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Founders and Political Leaders - Part 3
Dana, Charles Anderson, 1819-1897, New Hampshire, newspaper editor, author, government official, anti-slavery activist and abolitionist leader. Proprietor and managing editor of Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune. As editor, he had the Tribune actively advocate for the anti-slavery cause. The Tribune became one of the leading newspapers promoting anti-slavery. (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 64-65; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 1, p. 49; Wilson, J. H., Life of Charles A. Dana. New York, 1907)
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
DANA, Charles Anderson, editor, born in Hinsdale, New Hampshire, 8 August, 1819; died near Glen Cove, Long Island, 17 October, 1897. He was a descendant of Richard, progenitor of most of the Danas in the United States. His boyhood was spent in Buffalo, New York, where he worked in a store until he was eighteen years old. At that age he first studied the Latin grammar, and prepared himself for college, entering Harvard in 1839, but after two years a serious trouble with his eyesight compelled him to leave. He received an honorable dismissal, and was afterward given his bachelor's and master's degrees. In 1842 he became a member of the Brook Farm Association for agriculture and education, being associated with George and Sophia Ripley, George William Curtis, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Theodore Parker, William Henry Channing, John Sullivan Dwight, Margaret Fuller, and other philosophers more or less directly concerned in the remarkable attempt to realize at Roxbury a high ideal of social and intellectual life. One of the survivors of Brook Farm speaks of Mr. Dana as the only man of affairs connected with that Unitarian, humanitarian, and socialistic experiment. His earliest newspaper experience was gained in the management of the “Harbinger,” which was devoted to social reform and general literature. After about two years of editorial work on Elizur Wright's Boston “Chromotype,” a daily newspaper, Mr. Dana joined the staff of the New York “Tribune” in 1847. The next year he spent eight months in Europe, and after his return he became one of the proprietors and the managing editor of the “Tribune,” a post which he held until 1 April, 1862. The extraordinary influence and circulation attained by that newspaper during the ten years preceding the Civil War was in a degree due to the development of Mr. Dana's genius for journalism. This remark applies not only to the making of the “Tribune” as a newspaper, but also to the management of its staff of writers, and to the steadiness of its policy as the leading organ of anti-slavery sentiment. The great struggle of the “Tribune” under Greeley and Dana was not so much for the overthrow of slavery where it already existed as against the further spread of the institution over unoccupied territory, and the acquisition of slave-holding countries outside of the Union. It was not less firm in its resistance of the designs of the slave-holding interest than wise in its attitude toward the extremists and impracticables at the north. In the “Tribune's” opposition to the attempt to break down the Missouri compromise and to carry slavery into Kansas and Nebraska, and in the development and organization of that popular sentiment which gave birth to the Republican Party and led to the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, Mr. Dana bore no unimportant part. Writing of the political situation in 1854, Henry Wilson says, in his “Rise and Fall of the Slave Power”: “At the outset, Mr. Greeley was hopeless and seemed disinclined to enter the contest. He told his associates that he would not restrain them, but, as for himself, he had no heart for the strife. They were more hopeful; and Richard Hildreth, the historian, Charles A. Dana, the veteran journalist, James S. Pike, and other able writers, opened and continued a powerful opposition in its columns, and did very much to rally and reassure the friends of freedom and to nerve them for the fight,” In 1861 Mr. Dana went to Albany to advance the cause of Mr. Greeley as a candidate for the U. S. Senate, and nearly succeeded in nominating him. The caucus was about equally divided between Mr. Greeley's friends and those of Mr. Evarts, while Ira Harris had a few votes which held the balance of power, and, at the instigation of Thurlow Weed, the supporters of Mr. Evarts went over to Judge Harris. During the first year of the war the ideas of Mr. Greeley and those of Mr. Dana in regard to the proper conduct of military operations were somewhat at variance; and this disagreement resulted in the resignation of Mr. Dana, after fifteen years' service on the “Tribune.” He was at once employed by Secretary Stanton in special work of importance for the War Department, and in 1863 was appointed assistant Secretary of War, which office he held until after the surrender of Lee. His duties as the representative of the civil authority at the scene of military operations brought him into close personal relations with Mr. Stanton and Mr. Lincoln, who were accustomed to depend much upon his accurate perception and just estimates of men and measures for information of the actual state of affairs at the front. At the time when General Grant's character and probable usefulness were unknown quantities, Mr. Dana's confidence in Grant's military ability probably did much to defeat the powerful effort then making to break down the rising commander. Of this critical period General Sherman remarks in his “Memoirs”: “One day early in April, 1868, I was up at Grant's headquarters [at Vicksburg], and we talked over all these things with absolute freedom. Charles A. Dana, assistant Secretary of War, was there, and Wilson, Rawlins, Frank Blair, McPherson, etc. We all knew, what was notorious, that General McClernand was intriguing against General Grant, in hopes to regain command of the whole expedition, and that others were raising clamor against Grant in the newspapers of the north. Even Mr. Lincoln and General Halleck seemed to be shaken; but at no instant did we (his personal friends) slacken in our loyalty to him.” Mr. Dana was in the saddle at the front much of the time during the campaigns of northern Mississippi and Vicksburg, the rescue of Chattanooga, and the marches and battles of Virginia in 1864 and 1865. After the war his services were sought by the proprietors of the Chicago “Republican,” a new daily, which failed through causes not within the editor's control. Returning to New York, he organized in 1867 the stock company that now owns the “Sun” newspaper, and became its editor. The first number of the “Sun” issued by Mr. Dana appeared on 27 January, 1868, and for nearly twenty years he was actively and continuously engaged in the management of that successful journal, and solely responsible for its conduct. He made the “Sun” a Democratic newspaper, independent and outspoken in the expression of its opinions respecting the affairs of either party. His criticisms of civil maladministration during General Grant's terms as president led to a notable attempt on the part of that administration, in July, 1873, to take him from New York on a charge of libel, to be tried without a jury in a Washington police court. Application was made to the U. S. District Court in New York for a warrant of removal; but in a memorable decision Judge Blatchford, now a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, refused the warrant, holding the proposed form of trial to be unconstitutional. Perhaps to a greater extent than in the case of any other conspicuous journalist, Mr. Dana's personality was identified in the public mind with the newspaper that he edited. He has recorded no theories of journalism other than those of common sense and human interest. He was impatient of prolixity, cant, and the conventional standards of news importance. Mr. Dana's first book was a volume of stories translated from the German, entitled “The Black Ant” (New York and Leipsic, 1848). In 1855 he planned and edited, with George Ripley, the “New American Cyclopædia.” The original edition was completed in 1863. It has since been thoroughly revised and issued in a new edition under the title of “The American Cyclopædia” (16 vols., New York, 1873-'6). With General James H. Wilson he wrote a “Life of Ulysses S. Grant” (Springfield, 1868). His “Household Book of Poetry, a collection of the best minor poems of the English language,” was first published in 1857, and has passed through many editions, the latest, thoroughly revised, being that of 1884. His “Reminiscences of the Civil War” appeared in 1898, after his death, in “McClure's Magazine.” Appleton’s 1900 pp. 64-65.
Daniel, William
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
DANIEL, William, candidate for the vice-presidency, born on Deal's Island, Somerset County, Maryland, 24 January, 1826. He was graduated at. Dickinson College in 1848, and admitted to the bar in 1851. He was elected to the legislature in 1853, and introduced a bill similar to the Maine liquor law, was re-elected on the temperance issue by the American Party, and on the completion of his term sent to the state senate in 1857 as a supporter of local option. After the first session he resigned, and removed to Baltimore. He became an earnest anti-slavery Republican, and in 1864 was a member of the State Constitutional Convention for the emancipation of the slaves. He was chosen president of the Maryland Temperance Alliance on its organization in 1872, and continued in that post in subsequent years. Through the efforts of that society and the energy and eloquence of its president, the Maryland option law was enacted, and adopted by thirteen counties of the twenty-three composing the state. On 14 July, 1884, the alliance joined the National Prohibition Party. Mr. Daniel appeared at the head of the Maryland delegation in the Prohibitionist Convention in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, acted as temporary chairman of the convention, and was nominated by it for vice-president of the United States. The St. John and Daniel ticket received 150,369 ballots, or l-49 per cent, of the total popular vote. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 76.
Davis, David
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
DAVIS, David, jurist, born in Cecil County, Maryland, 8 March, 1815, died in Bloomington, Illinois, 20 June, 1888. He was graduated at Kenyon College, Ohio, in 1832, studied law in Massachusetts, and went through a course at the law-school of New Haven, moved to Illinois in 1835, and was admitted to the bar, after which he settled in Bloomington. He was elected to the state legislature in 1844, was a member of the convention that formed the state constitution in 1847, elected judge of the Eighth Judicial Circuit of the state in 1848, re-elected in 1855, and again in 1861, resigning in October, 1862, He was an intimate friend of Abraham Lincoln, and rode the circuit with him every year, he was a delegate at large to the Chicago Convention that nominated Mr. Lincoln for the presidency in 1860, accompanied him on his journey to Washington, and in October, 1862, was appointed a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. After President Lincoln's assassination Judge Davis was an administrator of his estate. In 1870 he held, with the minority of the Supreme Court, that the Acts of Congress making government notes a legal tender in payment of debts were constitutional. In February, 1872, the National Convention of the Labor Reform Party nominated him as its candidate for president, on a platform that declared, among other things, in favor of a national currency "based on the faith and resources of the nation, and interchangeable with 3-65-per-cent bonds of the government, and demanded the establishment of an eight-hour law throughout the country, and the payment of the national debt without mortgaging the property of the people to enrich capitalists. In answer to the letter informing him of the nomination, Judge Davis said: "Be pleased to thank the convention for the unexpected honor which they have conferred upon me. The chief magistracy of the republic should neither I sought nor declined by any American citizen." His name was also used before the Liberal Republican Convention at Cincinnati the same year, and received 92 votes on the first ballot. After the regular nominations had been made, he determined to retire from the contest, and so announced in a final answer to the labor reformers. He resigned his seat on the supreme bench to take his place in the U. S. Senate on 4 March, 1877, having been elected by the votes of independents and Democrats to succeed John A. Logan. He was rated in the Senate as an independent, but acted more commonly with the Democrats. After the death of President Garfield in 1881 Judge Davis was chosen President of the Senate. He resigned his seat in 1883, and retired to his home in Bloomington, where he resided quietly till his death. The degree of LL. D., was conferred on him by Williams College, Beloit College, and the Wesleyan University at Bloomington. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 95.
