USA > Michigan > Gratiot County > Biographical memoirs of Gratiot County, Michigan : compendium of biography of celebrated Americans > Part 43
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JOHN ERICSSON, an eminent inven- tor and machinist, who won fame in America, was born in Sweden, July 31, 1803. In early childhood he evinced a decided in-
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clination to mechanical pursuits, and at the age of eleven he was appointed to a cadet- ship in the engineer corps, and at the age of seventeen was promoted to a lieutenancy. In 1826 he introduced a "flame engine," which he had invented, and offered it to English capitalists, but it was found that it could be operated only by the use of wood for fuel. Shortly after this he resigned his commission in the army of Sweden, and de- voted himself to mechanical pursuits. He discovered and introduced the principle of artificial draughts in steam boilers, and re- ceived a prize of two thousand five hundred dollars for his locomotive, the "Novelty," which attained a great speed, for that day. The artificial draught effected a great saving in fuel and made unnecessary the huge smoke-stacks formerly used, and the princi- ple is still applied, in modified form, in boil- ers. He also invented a steam fire-engine, and later a hot-air engine, which he at- tempted to apply in the operation of his ship, "Ericsson," but as it did not give the speed required, he abandoned it, but after- wards applied it to machinery for pumping, hoisting, etc.
Ericsson was first to apply the screw propeller to navigation. The English peo- ple not receiving this new departure readily, Ericsson came to America in 1839, and built the United States steamer, "Prince- ton," in which the screw-propeller was util- ized, the first steamer ever built in which the propeller was under water, out of range of the enemy's shots. The achievement which gave him greatest renown, however, was the ironclad vessel, the "Monitor," an entirely new type of vessel, which, in March, 1862, attacked the Confederate monster ironclad ram, " Virginia," and after a fierce struggle, compelled her to withdraw from Hampton Roads for repairs. After the war
one of his most noted inventions was his vessel, " Destroyer," with a submarine gun, which carried a projectile torpedo. In 1886 the king of Spain conferred on him the grand cross of the Order of Naval Merit. He died in March, 1889, and his body was transferred, with naval honors, to the country of his birth.
JAMES BUCHANAN, the fifteenth presi- J
dent of the United States, was a native of Pennsylvania, and was born in Franklin county, April 23, 1791. He was of Irish ancestry, his father having come to this country in 1783, in quite humble circum- stances, and settled in the western part of the Keystone state.
James Buchanan remained in his se- cluded home for eight years, enjoying but few social or intellectual advantages. His parents were industrious and frugal, and prospered, and, in 1799, the family removed to Mercersbur Pennsylvania, where he was placed in school. His progress was rapid, and in 1801 he entered Dickinson College, at Carlisle, where he took his place among the best scholars in the institution. In 1809 he graduated with the highest hon- ors in his class. He was then eighteen, tall, graceful and in vigorous health. He com- menced the study of law at Lancaster, and was admitted to the bar in 1812. He rose very rapidly in his profession and took a stand with the ablest of his fellow lawyers. When but twenty-six years old he success- fully defended, unaided by counsel, one of the judges of the state who was before the bar of the state senate under articles of im- peachment.
During the war of 1812-15, Mr. Buch- anan sustained the government with all his power, eloquently urging the vigorous prose- cution of the war, and enlisted as a private
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volunteer to assist in repelling the British who had sacked and burned the public buildings of Washington and threatened Baltimore. At that time Buchanan was a Federalist, but the opposition of that party to the war with Great Britain and the alien and sedition laws of John Adams, brought that party into disrepute, and drove many, among them Buchanan, into the Re- publican, or anti-Federalist ranks. He was elected to congress in 1828. In 1831 he was sent as minister to Russia, and upon his return to this country, in I833, was ele- vated to the United States senate, and re- mained in that position for twelve years. Upon the accession of President Polk to office he made Mr. Buchanan secretary of state. Four years later he retired to pri- vate life, and in 1853 he was honored with the mission to England. In 1856 the na- tional Democratic convention nominated him for the presidency and he was elected. It was during his administration that the rising tide of the secession movement over- took the country. Mr. Buchanan declared that the national constitution gave him no power to do anything against the movement to break up the Union. After his succession by Abraham Lincoln in 1860, Mr. Buchanan retired to his home at Wheatland, Pennsyl- vania, where he died June 1, 1868.
