor of
Detroit, governor of Michigan, was born at Den-
mark, Me., the fourth child of Jasper and Adeline
(Bryant) Pingree. His father, a farmer, was a
descendant of an old New England fanuly. At
the age of fourteen he left school to work in a
cotton mill and later went into a shoe factory.
Pingree
During the Civil War he enlisted and was mus-
tered into service at Boston on Aug. 2, 1862, as
private in Company F, 14*1 Massachusetts In-
fantry, subsequently the ist Massachusetts Heavy
Artillery. He served for two years and reen-
listed for the balance of the war. In May 1864
he was captured and was paroled the following
November. He was mustered out as a private
on Aug. 16, 1865. Soon after his discharge he
went to Detroit, Mich., where he secured em-
ployment in a shoe factory. In December 1866
he entered a partnership in a shoe-manufactur-
ing enterprise, which subsequently became one
of the largest in the West, employing about seven
hundred men. He married Frances A. Gilbert
in February 1872.
In 1889 Pingree was offered the Republican
nomination for mayor of Detroit, then normally
Democratic, and was elected in a "reform" cam-
paign. His administration was tempestuous.
Relatively inexperienced in politics, he was ap-
parently shocked at the situation he found, though
the Detroit government was far from notorious
in that day of municipal scandals. A group of
private vested interests were controlling politics
in self-protection. Pingree had voiced only mild
objection to the system in his campaign but his
utterances rapidly became more radical and spe-
cific. He found the city paying a private utility
for street lighting at a rate which seemed to him
excessive and after a bitter fight established a
municipal electric plant He boasted of the low-
cost of his new system, but seems not to have
advocated extending the benefits to private users
of electricity. Perhaps the most bitter contro-
versy was with the local street railway company.
The earlier single-line street railways had been
consolidated into a monopoly which gave indif-
ferent service at rates which were said to be ex-
cessive. The fight at first centered about an ex-
tension of a franchise, which yet had years to
run. Pingree proposed to grant extension only
on concessions. He then tried to introduce com-
petition by securing a franchise for a second
company, only to have the two lines combine.
He waged an attack on the toll gates which still
cumbered every important road to the city and
secured their abolishment He forced price re-
ductions by gas and telephone companies. When
the panic of 1893 filled the city with jobless he
inaugurated his plan of gardens for the unem-
ployed and "Pingree's Potato Patdies" sealed
national notice.
To national politics Pingree paid sligM 'atten-
tion, but in 1896 he accepted the
nomination for governor
governor while still mayor of Detroit,, bttfeMito
6^1
Pinkerton
hold both offices, but the state supreme court
ruled that the city office had been vacated. As
governor his chief attack was on the railroads
and on the legal difficulty in collecting just taxes,
growing out of early and incautious charters.
His chief strength, a direct appeal to the people,
was less effective over the larger area, and he
had difficulty in securing the cooperation of his
legislatures. He made an effort to dramatize his
part and Michigan's contribution to the Span-
ish-American War, but a scandal concerning the
supplies for the Michigan militia marred his ad-
ministration and the war diverted public atten-
tion from state politics. He served two terms as
governor. Once more a private citizen, he
traveled in Europe and Africa. His interest in
the Boers and his prejudice against England led
him to begin a history of the Boer War, which
his death interrupted. He died in England, and
was buried in Detroit. His wife and two of their
three children survived him.
Pingree's chief contributions were made while
mayor of Detroit. Without specific training for
the office or clear-cut theory, he was sometimes
inconsistent and seldom constructive. He was
best when combating special privilege and cor-
ruption, though his controversies were marred
by invective and personal reflections. He was
constantly at odds with the Republican organi-
zation under Senator McMillan, yet his personal
popularity made him indispensable. Pingree
must be listed as one of the important pre-Roosd-
velt reformers who awakened public conscience.
The people of Michigan, by public subscription,
erected a statue to his memory in Grand Circus
Park, Detroit.
[Pingree's seven messages as mayor of Detroit and
his messages as governor are all printed and -with his
other printed speeches best show his program and atti-
tude. "He kept newspaper scrap-books, 1890-1901, 253
volumes, which are in Burton Historical Collection,
Detroit Pub. Lib. His one book, Facts and Opinions,
or Dangers That Beset Us (1895), is a personal reac-
tion to contemporary problems, Some information on
his early business career is contained in an advertising
booklet, Detroit, The Beautiful (n.d.), pub, by the Pin-
gree Company, Shoe Manufacturers. See also : G, B.
Catlin, The Story of Detroit (1923) ; Mich. Biogs,, vol
II (1924) ; W. M. Pengry, A Geneal. Record of the
Descendants of Moses Pengry of Ipswich, Mass.
(1881) ; Detroit News and Detroit Free Press, June
i p, 1901. There is a manuscript thesis by Muriel Ber-
nitt, "The Campaign of 1896 in Mich." (1931), in the
Univ. of Chicago Lib.]
PINKERTON, ALLAN (Aug. 25, i8io~July
i, 1884), detective, was born in Glasgow, Scot-
land, the son of William Pinkerton, a sergeant
of the police force. When Allan was ten years
old his father, on duty during Chartist riots, was
so severely injured that he never walked again,
Pinkerton
Four years later he died. Forced to help main
tain the family, the boy was apprenticed at th<
age of twelve to a cooper; at nineteen he be
came an independent craftsman. His part it
the Chartist demonstrations of 1842 led him t(
fear arrest, and he decided to go to America. Ot
the day before sailing he married Joan Carfrae
They reached Chicago where Pinkerton founc
temporary employment in a brewery. The nexi
year they moved to the Scotch settlement oi
Dundee on the Fox River where he established
a cooper's shop of his own. One day while cut-
ting hoop poles on an unfrequented island he
chanced upon a rendezvous for counterfeiters and
he led a party which captured the entire gang
Similar success followed in several local de-
tective commissionsS, and in 1846 he was made
deputy sheriff of Kane County. An ardent Abo-
litionist he was also a "foreman" of the Under-
ground Railroad and his shop was a station.
Wider recognition came with an invitation to
become deputy sheriff of Ccx>k County and he
sold a prosperous business to move to Chicago,
In 1850 he was attached to Chicago's newly or-
ganized police force as its first and at that time
only detective. The same year, in response to
suggestions from several railroad presidents fol-
lowing a series of robberies, he established, in
partnership with E, G. Rucker, a lawyer, a pri-
vate detective agency, one of the first of its kind
in the country. Rucker withdrew within a year,
and Pinkerton resigned his city connections to
give full time to his venture.
The solution of several sensational Adams
Express robberies gave the Agency a national
reputation and brought it much Eastern business
in the years before the Civil War* In January
1861 Pinkerton was employed by the Philadel-
phia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad to in-
vestigate threats by Southern sympathisers
against its property* While his operatives were
working on the case in Baltimore they learned
of an intended attempt on Lincoln's life to be
made as he passed through the city on the way to
his inauguration. With several of Lincoln's ad-
visers, Pinkerton worked out plans for the Presi-
dent's unexpected night trip (Feb. 22, 23) ahead
of schedule to the capital In April 1861 Lin-
coln invited Pinkerton to a conference on the
subject of a secret-service department, but no
action was taken. A few weeks later, at the in-
vitation of Gen, George B. McQellan, a close
friend and former client, Pinkerton agreed to
organize and conduct a secret service for the
Ohio Department which McClellan command-
ed Agents were immediately sent into Kentucky
and West Virginia, and Pinkerton himself, in
622
Pinker ton
disguise, toured Tennessee, Georgia, and Mis-
sissippi. When in July McClellan was made
Commander-in-chief Pinkerton accompanied him
to Washington and established headquarters at
the capital and an office in the field. He now
also directed important counter-espionage activi-
ties in Washington. During the war he went
under the name of Maj. E. J. Allen, and many
officers who knew him well did not suspect his
real identity. He resigned upon McClellan's re-
moval in November 1862 and thereafter served
as an investigator of numerous claims against
the government.
At the close of the war he resumed the per-
sonal direction of his Agency and established
branches in Philadelphia and New York. In
1869 he suffered a slight paralytic stroke, and
thereafter left to others the work of actual in-
vestigation. More protective work was being
done on an annual payment basis, a type of serv-
ice inaugurated by Pinkerton in 1860. The
Agency was building up a voluminous record of
its criminal contacts which at the time was the
most use Cully complete in America. Pinkerton
also devoted much time to writing reminiscent
detective narratives to the extent of eighteen
volumes, based for the most part upon the
Agency's experiences. Written in pleasant style,
the books sold like novels and did much to ad-
vance the fame and prestige of Pinkerton's name.
From an autobiographical viewpoint the most
valuable were Criminal Reminiscences and De-
tective Sketches (1879) J The Spy of the Rebel-
lion (1883); and Thirty Years a Detective
( 1884) , The policy in labor disputes that was to
win the Pinkertons severe criticism in the clos-
ing years of the century was forecast during the
strikes of 1877 when Allan Pinkerton still direct-
ed affairs. He had come into contact with the
more vicious side of early labor combinations and
apparently sincerely believed that Unions were
hurting rather than helping the cause of the
Pinkerton
PINKERTON, LEWIS LETIG (Jan. 28
i8i2-Jan. 28, 1875), clergyman, editor, promi
nent in the activities and controversies of th<
Disciples of Christ in Kentucky, was a native o
Baltimore County, Md. His father, William
was of Scotch-Irish ancestry, and his mother
Elizabeth (Letig), of German. Five of theii
sons became preachers, and six of their grand-
sons. Soon after Lewis* birth the family movec
to Chester County, Pa., and later to West Lib-
erty, not far from Bethany, in what is now Wesi
Virginia. Here he encountered Campbellite in-
fluences, and in 1830, having already becomt
dissatisfied with Presbyterianism, his father's
faith, he ardently embraced the views of th(
Disciples. Such elementary schooling as neces-
sary work on the farm had permitted him to se-
cure was now completed at Pleasant Hill Semi-
nary, West Middletown, Pa., and in 1831 he wen1
to Trenton, Butler County, Ohio, and for foui
years studied medicine, supporting himself ty
teaching. On Mar. 19, 1833, he married Saral
A. Bell. He began practice in 1834 and the fol-
lowing- year settled in Carthage, Ohio. Althougl
successful professionally, he felt impelled tc
preach, and his evangelical work finally led hin
in December 1839 to remove to Kentucky anc
abandon medicine for the ministry.
After short pastorates in New Union and Lex
ington, he accepted a call to the church at Mid
way, which he served from 1844 to 1860. Her*
in the church edifice he opened a school for girls
the Baconian Institute, and soon built for it J
schoolroom and dormitory. He was also Instra
mental in having established the Kentucky Fe
male Orphan School, chartered by the legislator
in 1847. For a year, 1848, he published a month
ly magazine, the Christian Mirror ; he edited tb
Kentucky department of the Christian Age
1853-54; and during the latter year conducted i
temperance paper, The New Bra. Under ft
urgency of John B. Bowman M, fcondcro
workmgman. (See the introduction w m> *« «- ^ "rircrfessor of English in that institutioi
p, c^^^^^^^S^i ^^^
His was not a mind for analyzing *** v - . TT •- he was commissioned a
lems but rather a genius for detail organization,
and practical results. After his death his two
sons took over the direction of the Agency.
in louvj. -TV jjnjjuwti***-^v* «***-• - — -- j » j
porter of the Union, he was commissioned a
surgeon in the nth Kentucky Cavalry in Sep
tember 1862, and also took upon himself ft
duties of chaplain. His service was soon term
nated by a sunstroke, from the eff eels- rf wluc
he suffered for the rest of his life. When Ket
tucky University was transferred to Lexingto
in 1865, he removed to that place.
Krfcerton's Hw*. and/™te^*?.f pa ™ Washington, f A Union was resented by many
?T/T/*M T ittraln TrOVft ti.(*Vi/iSvwryr¥f i w«, r~ ^ I*A.T * vH L"C v^j.j.*^" »T - -
rlQim t««v''»<*(J*'* *'£. , rr>..ii...~~ \T -V TVlOHiM£. UlV 2, ... . . YV-1^
1884-]
o e no
religionists. Pulpits were closed to tern; a
623
Pinkham
he thought it best to resign his professorship.
For a brief period he was agent of the Freed-
man's Bureau in Fayette County, but from 1866
to 1873 he had no fixed charge, though he was
offered the presidency of Hiram College in 1867.
The opposition to him was not due to his poli-
tics alone, but also to his liberal theological con-
victions. He opposed the legalistic view of
religion common among the Disciples, laying
emphasis on personal righteousness rather than
on conformity to prescribed doctrines and rites ;
rejected the verbal inspiration of the Bible ; sanc-
tioned the admission of the unimmersed into the
Church; and advocated the Presbyterian form
of church government. He set f ortn his view in
the short-lived Independent Monthly, begun in
January 1869, which he edited with John
Shackleford, Jr., and in other periodicals. Brand-
ed as a heretic in his day, he is now recognized
as perhaps the first to combat a formalism that
threatened the vitality of the Churches of Christ
and as one who was a liberalizing force in the
history of the Disciples. No one ever questioned
his piety, his sincerity, his courage, or his un-
selfishness.
Apparently through the influence of his friend
James A. Garfield, he was appointed in 1873 spe-
cial mail agent. While he was on a trip to in-
vestigate irregular mail service in the Kentucky
mountains in October 1874, an illness began
from which he never recovered. He published
A Discourse Concerning Sonic of the Effects of
the Late Civil War on Ecclesiastical Matters in
Kentucky (1866), and a few of his writings are
preserved in Life, Letters, and Addresses of Dr.
L. L. Pinkerton (1876), by John Shackleford, Jr.
[In addition to the Life mentioned above, see J. T.
Brown, Churches of Christ (1904) ; W. T. Moore, A
Comprehensive Hisfr, of the Disciples of Christ £1909) ;
W. E, Garrison, Religion Follows the Frwitier (1931) ;
A. W. Fortune, The Disciples in Ky. (copr. 1932) ;
Harry Giovannoli, Ky. Female Orphan School: A His-
tory (1932) ; Christian Standard, Feb. 6, 13, 1875.]
H.E.S.
PINKHAM, LYDIA ESTES (Feb. 9, 1819-
May 17, 1883), patent medicine manufacturer,
was born in Lynn, Mass., of English colonial
stock, the tenth of the twelve children of Wil-
liam Estes, a shoemaker, by his second wife, Re-
becca Chase. She spent her entire life, except
for a few years of childhood, in her native town.
After completing the course in the academy she
became a school teacher. She ,was a member
from its beginning of the Female Anti- Slavery
Society of Lynn, was made secretary of the
Freeman's Society, and was a lifelong friend of
Frederick Douglass. Like most reformers she
was too magnanimous to specialize: Sweden-
borgianism, phrenology, temperance, Graham-
Pinkham
ism, woman's rights, and other causes enjoyed
her warm approval, and in later years she em-
braced spiritualism and fiat money. On Sept. 8,
1843, she married a young widower, Isaac Pink-
ham, and for the next thirty years she was a
wife and mother and not much else. She had
four sons and a daughter, the second son dying
in infancy. The business that made her famous
and her heirs rich was not started until eight
years before her death. In the financial smash
of 1873 her husband, whose principal occupation
was speculating in real estate, lost his money,
health, and spirits together, and by 1875 the fam-
ily, which had never been really prosperous, was
reduced to actual want. In their need Lyclia be-
thought her of an herb medicine that she had
been concocting off and on for about ten years
and that was beginning to have a local reputation
as a sovereign remedy for "woman's weakness"
and allied disorders. With neighborly kindness
she had given the nostrum to whoever asked for
it, even to a perfect stranger who had driven all
the way from Salem to obtain a bottle of it. As
Mrs. Lyclia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound
it made its commercial tle'but in Lynn in 1875.