Dayton, William Lewis, 1807-1864, lawyer, statesman, diplomat, U.S. Senator. Member of the Free Soil Whig Party. Opposed slavery and its expansion into the new territories. Opposed the Fugitive Slave bill of 1850. Supported the admission of California as a free state and the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. First vice presidential nominee of Republican Party in 1856, on the ticket with John C. Frémont. Lost the election to James Buchanan. (Goodell, 1852, p. 570; Rodriguez, 2007, p. 59; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 113; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 1, p. 166; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 6, p. 280)
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
DAYTON, William Lewis, statesman, born in Baskingridge, New Jersey, 17 February, 1807; died in Paris, France, 1 December, 1864. He was graduated at Princeton in 1825, and received the degree of LL. D. from that college in 1857. He studied law in Litchfield, Connecticut, and was admitted to the bar in 1830, beginning his practice in Trenton, New Jersey In 1837 he was elected to the State Council (as the Senate was then called), being made chairman of the judiciary committee, the supreme court of the state in 1838, and in 1842, he became associate judge of was appointed to fill a vacancy in the U. S. Senate. His appointment was confirmed by the legislature in 1845, and he was also elected for the whole term. In the Senate debates on the Oregon question, the tariff, annexation of Texas, and the Mexican War, he took the position of a Free-Soil Whig. He was the friend and adviser of President Taylor, and opposed the Fugitive-Slave Bill, but advocated the admission of California as a free state, and the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. In 1856 he was nominated by the newly formed Republican Party for vice-president. In March, 1857, he was made attorney-general for the state of New Jersey, and held that office until 1861, when President Lincoln appointed him minister to France, where he remained until his death.—His son, William Lewis, who was graduated at Princeton in 1858, and practised law in Trenton, was appointed by President Arthur minister to the Netherlands. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 280.
Defrees, John D.
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
DEFREES, John D., politician, born in Sparta, Tennessee, 8 November, 1811; died in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, 19 October, 1882. In 1818 he was apprenticed by his father to a printer in Ohio, and at the same time began to study law. He was admitted to the Bar of Indiana in 1836, having moved to that state a few years before to establish a newspaper in conjunction with his brother. He was soon elected to the legislature, and was several times reelected. In 1844 he resigned his seat in the state senate, and bought the " Indiana State Journal," a weekly paper published at Indianapolis. He moved there and made that paper a daily, which he edited for several years. After the Whig Party was dissolved he united with the Republican, and in 1856 became the first chairman of the Republican state committee, which place he occupied until 1860. Mr. Defrees was a friend of many leading politicians, among whom were Clay, Crittenden, Webster, and Corwin, who regarded him as an adroit politician. President Lincoln appointed him to the office of government printer, which he filled for many years. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 124.
Delano, Columbus
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
DELANO, Columbus, Congressman, born in Shoreham, Vermont, 5 June, 1809. He moved to Mount Vernon, Ohio, in 1817, was educated at the common schools, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1831. He practised at Mount Vernon, and became eminent as an advocate and criminal lawyer. He was a delegate in 1860 to the National Republican Convention at Chicago which nominated Lincoln and Hamlin. He served as state commissary-general of Ohio in 1861, and was a member of the Ohio House of Representatives in 1863, and was elected a member of Congress from that state in 1844, 1864, and 1866. He was a delegate in 1864 to the National Republican Convention at Baltimore, which nominated Lincoln and Johnson. On 5 March, 1869, he was appointed by President Grant Commissioner of Internal Revenue, and while he held office reorganized the bureau, thereby increasing the receipts over 100 per cent in eight months. He succeeded Jacob D. Cox as Secretary of the Interior in October, 1870, a portfolio that he retained till 1875. Mr. Delano has for many years been one of the trustees of Kenyon College, Ohio, which conferred on him the degree of LL. D., and in connection with which he has endowed a grammar school called Delano Hall. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 133-134.
Deming, Henry Champion, 1815-1872, lawyer, soldier. Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Connecticut, 1863, 1865. Colonel, commanding 12th Connecticut Regiment. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 138-139; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 1, p. 230; Congressional Globe)
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
DEMING, Henry Champion, lawyer, born in Middle Haddam, Connecticut, in 1815; died in Hartford, 9 October, 1872. He was graduated at Yale in 1836, and at Harvard law-school in 1839. He then opened a law office in New York City, but devoted himself chiefly to literature, being engaged with Park Benjamin in editing the "New World," a literary monthly. He moved to Hartford in 1847, served in the lower house of the legislature in 1849-50 and 1859- 61, and in 1851 was a member of the state senate. He was mayor of Hartford in 1854-'8 and in 1860-2, having been elected as a Democrat. Early in the war he opposed coercion, even after the fall of Sumter, and when asked to preside at a war-meeting on 19 April, 1861, declined in a letter in which he said that he would support the Federal government, but would not sustain it in a war of aggression or invasion of the seceded states." When Washington was threatened, however, he favored the prosecution of the war, and on 9 October, 1861, was elected by acclamation speaker pro tempore of the state house of representatives, the Republican majority thus testifying their approval of his course. In September, 1861, he accepted a commission as colonel of the "charter oak regiment (the 12th Connecticut), reassigned especially for General Butler's New Orleans Expedition. After the passage of the forts his regiment was the first to reach New Orleans, and was assigned by General Butler the post of honor at the custom-house. Colonel Deming was on detached duty, acting as mayor of the city from October, 1862, till February, 1863. He then resigned, returned home, and in April, 1863, was elected to Congress as a Republican, and served two terms, being a member of the Committee on Military Affairs, and chairman of that on expenditures in the War Department. In 1866 he was a delegate to the Loyalists' Convention in Philadelphia, and from 1869 till his death was U. S. collector of internal revenue for his district. Mr. Deming was one of the most eloquent public speakers in New England, a gentleman of fine culture and of refined literary taste. He published translations of Eugene Sue's "Mysteries of Paris " and " Wandering Jew " (1840), a eulogy of Abraham Lincoln, delivered by invitation of the Connecticut legislature in 1865, "Life of Ulysses S. Grant" (Hartford, 1868), and various addresses. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 138-139.
Dennison, William, 1815-1882, Civil War governor of Ohio, lawyer, founding member of Republican Party, State Senator, opposed admission of Texas and the extension of slavery into the new territories. Anti-slavery man, supporter of Abraham Lincoln. (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. II, p. 142; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 1, p. 241; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 6, p. 446)
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
DENNISON, William, war governor of Ohio, born in Cincinnati, Ohio, 23 November, 1815; died in Columbus, 15 June, 1882. His father was a prosperous business man, and had him prepared for college in the best schools of Cincinnati. He was graduated at Miami in 1835, studied law in Cincinnati, under the direction of Nathaniel Pendleton and Stephen Fales, and practised in Columbus until 1848, in which year he was chosen to the state legislature. About this period Mr. Dennison became interested in banking and in railroad affairs, and was president of the Exchange bank and president of the Columbus and Xenia Railroad Company. In 1856 he was a delegate to the first National Convention of the Republican Party. He was chosen governor of Ohio in 1860 by the Republicans, and delivered his first message to the general assembly in 1861. At his suggestion the legislature voted $3,000,000 to protect the state from invasion and insurrection, and conferred power upon the executive to raise troops. Governor Dennison was an anti-slavery man and an ardent admirer of President Lincoln. In response to his call for 11,000 troops, he offered 30,000, sending agents to Washington to urge their acceptance. He took possession of the telegraph lines and railroads in the name of the state, and seized money in transit from Washington to Ohio, which he gave to the quartermaster-general to clothe and equip soldiers. Governor Dennison was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1864, and was elected chairman. He was appointed by President Lincoln Postmaster-General in 1864, and continued in that office, under President Johnson, until his resignation in 1866. Governor Dennison was a member of the National Republican Convention at Chicago in 1880, and was leader of the friends of Senator John Sherman during the struggle for the nomination. He was also a candidate for senator in that year. He contributed largely to Dennison College, Granville, Ohio. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 142.
Depew, Chauncey Mitchell
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
DEPEW, Chauncey Mitchell, lawyer, born in Peekskill, New York, 23 April, 1834. He is of French Huguenot descent, and was born in the old homestead that has been in the possession of his family for over 200 years. He was graduated at Yale in 1856, studied law, was admitted to the bar, and began his active work at an exciting period in our political life. He served in the New York Assembly in 1861-'2, and during the second session was chairman of the ways and means committee, and also acted as speaker of the assembly during a portion of the time. He canvassed the state for Mr. Lincoln in 1860, and has taken part in almost every subsequent political contest. In 1863 he was elected Secretary of State, but declined a re-election in 1865. He has held various other offices, including those of tax commissioner of New York City and minister to Japan, which he resigned very soon, to devote himself to his profession. In 1866 he was appointed attorney for the New York and Harlem Railroad Company, and when the Hudson River Road was consolidated with the New York Central, in 1869, Mr. Depew was again made the general counsel of the consolidated company. He was candidate for lieutenant-governor of the state on the Liberal Republican ticket in 1872, but was defeated. In 1874 he was the choice of the legislature for regent of the State University, and was also one of the commissioners to build the capitol at Albany. During the memorable contest in the assembly, after the resignation of Senators Conkling and Piatt from the U. S. Senate, and in the election of the successor to Mr. Piatt, Mr. Depew was a candidate for eighty-two days, receiving over two thirds of the Republican vote, but retired from the contest, that the election of Warner Miller might be assured. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 144-145.
Dickinson, Anna Elizabeth, 1842-1932, anti-slavery activist, African American rights activist, women’s rights activist, orator, lecturer, educator, Quaker (American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 235-237; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 6, p. 557; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 171-172; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Supp. 1, p. 244)
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
DICKINSON, Anna Elizabeth, orator, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 28 October, 1842. Her father died when she was two years old, leaving her in poverty, and she was educated in the free schools of the Society of Friends, of which her parents were members. Her early days were a continuous struggle against adverse circumstances, but she read eagerly, devoting all her earnings to the purchase of books. She wrote an article on slavery for the " Liberator" when only fourteen years old, and made her first appearance as a public speaker in 1857, at meetings for discussion held by a body calling themselves "Progressive Friends," chiefly interested in the anti-slavery movement. A sneering and insolent tirade against women, by a person prominent at these meetings, called from the spirited girl a withering reply, her maiden speech. From this time she spoke frequently, chiefly on temperance and slavery. She taught school in Berks County, Pennsylvania, in 1859-'60, and was employed in the U. S. Mint in Philadelphia from April to December, 1861, but was dismissed for saying, in a speech in West Chester, that the battle of Ball's Bluff "was lost, not through ignorance and incompetence, but through the treason of the commanding general" (McClellan). She then made lecturing her profession, speaking chiefly on political subjects. William Lloyd Garrison heard one of her anti-slavery speeches in an annual meeting of the Progressive Friends, held at Kennett, Chester County, Pennsylvania, with great delight, and on his return to Boston spoke of the "girl orator" in such terms that she was invited to speak in the fraternity course at Music Hall, Boston, in 1862, and chose for her subject the "National Crisis." Prom Boston she went to New Hampshire, at the request of the Republican state committee, to speak in the gubernatorial canvass, and thence was called to Connecticut. On election night a reception was tendered her at Hartford, and immediately thereafter she was invited to speak in Cooper Institute by the Union League of New York, and shortly afterward in the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, by the Union League of that city. Prom this time to the end of the Civil War she spoke on war issues. In the autumn of 1863 she was asked by the Republican state committee of Pennsylvania to speak throughout the coal regions in the canvass to re-elect Curtin, the male orators at the committee's command being afraid to trust themselves in a district that had recently been the scene of draft riots. Ohio offered her a large sum for her services, but she decided in favor of Pennsylvania. On 16 January, 1864, at the request of prominent senators and representatives, she spoke in the capitol at Washington, giving the proceeds, over $1,000, to the Freedmen's Relief Society. She also spoke in camps and hospitals, and did much in aid of the national cause. After this her addresses were made chiefly from the lyceum platform. On the termination of the war she spoke on " Reconstruct ion " and on "Woman's Work and Wages." In 1869-70, after a visit to Utah, she lectured on " Whited Sepulchers." Later lectures, delivered in the northern and western states, were "Demagogues and Workingmen," "Joan of Arc," and 'Between us be Truth." the last-named being delivered in 1873 in Pennsylvania and Missouri, where obnoxious bills on the social evil were before the legislatures. In 1876 Miss Dickinson, contrary to the advice of many of her friends, left the lecture platform for the stage, making her first appearance in a play of her own, entitled " A Crown of Thorns." It was not favorably received by the critics, and Miss Dickinson afterward acted in Shakespeare's tragedies, still meeting with little success. "Aurelian " was written in 1878 for John McCullough, but was withdrawn by the author when the failing powers of the great tragedian made it apparent that he would be unable to appear in it. It has never been put upon the stage, but Miss Dickinson has given readings from it. She lectured on "Platform and Stage" in 1879, and in 1880 wrote "An American Girl" for Fanny Davenport, which was successful. Miss Dickinson's published works are "What Answer I" a novel (Boston, 1808); "A Paying Investment" (1876); and "A Ragged Register of People, Places, and Opinions" (New York, 1879). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 171-172.