OHN HARVARD, the founder of the J Harvard University, was born in Eng- land about the year 1608. He received his education at Emanuel College, Cambridge, and came to America in 1637, settling in Massachusetts. He was a non-conformist minister, and a tract of land was set aside for him in Charlestown, near Boston. He was at once appointed one of a committee to formulate a body of laws for the colony. One year before his arrival in the colony
the general court had voted the sum of four hundred pounds toward the establishment of a school or college, half of which was to be paid the next year In 1637 preliminary plans were made for starting the school. In 1638 John Harvard, who had shown great interest in the new institution of learning proposed, died, leaving his entire property, about twice the sum originally voted, to the school, together with three hundred volumes as a nucleus for a library. The institution was then given the name of Harvard, and established at Newton (now Cambridge). Massachusetts. It grew to be one of the two principal seats of learning in the new world, and has maintained its reputation since. It now consists of twenty-two separate build- ings, and its curriculum embraces over one hundred and seventy elective courses, and it ranks among the great universities of the world.
R OGER BROOKE TANEY, a noted jurist and chief justice of the United States supreme court, was born in Calvert county, Maryland, March 17, 1777. He graduated from Dickinson College at the age of eighteen, took up the study of law, and was admitted to the bar in 1799. He was chosen to the legislature from his county, and in 1801 removed to Frederick, Mary- land. He became United States senator from Maryland in 1816, and took up his permanent residence in Baltimore a few years later. In 1824 he became an ardent admirer and supporter of Andrew Jackson, and upon Jackson's election to the presi- dency, was appointed attorney general of the United States. Two years later he was appointed secretary of the treasury, and after serving in that capacity for nearly one year, the senate refused to confirm the ap- pointment. In 1835, upon the death of
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Chief-justice Marshall, he was appointed to that place, and a political change having occurred in the make up of the senate, he was confirmed in 1836. He presided at his first session in January of the following year.
The case which suggests itself first to the average reader in connection with this jurist is the celebrated " Dred Scott " case, which came before the supreme court for decision in 1856. In his opinion, delivered on behalf of a majority of the court, one remarkable statement occurs as a result of an exhaustive survey of the historical grounds, to the effect that " for more than a century prior to the adoption of the con- stitution they (Africans) had been regarded so far inferior that they had no rights which a white man was bound to respect." Judge Taney retained the office of chief justice until his death, in 1864.
JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY .- This gen- J tleman had a world-wide reputation as an historian, which placed him in the front rank of the great men of America. He was born April 15, 1814, at Dorchester, Massa - chusetts, was given a thorough preparatory education and then attended Harvard, from which he was graduated in 1831. He also studied at Gottingen and Berlin, read law and in 1836 was admitted to the bar. In 1841 he was appointed secretary of the legation at St. Petersburg, and in 1866-67 served as United States minister to Austria, serving in the same capacity during 1869 and 1870 to England. In 1856, after long and exhaustive research and preparation, he published in London "The Rise of the Dutch Republic." It embraced three vol- umes and immediately attracted great at- tention throughout Europe and America as a work of unusual merit. From 1861 to
1868 he produced "The History of the United Netherlands," in four volumes. Other works followed, with equal success, and his position as one of the foremost his- torians and writers of his day was firmly established. His death occured May 29, 1877.
ELIAS HOWE, the inventor of the sew- ing machine, well deserves to be classed among the great and noted men of Amer- ica. He was the son of a miller and farmer and was born at Spencer, Massachusetts, July 9, 1819. In 1835 he went to Lowell and worked there, and later at Boston, in the machine shops. His first sewing machine was completed in 1845, and he patented it in 1846, laboring with the greatest persistency in spite of poverty and hardships, working for a time as an engine driver on a railroad at pauper wages and with broken health. He then spent two years of unsuccessful ex- ertion in England, striving in vain to bring his invention into public notice and use. He returned to the United States in almost hopeless poverty, to find that his patent had been violated. At last, however, he found friends who assisted him financially, and after years of litigation he made good his claims in the courts in 1854. His inven- tion afterward brought him a large fortune. During the Civil war he volunteered as a private in the Seventeenth Connecticut Vol- unteers, and served for some time. During his life time he received the cross of the Legion of Honor and many other medals. His death occurred October 3, 1867, at Brooklyn, New York.
