USA > Michigan > Gratiot County > Biographical memoirs of Gratiot County, Michigan : compendium of biography of celebrated Americans > Part 35
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Mr. Adams entered the lower house of congress in 1830, elected from the district in which he was born and continued to rep- resent it for seventeen years. He was known as " the old man eloquent, " and his work in congress was independent of party. He opposed slavery extension and insisted upon presenting to congress, one at a time, the hundreds of petitions against the slave power. One of these petitions, presented in 1842, was signed by forty-five citizens of Massachusetts, and prayed congress for a peaceful dissolution of the Union. His enemies seized upon this as an opportunity to crush their powerful foe, and in a caucus meeting determined upon his expulsion from congress. Finding they would not be able to command enough votes for this, they de- cided upon a course that would bring equal disgrace. They formulated a resolution to the effect that while he merited expulsion, the house would, in great mercy, substitute its severest censure. When it was read in the house the old man, then in his seventy-fifth
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year, arose and demanded that the first para- graph of the Declaration of Independence be read as his defense. It embraced the famous sentence, "that whenever any form of government becomes destructive to those ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, etc., etc." After eleven days of hard fight- ing his opponents were defeated. On Febru- ary 21, 1848, he rose to address the speaker on the Oregon question, when he suddenly fell from a stroke of paralysis. He died soon after in the rotunda of the capitol, where he had been conveyed by his col- leagues.
S USAN B. ANTHONY was one of the most famous women of America. She was born at South Adams, Massachusetts, February 15, 1820, the daughter of a Quaker. She received a good education and became a school teacher, following that profession for fifteen years in New York. Beginning with about 1852 she became the active leader of the woman's rights move- ment and won a wide reputation for her zeal and ability. She also distinguished herself for her zeal and eloquence in the temperance. and anti-slavery causes, and became a conspicuous figure during the war. After the close of the war she gave most of her labors to the cause of woman's suffrage.
P HILIP D. ARMOUR, one of the most conspicuous figures in the mercantile history of America, was born May 16, 1832, on a farm at Stockbridge, Madison county, New York, and received his early education in the common schools of that county. He was apprenticed to a farmer and worked faithfully and well, being very ambitious and desiring to start out for himself. At the age of twenty he secured a release from his
indentures and set out overland for the gold fields of California. After a great deal of hard work he accumulated a little money and then came east and settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He went into the grain receiving and warehouse busi- ness and was fairly successful, and later on he formed a partnership with John Plankin- ton in the pork packing line, the style of the firm being Plankinton & Armour. Mr. Ar- mour made his first great "deal" in selling pork "short " on the New York market in the anticipation of the fall of the Confed- eracy, and Mr. Armour is said to have made through this deal a million dollars. He then established packing houses in Chicago and Kansas City, and in 1875 he removed to Chicago. He increased his business by add- ing to it the shipment of dressed beef to the European markets, and many other lines of trade and manufacturing, and it rapidly assumed vast proportions, employing an army of men in different lines of the busi- ness. Mr. Armour successfully conducted a great many speculative deals in pork and grain of immense proportions and also erected many large warehouses for the storage of grain. He became one of the representative business men of Chicago, where he became closely identified with all enterprises of a public nature, but his fame as a great busi- ness man extended to all parts of the world. He founded the "Armour Institute " at Chi- cago and also contributed largely to benevo- lent and charitable institutions.
R OBERT FULTON .- Although Fulton is best known as the inventor of the first successful steamboat, yet his claims to distinction do not rest alone upon that, for he was an inventor along other lines, a painter and an author. He was born at Little Britain, Lancaster county, Pennsyl-
WMLLOYD GARRISON
CYRUS W. FIELD.
SUSAN B.ANTHONY
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
EDWIN BOOTH
HENRY WATTERSON
WM J. BRYAN.
