Encyclopedia of Civil War Biography - Thr-Tyn
THRASHER, John S, journalist, born in Portland, Maine, in 1817; died in Galveston, Texas, 10 November, 1879. While he was a youth his parents moved to Havana, Cuba, where he followed for some time a successful mercantile career, but abandoned it for journalism, purchasing, in 1849, the " Faro Industrial," which was then the only Liberal newspaper. In September, 1851, his paper was suppressed, and he was condemned by court-martial to ten years' imprisonment with hard labor at Ceuta and perpetual banishment from Cuba. After several months the U. S. minister at Madrid secured his release. He afterward established in New Orleans a Sunday journal called the " Beacon of Cuba," and in 1853-5 was an active member of the junta that organized a filibustering expedition to he led by General John A. Quitman. When the U. S. authorities prevented the departure of this expedition, Thrasher went to New York City. For several years he travelled in Central and South America as a newspaper correspondent, and edited the "Noticioso de nuevo York," a journal devoted to the interests of Spanish-American countries. Marrying a lady whose property was in Texas, he moved to the south, and remained there during the Civil War, acting as agent for the associated press at Atlanta. After the war he edited for several years Frank Leslie's "Illustration Americana" in New York City, and afterward resided in Galveston. He published a translation of Alexander von Humboldt's " Personal Narrative of Travels," with notes and an introductory essay (New York, 1850), also many essays on the social, commercial, and political conditions of Cuba. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 106.
THROCKMORTON, James Webb, governor of Texas, born in Sparta, Tennessee, 1 February, 1825. He accompanied his father to Texas in 1841, became a lawyer, and entered the legislature in 1851, serving continuously in one branch or the other till the beginning of the Civil War. He was a member of the convention that passed the ordinance of secession, against which he voted, with six others, but he joined the Confederate Army in the spring of 1861, and served as a captain, and afterward as a major till November, 1863, when he resigned in order to take his seat again in the state senate. In 1864 he was appointed a brigadier-general of state troops, and in May, 1864, was placed by the state military authorities in command on the northwestern border of Texas, where he made treaties with the Comanches, Cheyennes, and other tribes, returning from the plains in June, 1865, after Lee's surrender at Appomattox. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention that was called in accordance with President Johnson's proclamation in 1865, and was elected its president. In 1863 he was chosen governor for four years, but in 1867 he was removed from office by General Philip II. Sheridan's orders. He was elected to Congress, taking his seat on 6 December, 1875, and served through two terms. On 3 December, 1883, he re-entered the house, and in 1885 he was re-elected. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 106-107.
THROOP, Amos Gager, 1811-1894, businessman, politician, abolitionist, philanthropist. In 1891, he founded the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), earlier known as Throop University. Mayor of Pasadena, California, elected in 1888.
THURSTON, Charles Mynn, soldier, born in Lexington, Kentucky, 22 February, 1786; died in Cumberland, Maryland, 18 February, 1873, entered the U. S. Military Academy in 1813, and in July, 1814, was commissioned as lieutenant of artillery, and assigned to duty on Governor's Island, New York Harbor, where he was engaged in erecting fortifications till the close of the war with Great Britain. He became adjutant of his regiment in 1821, and during the Florida war in 1835-'6 was acting adjutant-general of the Florida army. Resigning on 31 August, 1836, he settled on a farm at Cumberland, Maryland. He became president of a bank in 1838, and mayor in 1861. At the beginning of the Civil War he entered the volunteer service as brigadier-general, and served in guarding the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad till April, 1862. when he resigned. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 107-108.
THURSTON, Daniel, Winthrop, Maine, abolitionist. Manager, 1833-1840, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833. (Abolitionist, Vol. I, No. XII, December, 1833)
THURSTON, David, Winthrop, Maine, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1833-40
THURSTON, Gates Phillips, soldier, born in Dayton, Ohio, 11 June, 1835, was graduated at Miami University in 1855. studied law. and began practice in Dayton, where he entered the volunteer service at the beginning of the Civil War as a captain in the 1st Ohio Infantry. He was promoted major and assistant adjutant-general on 4 September. 1863, and subsequently lieutenant-colonel, for special acts of gallantry at Shiloh and Stone River, and was brevetted colonel and brigadier-general of volunteers for gallantry at Chickamauga. Since the war he has followed his profession at Nashville, Tennessee. He is corresponding secretary of the Tennessee Historical Society, has contributed articles on military history and other subjects to northern and southern magazines, and has in preparation an illustrated work on the mound-builders, describing recent discoveries in the vicinity of Nashville and elsewhere. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 108.
THURMAN, Allen Granbery, statesman, born in Lynchburg. Virginia, 18 November, 1813. His father was the Reverend Pleasant Thurman, a minister of the Methodist church, and his mother the only daughter of Colonel Nathaniel Allen, nephew and adopted son of Joseph Hewes, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. His parents moved to Chillicothe in 1819, and he made that place his home until he settled in Columbus, in 1853, where he has since resided. His education was in the Chillicothe Academy, and at the hands of his mother. At the age of eight he assisted in land-surveying and at twenty-one he was private secretary to Governor Lucas, studied law with his uncle, Governor William Allen, afterward was admitted to the bar in 1835, and in a few years was employed in almost every litigated case in Ross County. In 1844 he was elected by the Democrats to Congress, and he entered that body, 1 December, 1845, as its youngest member. Preferring the practice of the law, he declined a renomination to Congress, and remained at the bar until 1851, when he was elected to the supreme bench in Ohio. From December, 1854, till February, 1856, he served as chief justice, and on the expiration of his term he refused a renomination. His opinions, contained in the first five volumes of the state reports, are remarkable for the clear and forcible expression of his views and the accuracy of his statements of the law. In 1867 he was the choice of his party for governor of Ohio. Rutherford B. Hayes, his opponent, was elected by a majority of fewer than 3,000 votes, though the Republican majority in 1866 was more than 43,000. Mr. Thurman was then elected to the Senate to succeed Benjamin F. Wade. He took his seat. 4 March, 1869, and from the first was recognized as the leader of the Democratic minority. He was a member of the committee on the judiciary and on the accession of his party to power, in the 46th Congress, he was made its chairman, and also chosen president, pro tempore, of the Senate, owing to the illness of Vice-President Wheeler. In 1874 he was elected to the Senate for a second term, and in his twelve years of service, ending 4 March, 1881, he won a reputation for judicial fairness and readiness, dignity and power in debate, especially upon questions of constitutional law. Besides his labor in the judiciary committee he rendered valuable service in the committee on private land claims. He was the author of the act to compel the Pacific Railroad Corporations to fulfil their obligations to the government, since known as the " Thurman act," the passage of which he forced in spite of the combined influence of those companies. His arguments against the constitutionality of the civil rights bills have since been sustained by the U. S. Supreme Court in language that is almost identical with that of his speeches. Efforts to secure for the rebellious states the most favorable reconstruction legislation, in which he vigorously persisted while in the Senate, led to a charge that he had disapproved the war for the integrity of the Union. His true position he thus defined in a letter to a friend: "I did all I could to help to preserve the Union without a war. but after it began I thought there was but one thing to do, and that was to fight it out. I therefore sustained all constitutional measures that tended, in my judgment, to put down the rebellion. I never believed in the doctrine of secession." Mr. Thurman retired from the Senate not alone with the high respect of his partisan associates, but also with that of senators of opposite political views, one of whom, James G. Blaine, with whom he often contended in debate, says, in his "Twenty Years of Congress": "Mr. Thurman's rank in the Senate was established from the day he took his seat, and was never lowered during the period of his service. He was an admirably disciplined debater, was fair in his method of statement, logical in his argument, honest in his conclusions. He had no tricks in discussion, no catch-phrases to secure attention, but was always direct and manly. . . . His retirement from the Senate was a serious loss to his party—a loss, indeed, to the body." General Garfield, before his election to the presidency, had been chosen to succeed Mr. Thurman in the Senate; but the contest had not interrupted friendly relations of many years standing, and, as a mark of his regard, the new president, soon after his inauguration, associated Mr. Thurman with William M. Evarts, of New York, and Timothy O. Howe, of Wisconsin, on the commission to the International Monetary Conference to be held in Paris. In the Democratic National Convention of 1876. Mr. Thurman received some votes as a presidential candidate. In 1880 the first ballot gave him the entire vote of the Ohio delegation, with considerable support from other states. In 1884 he was a delegate-at-large to the National Convention, was again put in nomination for the presidency, and stood next to Cleveland and Bayard upon the first ballot. In the convention of 1888 he was nominated for vice-president by acclamation. See "Lives and Public Services of Grover Cleveland and Allen G. Thurman," by W. U. Hensel and George F. Parker (New York, 1888). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 108.
THURSTON, Robert Lawton, mechanical-engineer, born in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, 13 December, 1800; died in Providence, Rhode Island, 13 January, 1874. He early developed talent as a mechanic, and on attaining his majority began to learn the trade of a machinist. His skill attracted the attention of John Babcock, who invited his assistance in the manufacture of an experimental steam-engine which was placed in a small ferry-boat for use near Fall River. Its success led to the construction of engines for the "Rushlight" and the "Babcock," which ran between Providence and New York. He then entered the iron business in Fall River, but in 1830 returned to Providence, where, with the son of John Babcock, he founded in 1834 the first steam-engine building establishment in New England, known as the Providence Steam-engine Company. They purchased the Sickles patent for the " drop cut-off" for steam-engines, and were the first either in America or in Europe to manufacture a standard form of expansion steam-engine. For a series of years they were engaged in litigation with George H. Corliss, against whom they brought suit for infringement of the Sickles patent. This case, which was one of the most noted patent suits that was ever tried, called for the services of several of the most eminent lawyers and mechanical experts of the time. The Greene engine, which they introduced, is now claimed by many engineers to be one of the best of modern steam-engines. In 1863 the unsettled condition of affairs resulting from the Civil War, with incidental lack of business, led to Mr. Thurston's withdrawal.—His son, Robert Henry, mechanical engineer, born in Providence, Rhode Island, 25 October, 1839, received his early training in the workshops of his father and was graduated in the scientific course at Brown in 1859. After two years' experience with his father's company, he entered the U. S. Navy as third assistant engineer, and served on various vessels during the Civil War. He was present at the battle of Port Royal and at the siege of Charleston, and was attached to the North and South Atlantic Squadrons until 1865, when he was detailed as assistant professor of natural and experimental philosophy at the U. S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, where he also lectured on chemistry. In 1870 he visited Europe for the purpose of studying the British iron manufacturing districts, and on 1 April, 1872, he resigned from the navy, after attaining the rank of 1st assistant engineer. Meanwhile, in 1871, he had been called to the chair of mechanical engineering at the Stevens institute of technology, where he remained until 1885, when he was appointed director of the Sibley College of Cornell University with the professorship of mechanical engineering. In 1871, on behalf of a committee of the American institute, he made a series of experiments on steam-boilers, in which for the first time all losses of heat were noted, and, by condensing all the steam that was generated, the quantity of water "entrained" by the steam was measured. Professor Thurston was appointed a member of the U. S. Commission to the World's Fair in Vienna in 1873. and, besides serving on the international jury, edited the " Reports of the United States Commissioners to the International Exhibition, Vienna. 1873" (4 vols., Washington, 1875-'6). which includes his own special "Report on Machinery and Manufactures." He was a member of the U. S. commission on the causes of boiler-explosions, and of the U. S. board to test iron, steel, and other metals. His extensive knowledge of matters connected with mechanical engineering has led to his being called upon frequently to testify in court on disputed points as an expert. The degree of doctor of engineering was conferred on him by Stevens institute of technology in 188.5, and he is a regular, honorary, or corresponding member of various scientific and technical societies at home and abroad. He was vice-president of the American association for the advancement of science in 1877-'8 and 1884, vice-president of the American institute of mining engineers in 18?8-'9. and president of the American society of mechanical engineers in 1880-'3. Professor Thurston has invented a magnesium burning-lamp, an autographic-recording testing-machine, a newform of steam-engine governor, an apparatus for determining the value of lubricants, and various other devices. He is the author of about 250 papers, including contributions to " The Popular Science Monthly, 'Journal of the Franklin Institute," "Van Nostrand's Magazine," "Science," "The Forum," and like periodicals, and addresses before scientific and other societies. His books are " History of the Growth of the Steam-Engine" (New York, 1878): "Friction and Lubrication" (1879); "Materials of Engineering" (3 vols., 1884-'6); "Friction mid Lost Work in Machinery and Mill Work" (1884); "Text-Book of the Materials of Construction " (1885): "Stationary Steam-Engines for Electric Lighting Purposes " (1884); "Steam-Boiler Explosions in Theory and in Practice-' (1887); and "A Manual of Steam Boilers: their Design. Construction, and Management" (1888). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 109-110.