PHILLIPS BROOKS, celebrated as an eloquent preacher and able pulpit ora- tor, was born in Boston on the 13th day of December, 1835. He received excellent
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educational advantages, and graduated at Harvard in 1855. Early in life he decided upon the ministry as his life work and studied theology in the Episcopal Theolog- ical Seminary, at Alexandria, Virginia. In 1859 he was ordained and the same year became pastor of the Church of the Advent, in Philadelphia. Three years later he as- sumed the pastorate of the Church of the Holy Trinity, where he remained until 1870. At the expiration of that time he accepted the pastoral charge of Trinity Church in Boston, where his eloquence and ability at- tracted much attention and built up a pow- erful church organization. Dr. Brooks also devoted considerable time to lecturing and literary work and attained prominence in these lines.
W ILLIAM B. ALLISON, a statesman of national reputation and one of the leaders of the Republican party, was born March 2, 1829, at Perry, Ohio. He grew up on his father's farm, which he assisted in cultivating, and attended the district school. When sixteen years old he went to the academy at Wooster, and subse- quently spent a year at the Allegheny Col- lege, at Meadville, Pennsylvania. He next taught school and spent another year at the Western Reserve College, at Hudson, Ohio. Mr. Allison then took up the study of law at Wooster, where he was admitted to the bar in 1851, and soon obtained a position as deputy county clerk. His political lean- ings were toward the old line Whigs, who afterward laid the foundation of the Repub- lican party. He was a delegate to the state convention in 1856, in the campaign of which he supported Fremont for president.
Mr. Allison removed to Dubuque, Iowa, in the following year. He rapidly rose to prominence at the bar and in politics. In
1860 he was chosen as a delegate w the Republican convention held in Chicago, o? which he was elected one of the secretaries. At the outbreak of the civil war he was ap- pointed on the staff of the governor. His congressional career opened in 1862, when he was elected to the thirty-eighth congress; he was re-elected three times, serving from March 4, 1863, to March 3, 1871. He was a member of the ways and means committee a good part of his term. His career in the United States senate began in 1873, and he rapidly rose to eminence in national affairs, his service of a quarter of a century in that body being marked by close fealty to the Republican party. He twice declined the portfolio of the treasury tendered him by Garfield and Harrison, and his name was prominently mentioned for the presidency at several national Republican conventions.
M ARY ASHTON LIVERMORE, lec- turer and writer, was born in Boston, December 19, 1821. She was the daughter of Timothy Rice, and married D. P. Liver- more, a preacher of the Universalist church. She contributed able articles to many of the most noted periodicals of this country and England. During the Civil war she labored zealously and with success on behalf of the sanitary commission which played so impor- tant a part during that great struggle. She became editor of the " Woman's Journal," published at Boston in 1870.
She held a prominent place as a public speaker and writer on woman's suffrage, temperance, social and religious questions, and her influence was great in every cause she advocated.
JOHN B. GOUGH, a noted temperance J lecturer, who won his fame in America, was born in the village of Sandgate, Kent,
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England, August 22, 1817. He came to the United States at the age of twelve. He followed the trade of bookbinder, and lived in great poverty on account of the liquor habit. In 1843, however, he re- formed, and began his career as a temper- ance lecturer. He worked zealously in the cause of temperance, and his lectures and published articles revealed great earnestness. He formed temperance societies throughout the entire country, and labored with great success. He visited England in the same cause about the year 1853 and again in 1878. He also lectured upon many other topics, in which he attained a wide reputa- tion. His death occurred February 18, 1886.
THOMAS BUCHANAN READ, author, sculptor and painter, was born in Ches- ter county, Pennsylvania, March 12, 1822. He early evinced a taste for art, and began the study of sculpture in Cincinnati. Later he found painting more to his liking. He went to New York, where he followed this profession, and later to Boston. In 1846 he located in Philadelphia. He visited Italy in 1850, and studied at Florence, where he resided almost continuously for twenty-two years. He returned to America in 1872, and died in New York May II of the same year.
He was the author of many heroic poems, but the one giving him the most re- nown is his famous "Sheridan's Ride," of which he has also left a representation in painting.
EUGENE V. DEBS, the former famous president of the American Railway Union, and great labor leader, was born in the city of Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1855. He received his education in the public
schools of that place and at the age of sixteen years began work as a painter in the Vandalia shops. After this, for some three years, he was employed as a loco- motive fireman on the same road. His first appearance in public life was in his canvass for the election to the office of city clerk of Terre Haute. In this capacity he. served two terms, and when twenty six years of age was elected a member of the legislature of the state of Indiana. While a member of that body he secured the passage of several bills in the interest of organized labor, of which he was always. a faithful champion. Mr. Debs' speech nominating Daniel Voorhees for the United States senate gave him a wide reputation for oratory. On the expiration of his term in the legislature, he was elected grand secre- tary and treasurer of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Fireman and filled that office for fourteen successive years. He was always an earnest advocate of confederation of railroad men and it was mainly through his efforts that the United Order of Railway Employes, composed of the Brotherhood. of Railway Trainmen and Conductors, Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and the Switchmen's Mutual Aid Association was. formed, and he became a member of its supreme council. The order was dissolved by disagreement between two of its leading orders, and then Mr. Debs conceived the idea of the American Railway Union. He worked on the details and the union came into existence in Chicago, June 20, 1893. For- a time it prospered and became one of the largest bodies of railway men in the world. It won in a contest with the Great Northern Railway. In the strike made by the union in sympathy with the Pullman employes inaugurated in Chicago June 25, 1894, and the consequent rioting, the Railway Union.
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lost much prestige and Mr. Debs, in company with others of the officers, being held as in con- tempt of the United States courts, he suffered a sentence of six months in jail at Wood- stock, McHenry county, Illinois. In 1897 Mr. Debs, on the demise of the American Railway Union, organized the Social Democracy, an institution founded on the best lines of the communistic idea, which was to provide homes and employment for its members.
JOHN G. CARLISLE, famous as a law- yer, congressman, senator and cabinet officer, was born in Campbell (now Kenton) county, Kentucky, September 5, 1835, on a farm. He received the usual education of the time and began at an early age to teach school and, at the same time, the study of law. Soon opportunity offered and he entered an office in Covington, Kentucky, and was admitted to practice at the bar in 1858. Politics attracted his attention and in 1859 he was elected to the house of rep- resentatives in the legislature of his native state. On the outbreak of the war in 1861, he embraced the cause of the Union and was largely instrumental in preserving Kentucky to the federal cause. He resumed his legal practice for a time and declined a nomina- tion as presidential elector in 1864. In 1866 and again in 1869 Mr. Carlisle was elected to the senate of Kentucky. He re- signed this position in 1871 and was chosen lieutenant governor of the state, which office he held until 1875. He was one of the presidential electors-at-large for Ken- tucky in 1876. He first entered congress in 1877, and soon became a prominent leader on the Democratic side of the house of rep- resentatives, and continued a member of that body through the forty-sixth, forty- seventh, forty-eighth and forty-ninth con-
gresses, and was speaker of the house during the two latter. He was elected to the United States senate to succeed Senator Blackburn, and remained a member of that branch of congress until March, 1893, when he was appointed secretary of the treasury. He performed the duties of that high office until March 4, 1897, throughout the en- tire second administration of President Cleveland. His ability and many years of public service gave him a national reputa- tion.
FRANCES E. WILLARD, for many years president of the , Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and a noted American lecturer and writer, was born in Rochester, New York, September 28, 1839. Graduating from the Northwestern Female College at the age of nineteen she began teaching and met with great success in many cities of the west. She was made directress of Genesee Wes- leyan Seminary at Lima, Ohio, in 1867, and four years later was elected president of the Evanston College for young ladies, a branch of the Northwestern University.
During the two years succeeding 1869 she traveled extensively in Europe and the east, visiting Egypt and Palestine, and gathering materials for a valuable course of lectures, which she delivered at Chicago on her return. She became very popular, and won great influence in the temperance cause. Her work as president of the Wo- man's Christian Temperance Union greatly strengthened that society, and she made frequent trips to Europe in the interest of that cause.
R ICHARD OLNEY. - Among the promi- nent men who were members of the cabinet of President Cleveland in his second administration, the gentleman whose name
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heads this sketch held a leading place, oc- cupying the positions of attorney general and secretary of state.
Mr. Olney came from one of the oldest and most honored New England families; the first of his ancestors to come from Eng- land settled in Massachusetts in 1635. This was Thomas Olney. He was a friend and co-religionist of Roger Williams, and when the latter moved to what is now Rhode Island, went with him and became one of the founders of Providence Plantations.
Richard Olney was born in Oxford, Massachusetts, in 1835, and received the elements of his earlier education in the com- mon schools which New England is so proud of. He entered Brown University, from which he graduated in 1856, and passed the Harvard law school two years later. He began the practice of his profession with Judge B. F. Thomas, a prominent man of that locality. For years Richard Olney was regarded as one of the ablest and most learned lawyers in Massachusetts. Twice he was offered a place on the bench of the supreme court of the state, but both times he declined. He was always a Democrat in his political tenets, and for many years was a trusted counsellor of members of that party. In 1874 Mr. Olney was elected a member of the legislature. In 1876, during the heated presidential campaign, to strengthen the cause of Mr. Tilden in the New England states, it was intimated that in the event of that gentleman's election to the presidency, Mr. Olney would be attor- ney general.
When Grover Cleveland was elected presi- dont of the United States, on his inaugura- tion in March, 1893, he tendered the posi- tion of attorney general to Richard Olney. This was accepted, and that gentleman ful- filled the duties of the office until the death
of Walter Q. Gresham, in May, 1895, made vacant the position of secretary of state. This post was filled by the appointment of Mr. Olney. While occupying the later office, Mr. Olney brought himself into inter- national prominence by some very able state papers.
JOHN JAY KNOX, for many years comp-
troller of the currency, and an eminent financier, was born in Knoxboro, Oneida county, New York, May 19, 1828. He re- ceived a good education and graduated at Hamilton College in 1849. . For about thirteen years he was engaged as a private banker, or in a position in a bank, where he laid the foundation of his knowledge of the laws of finance. In 1862, Salmon P. Chase, then secretary of the treasury, ap- pointed him to an office in that department of the government, and later he had charge of the mint coinage correspondence. In 1867 Mr. Knox was made deputy comptroller of the currency, and in that capacity, in 1870, he made two reports on the mint service, with a codification of the mint and ccinage laws of the United States, and suggesting many important amendments. These reports were ordered printed by reso- lution of congress. The bill which he pre- pared, with some slight changes, was sub- sequently passed, and has been known in history as the " Coinage Act of 1873."
In 1872 Mr. Knox was appointed comp- troller of the currency, and held that re- sponsible position until 1884, when he re- signed. He then accepted the position of president of the National Bank of the Re- public, of New York City, which institution he served for many years. He was the author of " United States Notes, " published in 1884. In the reports spoken of above, a history of the two United States banks is
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given, together with that of the state and national banking system, and much valuable statistical matter relating to kindred sub- jects.
N TATHANIEL HAWTHORNE .- In the opinion of many critics Hawthorne is pronounced the foremost American novelist, and in his peculiar vein of romance is said to be without a peer. His reputation is world-wide, and his ability as a writer is recognized abroad as well as at home. He was born July 4, 1804, at Salem, Massa- chusetts. On account of feeble health he spent some years of his boyhood on a farm near Raymond, Maine. He laid the foun- dation of a liberal education in his youth, and entered Bowdoin College, from which he graduated in 1825 in the same class with H W Longfellow and John S. C. Abbott. He then returned to Salem, where he gave his attention to literature, publishing several tales and other articles in various periodi- cals. His first venture in the field of ro- mance, " Fanshaw," proved a failure. In 1836 he removed to Boston, and became editor of the "American Magazine," which soon passed out of existence. In 1837 he published " Twice Told Tales," which were chiefly made up of his former contributions to magazines. In 1838-41 he held a posi- tion in the Boston custom house, but later took part in the " Brook farm experiment," a socialistic idea after the plan of Fourier. In 1843 he was married and took up his residence at the old parsonage at Concord, Massachusetts, which he immortalized in his next work, "Mosses From an Old Manse," published in 1846. From the lat- ter date until 1850 he was surveyor of the port of Salem, and while thus employed wrote one of his strongest works, "The Scarlet Letter." For the succeeding two 8
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