USA > Indiana > Decatur County > A Genealogical and biographical record of Decatur County, Indiana : compendium of national biography > Part 18
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T THOMAS PAINE, the most noted polit- ical and deistical writer of the Revolu- tionary period, was born in England, Jan- uary 29, 1737, of Quaker parents. His edu- cation was obtained in the grammar schools of Thetford, his native town, and supple- mented by hard private study while working at his trade of stay-maker at London and other cities of England. He was for a time a dissenting preacher, although he did not relinquish his employment. He married a revenue official's daughter, and was employed in the revenue service for some time. He then became a grocer and during all this time he was reading and cultivating his literary tastes, and had developed a clear and forci- ble style of composition. . He was chosen to represent the interests of the excisemen, and published a pamphlet that brought him considerable notice. He was soon after- ward introduced to Benjamin Franklin, and having been dismissed from the service on a
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charge of smuggling, his resentment led him to accept the advice of that statesman to come to America, in 1774. He became editor of the " Pennsylvania Magazine, " and the next year published his "Serious Thoughts upon Slavery" in the " Penn- sylvania Journal." His greatest political work, however, was written at the sugges- tion of Dr. Rush, and entitled " Common Sense." It was the most popular pamphlet written during the period and he received two thousand five hundred dollars from the state of Pennsylvania in recognition of its value. His periodical, the "Crisis," began in 1776, and its distribution among the soldiers did a great deal to keep up the spirit of revolution. He was made secretary of the committee of foreign affairs, but was dis- missed for revealing diplomatic secrets in one of his controversies with Silas Deane. He was originator and promoter of a sub- scription to relieve the distress of the soldiers near the close of the war, and was sent to France with Henry Laurens to negotiate the treaty with France, and was granted three thousand dollars by congress for his services there, and an estate at New Rochelle, by the state of New York.
In 1787, after the close of the Revolu- tionary war, he went to France, and a few years later published his " Rights 'of Man," defending the French revolution, which gave him great popularity in France. He was made a citizen and elected to the na- tional convention at Calais. He favored banishment of the king to America, and opposed his execution. He was imprisoned for about ten months during 1794 by the Robespierre party, during which time he wrote the " Age of Reason," his great deis- tical work. He was in danger of the guillo- tine for several months. He took up his residence with the family of James Monroe,
then minister to France and was chosen again to the convention. He returned to the United States in 1802, and was cordially received throughout the coun- try except at Trenton, where he was insulted by Federalists. He retired to his estate at New Rochelle, and his death occurred June 8, 1809.
JOHN WILLIAM MACKAY was one of America's noted men, both in the de- velopment of the western coast and the building of the Mackay and Bennett cable. He was born in 1831 at Dublin, Ireland; came to New York in 1840 and his boyhood days were spent in Park Row. He went to California some time after the argonauts of 1849 and took to the primitive methods of mining -lost and won and finally drifted into Nevada about 1860. The bonanza dis- coveries which were to have such a potent influence on the finance and statesmanship of the day caine in 1872. Mr. Mackay founded the Nevada Bank in 1878. He is said to have taken one hundred and fifty million dollars in bullion out of the Big Bonanza mine. There were as- sociated with him in this enterprise James G. Fair, senator from Nevada; William O'Brien and James C. Flood. When
vast wealth came to Mr. Mackay he be- lieved it his duty to do his country some service, and he agitated in his mind the building of an American steamship line, and while brooding over this his attention was called to the cable relations between America and Europe. The financial man- agement of the cable was selfish and ex- travagant, and the capital was heavy with accretions of financial " water " and to pay even an apparent dividend upon the sums which represented the nominal value of the cables, it was necessary to hold the rates
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at an exorbitant figure. And, moreover, the cables were foreign; in one the influence of France being paramount and in the other that of England; and in the matter of intel- ligence, so necessary 'in case of war, we would be at the mercy of our enemies. This train of thought brought Mr. Mackay into re- lation with James Gordon Bennett, the pro- prietor of the "New York Herald." The result of their intercourse was that Mr. Mac- kay so far entered into the enthusiasm of Mr. Bennett over an independent cable, that he offered to assist the enterprise with five hundred thousand dollars. This was the inception of the Commercial Cable Com- pany, or of what has been known for years as the Mackay-Bennett cable.