FRED. DOUGLASS
IT DEWITT TALMAGE
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vania, in 1765, of Scotch-Irish ancestry. At the age of seventeen he removed to Phila- delphia, and there and in New York en- gaged in miniature painting with success both from a pecuniary and artistic point of view. With the results of his labors he pur- chased a farm for the support of his mother. He went to London and studied under the great painter, Benjamin West, and all through life retained his fondness for art and gave evidence of much ability in that line. While in England he was brought in contact with the Duke of Bridgewater, the father of the English canal system; Lord Stanhope, an eminent mechanician, and James Watt, the inventor of the steam en- gine. Their influence turned his mind to its true field of labor, that of mechanical in- vention. Machines for flax spinning, marble sawing, rope making, and for remov- ing earth from excavations, are among his earliest ventures. His "Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation," issued in 1796, and a series of essays on canals were soon followed by an English patent for canal improvements. In 1797 he went to Paris, where he resided until 1806, and there invented a submarine torpedo boat for maritime defense, but which was rejected by the governments of France, England and the United States. In 1803 he offered to con- struct for the Emperor Napoleon a steam- boat that would assist in carrying out the plan of invading Great Britain then medi- tated by that great captain. In pursuance he constructed his first steamboat on the Seine, but it did not prove a full success and the idea was abandoned by the French government. By the aid of Livingston, then United States minister to France, Fulton purchased, in 1806, an engine which he brought to this country. After studying the defects of his own and other attempts in
this line he built and launched in 1807 the Clermont, the first successful steamboat. This craft only attained a speed of five miles an hour while going up North river. His first patent not fully covering his in- vention, Fulton was engaged in many law suits for infringement. He constructed many steamboats, ferryboats, etc., among these being the United States steamer "Fulton the First," built in 1814, the first war steamer ever built. This craft never attained any great speed owing to some de- fects in construction and accidentally blew up in 1829. Fulton died in New York, Feb- ruary 21, 1815.
S ALMON PORTLAND CHASE, sixth chief-justice of the United States, and one of the most eminent of American jurists, was born in Cornish, New Hampshire, Jan- uary 13, 1808. At the age of nine he was left in poverty by the death of his father, but means were found to educate him. He was sent to his uncle, a bishop, who con- ducted an academy near Columbus, Ohio, and here young Chase worked on the farm and attended school. At the age of fifteen he returned to his native state and entered Dartmouth College, from which he gradu- ated in 1826. He then went to Washington, and engaged in teaching school, and study- ing law under the instruction of William Wirt. He was licensed to practice in 1829, and went to Cincinnati, where he had a hard struggle for several years following. He had in the meantime prepared notes on the statutes of Ohio, which, when published, brought him into prominence locally. He was soon after appointed solicitor of the United States Bank. In 1837 he appeared as counsel for a fugitive slave woman, Ma- tilda, and sought by all the powers of his learning and eloquence to prevent her owner
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from reclaiming her. He acted in many other cases, and devolved the trite expres- sion, "Slavery is sectional, freedom is na- tional." He was employed to defend Van Zandt before the supreme court of the United States in 1846, which was one of the most noted cases connected with the great strug- gle against slavery. By this time Mr. Chase had become the recognized leader of that element known as " free-soilers." He was elected to the United States senate in 1849, and was chosen governor of Ohio in 1855 and re-elected in 1857. He was chosen to the United States senate from Ohio in 1861, but was made secretary of the treasury by Lincoln and accepted. He inaugurated a financial system to replenish the exhausted treasury and meet the demands of the great- est war in history and at the same time to revive the industries of the country. One of the measures which afterward called for his judicial attention was the issuance of currency notes which were made a legal tender in payment of debts. When this question came before him as chief-justice of the United States he reversed his former action and declared the measure unconstitu- tional. The national banking system, by which all notes issued were to be based on funded government bonds of equal or greater amounts, had its direct origin with Mr. Chase.
Mr. Chase resigned the treasury port- folio in 1864, and was appointed the same year as chief-justice of the United States supreme court. The great questions that came up before him at this crisis in the life of the nation were no less than those which confronted the first chief-justice at the for- mation of our government. Reconstruction, private, state and national interests, the constitutionality of the acts of congress passed in times of great excitement, the construction and interpretation to be placed
upon the several amendments to the national constitution, -these were among the vital questions requiring prompt decision. He received a paralytic stroke in 1870, which impaired his health, though his mental powers were not affected. He continued to preside at the opening terms for two years following and died May 7, 1873.
H ARRIET ELIZABETH BEECHER STOWE, a celebrated American writ- er, was born June 14, 1812, at Litchfield, Connecticut. She was a daughter of Lyman Beecher and a sister of Henry Ward Beecher, two noted divines; was carefully educated, and taught school for several years at Hart- ford, Connecticut. In 1832 Miss Beecher married Professor Stowe, then of Lane Semi- nary, Cincinnati, Ohio, and afterwards at Bowdoin College and Andover Seminary. Mrs. Stowe published in 1849 " The May- flower, or sketches of the descendants of the Pilgrims," and in 1851 commenced in the "National Era " of Washington, a serial story which was published separately in 1852 under the title of " Uncle Tom's Cabin." This book attained almost unparalleled success both at home and abroad, and within ten years it had been translated in almost every lan- guage of the civilized world. Mrs. Stowe pub- lished in 1853 a "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin" in which the data that she used was published and its truthfulness was corroborated. In 1853 she accompanied her husband and brother to Europe, and on ner return pub- lished "Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands " in 1854. Mrs. Stowe was for some time one of the editors of the " Atlantic Monthly" and the " Hearth and Home," for which she had written a number of articles. Among these, also published separately, are " Dred, a tale of the Great Dismal Swamp " (later published under the title of " Nina
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Gordon "); "The Minister's Wooing;" "The Pearl of Orr's Island;" "Agnes of Sorrento;" "Oldtown Folks;" "My Wife and I;" "Bible Heroines," and "A Dog's Mission." Mrs. Stowe's death occurred July 1, 1896, at Hartford, Connecticut.
THOMAS JONATHAN JACKSON, bet- ter known as "Stonewall" Jackson, was one of the most noted of the Confeder- ate generals of the Civil war. He was a soldier by nature, an incomparable lieuten- ant, sure to execute any operation entrusted to him with marvellous precision, judgment and courage, and all his individual cam- paigns and combats bore the stamp of a masterly capacity for war. He was born January 21, 1824, at Clarksburg, Harrison county, West Virginia. He was early in life imbued with the desire to be a soldier and it is said walked from the mountains of Virginia to Washington, secured the aid of his congressman, and was appointed cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point from which he was graduated in 1846. Attached to the army as brevet sec- ond lieutenant of the First Artillery, his first service was as a subaltern with Magruder's battery of light artillery in the Mexican war. He participated at the reduction of Vera Cruz, and was noticed for gallantry in the battles of Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Moline del Rey, Chapultepec, and the capture of the city of Mexico, receiving the brevets of captain for conduct at Contreras and Cher- ubusco and of major at Chapultepec. In the meantime he had been advanced by regular promotion to be first lieutenant in 1847. In 1852, the war having closed, he resigned and became professor of natural and experimental philosophy and artillery instructor at the Virginia State Military Institute at Lexington, Virginia, where he
remained until Virginia declared for seces- sion, he becoming chiefly noted for intense religious sentiment coupled with personal eccentricities. Upon the breaking out of the war he was made colonel and placed in command of a force sent to sieze Harper's 'Ferry, which he accomplished May 3, 1861. Relieved by General J. E. Johnston, May 23, he took command of the brigade of Valley Virginians, whom he moulded into that brave corps, baptized at the first Manassas, and ever after famous as the " Stonewall Brigade." After this " Stone- wall " Jackson was made a major-general, in 1861, and participated until his death in all the famous campaigns about Richmond and in Virginia, and was a conspicuous fig- ure in the memorable battles of that time. May 2, 1863, at Chancellorsville, he was wounded severely by his own troops, two balls shattering his left arm and another passing through the palm of his right hand. The left arm was amputated, but pneumonia intervened, and, weakened by the great loss of blood, he died May 10, 1863. The more his operations in the Shenandoah valley in 1862 are studied the niore striking must the merits of this great soldier appear.
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER .- Near to the heart of the people of the Anglo-Saxon race will ever lie the verses of this, the "Quaker Poet." The author of " Barclay of Ury," "Maud Muller" and "Barbara Frietchie," always pure, fervid and direct, will be remembered when many a more ambitious writer has been forgotten.
