USA > Vermont > Men of Vermont : an illustrated biographical history of Vermonters and sons of Vermont > Part 113
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1863 he was appointed by President Lincoln a commissioner to the International Postal Congress at Paris, returning in August. Re- elected to the Thirty-ninth Congress ; in 1867 again a U. S. postal commissioner to Europe, where he made postal treaties with seven European governments ; six times a member of the Iowa Legislature ; again elected to Congress in 1872 and re-elected in 1874 ; he declined a renomination and in 1877 was appointed envoy to negotiate treat- ies with Servia and Roumania ; was again elected to Congress in 1880 and 1882 ; re- signed in 1884 to accept the appointment of Minister Plenipotentiary to Germany ; rep- resented the United States at the Congo
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Conference in Berlin ; was chief of the Sa- moan Commission at Berlin. He now de- votes his time to literary pursuits.
KELLOGG, WILLIAM PITT, of New Orleans, La., was born at Orwell, Dec. 8, 1831. His grandfather, Saxton Kellogg, married Sallie Fuller, a descendant of Ben- jamin Franklin, and when a comparatively young man removed from Connecticut to Vermont. His father was the Rev. Sherman Kellogg, a well-known Congregational cler- gyman, located for many years at Montpelier. Many of his relatives now reside in Vermont and have since an early day been identified with this state.
WILLIAM PITT KELLOGG.
He was educated at the Norwich Military University. In 1850 he removed to Peoria, Ill., where he read law with E. G. Johnson, a prominent lawyer formerly of Vermont ; was admitted to the bar in 1853 and prac- ticed law until March, 1861, when President Lincoln appointed him chief justice of Ne- braska.
On the breaking out of the war, at the request of Governor Yates, he returned to Illinois and raised the 7th Regt. of Ill. Cav- alry, President Lincoln, at the request of Governor Yates, having given him six months' leave of absence for this purpose. In July, 1861, Governor Yates having com- missioned him colonel, his regiment was mustered into service and ordered to report to General Grant at Cairo. Mr. Kellogg
KELLOGC.
was soon after ordered by General Grant to take command of Cape Girardeau, Mo. He was in command of that post until General Pope moved on Fort Thompson, when Mr. Kellogg with his regiment joined him, tak- ing part in the operations resulting in the capture of Fort Thompson and New Mad- rid until ordered to Pittsburg Landing im- mediately after the battle of Shiloh. He com- manded a cavalry brigade under General Granger, composed in part of his own regi- ment, in the operations about Farmington, Corinth, and Grand Junction. In the sum- mer of 1862, his health having completely failed, he became so much of an invalid that he was compelled to resign.
President Lincoln having allowed the position of chief justice to remain open Mr. Kellogg returned to Nebraska and remained until January, 1863, discharging the duties of chief justice, when he was requested by Governor Yates to return to Illinois and accompany the Governor on a tour of inspec- tion of the Illinois soldiers in the field. They visited General Grant's headquarters, and on Feb. 15, 1863, Mr. Kellogg was re- quested by General Grant to proceed im- mediately to Washington with important papers, from General Grant to President Lincoln. He accepted the mission, and armed with the following pass, written by General Grant, which Mr. Kellogg still re- tains, he went to Washington and delivered the papers :
Headquarters Department of Tennessee before Vicksburg, Feb. 15, 1863.
The bearer hereof, Colonel Kellogg, is permitted to pass through all parts of this department, stopping at such military posts as he may desire, and travelling free on chartered steamers and military railroads. Good until countermanded.
[Signed] U. S. Grant,
Major-General Commanding.
Mr. Kellogg held the office of chief justice of Nebraska until April, 1865, when Presi- dent Lincoln tendered him the appointment of collector of New Orleans. Mr. Kellogg continued to serve as collector until July, 1868, when a Republican State Legislature having been chosen, he was elected U. S. Senator from Louisiana, taking his seat July 17, 1868. He served on the committee on commerce and Pacific railroads, was chair- man of the committee on levees of the Mis- sissippi river, the first committee on the sub- ject appointed by the Senate under a reso- lution introduced by Mr. Kellogg. He was the author of the Texas Pacific railroad act, having introduced that bill and was foremost in securing its passage. He remained in the U. S. Senate until the fall of 1872, when having been nominated for Governor by the
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Republican party, he resigned. The long and notable struggle that followed as a con- sequence of that gubernatorial contest, re- sulting in Mr. Kellogg's recognition as Gov. ernor of Louisiana by both houses of Con- gress, is a matter of general history.