TIBBITS, William Badger, soldier, born in Hoosick, New York, 31 March, 1837: died in Troy, New York, 10 February, 1880, was graduated at Union in 1859, began the study of law, and engaged in manufacturing. At President Lincoln's first call for troops he recruited a company, and was mustered into the service as captain on 14 May, 1861. He was engaged at Big Bethel., Fair Oaks, Malvern Hill, Bristow Station, and the second battle of Bull Run, was promoted major of the 2d New York Volunteer Infantry on 13 October, 1862, participated in the battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, and, when his term of service expired, raised a regiment that was called the Griswold light Cavalry, of which he was made colonel, his commission dating from 20 November, 1863. He served under General Julius Stahel, first encountering the enemy at New Market on 15 May, 1864. He was present at Piedmont on 5 June, was constantly engaged during the following three months, taking part in numerous actions, and was brevetted brigadier-general of volunteers on 17 November. At the close of the war he was ordered to the west with his command. He was brevetted major-general of volunteers on 13 March, 1865, commissioned as brigadier-general on 18 October, 1865, and mustered out on 15 January, 1866, returning to Troy with health impaired by injuries received in the service. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 110
TICKNOR, William Davis, publisher, born in Lebanon, New Hampshire, 6 August, 1810: died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 10 April, 1864. In youth he was employed in the office of his uncle, Benjamin, a money-broker, and he afterward became teller in the old Columbian bank of Boston. He began the business of a publisher in Boston in 1832. in connection with John Allen, under the firm-name of Allen and Ticknor. successors of the old publishing-house of Carter, Hendee, and Company. In the following year Mr. Allen retired, leaving Mr. Ticknor to carry on the business for twelve years. This he did under his own name, which will be found on the title-pages of the early American editions of Tennyson and many New England authors. In 1845 John Reed and James T. Fields became his partners, and the imprint was changed to Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, but the legal firm-name remained William D. Ticknor and Company, during Mr. Ticknor's lifetime. On the retirement of Mr. Reed, in 1854, the style In, name Ticknor and Fields, continuing as such for about ten years. During this period the last-named firm purchased and continued to publish the " Atlantic Monthly" and the "North American Review. On the death of Mr. Ticknor his interest was continued in behalf of his son, Howard M and James R. Osgood. Among the important events of this epoch were the establishment of "Our Young Folks" (1864), edited by Howard M. Ticknor. and of "Every Saturday'' (1866), edited by Thomas Bailey Aldrich. In 1868 the younger Ticknor retired, and a new co-partnership was formed among the other members, under the firm name of Fields, Osgood, and Company. In 1870 Benjamin H. Ticknor was admitted, and in 1871 Mr. Fields withdrew, when the firm became James R. Osgood and Company. In 1885 it became Ticknor and Company, consisting of Benjamin H. and Thomas B. Ticknor and George F. Godfrey. From the beginning the publications of the house were characterized by intrinsic merit and by the neatness and correctness of their typography. The interests of American writers met with unusual consideration, and it became a mark of distinction for young writers to have secured them as publishers. 'William D. Ticknor was one of the first of American publishers to make payment for the works of foreign authors, beginning with £100 to Tennyson in 1842. The house always continued this custom, and it is probably not too much to say that its example did more than any other one thing to establish a principle that is now so generally recognized and acted upon. For three decades the curtained office of their establishment in di« quaint old building at the corner of Washington and School streets, seen in the illustration, was the reason of Dickens, Emerson, Hawthorne, Holmes, Longfellow Lowell. Sumner, Thackeray, Whipple, and Whittier. This building (the oldest but one now standing in Boston), one of the landmarks of the city, was built immediately after the great fire of 1711. and was occupied for various domestic and mercantile purposes, at one time being an apothecary-shop by the father of James Freeman Clarke, until, 1828 it became the book-store of Carter, Hendee and Company, from whom it passed to Allen and Ticknor. It remained in the hands of William D. Ticknor and his immediate successors until 1866, when increasing business required their removal to Tredmont street; but it is still a book-store. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 112.
TIDBALL, John Caldwell, soldier, born in Ohio County. Va. (now West Virginia), 25 January. 1825. He was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1848, being assigned to the 3d U.S. Artillery. He served fit the various stations of his regiment until 1861, when, having attained the rank of captain, he was placed in command of a battery, and engaged in the principal actions of the Army of the Potomac from the battle of Bull Run until and including the battle of Gettysburg in 1863. During the latter part of the campaign in Pennsylvania Captain Tidball commanded a brigade of horse artillery. He was appointed colonel of the 4th New York Volunteer Artillery, 28 August, 1863, and commanded the artillery of the 2d Corps of the Army of the Potomac during the Richmond Campaign, including the battles of the Wilderness and the siege of Petersburg. He was commandant of cadets at West Point from 10 July till 22 September, 1804, and led the artillery of the 9th Corps from 9 October, 1864, till 2 April, 1865, in the operations that terminated in the surrender of Lee at Appomattox. After he was mustered out of the volunteer service he commanded his battery at the Presidio of San Francisco until his promotion in February, 1867, to major of the 2d U.S. Artillery, thence serving in command of the district of Astoria and Alaska, and the post of Raleigh, North Carolina, and as superintendent of artillery instruction at the U. S. artillery-school at, Fort Monroe, Virginia, till January, 1880. He was then appointed aide-de-camp to the general of the army, with rank of colonel, serving until 8 February, 1884. He became lieutenant-colonel of the 3d U.S. Artillery, 30 June, 1882, and colonel of the 1st U.S. Artillery, 22 March, 1885, and has commanded the artillery-school and post of Fort Monroe since 1 November, 1883. In 1889 he will be retired from active service. He has received the brevets of brigadier-general of volunteers for gallant and distinguished services at Spotsylvania, major-general of volunteers for services at Fort Sedgwick, major in the regular army for Gaines's Mills, lieutenant-colonel for Antietam. colonel for gallantry at Fort Stedman, and brigadier-general, 13 March, 1865, for gallant and meritorious services during the rebellion. General Tidball is the author of a " Manual of Heavy Artillery Service" which has been adopted by the war department (Washington, 1880). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 112-113.
TIFFANY, Charles Louis, jeweler, born in Killingly, Connecticut, 15 February, 1812. He received an academic education, and then entered the cotton-mill of his father. In 1837 he came to New York City without means, and established with John B. Young a fancy-goods and stationery store at 259 Broadway. The capital for the enterprise, $1,000, was lent to the young men by Mr. Tiffany's father. They invested their money in various novel goods, including Chinese curiosities. Success favored the new house, and in 1841 the firm became Tiffany, Young, and Ellis, by the admission of the latter as a partner. During the same year Mr. Young was sent abroad to select novelties and establish closer relations with European houses. The firm moved to 271 Broadway in 1847, and then began the manufacture of gold jewelry. During the disturbances in Europe in 1848, diamonds declined fifty per cent, in Paris, and, taking advantage of this, they made large purchases. In 1851 they began the manufacture of sterling silver ware. Various changes in the firm resulted in the establishment of a Paris branch, and the firm-name in New York became Tiffany and Company. The salesrooms were moved to 550 Broadway in 1851, and during the Civil War a large business was carried on in the manufacture of swords and similar articles. At the World's Fair in Paris in 1867 their exhibit received the first award. The building which they now occupy on Union Square was erected for their accommodation in 1867, and the firm was incorporated as a stock company in 1868. The products of their manufacture received the highest honors at the World's fairs in Philadelphia in 187-6, and again in Paris in 1878. Mr. Tiffany has been honored with testimonials by foreign powers, and he has been decorated by the French and Russian governments. He is active in the affairs of New York City, and is a liberal patron of art. His residence, among the finest in the country, is situated on Madison Avenue near Central Park, and is represented in the accompanying illustration. —His son, Louis Comfort, artist, born in New York, 18 February, 1848, studied under George Inness and Samuel Colman, subsequently under Leon Bailly in Paris, and during five years travelled and sketched in Europe and Africa. In 1870 he became a member of the Water-color society; the following year he was elected an associate of the National Academy, and he became an academician in 1880. He is also a member of the Society of American Artists. Among his works in oil are "Fruit-Vender, under the Sea-Wall at Nassau" (1870); "Market Day, Morlaix," and "Duane Street, New York" (1878); and "Bow-Zarea. Algiers." His water-colors include "Meditation" (1872): "Shop in Switzerland." "Old and New Mosques at Cairo," and "Lazy Life in the East" (1877; "Algiers" (1877); and "Cobblers at Borifarik" (1878). He devotes much time to decorative work, and has furnished many cartoons and designs for windows for the Tiffany glass Company, of which he is the founder. The interior work of his father's house in New York was executed under his supervision. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 113.
TILDEN, Samuel Jones, statesman, born in New Lebanon, New York, 9 February, 1814; died at his country house, Graystone, Westchester County, New York, 4 August, 1886. The name of an ancestor, Nathaniel Tilden of Tenterden, yeoman, and that of Lydia, his wife, with seven children and seven servants, head the list of "such persons as embarked themselves in the good ship called the 'Hercules,' ... to be therein transported to the plantation called New England in America, from the port of Sandwich. England, in March, 1634. This Nathaniel Tilden had been mayor of Tenterden, as had been his uncle John before him. and as was his cousin John after him. He settled with his family at Scituate, whence the second generation of Tildens migrated to Lebanon, Connecticut To Isaac Tilden, the great-grandfather of Samuel J., was born at this place, in 1729, a son named John, who settled in what was afterward called New Lebanon, Columbia County, New York. Samuel J.'s father. Elam, the youngest of John Tilden's seven children, was born in 1781, and in 1802 married Polly Y. Jones, a descendant of William Jones, lieutenant-governor of the colony of New Haven. Eight children were born of this union, of whom Samuel J. was the fifth. The boy early developed great activity of mind and a remarkable command of language. His father, a farmer, who also carried on a mercantile business, was an intimate friend of Martin Van Buren, and the political controversy of the time was part of the very atmosphere of the Tilden household. In his eighteenth year Samuel prepared an address, which was adopted as a party manifesto by the Democrats, in regard to the issues of the pending state election. In the same year he entered Yale College, but almost at the outset his studies were interrupted by feeble health. He resumed them in 1834, when he entered the University of New York. Here he completed his academic education, and devoted himself to the study of law. While in college he wrote a series of papers in defence of President Van Buren's policy in regard to the United States bank. He made a more elaborate plea for the independent treasury system, as opposed to the union of bank and state, in a speech delivered to his neighbors at New Lebanon in October, 1840. On his admission to the bar, Mr. Tilden began practice in New York City, but continued to take an active part in politics. He was elected to the assembly in 1845, and while there was chairman of a committee appointed to inquire into the causes of the anti-rent disorders, and the masterly report on the whole subject of the great leasehold estates and their tenants was almost entirely his work. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1846. The three most memorable cases in which he was employed as a lawyer were the trial of the contested election of his friend, Azariah C. Flagg, as comptroller of New York City, the opposition on the part of the heirs of the murdered Dr. Burdell to Mrs. Cunningham's application for letters of administration on his estate, and the defence of the Pennsylvania coal Company to the claim of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company for payment of extra tolls. The hearing of the last-named consumed seventy days, and Mr. Tilden's argument in the ease was a marvel of analytical ingenuity and constructive ability. From 1855, more than half of the great railway corporations north of the Ohio and between the Hudson and Missouri Rivers were at some time clients of Mr. Tilden's. He was the author of many of the plans of reorganization that were rendered necessary by the early financial necessities of these companies. He took part in the Free-Soil revolt within the Democratic party in 1848. In 1851 he made a strong plea for respect to the constitution in dealing with the question of improvements on the state canals. In 1855 he was the candidate for attorney-general on the ticket of the 'Soft-Shell " Democrats. Throughout the Civil War he maintained that the struggle against the Confederacy could be successfully waged without resorting to extra-constitutional modes of action. By 1868 Mr. Tilden had definitely assumed the leadership of the Democratic Party in New York State. To the enactment of what was known as " the Tweed charter " of 1870, which confirmed the control of a corrupt ring over the government and revenues of New York City, Mr. Tilden offered the most determined opposition. To the side-partners of Tweed, the almost equally notorious persons who were engaged, by the aid of courts, in plundering the stockholders of the Erie Railway, Mr. Tilden had made himself similarly obnoxious. He was one of the founders of the Bar association, which was an organized protest against the perversion of the machinery of justice accomplished by judges George G. Barnard and Albert Cardozo and their allies. In the impeachment proceedings against these judges in 1872 Mr. Tilen's was the directing mind, and it was mainly for this purpose that he agreed to serve as a member of the assembly. On the exposure of the methods of plunder of the Tweed ring, which was made in the columns of the New York " Times " in July, 1871. Mr. Tilden undertook, through an examination of the bank-accounts of the chief members of the combination, a legal demonstration of the share of the spoil received by each, and the tables presented with his affidavit furnished the basis of the civil and criminal proceedings brought against the ring and its agents. He threw all his energy into the prosecution of suits in the name of the state against the men who had seized the machinery of local justice, and he resisted successfully the efforts of the ring and the politicians in its service to retain their hold on the state Democratic organization in the autumn of 1871. In 1874 he was the Democratic candidate for governor, and was elected by a plurality of 50,000 over Governor John A. Dix. His special message to the legislature on the extravagance and dishonesty that had characterized the management of the canals made a deep impression. During his administration the new Capitol building at Albany was begun (see illustration), which has cost $17,000,000, but is not finished. In June, 1876, the National Democratic Convention, assembled at St. Louis, nominated him for the presidency. (For an account of the election and its results, see Hayes, Rutherford B.) As finally declared, the electoral vote was 185 for Mr. Hayes and 184 for Mr. Tilden. The popular vote, as counted, gave Tilden 4,284,265: Haves, 4,033,295; Cooper, 81,737; Smith, 9,522. Mr. Tilden was opposed to the electoral commission, declaring his belief in "the exclusive jurisdiction of the two houses to count the electoral votes by their own servants and under such instruction as they might deem proper to give." From that time till the end of his life he was first among the leaders of the national Democracy, and the pressure for his renomination in 1880 became so great that his friends, who knew his fixed determination not to be a candidate, appealed to him for a formal announcement of his resolution, addressed to the delegates from his own state. Pour years later this declaration had to be repeated. His last important contribution to the history of his time was a communication addressed to John G. Carlisle, speaker of the House of Representatives, in regard to the urgent necessity of liberal appropriations for such a system of coast defences as would place the United States in a position of comparative safety against naval attack. Under the provisions of Mr. Tilden's will, the greater portion of his fortune (which was estimated at $5,000,000) was devoted to public uses, the chief of which was the establishment and endowment in the City of New York of a free public library; but the will was contested by his relatives, he never married. His life was written by Theodore P. Cook (New York. 1876), and his writings edited by John Bigelow (2 vols., 1885).— Mr. Tilden's elder brother, Moses Y. (1812-76), was a member of the legislature in 1869, and became known by his persistent opposition to the Tweed ring. With his brother, he built the Lebanon Springs Railroad. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 114-116.
TILDEN, William P., Concord, New Hampshire, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1843-48, Manager, 1848-53.
TILLSON, Davis, soldier, born in Rockland. Maine, 14 April, 1830. He entered the U. S. Military Academy in 1849, but two years later, having injured his foot so that it required amputation, he resigned. In 1857 he was elected to the Maine legislature, and in 1858 became adjutant-general of the state. On the inauguration of President Lincoln he was appointed collector of customs of the Waldoboro District, which place he resigned in 1861 to become captain of the 2d Maine Battery. He went to Washington in April, 1862 (having been detained in Maine during the winter, owing to the threatened difficulty with England on account of the '"Trent" affair), and was assigned to the Army of the Rappahannock under General Irvin McDowell. On 22 May he was promoted major and made chief of artillery in General Edward O. C. Ord's division. After the battle of Cedar Mountain, 9 August, 1862, he was assigned to General McDowell's staff as chief of artillery, in which capacity he served during the three days' artillery fight at Rappahannock Station, and then at the second battle of Bull Run. Subsequently, until April, 1863. he was inspector of artillery, and in January was made lieutenant-colonel, and on 29 March was ordered to Cincinnati, having been commissioned brigadier-general to date from 29 November, 1862, and made chief of artillery for fortifications in the Department of the Ohio. He had charge of the defences of Cincinnati and the works on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, and raised and organized two regiments of heavy artillery. In December, 1863, he was ordered to Knoxville, Tennessee, where he supervised various works and was given a brigade in the 23d Army Corps, which he commanded in several engagements with Confederate cavalry and irregular troops during the winter of 1863-'4. He continued in charge of the works in this district, which were officially commended as the best in the military Division of the Mississippi, and also organized the 1st U. S. Heavy Artillery of colored troops and the 3d North Carolina Mounted Infantry. Subsequently he had command of the District of East Tennessee until early in 1865, when he was transferred to the 4th Division of the Department of the Cumberland, and held that command until the close of the war. He then offered his resignation; but his services were retained, and he remained on duty until 1 December, 1866, in charge of the Freedman’s Bureau at Memphis, and subsequently in Georgia. For a year he remained in Georgia after his resignation, engaged in cotton-planting, but then disposed of his interests there and returned to Rockland, Maine, where he has since been engaged in the granite business. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 119.
TILTON, David, Edgartown, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1838-40.
TILTON, Theodore, 1835-1907, New York, editor, abolitionist leader. Originally supported gradual emancipation and African colonization. Later supported militant abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy and called for immediate abolition. Worked as tireless anti-slavery leader through mid-1840s. Encouraged Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to found the American Equal Rights Association, 1866. (Rodriguez, 2007, p. 170; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 120; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 9, Pt. 2, p. 551; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 21, p. 681)
TILTON, Theodore, journalist, born in New York City, 2 October, 1835. He was graduated at the College of the city of New York in 1855, was employed for a year on the New York “Observer,” and then became an editor of the “Independent,” continuing on the staff from 1856 till 1871, the latter part of the time as editor-in-chief. He edited also, about six months of the last year, the Brooklyn “Union.” He then established the “Golden Age,” an independent political and literary weekly, but retired from it at the end of two years. In 1874 he charged Henry Ward Beecher with criminal intimacy with his wife (see BEECHER), and the case, tried by Plymouth church and the public courts, attracted wide attention. Mr. Tilton has written many political and reformatory articles, which have been reprinted in pamphlets. He has gained much reputation as an orator, being a constant and eloquent speaker in behalf of woman's rights, and, before the Civil War, in opposition to slavery. For twenty years he was a lyceum lecturer, speaking in nearly every northern state and territory. He went abroad in 1883, and has since remained there. Among his works are “The Sexton's Tale, and other Poems” (New York, 1867); “Sancta Sanctorum, or Proof-Sheets from an Editor's Table” (1869); “Tempest Tossed,” a romance (1873; republished in 1883); “Thou and I,” poems (1880); and “Suabian Stories,” ballads (1882). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 120.
TIMBY, Theodore Ruggles, inventor, born in Dover, New York, 5 April, 1822. He received a common school education, and spent his youth on a farm. At an early age he developed inventive faculty, and in 1830 made a practicable working model of a floating dry-dock, which was condemned by nautical experts as impracticable in tidal waters. The first sight of the circular form of Castle Williams on Governor's Island, in the harbor of New York, suggested to him the idea of the revolving plan for defensive works, and in April, 1841, he went to Washington and exhibited a model and plans of a revolving battery, to be constructed of iron, to the chief of engineers and chief of ordnance of the U. S. Army. This model and plans were also submitted to John C. Calhoun and other officials in Washington. In January, 1843, he made a model of a -marine turret, and at that time filed a caveat in the U. S. patent-office for a metallic revolving fort, to be used on land or water, and to be revolved by propelling engines located within the same, acting upon suitable mechanism. From January, 1841, till 1861 Mr. Timby urged the importance of his plans upon the proper authorities at Washington and elsewhere, but without satisfactory results, although in 1848 a favorable report was made to the Secretary of War and indorsed by the chief of the ordnance bureau. Meanwhile, in 1850, he exhibited his plans to Napoleon III., and received some encouragement, but without practical result. In September, 1862, after developing many modifications of his original idea, he took out letters-patent covering the broad claim for "a revolving tower for defensive and offensive warfare, whether placed on land or water," and in the same year he entered into a written agreement with the contractors and builders of the original "Monitor" for the use of his patents, covering the revolving turret, by which they agreed to pay him a royalty of $5,000 on each turret that they constructed. Those facts show beyond a doubt that Mr. Timby is the original patentee of the revolving turrets, and that he was recognized as such by John Ericsson, the designer of the "Monitor' and similar iron-clad vessels. Among the elaborations and developments of the original idea of the revolving tower which he has perfected from time to time are the cordon of revolving towers across a channel (1801); a mole and tower system of defence (1880); the planetary system of revolving towers (1880); the subterranean system of defence (1881); and the revolving tower and shield system (1884), all of which he has patented in this and other countries. Mr. Timby invented and patented in 1844 the American turbine water-wheel, which was a success, and in 1801 he devised the method, now in universal use of firing heavy guns by electricity, as well as other inventions of practical utility. The degree of A. M. was conferred on him by Madison University in 1866. and that of S. D. by the University of Wooster. Ohio, in 1882. Mr. Timby founded in February, 1888. "Congress," a monthly journal, in Washington, D. C, and has prepared for the press a collection of didactic and philosophical prose and verse entitled " Beyond." Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 120.
TIMROD, Henry, poet, born in Charleston, South Carolina, 8 December, 1829; died in Columbia, South Carolina, 6 October, 1867. His grandfather was a German, who emigrated to this country before the Revolutionary war and settled in Charleston. His father, William (1792-1838), was a mechanic, but a man of very poetic temperament, who wrote some fine lyrics. He commanded a corps in the Seminole War, composed of Germans and men of German descent residing in Charleston, and from the exposure and hardships of the service contracted a disease that resulted finally in his death. Henry was educated at the University of Georgia, but took no degree. He was of scholarly tastes, and was a writer of verses from his childhood. After leaving the university he studied law in the office of James L. Petigru, but his enthusiasm for literature interfered with his studies, and he finally abandoned them and fitted himself for a college professor. William Gilmore Simms, who was then in the height of his fame, was in the habit of gathering round him those of the young men of Charleston that had literary proclivities, and he did much to foster the genius of Timrod, Paul H. Hayne, and other young southern writers. Timrod's first volume of poems (Boston, 1860) contained such fine work that it was hailed as an earnest of great excellence. In 1861 he began to write that series of war lyrics which made his name popular throughout the south. In 1862 a project was formed for having a volume of Timrod’s poems brought out in London; but the pressure of great events interrupted this scheme, and it was never put into execution. His delicate health forbade active service in the Held, but his pen was never idle. He was at the battle of Shiloh as war-correspondent of the Charleston "Mercury." In 1864 he went to Columbia, the capital of the state, where he edited the "South Carolinian." He lost everything when the city of Columbia was burned in February, 1865. He said of himself that he and his family woee brought to beggary, starvation, and almost death—that they had eaten up all the family silver and nearly all their furniture, and were reduced to despair. He writes in 1865: "I would consign every line I have written to eternal oblivion, for one hundred dollars in hand." But the struggle against such fearful odds, with his failing health, proved too much for him; life perceptibly ebbed away, and early in October, 1867, he died. His brother-poet and life-long friend, Paul H. Hayne, afterward published a volume of his collected works, prefaced by a very pathetic sketch of his life (New York, 1873). The south has probably never produced a poet of more delicate imagination, of greater rhythmic sweetness, of purer sentiment, and more tender emotion than this young man, who passed away before he had time or opportunity to attain that high standard of excellence which his undoubted genius fitted him to reach. His best-known poem is a short ode written for Memorial-day, 1867. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 121-122.
TIPTON, Thomas W., senator, born in Cadiz, Ohio, 5 August, 1817. He was graduated at Madison College, Pennsylvania, became a lawyer, and was elected to the legislature of Ohio in 1845, but, after some time, settled in Nebraska. He was elected a delegate to the Constitutional convention there, and became in 1860 a member of the territorial council. Subsequently he studied for the ministry, was appointed chaplain in the National Army, and served during the Civil War. He was U. S. Senator from Nebraska from 4 March, 1867. till 3 March, 1875. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 123.
TOCQUEVILLE, "Alexis Charles Henri Cerel, Count de, French statesman, born in Paris, 29 July, 1805; died in Cannes, 10 April, 1859. He passed his early youth at his father's castle of Verneuil, near Mantes, received his education in the College of Metz, and studied law in Paris in 1823-'6, being graduated as licensie in the latter year. Through the influence of his family he was named, 5 April, 1827, judge auditor at the tribunal of Versailles, and soon afterward assistant judge. Later he became deputy assistant district attorney of the same city, and made the acquaintance of Gustave de Beaumont, with whom he was sent in 1831 to the United States by the Secretary of the Interior to study the penitentiary system of the country. They landed at. Boston on 12 May, and remained in the United States till March, 1832, visiting the principal prisons. They returned to France with six folio volumes of documents. Tocqueville published a few weeks later "Note sur le systeme penitentiaire et sur la mission conflee par M. le Ministre de l'interieur a MM. de Beaumont et de Tocqueville" (Paris, 1832), which attracted considerable attention. Tocqueville, becoming dissatisfied with his legal duties, resigned on 21 May, 1832, and opened an attorney's office. His 'Du systeme penitentiaire aux Etats-Unis et de son application en France" (Paris, 1832: 2d ed., with additions, 2 vols., 1830) was written in association with Gustave de Beaumont, and translated into several languages, including an English version by Francis Lieber (Philadelphia, 1833). The authors approved the solitary system as practised in the penitentiary of Cherry hill, in Philadelphia, and they caused the penitentiary system of France, and eventually of the continent, to be entirely remodeled. The French Academy awarded them a Montyon prize, and the success of their work was then considered as unprecedented in the annals of literature. He then visited England, married there in 1835, and in January of the latter year published the first part of his "De la Democratic en Amerique" (2 vols., Paris. 1835), which procured for the author an extraordinary prize of eight thousand francs from the French Academy. In the report of award it is called "one of the most remarkable works published in the nineteenth century, and such as the academy has seldom been called upon to crown." It was followed by the second part early in 1840. The work was translated into several languages, including an English version by Henry Reeve, entitled ' Democracy in America,' with a preface and notes by John Spencer (4 vols., New York, 1839-'40). Reeve's translation has been edited by Francis Bowen (2 vols., Cambridge, 1802), and there is also an abridgment, entitled "American Institutions and their Influence" (New York, 1856). The author was created a knight of the Legion of honor, 6 June, 1837, elected a member of the French Academy of moral sciences, 6 January, 1838, and given a seat in the Academic Francaise, 23 December, 1841. In parliament, where he served in 1839-'48, Tocqueville advocated the abolition of slavery, and urged the colonization of Algiers, which he visited in 1841 and 1846. Being returned to the constituent assembly after the revolution of 1848, he was chosen a member of the committee on legislation, elected vice-president of the assembly in 1849. and, after attending the diplomatic conferences in Brussels upon Italian affairs, was secretary of foreign relations from 2 June till 31 October, 1849. and strongly supported the French Expedition to Rome. He was arrested at the coup d'etat of 2 December 1851, and afterward retired to private life. Besides those already cited, his works include "Etat social et politique de la France," written at the invitation of John Stuart Mill, who translated and published it in the " Westminster Review" for April, 1836; "Memoire sur le pauperisme " (Cherbourg, 1836); "Lettre sur le systeme penitentiaire ' (Paris, 1838); "Lettre a Lord Brougham sur le droit de visite" (1843); " Le droit au travail" (1843); and " L'ancien regime et la revolution" (1856; translated into English, New York, 1856). Tocqueville's inedited works and correspondence were published by his friend, Gustave de Beaumont (2 vols., Paris, 1861; 2 vols., English translation, Boston, 1861); and the latter also published a complete edition of Tocqueville's works (9 vols., Paris, 1861-'5). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 124-125.
TOD, David, statesman, born in Youngstown, Mahoning County, Ohio, 21 February, 1805; died there, 13 November, 1868, was educated by his father, and admitted to the bar in 1827. He practised his profession in Warren for fifteen years, was elected to the state senate in 1838, and canvassed the state for Martin Van Buren in 1840. He was nominated for governor in 1844, but was defeated by 1,000 votes. He was appointed by President Polk minister to Brazil in 1847, and represented the United States there till 1852, when he returned, and took part in the canvass which resulted in the election of Franklin Pierce. In 1860 he was elected a delegate to the Charleston convention, was made first vice-president of that body, and presided over it when the southern wing of the Democratic Party withdrew. He was an advocate of compromise at the opening of the Civil War, but was a firm supporter of the government, and in 1861 was nominated for governor of Ohio by the Republicans, and elected by a majority of 55,000. During his term of two years, beginning 1 January, 1862, he gave much aid to the National administration. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 125.
TODD, John, 1818-1894, West Hanover, Pennsylvania, clergyman, abolitionist, temperance activist, station master on the Underground Railroad. Supporter of radical militant abolitionist John Brown. Co-founder of Tabor College in Tabor, Iowa. (Morgan, James Patrick, John Todd and the Underground Railroad: Biography of an Iowa Abolitionist, McFarland, 2006)
TODD, John Blair Smith, soldier, born in Lexington, Kentucky, 4 April, 1814; died in Yankton, Dakota, 5 January, 1872. He went with his parents to Illinois in 1827, and from that state to the U. S. Military Academy, where he was graduated in 1837 and assigned to the 6th U.S. Infantry. He was made 1st lieutenant on 25 December, served with his regiment in the Florida war from 1837 till 1840, was on recruiting service during part of 1841, and in active service in the Florida War during the remainder of that year and part of 1842. He was made captain in 1843, and was on frontier duty in Indian Territory and Arkansas until 1846. He served in the war with Mexico in 1847, taking part in the siege of Vera Cruz and the battles of Cerro Gordo and Amazoque. He was on garrison and frontier duty till 1855. when he was engaged in the action of Blue Water against the Sioux Indians. He resigned on 16 September, 1850, and was an Indian trader at Fort Randall, Dakota, from that date till 1861, when he took his seat as a delegate to Congress, having been chosen as a Democrat. He served in the Civil War as brigadier-general of volunteers from 19 September, 1861, till 17 July, 1862, and was in command of the North Missouri District from 15 October to 1 December, 1861. He was again a delegate in Congress in 1863-'5, was elected speaker of the House of Representatives of Dakota in 1867, and was governor of the territory in 1869-'71. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 126-127.
TOM (known as Blind Tom), musical prodigy, born near Columbus, Muscogee County, Georgia, 25 May, 1849. He is of pure Negro blood. His parents were slaves, and called him by the name of a member of their former owner's family, Thomas Greene Bethune. He was born blind, and the only sign of intelligence he gave in infancy was the interest he showed in sounds, such as the cries of animals, the moaning of the wind, the rushing of waters, and the pattering of rain. He could speak at an earlier age than other children, and with greater distinctness; but his words had no meaning for him, and while he was able to repeat entire conversations, he expressed his own wants by inarticulate sounds. When he was four years old a piano was brought to his master's house for the use of the young ladies of the family, and one night they were awakened by hearing him play one of their pieces. This was his first effort, yet he played with both hands, using the black and white keys. After this he was allowed the use of the instrument, and in a short time he was able to render with accuracy all the airs he heard. He also made some essays in original, or rather imitative, composition. He would run about the yard or fields, return to the piano, and, when asked what he was playing, would reply: "What the birds said to me," or "What the trees said to me." He has sometimes been compared to Mozart in childhood, but there is no instance recorded in musical history comparable to Blind Tom's attainments in phonetics and the power of reproduction and retention of sound at the same early age. Tom was brought to the north by his master, and made his first appearance in New York, at Hope chapel, 15 January, 1861, since which time he has travelled widely in this country and Europe. His musical feats, whether they are the result of mnemonic and imitative powers, or a genius for music, are astonishing. He plays one air with his right hand, accompanies it by another air in another key with his left, and sings a third air in a third key at the same time; and he can name any combination of notes that he hears struck on the piano, no matter how disconnected and puzzling the intervals. Not only can he play from memory any piece of music, however elaborate, after a single hearing, but he imitates the improvisation of another, note by note, then gives his own idea of it, and accompanies that with variations. His capacity for the most difficult musical performances since he was first brought to the north by his master has been subjected to the severest tests. He can only play what he hears or improvises; but he has about 5,000 pieces at the disposal of his memory, embracing the most difficult selections from Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Gottschalk, and Thalberg. During his performances he indulges in curious antics, and he applauds himself at the end by clapping his hands. He recites with ease in Greek, Latin, French, and German, besides imitating numberless musical instruments and all sorts of sounds, ne has partially acquired the power of vision, and can now see a luminous object within a very small space. But while Tom's powers of memory, manual dexterity, and imitative faculties are great, his renderings are devoid of color and individuality. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 129.
TOMES, Robert, physician, born in New York City, 27 March, 1817; died in Brooklyn, New York, 28 August, 1882. He was graduated at Washington (now Trinity) College in 1835, and, after spending some time in the medical schools of Philadelphia, went to the University of Edinburgh, where he received the degree of M. D. in 1840. He then studied in Paris, and on his return to the United States settled in the practice of his profession in New York, but after a few years was appointed surgeon on a vessel belonging to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and made several voyages between Panama and San Francisco. In 1865 he was appointed U. S. consul at Rheims, France, which office he filled until 1867. Returning to the United States, he spent most of his life in literary occupation. He wrote for journals and magazines, and his series of papers in "Harper's Magazine" on American manners and society were widely popular. He published "The Bourbon Prince" (New York, 1853); "Richard the Lion-Hearted " (1854): "Oliver Cromwell" (1855); "Panama in 1855" (1855); "The Americans in Japan" (1857); "The Battles of America by Sea and Land" (3 vols., 1861); "The Champagne Country" (1867); and "The War with the South: a History of the Great American Rebellion" (3 vols., 1864-'7; German translation, 2 vols., 1864-'7). Dr. Tomes also translated works from the French and German. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 129.
TOMLINSON, Carver, Illinois, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1858-64.
TOMPKINS, Daniel D., vice-president of the United States, born in Fox Meadows (now Scarsdale). Westchester County, New York, 21 June, 1774: died on Staten Island, New York, 11 June, 1825. His father was Jonathan O. Tompkins, a farmer, who performed services useful to his country during the Revolutionary conflict. The son was graduated at Columbia in 1795, studied law, was admitted to the bar in New York City in 1797, gained rapid success in his profession, and soon began to take part in politics, being elected to the state constitutional convention of 1801. and in the same year to the assembly. He was a leader of the Republican Party in his state, and in 1804 was elected to the National House of Representatives, but resigned on 2 July, before the meeting of Congress, in order to take his seat on the bench of the Supreme Court of New York, having been nominated an associate justice on the promotion of James Kent to the chief justiceship. On 9 June, 1807, he resigned in order to become the candidate for governor of the Democratic wing of his party in opposition to Morgan Lewis. He was elected by a majority of 4,000 votes, and found himself in accord with the legislature in his support of the foreign policy of the Jefferson administration. He was continued in the office by the reunited Republican factions at the elections of 1809 and 1811. In 1812, in order to prevent the establishment of the Bank of North America in New York City as the successor to the defunct United States bank of Philadelphia, he resorted to the extraordinary power of proroguing the legislature that the constitution then gave him. which no governor ever used except himself in this instance. The charter of the bank had been approved by the house, a part of the Republicans voting with the Federalists, and when the legislature reassembled it was at once passed. In the election of 1813 his majority was reduced from 10,000 to 4,000, and there was a hostile lower house in the next legislature. Nevertheless, his bold act made him very popular with the common people, and his active patriotism during the war with Great Britain increased their admiration. He placed the militia in the field, and did more than the Federal government for the success of the operations on the Canadian border, pledging his personal and official credit when the New York banks refused to lend money on the security of the U. S. treasury notes without his indorsement. He advanced the means to maintain the military school at West Point, to continue the recruiting service in Connecticut, and to pay the workmen that were employed in the manufactory of arms at Springfield, he bought the weapons of private citizens that were delivered at the arsenal in New York City, and in a short time 40,000 militia were mustered and equipped for the defence of New York, Plattsburg, Sackett's Harbor, and Buffalo. When General John Armstrong retired from the secretaryship of war after the sacking of Washington, President Madison invited Tompkins to enter the cabinet as Secretary of State in the place of James Monroe, who assumed charge of the war department; but he declined on the ground that he could be of more service to the country as governor of New York. He was reelected in 1815, and in April, 1816, was nominated for the vice-presidency of the United States. His talents and public services were more conspicuous than those of James Monroe, but the northern Democrats were not strong enough to command the first place on the ticket. Before resigning the governorship and entering on the office of vice-president, to which he was elected by 183 out of 217 votes, he sent a message to the legislature, dated 28 January, 1817, recommending that a day be fixed for the abolition of slavery within the bounds of the state, and the assembly, acting on his suggestion, decreed that all slaves should be free on and after 4 July, 1827. He was re-elected vice-president by 215" of the 228 votes that were cast in 1820, and in the same year was proposed by his friends as a candidate for governor ; but his popularity had diminished, and charges of dishonesty were made in connection with his large disbursements during the war with Great Britain. He was a delegate to the state constitutional convention of 1821. The suspicion of embezzlement, which were due to a confusion in his accounts, unbalanced his mind and brought on a melancholy from which he sought escape in intoxicating drinks, thereby shortening his life. He was one of the founders of the New York Historical Society, one of the corporators of the city schools, and a regent of the State university. — Daniel's nephew, Daniel D., soldier, born in New York in 1799; died in Brooklyn. New York, 20 February, 1803, was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1820, entered the ordnance corps, and on the reorganization of the army was made 2d lieutenant of artillery, the ordnance department being at that time merged in the artillery, with commission dating from 1 July, 1821 He was promoted 1st lieutenant on 1 March, 1835, and captain on 31 December, 1835, and in the Florida war against the Seminole Indians distinguished himself in the skirmish at San Velasco, in the battle of Wahoo Swamp, and in other actions, and was brevetted major on 11 September, 1836. He was appointed captain and assistant quartermaster on 7 July, 1838, became a major on the staff on 22 July, 1842, and during the Mexican War had charge of the forwarding of supplies from Philadelphia, receiving the brevet of lieutenant-colonel on 30 May, 1848, for meritorious performance of duties connected with the prosecution of the war. He was made a full lieutenant-colonel on 16 September, 1851, and colonel and assistant quartermaster-general on 22 December, 1856, and from the beginning of the Civil War till the time of his death he served as depot quartermaster in New York City, furnishing supplies to the armies in the field.—A son of the second Daniel D., Charles H., soldier, born in Fort Monroe, Virginia, 12 September, 1830, was educated at Kinsley's school at West Point, New York, and for two years at the U. S. Military Academy, but resigned without completing the course. He entered the service in 1856 in the dragoons, and after an enlistment of three years on the frontier, during which he passed through the principal noncommissioned grades, he was appointed 2d lieutenant in the 2d U. S. Cavalry, 23 March, 1861, and was promoted 1st lieutenant in April of the same year. While commanding a squadron of his regiment, the 5th U.S. Cavalry, within the defences of Washington, he made a "dashing reconnaissance in the direction of Fairfax Court-House, Virginia, 31 May, 1861. It was at night and resulted in the capture of two outposts of the enemy, with an estimated loss of twenty-five Confederates. Lieutenant Tompkins charged three times through the town, losing several men and horses, including two chargers which were shot under him. As one of the first cavalry affairs of the war, it attracted wide attention. Subsequently he served in the battle of Bull Run and upon the staff of General George Stoneman. He was appointed captain and assistant quartermaster, served for a few months as colonel of the 1st Vermont Cavalry, as lieutenant-colonel and quartermaster of volunteers in 1865-'6, and colonel and quartermaster in 1866-'7. He was made deputy quartermaster-general in the regular army in 1866, and assistant quartermaster-general with rank of colonel, 24 January, 1881. He participated in the operations of General Nathaniel P. Banks and General John Pope in the Shenandoah Campaign, and was recommended for the appointment of brigadier-general of volunteers for conspicuous services at the battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia. He has served from 1865 till 1888 as chief quartermaster of the principal military divisions of the army, and was at the last-named date chief quartermaster of the Division of the Atlantic. He was brevetted major for Fairfax Court-House, lieutenant-colonel for the Shenandoah Campaign, and colonel and brigadier-general. 13 March, 1865, for meritorious services during the war. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 130-131.
TON, John, 1826-1896, Akersloot, North Holland, abolitionist. Active in the Underground Railroad, aiding fugitive slaves. Worked with other abolitionists in the area, including Cornelius Kuyper, Charles Dyer, and Charles and Henry Dalton.
TOOMBS, Robert, senator, born in Wilkes County, Georgia. 2 July, 1810; died in Washington, Georgia, 15 December, 1885. He studied at the University of Georgia, was graduated at Union College in 1828, attended lectures in the law department of the University of Virginia the next year, and in 1830, by a special act of the legislature, was admitted to the bar before he had attained his majority. He then settled in his native county, subsequently attaining a reputation such as few lawyers ever enjoyed in the state. When the war with the Creek Indians in 1836 he raised a company of volunteers, led them as their captain, and served under General Winfield Scott until the close of hostilities. He was in the legislature in 1837-'40, and in 1842-'3 took an active part in politics, and was a leader of the so-called "State-rights Whigs." He supported William H. Harrison for the presidency in 1840, and Henry Clay in 1844, and in the latter year was chosen to Congress as a Southern Whig. His first speech in the House of Representatives was on the Oregon question, and placed him among the first debaters and orators in that body. He was active in the compromise measures in 1850, and greatly contributed to their passage. After eight years' service in the house he took his seat in the U. S. Senate in March, 1853, holding office by re-election till 1861. As a senator he was intolerant, dogmatic, and extreme, but able and eloquent. He believed in the absolute sovereignty of the states, and that it was a necessity for the south both to maintain and extend slavery. He advocated disunion with all the force of his oratory, and after the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency made a series of speeches in Georgia in which he asserted that the north would no longer respect the constitutional rights of the south, and that secession was the only remedy. When the state convention met in 1861, he was mainly instrumental in securing the majority of votes on the resolution to secede. He resigned his seat in the U. S. Senate in January, 1861, and in March was formally expelled from that body. He was a member of the Confederate Congress at its first session, and but for a misunderstanding might have been chosen president of the Confederacy. After the election of Jefferson Davis he became Secretary of State, but resigned in a few weeks to take the commission of brigadier-general in the army. He fought at the second battle of Bull Run and at the Antietam, but resigned and returned to Georgia. In 1864 he commanded the militia, of which he was brigadier-general. After the war he eluded arrest as a political prisoner, and passed two years in Cuba, France, and England, but returned on the restoration in 1867 of the privilege of habeas corpus, resumed practice, and accumulated an estate that was estimated at about $500,000. As he refused to take the oath of allegiance to the U. S. government, he was debarred from all the rights and privileges of citizenship. He was a member of the Georgia Democratic State Convention in 1872, and advocated Horace Greeley as a candidate for the presidency. In 1874 he began the railroad war, to which he devoted his energies until his death. The legislature of that year had passed a law taxing railroads as all other property was taxed. The railroads resisted, and General Toombs, in behalf of the state, took the matter into court, established the principle that they should pay the same taxes as other property, and collected $300,000, including some arrears of taxes. In the state convention of 1877 he introduced a resolution providing for the appointment of three commissioners who should have the power to oversee the business of the roads, to make and unmake rates, and to order improvements. In accordance with this provision, the next legislature adopted what is known as the commission railroad law. He continued his hostility to the United States government until his death. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 133.
TORBERT, Alfred Thomas Archimedes, soldier, born in Georgetown, Delaware, 1 July, 1833; died at sea, 30 September, 1880. He was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1855. assigned to the 5th U.S. Infantry, served on frontier duty during the next five years in Texas and Florida, on the Utah Expedition, and in New Mexico, being promoted 1st lieutenant, 25 February, 1861. In April, 1861, he was sent to muster in New Jersey Volunteers, and was made colonel, on 16 September, of the 1st New Jersey Regiment. On 25 September, 1861, he was promoted to captain in the 5th U. S. Infantry. Colonel Torbert served through the Peninsula Campaign, was given a brigade in the 6th corps on 28 August, 1862, and fought in the battle of Manassas on the two following days. He also took part in the Maryland Campaign, and was wounded at the battle of Crampton's Gap, 14 September, where he made a brilliant bayonet charge. He was commissioned brigadier-general of volunteers on 29 November, 1862, and was at Gettysburg. He fought his last battle in the infantry at Rappahannock Station, 7 November, 1863, and in April. 1864, was placed in command of the 1st Division of Cavalry of the Army of the Potomac, participating in the skirmishes at Milford station and North Anna River. He commanded at Hanover town, and then participated in the cavalry battle at Hawes's shop, 28 May, for which he was brevetted lieutenant-colonel, U. S. Army. He also repelled the enemy at Matadequin Creek, 30 May, and drove them close to Cold Harbor. He took that place on the 31st with cavalry alone, after a severe fight, before the arrival of the infantry, and held it the next day against repeated assaults. He was now ordered by General Sheridan, with another division, to make a raid to Charlottesville, had the advance, and commanded at Trevillian station on 11 June. On 8 August. 1864. General Torbert was made chief of cavalry of the middle military division, and given command of three divisions when General Sheridan took command of the Army of the Shenandoah. When Sheridan was closely pressed at Winchester, Torbert was especially active with the cavalry and aided in putting the enemy to flight, for which he was brevetted colonel on 19 September, 1864. He had been brevetted major-general of volunteers on the previous 9 September. Returning through the valley, he halted after several actions at the command of General Sheridan, and fought the cavalry battle at Toms River on 9 October, completely routing General Thomas L. Rosser's command, and pursuing it many miles. On 19 October, at Cedar Greek, General Torbert assisted the 6th Corps in holding the pike to Winchester against desperate assaults. He commanded at Liberty Mills and Gordonsville on 23-23 December,1864, when his active service ended. After his return from a leave of absence on 27 February, 1865, he was in command of the Army of the Shenandoah, 22 April till 12 July, 1865, of the District of Winchester till 1 September, and of southeastern Virginia till 31 December. On 13 March, 1865, he was brevetted brigadier-general, U. S. Army, for Cedar Creek, and major-general for gallant and meritorious services during the war. He was mustered out of the volunteer service, 15 January, 1865, and resigned from the regular army, 31 October, 1866. He was appointed in 1869 minister to San Salvador, transferred as consul-general to Havana two years later, and filled the same post at Paris from 1873 till his resignation in 1878. He lost his life, while on his way to Mexico as president of a mining company, on the steamer "Vera Cruz," which foundered off the coast of Florida. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 134-135.
TORREY, Charles Turner, Reverend, 1813-1846, Massachusetts, clergyman, reformer, abolitionist leader. Wrote Memoir of the Martyr. Co-founder of Boston Vigilance Committee, which aided and defended fugitive slaves. Leader, the National Convention of Friends of Immediate Emancipation, Albany, New York, 1840. Arrested, tried and convicted of aiding in escape of slaves. He died in prison.
(Dumond, 1961, p. 285; Mabee, 1970, pp. 266, 268; Wilson, 1872, Vol. 2, pp. 74-80; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 138; Pennsylvania Freeman, April 23, 1850; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 9, Pt. 2, p. 595; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 21, p. 757.
Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:
TORREY, Charles Turner, reformer, born in Scituate, Massachusetts, in 1813; died in Baltimore, Maryland, 9 May, 1846. His ancestor, James, was an early settler of Scituate. (See TORREY, WILLIAM.) Charles was graduated at Yale in 1830, studied theology, and occupied Congregational pastorates in Princeton, N.J., and Salem, Massachusetts, but soon relinquished his professional duties to devote himself to anti-slavery labors in Maryland. In 1843 he attended a slaveholders’ convention in Baltimore, reported its proceedings, and was arrested and put in jail. In 1844, having been detected in his attempt to aid in the escape of several slaves, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to a long imprisonment in the state penitentiary, where he died of consumption that was brought on by ill usage. His body was taken to Boston, and his funeral attended from Tremont temple by an immense concourse of people. The story of his sufferings and death excited eager interest both in this country and in Europe, and “Torrey's blood crieth out” became a watch-word of the Abolition party, giving new impetus to the anti-slavery cause. He published a “Memoir of William R. Saxton” (Boston, 1838), and “Home, or the Pilgrim's Faith Revived,” a volume of sketches of life in Massachusetts, which he prepared in prison (1846). See “Memoir of the Martyr Torrey” (1847). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 138.
Chapter: “Underground Railroad. - Operations at the East and in the Middle States,” by Henry Wilson, in History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, 1872.
The arrests, imprisonments, trials, and death of Charles T. Torrey in the Maryland penitentiary are among the more memorable examples and incidents connected with the working of the Underground Railroad. The wide notoriety of his acts, his position as a young clergyman, the great respectability of his connections, the high standing of those who sought his reprieve or some mitigation of his sentence, with the persistent .refusal of the authorities to grant it, challenged scrutiny, demanded investigation, and compelled thoughtful men to ask and show cause why such acts of neighborly kindness should be so severely punished.
Mr. Torrey was born near the spot where the Pilgrims landed, and of an ancestry distinguished for · their piety and political standing. His parents dying in his early childhood, he was placed under the care of his grandparents. Quick and impulsive, he did not receive that thorough and careful restraint from these indulgent guardians which one·· of his mer. curial temperament required. When, therefore, he went forth into the world, he had not gained all that caution, that calm and calculating self-control, which one differently constituted and differently trained might have exhibited in the peculiarly trying circumstances in which he was afterward placed. When he was brought into close contact with slavery, and became acquainted with the sad story of the slave's wrongs and wants, he was not so well prepared to listen to the, cool counsels of prudence, as he was prompt to reduce to practice, without much refining and weighing of consequences, that '' disinterested benevolence'' which was the great idea of his religious creed.
Graduating from Yale College in the year 1830, he was settled in 1837 as pastor of the Richmond Street ·Congregational Church in Providence. In the mean ·time he had married the second daughter of Dr. Ide of West Medway, Massachusetts, his theological teacher, and granddaughter of the late Dr. Emmons of Franklin, of the same State, a distinguished theologian of his day. By this marriage he became allied to prominent leaders in a school of theology whose distinguishing feature had ever been an inflexible adherence to the logical conclusions of the doctrines of its Creed, in their practical as well as their theoretical results, thus extorting the admission of a veteran antislavery writer that he had “never known a Hopkinsian clergyman who was not an Abolitionist.” The great reforms, especially the antislavery, then at their spring-tide, and stirring the public mind deeply, would not permit him to enjoy the quietude of a pastor's life. Accordingly he relinquished his pastorate in the autumn of 1838, and engaged in delivering antislavery lectures.
In 1842, there was a slave-holders convention at Annapolis, Maryland, .at which, as if the laws of that State were not inhuman and-unchristian enough, it was proposed, even at that late date, to make them still more oppressive and wicked. Among other propositions, hardly less degrading and cruel, they proposed to the legislature to prevent the emancipation of slave by will or deed ; to prevent free Negroes from coming into the State ; to sell free persons of color, convicted-of crime, into slavery out of the State ; to repeal the act allowing manumitted -Negroes to remain in the State without a certificate; to require free Negroes to give security for their good behavior; to forbid free Negroes from holding real estate; and also to prohibit them from holding meetings after sundown. Mr. Torrey went to the convention in the capacity of a Washington correspondent of several Northern papers. Whether or not the members of the convention were made suspicious by the nefarious purposes of their meeting, it soon transpired that they suspected Mr. Torrey of being an Abolitionist, and a question arose whether he should be allowed to remain, either on the floor or in the galleries. While this was discussed in the convention, a great excitement was pervading Annapolis, and the mob was debating the question whether he should be taken out of town to be tarred and feathered, or hung. The conclusion, however, was to commit him to jail,--a building he pronounced to be “old and ruinous, without bed, or even straw, for a prisoner." He was allowed, however, such necessities, by furnishing them at private expense. He was gratuitously defended by two able lawyers of the State, Alexander, and Palmer. Several of the Massachusetts delegation in Congress and others proffered their kind sympathy and good offices. After several days incarceration, the judge decided that there was no cause for detention, though he put him under five hundred dollars bonds to keep the peace, his lawyers kindly becoming his sureties. This false imprisonment, these “bonds," and an expenditure which, as a poor man heavily in debt, he was ill able to bear, were the price he was obliged to pay for being an Abolitionist, --nothing else being laid to his charge.
In this jail he became acquainted with thirteen persons who had been manumitted by their owner, who afterward died insolvent. Being seized by the creditors of the estate, these unoffending men and women were twice tried before the courts, where it was proved that their late owner was not insolvent when he manumitted them. But these decisions having been reversed by the chancellor, they were in jail awaiting a new trial, with small probability of a favorable result. Mr. Torrey, very naturally, became deeply interested in their case, and resolved to help them, if he could. In a letter to the" New York Evangelist," written a few days after his release, there occurs this sentence:” I feel with more force than ever the injunction to ' remember them that are in bonds as bound with them '; and, after listening to the history of their career, I sat down and wrote and signed and prayed over a solemn reconsecration of myself to the work of freeing the slaves, until no slaves shall be found in the land. May God help me to be faithful to that pledge in Annapolis jail! In that cell, God helping me, if it stands, I will celebrate the emancipation of the slaves in Maryland before ten years roll away."
There is a touching pathos in this incident in Mr. Torrey's life, which, had real chivalry, and not slavery, been the ruling spirit of the American people, would have rather endeared him to his countrymen than have consigned him to prison. Well born, with superior talents, education, and professional prospects, a charming home, cheered by the presence of a lovely wife and little ones, he sacrificed them, disregarded the popular sentiment of, the North, and braved the vengeance of the South, to aid the lowly and downtrodden. As the young reformer sits in the dreary and repulsive prison, surrounded by and listening to the story of the dusky victims of the same cruel power that had laid its ruthless hands on him, little aid from the imagination is required to suggest a picture worthy of the painter's art. It is easy now, as it was then, to criticize and charge him with imprudence, unfounded enthusiasm, and an improper estimate of 'the relative claims of his family and the slave. Doubtless he was imprudent. That he was too enthusiastic may be admitted, when his purpose is borne in mind to “celebrate the emancipation of the slaves in Maryland in ten years." That a cooler and more calculating judgment would have led him to hesitate before subjecting his family to the contingencies resulting from his decision is probable. But these were errors of judgment, "leaning to virtue's side." In the light of eternity, above the interests, the friendships, and 'conventionalisms of earth, at Heaven's chancery, when this ·act shall be tested by the standards of the great law of love, another estimate will be made. That solemn promise, then written down, will be deemed a worthier record than that of many a prudent man, who, at a safe distance, left the slave to suffer and perish, while he satisfied his conscience and sense of justice by discountenancing such rashness, such unlawful interference with the claims of the slave-master. The obloquy often cast, by those who heard the 'appeals 'of the fleeing fugitive only to disregard them, upon the few who, like Mr. Torrey, heard to heed, should be relieved by a recognition of the fact that seldom, if ever, were braver, more unselfish, and more chivalric deeds recorded on the page of history than were theirs. When, by reason of the unparalleled difficulties of the situation, all made mistakes, let not theirs alone be held up for public reprobation, which were made in the interests of humanity' and with such -sublime disregard of personal sacrifice and danger.
After his release, he went to Albany and became editor or a paper. While in that city, a slave, who had escaped to Canada, entreated him to go to Virginia and aid in the escape of his wife and little ones. To one with his feelings and convictions, with that vow on record, such an appeal could not come in vain. With the husband and father he started on 'his ill-fated errand of humanity' which proved not 'only unsuccessful 'in the immediate object for which it was undertaken, -but fatal to all like efforts on this part in behalf or the slave. He was again arrested, imprisoned, and placed on trial. He secured the services of Reverdy Johnson, but ·not until, with characteristic honesty, he had confessed that he had once aided one or that gentleman's slaves to escape. He experienced the annoyances and hardships that might be reasonably expected for such an offence in such a community. Through the kind offices of friends, however, they were much lessened and alleviated; and, like the Missouri prisoners, he at once entered ·upon his missionary efforts, conversing and· praying with his fellow-prisoners. But, while laboring for their benefit, he did not forget the great cause of freedom, but wrote to friends, to bodies secular and ecclesiastical, and one long and able letter to the State of Maryland. After being in jail some three months, awaiting his trial, he, in company with others, made an unsuccessful attempt to escape. Being betrayed, they failed of carrying their purpose into effect, and, he writes, were heavily ironed, and placed in damp, low-arched cells, and treated worse than if we had been murderers. I was loaded with irons weighing, I fudge, twenty-five pounds, so twisted that 1 could neither stand up, lie down, nor sleep for seven days and nights he said he slept none, from, pain and the utter prostration of the nervous system. His trial came on, he was· convicted, and, on the 30th of December, 1843, he was sentenced to six years' imprisonment in the penitentiary.
Strenuous efforts were .soon made for his release. Leading men, comprehending the essential wickedness of such a penalty for such an offence, signed memorials to the Governor of Maryland for pardon. Appeals, too, were made in person by several individuals. But the public sentiment of the State and of the South was too imbittered; and, though Governor Pratt expressed himself as personally favorable to the request, he did not deem it wise to brave the popular feeling against it. Some of the citizens of Baltimore approached Mr. Torrey with the idea of preparing the way for release by some seeming concession and the confession of doing wrong in violating slave laws. But he nobly adhered to his principles. In a letter dated 21st of December, 1844, he writes: "I cannot afford to concede any truth or principle to get out of prison. I am not rich enough." Indeed, it is doubtful whether any concession would have appeased the bloodthirsty appetite of the demon who now had him within his power. Though his health was failing, and it was evident he must soon succumb to the rigors of prison life, the· governor remained inexorable. He died in prison, on the 9th of May, 1846.
But the most humiliating fact remains to be noted. After his death, his remains were taken to Boston; and Park Street Church, in which a-brother-in-law was a worshipper, was engaged for the funeral services. The permission was, however, revoked, the, house of another denomination procured, and Tremont Temple was thronged by the multitude, many of whom were hardly less indignant at the heartless intolerance of Boston than at the barbarism in Maryland. His body was followed by a long procession to Mount Auburn, where a fitting monument was afterward raised to his memory. There lies, in the words of Whittier, the young, the beautiful, the brave! He is safe now from the malice of his enemies. Nothing can harm him more. His work for the poor and helpless was well and nobly done. In the wild woods of Canada, around many a happy fireside and holy family altar, his name is on the lips of God's poor. He put his soul in their soul's stead; he gave his life for those who had no claim on his love save that of human brotherhood."
On the evening of the day of his burial there was a large meeting in Faneuil Hall, at which addresses were made by General Fessenden of Maine, Henry B. Stanton, and Dr. Walter Channing, and a poem from James Russell Lowell was read. Referring to the acts for which: Mr. Torrey suffered, Mr. Stanton said: " Stripped of all extrinsic ornament, it was this, he aided oppressed men peaceably to cast away their chains; he gave liberty to men unjustly held .in bondage…He has done something for liberty, and his name deserves a place in the calendar of its martyrs. Now that he has been laid quietly and serenely in his grave, we may safely publish those acts to the world which, while he lived, could be safely known only to the few. In a letter addressed to me, while he was in prison awaiting his trial, he said: ' If I am a guilty man, I am a very guilty one; for I have aided nearly four hundred slaves to escape to freedom, the greater part of whom would probably but for my exertions have died in slavery.' “This statement was corroborated by the testimony of Jacob Gibbs, a colored man, who was Mr. Torrey's chief assistant in his efforts. The selection of Mr. Gibbs was not only an example of Mr. Torrey's shrewdness, but one instance, at least, in which the slave-masters overreached themselves, and where laws enacted in behalf of slavery, inured to the interests of freedom. For by the slave codes of all the slaveholding States the testimony of colored persons could not be received in court, so that Mr. Gibbs could never testify against his employer.
Source: Wilson, Henry, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Vol. 2. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1872, 74-80.
TORREY, Martin, Foxboro, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Manager, 1842-, Executive Committee, 1843-45
TOTTEN, Benjamin J., naval officer, born in the West Indies in 1806; died in New Bedford, Massachusetts, 9 May, 1877. He entered the U.S. Navy as a midshipman, 2 March, 1823, became a passed midshipman, 20 February, 1830, was promoted to lieutenant, 29 March, 1834, and was commissioned a commander, 14 September, 1855. He was in charge of the sloop "Vincennes " in 1858-'60 on the coast of Africa to suppress the slave-trade, and the " Brandy wine " of the North Atlantic Squadron, 1862-'3, most of the time being stationed at Hampton Roads, Virginia. He was placed on the reserved list in July, 1862, and served at the naval rendezvous at New Bedford, Massachusetts, during the rest of the war after May, 1863. He was retired, 1 October, 1864, and promoted to commodore on the retired list, 4 April, 1867, after which he was governor of the Naval Asylum at Philadelphia for two years. He was the author of "Totten's Naval Text-Book" (Boston, 1841; revised eds., New York, 1862 and 1864). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 140.
TOTTEN, George Muirson, civil engineer, born in New Haven, Connecticut, 28 May, 1809; died in New York City, 8 June, 1884. He was educated in Captain Alden Partridge's Military Academy in Middletown, Connecticut, and began work as a civil engineer on the Farmington Canal in 1827. Subsequently he went to Pennsylvania and was there employed upon the Juniata Canal. In 1831 he was one of the engineers of the Delaware and Raritan Canal in New Jersey, and in 1835 he was engaged in building the railroad from Reading to Port Clinton. For several years following he was employed in building railroads in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. In 1843 he was appointed engineer-in-chief of the Canal del Dique, which connects Magdalena River with the harbor of Carthagena in Colombia. He was appointed in 1850 engineer-in-chief of the Panama Railroad, and spent twenty-five years among difficulties of every sort in the completion of this arduous task. In 1879 he was associated with Ferdinand de Lesseps on the commission that went to the isthmus to decide on the canal project. Later he went to Venezuela, where he was engaged in the survey of a railroad, and he afterward became consulting engineer of the Panama Railroad. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 140-141.
TOTTEN, James, soldier, born in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, 11 September, 1818; died in Sedalia. Missouri, 1 October, 1871. He was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1841, became 1st lieutenant in 1847, engaged in the Florida War against the Seminole Indians in 1849-50, and became captain in 1855. He aided in quelling the Kansas disturbances in 1857-'8, and in expelling intruders from the Indian reserves in Kansas and Arkansas in 1860. While in command of Little Rock Arsenal in February, 1861, he was compelled to evacuate that post by a superior Confederate force under Governor Henry M. Rector. He served under General Nathaniel Lyon and General John C. Fremont in the military operations in Missouri as chief of artillery, was engaged at Camp Jackson, Booneville, and Wilson's Creek, and in June was brevetted major in the U. S. Army for Camp Jackson, and lieutenant-colonel in August, 1861, for " gallant and meritorious service " in all these actions. He became major in the 1st Missouri Volunteers, 19 August, 1861, lieutenant-colonel the next month, and assistant inspector-general, with the rank of major, in November. On 12 February, 1862, he became brigadier-general of Missouri Militia, in command of the central district of the state. He then engaged in several actions on the frontier and in pursuit of the enemy beyond Boston Mountains, Arkansas, became inspector-general of the Department of the Missouri in May, 1868, and chief of artillery and chief of ordnance in 1864. He was brevetted colonel, U. S. Army, on 13 March, 1865, "for gallant and meritorious conduct during the siege of Mobile, Alabama," and on the same day brigadier-general in the U. S. Army "for gallant and meritorious service in the field " during the Civil War. He was inspector-general of the Military Division of the Atlantic from 15 August, 1865, till" 27 August, 1866, and became lieutenant-colonel, U. S. Army, and assistant inspector-general, 13 June. 1867. In 1870 he was retired.—His son, Charles Adiel Lewis, inventor, born in New London, Connecticut, 3 February, 1851, was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1873, was professor of military science and tactics in the Massachusetts agricultural College at Amherst in 1875-'8, and occupied a similar chair in St. Paul's cathedral school, Garden City, New York, in 1883-'6. He is now 1st lieutenant in the 4th U.S. Artillery. He served in the Bannock campaign in 1878, and in the Chiricahua Campaign in 1881. In 1877 he patented an improvement in explosives, one in collimating sights, one in signal-shells, and several minor inventions. He patented "Strategos," a war-game, in 1880, a system of weights and measures in 1884, and improvements in linear and other scales in 1885. Trinity gave him the degree of A. M. in 1885. He has written extensively on pyramid explorations, lectured in favor of Professor Piazzi Smyth's pyramid theories, and for several years was chairman of the committee on pyramid exploration in the International institute for preserving Anglo-Saxon weights and measures. His publications include '"Strategos, the American War-Game" (2 vols., New York, 1880); "An Important Question in Metrology," a plea for the Anglo-Saxon against the metric system (1883); and, under the pen-name of Ten Alcott, "Gems, Talismans, and Guardians, the Facts, Fancies, Legends, and Lore of Nativity" (1887). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 141.
TOTTEN, Joseph Gilbert, soldier, born in New Haven, Connecticut, 23 August, 1788; died in Washington. D. C, 22 April, 1864. He received his earliest education under the direction of his maternal uncle, Jared Mansfield, by whom he was brought up after the death of his mother. After his uncle's occupation of the chair of mathematics at the U. S. Military Academy the boy received an appointment from Connecticut as cadet. In 1805 he was graduated and promoted 2d lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers. Meanwhile Captain Mansfield, having been made surveyor-general of Ohio and the western territories, obtained the services of his nephew as secretary of the first systematic survey of any of the new states of the Union. While holding this place he resigned in 1806 from the army, but returned to the engineering corps two years later, and began his career as a military engineer under Colonel Jonathan Williams. His first work was on the construction of Castle Williams and Fort Clinton in New York harbor, of which he had special supervision in 1808-'12; and in July, 1810, he was promoted 1st lieutenant. During the war of 1812 he served as chief engineer of the army under General Stephen Van Rensselaer on the Niagara frontier, and participated in the battle of Queenstown. Subsequently he was chief engineer of the army under General Henry Dearborn in 1813, and of that under General Alexander Macomb in 1814. His services gained for him promotion to captain, and the brevets of major in 1813 and lieutenant-colonel for his conduct at Plattsburg in 1814. At the close of the war he returned to duties in connection with the National coast defences and served chiefly at Newport, Rhode Island, where he had charge of the construction of Fort Adams until 7 December, 1838, when, having passed through the grades of major in 1818 and lieutenant-colonel in 1828. he was appointed colonel and Chief Engineer of the U. S. Army. In connection with the labors incidental to this office, he was intrusted with the inspectorship and supervision of the U. S. Military Academy, which duties he filled until his death. At the beginning of the Mexican War he was called by General Winfield Scott to take charge of the engineering operations of the army that was to invade Mexico. In this capacity he directed the siege of Vera Cruz, for which he was brevetted brigadier-general. He then returned to his official duties in Washington, and, in addition to his regular work, was a member of the light-house board in 1851-8 and 1860-'4, also serving in 1855 as a state commissioner for the preservation of the harbor of New York, and later in similar capacity in Boston. In 1859-'61 he made a reconnaissance of the Pacific Coast of the United States to determine the requisites for its defence, and inspecting fortifications. After the beginning of the civil war he had charge of the Engineer Bureau in Washington, and acted on various military commissions. When the Corps of Engineers and that of Topographical Engineers were consolidated in 1863, he was made brigadier-general on 3 March, and for his long, faithful, and eminent services was brevetted major-general on 21 April, 1864. He was one of the regents of the Smithsonian Institution from its establishment in 1845 until his death. General Totten was interested in natural science and was an authority on the conchology of the northern coast of the United States, publishing occasional papers, in which he described hitherto unknown species. The Gemma Tottenii and the Succinea Tottenii were so named in his honor. He also published papers on mineralogy. The degree of A. M. was conferred on him by Brown in 1829. and. in addition to membership in other scientific societies, he was named by act of Congress in 1863 one of the corporate members of the National Academy of Sciences. He published papers on scientific subjects, which appeared in transactions of societies of which he was a member, and various reports on national defences; and translated from the French "Essays on Hydraulic and Other Cements " (New York, 1842). See a sketch by General John G. Barnard in "Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences" (Washington, 1877). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 141-142.
TOUCEY, Isaac, statesman, born in Newtown, Fairfield County, Connecticut, 5 November, 1796; died in Hartford, Connecticut, 30 July, 1869. He was descended from Thomas, first Congregational minister of Newtown. He received a private classical education, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1818 at Hartford, where he afterward practised. He was state's attorney for Hartford County in 1822-26, a representative in Congress from the First Connecticut District in 1835-'9, and was again state's attorney for Hartford County in 1842-'4. He was unsuccessful as the Democratic candidate for governor of Connecticut in 1845, and in 1846, there being no choice by the people, was elected by the legislature, but he was again defeated in 1847. He was appointed Attorney-general of the United States, serving from 21 June, 1848, till 3 March, 1849, and was also for part of this time acting Secretary of State. He was a member of the state senate in 1850, and of the state house of representatives in 1852, and was elected a U. S. Senator from Connecticut as a Democrat, serving from 14 May, 1852. till 3 March, 1857. Mr. Toucey was appointed by President Buchanan Secretary of the Navy, served from 6 March, 1857, till 3 March, 1861, and afterward returned to Hartford and resumed the practice of his profession. He was charged with favoring the cause of the seceding states while Secretary of the Navy by deliberately sending some of the best vessels of the U.S. Navy to distant seas to prevent their being used against the Confederates. This was denied, but he was generally thought to sympathize with the south and to be opposed to prosecution of the war. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 142.
TOUSEY, Sinclair, publisher, born in New Haven. Connecticut, 18 July, 1818; died in New York City, 16 June, 1887. He received the rudiments of a common-school education, and was employed on farms and as a clerk till 1836, when he came to New York and became a newspaper-carrier. He was subsequently an agent till 1840, and established and published in Louisville, Kentucky, the "Daily Times," the first penny paper that was issued west of the Alleghany Mountains. He engaged in farming in New York State in 1840-'53, and in the autumn of the latter year became partner in a news agency in Nassau Street. In May, 1860. Mr. Tousey became sole proprietor of the agency, the business of which had increased from $150,000 to $1,000,000 per annum. The American News Company was organized, 1 February, 1864, and he was elected president, which office he held till his death. He joined the Republican Party at its organization, was an enthusiastic Abolitionist, writing and speaking against slavery, was at one time a vice-president of the Union League Club, and took an active interest, in philanthropic schemes and organizations. He published "Papers from over the Water" (New York, 1869). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 144.
TOWER, Zealous Bates, soldier, born in Cohasset, Massachusetts, 12 January, 1819. He was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1841, first in a class of fifty-two, among whom were Horatio G. Wright, Thomas J. Rodman, Nathaniel Lyon, and Don Carlos Buell. He was promoted 2d lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers, 1 July, 1841, assigned to duty as assistant to the board of engineers, and in 1842 as principal assistant, professor of engineering at West Point. During the years 1843-'6 he was engaged on the defences of Hampton Roads. He served with great credit in the war with Mexico in 1846-'8, especially at Cerro Gordo, Contreras (where he led the storming column), Chapultepec (where he was wounded), and in the final assault and capture of the city of Mexico. He became 1st lieutenant in April. 1847, and captain, 1 July, 1855. During 1848-'8 he was engaged upon river and harbor improvements, on the building of the San Francisco custom-house, and on the board to project the defences of the Pacific Coast. He was promoted major of engineers, G August, 1861, and assigned as chief engineer of the defence of Fort Pickens. For his conduct there he was appointed a brigadier-general of volunteers, 23 November, 1861, the date of the bombardment. He participated, in command of troops, in the operations in northern Virginia, under General Nathaniel P. Banks and General John Pope, until the second battle of Bull Run, 30 August, 1862, where he was severely wounded. Upon his recovery he served as superintendent of the U. S. Military Academy at West Point from July till September, 1864, when he rejoined the armies in the field as chief engineer of the defences of Nashville, took part in the battle, and held responsible staff offices in the military divisions of the Mississippi and Tennessee until the close of the war. He was promoted lieutenant-colonel of engineers in 1805, and mustered out of volunteer service, 15 January, 1866. Thereafter General Tower was employed in the supervision of the work of improving the great harbors, both for commercial and military purposes, until 13 January. 1874, when he was promoted colonel of engineers, and, having served more than forty years, was, at his own request, retired from active service. He received eight brevets for "gallant and meritorious service" in war—from 1st lieutenant, 18 April, 1847, for Cerro Gordo, to major-general, U. S. Army, 13 March, 1865. General Tower is one of the original members of the Aztec Club, founded in the city of Mexico, 13 October, 1847, by the officers of General Scott's army. He is the author of" An Analytical Investigation of the Possible Velocity of the Ice-Boat," published in “Van Nostrand's Engineering Magazine." Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 146.
TOWNSEND, Edward Davis, soldier, born in Boston, