USA > Indiana > Decatur County > A Genealogical and biographical record of Decatur County, Indiana : compendium of national biography > Part 12
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S TEPHEN DECATUR, a famous com- modore in the United States navy, was born in Maryland in 1779. He entered the naval service in 1798. In 1804, when the American vessel Philadelphia had been run aground and captured in the harbor of Trip- oli, Decatur, at the head of a few men, boarded her and burned her in the face of the guns from the city defenses. For this daring deed he was made captain. He was given command of the frigate United States at the breaking out of the war of 1812, and in October of that year he captured the British frigate Macedonian, and was re- warded with a gold medal by congress. Af- ter the close of the war he was sent as com- mander of a fleet of ten vessels to chastise the dey of Algiers, who was preying upon American commerce with impunity and de- manding tribute and ransom for the release of American citizens captured. Decatur
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captured a number of Algerian vessels, and compelled the dey to sue for peace. He was noted for his daring and intrepidity, and his coolness in the face of danger, and helped to bring the United States navy into favor with the people and congress as a means of defense and offense in time of war. He was killed in a duel by Commo- dore Barron, March 12, 1820.
JAMES KNOX POLK, the eleventh president of the United States, 1845 to 1849, was born November 2, 1795, in Meck- lenburg county, North Carolina, and was the eldest child of a family of six sons. He removed with his father to the Valley of the Duck River, in Tennessee, in 1806. He attended the common schools and became .very proficient in the lower branches of education, and supplemented this with a' course in the Murfreesboro Academy, which he entered in 1813 and in the autumn of 1815 he became a student in the sopho- more class of the University of North Caro- lina, at Chapel Hill, and was graduated in 1818. He then spent a short time in re- cuperating his health and then proceeded to Nashville, Tennessee, where he took up the . study of law in the office of Felix Grundy. After the completion of his law studies he was admitted to the bar and removed to Columbia, Maury county, Tennessee, and started in the active practice of his profes- sion. Mr. Polk was a Jeffersonian “ Re- publican " and in 1823 he was elected to the legislature of Tennessee. He was a strict constructionist and did not believe that the general government had the power to carry on internal improvements in the states, but deemed it important that it should have that power, and wanted the constitution amended to that effect. But later on he became alarmed lest the general government might
become strong enough to abolish slavery and therefore gave his whole support to the " State's Rights" movement, and endeavored to check the centralization of power in the general government. Mr. Polk was chosen a member of congress in 1825, and held that office until 1839. He then withdrew, as he was the successful gubernatorial candidate of his state. He had become a man of great influence in the house, and, as the leader of the Jackson party in that body, weilded great influence in the election of General Jackson to the presidency. He sustained the president in all his measures and still remained in the house after Gen- eral Jackson had been succeeded by Martin Van Buren. He was speaker of the house during five sessions of congress. He was elected governor of Tennessee by a large majority and took the oath of office at Nash- ville, October 4, 1839. He was a candidate for re-election but was defeated by Governor Jones, the Whig candidate. In 1844 the most prominent question in the election was the annexation of Texas, and as Mr. Polk was the avowed champion of this cause he was nominated for president by the pro- slavery wing of the democratic party, was elected by a large majority, and was inaug- urated March 4, 1845. President Polk formed a very able cabinet, consisting of James Buchanan, Robert J. Walker, Will- iam L. Marcy, George Bancroft, Cave John- son, and John Y. Mason. The dispute re- garding the Oregon boundary was settled during his term of office and a new depart- ment was added to the list of cabinet po- sitions, that of the Interior. The low tariff bill of 1846 was carried and the financial system of the country was reorganized. It was also during President Polk's term that the Mexican war was successfully conducted, which resulted in the acquisition of Califor-
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nia and New Mexico. Mr. Polk retired from the presidency March 4, 1849, after having declined a re-nomination, and was succeeded by General Zachary Taylor, the hero of the Mexican war. Mr. Polk retired to private life, to his home in Nashville, where he died at the age of fifty-four on June 9, 1849.