John G. Whittier was born at Haver- hill, Massachusetts, December 7, 1807. of Quaker parentage. He had but a common- school education and passed his boyhood days upon a farm. In early life he learned the trade of shoemaker. At the age of
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eighteen he began to write verses for the Haverhill " Gazette." He spent two years after that at the Haverhill academy, after which, in 1829, he became editor of the "American Manufacturer," at Boston. In 1830 he succeeded George D. Prentice as editor of the "New England Weekly Re- view," but the following year returned to Haverhill and engaged in farming. In 1832 and in 1836 he edited the "Gazette." In 1835 he was elected a member of the legis- lature, serving two years. In 1836 he became secretary of the Anti-slavery Society of Phil- adelphia. In 1838 and 1839 he edited the " Pennsylvania Freeman," but in the latter year the office was sacked and burned by a mob. In 1840 Whittier settled at Ames- bury, Massachusetts. In 1847 he became corresponding editor of the " National Era," an anti-slavery paper published at Washing- ton, and contributed to its columns many of his anti-slavery and other favorite lyrics. Mr. Whittier lived for many years in retire- ment of Quaker simplicity, publishing several volumes of poetry which have raised him to a high place among American authors and brought to him the love and admiration of his countrymen. In the electoral colleges of 1860 and 1864 Whittier was a member. Much of his time after 18/6 was spent at Oak Knoll, Danvers, Massachusetts, but still retained his residence at Amesbury. He never married. His death occurred Sep- tember 7, 1892.
The more prominent prose writings of John G. Whittier are as follows: "Legends of New England," " Justice and Expediency, or Slavery Considered with a View to Its Abo- lition," " The Stranger in Lowell," " Super- naturalism in New England," " Leaves from Margaret Smith's Journal," " Old Portraits and Modern Sketches" and " Literary Sketches."
D AVID DIXON PORTER, illustrious as admiral of the United States navy, and famous as one of the most able naval offi- cers of America, was born in Pennsylvania, June 8, 1814. His father was also a naval officer of distinction, who left the service of the United States to become commander of the naval forces of Mexico during the war between that country and Spain, and through this fact David Dixon Porter was appointed a midshipman in the Mexican navy. Two years later David D. Porter joined the United States navy as midship- man, rose in rank and eighteen years later as a lieutenant he is found actively engaged in all the operations of our navy along the east coast of Mexico. When the Civil war broke out Porter, then a commander, was dispatched in the Powhattan to the relief of Fort Pickens, Florida. This duty accom- plished, he fitted out a mortar flotilla for the reduction of the forts guarding the ap- proaches to New Orleans, which it was con- sidered of vital importance for the govern- ment to get possession of. After the fall of New Orleans the mortar flotilla was actively engaged at Vicksburg, and in the fall of 1862 Porter was made a rear-admiral and placed in command of all the naval forces on the western rivers above New Orleans.
The ability of the man was now con- spicuously manifested, not only in the bat- tles in which he was engaged, but also in the creation of a formidable fleet out of river steamboats, which he covered with such plating as they would bear. In 1864 he was transferred to the Atlantic coast to command the naval forces destined to oper- ate against the defences of Wilmington, North Carolina, and on Jan. 15, 1865, the fall of Fort Fisher was hailed by the country as a glorious termination of his arduous war service. In 1866 he was made vice-admiral
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and appointed superintendent of the Naval Academy. On the death of Farragut, in IS70, he succeeded that able man as ad- miral of the navy. His death occurred at Washington, February 13, 1891.
N TATHANIEL GREENE was one of the best known of the distinguished gen- erals who led the Continental soldiery against the hosts of Great Britain during the Revolutionary war. He was the son of Quaker parents, and was born at War- wick, Rhode Island, May 27, 1742. In youth he acquired a good education, chiefly by his own efforts, as he was a tireless reader. In 1770 he was elected a member of the Assembly of his native state. The news of the battle of Lexington stirred his blood, and he offered his services to the government of the colonies, receiving the rank of brigadier-general and the com- mand of the troops from Rhode Island. He led them to the camp at Cambridge, and for thus violating the tenets of their faith, he was cast out of the Society of Friends, or Quakers. He soon won the es- teem of General Washington. In August, 1776, Congress promoted Greene to the rank of major-general, and in the battles of Trenton and Princeton he led a division. At the battle of Brandywine, September II, 1777, he greatly distinguished himself, pro- tecting the retreat of the Continentals by his firm stand. At the battle of German- town, October 4, the same year, he com- manded the left wing of the army with credit. In March, 1778, he reluctantly ac- cepted the office of quartermaster-general, but only with the understanding that his rank in the army would not be affected and that in action he should retain his command. On the bloody field of Monmouth, June 28, 1778, he commanded the right wing, as he
did at the battle of Tiverton Heights. He was in command of the army in 1780, dur- ing the absence of Washington, and was president of the court-martial that tried and condemned Major Andre. After General Gates' defeat at Camden, North Carolina, in the summer of 1780, General Greene was ap- pointed to the command of the southern army. He sent out a force under General Morgan who defeated General Tarleton at Cowpens, January 17, 1781. On joining his lieuten- ant, in February, he found himself out num- bered by the British and retreated in good order to Virginia, but being reinforced re- turned to North Carolina where he fought the battle of Guilford, and a few days later compelled the retreat of Lord Cornwallis. The British were followed by Greene part of the way, when the American army marched into South Carolina. After vary- ing success he fought the battle of Eutaw Springs, September 8, 1781. For the latter battle and its glorious consequences, which virtually closed the war in the Carolinas, Greene received a medal from Congress and many valuable grants of land from the colonies of North and South Carolina and Georgia. On the return of peace, after a year spent in Rhode Island, General Greene took up his residence on his estate near Savannah, Georgia, where he died June 19, 1786.
E EDGAR ALLEN POE .- Among the many great literary men whom this country has produced, there is perhaps no name more widely known than that of Ed- gar Allen Poe. He was born at Boston, Massachusetts, February 19, 1809. His parents were David and Elizabeth (Arnold) Poe, both actors, the mother said to have been the natural daughter of Benedict Ar- nold. The parents died while Edgar was
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still a child and he was adopted by John Allen, a wealthy and influential resident of Richmond, Virginia. Edgar was sent to school at Stoke, Newington, England, where he remained until he was thirteen years old; was prepared for college by pri- vate tutors, and in 1826 entered the Virginia University at Charlottesville. He made rapid progress in his studies, and was dis- tinguished for his scholarship, but was ex- pelled within a year for gambling, after which for several years he resided with his benefactor at Richmond. He then went to Baltimore, and in 1829 published a 71-page pamphlet called "Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems," which, however, at- tracted no attention and contained nothing of particular merit. In 1830 he was ad- mitted as a cadet at West Point, but was expelled about a year later for irregulari- ties. Returning to the home of Mr. Allen he remained for some time, and finally quarrelled with his benefactor and enlisted as a private soldier in the U. S. army, but remained only a short time. Soon after this, in 1833, Poe won several prizes for literary work, and as a result secured the position of editor of the "Southern Liter- ary Messenger," at Richmond, Virginia. Here he married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, who clung to him with fond devo- tion through all the many trials that came to them until her death in January, 1848. Poe remained with the "Messenger" for several years, writing meanwhile many tales, reviews, essays and poems. He aft- erward earned a precarious living by his pen in New York for a time; in 1839 be- came editor of "Burton's Gentleman's Magazine "; in 1840 to 1842 was editor of " Graham's Magazine," and drifted around from one place to another, returning to New York in 1844. In 1845 his best
known production, "The Raven, " appeared in the "Whig Review," and gained hiin a reputation which is now almost world-wide. He then acted as editor and contributor on various magazines and periodicals until the death of his faithful wife in 1848. In the summer of 1849 he was engaged to be mar- ried to a lady of fortune in Richmond, Vir- ginia, and the day set for the wedding. He started for New York to make prepara- tions for the event, but, it is said, began drinking, was attacked with dilirium tre- mens in Baltimore and was removed to a hospital, where he died, October 7, 1849. The works of Edgar Allen Poe have been repeatedly published since his death, both in Europe and America, and have attained an immense popularity.
H JORATIO GATES, one of the prom- inent figures in the American war for Independence, was not a native of the col- onies but was born in England in 1728. In early life he entered the British army and attained the rank of major. At the capture of Martinico he was aide to General Monk- ton and after the peace of Aix la Chapelle, in 1748, he was among the first troops that landed at Halifax. He was with Braddock at his defeat in 1755, and was there severe- ly wounded. At the conclusion of the French and Indian war Gates purchased an estate in Virginia, and, resigning from the British army, settled down to life as a planter. On the breaking out of the Rev- olutionary war he entered the service of the colonies and was made adjutant-general of the Continental forces with the rank of brigadier-general. He accompanied Wash- ington when he assumed the command of the army. In June, 1776, he was appoint- ed to the command of the army of Canada, but was superseded in May of the following
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