The meager profits, after the family had been
fed, were turned back into the business, and while
Mrs* Pinkham labored over the kitchen stove her
sons distributed handbills from door to door and
endeavored to sell the mixture to druggists in
Salem, Boston, and Providence, Daniel, the
most aggressive of the three, carried the cam-
paign to Brooklyn and New York, where he re-
ceived moral encouragement and a substantial
cash order from Charles Nelson Crittcnton. He
was the first, also, to discover that the compound
might be recommended impartially for the kid-
neys of both sexes. In 1876 a label was registered
at the Patent Office, and sometime later a column
advertisement in the Boston Herald gave the
sales their first big impetus. Thereafter the
Pinkhams bought newspaper space in larger and
larger quantities until in 1898 the compound was
the most widely advertised merchandise in the
country. Besides supervising its manufacture,
Mrs. Pinkham wrote the advertisements and an-
swered faithfully a voluminous fan mail. In 1879
she authorized the use of her portrait as part of
the propaganda. Her advertisements were an
adaptation, at times more than a little quaint, of
the language and ideology of the humanitarian
and medical cults that had flourished In her
youth, and with their intimacy of tone and their
appeal to the emotions and to mental symptoms
they proved to be remarkably effective exercises
in what has been called "creative psychiatry,"
Worthless as a therapeutic agent (Nostnms cmd
624
Pinkney
Quackery, post, II, pp. 160-63), the compound
was popular as a psychic sedative. In 1881 the
two younger sons, Daniel and William, died of
tuberculosis, which had been aggravated by over-
work and the privations of their years of poverty.
Shortly before her own death, which occurred
within two years, the business was incorporated.
She was its guiding spirit till the last Since her
death her fame has been ministered to not only
by the art of advertising but by the national sense
of humor, the Uplift, the American Medical As-
sociation, and the New Biography,
[Clias. Estes, Estcs Gcncals. (1894) ; C. N. Sinnett,
Richard Pinkham , , . and His Descendants (1908) ;
Nostrums and Quackery (Am. Medic. Asso., vol. II,
1921) ; Elbert Hubbard, Lydia E. Pinkham (1915) ; R.
C. Washburn, "Lydia Pinkham," Am. Mercury, Feb.
1931, and The Life and Times of Lydia JB. Pinkham
G.H.G.
PINKNEY, EDWARD COOTE (Oct. i,
i8o2-Apr. n, 1828), poet and editor, was born
in London, where his father, William Pinkney
[</.?'.] of Annapolis, Md., had been serving since
1796 as one of the commissioners o£ the United
States to adjust claims under the Jay Treaty.
Edward was the seventh of ten children. His
mother, Ann Maria (Rodgers) Pinkney, also of
Maryland, was a sister of Commodore John
Rodgers [q.vj] of the United States Navy. The
Pinkneys returned to Maryland in 1804 and lived
in Baltimore until 1806, when the father was
again sent to England on a diplomatic mission.
In 1807 lie was named minister to the Court of
St. James's and held this post until 1811.
Edward's elementary education was begun in
London, and continued in Baltimore at St.
Mary's College, which had been established by
the Sulpicians in 1803. In November 1815 he
turned his back on his books for a commission
as midshipman in the navy. His active service
at sea continued with brief interruptions until
the death of his father in 1822. It included duty
in the ship of the line Washington, which car-
ried his father on a diplomatic errand to Naples
in June 1816, and kept him cruising in the Medi-
terranean, on board the Washington and other
vessels, for nearly three years. Returning to
America in the sloop Peacock, he was assigned
to the Constellation, from which he was dismissed
in 1821 in consequence of a protest which he and
Pinkney
timore in 1822 and resigned his commission in
1824.
Soon after his resignation Pinkney was ad-
mitted to the bar, and practised law in Baltimore
as a partner of Robert Wilson, Jr. He had al-
ready won some repute as a poet, having pub-
lished with a musical setting in 1823 Look Out
Upon the Stars f My Love: A Serenade Written
by a Gentleman of Baltimore, and a slender vol-
ume entitled Rodolph, A Fragment, which won
favorable comment from the North American
Review (January 1824). He now, in 1825, is-
sued a small volume, Poems, which Included a
new version of "Rodolph," and about a score of
songs and lyrics. "Rodolph," a Byronic tale of
lawless passion, may have influenced Poe's "Al
Aaraaf ." In the judgment of Poe and other mid-
century critics, Pinkney was entitled to high
rank among American lyric poets. After a jour-
ney to Mexico in the vain attempt to secure an
appointment in the Mexican navy, from which
he returned in ill health, he was chosen by the
supporters of John Quincy Adams to be editor
of a new paper, The Marylander, created as the
organ of their cause. This paper appeared twice
weekly from Dec. 5, 1827, and was edited by
Pinkney until in 1828 failing health compelled
him to retire. He died, less than twenty-six
years old, and was buried in the Unitarian ceme-
tery. In 1872 his body was moved to the Pink-
ney lot in Greenmount Cemetery. On Oct 12,
1824, he married Georgiana McCausland, daugh-
ter of a citizen of Baltimore of Irish birth ; they
had one child. The poet is described by a con-
temporary as "a very handsome man/* He was
punctilious in matters of honor and was several
times involved in challenges, though there is no
record of his having fought a duel. One of these
challenges was to John Neal [g.*/.], who refused
to fight, and Pinkney posted him as a^ coward,
Brief and varied as Ms career was, Ms lyrics,
particularly "A Health" and "Serenade," liave
won him what seems a secure place in American
poetry.
[T. 0. Mabbott and F. L. PleadweJl, Tfc >Ufe **d
War** of Edward Coot* Pinkney <w*S) ; ^^
Boyle Bioa. Sketches of Distongmshed M^l^der*
(1877) C W. Hubner, Representative SoMernPo**
906 i Marylander, Apr, 16, 18*8 ; Baltimore P«
PINKNEY, NINIAN (June 7, iSn-Dec. i$,
in o , A--afVV«c
others tnade against what they thought an-tm- l877), naval surgeon, was bom m AW™>
^rimltv imDOsed by the commodore. After M(i, the son of Nfcian and Amelia (Grason)
imposed by
as restorec
involved in a disagreement
Tn the United States schoonei
^^^5^3*5==
625
Pinkney
"set all the idle world to going to France." Of
relatives who achieved distinction perhaps the
best known were his uncle, William Pinkney
[g.^.], the lawyer, diplomatist, and statesman,
and the poet, Edward Coote Pinkney [<?.#.], a
cousin. His brother William became Protestant
Episcopal Bishop of Maryland. Ninian Pinkney
was graduated from St. John's College in An-
napolis in 1830, and from Jefferson Medical Col-
lege, Philadelphia, with the degree of M.D., in
1833. The brilliant teacher of anatomy at Jeffer-
son, Granville Sharp Pattison, is said to have
looked upon Pinkney as his successor, but prob-
ably the glamour of travel and the certain income
led him to the navy in which he was commis-
sioned as assistant surgeon in 1834. After cruises
in South American waters and in the Mediter-
ranean, he served at the naval hospital in Phila-
delphia, 1838-39. In 1840 he was court-martialed
on charges of "disrespectful and provoking lan-
guage to a superior" and "conduct unbecoming
to an officer and gentleman." He was found
guilty of part of the charge and was suspended
for eight months, but he returned to the service
and for three years, 1841-44, was on the west
coast of South America. This duty was followed
by two years, 1844-46, on the receiving ship in
Baltimore, blockade duty during the war with
Mexico in 1846, and in 1852, by a coveted ap-
pointment at the Naval Academy. It was during
the duty at Callao, Peru, 1841-44, that he built
up a reputation for skill in surgery. This port
was the rendezvous for the whaling fleet in the
South Pacific, and to Pinkney fell the practice
from this source. From Apr. 20, 1841, to Nov.
29 of the same year he reported forty-one opera-
tions of a major character, with but one death.
After 1852, when he went to Annapolis, he took
an active interest in the affairs of the American
Medical Association and in improving conditions
in his own corps. He rarely missed an annual
meeting of the Association and in 1876 was
elected a vice-president.
After another cruise in the Mediterranean, and
duty at Washington, Pinkney was assigned as
surgeon of the fleet to Admiral David D. Por-
ter's squadron operating in the upper Mississippi.
He joined the flagship Black H&wk in December
1862, but spent his time largely on the hospital
ship Red Rover. His accomplishments under
Admiral Porter, who became his lifelong friend,
attest his ability. He had medical supervision
over eighty ships, organized in 1863 the hospital
at Memphis, named Pinkney Hospital in his
honor, and in one letter to his wife he mentions
having traveled 8,000 miles in visiting some
ninety-five ships and stations, distributing tnedi-
Pinkney
cal supplies. After the war he took quite an ac-
tive interest in politics. He had very definite
ambitions about becoming the head of his corps,
but the fates were to deny him this honor. He
retired on June 7, 1873, with the rank of commo-
dore, and settled with his wife and daughter in
Easton, Md., in the house, "Londonderry," which
he himself had planned and built. Here he died
after a short illness, leaving his widow, Mary
Sherwood Hamblcton, and his only child, Amelia,
[Sources include: J. M, Toner, memoir in Trans.
Am. Medic. Asso., vol. XXIX (1878) ; K, L. Headwell,
"Ninian Pinkney, M.D. (1811-1877)," Annals of
Medic. 1'Iist.t Nov. igzg, Jan, 1930 ; War of the Rebel-
lion: Official Records- (Navy)t i ser. XXIV, XXV, and
XXVI; D. D, Porter, Incidents and Anecdotes of the
Civil War (1885) ; Orlando Htitton, Life of the Right
Reverend Win. Pinkney, D.D., LL.D, ^i8go) ; the GV
scttc (Baltimore), Dec. 17, 1877; family papers; and
the S, A. Harrison Collection, Md. Hist, Soc.l
F.L.P.
PINKNEY, WILLIAM (Mar. 17,
25, 1822), lawyer, statesman, diplomat, was born
at Annapolis, Mel., one of four children of Jona-
than Pinkney, an English immigrant, and Ann
Rind, his second wife. The latter, a native of
Annapolis, was a sister of Margaret Rind, Jona-
than's first wife, by whom he had one child.
When the father's property was confiscated by
reason of Loyalist sentiment in the Revolution,
poverty necessitated the son's withdrawal from
the King William School of Annapolis, at the
age of thirteen. In overcoming the handicap of
deficient education, Pinkney devoted a lifetime
to intense study. According to tradition, he fa-
vored Maryland's cause in the war and would
often elude the paternal vigilance to mount guard
with the Continental soldiers. Sometime later,
while he was receiving instruction in medicine
from a Baltimore physician, a fortuitous occur-
rence changed the course of his life. Samuel
Chase [#.#.] heard him debate in a society of
medical students and, perceiving his aptitude for
the law, offered the use of his library if he would
undertake its study. Pinkney accepted; and in
February 1783 entered Chase's office to master
the obscurities of pleading and tenures from the
black-letter learning- of the day. He was called
to the bar in 1786 and removed to Harford Coun-
ty to practise.
His first efforts attracted public attention and
resulted in his election to the state convention
that ratified the Federal Constitution, in April
1788, although Pinkney, under the influence of
Chase, voted against its ratification; a circum-
stance worthy of note in view of his later pre-
eminence as a constitutional lawyer, (See B. C.
Steiner, "Maryland's Adoption of the Federal
Constitution/' American Historical R&view, Oo
626
Pinkney*
tobcr 1899 and January 1900; but Rev. William
Pinkney, post, p. 17, insinuates that he voted for
it.) He was a member of the legislature con-
tinuously from October 1788 until his retirement
in 1792. At the session in 1789 he delivered a
florid speech advocating the abolition of slavery
which, twenty years later, was published and
distributed in Congress by the Quakers to chal-
lenge the consistency of his position on the Mis-
souri question. On Mar. 16, 1789, he was married
at Havre dc Grace to Ann Maria Rodgers, sister
of Commodore John Rodgers [#.£'.] of the United
States Navy ; ten children — one of them being
Edward Coote Pinkney [g.v.] — were born of
this union, all of whom survived him, A capri-
cious clement in his character was exhibited in
connection with his election to the Second Con-
gress in 1790, which was disputed because he
did not reside in the district from which he was
chosen. He stubbornly contested the point and
then, when successful, refused to serve. He was
appointed a member of the state executive coun-
cil in 1792 and was chairman of the council board
when he resigned in 1795.
Meanwhile his rise at the bar had been sen-
sational and, in 1796, Washington selected him
as joint commissioner with Christopher Gore
[$.?/.] , under the seventh article of the Jay Treaty,
to adjust American claims for maritime losses.
Eight strenuous years in London followed, sig-
nificant years in his development. Speeches
heard in Parliament and in the courts were the
models of his later efforts. Contact with men of
culture revealed, to his discomfort, the dearth of
his own. Accordingly, he was tutored in Latin
and Greek, read widely in law and literature,
declaimed in private, and began a diligent study
of dictionaries and lexicons that was never there-
after relaxed. From the work of the commission
he also found time successfully to terminate a
chancery suit instituted more than a decade be-
fore by Samuel Chase, recovering for the State
of Maryland a large quantity of stock in the Bank
of England. His prestige was great when lie
returned to practice in Baltimore in 1804, and
on Dec. I, 1805, he became attorney-general of
Maryland. He relinquished this office, however,
after six months' service.
Following Pinkney's return, British Admiralty
courts began to justify the condemnation of
American shipping by reviving the so-called
"Rule of the War of 1756." *n January 1806 a
memorial attacking this "Rule" was drafted by
Pinkney for the merchants of Baltimore and for-
warded to Congress (Memorial of the Merchants
of Baltimore, on the Violation of Our Neutral
Rights, 1806). It induced Jefferson to appoint
627
Pinkney
him, in the following April, as joint commis-
sioner with James Monroe [#.£>,], then minister
resident in London, to treat with the British cabi-
net on the subjects of reparations and impress-
ments. Wholly abandoning the three conditions
that by their instructions were to form the
foundation of the agreement, they signed a treaty
remarkable for its failure even to bind the Brit-
ish government. Jefferson angrily repudiated it
without consulting the Senate, yet when Monroe
left England in October 1807, Pinkney was re-
tained as minister. Immediately affairs became
further complicated by the attack of the Leopard
on the Chesapeake and the issuance of the Brit-
ish Orders in Council. Throughout the next four
years Pinkney sought fruitlessly to obtain repa-
ration for the former and repeal of the latter.
No more difficult, futile task has been assigned
to an American diplomat The presence of a
strong Anglophile party at home embarrassed
his negotiations, while the conciliatory manner
he was forced to adopt diminished his effective-
ness. His correspondence with Canning, the
foreign secretary, was distinguished alike for
restraint under irritation and strength of argu-
ment. In finesse, however, he was wanting. On
one occasion he was cajoled into making a writ-
ten offer to repeal the Embargo in return for re-
peal of the Orders and, because the offer vio-
lated instructions, was deeply mortified by its
prompt rejection. At length his notes to Welles-
ley, Canning's successor, elicited only vague re-
plies after long delays, and Pinkney broke rela-
tions, rather inamicably, Feb. 28, 1811, convincec
that matters would lead, as they did, to war. Tc
admirers of Pinkney the lawyer, Pinkney the
diplomat was disappointing. Moreover, there
were numerous strictures in the press upon vari-
ous phases of his work. Henry Adams declares
however, that "America never sent an abler rep-
resentative to the Court of London*1 (Adams
post, VI, 21 ).
On his return he was appointed attorney-gen
eral in Madison's cabinet, Dec. ri, 1811, and ii
this office assumed undisputed leadersMp of th<
American bar, a leadership he maintained tinti
his death. Owing to the introduction of a bill ii
Congress, requiring the residence of the attor
ney-general at the seat of government, he re
signed abruptly, Feb. 10, 1814, before the bill wa
even reported out of committee. In pamphlets
under the pseudonym Publius, he vigorously si^i
ported the War of 1812, and as a major of Marj
land militia he commanded a battalion of riieme
in the battle of Bladensburg, Aug. 24 18,14* h
ing severely wounded in the arm. At uie Jffit
raary term of the Supreme Court m I$IS • &
Pinkney
delivered a speech in the celebrated case of The
Ncrcidc (9 Cranch, 388), that was even ex-
tolled in the opinion (p. 430). He served in the
Fourteenth Congress from Mar. 4, 1815, until
Apr. 1 8, 1816, when he resigned to accept ap-
pointment as minister to Russia with a special
mission to Naples en route. The object of the
Naples mission was to obtain compensation from
the existing: government for shipping seized un-
der the Murat regime. Through the strategy of
the Marchese di Circello in avoiding an answer
to Pinkney's note until after he had been forced
to proceed on his way, the mission utterly failed
and compensation was never secured. The pros-
pect upon his arrival in Russia in January 1817
was not promising, for the controversy that fol-
lowed the arrest of Kosloff, a Russian consul in
America, had only recently been settled. Not-
withstanding, he quickly accomplished one ob-
ject of his mission by procuring the recall of
every Russian diplomatic officer in the United
States; and though he failed to negotiate the
commercial treaty that was his primary object,
he succeeded in establishing more friendly rela-
tions with Russia than had ever theretofore ex-
isted. His impatience to return to the bar had
been daily increasing and, in declining appoint-
ment as minister to England, he wrote Monroe,
"My desire is to be a mere lawyer" (Wheaton,
Life, p. 160). In February 1818, he left Russia
without awaiting his recall.
It was while serving in the United States Sen-
ate from Dec. 21, 1819, until his death that, as
an interpreter of the Constitution, Pinkney per-
formed his greatest work. In the Senate debates
on the Missouri question, he became the cham-
pion of the slave-holding states and his speeches
in opposition to Rufus King [q.v.'] were an im-
portant factor in bringing about the Compromise,
His most distinguished labors, however, were in
the Supreme Court, where his arguments in Mc~
Culloch vs. Maryland (4 Wheaton, 316) and in
Cohens vs. Virginia (6 Wheaton, 264) were his
crowning achievements. Of the former, Justice
Story wrote : "I never, in my whole life, heard
a greater speech ; it was worth a trip from Salem
to hear it ... his eloquence was overwhelming"
(Life and Letters, post, I, 325).
During these years his foppish dress, his af-
fected, flamboyant manner of delivery, and his
extravagant rhetoric made him a vivid, pic-
turesque figure. Women crowded to hear him
and Pinkney, excessively vain, sought their ap-
proval as much as the Court's. He literally lived
for applause. Though he desired to excel in every-
thing, his ruling ambition was to excel at the
bar, and to sustain his reputation there he toiled
Pinkney
incessantly, feverishly ; yet, oddly enough, sought
to create the impression that his knowledge re-
sulted from hasty incursions and that his precise
citations of cases, made in an offhand manner,
were but chance recollections. Toward those
who challenged his supremacy his conduct was
insolent and ungenerous. Much criticism re-
sulted from insults offered in court to Thomas
Addis Emmet (1764-1827) and William Wirt
[qq.v.], and a duel with the latter was narrowly
averted. For frequent discourtesies to Daniel
Webster, the latter boasted of having extorted an
apology under threat of a beating" ( Harvey, post,
pp. 121-23). Conspicuous in Pinkney's physical
appearance were his square shoulders, erect car-
nage, and intense blue eyes, but most conspicu-
ous were the deep furrows in his face and the
heavy circles under his eyes, and to conceal them
he usecl cosmetics. lie wore corsets to diminish
his bulk. Despite apparent rofmst health, he was
a hypochondriac. In society he was haughty and
reserved. He had little sense of humor. Though
he spent sixteen years in Europe, he was of coun-
sel in seventy-two Supreme Court cases and ac-
quired what has been described as the most ex-
tensive and lucrative practice of his time. That
he was the most talented, versatile advocate of
his time there can be little doubt Volumes of
contemporary eulogy attest his superiority. Chief
Justice Marshall proclaimed him "the greatest
man I ever saw in a Court of justice" (Tyler,
post, p. 141), Chief Justice Taney wrote thirty
years after his death ; "I have heard almost all
the great advocates of the United States, both
of the past and present generation, but I have
seen none equal to Pinkney" (Ibid., p. 71). He
never wrote his speeches, however, and no
product of his pen that remains would seem a
worthy index of his living1 fame. But fame in
life he considered more desirable and strove to
preserve it with increasing anxiety until, ex-
hausted by overwork, he died at Washington and
was buried there in the Congressional Cemetery,
[The two biographies are : Henry Wheaton, Some
Account of the Ltf®> Writings, and Speeches of William
Pinkney (1826) and Rev, William Pinkney, The Lif&
of William Pinkney (1853). Both are inadequate and
panegyric ; the latter must be read with care. Another
sketch by Wheaton appears in Jared Sparka, Th& Lib,
of Am. Biog*, vol. VI (1836), For good sketches see
H, H. Hagan, Bight Great Am, Lawyers (1933) and A,
S. Niles In vol. II (1907) of Great Am. Lawyers, ed,
by W, D, Lewis, The following periodicals are impor-
tant: Law Reporter, Sept. 1846; Albany Law Jour,,
Aug. 20, 1870, Mar, 18, 1876, Aug, *, 1879 ; JV. /. State
BarAsso. Year Book, 1906-07 ; £7, S, Law Intelligencer,
Aug. 1830 ; Am. Lawyer f July 1905 : No. Am* R&v,t
Jan, 1827. For amusing anecdote tee Forum (London) ,
Jan, 1874- On diplomatic career see ; Am, State Pap&r$t
Foreign Relations, vote, III, IV (i 83^-34) : J, C Hildt,
"Early Diplomatic Negotiations of the U S. with Rus-
sia," 10 JoJms Hefrkfos Uftfo. Studies to &&*, md FoJ,
628
Pinney
Sci.t vol. XXIV (1906) ; Letters and Other Writings of
James Madison (4 vols., 1865) ; Henry Adams, Hist, of
the U. S. (g vols., 1889-93) ; Madison and Monroe
Papers (MSS. Div., Lib, of Cong). For contempo-
raneous estimates see Win. Sullivan, Familiar Letters
on Public Characters (1834) ; W. P. Kennedy, Memoirs
of the Life of William Wirt (2 vols., 1849) ; Life and
Letters of Joseph Story (2 vols., 1851) and The Mis-
cellaneous Writings of Joseph Story (1852), both ed.
by W. W. Story; Samuel Tyler, Memoir of Roger
Brooke Tancy (1876) ; Life, Letters and Journals of
George Ticknor (2 vols., 1876), ed. by A. E. Ticknor
and A. E. HilHard ; Peter Harvey, Reminiscences and
Anecdotes of Daniel Webster (1877) J A. J. Beveridge,
The Life of John Marshall, vol. IV (1919) ; Daily Na-
tional Intelligencer (Washington), Feb. 26, 1822. The
source for date of marriage is "Maryland Marriages,
1777-1804" (typescript in Md. Hist. Soc.) ; genealogi-
cal material has been taken from records in the pos-
session of Mrs. L. Roberts Carton, Towson, Md.]
J.J.D.
PINNEY, NORMAN (Oct. 21, i8o4-Oct. i,
1862), clergyman, educator, was born in Sims-
bury, Conn., the son of Butler Pinney, whose
wife was Eunice (Griswold), widow of Oliver
Holcomb. He was a descendant of Humphrey
Pinne, who emigrated from England to Dor-
chester, Mass., in 1630. Norman received a col-
lege training at Yale, where he won the Berk-
leian Premium and was graduated in 1823. On
June 14, 1826, he was elected tutor at Washing-
ton (now Trinity) College, Hartford, Conn.,
and two years later was appointed adjunct pro-
fessor of ancient languages, with an annual
salary of $600. He resigned this position on
Sept 5, 1831. Soon afterward he was ordained
by Bishop Thomas C. Brownell of the Protestant
Episcopal Church, who was also president of
Washington College. In 1829 Brownell had
traveled through Kentucky, Mississippi, Louisi-
ana, and Alabama, where his visits lent impetus
to the growth of the Episcopal Church, and it
was probably due to his influence that in 1831
Pinney went to Mobile as rector of Christ
Church. He was active both in his parish and
in the affairs of the diocese, Judging from his
one published discourse, A Sermon Preached
My 5t 1835 in Christ's Church, Mobile (1835),
he took his responsibilities seriously yet cheer-
fully ; the sermon is marked by clear analysis,^
enlightened spirit, and a sensible tone. During
his rectorship the floor of the church building
fell under the weight of the crowd attending a
Fourth of July service. Having came to differ
with the doctrines of his Church, he withdrew
from the ministry, and was formally displaced
by Bishop James H. Otey, on Feb. 27, 1836.
Later, he became a Unitarian.
Pintard
Institute (1836). He foresaw that New Orleans
was to become the commercial center of a great
inland empire, and hoped that Mobile might
aspire to be the educational and cultural center
of this region. He understood that in a democ-
racy there is peculiar need for proper education,
and considered that the education of his time was
too theoretical. He opposed the plan on which
many colleges and schools were then being
founded, which provided that students should
spend part of their time in farm work, on the
ground that such labor was "incompatible with
that neatness of dress and cleanliness of person
which befits a student." He stressed the value
of unrestricted sport for boys, and thought cor-
poral punishment necessary only in rare and un-
usual cases. He attached Importance to Latin,
mathematics, and English composition, but put
less emphasis on history, modern languages, and
sciences. The last named he thought important,
but not "to be taught in all their minute detail."
Parents who wanted their children educated in
order to make more money "must of course re-
gard money, not merely as the chief good, but as
the only good." The Institute prospered, and
many men later conspicuous in Mobile history
were educated there. Pinney had important
qualifications as an educator and was especially
noted for the patient firmness with which he suc-
ceeded in bringing out whatever capacity there
was in his pupils. He lived quietly, and took no
active part in public affairs. Shortly before his
death he went to New Orleans, intending to
found a boys* school there, but died after a brief
illness. He published a number of textbooks,
the most of which went through several editions.
They include Practical French Teacher (1847) ;
First Book in French (1848) ; The Progressive
French Reader (1850) ; The Practical Spanish
Teacher (1855); with Juan Barcelo; Easy
Lessons in Pronouncing and Speaking French
(1860) ; French Grammar (1861), with femle
Arnoult Apparently he never married
[L Y. Pinney, Geneal of the Pinney Fmmly in
America (1924) ; H. R Stiles, The Hist and Genea^.
of Ancient Windsor, Conn., vol. II (1892); Utot.
Record Grads. Yale Colt, 1863 ; information from the
treasurer's office, Trinity Coll., Hartford, COWL; reo
ords of the dioceses of Miss, and Tenn. ; Erwm^Craigr-
head, Mobile, Fact and Tradition (1930) J Pwayane
(New Orleans), Oct. 2, 1862.} Jt P. M.
PINTARD, JOHN (May 18, 1759-J^ ^
1844), merchant, philanthropist, was born m
New York, the son of John and Mary (Canon}
Pintard, and was descended from Anthony Pin-
tute, a school for boys. His educational ..ideas settbd at
are set forth in his booklet of fifty-six pages, Tfcf both parents during ta itat y^to
Principles of Edition « AppK^d m ffcr Mobile seagoing merchant, dying on a itrpge to *W».
629
Pintard
John was brought up by his uncle, Lewis Pintard
[q.v.]. After preparing at the grammar school
of the Rev, Leonard Cutting at Hemp stead, Long
Island, he attended the College of New Jersey
where he received the degree of A.B, in 1776
after running away for a brief military service.
He served for some time as deputy to his uncle,
who was commissioner of prisoners at New
York. In 1780 he went to Paramus, N. J., for a
while, and then was associated in his uncle's
mercantile operations. On Nov. 12, 1784, he
married a celebrated beauty, Eliza, daughter of
Abraham Brashear of Paramus. They had two
daughters. Inheriting a legacy from his maternal
grandfather, he was enabled to go into the China
and East India business on his own account, and
until 1792, when he was dragged down by the
crash of the stock speculations of William Duer
[#.#.], he was rated as one of New York's most
successful and prosperous merchants. Pintard,
who had indorsed his notes for more than a mil-
lion, it is said, lost his entire fortune and was
even imprisoned for debt. For eight years he
resided at Newark and then declared himself
bankrupt in New York. For a short while he
was book auctioneer and editor of the Daily Ad-
vertiser. He then went to New Orleans to try
his fortune but decided not to settle there, and
was soon back in New York where he spent the
rest of his life. He never recovered his old for-
tune, but his positions as secretary of the pioneer
New York fire insurance company and later as
bank president seem to have enabled him to con*
tribute generously to the various movements
which he sponsored.
Pintard's great work was as a promoter. "He
could indite a handbill," says Scoville, "that
would inflame the minds of the people for any
good work. He could call a meeting with the pen
of a poet, and before the people met, he would
have arranged the doings for a perfect success.
He knew the weak points of every man, and he
would gratify the vanity of men and get their
money/' DeWitt Clinton was always ready to
allow Pintard to use his name and moral support
for any measure. He developed a real passion
for the preservation of historical manuscripts.
He purchased a valuable collection of material
on the Revolution from a Tory clergyman. In
1789, while visiting Jeremy Belknap, he gave the
initial impulse which resulted in the establish-
ment of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
In 1791 he organized a historical museum under
the auspices of the Tammany Society of which
he was the first sagamore and later grand sachem.
After the museum passed into private hands,
Pintard carried out his original idea by taking
Pintard
the leading part in organizing the New York
Historical Society in 1804. It was one of the
many organizations which he served for years
as secretary. He also developed the systematic
municipal recording of vital statistics during his
term (1804-10) as clerk of the corporation and
city inspector of New York City.
Religious activity also appealed to him. He
was for thirty-four years vestryman of the Epis-
copalian Huguenot church in New York and
translated the Prayer-Book into French for its
use. He was also a prime mover in founding
the General Theological Seminary and was active
in raising funds for it The American Bible
Society, which he called his "brat," he served as
secretary and vice-president. He had been an
alderman in 1788 and 1789, and in 1790 he sat
in the state legislature. After the War of 1812
he helped to revive the Chamber of Commerce
and was its secretary from 1817 to 1827. In 1815
he promoted a mass meeting in favor of the Erie
Canal project He engineered the organization
of New York's first savings bank in 1819 and
was its president from 1828 to 1841. He was also
interested in the Sailors' Snug Harbor, the
House of Refuge, and the Mercantile Library.
A Trumbull portrait shows a handsome and
kindly face, with a high forehead. Belknap de-
scribed him as "very loquacious and unreserved/'
He had been deafened in youth by a Fourth of
July explosion and in his last years was nearly
blind. He died in New York at the home of a
daughter.
[The chief source is J, G, Wilson, "John Pintard,
Founder of the N, K, Hist, $oc." an Address before
the N. Y, Hist. Soc.f Dec. 3. /poi (1902), See also:
J. A. Scoville (,W. Barrett), Biog, Sk&tch of John
Pintard (1863) and The Old Merchants of AT, Y. City
(5 vols., 1863-69) ; Pros, Mass, Histt Soc.f vol I
(1879), P- xi» E. P. Kilroe, Saint Tammany and the
Origin of the Soc. of Tammany (1913) ; J, G, Wilson,
The Memorial Hist, of the City of N. Y. (4 vols.,
1 893-93) ; material in the alumni files of Princeton
Univ« ; M Y. Commercial Advertiser, June aa, 1844,]
R.G.A.