Mr. Kellogg served as Governor of Lonis- iana until June, 1877, when he was again elected to the U. S. Senate, and served as senator until 1883. He served on the com- mittees on commerce and territories, and was chairman of the committee on Pacific railroads. At the end of his second term as U. S. Senator he was elected to the House of Representatives from the great sugar district of Louisiana, receiving nearly the entire vote of the planting interests of that district. In 1884, at the expiration of his term in the House, Mr. Blaine having been defeated for President, Mr. Kellogg retired from active politics.
Mr. Kellogg was a delegate in the conven- tion that organized the Republican party in Illinois in 1854. He was a delegate at the convention in Bloomington which nominated Governor Bissell, the first Republican Gov- ernor elected in Illinois. He also led the delegation from Fulton county in the Repub- lican state convention in 1860, which nomi- nated Governor Yates, the war Governor, and he was himself chosen by the same conven- tion as one of Mr. Lincoln's presidential electors. He was a delegate-at-large to the Chicago national convention in 1868, which nominated General Grant the first time. He has since been a delegate and chairman of the Louisiana delegation at every Republican national convention, including the last con- vention of June, 1892, at Minneapolis.
He was one of the 306 delegates who voted for General Grant to the last in the national convention of 1880.
He was married, June 6, 1865, to Mary E., daughter of Andrew Wills, who emigrated at an early age to Illinois from Pennsylvania, and who was a member of the famous Wills family connected with the history of Gettys- burg, Pa. They have no children. Mr. Kellogg has four sisters residing in Iowa and one sister and a brother residing in Kansas-they all have children.
Mr. Kellogg now resides a portion of the year in Louisiana, where he is connected with sugar planting, and the remainder of the year in Washington, D. C., where he has large real estate interests.
KIDDER, JEFFERSON P., was born at Braintree, was trained to agricultural pursuits, taught school, received a classical education, graduating at the Norwich University, and was a tutor therein ; received in 1848 the de- gree of M. A. from the University of Ver- mont; studied and practiced law ; was a
KNAPP.
member of the state Constitutional Conven- tion in 1847; was a member of the state Senate of Vermont in 1847 to 1848; was Lieutenant-Governor of Vermont in 1853- 1854 ; removed to St. Paul, Minn., in 1857; was elected a provisional delegate from Da- kota Territory while visiting there in 1859 ; was a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives in 1861, 1863,-1864; was appointed in 1865 an associate justice of the Supreme Court for Dakota Territory, and re- moved there, and was re-appointed in 1869 and again in 1873, and resigned after having discharged the duties of that office for ten years ; and was elected a delegate from Da- kota in the Forty-fourth Congress as a Repub- lican ; was re-elected to the Forty-fifth Con- gress.
KNAPP, CHAUNCY L., was born in Ber- lin, Feb. 26, 1809. He commenced life by serving an apprenticeship in a printing office in Montpelier ; was elected reporter for the Legislature in 1833; was co-proprietor and editor for some years of the State Journal ; was elected secretary of the state in 1836, in which capacity he served four years ; and removing to Massachusetts, he was elected secretary of the Massachusetts Senate in 1851 ; and was elected to the Thirty-fourth and re-elected to the Thirty-fifth Congress. To him was awarded the credit, while edit- ing the Journal, of first nominating General Harrison for the presidency, which resulted in his obtaining the electoral votes of Ver- mont four years before he was really elected.
KNAPP, DEXTER J., of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, son of Gardner and Fanny (Alton) Knapp, was born in Dummerston, Nov. 30, 1844.
Availing himself of the ordinary school advantages of his native place, and with an inherent high sense of honor and integrity such as has placed many Green Mountain boys in eminent positions in life, Mr. Knapp began his business career as a dealer in silks at New Haven, Conn., in 1860. Prospering in this he went westward in 1867 and locat- ed at Minneapolis, Minn., and engaged in the loan and lumber business. Profiting by his experience in the past and his connec- tion with large business transactions, he remained here until 1877 when he went to Sioux Falls, Dakota Territory, and began ac- tive operations in real estate. This town, at the time but a mere hamlet, afforded a fine field for his business sagacity and he began buying large tracts of lands adjacent to Sioux Falls, also building dwellings on the plateaux overlooking the Big Sioux river, which a rapidly increasing population made necessary. January 1, 1894, Sioux Falls had a population of 15,000, and is located in one
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KNAPP.
of the finest wheat and corn belts in the world.