Dickinson, Daniel Stevens
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
DICKINSON, Daniel Stevens, statesman, born in Goshen, Connecticut, 11 September, 1800; died in New York City, 12 April, 1866. In early life he was taken by his father to Guilford, Chenango County, New York, where he obtained a public-school education. In addition to this, with but slight assistance, he acquired the Latin language and made himself acquainted with the higher mathematics and other sciences while apprenticed to a clothier. When he became his own master he occupied himself for a time in teaching and surveying, then studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1828, beginning practice in Guilford. In 1831 he moved to Binghamton, which thenceforth became his home. In 1836 he was chosen state senator, and his great ability as a debater soon made him the leader of his party. Among the questions that came up for discussion were several measures, such as the small-bill law and the general banking law that arose out of the recent overthrow of the U. S. Bank, the construction of the Erie Railway, and the enlargement of the Erie Canal. His strongest oratorical effort at this time was his speech in opposition to the repeal of the usury laws, 10 February, 1837. In 1840 he was nominated for the office of lieutenant-governor by the Democrats, and, although defeated that year, he was elected in 1842. He thus became ex-officio president of the Senate, of the court of errors, and of the canal board. At the expiration of his term of office in 1844, Governor Bouck appointed him to fill a vacancy in the U. S. Senate, and on the meeting of the legislature the appointment was ratified and he was elected for a full term. Mr. Dickinson held for several years the chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Finance. In discussing the exciting issues of the day he took strong conservative ground, and from that standpoint spoke frequently on the annexation of Texas, the joint occupation of Oregon, the Mexican War, the Wilmot Proviso, and the compromise measures of 1850. In December, 1847, he introduced two resolutions regarding the government of the territories, which virtually embodied the doctrine afterward known as " popular sovereignty." (See Butts, Isaac.) Among the measures that have since been adopted, Mr. Dickinson earnestly advocated the free passage of weekly newspapers through the mails in the County where published. Mr. Dickinson’s conservative course in the Senate not only secured him the vote of Virginia for the presidential nomination in the Democratic Convention of 1852, but a strongly commendatory letter from Daniel Webster, 27 September, 1850, in which the writer asserted that Mr. Dickinson's "noble, able, manly, and patriotic conduct in support of the great measures" of that session had "entirely won his heart" and received his "highest regard.” In 1852 President Pierce nominated Mr. Dickinson for collector of the port of New York, and the nomination was confirmed by the Senate; but the office was declined. At the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, Mr. Dickinson threw all his influence on the side of the government regardless of party considerations, and for the first three years devoted himself to addressing public assemblages in New York, Pennsylvania, and the New England states. In 1861 he was nominated for attorney general of his state, and was elected by 100,000 majority. He was nominated by President Lincoln to settle the northwestern boundary question, but declined, as he also did a nomination by Governor Fenton to fill a vacancy in the court of appeals of the state of New York. He subsequently accepted the office of district-attorney for the southern District of New York, and performed its duties almost till the day of his death. In the Republican National Convention of 1864, when President Lincoln was renominated, Mr. Dickinson received 150 votes for the Vice-presidential nomination. As a debater he was clear, profound, and logical, and not, infrequently overwhelmed his opponents with scathing satire. His speeches were ornamented with classical allusions and delivered without apparent effort. Among his happiest efforts are said to have been his speech in the National Democratic Convention at Baltimore in 1852, in which, having received the vote of Virginia, he declined in favor of General Cass, and his eulogy of General Jackson in 1845. Mr. Dickinson's brother has published his "Life and Works " (2 vols., New York, 1867). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 172-173.
Dixon, James, 1814-1873, lawyer. Republican U.S. Congressman and U.S. Senator representing Connecticut. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. II, p. 186; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 1, p. 328; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 6, p. 646; Congressional Globe)
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
DIXON, James, senator, born in Enfield, Connecticut, 5 August, 1814; died in Hartford, 27 March, 1873. He was graduated at Williams with distinction in 1834, studied law in his father's office, and began practice in Enfield, but soon rose to such eminence at the bar that he moved to Hartford, and there formed a partnership with Judge William W. Ellsworth. Early combining with his legal practice an active interest in public affairs, he was elected to the popular branch of the Connecticut legislature in 1837 and 1838, and again by in 1844. In 1840 he married Elizabeth L., daughter of the Reverend Dr. Jonathan Cogswell, professor in the Connecticut theological Institute. Mr. Dixon at an early date had become the recognized leader of the Whig Party in the Hartford Congressional District, and was chosen in 1845 a member of the U. S. House of Representatives. He was re-elected in 1847, and was distinguished in that difficult arena alike for his power as a debater and for an amenity of bearing that extorted the respect of political opponents even in the turbulent times following the Mexican War, and the exasperations of the sectional debate precipitated by the "Wilmot Proviso." Retiring from Congress in 1849, he was in that year elected from Hartford to a seat in the Connecticut Senate, and. having been re-elected in 1854, was chosen president of that body, but declined the honor, because the floor seemed to offer a better field for usefulness. During the same year he was made president of the Whig state Convention, and, having now reached a position of commanding influence, he was in 1857 elected U. S. Senator, and participated in all the parliamentary debates of the epoch that preceded the Civil War. He was remarkable among his colleagues in the Senate for the tenacity with which he adhered to his political principles, and for the clear presage with which he grasped the drift of events. Six years afterward, in the midst of the Civil War, he was re-elected senator with a unanimity that had had no precedent in the annals of Connecticut. During his service in the Senate he was an active member of the Committee on Manufactures, and during his last term was at one time appointed chairman of three important committees. While making his residence in Washington the seat of an elegant hospitality, he was remarkable for the assiduity with which he followed the public business of the Senate, and for the eloquence that he brought to the discussion of grave public questions as they successively arose before, during, and after the Civil War. Among his more notable speeches was one delivered 25 June, 1862, on the constitutional status created by the so-called acts of secession—a speech that is known to have commanded the express admiration of President Lincoln, as embodying what he held to be the true theory of the war in the light of the constitution and of public law. To the principles expounded in that speech Mr. Dixon steadfastly adhered during the administration alike of President Lincoln and of his successor. In the impeachment trial of President Johnson he was numbered among the Republican senators who voted against the sufficiency of the articles, and from that date he participated no longer in the councils of the Republican Party. Withdrawing from public life in 1869, he was urged by the president of the United States and by his colleagues in the Senate to accept the mission to Russia, but refused the honor. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 186.
Dixon, Nathan Fellows, born 1833, lawyer. Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Rhode Island. Member of 38th, 39th, 40th and 41st Congress. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. II, p. 187; Congressional Globe)
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
DIXON, Nathan Fellows, lawyer, born in Westerly, R, I., 1 May, 1812; died there, 11 April, 1861, was graduated at Brown in 1833, attended the law-schools at New Haven and Cambridge, and practised his profession in Connecticut and Rhode Island from 1840 till 1849. He was elected to Congress from Rhode Island in 1849, and was one of the governor's council appointed by the general assembly during the Dorr troubles of 1842. In 1844 he was a presidential elector, and in 1851 was elected as a Whig to the general assembly of his state, where, with the exception of two years, he held office until 1859. In 1863 he went to Congress as a Republican, and served as a member of the Committee on Commerce. He was a member of the 39th, 40th, and 41st Congresses, and declined re-election in 1870. He, however, resumed his service in the general assembly, being elected successively from 1872 till 1877. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 187.
Donnelly, Ignatius Loyola, 1831-1901, author. Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Minnesota 1863-1869. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. II, p. 201; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 1, p. 369; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 6, p. 730; Congressional Globe)
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
DONNELLY, Ignatius, author, born in Philadelphia, 3 Nov., 1831. He was educated in the public schools of his native city, studied law, was admitted to the bar, and practised. He went to Minnesota in 1857, was elected lieutenant-governor in 1859, and again in 1861, and was then elected to Congress as a Republican, serving from 7 December, 1863, till 3 March, 1869. Besides doing journalistic work he has written an “Essay on the Sonnets of Shakespeare”; “Atlantis, the Antediluvian World” (New York, 1882), in which he attempts to demonstrate that there once existed in the Atlantic ocean, opposite the straits of Gibraltar, a large island, known to the ancients as “Atlantis”; and “Ragnarok” (1883), in which he tries to prove that the deposits of clay, gravel, and decomposed rocks, characteristic of the drift age, were the result of contact between the earth and a comet. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 201.
Doolittle, James Rood, 1815-1897, lawyer, jurist. Democratic and Republican U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, 1857-1869. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 201-202; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 1, p. 374; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 6, p. 746; Congressional Globe)
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
DOOLITTLE, James Rood, senator, born in Hampton, Washington County, New York, 3 January, 1815. After attending Middlebury Academy, he entered Geneva (now Hobart) College, where he was graduated in 1834. He then studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1837, and practised at Rochester and at Warsaw, New York. He was elected district attorney of Wyoming County, New York, in 1845, and also served for some time as a colonel of militia. He moved to Wisconsin in 1851, and was elected judge of the First Judicial Circuit of that state in 1853, but resigned in 1856, and was elected U. S. Senator as a Democratic Republican, to succeed Henry Dodge, serving two terms, from 1857 till 1869. He was a delegate to the Peace Convention of 1861. While in the Senate, he served as chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs and as member of other important committees. During the summer recess of 1865, he visited the Indians west of the Mississippi as a member of a special Senate committee. He took a prominent part in debate on the various war and reconstruction measures, upholding the national government, but always insisting that the seceding states had never ceased to be a part of the Union. He opposed the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, on the ground that each state should determine questions of suffrage for itself. Mr. Doolittle retired from public life in 1869, and has since resided in Racine, Wisconsin, though practicing law in Chicago. He was president of the Philadelphia National Union Convention of 1866, and also of the Baltimore National Democratic Convention of 1872, which adopted the nomination of Horace Greeley for the presidency. Judge Doolittle has been a trustee of Chicago University since its foundation, served for one year as its president, and was for many years a professor in its law school. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 201-202.