PINTARD, LEWIS (Oct. I, 1732-Har, 25,
1818), merchant, commissary of prisoners, was
born in New York City, the son of John and
Catherine (Carr£) Pintard. He was descended
from Anthony Pintard who had escaped from his
native La Rochelle after the revocation of the
Edict of Nantes and In 1695 settled in Shrews-
bury, N, J, Lewis received a fair schooling and
a good commercial training Jn his father's pros-
perous shipping and commission business to
which he later succeeded* By his marriage with
Susan Stockton of Princeton, N. J,, he became
the brother-in-law of Richard Stockton, a signer
of the Declaration of Independence, and brother-
in-law of Elias Boudinot [qqw,]* In 1760, after
630
Pintard
the death of his brother John, he practically
adopted the infant nephew, also named John
fg,^.]. By the outbreak of the Revolution, Pin-
tard was reckoned as one of the substantial mer-
chants of New York City. He was a member of
the Committee of One Hundred, organized in
New York in the spring of 1775. Shortly after-
ward the Provincial Congress appointed Henry
Renisen, Jacobus Van Zandt, and Pintard as a
committee to procure gunpowder and clothing
from Europe. They raised nearly £4000 on sub-
scription and in September chartered the sloop
Nancy, sending her to Bordeaux for the neces-
sary supplies which arrived the following sum-
mer by the way of St. Eustatius and Providence,
R.I.
Pintard remained in New York City after the
British occupation and was able to carry on a
moderate amount of business during the war.
He became commissary of prisoners and held the
position until relieved late in the war by Abra-
ham Skinner. There were about 5,000 American
prisoners in and around New York in the Pro-
vost, in various church and sugar houses, and in
the hulks in Wallabout Bay, including the noto-
rious Jersey, Pintard, with the aid of several
deputies, did what he could to relieve their suf-
fering's. He distributed the money and supplies
gathered by Gov. George Clinton and others for
the relief of the prisoners. He managed to
secure easy and regular access to the prisoners
and was active in arranging exchanges. Bad as
conditions were, they would probably have been
considerably worse had it not been for Pintard' s
work. At the close of the Revolution he was
commissioner for liquidating claims in the state
of New Jersey against the United States, a re-
sponsible task involving large discretionary
power.
For some time after the Revolution, Pintard
was the chief importer of Madeira wines into the
United States and an exporter of flaxseed to
Ireland, Then, like his nephew John, he suffered
a heavy financial loss through the collapse of an-
other whom he had trusted. Owing to the failure
of a Dublin consignee, his cargoes were seized
and £20,000 in bills protested. He was able to
continue, however, and engaged in the imports
tion of sugar and molasses from the West Indies
until the beginning of the War of 1812. During
these years he had commuted to New York f rom
his home in the nearby Huguenot town *tf New
Rochelle, where a street mow bears Ms aame^
In 1797 he was one " ""
of New Rochell&. He
of Ms If e at h
voting1 bttn$eil
Pinto
sacred^ scriptures and to the practice of every
Christian virtue in domestic life," and he died
there at the home of his son-in-law, Samuel
Bayard " "
[J. G. Wilson, "John Pintard, Founder of the JV. 7.
Hist. Soc." an Address before the N. 7. Hist. Soc
®?c- 3. 1901 (1902) ; J. A, Scoville (W. Barrett), Biog.
Sketch of John Pintard (1863) and The Old Merchants
of New York (5 vols., 1863^69) ; Huguenot Soc, of
America, Colls., I (1886), 195, 254 ; N. Y. in the Revo-
lution as Colony and State, vol. II (1904), pub. by E.
C. Knight; F. G. Mather, The Refugees of 1776 from
Long Island to Conn. (1913) J Danske Dandridge, Am.
Prisoners of the Revolution (1911) ; N. Y. Commercial
Advertiser, Apr. i, 1818,] R G A.
PINTO, ISAAC (June 12, i72o-Jan. 17, 1791),
merchant, scholar, and patriot, was a member of
a Portuguese family, a branch of which came to
North America, probably by way of Jamaica, be-
fore the middle of the eighteenth century. Some
members of the family settled in Connecticut as
early as 1724; others were settled in New York
by 1736. Their names are recorded in the earli-
est Minute Books of the Congregation Shearith
Israel. Isaac Pinto's name occurs in the records
of 1740-41, 1747, and 1750. Nothing is known
of his immediate ancestry or the place of his
birth, where he was educated or how he was re-
lated to the other members of the Pinto family.
From contemporary sources, he appears to have
been a merchant of means who lived from time
to time in different places. On the ledger of
Daniel Gomez, a New York merchant, he is
described in 1741 as being "now at Norwalk,
now at Strattsburg" (Publications of the Amer-
ican Jewish Historical Society, No. 27, 1920; p.
248). In 1760-62, he was in Charlestown, S. €.,
where he advertised himself in the Sowth Coro-
lina Gazette as a wholesale wine merchant. In
1764 his name was attached to a petition against
carrying into effect a certain act of the New
York legislature passed in December 1761 (D.
T, Valentine, Mtmtd of tke Corporatim of the
City of New York, 1850, pw 434)- In *768 lie
advertised for sale "Choice South Carolina Fink
Root" in many issues of the
In the supplement to the ""
July 23, 1770,
of 1765. In 1790 Ezra Stiles referrei to Mm in
Ms £>*ary as ffa learned Jew at New Yorlf (F.
li Dexter, Tke Lfawry Dway of .Bxn*- S*?fa>
igOl III, **"**' ¥T«wii Mrw. 1C I^OCX WES Ms
a teacher oi tfete Spanish language.
'tf& of '&&• first J«w*' t**y*r
The work
Pise
Rocks and Rock Minerals (1908) and of a text-
book of physical geology, which is Part I of the
Text Book of Geology (1915) by Pirsson and
Schuchert By 1929 Pirsson's part had gone
through three editions and was the most widely
used textbook of geology in the world.
[Sources include: Whitman Cross, "Biog. of Louis
Valentine Pirsson," Am. Jour. Sci., Sept. 1920; R.
H, Chittendcn, Hist, of the Sheffield Sci. School, vol.
II (1928) ; Yale Univ. Obit. Record of Grads. Deceased
During the Year Ending July if 1920 (1921) ; Science,
May 28, 1920; New Haven Journal-Courier, Dec. 9,
1919; private diaries ; records of the governing board,
Sheffield Scientific School, personal acquaintance.]
A. M. B.
PISE, CHARLES CONSTANTINE (Nov.
22, i8oi-May 26, 1866), Roman Catholic priest
and writer, was born in Annapolis, Mel, the son
of an educated Italian refugee, Louis Pise, who
married Marguerite Gamble, member of an old
Philadelphia family. Charles was sent to George-
town College, where in 1815 he joined the Jesuits
and attracted the notice of Archbishop Ambrose
Marechal [#,*/.], by Latin verses written for the
Commencement of 1819. In 1820 he withdrew
and was sent by Marechal to Rome. Returning
a year later, he completed his theological course
at Mount St. Mary's, Emmitsburg, Mel., where
he was associated with three future archbishops,
McCloskey, Purcell, and Hughes. Ordained by
Marechal, Mar. 19, 1825, he taught rhetoric at
the "Mount," served as a curate in the cathedral
at Baltimore, and as an assistant at St. Patrick's
Church in Washington, where he gained a repu-
tation as a preacher of polished sermons. Dur-
ing these years, he wrote "Celara," a poem of
the fifteenth century; a Latin elegy on Pius VII ;
and "Montezuma," a drama in three acts, which
was presented by the students of Mount St.
Mary's in 1824. These remained in manuscript,
but in addition, he published an apologetic novel,
Father Rowland (1829), which was well re-
ceived in religious circles; The Indian Cottage,
A Unitarian Story (1829), in defense of the
divinity of Christ, which was reprinted serially
in the Catholic Expositor (1842) ; and History
of the Church from Its Establishment to the
Present Century (5 vols<, 1827-30), which was
never completed beyond the beginning of the
sixteenth century. While hardly more than a
well-written compilation, this study offered the
best Catholic account of the church in English
and was certainly the most extended literary
work achieved by an American Catholic up to
that time. Indeed, prior to Pise, Catholic litera-
ture in the United States was confined practically
to translations and reprints of foreign authors.
In 1832 he revisited Europe. At Rome, he re-
ceived on examination the doctorate in divinity.
Pise
and was dubbed a Knight of the Sacred Palace]
and Count Palatine by Gregory XVI, an honor
not heretofore held by an American. At the
same time he was created a Knight of the Holy
Roman Empire,
On his return to Washington, he was nom-
inated by Henry Clay, who was rather generally
supported politically by the old American Cath-
olic element, for the chaplaincy of the United
States Senate, and was duly elected, Dec. n,
1832, despite an intense nativist opposition in
press and pulpit to his creed and foreign honors.
A slight honor, it nevertheless was a marked
recognition of Pise, for he was the only Catholic
priest ever selected for that office. His social
relations, apparently, were highly satisfactory,
because of the friendship of Jackson. A tem-
porary pastor at Annapolis (1833), he was
called by Bishop John Dubois [#,?'.] to New
York in 1834, where he labored in the parish of
St. Joseph's, rent at the time by trusteetsm, until
he was appointed an assistant to Dr. John Power
[q.v.] at St Peter's Church in 1840. Two years
later he went abroad to collect funds for the
orphanage connected with St Peter's, armed
with a letter of introduction from President
Tyler to American representatives in Europe.
While in Ireland, he came under the influence of
Father Theobold Mathew and returned an ar-
dent temperance worker and a friend of the Irish
immigrant, though in Irish circles he was crit-
icized for his observations on Ireland in the
Catholic Expositor ancl particularly for his con-
demnation of the Irish clergy for their lack of
sympathy for the Mathew movement. In 1849
he built the church of St. Charles Borromeo in
Brooklyn, of which he was pastor until his
death.
His literary labors did not slacken* With Felix
Varela [#,#*] » with whom he was earlier asso-
ciated as a founder of the ephemeral Protestant
Abridger and Expositor (1832), he launched
in 1841 The Catholic Expositor and Literary
Magazine, Among his books were The Pleasures
of Religion and Other Poems (1833), dedicated
to Washington Irving; Aletheia, ort Letters on
the Truth of Catholic Doctrine (1843, reprinted
1894) ; a eulogistic biography, Saint Ignatius
and His First Companions (1845), which in
revised form is still in circulation ; Lectures on
the Invocation of the Saints* Veneration of
Sacred Images and Purgatory (1845) ; Zenosius
or the Pilgrim Convert (1845), an artificial re-
minder of Bunyan; The Catholic Bride (1847),
translated from the Italian; and Christiomty cmd
the Church (1850), an adaptation of Louis
Lahur^s Le Christiamsme @t ks Philosopher
634
Pitcairn
(1846). A Southerner to the core, he was
saddened by the Civil War, though his loyalty de
jure could not be questioned. As a brilliant
lecturer, Pise had considerable vogue, but as a
critic he was too kindly, just as he was less
effective as a controversialist because he was
gentle and never acrimonious.
[Sister Eulalia T. Moffatt, "Charles Constantine
Plise (1801-1866)," U. S. Cath. Hist. Soc., Hist. Rec-
ords and Studies, vol. XX (1931); J. T. Smith, The
Cath. Church in N, F. (1905) ; M. J. Finotti, Bibtto-
fjraphia Catholica Americana (1872) ; U. S. Cath. Hist.
Soc., Hist. Records and Studies, vol. II (2 parts, 1900-
01) ; Cath. Encyc. XII, 116; M. J. Riordan, Cathedral
Records (1906) ; F. X. McSweeny, Story of the Moun-
tain (1911) ; James Fitton, Sketches of the Establish-
mcnt of the Church in New England (1872) ; Peter
Ross, A Hist, of L. I. (1902), I, 807; Columbia, Nov.
1927 ; New York Freeman's Jour, and Cath. Reg., June
2\ 1866 ; N. Y. Herald, May 27, 1866.] R. J. P.
PITCAIRN, JOHN (i/22-June 1775), Brit-
ish officer, was born at Dysart, Scotland, the son
of the Rev. David Pitcairn and his wife, Kath-
erine Hamilton. As a young man he sought
Pit cairn
redoubt It is said that the fatal shot was fire<
by a negro, Peter Salem, who is depicted «
Trumbull's picture of the battle, but there hav<
been other claimants. His son, a lieutenant ii
the marines, bore him to the water's edge, wheno
he was transferred to a house in the North En<
where he died not long after, despite the minis
tration of a physician sent to his bedside at th<
special request of Gage. His remains were a
first interred under Christ Church. Later the}
were transferred by friends to the church of St
Bartholomew the Less, London. He was per
haps the only British officer in Boston who com
manded the trust and liking of the Inhabitants
It is reported that whenever the townspeople ha<
a dispute with the military, they would refer i
to him, confident of obtaining just and consid
erate treatment. By his men he was beloved as
a father, and among the last acts of his life was
the drafting of a letter to Lord Sandwich in be-
half of the worthy and unfortunate under his
command. The Lexington Historical Society
possesses his pistols and a charming miniaturt
of him.
[Chas. Hudson, "The Character o£ Maj. John Pit
cairn," Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., vol. XVII (1880) ; F
B. Dexter, ed, The Lit. Diary of Ezra Stiles (1901)
vol. I ; Richard Frothingham, Hist, of the Siege o]
Boston (1849); Constance Pitcairn, The Hist, of fht
Fife Pitcairns (1905) ,* Harold Murdock, Earl Percy':
n
Dinner-Table (1907) and The Nineteenth of Apri
17 7 S (1925) ; Allen French, The Day of Concord am
Lexington (1925).] E.E.C.
PITCAIRN, JOHN (Jan. 10, i84i-July 22
1916), manufacturer, philanthropist, the son oi
service in the Royal Marines, being commissioned
captain, June 8? 1756, and major, Apr. 19, 1771.
He married Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Dal-
rymple, of Arnsfield, Dumfriesshire, and Dreg-
horn Castle, in Midlothian. Of their children
two obtained eminence, Robert as a naval officer
and David as a physician. (Biographies of both
are in the Dictionary of National Biography.)
Pitcairn accompanied the marines sent to gar-
rison Boston in 1774. He went with the troops
disoatched by Gen. Gage on the night of Apr.
convince the inhabitants that the British meant ^.^^f^2'^^^
no injury, but apparently without complete sue- ^^^^ Fort Wayne & Chicago rafl-
cess, since, accordi ng toS »'* s reP° « > ™e and ^ Philadelphia & Erie Railroad, *
the townspeople struck him. There is a persist w 3 . . _ ... T,.:T — A i
ent tradition— the truth of which is challenged
by reliable authority— that he went to Wrights
Tavern, and calling for a drink, stirred the
brandy in his glass with his finger ^daring
that he hoped he would stir the Yankee blood so
before night. On the march back to J*"^
his horse, frightened by a sudden volley, threw
him off and escaped, obliging him to continue
on foot. In the battle of Bunker fflB he was «^ •£-<£££» of crude petroleum,
Drtally wounded while storming the American also m we
635
well as with the Pennsylvania
jras steady, but not spectacular
, _ resigned the general manager*!]
Creek & Allegheny Valley Railroac
e partner in the firm of Vm
& Company (later Vanier
& Company), interested r~ ~~ ~
ous pnases 01 fuel distribution. The
the Imperial Refinery at Oil City, Pa.
dergnft,
mor
Pitcairn
cairn is said to have been among the first to
recognize the possibilities of the use of natural
gas as fuel in manufacturing. A natural gas
pipe line, perhaps the first in the United States,
was laid from Butler County, Pa., to Pittsburgh
under the control of Pitcairn and his partner,
J. J. Vandergrift.
The most significant part of his business ca-
reer was his connection with the plate-glass in-
dustry. In 1882 it was proposed to pipe natural
gas to a glass factory to be built at Creighton,
Pa., and Pitcairn's advice was asked. He be-
came interested in the project to manufacture
plate glass, which had hitherto never been suc-
cessful in the United States. With Captain John
B. Ford and others, Pitcairn became in 1883 one
of the organizers of the Pittsburgh Plate Glass
Company, an enormously successful venture. A
director of the company from its incorporation,
he was from 1897 to 1905 its president, and from
1894 until his death chairman of the board of
directors. As president he inaugurated a policy
of extensive experimentation with manufacturing1
methods. Among the successes achieved under
this policy the lehr annealing process is worthy
of note. This process of slow, controlled cooling
of sheet glass, perfected between 1900 and 1904,
has become standard in the industry. During
the period of Pitcairn's influence, the company's
capacity was greatly increased; at the time of
his death it had built and was operating eight
factories.