Mr. Knapp was married, Dec. 24, 1877,
DEXTER J. KNAPP.
to Fanny M. Harmon, of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and has two daughters : Bessy, and Helen.
KNAPP, LYMAN E., of Sitka, Alaska, son of Hiram and Elvira (Stearns) Knapp, was born in Somerset, Nov. 5, 1837. He was the fourth in direct line of descent from Capt. Joseph Knapp, of Taunton, Mass., who commanded a company in Colonel Tit- comb's regiment, war of the Revolution. His grandfather, Cyrus Knapp, removed to Dover about the beginning of the nineteenth century. His first ancestor in this country came from Yorkshire, England, and settled at Brighton, Mass., in 1640.
The subject of this sketch prepared for college at Burr Seminary, Manchester, and graduated with honors from Middlebury College in 1862. Directly after graduation he enlisted as a private in Co. I, 16th Regt. Vt. Vols., for nine months, but was elected and commissioned captain of the company before mustered into the United States ser- vice. He received his baptism of fire in the battle of Gettysburg and was wounded in his right shoulder by a bullet from a spherical case shot during the famous bayonet charge of the 16th Vt. Regt., to meet the rebel charge under Pickett. The wound proved not to be serious, and after discharge from his
KNAPP.
first service he re-enlisted, raised a company of volunteers at Townshend, which was assigned as Co. F, to the 17th Regt. Vt. Vols., and in command of that company he served in Grant's famous Wilderness cam- paign of 1864. The 17th saw very severe service, was engaged in fourteen of the historic battles of the war and suffered greater losses in killed and wounded, during its sixteen months service, than most of the regiments which put in their full terms of three and four years. Captain Knapp was engaged with his regiment in all these bat- tles and was wounded in two of them, Spottsylvania and the capture of Petersburg, though not severely. He was promoted major, Oct. 25, 1864, and lieutenant-colonel a few days later. He also received a brevet commission from the President "for gallant and meritorious action" in the battle of Petersburg, April 2, 1865.
At the close of the war he engaged for a short time in teaching at Burr & Burton seminary, Manchester, then assumed the control and management of the Middlebury Register, and he was editor of that journal for thirteen years. During his work in con- nection with that paper, he read law, was admitted to practice in the Vermont courts in 1876, which practice he continued, resid- ing in Middlebury, until his removal to Alaska to assume the duties of Governor of that territory, to which he was appointed on the 12th day of April, 1889.
In 1872-'73 he was one of the clerks of the Vermont House of Representatives. In 1886-'87 he was an influential member of the same body. For twenty years, from 1869 to 1889, he was the trial justice of the peace of his county, before whom the more important and difficult cases were brought for adjudication. He was register of pro- bate for two years and became judge of the same court in 1879, which office he held by successive elections until he resigned in 1889, to accept the office of Governor of Alaska.
He was chairman of the Republican com- mittee of his county eight years, and has served as member of the school board for his district ; chairman of the county temperance society ; vice-president of the Western Ver- mont Congregational Club ; town clerk for a number of years ; treasurer of the Addison county grammar school; chairman of the business committee of the Middlebury Con- gregational Religious Society ; town assessor of taxes ; chairman of the county evangeliza- tion committee, and connected with every movement for the promotion of morals and philanthropy which came within his reach. Sometimes he made addresses on occasions like the Fourth of July, Memorial Day, relig- ious conventions, temperance meetings and
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society anniversaries, and wrote editorial articles and communications for periodicals and newspapers other than his own. These articles were highly appreciated and much sought after.
In college he was a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity and belonged to the hon- orary Alumini society, Phi Beta Kappa, after graduation, and has held the office of presi- dent of the local chapter. Soon after the war he became a member of the G. A. R. and served several terms as commander of his post. His interest in the work of the learned societies never flagged. He is still a member of four historical societies, includ- ing the Alaska Historical Society of which he is president, of the National Geographic Society, of one ethnological society, of the American Institute of Civics of New York, whose object is to promote a higher and purer citizenship ; and has made geology and mineralogy the special study of many of his summer vacations.
In addition to his professional and official work he had an extensive loan business of which he conducted the eastern and western agencies in Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Da- kota, and Washington, and he had the man- agement of several trust estates. All these business connections he laid aside in 1889 on leaving for Alaska.
He became Governor of Alaska on taking the oath of office, April 20, 1889, since which time he has conducted the business of the executive of that territory. The duties of that office have been exceedingly onerous, and the responsibilities heavy and wearing. He has made four extended annual reports, which have been published and have become the authority on matters embraced therein.