Dunn, William McKee
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
DUNN, William McKee, lawyer, born in Hanover, Jefferson County, Indiana, 12 December, 1814. He was graduated at the Indiana State University in Bloomington in 1832, and was for three years principal of the preparatory department and professor of mathematics at Hanover College, Indiana. After a graduate course at Yale, where he received the degree of A. M. in 1835, he studied law, was admitted to the bar, and practised for many years in Madison, Indiana He was a member of the legislature in 1848, a delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1850, and was then chosen to Congress as a Republican, serving from 1859 till 1863. When the war broke out he was offered a colonelcy by Governor Morton, and a brigadier-ship by President Lincoln, but declined both. During his second term he was chairman of the committee on patents. He was defeated in the election for the following Congress, and on 13 March, 1863, was appointed major and judge-advocate, U. S. volunteers, in the department of Missouri. On 22 Jane, 1864, he became colonel and assistant judge-advocate-general, U. S. Army, and was brevetted brigadier-general, U. S. Army, in March, 1865, for faithful, meritorious, and distinguished services in his department. On the retirement of Judge-advocate-general Holt, he was elected to the place. He was a delegate to the Philadelphia loyalists' Convention of 1866. General Dunn became judge-advocate-general, with the rank of brigadier-general, on 1 December, 1875, and on 22 January, 1881, was retired from active service. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 261.
Dunnell, Mark Hill
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
DUNNELL, Mark Hill, Congressman, born in Buxton, Maine, 2 July, 1823. He was graduated at Waterville College (now Colby University) in 1849, and for five years was the principal of Norway and Hebron Academies. He was a member of the lower house of the Maine legislature in 1854, and in 1855 of the state senate, and from that time till 1859 was state superintendent of common schools. In 1856 he was a delegate to the National Republican Convention at Philadelphia. He began the practice of the law at Portland in 1860, served in the Union Army as colonel of the 5th Maine Infantry, and in 1862 was U. S. consul at Vera Cruz, Mexico. He moved to Minnesota in 1865, was a member of the legislature there in 1867, and in 1867-'70 was state superintendent of public instruction. He was then chosen to Congress as a Republican, and served four terms in succession, in 1871-'9. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 261.
Durkee, Charles
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
DURKEE, Charles, senator, born in Royalton, Vermont, 5 December, 1807: died in Omaha, Neb. 14 January'. 1870. He was educated in his native town and in the Burlington Academy, after which he engaged in business, and later emigrated to the territory of Wisconsin, where he was one of the founders of Southport, now Kenosha. He was a member of the first territorial legislature of Wisconsin, held in Burlington (Iowa and Minnesota being then parts of the territory). In 1847 he was again a member of the territorial legislature, and in 1848 was elected to the first state legislature of Wisconsin. He was elected as a Free-Soiler to Congress, serving from 6 December, 1849, till 3 March, 1853, and was the first distinctive anti-slavery man in Congress from the northwest. In 1855 he was chosen as a Republican to the U. S. Senate from Wisconsin, succeeding Isaac P. Walker. He was a member of the Peace Congress in 1861, and was appointed governor of Utah in 1865, holding that office until failing health compelled him to resign. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 272-273.
Edmunds, George Franklin
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
EDMUNDS, George Franklin, statesman, born in Richmond. Vermont, 1 February, 1828. He was educated at the common schools and by a private tutor; studied law at an early age, and began practice in 1849, removing in 1851 to Burlington, Vermont. He was a representative in the Vermont legislature in 1854-'9, serving as speaker for three years, and in 1861-"2 was a member of the state senate, and its president pro tempore. At the beginning of the Civil War he was a member of the state convention that formed a coalition between the Republicans and war Democrats, and drew up the resolutions adopted there. He was appointed to the U. S. Senate in March, 1866, by the governor of Vermont, to fill the vacancy made by the death of Solomon Foot, and was then elected by the legislature unto fill the unexpired term, and three times reelected. Mr. Edmunds was active in the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, sided with President Grant against Charles Sumner, and acted an influential part in the passage of the reconstruction measures, adopting a conservative course. In 1876-'7 he was one of the members of the electoral commission, having been previously chairman of the committee which, in concert with a similar committee of the House of Representatives, prepared the bill creating that commission. The passage of the Pacific Railroad Funding Act was also largely due to his influence and exertions. At the National Republican Conventions, held in Chicago in 1880 and 1884, Mr. Edmunds received thirty-four and ninety-three votes respectively for the presidential nomination, each on the first ballot. He was elected president pro tempore of the Senate after Mr. Arthur became President of the United States. In the Senate he has served on the committees on commerce, public lands, appropriations, pensions, retrenchment, private land claims, the library, and the judiciary, and has served as chairman of the last-named committee for several successive congresses. As a legislator, Senator Edmunds is noted for his legal acumen, his readiness in repartee, and his love of strictly parliamentary procedure. He has been a fearless foe of political jobs and legislative intrigues. He was the author of the act of 22 March, 1882, for the suppression of polygamy in Utah and the disfranchisement of those who practice it. This is known as the " Edmunds Act,' and was upheld by the supreme court in decisions that were rendered on 22 March, 1884, in a series of five cases. He was also the chief author of the similar act passed in 1887; and of the act of 1886 prescribing the manner in which electoral votes for president shall be counted. In 1886 he was the leader in the Senate in the attempt to compel President Cleveland to furnish that body with all documents necessary to show cause for recent removals from office. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 304-305.
Eliot, Thomas Dawes, 1808-1870, lawyer. Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts, 1854-1855, 1859-1869. Founder of the Republican Party from Massachusetts. Opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Bill as a member of Congress. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Active in the Free soil Party. (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 325; Congressional Globe)
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
ELIOT, Thomas Dawes, Congressman, born in Boston, Massachusetts, 20 March, 1808; died in New Bedford, Massachusetts, 12 June, 1870. He was graduated at Columbian College, Washington, D. C, in 1825, studied law in Washington and New Bedford, and was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar. After being a member of both houses of the legislature, he was elected to Congress as a Whig, to fill the unexpired term of Zeno Scudder, serving from 17 April, 1854, till 3 March, 1855, and making an eloquent speech on the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, which was published (Washington, 1854). He was prominent in the Free-Soil convention at Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1855, and on the dissolution of the Whig Party was active among the founders of the Republican Party in Massachusetts, he declined its nomination for attorney-general in 1857, but was afterward elected to Congress again for five successive terms, serving from 1859 till 1869. Mr. Eliot took an active part in the proceedings of the house, particularly in the legislation on the protection and welfare of the Negroes. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 325.
Ely, Alfred
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
ELY, Alfred, lawyer, born in Lyme, New London County, Connecticut, 18 February, 1815. He received an academic education, moved to Rochester, New York, in 1835, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1841, and began practice in Rochester. Mr. Ely was elected to Congress as a Republican in 1858, and served from 5 December, 1859, till 3 March, 1863. He went as a civilian spectator to the battle-field of Bull Run in July, 1861, where he was captured by the Confederates and put into Libby Prison, Richmond. After nearly six months' confinement he was exchanged for Charles J. Faulkner, the American minister to France, who had been imprisoned for disloyalty. During his term of imprisonment he kept a diary, which was edited by Charles Lanman, with the title "Journal of Alfred Ely, A Prisoner of War in Richmond " (New York, 1862). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 339.
Evarts, William Maxwell
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
EVARTS, William Maxwell, lawyer, born in Boston, 6 February, 1818. He was prepared for college in the Boston Latin-school, graduated at Yale in 1837, and while in college, with four of his classmates, he founded the " Yale Literary Magazine." Choosing the profession of the law, he studied in Harvard law school, and in the office of Daniel Lord, of New York City, and was admitted to the bar established a reputation for learning and acumen, and was often consulted by older lawyers. In 1849- '53 he was assistant district attorney in New York City, and in 1851 successfully conducted the prosecution of the Cuban filibusters concerned in the "Cleopatra" Expedition. The same year he was selected to argue in favor of the constitutionality of the Metropolitan Police Act. In 1857 and 1860 he was retained by the state of New York to argue the Lemmon slave case against Charles O'Conor, the counsel for the State of Virginia, before the Supreme Court and the court of appeals. He became an active and prominent member of the Republican Party, was chairman of the New York delegation in the Republican National Convention of 1860, and proposed the name of William H. Seward for the presidency. In 1861 he and Horace Greeley were rival candidates for the U.S. Senatorship before the New York legislature, but finally his name was withdrawn to enable his supporters to secure the election of Ira Harris. In 1862 he conducted the case of the government to establish in the supreme court the right of the United States in the Civil War to treat captured vessels as maritime prizes, according to the laws of war. In 1865 and 1866 he maintained with success before the courts the unconstitutionality of state laws taxing U. S. bonds or National bank tax without the authorization of Congress. In 1868 President Johnson chose him as chief counsel in the impeachment trial before the Senate, and from 15 July, 1868, till the end of President Johnson's administration, he filled the office of Attorney-General of the United States. He acted in 1872 as counsel for the United States before the tribunal of arbitration on the Alabama claims at Geneva, and presented the arguments on which the decisions favorable to the United States were to a large extent based. In 1875 he was senior counsel for Henry Ward Beecher in the trial of the suit against him in Brooklyn. For many years his reputation had been national, and he had been engaged in a large number of cases involving great interests, among the more famous of which were the Parrish will case and the contest over the will of Mrs. Gardner, mother of the widow of President Tyler. His services were often sought in cases in which large corporations were parties, and he received in some instances fees of $25,000 or $50,000 for an opinion, such as that on the Berdell mortgage upon the Boston, Hartford, and Erie Railroad. The firm of Evarts, Choate & Beaman, of which he is senior partner, has among its clients many of the prominent merchants and bankers of New York City. In 1877 he was the advocate of the Republican Party before the electoral commission, and during the administration of President Hayes he was Secretary of State. His administration of the State Department was marked by a judicious and dignified treatment of diplomatic questions, and especially by the introduction of a higher standard of efficiency in the consular service, and the publication of consular reports on economic and commercial conditions in foreign countries. In 1881, after the conclusion of his term of service in the cabinet, he went to Paris as delegate of the United States to the International Monetary Conference. On 4 March, 1885, he took his seat in the U. S. Senate for the term expiring 3 March, 1891, having been elected as a Republican to succeed Elbridge G. Lapham as senator from New York. Mr. Evarts is known as a brilliant speaker at convivial gatherings, and as a public orator of eloquence and versatility. On many important occasions he has delivered addresses, several of which have been published. Among his public addresses are the eulogy on Chief-Justice Chase, at Dartmouth College, in June, 1873; the Centennial oration, in Philadelphia, in 1876; and the speeches at the unveiling of the statues of William H. Seward and Daniel Webster, in New York, and of Bartholdi's Statue of Liberty. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 385.
Farnsworth, John Franklin, 1820-1897, Chicago, Illinois, Union soldier. Colonel, 8th Illinois Cavalry, later commissioned Brigadier General, 1861-1862. Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois, 1857-1861, 1863-1873. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 411-412; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 2, p. 284; Congressional Globe)
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
FARNSWORTH, John Franklin, legislator, born in Eaton, Quebec, Canada, 27 March, 1820. He moved with his parents to Michigan in 1834, received an academic education, studied and practised law, and afterward went to Chicago, Illinois. He was elected to Congress as a Republican, and served from 1857 till 1861, when he became colonel of the 8th Illinois Cavalry. He subsequently raised the 17th Illinois Regiment, by order of the War Department, and was commissioned brigadier-general, 29 November, 1862, but was compelled to resign from the army in March, 1863, owing to injuries received in the field. He then moved to St. Charles, Illinois, and from 1863 till 1873 was again a member of Congress. Since 1873 he has been engaged in the practice of his profession in Washington, D. C. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 411-412.
Farwell, Nathan Allen
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
FARWELL, Nathan Allen, senator, born in Unity, Maine, 24 February, 1812. He received a public school education, graduating in 1831, studied law, was admitted to the bar, and began to practice in Rockland, Maine He was a member of the state senate in 1853, 1854, 1861, and 1862, serving as president in 1861, and of the lower branch of the legislature in 1860, 1863, and 1864. He was a delegate to the Baltimore National Republican Convention in 1864, and in that year was appointed to the U. S. Senate as a Republican for the unexpired term of William Pitt Fessenden. He was a delegate to the Philadelphia " Loyalists' Convention" of 1860. He travelled in Europe from 1845 till 1847. He has been master mariner, trader, and twenty-five years president of Marine Insurance. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 420.
Fenton, Reuben Eaton, 1819-1885, Carroll Chautauqua County, New York, statesman, lawyer, U.S. Congressman. Voted against extension of slavery in the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. Elected Governor in 1864. (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 430-431; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 2, p. 326)
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
FENTON, Reuben Eaton, statesman, born in Carroll, Chautauqua County, New York, 1 July, 1819; died in Jamestown, New York, 25 August, 1885. His early education was obtained at Pleasant Hill and Fredonia Academies, in his native County. He was admitted to the bar in 1841, and began practice in Jamestown, but, finding law uncongenial, he engaged in mercantile pursuits, and in a few years acquired a moderate fortune. Meanwhile he took active interest in politics, and in 1843 was elected supervisor of the town of Carroll, which office he held for eight years. In 1852 Mr. Fenton was elected to Congress, and was active in the contest over the Kansas-Nebraska bill, being one of the forty-four northern Democrats that voted against the further extension of slavery. This action resulted in his defeat in 1854, when he was nominated by the Whigs and Democrats against the Know- nothing candidate. The Republicans of his district nominated Mr. Fenton for Congress in 1856, and he was elected by a large majority, serving from 1857 till 1864, when he resigned, having been chosen governor of his state. He heartily supported the cause of the Union in the Civil War, and stood firmly by President Lincoln and his cabinet in their war measures. He was inaugurated governor at the opening of the year 1865, and was reelected by an increased majority. In 1868 he was elected to succeed Edwin D. Morgan as U. S. Senator, and served from 1869 to 1875. The only public trust held by him after leaving the Senate was that of chairman of the U. S. Commission at the International Monetary Conference in Paris in 1878. Mr. Fenton actively promoted the interests of the community in which he lived. He projected the bringing of two new railroads into Jamestown, and was one of the main contributors toward establishing there a Swedish orphanage. He also served a term as president of the village. His last public address was made on the occasion of General Grant's funeral, when a memorial service was held in Walnut Grove, his place of residence. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 430-431.
Ferry, Orris Sanford
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
FERRY, Orris Sanford, senator, born in Bethel Fairfield County, Connecticut, 15 August, 1823; died in Norwalk. Connecticut, 21 November, 1875. He was graduated at Yale in 1844, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1846, and began practice in Norwalk. In 1847 he was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the first Division of Connecticut militia, and from 1849 till 1856 was judge of probate for the District of Norwalk. He was elected to the state senate in 1855, serving two years, and in 1857-'9 was district attorney for the County of Fairfield. He was an unsuccessful Republican candidate for Congress in 1856, but was elected two years later, serving in 1859-'61, and being again defeated in 1860. When the Civil War began, he zealously supported the National government, and in July, 1861, became colonel of the 5th Connecticut Regiment, joining General Banks's corps in Maryland. He was promoted to brigadier-general. 17 March, 1862, and was assigned a brigade in Shields's division, from which he was transferred to Peck's division of the 4th Army Corps under General Keyes. He served till the close of the war, resigned his commission. 15 June, 1865, and on 23 May. 1866, was elected U. S. Senator from Connecticut, taking his seat in March, 1867. During the latter part of the reconstruction period he opposed President Johnson, and voted guilty at his impeachment trial. In 1873 Mr. Ferry was re-elected by a coalition of Independent Republicans and Democrats, but he adhered to General Grant's administration and opposed the Liberal Republican candidates at the presidential election of that year. He voted against the civil rights bill on the ground that it would prejudice the cause of public education. While in the lower house of Congress General Ferry served as a member of the committee on Revolutionary Claims, and the Special Committee of Thirty-Three on the Rebellious States. While in the Senate he was a member of the committees on Private Land Claims, Public Buildings, and Patents, and after his re-election in 1872 was chairman of the latter committee. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp.442-443.
Fessenden, Samuel, 1784-1869, Portland, Maine, lawyer, jurist, soldier, abolitionist. Vice president, 1833-1839, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833. Leader, active member of the Liberty Party. Member of the Anti-Slavery Party in Maine. Nominee for Governor of Maine. Early member of the Republican Party. Father of Treasury Secretary William Pitt Fessenden and Congressman Samuel Clement Fessenden. (Dumond, 1961, p. 301; Sinha, 2016, pp. 377, 405, 465-466, 561; Abolitionist, Vol. I, No. XII, December, 1833; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 443; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 2, p. 346)
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
FESSENDEN, Samuel, lawyer, born in Fryeburg, Maine, 16 July, 1784; died near Portland, Maine, 13 March, 1869. His father, the Reverend William Fessenden, graduated at Harvard in 1768, was the first minister of Fryeburg, and frequently a member of the Massachusetts legislature. He also served as judge of probate. Samuel received his early education at the Fryeburg Academy, and was graduated at Dartmouth in 1806. He studied law with Judge Dana, of Fryeburg, was admitted to the bar in 1809, and began practice at New Gloucester, where he rose to distinction in his profession. In 1815-'16 he was in the general court of Massachusetts, of which state Maine was then a district, and in 1818-'19 represented his district in the Massachusetts Senate. For fourteen years he was major-general of the 12th Division of Massachusetts Militia, to which office he was elected on leaving the Senate, and to which he gave much attention. He moved to Portland in 1822, and about 1828 declined the presidency of Dartmouth. He was an ardent Federalist, and one of the early members of the anti-slavery Party in Maine. In 1847 he was nominated for governor and for Congress by the Liberty Party, receiving large votes. For forty years he stood at the head of the Bar in Maine. He was an active philanthropist. He published two orations and a treatise on the institution, duties, and importance of juries. The degree of LL. D. was conferred upon him by Bowdoin in 1846. Appleton’s 1900 p. 443.
Fessenden, Samuel Clement, 1815-1881, Maine, lawyer, jurist, U.S. Congressman, Maine 37th, Congress 1861-1863, abolitionist. Father was Samuel Fessenden (1784-1869). (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 443-444)
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
FESSENDEN, Samuel Clement, lawyer, born in New Gloucester, Maine, 7 March, 1815; died 18 April, 1882, was graduated at Bowdoin, and at Bangor theological seminary in 1837, and was pastor of the 2d Congregational Church in Thomaston (now Rockland) from then till 1856. In that year he established the “Maine Evangelist,” and in 1858 studied law, was admitted to the bar, and began practice. He was elected judge of the municipal court of Rockland, and was a representative from Maine to the 37th Congress, serving from July, 1861, till March, 1863. Until the rise of the Republican Party he was an abolitionist. In 1865 he was appointed a member of the board of examiners of the U. S. Patent-Office. In 1879 he was U. S. consul at St. John's, N. B. [son of Samuel Fessenden]; Appleton’s 1900.
Fessenden, William Pitt, 1806-1869, lawyer, statesman, U.S. Congressman, U.S. Senator, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. Elected to Congress in 1840 as a member of the Whig Party opposing slavery. Moved to repeal rule that excluded anti-slavery petitions before Congress. Strong leader in Congress opposing slavery. Elected to the Senate in 1854. He opposed the Kansas-Nebraska bill as well as the Dred Scott Supreme Court Case. Co-founder of the Republican Party. Prominent leader of the anti-slavery faction of the Republican Party in the U.S. Senate. As U.S. Senator, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Father was abolitionist Samuel Fessenden. (Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 443-444; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 2, p. 368; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 7, p. 861; Congressional Globe)
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
FESSENDEN, William Pitt, senator, born in Boscawen, New Hampshire, 16 October, 1806; died in Portland, Maine, 8 September, 1869, was graduated at Bowdoin in 1823, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1827. He practised law first in Bridgeton, a year in Bangor, and afterward in Portland, Maine He was a member of the legislature of that state in 1832, and its leading debater. He refused nominations to Congress in 1831 and in 1838, and served in the legislature again in 1840, becoming chairman of the house committee to revise the statutes of the state. He was elected to Congress as a Whig in 1840, serving one term, during which time he moved the repeal of the rule that excluded anti-slavery petitions, and spoke upon the loan and bankrupt bills, and the army. He gave his attention wholly to his law business till he was again in the legislature in 1845-'6. He acquired a national reputation as a lawyer and an anti-slavery Whig, and in 1849 prosecuted before the supreme court an appeal from an adverse decision of Judge Story, and gained a reversal by an argument which Daniel Webster pronounced the best he had heard in twenty years. He was again in the legislature in 1853 and 1854, when his strong anti-slavery principles caused his election to the U. S. Senate by the vote of the Whigs and anti-slavery Democrats. Taking his seat in February, 1854, he made, a week afterward, an electric speech against the Kansas-Nebraska bill, which placed him in the front rank of the Senate. He took a leading part in the formation of the Republican Party, and from 1854 till 1860 was one of the ablest opponents of the pro-slavery measures of the Democratic administrations. His speech on the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, in 1856, received the highest praise, and in 1858 his speech on the Lecompton Constitution of Kansas, and his criticisms of the opinion of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott Case, were considered the ablest discussion of those topics. He was re-elected to the Senate in 1859 without the formality of a nomination. In 1861 he was a member of the Association. By the secession of the southern senators the Republicans acquired control of the Senate, and placed Mr. Fessenden at the head of the finance committee. During the Civil War he was the most conspicuous senator in sustaining the national credit. He opposed the legal-tender act as unnecessary and unjust. As chairman of the finance committee, Mr. Fessenden prepared and carried through the Senate all measures relating to revenue, taxation, and appropriations, and, as declared by Mr. Sumner, was “in the financial field all that our best generals were in arms.” When Secretary Chase resigned in 1864, Mr. Fessenden was called by the unanimous appeal of the nation to the head of the treasury. It was the darkest hour of our national finances. Secretary Chase had just withdrawn a loan from the market for want of acceptable bids; the capacity of the country to lend seemed exhausted. The currency had been enormously inflated, and gold was at 280. Mr. Fessenden refused the office, but at last accepted in obedience to the universal public pressure. When his acceptance became known, gold fell to 225, with no bidders. He declared that no more currency should be issued, and, making an appeal to the people, he prepared and put upon the market the seven-thirty loan, which proved a triumphant success. This loan was in the form of bonds bearing interest at the rate of 7.30 per cent., which were issued in denominations as low as $50, so that people of moderate means could take them. He also framed and recommended the measures, adopted by Congress, which permitted the subsequent consolidation and funding of the government loans into the four and four-and-a-half per cent, bonds. The financial situation becoming favorable, Mr. Fessenden, in accordance with his expressed intention, resigned the secretaryship in 1865 to return to the Senate, to which he had now for the third time been elected. He was again made chairman of the finance committee, and was also appointed chairman of the joint committee on reconstruction, and wrote its celebrated report, pronounced one of the ablest state papers ever submitted to Congress. It vindicated the power of Congress over the rebellious states, showed their relations to the government under the constitution and the law of nations, and recommended the constitutional safeguards made necessary by the rebellion. Mr. Fessenden was now the acknowledged leader in the Senate of the Republicans, when he imperilled his party standing by opposing the impeachment of President Johnson in 1868. He gave his reasons for voting “not guilty” upon the articles, and was subjected to a storm of detraction from his own party such as public men have rarely met. His last service was in 1869, and his last speech was upon the bill to strengthen the public credit. He advocated the payment of the principal of the public debt in gold, and opposed the notion that it might lawfully be paid in depreciated greenbacks. His public character was described as of the highest type of patriotism, courage, integrity, and disinterestedness, while his personal character was beyond reproach. He was noted for his swiftness of retort. He was a member of the Whig National Conventions that nominated Harrison (1840), Taylor (1848), and Scott (1852). For several years he was a regent of the Smithsonian Institution. He received the degree of LL. D. from Bowdoin in 1858, and from Harvard in 1864. [son of Samuel Fessenden]; Appleton’s 1900 Vol. II., pp. 443-444.
Fish, Hamilton
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
FISH, Hamilton, statesman, born in New York City, 3 August, 1808, was graduated at Columbia in 1827, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1830. He was for several years a commissioner of deeds. In politics he was a Whig, and was the defeated candidate of that party for the state assembly in 1834. In 1842 he was elected a representative in Congress from the Sixth District of New York over John McKeon, the Democratic candidate, and served one term. In 1846 he was a candidate for lieutenant-governor. The Whig candidate for governor, John Young, was elected, but Mr. Fish, who had incurred the hostility of the anti-renters by his warm denunciation of their principles, was defeated. His successful competitor, Addison Gardiner, a Democrat who had received the support of the anti-renters, resigned the office in 1847 on becoming a judge of the court of appeals, and Mr. Fish was elected in his place. In 1848 he was chosen governor by about 30,000 majority, the opposing candidates being John A. Dix and Reuben H. Walworth. In 1851 he was elected U. S. Senator in place of Daniel S. Dickinson. In the Senate he opposed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and acted with the Republican Party from its formation to the end of his term, though he was not especially prominent in the party. When his senatorial term expired in 1857 he went to Europe with his family, and remained till shortly before the beginning of the Civil War. On his return he took an active part in the campaign that resulted in the election of Abraham Lincoln. In January, 1862, in conjunction with Bishop Ames, he was appointed by Secretary of War Stanton a commissioner to visit the U. S. soldiers imprisoned at Richmond and elsewhere," to relieve their necessities and provide for their comfort." The Confederate government declined to admit the commissioners within their lines, but intimated a readiness to negotiate for a general exchange of prisoners. The result was an agreement for an equal exchange, which was carried out substantially to the end of the war. In 1868 he aided in the election of General Grant, was appointed Secretary of State by him in March, 1869, and was reappointed at the beginning of his second term in March, 1873, serving from 11 March, 1869, to 12 March, 1877. He introduced a system of examinations of applicants for consulates, to test their knowledge of subjects connected with their duties. On 9 February, 1871, the president appointed him one of the commissioners on the part of the United States to negotiate the Treaty of Washington, which was signed by him on 8 May of that year. He effected a settlement of the long-standing northwestern boundary dispute, giving the Island of San Juan to the United States, and successfully resisted an effort by Great Britain to change the terms of the extradition treaty by municipal legislation. In the settlement of the Alabama question he procured the acceptance of a doctrine by the Geneva tribunal, securing the United States against claims for indirect damages arising out of Fenian raids, or Cuban filibustering expeditions. In November, 1873, he negotiated with Admiral Polo, Spanish minister at Washington, the settlement of the "Virginius" question. He was for some years president of the New York Historical Society, and was president-general of the New York Society of the Cincinnati. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 463-464.
Fletcher, Calvin, 1798-1866, Indianapolis, Indiana, banker, farm owner, state legislator. Member of the Whig, Free Soil and, later, Republican parties. Supported colonization movement in Indiana. During Civil War, he promoted the organization of U.S. Colored Troops in Indiana. (Diary of Calvin Fletcher)
Fletcher, Ryland
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
FLETCHER, Ryland, governor of Vermont, born in Cavendish. Vermont, 18 February, 1799; died in Proctorsville, Vermont, 19 December, 1885, studied in the Norwich Military Academy, and became a farmer. He was active as an anti-slavery agitator, was chosen to the state senate, and lieutenant-governor of Vermont from 1854 till 1856. when he was elected governor of the state by the Free-Soil Party, serving until 1858. From 1861 till 1864 he was a representative in the legislature. In 1864 he was a presidential elector on the Republican ticket. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 480.
Fletcher, Thomas Clement
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
FLETCHER. Thomas Clement, governor of Missouri, born in Jefferson County. Missouri, 21 January, 1827. He received a common-school education, was clerk of the circuit and county courts from 1849 till 1850, and was admitted to the bar in 1857. He was colonel of the 31st Missouri Regiment in the National Army from 1862 till 1864, when he became colonel of the 47th Missouri, and in that year was brevetted brigadier-general of volunteers. In 1863 he was captured and taken to Libby Prison. In 1865-'9 he was governor of Missouri, and issued the proclamation abolishing slavery in that state. Governor Fletcher was a delegate to the National Republican Convention of 1860 and 1864. He was the first speaker in the first Republican Convention held in a slave-state, and although his parents were slave-owners, he had been an ardent abolitionist since his boyhood. He has made many political speeches, most of which were published, but they have never been collected in book-form. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 481-482.
Foot, Solomon, 1802-1866, lawyer, U.S. Congressman, U.S. Senator. Opposed war with Mexico. Opposed slavery and its extension into new territories. Founding member of the Republican Party. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. (Congressional Globe; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 495; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 2, p. 498)
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
FOOT, Solomon, senator, born in Cornwall, Addison County, Vermont., 19 November, 1802; died in Washington. D. C, 28 March, 1866. He was graduated at Middlebury in 1820, was principal of Castleton, Vermont, seminary in 1826-'8, tutor in Vermont University in 1827,'and in 1828-31 held the chair of natural philosophy in the Vermont Academy of Medicine, Castleton. He was admitted to the bar in the latter year, and began practice in Rutland, where he lived until his death. He was a member of the legislature in 1833, 1830-'8, and 1847, speaker of the house in 1837-'8 and 1847, delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1830, and state attorney for Rutland in 1830-42. He was then elected to Congress as a Whig, and served from 1843 till 1847. He was an unsuccessful candidate for clerk of the house in 1849. He was then chosen U. S. Senator from Vermont, and served from 1851 till his death, becoming a Republican in 1854. He was chairman of important committees, and was president pro tempore of the Senate during a part of the 30th Congress and the whole of the 37th. Senator Foot was prominent in debate, and took an active part in the discussions on the admission of Kansas to the Union in 1858. He was chosen president of the Brunswick and Florida Railroad Company about 1854, and visited England to negotiate the bonds of the company. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 495.
Forney, John Wein
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
FORNEY, John Wein, journalist, born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 30 September, 1817; died in Philadelphia, 9 December, 1881. He began life as a shop-boy in a village store, but, being ambitious, gave up the work and at the age of sixteen entered the printing-office of the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, "Journal." In his twentieth year he purchased the Lancaster "Intelligencer," a strongly Democratic journal, and in 1840 he published the paper in whose office he had entered as apprentice seven years before, in connection with Ins previous purchase, under the name of the "Intelligencer and Journal." His journal attained a wide reputation, and in 1845 President Polk appointed him deputy surveyor of the Port of Philadelphia. He then disposed of his paper, bought a half share in the "Pennsylvania," one of the most decided of the Democratic journals in the state, and conducted it editorially until 1851. In that year he was chosen clerk of the House of Representatives and re-elected two years later, serving until 1855. During this term of office he continued to write for the " Pennsylvania," and edited the Washington "Union," the foremost Democratic paper at the capital. While clerk of the House of Representatives it became Mr. Forney's duty to preside during the protracted struggle for the speakership in 1855. which resulted in the election of Nathaniel P. Banks, when, by his tact as presiding officer, he won the applause of all parties. In 1856 he returned to Pennsylvania and was chosen chairman of the Democratic State Committee. In January, 1857, he was the Democratic candidate for U. S. Senator, but was defeated by Simon Cameron. In August, 1857, he began the publication of the " Press" an independent Democratic journal in Philadelphia. Having exhausted his fund in the political campaign, he purchased the type on credit, and the paper was printed for months in the office of the "Sunday Dispatch." The “Press " ardently espoused the opinions of Stephen A. Douglas, and supported Buchanan's administration up to the adoption of the Lecompton Constitution, and the effort to secure the admission of Kansas into the Union under it. Mr. Forney resolutely opposed that measure, and his action caused a disruption of the friendly relations which had previously existed between the president and himself. Few men in the country contributed more than Mr. Forney to strengthen the Republican Party, and to prepare it for the contest of 1860. In December, 1859, he was again elected clerk of the House of Representatives, and soon afterward started in Washington the "Sunday Morning Chronicle," which was afterward, in October, 1862, converted into a daily. He was elected Secretary of the U. S. Senate in 1861, and for six years was one of the most influential supporters of the administration. On the death of Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Forney supported Andrew Johnson for a short tune, but afterward became one of the foremost in the struggle which resulted in the president's impeachment. He sold the " Chronicle in 1870, and in March, 1871, became collector of the port of Philadelphia. He held the office but one year, but during that time perfected the system of direct transportation of imports in bond without appraisement and examination at the port of original entry. When the Centennial Exhibition was proposed, he was one of its most active promoters, and went to Europe in its interests in 1875. On his return he sold his interest in the " Press," and in 1879 established " The Progress," a weekly paper, in Philadelphia. In 1880 he supported Winfield S. Hancock for the presidency. He was the author of " Letters from Europe" (Philadelphia, 1869); "What I saw in Texas" (1872); "Anecdotes of Public Men" (2 vols., New York, 1873); "A Centennial Commissioner in Europe" (Philadelphia, 1876); "Forty Years of American Journalism " (1877); and " The New Nobility" (New York, 1882). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 503.
Foster, Lafayette Sabine, 1806-1880, statesman, Connecticut State Representative, Mayor of Norwich, Connecticut, U.S. Senator 1854-1867, Republican Party, opposed to slavery. Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 512-513; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 2, p. 553; Congressional Globe)
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
FOSTER, Lafayette Sabine, statesman, born in Franklin, Connecticut, 22 November, 1806: died in Norwich, Connecticut, 19 September, 1880. His father, Captain Daniel, was an officer of the Revolution, who was descended on his mother's side from Miles Standish, and served with distinction at the battles of White Plains, Stillwater, and Saratoga. The son earned the means for his education by teaching, was graduated with the first honors at Brown in 1828, studied law, and was admitted to the Bar at Centreville, Maryland, while conducting an academy there in 1830. He returned to Connecticut, completed his legal studies in the office of Calvin Goddard, who had been his first preceptor, was admitted to the Connecticut Bar in November, 1831, and opened an office in Hampton in 1833, but in 1834 settled at Norwich. He took an active interest in politics from the outset of his professional life, was the editor of the Norwich " Republican," a Whig journal, in 1835, and in 1839 and 1840 was elected to the legislature. He was again elected in 1846 and the two succeeding years, and was chosen speaker. In 1851 he received the degree of LL. D. from Brown University. In 1851-'2 he was mayor of Norwich. He was twice defeated as the Whig candidate for governor, and in 1854 was again sent to the assembly, chosen speaker, and elected to the U. S. Senate on 19 May, 1854, by the votes of the Whigs and Free- Soilers. Though opposed by conviction to slavery, he resisted the efforts to form a Free-Soil Party until the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. He delivered a notable speech in the Senate on 25 June, 1850, against the repeal of the Missouri compromise, and opposed the Lecompton Constitution for Kansas in 1858. He was a member of the Republican Party from its organization in 1856, and in 1860 was again elected to the Senate. In December, 1860, he spoke in approval of the Powell resolution to inquire into the distracted state of the country, though he was one of the few who at that time believed that the southern leaders would force a disruption of the Union, and was in favor of resisting the extension of slavery beyond the limits recognized in the constitution, even at the cost of Civil War. Mr. Foster was intimately connected with the administration, and was often a spokesman of Mr. Lincoln's views. On 11 March, 1861, he moved the expulsion of Senator Lewis T. Wigfall, of Texas. In 1863 he advocated an appropriation for the gradual manumission of slaves in Missouri. In 1864, on the question of the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act, he spoke in favor of preserving the earlier law of 1793, and thereby incurred the reproaches of the radical members of his party. He also opposed the bill granting the voting franchise to colored citizens of the District of Columbia without an educational qualification. He served on the committees on Indian affairs and land claims, and was chairman of the committee on pensions, and during the Civil War of that on foreign relations. In 1865 he was chosen president of the Senate pro tempore. After Andrew Johnson became president, Mr. Foster was acting vice-president of the United States. During the subsequent recess he travelled on the plains as member of a special commission to investigate the condition of the Indians. His senatorial term of office expired in March, 1867, and he was succeeded by Benjamin F. Wade in the office of vice-president. On account of his moderate and conservative course in the Senate his re-election was opposed by a majority of the Republicans in the Connecticut Legislature, and he withdrew his name, though he was urged to stand as an independent candidate, and was assured of the support of the Democrats. He declined the professorship of law at Yale in 1869, but after his retirement from the bench in 1876 delivered a course of lectures on "Parliamentary Law and Methods of Legislation." In 1870 he again represented the town of Norwich in the assembly, and was chosen speaker. He resigned in June of that year in order to take his seat on the bench of the supreme court, having been elected by a nearly unanimous vote of both branches of the legislature. His most noteworthy opinion was that in the case of Kirtland against Hotchkiss, in which he differed from the decision of the majority of the court (afterward confirmed by the U. S. Supreme Court) in holding that railroad bonds could not be taxed by the state of Connecticut when the property mortgaged was situated in Illinois. In 1872 he joined the liberal Republicans and supported Horace Greeley as a candidate for the presidency. In 1874 he was defeated as a Democratic candidate for Congress. He was a judge of the Connecticut superior court from 1870 till 1876, when he was retired, having reached the age of seventy years, and resumed the practice of law. In 1878-'9 he was a commissioner from Connecticut to settle the disputed boundary question with New York, and afterward one of the three commissioners to negotiate with the New York authorities for the purchase of Fisher's Island. He was also a member of the commission appointed in 1878 to devise simpler rules and forms of legal procedure for the state courts. By his will he endowed a professorship of English law at Yale, bequeathed his library to the town of Norwich, and gave his home for the free academy there. See "Memorial Sketch" (printed privately. Boston, 1881). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 512-513.
Ford, Thomas H.
Frémont, John Charles, 1813-1890, California, Army officer, explorer. In 1856, was first candidate for President from the anti-slavery Republican Party. Lost to James Buchanan. Early in his career, he was opposed to slavery and its expansion into new territories and states. Third military governor of California, 1847. First U.S. Senator from the State of California, 1850-1851. He was elected as a Free Soil Democrat, and was defeated for reelection principally because of his adamant opposition to slavery. Frémont supported a free Kansas and was against the provisions of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law. On August 30, 1861, Frémont issued an unauthorized proclamation to free slaves owned by secessionists in his Department in Missouri. Lincoln revoked the proclamation and relieved Frémont of command. In March 1862, Frémont was given commands in Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky. (Blue, 2005, pp. 8, 10, 12-13, 58, 77, 78, 105, 131, 153, 173, 178, 206, 225, 239, 245, 252, 261-263, 268-269; Chaffin, 2002; Mitchell, 2007, pp. 89, 93, 94-95, 97-98, 138, 139, 145, 149, 159, 161, 172, 215, 219-225, 228-230, 243; Nevins, 1939; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 59, 65, 140, 242-243, 275, 369, 385, 687; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 545-548; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 4, Pt. 1, p. 19; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 8, p. 459; Chaffin, Tom, Pathfinder: John Charles Frémont and the Course of American Empire, New York: Hill and Wang, 2002; Eyre, Alice, The Famous Fremonts and Their America, Boston: The Christopher Publishing House, 1948; Nevins, Allan, Fremont: Pathmaker of the West, Volume 1: Fremont the Explorer; Volume 2: Fremont in the Civil War, 1939, rev ed. 1955)
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
FRÉMONT, John Charles, explorer, born in Savannah, Georgia, 21 January, 1813; died in New York City, 13 July, 1890. His father, who was a Frenchman, had settled in Norfolk, Virginia, early married Anne Beverley Whiting, a Virginian lady, and supported himself by teaching his native language. After his death, which took place in 1818, his widow moved with her three infant children to Charleston, South Carolina. John Charles entered the junior class of Charleston College in 1828, and for some time stood high, especially in mathematics; but his inattention and frequent absences at length caused his expulsion. He then employed himself as a private teacher of mathematics, and at the same time taught an evening school. He became teacher of mathematics on the sloop-of-war “Natchez” in 1833, and after a cruise of two years returned, and was given his degree by the college that had expelled him. He then passed a rigorous examination at Baltimore for a professorship in the U. S. Navy, and was appointed to the frigate “Independence,” but declined, and became an assistant engineer under Captain William G. Williams, of the U. S. Topographical Corps, on surveys for a projected railroad between Charleston and Cincinnati, aiding particularly in the exploration of the mountain passes between North Carolina and Tennessee. This work was suspended in 1837, and Frémont accompanied Captain Williams in a military reconnaissance of the mountainous Cherokee country in Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, made rapidly, in the depth of winter, in anticipation of hostilities with the Indians. On 7 July, 1838, while engaged with Jean Nicolas Nicollet in exploring, under government authority, the country between the Missouri and the northern frontier, he was commissioned by President Van Buren as 2d lieutenant of topographical engineers. He went to Washington in 1840 to prepare his report, and while there met Jessie, daughter of Thomas H. Benton, then senator from Missouri. An engagement was formed, but, as the lady was only fifteen years of age, her parents objected to the match; and suddenly, probably through the influence of Colonel Benton, the young officer received from the war department an order to make an examination of the River Des Moines on the western frontier. The survey was made rapidly, and shortly after his return from this duty the lovers were secretly married, 19 October, 1841. In 1842, Frémont was instructed by the War Department to take charge of an expedition for the exploration of the Rocky mountains, particularly the South pass. He left Washington on 2 May, and in four months had carefully examined the South pass and explored the Wind River mountains, ascending their highest point, since known as Frémont's peak (13,570 ft.). His report of the expedition was laid before Congress in the winter of 1842-'3, and attracted much attention both at home and abroad. Immediately afterward, Frémont determined to explore the unknown region between the Rocky mountains and the Pacific, and set out in May, 1843, with thirty-nine men. On 6 September, after travelling over 1,700 miles, he came in sight of Great Salt lake. His investigations corrected many vague and erroneous ideas about this region, of which no accurate account had ever been given, and had great influence in promoting the settlement of Utah and the Pacific states. It was his report of this expedition that gave to the Mormons their first idea of Utah as a place of residence. After leaving Great Salt Lake, he explored the upper tributaries of the Columbia, descended the valley of that River to Fort Vancouver, near its mouth, and on 10 November set out on his return. His route lay through an almost unknown region leading from the Lower Columbia to the Upper Colorado, and was crossed by high and rugged mountain-chains. Deep snow soon forced him to descend into the great basin, and he presently found himself, in the depth of winter, in a desert, with the prospect of death to his whole party from cold and hunger. By astronomical observation he found that he was in the latitude of the Bay of San Francisco; but between him and the valleys of California was a snow-clad range of mountains, which the Indians declared no man could cross, and over which no reward could induce them to attempt to guide him. Frémont undertook the passage without a guide, and accomplished it in forty days, reaching Sutter's Fort, on the Sacramento, early in March, with his men reduced almost to skeletons, and with only thirty-three out of sixty-seven horses and mules remaining. Resuming his journey on 24 March, he crossed the Sierra Nevada through a gap, and after another visit to Great Salt lake returned to Kansas through the South pass in July, 1844, having been absent fourteen months. The reports of this expedition occupied in their preparation the remainder of 1844. Frémont was given the double brevet of 1st lieutenant and captain in January, 1845, at the instance of General Scott, and in the spring of that year he set out on a third expedition to explore the great basin and the maritime region of Oregon and California. After spending the summer in exploring the watershed between the Pacific and the Mississippi, he encamped in October on the shore of the Great Salt Lake, and after crossing the Sierra Nevada with a few men, in the dead of winter, to obtain supplies, left his party in the valley of the San Joaquin while he went to Monterey, then the capital of California, to obtain from the Mexican authorities permission to proceed with his exploration. This was granted, but was almost immediately revoked, and Frémont was ordered to leave the country without delay. Compliance with this demand was impossible, on account of the exhaustion of Frémont's men and his lack of supplies, and it was therefore refused. The Mexican commander, General José Castro, then mustered the forces of the province and prepared to attack the Americans, who numbered only sixty-two. Frémont took up a strong position on the Hawk's peak, a mountain thirty miles from Monterey, built a rude fort of felled trees, hoisted the American flag, and, having plenty of ammunition, resolved to defend himself. The Mexican general, with a large force, encamped in the plain immediately below the Americans, whom he hourly threatened to attack. On the evening of the fourth day of the siege Frémont withdrew with his party and proceeded toward the San Joaquin. The fires were still burning in his deserted camp when a messenger arrived from General Castro to propose a cessation of hostilities. Frémont now made his way northward through the Sacramento valley into Oregon without further trouble, and near Klamath Lake, on 9 May, 1846, met a party in search of him with despatches from Washington, directing him to watch over the interests of the United States in California, there being reason to apprehend that the province would be transferred to Great Britain, and also that General Castro intended to destroy the American settlements on the Sacramento. He promptly returned to California, where he found that Castro was already marching against the settlements. The settlers flocked to Frémont's camp, and in less than a month he had freed northern California from Mexican authority. He received a lieutenant-colonel's commission on 27 May, and was elected governor of California by the American settlers on 4 July. On 10 July, learning that Commodore Sloat, commander of the United States Squadron on that coast, had seized Monterey, he marched to join him, and reached that place on 19 July, with 160 mounted riflemen. About this time Commodore Stockton arrived at Monterey with the frigate “Congress” and took command of the squadron, with authority from Washington to conquer California. At his request Frémont organized a force of mounted men, known as the “California battalion,” of which he was appointed major. He was also appointed by Commodore Stockton military commandant and civil governor of the territory, the project of making California independent having been relinquished on receipt of intelligence that war had begun between the United States and Mexico. On 13 January, 1847, Frémont concluded with the Mexicans articles of capitulation, which terminated the war in California and left that country permanently in the possession of the United States. Meantime General Stephen W. Kearny, with a small force of dragoons, had arrived in California. A quarrel soon broke out between him and Commodore Stockton as to who should command. Each had instructions from Washington to conquer and organize a government in the country. Frémont had accepted a commission from Commodore Stockton as commander of the battalion of volunteers, and had been appointed governor of the territory. General Kearny, as Frémont's superior officer in the regular army, required him to obey his orders, which conflicted with those of Commodore Stockton. In this dilemma Frémont concluded to obey Stockton's orders, considering that he had already fully recognized that officer as commander-in-chief, and that General Kearny had also for some time admitted his authority. In the spring of 1847 despatches from Washington assigned the command to Gen Kearny, and in June that officer set out overland for the United States, accompanied by Frémont, whom he treated with deliberate disrespect throughout the journey. On the arrival of the party at Fort Leavenworth, on 22 August, Frémont was put under arrest and ordered to report to the adjutant-general at Washington, where he arrived on 16 September, and demanded a speedy trial. Accordingly a court-martial was held, beginning 2 November, 1847, and ending 31 January, 1848, which found him guilty of “mutiny,” “disobedience of the lawful command of a superior officer,” and “conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline,” and sentenced him to be dismissed from the service. A majority of the members of the court recommended him to the clemency of President Polk. The president refused to confirm the verdict of mutiny, but approved the rest of the verdict and the sentence, of which, however, he remitted the penalty. Notwithstanding this, Frémont at once resigned his commission, and on 14 October, 1848, set out on a fourth expedition across the continent, at his own expense, with the object of finding a practicable passage to California by way of the upper waters of the Rio Grande. With thirty-three men and 120 mules he made his way through the country of the Utes, Apaches, Comanches, and other Indian tribes then at war with the United States. In attempting to cross the great Sierra, covered with snow, his guide lost his way, and Frémont's party encountered horrible suffering from cold and hunger, a portion of them being driven to cannibalism. All of his animals and one third of his men perished, and he was forced to retrace his steps to Santa Fé. Undaunted by this disaster, he gathered another band of thirty men, and after a long search discovered a secure route by which he reached the Sacramento in the spring of 1849. He now determined to settle in California, where, in 1847, he had bought the Mariposa estate, a large tract of land containing rich gold-mines. His title to this estate was contested, but after a long litigation it was decided in his favor in 1855 by the Supreme Court of the United States. He received from President Taylor in 1849 the appointment of commissioner to run the boundary-line between the United States and Mexico, but, having been elected by the legislature of California, in December of that year, to represent the new state in the U. S. Senate, he resigned his commissionership and departed for Washington by way of the isthmus. He took his seat in the Senate, 10 September, 1850, the day after the admission of California as a state. In drawing lots for the terms of the respective senators, Frémont drew the short term, ending 4 March, 1851. The Senate remained in session but three weeks after the admission of California, and during that period Frémont devoted himself almost exclusively to measures relating to the interests of the state he represented. For this purpose he introduced and advocated a comprehensive series of bills, embracing almost every object of legislation demanded by the peculiar circumstances of California. In the state election of 1851 in California the Anti-slavery Party, of which Frémont was one of the leaders, was defeated, and he consequently failed of re-election to the Senate, after 142 ballotings. After devoting two years to his private affairs, he visited Europe in 1852, and spent a year there, being received with distinction by many eminent men of letters and of science. He had already, in 1850, received a gold medal from the king of Prussia for his discoveries, had been awarded the “founder's medal” of the Royal geographical Society of London, and had been elected an honorary member of the Geographical Society of Berlin. His explorations had gained for him at home the name of the “Pathfinder.” While in Europe he learned that Congress had made an appropriation for the survey of three routes from the Mississippi valley to the Pacific, and immediately returned to the United States for the purpose of fitting out a fifth expedition on his own account to complete the survey of the route he had taken on his fourth expedition. He left Paris in June, 1853, and in September was on his march across the continent. He found passes through the mountains on the line of latitudes 38 and 39, and reached California in safety, after enduring great hardships. For fifty days his party lived on horse-flesh, and for forty-eight hours at a time were without food of any kind. In the spring of 1855 Frémont with his family took up his residence in New York, for the purpose of preparing for publication the narrative of his last expedition. He now began to be mentioned as an anti-slavery candidate for the presidency. In the first National Republican Convention, which met in Philadelphia on 17 June, 1856, he received 359 votes to 196 for John McLean, on an informal ballot, and on the first formal ballot Frémont was unanimously nominated. In his letter of acceptance, dated 8 July, 1856, he expressed himself strongly against the extension of slavery and in favor of free labor. A few days after the Philadelphia Convention adjourned, a National American Convention at New York also nominated him for the presidency. He accepted their support in a letter dated 30 June, in which he referred them for an exposition of his views to his forthcoming letter accepting the Republican nomination. After a spirited and exciting contest, the presidential election resulted in the choice of Mr. Buchanan by 174 electoral votes from nineteen states, while Frémont received 114 votes from eleven states, including the six New England states, New York, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, and Wisconsin. Maryland gave her eight electoral votes for Mr. Fillmore. The popular vote for Frémont was 1,341,000; for Buchanan, 1,838,000; for Fillmore, 874,000. In 1858 Frémont went to California, where he resided for some time. In 1860 he visited Europe. Soon after the beginning of the Civil War he was made a major-general of the regular army and assigned to the command of the newly created Western Department. After purchasing arms for the U. S. government, in Europe, he returned; he arrived in St. Louis on 26 July, 1861, and made his headquarters there, fortifying the city, and placing Cairo in security by a demonstration with 4,000 troops. After the battle of Wilson's Creek, on 10 August, where General Nathaniel Lyon was slain, Frémont proclaimed martial law, arrested active secessionists, and suspended the publication of papers charged with disloyalty. On 31 August he issued a proclamation assuming the government of the state, and announcing that he would emancipate the slaves of those in arms against the United States. President Lincoln wrote to him, approving all of the proclamation except the emancipation clause, which he considered premature. He asked Frémont to withdraw it, which he declined, and the president annulled it himself in a public order. In the autumn Frémont moved his army from the Missouri River in pursuit of the enemy. Meanwhile many complaints had been made of his administration, it being alleged that it was inefficient, though arbitrary and extravagant, and after an investigation by the Secretary of War he was, on 2 November, 1861, relieved from his command just as he had overtaken the Confederates at Springfield. It is claimed by Frémont's friends that this was the result of a political intrigue against him. On leaving his army, he went to St. Louis, where he was enthusiastically received by the citizens. In March, 1862, he was given the command of the newly created “mountain district” of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. In the early part of June his army engaged a superior force under General Jackson for eight days, with constant sharp skirmishing, the enemy retreating slowly and destroying culverts and bridges to cause delay. The pursuit was terminated with a severe engagement on the evening of 6 June, in which Jackson's chief of cavalry, General Ashby, was killed, and by the battle of Cross-Keys on 8 June. It is claimed by General Frémont that if McDowell's force had joined him, as promised by the president, Jackson's retreat would have been cut off; as it was, the latter made good his escape, having accomplished his purpose of delaying re-enforcements to McClellan. On 26 June the president issued an order creating the “Army of Virginia,” to include Frémont's corps, and giving the command of it to General Pope. Thereupon Frémont asked to be relieved, on the ground that he could not serve under General Pope, for sufficient personal reasons. His request having been granted, he went to New York to await further orders, but received no other command during the war, though, as he says, one was constantly promised him. On 31 May, 1864, a convention of Republicans, dissatisfied with Mr. Lincoln, met at Cleveland and tendered to General Frémont a nomination for president, which, he accepted. In the following September a committee of Republicans representing the administration waited on him and urged his withdrawal, as “vital to the success of the party.” After considering the matter for a week, he acceded to their request, saying in his letter of withdrawal that he did so “not to aid in the triumph of Mr. Lincoln, but to do my part toward preventing the election of the Democratic candidate.”
Since 1864 General Frémont has taken little part in public affairs, but has been active in railway matters. He procured from the Texas legislature a grant of state land in the interest of the Memphis and El Paso Railway, which was to be part of a proposed trans-continental road from Norfolk to San Diego and San Francisco. The French agents employed to place the land-grant bonds of this road on the market made the false declaration that they were guaranteed by the United States. In 1869 the Senate passed a bill giving Frémont's road the right of way through the territories, an attempt to defeat it by fixing on him the onus of the misstatement in Paris having been unsuccessful. In 1873 he was prosecuted by the French government for fraud in connection with this misstatement. He did not appear in person, and was sentenced by default to fine and imprisonment, no judgment being given on the merits of the case. In 1878-'81 General Frémont was governor of Arizona. He has published “Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains in 1842, and to Oregon and North California in 1843-'4” (Washington, 1845; New York, 1846; London, 1849); “Colonel J. C. Frémont's Explorations,” an account of all five of his expeditions (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1859); and “Memoirs of my Life” (New York, 1880). See also the campaign biographies by John Bigelow (New York, 1856), and Charles W. Upham (Boston, 1856). His wife, Jessie Benton, born in Virginia in 1824, has published “Story of the Guard; a Chronicle of the War,” with a German translation (Boston, 1863); a sketch of her father, Thomas H. Benton, prefixed to her husband's memoirs (1880); and “Souvenirs of my Time” (Boston, 1887). [Appleton’s 1900]
Galloway, Samuel, 1811-1872, lawyer, U.S. Congressman, Ohio, opponent of slavery (Dumond, 1961, p. 219; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 582; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 4, Pt. 1, p. 117)
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
GALLOWAY, Samuel, lawyer, born in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 20 March, 1811; died in Columbus, Ohio, 5 April, 1872. He was of Scotch-Irish parentage. After removing to Ohio in 1819, he was graduated at Miami in 1833, at the head of his class, and in the following year taught a classical school at Hamilton, Ohio. In 1835 he was elected professor of ancient languages in Miami, but resigned in consequence of ill health in 1836. He resumed teaching in 1838, first at Springfield, Ohio, and later as professor of ancient languages at South Hanover College, Indiana. In 1841 he returned to Ohio, where he studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1842. He practised in Chillicothe, Ohio, until 1844, when he was elected to be secretary of state and moved to Columbus. He held this office for eight years, and after declining a re-election resumed his profession. In 1854 he was elected to Congress as a Republican and served one term. He was defeated by S. S. Cox in 1856, and again in 1858. Mr. Galloway took an active part in the political conflicts arising out of the Kansas question. He rendered important legal services to the war department during the Civil War. He was active in religious matters, and was for thirteen years a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 582.