A2 NNA DICKINSON (Anna Elizabeth Dickinson), a noted lecturer and pub- lic speaker, was born at Philadelphia, Oc- tober 28, 1842. Her parents were Quakers, and she was educated at the Friends' free schools in her native city. She early man- ifested an inclination toward elocution and public speaking, and when, at the age of 18, she found an opportunity to appear before a national assemblage for the discussion of woman's rights, she at once established her reputation as a public speaker. From 1860 to the close of the war and during the ex- citing period of reconstruction, she was one of the most noted and influential speakers before the American public, and her popu- larity was unequaled by that of any of her sex. A few weeks after the defeat and death of Colonel Baker at Ball's Bluff, Anna Dickinson, lecturing in New York, made the remarkable assertion, "Not the incom- petency of Colonel Baker, but the treachery of General McClellan caused the disaster at Ball's Bluff." She was hissed and hooted off the stage. A year later, at the same hall and with much the same class of audi- tors, she repeated the identical words, and the applause was so great and so long con- tinued that it was impossible to go on with her lecture for more than half an hour. The change of sentiment had been wrought by the reverses and dismissal of McClellan and his ambition to succeed Mr. Lincoln as presi- dent.
Ten years after the close of the war, Anna
Dickinson was not heard of on the lec- ture platform, and about that time she made an attempt to enter the dramatic profession, but after appearing a number of times in dif- ferent plays she was pronounced a failure.
R OBERT J. BURDETTE .- Some per- sonal characteristics of Mr. Burdette were quaintly given by himself in the follow- ing words: "Politics ? Republican after the strictest sect. Religion ? Baptist. Per- sonal appearance ? Below medium height, and weigh one hundred and thirty-five pounds, no shillings and no pence. Rich ? Not enough to own a yacht. Favorite read- ing? Poetry and history-know Longfellow by heart, almost. Write for magizines ? Have more 'declined with thanks ' letters than would fill a trunk. Never able to get into a magazine with a line. Care about it? Mad as thunder. Think about starting a magazine and rejecting everbody's articles except my own." Mr. Burdette was born at Greensborough, Pennsylvania, in 1844. He served through the war of the rebellion under General Banks " on an excursion ticket " as he felicitously described it, "good both ways, conquering in one direction and running in the other, pay going on just the same." He entered into journalism by the gateway of New York correspondence for the "Peoria Transcript," and in 1874 went on the "Burlington Hawkeye" of which he became the managing editor, and the work that he did on this paper made both him- self and the paper famous in the world of humor. Mr. Burdette married in 1870, and his wife, whom he called " Her Little Serene Highness," was to him a guiding light until the day of her death, and it was probably the unconscious pathos with which he described her in his work that broke the barriers that had kept him out of the maga-
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zines and secured him the acceptance of his " Confessions " by Lippincott some years ago, and brought him substantial fame and recognition in the literary world.
W ILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS, one of the leading novelists of the present century and author of a number of works that gained for him a place in the hearts of the people, was born March. I, 1837, at Martinsville, Belmont county, Ohio. At the age of three years he accompanied his father, who was a printer, to Hamilton, Ohio, where he learned the printer's trade. Later he was engaged on the editorial staff of the "Cincinnati Gazette " and the " Ohio State Journal." During 1861-65 he was the United States consul at Venice, and from 1871 to 1878 he was the editor-in- chief of the "Atlantic Monthly." As a writer he became one of the most fertile and readable of authors and a pleasing poet. In 1885 he became connected with “ Har- per's Magazine." Mr. Howells was author of the list of books that we give below: "Venetian Life," "Italian Journeys," " No Love Lost," "Suburban Sketches," "Their Wedding Journey," "A Chance Acquaint- ance," "A Foregone Conclusion," "Dr. Breen's Practice," "A Modern Instance," "The Rise of Silas Lapham," "Tuscan
Cities," "Indian Summer," besides many others. He also wrote the "Poem of Two Friends," with J. J. Piatt in 1860, and some minor dramas: "The Drawing Room Car," "The Sleeping Car," etc., that are full of exqusite humor and elegant dialogue.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL was a son of the Rev. Charles Lowell, and was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, February 22, 1819. He graduated at Harvard College in
1838 as class poet, and went to Harvard Law School, from which he was graduated in 1840, and commenced the practice of his profession in Boston, but soon gave his un- divided attention to literary labors. Mr. Lowell printed, in 1841, a small volume of poems entitled " A Year's Life," edited with Robert Carter; in 1843, "The Pioneer, " a literary and critical magazine (monthly), and in 1848 another book of poems, that con- tained several directed against slavery. He published in 1844 a volume of "Poems" and in 1845 "Conversations on Some of the Old Poets," "The Vision of Sir Launfal," "A Fable for Critics, " and "The Bigelow Papers," the latter satirical es- says in dialect poetry directed against slavery and the war with Mexico. In 1851-52 he traveled in Europe and re- sided in Italy for a considerable time, and delivered in 1854-55 a course of lectures on the British poets, before the Lowell Insti- tute, Boston. Mr. Lowell succeeded Long- fellow in January, 1855, as professor of modern languages and literature at Harvard College, and spent another year in Europe qualifying himself for that post. He edited the " Atlantic Monthly " from 1857 to 1862, and the "North American Review" from 1863 until 1872. From 1864 to 1870 he published the following works: "Fireside Travels," "Under the Willows," "The Commemoration Ode," in honor of the alumni of Harvard who had fallen in the Civil war; "The Cathedral," two volumes of essays; " Among My Books" and " My Study Windows," and in 1867 he published a new series of the " Bigelow Papers." He traveled extensively in Europe in 1872-74, and received in person the degree of D. C. L. at Oxford and that of LL. D. at the University of Cambridge, England. He was also interested in political life and held
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many important offices. He was United States minister to Spain in 1877 and was also minister to England in 1880-85. On January 2, 1884, he was elected lord rector of St. Andrew University in Glasgow, Scot- land, but soon after he resigned the same. Mr. Lowell's works enjoy great popularity in the United States and England. He died August 12, 1891.
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JOSEPH. HENRY, one of America's J greatest scientists, was born at Albany, New York, December 17, 1797. He was educated in the common schools of the city and graduated from the Albany Academy, where he became a professor of mathemat- ics in 1826. In 1827 he commenced a course of investigation, which he continued for a number of years, and the results pro- duced had great effect on the scientific world. The first success was achieved by producing the electric magnet, and he next proved the possibility of exciting magnetic energy at a distance, and it was the invention of Pro- fessor Henry's intensity magnet that first made the invention of electric telegraph a possibility. He made a statement regarding the practicability of applying the intensity magnet to telegraphic uses, in his article to the "American Journal of Science " in 1831. During the same year he produced the first mechanical contrivance ever invented for maintaining continuous motion by means of electro-magnetism, and he also contrived a machine by which signals could be made at a distance by the use of his electro-magnet, the signals being produced by a lever strik- ing on a bell. Some of his electro-magnets were of great power, one carried over a ton and another not less than three thousand six hundred pounds. In 1832 he discovered that secondary currents could be produced in a long conductor by the induction of the
primary current upon itself, and also in the same year he produced a spark by means of a purely magnetic induction. Professor Henry was elected, in 1832, professor of nat- ural philosophy in the College of New Jer- sey, and in his earliest lectures at Princeton, demonstrated the feasibility of the electric telegraph. He visited Europe in 1837, and while there he had an interview with Pro- fessor Wheatstone, the inventor of the needle magnetic telegraph. In 1846 he was elected secretary of the Smithsonian Insti- tution, being the first incumbent in that office, which he held until his death. Professor Henry was elected president of the Ameri- can Association for the Advancement of Science, in 1849, and of the National Academy of Sciences. He was made chair- man of the lighthouse board of the United States in 1871 and held that position up to the time of his death. He received the honorary degree of doctor of laws from Union College in 1829, and from Harvard University in 1851, and his death occurred May 13, 1878. Among his numerous works may be mentioned the following: "Contri- butions to Electricity and Magnetism," " American Philosophic Trans," and many articles in the "American Journal of Science," the journal of the Franklin Insti- tute; the proceedings of the American As- sociation for the Advancement of Science, .and in the annual reports of the Smith- sonian Institution from its foundation.
F FRANKLIN BUCHANAN, the famous rear-admiral of the Confederate navy during the rebellion, was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He became a United States midshipman in 1815 and was promoted through the various grades of the service and became a captain in 1855. Mr. Buch- anan resigned his captaincy in order to join
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the Confederate service in 1861 and later he asked to be reinstated, but his request was refused and he then entered into the service of the Confederate government. He was placed in command of the frigate " Merri- mac " after she had been fitted up as an iron- clad, and had command of her at the time of the battle of Hampton Roads. It was he who had command when the "Merri- mac" sunk the two wooden frigates, "Con- gress " and "Cumberland," and was also in command during part of the historical battle of the " Merrimac " and the " Moni- tor," where he was wounded and the com- mand devolved upon Lieutenant Catesby Jones. He was created rear-admiral in the Confederate service and commanded the Confederate fleet in Mobile bay, which was defeated by Admiral Farragut, August 5, 1864. Mr. Buchanan was in command of the "Tennessee," an ironclad, and during the engagement he lost one of his legs and was taken prisoner in the end by the Union fleet. After the war he settled in Talbot county, Maryland, where he died May 11, 1874.
R ICHARD PARKS BLAND, a celebrated American statesman, frequently called "the father of the house," because of his many years of service in the lower house of congress, was born August 19, 1835, near Hartford, Kentucky, where he received a plain academic education. He moved, in 1855, to Missouri, from whence he went overland to California, afterward locating in Virginia City, nowin the state of Nevada, but then part of the territory of Utah. While there he practiced law, dabbled in mines and mining in Nevada and California for several years, and served for a time as treasurer of Carson county, Nevada. Mr. Bland returned to Missouri in 1865, where
he engaged in the practice of law at Rolla. Missouri, and in 1869 removed to Lebanon, Missouri. He began his congressional career in 1873, when he was elected as a Demo- crat to the forty-third congress, and he was regularly re-elected to every congress after that time up to the fifty-fourth, when he was defeated for re-election, but was returned to the fifty-fifth congress as a Silver Demo- crat. During all his protracted service, while Mr. Bland was always steadfast in his support of democratic measures, yet he won his special renown as the great advocate cf silver, being strongly in favor of the free and unlimited coinage of silver, and on ac- count of his pronounced views was one of the candidates for the presidential nomina- tion of the Democratic party at Chicago in 1 896.
F FANNY DAVENPORT (F. L. G. Daven- port) was of British birth, but she be- longs to the American stage. She was the daughter of the famous actor, E. L. Daven- port, and was born in London in 1850. She first went on the stage as a child at the Howard Athenæum, Boston, and her entire life was spent upon the stage. She played children's parts at Burton's old theater in Chambers street, and then, in 1862, appeared as the King of Spain in " Faint Heart Never Won Fair Lady." Here she attracted the notice of Augustin Daly, the noted mana- ger, then at the Fifth Avenue theater, who offered her a six weeks' engagement with her father in "London Assurance." She afterwards appeared at the same house in a . variety of characters, and her versatility was favorably noticed by the critics. After the burning of the old Fifth Avenue, the present theater of that name was built at Twenty-eighth street, and here Miss Daven- port appeared in a play written for her by
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Mr. Daly. She scored a great success. She then starred in this play throughout the country, and was married to Mr. Edwin F. Price, an actor of her company, in 1880. In 1882 she went to Paris and purchased the right to produce in America Sardou's great 'emotional play, "Fedora." It was put on at the Fourteenth Street theater in New York, and in it she won popular favor and became one of the most famous actresses of her time.
H ORACE BRIGHAM CLAFLIN, one of the greatest merchants America has produced, was born in Milford, Massachu- setts, a son of John Claflin, also a mer- · chant. Young Claflin started his active life · as a clerk in his father's store, after having been offered the opportunity of a college education, but with the characteristic promptness that was one of his virtues he exclaimed, "No law or medicine for me." He had set his heart on being a merchant, ' and when his father retired he and his brother Aaron, and his brother-in-law, Sam- uel Daniels, conducted the business. Mr. Claflin was not content, however, to run a store in a town like Milford, and accordingly opened a dry goods store at Worcester, with his brother as a partner, but the partnership was dissolved a year later and H. B. Claflin assumed complete control. The business in Worcester had been conducted on ortho- dox principles, and when Mr. Claflin came there and introduced advertising as a means of drawing trade, he created considerable animosity among the older merchants. Ten years later he was one of the most prosper- ous merchants. He disposed of his busi- ness in Worcester for $30,000, and went to New York to search for a wider field than that of a shopkeeper. Mr. Claflin and William M. Bulkley started in the dry goods
business there under the firm name of Bulk- ley & Claflin, in 1843, and Mr. Bulkley was connected with the firm until 1851, when he retired. A new firm was then formed under the name of Claflin, Mellin & Co. This firm succeeded in founding the largest dry goods house in the world, and after weather- ing the dangers of the civil war, during which the house came very near going un- der, and was saved only by the superior business abilities of Mr. Claflin, continued to grow. The sales of the firm amounted to over $72,000,000 a year after the close of the war. Mr. Claflin died November 14, 1885.
C HARLOTTE CUSHMAN (Charlotte Saunders Cushman), one of the most celebrated American actresses, was born in Boston, July 23, 1816. She was descended from one of the earliest Puritan families. Her first attempt at stage work was at the age of fourteen years in a charitable concert given by amateurs in Boston. From this time her advance to the first place on the American lyric stage was steady, until, in 1835, while singing in New Orleans, she suddenly lost control of her voice so far as relates to singing, and was compelled to re- tire. She then took up the study for the dramatic stage under the direction of Mr. Barton, the tragedian. She soon after made her debut as "Lady Macbeth." She appeared in New York in September, 1836, and her success was immediate. Her " Romeo " was almost perfect, and she is the only woman that has ever appeared in the part of "Cardinal Wolsey." She at different times acted as support of Forrest and Macready. Her London engagement, secured in 1845, after many and great dis- couragements, proved an unqualified suc- cess.
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Her farewell appearance was at Booth's theater, New York, November 7, 1874, in the part of "Lady Macbeth," and after that performance an Ode by R. H. Stoddard was read, and a body of citizens went upon the stage, and in their name the venerable poet Longfellow presented her with a wreath of laurel with an inscription to the effect that "she who merits the palm should bear it." From the time of her appearance as a modest girl in a charitable entertainment down to the time of final triumph as a tragic queen, she bore herself with as much honor to womanhood as to the profession she rep- resented. Her death occurred in Boston, February 18, 1876. By her profession she acquired a fortune of $600,000.
N TEAL DOW, one of the most prominent temperance reformers our country has known, was born in Portland, Me., March 20, 1804. He received his education in the Friends Seminary, at New Bedford, Massa- chusetts, his parents being members of that sect. After leaving school he pursued a mecrantile and manufacturing career for a number of years. He was active in the affairs of his native city, and in 1839 be- came chief of the fire department, and in 1851 was elected mayor. He was re-elected to the latter office in 1854. Being opposed to the liquor traffic he was a champion of the project of prohibition, first brought for- ward in 1839 by James Appleton. While serving his first term as mayor he drafted a bill for the "suppression of drinking houses and tippling shops," which he took to the legislature and which was passed without an alteration. In 1858 Mr. Dow was elected to the legislature. On the outbreak of the Civil war he was appointed colonel of the Thirteenth Maine Infantry and accompanied General Butler's expedition to New Orleans.
In 1862 he was made brigadier-general. At the battle of Port Hudson May 27, 1863, he was twice wounded, and taken prisoner. He was confined at Libby prison and Mobile nearly a year, when, being exchanged, he resigned, his health having given way under the rigors of his captivity. He made sev- eral trips to England in the interests of temperance organization, where he addressed large audiences. He was the candidate of the National Prohibition party for the presi- dency in 1880, receiving about ten thousand votes. In 1884 he was largely instrumental in the amendment of the constitution of Maine, adopted by an overwhelming popular vote, which forever forbade the manufacture or sale of any intoxicating beverages, and commanding the legislature to enforce the prohibition. He died October 2, 1897.
7 ZACHARY TAYLOR, twelfth president of the United States, was born in Orange county, Virginia, September 24, 1784. His boyhood was spent on his fath- er's plantation and his education was lim- ited. In 1808 he was made lieutenant of the Seventh Infantry, and joined his regi- ment at New Orleans. He was promoted to captain in 1810, and commanded at Fort Harrison, near the present site of Terre Haute, in 1812, where, for his gallant de- fense, he was brevetted major, attaining full rank in 1814. In 1815 he retired to an es- tate near Louisville. In 1816 he re-entered the army as major, and was promoted to lieutenant-colonel and then to colonel. Having for many years been Indian agent over a large portion of the western country, he was often required in Washington to give advice and counsel in matters connected with the Indian bureau. He served through the Black Hawk Indian war of 1832, and in 1837 was ordered to the command of the
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