Politically his sympathies were ever with the Republican party. His first vote for President was cast for Abraham Lincoln in 1860.
He became a member of the Congrega- tional church at the age of fifteen, and he ever remained devotedly attached to the principles of that faith.
He was united in marriage, Jan. 23, 1865, at Washington, D. C., with Martha A., daughter of Ebenezer and Corcina (Jones) Severance. As the fruit of this marriage they have : George E., Frances A., Lyman Edwin, and May A.
KNOWLTON, FRANK HALL, of Wash- ington, D. C., son of Julius A. and Mary Ellen (Blackmer) Knowlton, was born Sept. 2, 1860, at Brandon.
He was educated in the public schools of Brandon and Middlebury College, graduating from the latter institution in July, 1884, with
KNOWLTON.
the degree of B. S., the first conferred by this college, and in 1887 received the de- gree of M. S. from the same college. in 1894 he obtained the degree of Ph. D. from the Columbian University in Washington, D. C. This degree was the first one of the kind granted by the university as represent- ing a course of study accomplished.
Immediately after graduation in August, 1884, he went to Washington, D. C., to be- come an assistant in the department of bot- any in the U. S. National Museum, a posi- tion which he held until July, 1887, when he was made assistant curator of the depart- ment. He continued in this position until April, 1889, when he resigned to assume charge of the botany of the Century Diction- ary, but his health failed and the following six months from July, 1889, were spent in active field work in New Mexico, Arizona and California as assistant paleontologist of the U. S. geological survey. In 1887 he was elected professor of botany in Columbian University, Washington, D. C., which posi- tion he now holds. He was also engaged in preparing the botanical definitions for the Standard Dictionary, a work now approach- ing completion, and has written over 20,000 definitions for it. He is one of the editors of the American Geologist, and has written many valuable scientific papers, notably, " Fossil Wood and Lignite of the Potomac Forma- tion," " Fossil Wood of Arkansas," " Addi- tions to the Flora of Washington," " Birds of Brandon, Vt.," " Flora of Nushagak, Alaska"; a complete bibliography of his works would number 125 articles, including papers and reviews. His contributions to leading scien- tific journals have been extensive and include the American Journal of Science ; American Geologist, geological survey bulletin ; Journal of Geology ; The Auk ; Proceedings U. S. National Museum; Smithsonian Reports ; The Botanical Gazette ; Forest and Stream ; Garden and Forest, etc.
At college he was a D. K. E. and has since been elected to membership in the following named societies : American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Geological Society, American Ornithologists' Union, Society of Naturalists of Eastern United States, Sons of the American Revolu- tion, Philosophical, Biological, Geological, Botanical and Ornithological societies of Washington, D. C.
Prof. Knowlton was married at Kingman, Kan., Sept. 27, 1887, to Annie Sterling, daughter of William A. and Lydia Moorhead. She died Jan. 26, 1890, leaving one child : Margaret. He was married a second time at Laurel, Md., Oct. 3, 1893, to Rena Geni- veve, daughter of Isaac B. and Lizzie W. Ruff.
LADD.
LADD, CHARLES DOUGLASS, of San Francisco, Cal., son of Seneca and Mary S. (Varnum) Ladd, was born in Danville, Sept. 3, 1849.
He was educated at the public schools of Danville during the years of his minority, and learned the blacksmith's and gunsmith's trades. In 1869 he went to California, and for several years worked as gunsmith and blacksmith, until in 1877 he established him- self in business at San Francisco as a dealer in firearms and sporting goods. In 1881 he removed to his present large establishment at 529 Kearney street, where he still con- ducts the same business in connection with the fur business, which he has added during the last few years. Mr. Ladd is the owner of several schooners which are engaged prin- cipally in the fur trade.
He is independent and liberal in regard to politics, and votes with the party having the best candidate for office ; hence, he says, " I am both Democrat and Republican."
Mr. Ladd married Mary S. Lyon of Wood- stock, Conn.
LANGDON, WILLIAM CHAUNCY, grandson of the late Hon. Chauncy Langdon of Castleton, and son of John Jay and Har- riette Curtis (Woodward) Langdon, being descended on the mother's side from the Wheelocks and Woodwards of Dartmouth College, N. H., was born in Burlington, August 19, 1831.
His childhood and youth were almost wholly passed at the South, chiefly in New Orleans, where he was educated by his moth- er. He fitted for college at Castleton (Vt.) Seminary and in 1850 graduated at Transyl- vania University, Lexington, Ky.
Giving his early manhood to scientific pur- suits, he was for a few months instructor in astronomy and chemistry at Shelby College, Ky., from which post he was appointed in 1851, asaistant. examiner, and, afterwards, chief examiner, in the U. S. Patent Office. He resigned this office in 1856 ; practiced as a councilor in patent law for two years ; and, in 1858, was ordained to the ministry of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
During his residence in Washington, Mr. Langdon was actively interested in the Young Men's Christian Associations, of which he was one of the earliest American pioneers and the leader in the organization of these societies in a national confederation, as well as in securing international relations between them and European bodies.
In the ministry, after a year as an assis- tant in a Philadelphia church, Mr. Lang- don went in 1859 to Rome, Italy, and as chaplain of the U. S. Legation near the Holy See founded and was first rector of
LANGDON.
the American Episcopal Church in that city ; also about the same time starting a similar church in Florence. Returning to the United States at the outbreak of the civil war, he accepted in 1862 the rectorship of St. John's Church, Havre de Grace, Md. At the close of the war he was sent back to Italy as secretary of a joint committee of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, charged to inquire into the religious and ecclesiastical aspects and results of the Italian Revolution then in progress. In this charge, he made his residence in Florence, coming into intimate personal relations with the principal leaders of the Liberal Catholic
WILLIAM CHAUNCY LANGDON,
party in the Italian church, before and dur- ing the period of the Vatican Council, as well as with some of the early leaders of liberal Catholicism in Germany. In 1873 Mr. Lang- don was transferred to Geneva, Switzerland, where he founded Emmanuel .Episcopal Church, and co-operated in German, French and Swiss religious movements. He was present at the Old Catholic Congress of religious movements, of Cologne, 1872 ; of Constance, 1873 ; of Friburg, 1874 ; and he was a participant member of the re-union conferences of Bonn in 1874 and 1875. He received the degree of Doctor in Divinity from Kenyon College, Gambier, O .. in 1874, "in recognition of his distinguished services in Italy."
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Towards the close of 1875, Dr. Langdon returned again to the United States ; was rector of Christ Church, Cambridge, Mass., in 1876 '78 ; and of St. James' Church, Bed- ford, Pa., from 1883 to 1800 ; since which year, in consequence of impaired health, he has withdrawn from parish duty and has been living with his eldest son, Prof. Court- ney Langdon, of Brown University, Provi- dence, R. I.
Mr. Langdon married, in 1858, Hannah Agnes, daughter of E. S. Courtney of Balti- more, Md., and has had five children, all still living : Prof. Courtney Langdon, George W. Langdon of Newburyport, Mass., William C. Langdon, Jr., an instructor in Brown University, and two daughters.
Dr. Langdon has so far published but two small volumes " Some Account of the Catho- lic Reform Movement in the Italian Church," London 1868; and "Seven Letters to the Baron Ricasoli," in Italian, Florence, 1874. He has, however, for some years been engaged upon a work of some magnitude- " The Modern Crisis of Latin Christianity." But he has published a succession of reports during his residence in Europe, a number of pamphlets on religious and ecclesiastical subjects, and a few sermons ; and he has also been, of later years, a frequent contrib- utor to the Church Quarterly and the Politi- cal Science Quarterly, to the International and Andover Reviews, to the Church, At- lantic, Century and University Magazines, and to other periodicals.
LAWRENCE, CHARLES B., late of Chi- cago, was the son of Villa Lawrence, a mer- chant of Vergennes, and was born in that city about 1819 to 1820.
After the proper preparation he entered Middlebury College, where he continued till the end of the junior year, when he entered the senior class in Union College, Schenec- tady, N. Y., from which he graduated in 1840, and in the winter following he com- menced teaching an academy in either Dal- las or Lowndes county, Ala., and remained so employed until 1842, when he entered the law office of Hon. Alphonso Taft, an eminent lawyer of Cincinnati, Ohio, after- ward attorney-general of the United States under President Grant.
In the fall of 1843 he went to St. Louis, Mo., and studied in the law office of Geyer & Dayton, till his admission to the bar in St. Louis in the beginning of the year 1844. Henry S. Geyer of the firm of Geyer & Day- ton, stood at the front of the St. Louis and Missouri bar, and succeeded Thomas H. Benton in the United States Senate. In February, 1844, Mr. Lawrence formed a part- nership with Melvin L. Gray, from Vermont, just then beginning practice. As both mem-
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