E "LISHA GRAY, the great inventor and electrician, was born August 2, 1835, at Barnesville, Belmont county, Ohio. He was, as a child, greatly interested in the phenomena of nature, and read with avidity all the books he could obtain, relating to this subject. He was apprenticed to various trades during his boyhood, but his insatiable thirst for knowledge dominated his life and he found time to study at odd intervals. Supporting himself by working at his trade, he found time to pursue a course at Oberlin College, where he particularly devoted him- self to the study of physicial science. Mr. - Gray secured his first patent for electrical or telegraph apparatus on October 1, 1867. His attention was first attracted to tele- phonic transmission during this year and he saw in it a way of transmitting signals for telegraph purposes, and conceived the idea of electro-tones, tuned to different tones in the scale. He did not then realize the im- portance of his invention, his thoughts being employed on the capacity of the apparatus for transmitting musical tones through an
electric circuit, and it was not until 1874 that he was again called to consider the re- production of electrically-transmitted vibra- tions through the medium of animal tissue. He continued experimenting with various results, which finally culminated in his taking out a patent for his speaking tele- phone on February 14, 1876. He took out fifty additional patents in the course of eleven years, among which were, telegraph switch, telegraph repeater, telegraph annun- ciator and typewriting telegraph. From 1869 until 1873 he was employed in the manufacture of telegraph apparatus in Cleve- land and Chicago, and filled the office of electrician to the Western Electric Com- pany. He was awarded the degree of D. S., and in 1874 he went abroad to perfect himself in acoustics. Mr. Gray's latest in- vention was known as the telautograph or long distance writing machine. Mr. Gray wrote and published several works on scien- tific subjects, among which were: "Tele- graphy and Telephony," and " Experi- mental Research in Electro-Harmonic Tele- graphy and Telephony."
W HITELAW REID .- Among the many men who have adorned the field of journalism in the United States, few stand out with more prominence than the scholar, author and editor whose name heads this ar- ticle. Born at Xenia, Greene county, Ohio, October 27, 1837, he graduated at Miami University in 1856. For about a year he was superintendent of the graded schools of South Charleston, Ohio, after which he pur- chased the " Xenia News," which he edited for about two years. This paper was the first one outside of Illinois to advocate the nomination of Abraham Lincoln, Mr. Reid having been a Republican since the birth of that party in 1856. After taking an active
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part in the campaign, in the winter of 1860- 61, he went to the state capital as corres- pondent of three daily papers. At the close of the session of the legislature he became city editor of the "Cincinnati Gazette," and at the breaking out of the war went to the front as a correspondent for that journal. For a time he served on the staff of General Morris in West Virginia, with the rank of captain. Shortly after he was on the staff of General Rosecrans, and, under the name of "Agate," wrote most graphic descrip- tions of the movements in the field, espe- cially that of the battle of Pittsburg Land- ing. In the spring of 1862 Mr. Reid went to Washington and was appointed librarian to the house of representatives, and acted as correspondent of the " Cincinnati Gazette." His description of the battle of Gettysburg, written on the field, gained him added reputation. In 1865 he accompanied Chief Justice Chase on a southern tour, and pub- lished " After the War; a Southern Tour." During the next two years he was engaged in cotton planting in Louisiana and Ala- bama, and published "Ohio in the War." In 1868 he returned to the " Cincinnati Ga- zette," becoming one of its leading editors. The same year he accepted the invitation of Horace Greeley and became one of the staff on the "New York Tribune." Upon the death of Mr. Greeley in 1872, Mr. Reid be- came editor and chief proprietor of that paper. In 1878 he was tendered the United States mission to Berlin, but declined. The offer was again made by the Garfield ad- ministration, but again he declined. In 1878 he was elected by the New York legis- lature regent of the university, to succeed General John A. Dix. Under the Harrison administration he served as United States minister to France, and in 1892 was the Republican nominee for the vice-presidency
of the United States. Among other works published by him were the "Schools of Journalism," "The Scholar in Politics," "Some Newspaper Tendencies," and "Town-Hall Suggestions."
G EORGE WHITEFIELD was one of the most powerful and effective preach- ers the world has ever produced, swaying his hearers and touching the hearts of im- mense audiences in a manner that has rarely been equalled and never surpassed. While not a native of America, yet much of his labor was spent in this country. He wielded a great influence in the United States in early days, and his death occurred here; so that he well deserves a place in this volume as one of the most celebrated men America has known.
George Whitefield was born in the Bull Inn, at Gloucester, England, December 16, 1714. He acquired the rudiments of learn- ing in St. Mary's grammar school. Later he attended Oxford University for a time, where he became intimate with the Oxford Methodists, and resolved to devote himself to the ministry. He was ordained in the Gloucester Cathedral June 20, 1836, and the following day preached his first sermon in the same church. On that day there commenced a new era in Whitefield's life. He went to London and began to preach at Bishopsgate church, his fame soon spread- ing over the city, and shortly he was en- gaged four times on a single Sunday in ad- dressing audiences of enormous magnitude, and he preached in various parts of his native country, the people crowding in multitudes to hear him and hanging upon the rails and rafters of the churches and approaches there- to. He finally sailed for America, landing in Georgia, where he stirred the people to great enthusiasm. During the balance of
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W.T SHERMAN.
OLIVER W HOLMES
JAS G BLAINE
JOHN.G. CARLISLE
PD.ARMOUR
TLYMAN J.GAGE!
LBENJ. BUTLER
THOS BREED
CHAS A. DANA
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his life he divided his time between Great Britain and America, and it is recorded that he crossed the Atlantic thirteen times. He came to America for the seventh time in 1770. He preached every day at Boston from the. 17th to the 20th of September, 1770, then traveled to Newburyport, preach- ing at Exeter, New Hampshire, September 29, on the way. That. evening he went to Newburyport, where he died the next day, Sunday, September 30, 1770.
" Whitefield's dramatic power was amaz- ing," says an eminent writer in describing him. " His voice was marvelously varied, and he ever had it at command-an organ, a flute, a harp, all in one. His intellectual powers were not of a high order, but he had an abundance of that ready talent and that wonderful magnetism which makes the pop- ular preacher; and beyond all natural en- dowments, there was in his ministry the power of evangelical truth, and, as his con- verts believed, the presence of the spirit of God."
C' HARLES FRANCIS BRUSH, one of America's prominent men in the devel- opment of electrical science, was born March 17, 1849, near Cleveland, Ohio, and spent his early life on his father's farm. From the district school at Wickliffe, Ohio, he passed to the Shaw Academy at Collamer, and then entered the high school at Cleve- land. His interest in chemistry, physics and engineering was already marked, and during his senior year he was placed in charge of the chemical and physical appar- atus. During these years he devised a plan for lighting street lamps, constructed tele- scopes, and his first electric arc lamp, also an electric motor. In September, 1867, he entered the engineering department of the University of Michigan and graduated in . 9
1869, which was a year in advance of his class, with the degree of M. E. He then returned to Cleveland, and for three years was engaged as an analytical chemist and for four years in the iron business. In 1875 Mr. Brush became interested in elec- tric lighting, and in 1876, after four months' experimenting, he completed the dynamo- electric machine that has made his name famous, and in a shorter time produced the series arc lamps. These were both patent- ed in the United States in 1876, and he afterward obtained fifty patents on his later inventions, including the fundamental stor- age battery, the compound series, shunt- winding for dynamo-electric machines, and the automatic cut-out for arc lamps. His patents, two-thirds of which have already been profitable, are held by the Brush Electric Company, of Cleveland, while his foreign patents are controlled by the Anglo- American Brush Electric Light Company, of London. In 1880 the Western Reserve University conferred upon Mr. Brush the degree of Ph. D., and in 1881 the French government decorated him as a chevalier of the Legion of Honor.
H ENRY CLEWS, of Wall-street fame, was one of the noted old-time opera- tors on that famous street, and was also an author of some repute. Mr. Clews was born in Staffordshire, England, August 14, 1840. His father had him educated with the intention of preparing him for the minis- try, but on a visit to the United States the young man became interested in a business life, and was allowed to engage as a clerk in the importing house of Wilson G. Hunt & Co., of New York. Here he learned the first principles of business, and when the war broke out in 1861 young Clews saw in the needs of the government an opportunity to
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reap a golden harvest. He identified himn- self with the negotiating of loans for the government, and used his powers of pur- suasion upon the great money powers to convince them of the stability of the govern- ment and the value of its securities. By enthusiasm and patriotic arguments he in- duced capitalists to invest their money in government securities, often against their judgment, and his success was remarkable. His was one of the leading firms that aided the struggling treasury department in that critical hour, and his reward was great. In addition to the vast wealth it brought, President Lincoln and Secretary Chase both wrote important letters, acknowledging his valued service. In 1873, by the repu- diation of the bonded indebtedness of the state of Georgia, Mr. Clews lost six million dollars which he had invested in those se- curities. It is said that he is the only man, with one exception, in Wall street, who ever regained great wealth after utter dis- aster. His " Twenty-Eight Years in Wall Street " has been widely read.
LFRED VAIL was one of the men that
A gave to the world the electric telegraph and the names of Henry, Morse and Vail will forever remain linked as the prime fac- tors in that great achievement. Mr. Vail was born September 25, 1807, at Morris- town, New Jersey, and was a son of Stephen Vail, the proprietor of the Speedwell Iron Works, near Morristown. At the age of seventeen, after he had completed his stud- ies at the Morristown Academy, Alfred Vail went into the Speedwell Iron Works and contented himself with the duties of his position until he reached his majority. He then determined to prepare himself for the ministry, and at the age of twenty-five he entered the University of the City of New
York, where he was graduated in 1836. His health becoming impaired he labored for a tiine under much uncertainty as to his future course. Professor S. F. B. Morse had come to the university in 1835 as professor of lit- erature and fine arts, and about this time, 1837, Professor Gale, occupying the chair of chemistry, invited Morse to exhibit his apparatus for the benefit of the students. On Saturday, September 2, 1837, the exhi- bition took place and Vail was asked to at- tend, and with his inherited taste for me- chanics and knowledge of their construction, he saw a great future for the crude mechan- ism used by Morse in giving and recording signals. Mr. Vail interested his father in the invention, and Morse was invited to Speedwell and the elder Vail promised to help him. It was stipulated that Alfred Vail should construct the required apparatus and exhibit before a committee of congress the telegraph instrument, and was to receive a quarter interest in the invention. Morse had devised a series of ten numbered leaden types, which were to be operated in giving the signal. This was not satisfactory to Vail, so he devised an entirely new instru- ment, involving a lever, or " point," on a radically different principle, which, when tested, produced dots and dashes, and de- vised the famous dot-and-dash alphabet, misnamed the " Morse." At last the ma- chine was in working order, on January 6, 1838. The machine was taken to Wash- ington, where it caused not only wonder, but excitement. Vail continued his experi- ments and devised the lever and roller. When the line between Baltimore and Washington was completed, Vail was sta- tioned at the Baltimore end and received the famous first message. It is a remarka- ble fact that not a single feature of the original invention of Morse, as formulated
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by his caveat and repeated in his original patent, is to be found in Vail's apparatus. From 1837 to 1844 it was a combination of the inventions of Morse, Henry and Vail, but the work of Morse fell gradually into desuetude, while Vail's conception of an alphabet has remained unchanged for half a century. Mr. Vail published but one work, " American Electro-Magnetic Telegraph," in I845, and died at Morristown at the com- paratively early age of fifty-one, on January 19, 1859.
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U' ULYSSES S. GRANT, the eighteenth president of the United States, was born April 27, 1822, at Point Pleasant, Cler- mont county, Ohio. At the age of seven- teen he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, from which he graduated in June, 1843, and was given his brevet as second lieutenant and assigned to the Fourth Infantry. He remained in the service eleven years, in which time he was engaged in the Mexican war with gal- lantry, and was thrice brevetted for conduct in the field. In IS48 he married Miss Julia Dent, and in 1854, having reached the grade of captain, he resigned and engaged in farming near St. Louis. In 1860 he en- tered the leather business with his father at Galena, Illinois.
On the breaking out of the war, in 1861, he commenced to drill a company at Ga- lena, and at the same time offered his serv- ices to the adjutant-general of the army, but he had few influential friends, so re- ceived. no answer. He was employed by the governor of Illinois in the organization of the various volunteer regiments, and at the end of a few weeks was given the colonelcy of the Twenty-first Infantry, from that state. His military training and knowl- edge soon attracted the attention of his su-
perior officers, and on reporting to General Pope in Missouri, the latter put him in the way of advancement. August 7, 1861, he was promoted to the rank of brigadier- general of volunteers, and for a few weeks was occupied in watching the movements of partisan forces in Missouri. September I, the same year, he was placed in command of the Department of Southeast Missouri, with headquarters at Cairo, and on the 6th of the month, without orders, seized Padu- cah, which commanded the channel of the Ohio and Tennessee rivers, by which he se- cured Kentucky for the Union. He now received orders to make a demonstration on Belmont, which he did, and with about three thousand raw recruits held his own against the Confederates some seven thousand strong, bringing back about two hundred prisoners and two guns. In February,[1862, he moved up the Tennessee river with the naval fleet under Commodore Foote. The latter soon silenced Fort Henry, and Grant advanced against Fort Donelson and took their fortress and its garrison. His prize here consisted of sixty-five cannon, seventeen thousand six hundred stand of arms, and fourteen thousand six hundred and twenty-three prisoners. This was the first important success won by the Union forces. Grant was immediately made a major-general and placed in command of the district of West Tennessee. In April, 1 862, he fought the battle of Pittsburg Land- ing, and after the evacuation of Corinth by the enemy Grant became commander of the Departinent of the Tennessee. He now made his first demonstration toward Vicks- burg, but owing to the incapacity of subor- dinate officers, was unsuccessful. In Janu- ary, 1863, he took command of all the troops in the Mississippi Valley and devoted several months to the siege of Vicksburg,
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which was finally taken possession of by him July 4, with thirty-one thousand six hundred prisoners and one hundred and seventy-two cannon, thus throwing the Mississippi river open to the Federals. He was now raised to the rank of major-general in the regular army. October following, at the head of the Department of the Mississippi, General Grant went to Chattanooga, where he over- threw the enemy, and united with the Army of the Cumberland. The remarkable suc- cesses achieved by him pointed Grant out for an appropriate commander of all na- tional troops, and in February, 1864, the rank of lieutenant-general was made for him by act of congress. Sending Sherman into Georgia, Sigel into the Valley of West Vir- ginia and Butler to attempt the capture of Richmond he fought his way through the Wilderness to the James and pressed the siege of the capital of the Confederacy. After the fall of the latter Grant pressed the . Confederate army so hard that their commander surrendered at Appomattox Court House, April 9, 1865. This virtually ended the war.
After the war the rank of general was conferred upon U. S. Grant, and in 1868 he was elected president of the United States, and re-elected his own successor in 1872. After the expiration of the latter term he made his famous tour of the world. He died at Mt. McGregor, near Saratoga, New York, July 23, 1885, and was buried at Riverside Park, New York, where a magnificent tomb has been erected to hold the ashes of the nation's hero.
JOHN MARSHALL, the fourth chief jus- tice of the United States supreme court, was born in Gerinantown, Virginia, Septem- ber 24, 1755. His father, Colonel Thomas Marshall, served with distinction in the Rev-
olutionary war, while he also served from the beginning of the war until 1779, where he became noted in the field and courts martial. While on detached service he at- tended a course of law lectures at William and Mary College, delivered by Mr. Wythe, and was admitted to the bar. The next year he resigned his commission and began his career as a lawyer. He was a distinguished member of the convention called in Virginia to ratify the Federal constitution. He was tendered the attorney-generalship of the United States, and also a place on the su- preme bench, besides other places of less honor, all of which he declined. He went to France as special envoy in 1798, and the next year was elected to congress. He served one year and was appointed, first, secretary of war, and then secretary of state, and in I801 was made chief justice of the United States. He held this high office un- til his death, in 1835.
Chief Justice Marshall's early education was neglected, and his opinions, the most valuable in existence, are noted for depth of wisdom, clear and comprehensive reason- ing, justice, and permanency, rather than for wide learning and scholarly construction. His decisions and rulings are resorted to constantly by our greatest lawyers, and his renown as a just judge and profound jurist was world wide.
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