From 1905 until 1916 Pitcairn was increas-
ingly absorbed by the religious activities which
had been an important part of his life for many
years. He was a follower of Emanuel Sweclen-
borg and identified himself with that branch of
Swedenborgianism known as the General Church
of the New Jerusalem, which became a separate
religious entity in 1890. From then on he be-
came increasingly prominent as the most influ-
ential layman of that wing of the church, and
was the founder of its distinctive community at
Bryn Athyn, Pa. He was an enthusiastic sup-
porter of the doctrine of the General Church
that education was a proper and necessary func-
tion of the religious organization and was one
of the twelve original founders of the Academy
of the New Church at Philadelphia in June 1876.
In 1897 it was moved to Bryn Athyn, and two
years later it was generously endowed by Pit-
cairn. This unique school includes all phases of
education from kindergarten through theological
school.
It was Pitcairn's desire to give the community
a church building, and this was undertaken in
1912, with the firm of Cram & Ferguson as
Pitcher
architects. As plans were discussed, the origi-
nal conception of a small architecturally perfect
church was greatly expanded. Gradually there
was developed a cooperative organization for
the building of the church, with craftsmen pro-
ducing everything necessary — lumber, stone-
work, metal, glass, sculpture, cabinet-work, em-
broidery — in workshops at Bryn Athyn. It was
a kind of nee-medieval guild system. The result
is a magnificant group of ecclesiastical build-
ings, in a perfect natural sotting1 — on a hill with
a background of treCvS for the towers. The cen-
tral building is the Cathedral, fourteenth-cen-
tury Gothic in style; it is flunked by a choir
building and a council building, both in twelfth-
century Romanesque. At the time of Pitcairn's
death none of thorn had been finished. Pitcairn
was married on Jan, 8, 1884, to Gertrude Star-
key, who cliccl in 1898. Of their six children,
three sons survived the father, who died at his
country home, "Cairuwotxl," at Bryn Athyn,
Ralph Adams Cram described him as "an old
gentleman of small stature, grave, courtly, keen-
ly intelligent, vigorous beyond his years, an acute
business man, and withal possessed of imagina-
tion and intense idealism" (American Architect f
May 29, 1918, p. 710).
[R, A. Cram, "A Note on Bryn Athyn Church," Am.
Architect, May ap, 1918 ; M, B. Block, The New Church
in the New World: A Study of Swedwiberffitmism in
America (193-') ; A Brief Handbook of Information
concerning the Cathedral-Church at tiryn Athyn, Pa.
(sth ed,, 1930) ; Glass, Paints, J-'arnw/uv and Brushes:
Their Hist,, Manufacture and Use (19-23), pub. by
Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company ; J, W, Jordan, ttncyc.
of Pa, Biaff., vol HI (1914) ; editorial in Jour, of ftduc.
of the Academy of the New Church t Jan, 1917 ; //. y.
Herald, July 53, 1916; Pub. Ledger (Phila,), July 33,
PITCHER, MOLLY [See MCCAULEY, MARY
LUDWXG HAYS, 1754-1832],
PITCHER, ZINA (Apr. 12, i797~Apr. 5,
1872), physician and naturalist, was born on a
farm near Fort Edward, Washington County,
N. Y., the son of Nathaniel Pitcher, a captain in
the Revolutionary army, and Margaret Steven-
son,^, native of Scotland. His father died early,
leaving- to the mother an unproductive farm and
the care and education of four sons* A woman
of strong personality, she laid the foundation for
a highly useful career for each of her boys. Zina
was educated in the common schools and in a
local academy. He began the study of medicine
with the neighborhood practitioners, then at-
tended^the medical school at Castleton, Vt, and,
according to the practice at the time, received
the degree of M,D. from Middlebury College
(1822), Shortly after graduation he entered the
army as an assistant surgeon and was sent to
636
Pitcher
Michigan where during the next eight years he
served at posts at Detroit, Saginaw, and Sault
St. Marie. He was next transferred to Fort
Gibson in the Indian Territory and thence to
Fortress Monroe, Va. While here in 1836 he
tendered his resignation to the War Department
and returned to Detroit to take up the private
practice of medicine. His military service was
mainly in pioneer^surroundings and in close as-
sociation with Indians. Wherever he went he
interested himself in the natural history of the
locality, particularly in botany, geology, and
meteorology. He furnished material for A Flora
of North America (2 vols., 1838-43), by John
Torrey and Asa Gray, and several new botanical
species were named after him. In all his con-
tacts with the Indians he sought the acquaintance
and the friendship of the tribal medicine men
and familiarized himself with their ideas and
practices. The result of this study is found in his
chapter on Indian medicine in Henry R. School-
craft's Information Respecting the History, Con-
dition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the
United States (vol. IV, 1854).
Pitcher had taken a prominent part in Detroit
life and had made strong friendships there dur-
ing his earlier stay, so that when he returned in
1836 he found himself from the first a leading
citizen. In 1837 he was appointed a member of
the first state board of regents, a position he held
until 1852. He initiated the movement for a
medical department at the University of Michi-
gan, was a member of the committee to study the
project, and participated in the opening • of the
school in 1850. He is credited with the selection
of the first faculty of the school and with the
draft of the rules to govern the department.
He was himself designated professor emeritus.
Owing to inadequate clinical material at Ann
Arbor he instituted a clinical summer course at
St Mary's hospital and the Marine hospital at
Detroit, beginning in 1857. He was designated
clinical instructor, the only teaching title that he
ever held. Faculty opposition caused the sus-
pension of these courses after two sessions. He
was elected mayor of Detroit three times, in
1840, 1841, and 1843. I*1 *844 he sought to as-
sist the presidential campaign of Henry Clay by
running for governor on the Whig ticket, but he
went down to defeat with his chief. While mayor
of Detroit he was responsible for the enact-
ment of a law by the state legislature which
eventually provided the city with its first free
public schools. From this beginning developed
the common-school system of the state. At vari-
ous times he held the positions of city physician,
county physician, member of the city board of
PitcMynn
health, and surgeon to the Government Marine
Hospital. For the greater part of his career he
was on the staff of St. Mary's hospital. He was
president of the Territorial Medical Society
(1838-51), of the Michigan State Medical So-
ciety (1855-56), and at the Detroit meeting of
the American Medical Association in 1856 he
was elected its president He was active in the
organization of the Detroit Sydenham Society
and of the city and county medical societies.
Pitcher was one of the incorporators of the
Michigan Historical Society in 1822, and upon
his return to Detroit, was appointed librarian of
the society. In 1853 he and Dr. Edmund An-
drews founded the Peninsular Journal of Medi-
cine. Upon the departure of Andrews to Chi-
cago in 1855, he became a co-editor of the
journal, continuing until 1858. He was later an
associate editor of the Richmond and Louisville
Medical Journal. His most notable literary con-
tributions are in the form of reports on clinical
cases, epidemics, medical education, and the
natural sciences. His scholarly addresses to
graduating classes and medical societies show-
deep insight into the professional problems of
the day, always with suggestions looking toward
their solution. Though always a general prac-
titioner he was a bold and skilful, though con-
servative, surgeon. He continued practice until
1871 when failing health compelled him to quit.
He was a man of fine personal appearance,
genial manner, and dignified bearing. Positive
in his convictions, he was strong in his likes and
aversions. He was married in 1824 to Anne
Sheldon of Kalamazoo, Mich. She died in 1864,
and in 1867 he married Emily L. (Montgomery)
Backus of Detroit.
[F. G. Novy, "biography of Pitcher, in Physician and
Surgeon, Feb. 1908, with bibliography; Mich. Univ.
Medic. Jour., Mar. 1872; Richmond and Lomsmlle
Medic. Jour., June 1869 ; Trans. State Medic. Sec. of
Mich., 2 ser. VI (1874) ; B. A. Hinsdale, Hist, of the
Univ. of Mich. (1906) ; Detroit Medic. Jonr.f July
1 909 ; Detroit Free Press f Apr. 6, 187:2.]
J. M, P— a.
PITCHLYNN, PETER PERKINS (Jan. 30,
i8o6~Jan. 17, 1881) , Choctaw chief, was born in
Noxubee County, Miss., the son of John Pitch-
lynn, a white interpreter for the federal govern-
ment, and Sophia Folsom, the daughter of a
Choctaw woman and a white man. Eager for
an education, he traveled two hundred miles,
while still only a boy, to enter a school in Ten-
nessee. He later attended the academy at Nash-
ville. Returning to his home In Mississippi jie
built a cabin and began farming. He married
Rhoda Folsom according to the rites of the
Christian Church, and it is said that by Ms kr
fluence and example he caused the Ctoctaw to
637
Pitkin
abandon the practice of polygamy. He also
helped to stop the traffic in liquor among the
Choctaw Indians. His interest in education led
him to establish a school in Kentucky for In-
dian children, which was supported for years by
funds granted by the Choctaw government.
In 1828 he went to the West with a delegation
sent out to select lands for his people. After the
Choctaw treaty of 1830 he removed to Indian
Territory with his family, and in 1860 he was
elected principal chief. At the outbreak of the
Civil War he sought to induce the Choctaw to
remain neutral, and he himself always remained
loyal to the Union, though he owned about a hun-
dred slaves who were set free by the war. He
signed the treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in
1830 and the treaty of 1855, and he witnessed, as
principal chief, the treaty of Washington in
1866. For many years he represented the tribe
in Washington. After the death of his first wife,
he was married at Washington to Caroline (Eck-
loff) Lombardy, the daughter of Godfrey Eck-
loff. He was a friend of both Andrew Jackson
and Henry Clay and met Charles Dickens dur-
ing the latter 's American tour. In American
Notes (1842, II, 96, 99), Dickens described him
as a tall, handsome man with raven black hair,
high cheek bones, and piercing black eyes, "as
stately and complete a gentleman of nature's
making, as ever I beheld," He also mentioned
that the Indian chief spoke very good English
and had read and understood such English lit-
erature as Scott's Lady of the Lake and Marmion.
He was a member of the Lutheran Memorial
Church at Washington and was also a promi-
nent Mason. Upon his death in Washington his
funeral services were conducted by Gen. Albert
Pike. He was buried in the Congressional Ceme-
tery, and a monument was erected over his grave
by the Choctaw Nation. A gifted orator, an able
statesman, he was not only a popular leader of
his own people but also possessed many warm
friends among the whites.
[Choctaw Archives in the manuscript collections of
the Univ, of Okla. ; Memorial of P. P. Pitchlynn, Choc-
taw Delegate (n.d.) ; F. W. Hodge, Handbook of Am,
Indians, pt. II (1910); J. B. Thoburn, A Standard
Hist, of Okla, (1916), vol. I ; Evening Star ((Washing-
ton), Jan. 18, 1881.] E.E.D,
PITKIN, FREDERICK WALKER (Aug.
31, i837-Dec. 18, 1886), lawyer, governor of
Colorado, was born in Manchester, Conn., the
son of EH and Hannah M. (Torrey) Pitkin,
and a descendant of William Pitkin [q.vJ] who
emigrated from England to Hartford, Conn., m
1659. For generations the Pitkin family had
been prominent in the affairs of the state. Al-
though left an orphan at the age of twelve, Fred-
Pitkin
erick was prepared for college and in 1854 en-
tered Wesleyan University, MicUlletown, Conn.,
from which he graduated four years later. Short-
ly after his graduation from the Albany (N. Y.)
Law School in 1859, he began the practice of
law in Milwaukee, Wis. Following a serious
illness in 1872, he became a health-seeker, visit-
ing Minnesota in the autumn of that year, Eu-
rope in the spring of 1873, and Florida in the
winter of 1873-74, In October 1874, lie went to
Colorado and took up his residence in the south-
ern part of that territory, first at Ouray and then
at Pueblo.
In Colorado he came into contact with promi-
nent political leaders, who were so much im-
pressed with his personality and ability that they
urged and secured his nomination for governor
by the Republican party in 1878, In the election
he defeated his Democratic opponent, W, A. H.
Loveland, by a majority of 2,700 votes in a total
of 27,000 votes cast His first term (1879-81)
was filled with stirring events which tested fully
his judgment and executive ability. Colorado,
only three years in the Union, was still a frontier
state with hundreds of Indians within its bor-
ders. In September 1879 occurred at the White
River Agency the uprising of the Ute Indians
known as the Meeker massacre. Governor Pit-
kin used the full power of the state, in coopera-
tion with the federal troops, for the protection
of the ranchers and miners on the frontiers ; he
vigorously voiced to the authorities in Wash-
ington the universal cry in Colorado that "the
Utes must go." As the result of a treaty with
these Indians in 1880 they were moved from the
state in 1881, and a large tract of land on the
"western slope" was thus thrown open to settle-
ment Other perplexing problems that involved
the maintenance of law and order in frontier
communities were the strike of the Leadville
miners, and the struggle between the Atchison,
Topeka & Santa F£ Railroad and the Denver &
Rio Grande Railway for the control of the Royal
Gorge in the canyon of the Arkansas River,
Governor Pitkin's proclamation o£ martial law
in the Leadville strike (June 13, 1880) was one
of the main points of attack upon him in his
campaign for reelection in 1880, but he was vic-
torious over his Democratic rival, John L.
Hough, by a majority of about 5,000 in a total
of 52,000 ballots, At the expiration of his sec-
ond term as governor ( 1883) , he was a candidate
for the United States Senate, but was defeated
in the Republican legislative caucus by Thomas
M» Bowen [#»f.]«
During the three remaining years of his life
he engaged in the practice of law in Pueblo*
638
Pitkin
He is generally regarded as one of the ablest of
Colorado's governors. He was indefatigable in
guarding the public interest and in his devotion
to duty; his honesty and integrity were never
questioned. The lack of decisiveness with which
he was sometimes charged was due, not to weak-
ness, but to an extreme conscientiousness and to
fear that hasty action might work injustice. He
was survived by his wife, Fidelia M. (James)
of Lockport, N. Y., to whom he was married on
June 17, 1862, and by their two children.
[A. P, Pitkin, Pitkin Family in America (1887) ;
Frank Hall, Hist, of the State of Colo., vol. II (1890),
vol. Ill (1891) ; Hist, of Colo.: Biog. (1927), vol. V;
Rocky Mountain News (Denver), and Denver Tribune-
Republican, Dec, 19, 1886; information regarding cer-
tain facts from Robert J. Pitkin of Denver.]
C.B.G.
PITKIN, TIMOTHY (Jan. 21, 1766-0 ec. 18,
1847), statesman, historian, economist, was born
in Farmington, Conn., the sixth child of the Rev.
Timothy Pitkin (Yale, 1747), pastor of the
church at Farmington. He came of distinguished
ancestry, being descended from William Pitkin,
1635-1694 [#.#.], the founder of the family in
America, who settled in Hartford in 1659, an(^ a
grandson of William Pitkin, 1694-1769 [q.vJ],
colonial governor of Connecticut. His mother,
Temperance Clap, was the daughter of the Rev.
Thomas Clap [#,*.'.], rector of Yale College.
Timothy Pitkin was prepared for college by his
father and brother-in-law. Upon graduation in
1785 he had the honor of delivering the Latin
salutatory address. After teaching Latin and
Greek for a year at Plainfield Academy, he
studied law at Windsor with Oliver Ellsworth
[q.vJ] . From him Pitkin received a strong lean-
ing toward political life. Admitted to the bar in
1788, he began his political career two years
later in the lower house of the Connecticut Gen-
eral Assembly. There he served until his elec-
tion to Congress in 1805. As congressman, he
devoted himself industriously to the study of
economic conditions in the new nation, He col-
lected public documents and state papers and
continually made memoranda from confidential
communications from the executive. He was a
loyal member of a Federalist group led by Josiah
Quincy, his lifelong friend, and to the cause, by
supplying much of the statistical material used
in Quincy's speeches against the Embargo and
Non-Intercourse acts. In 1818 Pitkin served as
a delegate to the convention which revised the
Connecticut constitution, the defeat of the Fed-
eralists brought his service in Congress to an
end in 1819. He was at once elected to the Con-
necticut legislature, retaining Ws seat until 1830,
when he retired from politics. Soon afterward
Pitkin
he gave tip his legal work and devoted his re-
maining years to writing on historical and eco-
nomic subjects.
In 1816 Pitkin had published A Statistical
View of the Commerce of the United States of
America, a work of unusual importance. A sec-
ond edition had appeared in 1817. This book he
now revised and enlarged. In the third edition
(1835), he brought together a large amount of
valuable data on the foreign trade of the country
and on taxation, manufactures, and internal im-
provements. His industry in collecting his ma-
terial and his careful habits of writing made this
book the outstanding: work of its kind. It still
remains a valuable reference work on American
economic history. In 1828 he published in two
volumes A Political and Civil History of the
United States, which covered the period 1763-
97. Compiled from original sources, the work
was marked by "accuracy, judicial temper, ex-
cellent judgment, and exhaustive research." Al-
though the style is somewhat uninteresting, and
although it is now largely superseded by later
histories using material inaccessible to Pitkin,
his work is still useful. A continuation of the
history he left uncompleted at his death. His
interests were wide. He was the author of a plan
for the progressive emancipation of the slaves
in the border states by the use of funds obtained
through the sale of public lands. In college he
was interested in astronomy and succeeded in
calculating and accurately predicting the famous
annular eclipse of the sun in 1790. In recog-
nition of his contributions to statistics, he was
awarded in 1837 a medal by the Societe Fran-
gaise de Statistique Universelle. He died in New
Haven. A devout churchman with pronounced
religious convictions, for several years before
his death he devoted much time to the study of
theology. He married, June 6, 1801, Elizabeth
Hubbard of New Haven, by whom he had six
children.
[T. C. Pitkin, "Hon. Timothy Pitkin, LL.D.," Me-
morial Biogs. . . . New-Eng. Huf« Gmecd. Soc., vol. I
(1880) ; F. B. Dexter, Biog. Sketches of the Grads. of
Yale Coll vol IV (1907) ; A. P. Pitkin, Pitkin FttmHy
of America ("1887) j Columbian Reg. (New Haven),
Dec. 25, 1847-] P.W.B.
PITKIN, WILLIAM (i635-Eee, 15, 1694),
Connecticut lawyer and judge, was the son of
Roger Pitkin, probably of Marylebone, England
After an excellent training in the law and per-
haps some dabbling in theology, for which he
had considerable fondness, he migrated to Hart-
ford at the age of twenty-four. Here he was ,«*
1660 granted liberty to teach the town school
PubEc life and the law soon claimed Mio, for IP
1662 the General Court appointed him to p^e-
Pitkin
cute certain offenders and two years later he be-
came the colony's attorney for the prosecution
of all delinquents, A leading lawyer in the colo-
ny, he served occasionally upon the bench, as
when he was a member of the special court which
met at Fairfield in 1692 to try four women for
witchcraft Apparently only one of the four was
convicted and she was probably reprieved
through the efforts of Pitkin himself and two
other assistants. As assistant in the years 1690-
94 he sat generally upon the Court of Assistants,
when it met at Hartford, and was often its pre-
siding- judge.
Pitkin was a stout champion of Connecticut's
colonial liberties. He served in 1683 with other
commissioners who visited New York to con-
gratulate the new governor, Dongan, and to
press Connecticut's claims to a boundary that
should not be more than twenty miles east of the
Hudson. Three years later he served in a simi-
lar capacity, paying his colony's respects to Gov-
ernor Andros and vainly requesting New York
and Mohawk aid against the Indian enemies of
Connecticut In the critical years of the early
nineties he championed the colony's right to
control its own militia and to maintain its gov-
ernmental independence of royal control. In
1690 Connecticut had voted to send troops to
Albany at the request of Jacob Leisler for the
war against the French, but in 1693 the extreme-
ly conservative instructions that Pitkin and his
fellow commissioner had received helped to make
the intercolonial defense conference in New York
an abortive one. He had already in 1692 written
the General Court's letter to Sir William Phips
politely refusing to relinquish control of the
local militia (Connecticut Historical Society
Collections, vol. Ill, 1895, p. 245), and in 1694
he was joint author of the pamphlet, "Their
Majesties Colony of Connecticut in New-Eng~
land Vindicated" (Ibid., vol. I, 1860, pp. 83-
130). This was a defense against those who
would have the Crown destroy the colony's self-
government for the reason that the General
Court was not always wise and just.
Pitkin was a member of the Church of Eng-
land, but as there was no congregation in the
town, he contended successfully for the right to
have his children baptized in the First Church
of Hartford, and was himself buried in its
churchyard. His property interests lay largely
on the east side of the Connecticut River where
he was probably the largest land-owner and
where he had an interest in a saw and grist mill,
His wife was Hannah, the daughter of Ozias
Goodwin, one of the early settlers of Hartford,
T TCi?e? :oThe£tb' Records of *fa Colony of Conn,, volt.
I-IV (1850-68) ; A. P. Pitkin, Pitkin Family of hmer-
64
Pitkin
ica (1887) ; W. D. Love, The Colonial Hist, of Hart-
ford (1914); J. H. Trumbull, The Memorial Hist of
Hartford County (2 vols., 1886) ; C. W. Manwaring
A Digest of the Early Conn. Probate Records, vol. I
(1904) ; Commemorative Exercises of the First Church
of Christ in Hartford . . . 1883 (1883), pp. 63-64.]
E.W.S.
PITKIN, WILLIAM (Apr. 30, i694-Oct. i,
1769), colonial judge and governor of Connecti-
cut, son of William and Elizabeth ( Stanley) Pit-
kin, was born and lived in Hartford. His father
was a prosperous manufacturer, cloth merchant,
public man, and jurist, who was the son of Wil-
liam Pitkin, 1635-1694 [$•*'.], the first of the
family in America. The third William was of
good figure, tall, affable, and reputed to be "an
Example of universal Goodness in all Relations,"
On May 7, 1724, he was married to Mary Wood-
bridge, the daughter of the Rev. Timothy Wood-
bridge of the First Church. William himself, a
man of evident piety, was probably a member of
the Third Church, that in East Hartford where
he lived and owned considerable real property.
Here also he ancl his brother Joseph operated
the fulling mills bequeathed to them by their fa-
ther. William alone fell heir to the clothier's
shop where much of their cloth was sold. His
father intended him to be a merchant, but from
the age of twenty-one, when he was chosen rate-
collector, to his death at seventy-five, he was
almost constantly in the service of his town or
colony. A captain of the train band at thirty-six,
he later became major ancl colonel (1739) i" the
first regiment. When the Connecticut frontier
in 1733 feared an Indian war instigated by the
French, Pitkin sat on the committee for defense.
Again in 1740 he was active in the cause of de-
fense, a member of the council on war, a war
financier concerned with the issue of bills of
credit, enrolment officer for the volunteers of
Hartford County who were to war on Spain in
the West Indies, and later (1743) committee-
man for war. After service as commissioner to
treat with the Iroquois, he was sent in 1754 to
the Albany Congress with Roger Wolcott and
Elisha Williams [##.#.]. Their instructions were
carefully restrictive, discouraging1 presents for
the Indians and advocating generous royal mili-
tary assistance with a minimum of financial and
military aid from the colony, Pitkin was one of
the committee of five for drawing up the plan of
confederation.
After an apprenticeship as justice of the peace,
William Pitkin received appointment as judge
of the county court where he presided from 1735
to 1752. The General Court of the colony elect-
ed him in 1741 to the bench of the highest court
in Connecticut, the superior court Here he
served faithfully until his election to the lieu-
Pitkin
tenant-governorship in 1754 made him, for
twelve years, its chief judge. Meanwhile he had
been active in politics. After four years in the
Assembly as delegate from Hartford, he became
its speaker (1732-34). Twice defeated in the
election of assistants, he obtained his seat in
1734. In this capacity he served for twenty
years, occasionally combining his duties with
those of colonial auditor, canvasser of votes, or
commissioner on the Massachusetts boundary
and on Mohcgan affairs (both 1752). By the
time he became deputy governor (1754-66) un-
der Governor Fitch, he was known as a cham-
pion of colonial rights against the royal govern-
ment. Consequently, when Governor Fitch in
October 1765 took the oath to administer the
Stamp Act, Pitkin received the nomination of
the colonial rights men, given perhaps through
a meeting of the Sons of Liberty (Connecticut
Historical Society Collections, vol. XIX, 1921,
p. xxv), for governor. The election was a land-
slide, and after being twice reflected, and hav-
ing- creditably served nearly three terms, Pitkin
died in office in October 1769.
IConn. Hist. Soc. Colls., vol. V (1896), "The Law
Papers," vol. XI (1907), XIII (1911), XV (1914),
and "The Pitkin Papers," vol. XIX (1921) ; Eliphalet
Williams, The Ruler's Duty to Honor, . . . A Sermon
Occasioned by the . . . Death of the Hon. Wm. Pitkin
(1770) ; A. P, Pitkin, Pitkin Family of America
(1887) ' The P-Mfr. Records of the Colony of Conn.,
vols. VII-.XIII ( 1 873-85) .] E. W. S.
PITKIN, WILLIAM (i725-Dec. 12, 1789),
Connecticut jurist and manufacturer, was the
fourth in a line of distinguished Hartford magis-
trates and prosperous manufacturers of the same
name. His father was William Pitkin, 1694-1769
Iq.vJ], and his mother, Mary Woodbridge. The
fourth William and His wife Abigail, the daugh-
ter of James Church, attended faithfully the
Third Church of Hartford of which he was for
twenty-nine years deacon. Trained for the law
and renowned chiefly for his career on the bench,
he found time to carry on the family tradition of
manufacturing. He owned power sites and mills
that had belonged to his father and his uncle,
Joseph Pitkin. When, in December I775> the
General Assembly granted to George Pitkin and
himself permission to establish a powder-mill
three miles east of the Connecticut River, one ot
these earlier sites was used. This powder-mill,
probably the first in Connecticut, supplied the
colony during the Revolution. But the price of
powder, set in 1776 by the Assembly at 5M**
was too low for profit, and Pitkin received ad-
ditional compensation at the end of the war The
_ _ A rt x» I.:*** «+iH TTxm ntners
Pitman
next year he alone received similar rights ovei
snuff manufacturing with exemption from tax-
ation for fourteen years. In addition to these
ventures he had an interest in a forging-milL
Much of his life was given to public service
At thirty-one he was commissioned captain o]
the third militia company of Hartford, and twc
years later, still captain of his third company, he
became major-commandant of the first regimenl
of Connecticut forces which was to serve tin-
der Abercromby in the campaign against New
France. In 1762 he became lieutenant-colonel
of the same regiment. In the realm of politics
he served for nineteen years (1766-85) as as-
sistant on the governor's council. During the
Revolution he sat almost continuously on the
Council of Safety and was known as an ardent
patriot Elected to Congress in 1784, he seems
not to have taken his seat He was considered
for the lieutenant-governorship in 1787, but he
finished a poor seventh among the eight candi-
dates in the field. The next year, however, he
and Elisha Pitkin were East Hartford's dele-
gates to the convention that ratified the new fed-
eral constitution, and William cast his vote in
its favor. East Hartford had been separated
from Hartford after the war, and William Pit-
kin had been moderator of its first town meet-
ing. In the year of his father's death, 1769, he
was made a judge of the superior court and re-
mained until the year of his death, the last year
as its chief judge. He was the fourth William
Pitkin in the direct line to preside over the high-
est court of Connecticut.
FSee: The Pub. Records of the Cdony of Coim.f
vols. XIII-XV (1885-90) and The Pub. R *~ "* **-
State of Conn.f vols. I-III (1894-1922) ;
Officers of Conn., 1776 to 1881 (1881) ; -
Pitkin Family of America (1887) ; J . -ti. 1---- , :
Memorial Hist, of Hartford County ; (,886), ™L II ;
Mathias Spiess and P. W. Bidwell, Hist, of Manchester,
Conn. (19^4); Hartford, Conn.t as a Manufacturing
...Center (1889).] E.W.S.
PITMAN, BENN (July 24, i822-Dec. 28,
1910) , phonographer, son of Samuel and Manah
(Davis) Pitman, was born in Trowbridge, Wilt-
shire, England, one of a family of seven boys and
four girls. He received a good elementary edu-
cation under the direction of the rector of the
parish, the poet George _W£ and through pri-
vate instruction
manager of
wpe
onaco
Act of Jan. 8, 1783, gave to him and two others fa
a monopoly for twenty-five years upon **«*» sema ^ tf
facture of glass in Connecticut, and during the wmcn m»
641
^teased by the fad
of the Church of Englad
Pitman
sons with him, where they all taught classes. In
Benn Pitman's biography of his brother Isaac,
he says that no trivial conversation was allowed
in their home. The children under fourteen
were expected to be silent at table ; those under
twelve stood while eating. When he was twenty-
one, Benn began to assist his brother Isaac as a
lecturer on phonography. Isaac Pitman had in-
vented a new system of shorthand based on the
sounds in the English language and Benn had
learned it four or five years before and had super-
intended the correction of the plates of the first
edition of Isaac's book on phonetic shorthand.
He was profoundly convinced of the importance
of the phonetic principle as a factor in education
and general progress, and, filled with the enthu-
siasm born of this conviction, he now went about
the country with his brother Joseph and several
other young men, lecturing and teaching.
In 1846, he took charge of a publishing house
called the Phonographic and Phonotypic Depot.
Three years later he married Jane Bragg, of
Manchester. By 1852 Isaac felt that the United
States should no longer be left in ignorance of
phonography and in the middle of the winter sent
Benn and his wife with their two children across
the ocean as steerage passengers. After living
for a time in Philadelphia, Pa,, and Canton, Ohio,
Pitman moved to Cincinnati, which remained
his home until his death. There he founded the
Phonographic Institute, for the teaching of
shorthand and the publishing of works on that
subject. Although in 1858 Isaac Pitman made
radical changes in his system, Benn continued to
teach the original method, which he felt to be
superior to the new, and which came to be one
of the most popular in the United States. Dur-
ing the first years of the Civil War Benn served
in the ranks. Later he was employed by the gov-
ernment as a shorthand reporter. He reported a
number of famous trials, among them the trial
of the conspirators in the assassination of Presi-
dent Lincoln, and he compiled and arranged for
publication an abridgment of the testimony
(The Assassination of President Lincoln and
the Trial of the Conspirators, 1865).
He was the author and editor of many works
on shorthand and phonetic reform, a number of
which were elaborately decorated, and in 1902
published Sir Isaac Pitman, His Life and La-
bors, Told and Illustrated by Benn Pitmcw. In
1855 he invented an electrochemical process of
relief engraving and in 1867, with Dr, J, B.
Burns, produced relief stereotype plates by a
photo-gelatine process. It is said that the inte-
rior of his home in Cincinnati was ornately deco-
rated with woodcarving, the work of himself and
Pitney
his pupils at the Cincinnati Art School where
he taught woodcarving ancl decorative art for
many years. His wife died in 1878, and in 1881
he married Adelaide Nourse, by whom he had
one daughter. By his first marriage there were
two sons ancl a daughter. He died in Cincinnati
after a long illness.
[Cincinnati Enquirer, Dec. 29, 1910; Cincinnati
PITNEY, MAHLON (Feb. 5, i8s8-Dec, 9,
1924), legislator and judge, was the third child
of Henry Cooper Pitney, vice-chancellor of New
Jersey, ancl Sarah Louisa (Ilalsted) Pitney. He
was born at Morrlstown, N, J,, where he received
his preparatory education. Before he was eigh-
teen he entered the College of New Jersey (now
Princeton University), took the full course, and
received the degree of A,B, in 1879. After read-
ing law in his father's office at Morristown he
was admitted to the bar and began practice at
Dover in the same county. In 1885 h° wa>s li-
censed as a counselor and four years later, upon
his father's appointment as vice-chancellor, re-
turned to Morristown and took over the latter's
practice which he continued with marked suc-
cess for nearly a dozen years. On Nov. 14, 1891,
he was married to Florence T» Shelton, of his i
native town, and two sons ancl one daughter were
born to them. In 1894 he was elected a Republi-
can member of the National House of Represen-
tatives ancl served on the committee on appro-
priations. He had now become a recognized
party leader in his region and in the following
year was temporary chairman of the Republican
State Convention. In 1896 he made an active
campaign for reelection to Congress, stressing
his party position on the money question, and
won the election by an increased plurality* Two
years later he was elected to the state Senate from
his native county, became his party's floor leader
therein, and in 1901, president of that body* On
his forty-third birthday he was nominated by
Gov. Foster M. Voorhees for a vacancy on the
state supreme court, was confirmed and served
from Nov. 16, 1901, to Jan, 22, 1908, when he
was advanced to the position of chancellor of the
state. After a little more than four years of serv~
ice in that capacity he was nominated by Presi-
dent Taft, on Feb, 19, 1912, to succeed Associate
Justice John M. Harlan of the federal Supreme
Court His nomination was confirmed on Mar.
13, and he took office five days later.
Pitney's service on the Supreme Court con-
tinued for somewhat less than eleven years. His
opinions (in 225-59 [7. S\), show painstaking
642
Pittock
care and a labored style. The opinion in Hitch-
man Coal 6- Coke Company vs. Mitchell (245
U. S., 229) was a blow to organized labor, since
it seriously limited the common-law right of
workmen to combine. In Duplex Printing Press
Company vs. Deering et al (254 U. S., 433) the
Clayton Act was invoked to restrain a labor
union from boycott In Eisner vs. Macomber (252
U. S., 189) Congress was denied the right to tax
stock dividends, on the ground that they consti-
tuted capital increase, not income. Pitney's opin-
ion in Frank vs. Man-gum (237 [7. S., 309) deal-
ing with due process of law, met a vigorous dis-
sent from Justices Holmes and Hughes who held
that "mob law does not become due process of
law by securing the assent of a terrorized jury"
(237 17. S.} 347). Although most of his opinions
were strongly conservative, in Mountain Timber
Company vs. Washington (243 [7. S., 219), in
which the Workmen's Compensation Act of the
state of Washington was upheld, Pitney delivered
the opinion of a liberal majority. He resigned,
effective Dec. 31, 1922, having served twenty-
five years in public office. After leaving the Su-
preme Court he continued to reside in Washing-
ton. It was apparently his arduous work on the
Supreme Court which compelled him to retire at
the relatively early age of sixty-four and caused
his premature death a few months later.
[Sec: E. R. Walker, "In Hemoriam: MaMon Pit-
ney," Am. Bar Asso. Jour., May 1925 ; Wm. Nelson,
eel, Nelson's Biog. Cyc, of N. /. (1913), vol. II; Biog,
Dir. Am. Cong. (1928) ; W. O, Wheeler and E. D.
Halsey, Descendants of Rebecca Ogden and Caleb Hoi-
sted (n,d.) ; T, R. Powell, "The Workmen's Compensa-
tion Acts/* Pol. Sci. Quart., Dec. 1917, and "Collective
Bargaining Before the Supreme Court/' Ibid., Sept
1918; Who's Who in America, 1924-25; the Evening
Star (Washington, D. C), Dec. 9, 1924.] & 5.^
PITTOCK, HENRY LEWIS (Mar. i, 1836-
Jan, 28, 1919), newspaper publisher, paper man-
ufacturer, was born in London, England, the
son of Susanna (Bonner) and Frederick Pit-
tock. In 1825 his father and his grandfather had
emigrated from England to Pittsburgh, Pa. His
father returned to London, married, and went
back to Pittsburgh in 1839, where he followed
the printer's trade the rest of his life. The boy
attended the public schools of Pittsburgh and
the preparatory school of the Western Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania and learned to be a practi-
cal printer. Induced by newspaper narratives
of Oregon in the early 1850*5 he and his brother
Robert undertook the six months' journey to
the Northwest. In the autumn of 1853 he began
work as a compositor for the Weekly Oregomm
and soon became a journeyman printer. In June
1860 he was married to Georgiana Martin Bttr-
Pittock
ton, the daughter of E. M. Burton/who died in
1918. Later in the year 1860 he became pro-
prietor of the paper at a time when outside news
was obtained by pony express, stage, and steam-
ship, printing methods were primitive and finan-
cial problems difficult He exerted every effort
to get news ; he watched all night for the arrival
of the stage bringing news and, after the tele-
graph was established in 1864, spent a large por-
tion of his slender resources to pay for this serv-
ice. In^i86i he began to publish the Morning
Oregonian. The first press was a Ramage, hand-
operated, that required a separate impression for
each page. The paper supported Lincoln, the
Union cause, and Reconstruction, and for the
twenty years before 1896 he advocated "sound
money" and the gold standard. His undertak-
ings prospered; he became state printer, in 1877
he added an afternoon edition, the Evening Tele-
gram, and in 1881 a Sunday edition, the Sunday
Oregonian, and he built two large buildings for
the newspaper. All competitors of his news-
papers in Portland failed before 1902.
Throughout his life he lent his interest and
abilities to various enterprises in developing the
new country. He helped found the Northwestern
National Bank, became president of the Portland
Trust Company of Oregon, engaged extensively
in logging and lumbering, and was a leader in
the building of the railroads from Lyle to Golden-
dale, Wash., and from Salem to Falls City,
Ore. He was a principal owner in the Baldwin
Sheep & Land Company that held 35,000 acres
in eastern Oregon, also an organizer of the
Harkins Transportation Company that operated
steamboats on the Columbia and Willamette
rivers, and of the Clearwater Irrigation Power
& Boom Company at Lewiston, Idaho. With Ms
brother, Thomas R. Pittock, he held extensive
interests in Pittsburgh. Beginning in 1866 at
Oregon City he was one of the first to engage
in paper manufacture in the Pacific Northwest.
At first he used rags for raw material and later
wood pulp. In 1868 he built another new plant
near Oregon City, and in 1883-85 a third at
Camas, Wash. He was an organizer and stock-
holder in the Columbia Paper Company, later a
part of the Crown Zellerbach Corporation. He
was a thirty-third degree Scottish Rite Mason
and held high places in other Masonic organi-
zations. He was a member of many clubs aiict
civic societies. The geography, resources, in-
dustries, and people of the Pacific Northwest
were familiar to him as to few others. He died
at his home in Portland.
EAtitobiog. in Mormng Oregonim* B«c. 4, £900;
Ibid., Jan. 30, 1919; H. W, Scott, Ifjsf, of *&r Or*.
' ' >, vols. I-V, coinp. l*y I* £
Pitts
Am. JBioff,: A New Cyclop., vol. XII (1922) ; Joseph
Gaston, Portland, Ore. (1911), vol. II.] L. M. S.
PITTS, HIRAM AVERY (c. i8oo-Sept. 19,
1860), inventor, was the son of Abial and Abiah
Pitts. Soon after he was born his father moved
to Winthrop, Kennebec County, Me., where
he worked as the village blacksmith for many
years. Hiram and his twin brother, John
Avery, attended the district school, and in
their father's blacksmith shop learned to make
shoes for horses and oxen, sleds and oxyokes,
hinges and latches for doors, andirons ancl tongs
for fireplaces, and the other wrought-iron work
needed to supply the rural community. After
their father's death, probably in 1825, the broth-
ers carried on the business in Winthrop in part-
nership for upwards of two years ; then Hiram
retired to devote his whole time to invention.
He developed an improvement in the chain type
of hand pump, and then turned his attention to
the horse-power treadmill. With the help of his-
brother he worked on this problem for a number
of years, and on Aug. 15, 1834, they were grant-
ed a patent for the chain band for a horse-power.
In their device hard maple rollers connected by
an endless chain were substituted for the old-
fashioned belt. Shortly after obtaining' this pat-
ent, the Pitts brothers became partners for the
purpose of manufacturing their improved power
in Winthrop. Hiram took it upon himself to in-
troduce the machines throughout the state of
Maine and elsewhere in New England and met
with considerable success, and the treadmill
came to be widely used in connection with
the "Ground Hog Thresher/' or open-cylinder
threshing machine. Dissatisfied with the work
of the "Ground Hog," Pitts gave considerable
thought to the designing of a better thresher, and
in 1834, with his brother, built a combined
threshing- and fanning mill in portable form. In
this machine, behind a cylinder similar to that
of the "Ground Hog" was an endless apron con-
veyor, and over it a round beater armed with
pegs to agitate the straws and a picker or ro-
tary pitchfork to throw them off the end. The
grain fell from the cylinder and conveyor into a
trough which conducted it to the fanning mill
mounted under the machine. A trough was ar-
ranged just behind the sieves to catch the heads
of grain, allowing the chaff to blow over and
away. These bits of grain, known as "tailings,"
were conveyed to the sieves to be refanned. Pat-
ent No. 542, for their thresher and fanning mill,
was awarded the brothers on Dec. 29, 1837.
Various minor improvements were made on the
original Pitts machine, but the principles of the
original invention remained unchanged for over
Placide
a half century. For the next ten years Pitts en-
gaged in the successful manufacturing and mar-
keting of his machines in Winthrop, the first
three years in partnership with his brother and
after 1840 alone. In that year John A. Pitts
opened a factory in Albany; after several sub-
sequent moves he settled in Buffalo, where he
manufactured the "Buffalo-Pitts" thresher un-
til his death. Tn 1847 Hiram moved to Alton,
111., where he began the manufacture of thresh-
ers in the shops of a brother-in-law, improving
and perfecting them from time to time. Four
years later he removed to Chicago, and in 1852
there began the manufacture of these improved
threshers. They were called the "Chicago-Pitts"
threshers and they soon found a ready market
wherever grain was extensively raised. Besides
these important inventions, Pitts is said to have
devised a machine for breaking hemp and sepa-
rating the stalk from the fiber, and also several
corn ancl cob mills. He married Leonora Ilosley
of Livermore, Me., and when he died in Chicago
at the age of sixty, he was survived by four sons
who carried on his business,
[R. L. Ardrey, Am. Agricultural Implements (1804) ;
E. S. Stnckpole, Hist, of Winthrop, Me. (1925) ; Wai-
demar Kaempffert, A Popular Hist, of Am, Invention
(1924), vol. II; Daily Times and Herald (Chicago),
Sept. 20, 1860 ; Patent Office records,] Qm \ym M— n.
PLACIDE, HENRY (Sept. 8, i?99-Jan. 23,
1870), actor, was the ablest and best-known
member of a notable American stage family. His
father was Alexander Placide, a popular acrobat,
dancer, actor, and manager, of French birth and
origin. His mother, Charlotte Sophia (Wright-
en), was the daughter of James Wrighten, for
many years prompter of the Drury Lane Theatre
in London, ancl of the actress ancl singer known
on the American stage as Mrs. Pownall Henry
Placide was the second of their five children.
His brother Thomas (1808-1877) was a popu-
lar comedian, ancl his three sisters all had stage
careers : Caroline ( 1798-1881) was the wife suc-
cessively of Leigh Waring and William R.
Blake, Jane (1804-1835) was both actress and
singer, Eliza (d. 1874) appeared successively as
Mrs. Asbury and Mrs, Mann. Henry made his
first recorded appearance on the stage In Au-
gusta, Ga,, Aug. 23, 1808, at the age of nine, and
his last in New York at the Winter Garden
Theatre, May 13, 1865, his professional career
thereby extending over the exceptionally long
period of fifty-seven years.
He first acted in New York at the Anthony
Street Theatre as early as 1814, but his name
then practically disappears from the records un-
til Sept 2, 1823, when he appeared at the Park
644
Placide
Theatre as Zekiel Homespun in The Heir at Law
and ^ Dr. Dablancoeur in Budget of Blunders.
During- that' interval it is certain that he was act-
ing in obscure regions, and there is one refer-
ence to his appearance in 1815-16 in the part of
a monkey. After his debut at the Park Theatre
in 1823, except for brief intervals when he acted
elsewhere for short periods (he attempted an en-
gagement at the Haymarket Theatre in London
in 1841, but it was an immediate failure), he was
the centre of attraction in the New York theat-
rical world. During his career of twenty years
at the Park, he played over five hundred char-
acters, being the original representative of more
than two hundred of these. His range extended
from clowns of broadest Yorkshire dialect to
garrulous Frenchmen, from clumsy hobblede-
hoys and senile old men to high-bred English
gentlemen. He also sang buffo roles in English
opera, and he was as successful in the frothiest
and most trivial farce as in the highest type of
comedy. Among his roles were David, Bob
Acres, and Sir Anthony Absolute in The Rivals,
Sir Benjamin Backbite, Crabtree, and Sir Peter
Teazle in The School for Scandal^ Dogberry in
Much Ado About Nothing, Dr. Ollapod in The
Poor GentlemanfCo\<md Hardy mPaulPry, and
Captain Cuttle in Dombey cmd Son. He was the
Sir Har court Courtly to Charlotte Cushman's
Lady Gay Spanker at the first performance of
London Assurance in the United States, Oct. n,
1841.
After leaving the Park Theatre, of which he
had been for a brief period manager as well as
leading actor, he joined the company at Bur-
ton's Theatre, and gave distinction to its per-
formances by the contribution of his reputation
and his art. "He was not broadly funny like
Burton or Holland," says W. L. Keese (post, p.
49), "but ... he was the owner of a rich vein of
eccentric humor, and . . . worked his possession
effectually. He was an expert in the Gallic parts
where the speech is a struggle between French
and English, and indeed, since his departure
they, too, have vanished from the stage." He
made extended tours, throughout the entire coun-
try, Joseph Jefferson in his Autobiography (p.
155) records a performance at the Baltimore
Museum in 1853 of The School for Scandal, with
Henry Placide as Sir Peter, Thomas Placide as
Crabtree, and himself as Moses, referring to
Henry Placide as "a finished artist, but some-
what cold and hard in his manner." After his
last appearance, in 1865, he was compelled to re-
tire because of ill health and failing eyesight
He made his home thenceforth in Babylon, N. Y,,
where he died.
Plaisted
[Information about Placide is profusely scattered
t
I ',' r' enury 10 ; J. N. Ire-
land m Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and the
f TRR£ A I °S B^V and Their Contemporaries
tnr ?? w CT ' i7 Bran$r Matthews and Laurence Htit-
y ^ L> Keese' JPd&wn B. Burton, Actor Author
and Manager (1885); The AutoUog. of /^epk Tel
ferson (1889) ; G. O. Seilhamer, Hist. of the Am. The-
atre >(3 ; vols 1889-91) ; T. A. Brown, A Hist, of the
in'J^nn9" (?i ^fer^ '" Eola Willis» Tke Charles-
ion Stage in the XVIII Century (1924) ; N Y Trib-
nf'tViVw24' 23A> rl70 ; ne^spaper clippings in the files
of the Harvard Library Theatre Collection.]
E.F.E.
PLAISTED, HARRIS MERRILL (Nov. 2,
i828-Jan. 31, 1898), soldier, congressman, gov-
ernor of Maine, seventh of the nine children of
Deacon William and Nancy (Merrill) Plaisted,
was born at Jefferson, N. H. He was a descend-
ant of Roger Playstead who settled in Kittery
(now Berwick), Me., about 1650. Until the age
of seventeen, Harris Merrill Plaisted made his
home upon the farm where he was born, attend-
ing the district school when there was one. His
education was obtained largely during the fall
and spring terms, first at Lancaster, N. H., and
later at academies in St. Johnsbury, Vt, and
New Hampton, N. H. Summers he worked on
the farm ; winters he taught school. He entered
Waterville (now Colby) College in September
1849 a*id was graduated in 1853, meanwhile pay-
ing his way by serving as superintendent of
schools in Waterville (1850-53) and principal
(1853) of the Waterville Liberal Institute. He
was graduated with highest honors from the Al-
bany (N. Y.) Law School in 1855, and studied
one year in the office of A. W. Paine at Bangor,
Me. Admitted to the bar in 1856, he practised
in Bangor until 1861. He voted for Lincoln,
taking an active part in the campaign and writ-
ing assiduously in behalf of the Union. When
the war began, he was appointed lieutenant-colo-
nel by Governor Washburn, and raised a com-
pany in thirty days. On Oct 30, 1861, he became
lieutenant-colonel of the nth Maine Regiment
and was promoted to a colonelcy May 12, 1862,
in the midst of the Peninsular campaign. Trans-
ferred to the Southern Department, he com-
manded a brigade in the vicinity of Charleston,
and during the siege of that city had charge of
the famous gun, the "Swamp Angel." In April
1864, he was transferred with his so-called "Iron
Brigade" to the Richmond sector. His Hiree
leaves, July 1862, February and November 1864*
he spent in recruiting men for his depleted ranks,
turning over the recruiting fees to the men them-
selves. Suffering with fever and ague, lie was
645
Plaisted
mustered out Mar. 25, 1865, and after a month
in a hospital returned to Bangor in the latter
part of May 1865. For gallant and meritorious
service he had been brevetted brigadier-general
of volunteers, Feb. 21, 1865, and major-general,
Mar. 13.
Resuming his law practice and entering poli-
tics, he twice represented Bangor in the legisla-
ture (1867, 1868) and was a delegate-at-large
to the Republican National Convention of 1868,
at Chicago, In competition with several able
lawyers, among them Thomas B. Reed, Plaisted
was elected attorney-general of Maine in Janu-
ary 1873. During his three years in this office,
he secured twelve convictions in fourteen indict-
ments for capital crimes. He resigned Dec. I,
1875, and took the congressional seat left vacant
by the death of Representative-elect Samuel F.
Hersey. As one of the two Republican members
of the select committee on trials for whiskey
frauds under the chairmanship of J. Proctor
Knott [#.?>.], he assumed the defense of Grant,
He was firmly convinced of Grant's honesty and
integrity, and, carefully presenting the results of
his investigations, in the opinion of many com-
pletely vindicated Grant of complicity. Declin-
ing reelection, he returned to Bangor in March
1877. In 1879 he left the Republican party on the
money issue, maintaining that "greenbacks"
should be substituted for bank bills which, when
outstanding in the hands of the people, he held
constituted a loan from the people to the banks
without interest. In 1880 he was elected gov-
ernor as the candidate of both Democrats and
Greeribackers, but failed of reelection in 1883.
His term in office was marked by a continuous
conflict with the Republican council over polit-
ical appointments. He was the Democratic nomi-
nee for senator in 1883, but was defeated. From
1883 to his death he published and edited at Au-
gusta The New Age, which under his influence
was an able exponent of Bryan and bimetalism
and a strong opponent of Blaine. His death, in
Bangor, was due to Bright's disease resulting
from malarial poisoning contracted in the army*
He married first, Sept. 21, 1858, Sarah J, Mason,
who died in 1875, and second, Sept 27, 1881,
Mabel True Hill. Three sons were born to the
first marriage and one daughter to the second.
He was the author of several trial reports ; with
F. EL Appleton, of The Maine Digest (1880), a
digest of decisions of the state supreme court
from 1820 to 1879 J and also of several unpub-
lished genealogical and autobiographical works.
[Life and Public Services of Gen'l Harris M, Plais-*
ted (1880) ; Richard Herndon, Men of Progress . , , «*
and of the State of Me. (1897), with photograph;
Henry Chase, Representative Men of Maine (1893),
Plant
Roger Plaisted of Quamphcgon (Kittcry} and Some
of His Descendants (1004}; Biog. Dir, Am. Cong
(1928) ; Bangor Daily Commercial, Jan. 31, 1898 ]
R, E. M.
PLANT, HENRY BRADLEY (Oct. 27,
i8i9-June 23, 1899), founder of the Plant system
of railroads and steamboats, was born in Bran-
ford, Conn., the son of Betsey (Bradley) and An-
derson Plant, a farmer in good circumstances.
He was the descendant of John Plant who proba-
bly emigrated from England and settled at Hart-
ford, Conn., about 1639. When the boy was six,
his father died. Several years later his mother
married again and took him to live first at Mar-
linsbttrg, N. Y., and later at New Haven, Conn.,
where he attended a private school. His grand-
mother, who hoped to make a clergyman of him,
offered him an education at Yale College, but, im-
patient to begin an active career, he got a job as
captain's boy, deck hand, and man-of-all-work on
a steamboat plying between New 1 lavon and New
York. He was then eighteen. Among his various
duties was the care of express parcels. This line
of business, hitherto neglected, he organized ef-
fectively, and, when it was taken over by the
Adams Express Company and later transferred
from steamboats to railroads, he went along with
it After a few years he was put in charge of the
New York office of the company. In 1853 his
wife, Ellen Elizabeth (Blackstonc) Plant, to
whom he had teen married in 1842, was ordered
South for her health. Several months spent near
Jacksonville, then a tiny hamlet, impressed the
shrewd Yankee with the possibilities of the fu-
ture development of Florida. The next year he
became the general superintendent of the Adams
Express Company for the territory south of the
Potomac and Ohio rivers. Tn the face of great
difficulties he successfully organized and extend-
ed express service in this region, where trans-
portation facilities, although rapidly growing,
were still deficient and uncoordinated. At the
approach of the Civil War the directors of
Adams Express, fearing the confiscation of their
Southern properties, decided to transfer them to
Plant. With the Southern stockholders of the
company he organized in 1861 the Southern Ex-
press Company, a Georgia corporation, and be-
came president. His company acted as agent for
the Confederacy in collecting: tariffs and trans-
ferring funds. In 1863, following a serious ill-
ness, he took an extended vacation in Europe,
and he returned by way of Canada,
After the war the railroads of the South were
practically ruined and many roads went bank-
rupt in the depression of 1873* I& tihis situation
646
Plant
he found his opportunity. Convinced of the even-
tual economic revival of the South, he bought
at foreclosure sales in 1879 and 1880 the Atlantic
& Gulf Railroad and the Charleston & Savan-
nah Railroad. With these as a nucleus he began
building along the southern Atlantic seaboard
a transportation system that twenty years later
included fourteen railway companies with 2,100
miles of track, several steamship lines, and a
number of important hotels. In 1882 he organ-
ized, with the assistance of Northern capitalists,
among whom were H. M. Flagler, M. K. Jesup,
and W. T. Walters [qq.v.], the Plant Invest-
ment Company, a holding company for the joint
management of the various properties under his
control. He reconstructed and extended several
small railroads so as to provide continuous serv-
ice across the state, and by providing better con-
nections with through lines to the North he gave
Florida orange growers quicker and cheaper ac-
cess to Northern markets. Tampa, then a vil-
lage of a few hundred inhabitants, he made the
terminus of his southern Florida railroad and
also the home port for a new line of steamships
to Havana. For the accommodation of winter
visitors he built here, in the style of a Moorish
palace, an enormous hotel costing $2,500,000.
The subsequent growth in wealth and popula-
tion of Florida and other states tributary to the
Plant system made its founder one of the richest
anl most powerful men in the South. A good
physical inheritance, preserved by temperate
habits, made it possible for him to keep at work
until almost eighty years of age. His first wife
died in February 1861, and in 1873 he married
Margaret Josephine Loughman, the daughter^
Martin Loughman of New York City, who with
one of his two sons survived him. In his will he
attempted to prevent the partition of his proper-
ties to the value of about $10,000,000, by form-
ing a trust for the benefit of a great-grandson,
but the will was contested by his widow and de-
clared invalid under the laws of the state of
New York. This decision made possible the con-
solidation of his railroads with other properties
to form the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad His
son, Morton Freeman Plant (1852-1918), was
vice-president of the Plant Investment Company
from 1884 to 1902 and attained distinction as a
yachtsman, part owner of the Philadelphia base-
ball club in the National League, and sole owner
of the New London club in the Eastern League.
Of the younger Plant's many gifts to hospitals
and other institutions the most notable were the
three dormitories and the unrestricted gift
of $1,000,000 to the Connecticut College tor
Women,
Plater
[G. S. Smyth, Henry Bradley Plant (1898) ; H.
Dozier, A Hist, of the Atlantic Coast Line Raitro
(1920) ; Railroad Gazette, June 30, 1899; N. Y. Hi
aid, June 24, 1899 ; AT. Y. Times, Nov. 5, 15, 1918, 1
son's activities.] p_ yfm jj.
PLATER, GEORGE (Nov. 8, i735~Feb. i
1792), sixth governor of Maryland, was born (
the family estate, "Sotterley," near Leonar
town, St. Mary's County, Md. He was tl
grandson of George Plater who emigrated fro
England to Maryland and became locally pron
inent, and he was the son of a second Geor^
Plater, who was conspicuous in the provinci
government, and of Rebecca (Addison) Bowl
Plater, at the time of her marriage a widow <
ample means. He was graduated from the Co
lege of William and Mary in 1753. He the
adopted the legal profession. From 1767 to 17;
he served as naval officer of the Patuxent di
trict in a position filled earlier by both his fath<
and grandfather. He was also a justice of tl
peace of St. Mary's County from 1757 to 177
a delegate in the lower house of the Assembl
from 1757 to 1766, and during the last fe1
years before the Revolution, 1771-74, a membe
of the Executive Council.
Official position did not debar him from earl
sympathy with the colonists' quarrel, althoug
he became conspicuous as a leader only as ma'
ters approached a crisis. In February 1776 h
was appointed by the Maryland Council of Safe
ty one of three collectors in his county to ot
tain gold and silver coin for military operation
against Canada, a task well discharged since i
about a month he reported a goodly sum colled
ed. In March following, he and George Der
were selected by the Council of Safety to coopei
ate with Virginia commissioners in the construe
tion of beacons on each bank of the Potomac
The records indicate success in erecting twent
such stations about five miles apart. Events wer
now moving swiftly, and on May 24 he was COE
stituted one of a committee of five to invite Go*
ernor Eden to leave the province. The next da
he was seated on the Council of Safety. Scarce!
three months later he was serving on a commit
tee charged to draft a declaration and charter c
rights and to form a government for the state
In 1778 he was sent by the legislature to reprc
sent Maryland in the Continental Congress
where he served until 1780. It fell to Ms lot t
preside over the Maryland conyentien tot raft
fied the new federal Constitution. In the firs
he cast hisfvote for Washing
He repfeserited St. Mary
uu«5 in thl stite Senate afte
In Novemb% ¥79Jhe was elecl
ecTgovernor by the Marylan(feAsskil>l3t It wa
,
647
Platner
during his brief incumbency of less than a year
that negotiations for the location of the federal
capital on Maryland soil were conducted. He
was married twice: first, on Dec. 5, 1762, to
Hannah Lee, who lived only ten months after
her marriage, and then on July 19, 1764, to Eliz-
abeth Rousby of Calvert County. One of their
six children married Philip Barton Key [g.fcO.
Though not a man of large creative ability or of
marked individuality, Plater's value as a lawyer
and lawmaker came to be appreciated by his con-
stituents and colleagues.
[Tercentenary Hist, of Md, (1925), vol. IV; H. E.
Buchholz, Governors of Md. (1908) ; C. W. Sams and
E. S. Riley, The Bench and Bar of Md. (1901) ; Md.
ffist. Mag., Dec, 1907, Mar., June 1920; Md. Gazette,
Feb. 16, 1793; Md. four, and Baltimore Advertiser,
Feb. 14, 1792.] E.L.
PLATNER, SAMUEL BALL (Dec. 4, 1863-
Aug 20, 1921), classical scholar, teacher, was
born at Unionville, Conn,, the son of William
and Emily Childs (Ball) Platner. His mother,
a remarkable woman, daughter of Samuel and
Experience (Rowland) Ball of Lee, Mass., was
of New England stock. His father was a busi-
ness man of Dutch extraction, who died when
Samuel was still a boy. After 1865 the family
lived at Newark, N. J,, and from the Newark
Academy Samuel entered Yale College in 1879.
He was graduated with distinction in 1883, re~
mained to study the classics and Sanskrit in the
Graduate School for two years, and received the
degree of Ph.D. in 1885. Thereafter until his
death he was associated with Adelbert College of
Western Reserve University, Cleveland, being
instructor in Latin and French (1885-90), as-
sistant professor of Latin (1890-92), and then
professor of Latin. He married, June 29, 1892,
Leonora Sayre of Utica, N. Y. In 1889-90 he
studied in Berlin and Bonn and visited Rome
for the first time. This visit kindled in him a
real enthusiasm for the city of Rome, its history,
topography, and monuments, and in the years
1897-98 and 1899-1900, which he spent for
the most part in Rome, this enthusiasm was
strengthened. Thereafter he returned to Rome
as often as he could. He was actively interested
in the foundation, in 1895, of the American
School of Classical Studies in Rome, and he
Platner
served the School as annual professor in 1899-
1900, as member of its managing and executive
committees from the beginning, and as secretary
of both committees from 1897 to 1911. He was
a member of Phi Beta Kappa, acting secretary
(1899) and president (1900-1901) of the Amer-
ican Philological Association, and a member of
various other learned societies.
Apart from articles and reviews in periodicals
his published work comprises ; Greek and Roman
Versification (1892), translated from the Ger-
man of Lucian Miiller ; Selections from the Let-
ters of the Younger Pliny (1894) ; The Topog-
raphy and Monuments of Ancient Rome (1904;
2nd edition, 1911) ; and A Topographical Dic-
tionary of Ancient Rome (1929), A translation
of the Noctes Atticac, which he had begun, was
finished by Professor John C. Rolfe. The Topo-
graphical Dictionary was nearly completed in
1921, but Platner wished to add the finishing
touches in Rome. On the voyage to Europe an
attack of acute indigestion affected his heart,
which was already weak, and caused his death,
Thomas Ashby completed the Dictionary, which
was published eight years later. It is a monu-
ment of sound scholarship, industry, and good
judgment. The earlier book is an admirable
handbook, and the Dictionary is indispensable to
all who undertake serious work in the field of
Roman topography. As a teacher Platner had
no patience with slipshod work and chastised it
with biting, though genial, sarcasm. He was
extremely conservative and would gladly have
kept the college curriculum as it was in his
youth. Although most of his colleagues disagreed
with his opinions, yet they appreciated so highly
his ability and thorough culture as to put him
in charge of the McBride Lectures, which be-
came under his management an important ele-
ment in the intellectual life of Cleveland,
Who in America, io-20-ji ; Am* Jour.
Archeology t Jan.-Mar, 1933; Am. Jour* Philology,
Jan,~Mar. 1933; Classical Philology, July 193*; Yal®
Univ. OUt. Record, 10.23; Rwrv@ Waihly, Sept, 38,
1921, and Western Reserv® /f/wwmw, Sept. 1931 ;
Cleveland Plain Duckr. Aug. 33, 1931 j Clwtla*d
News, Atag, 33, 1931 ; "Samuel Ball Pmtner, a Memo-
rial Adopted by the Faculty of Adelbert College of
Western Reserve University, 1931" (MS., in records of
Faculty, Adelbert College.)] H N F
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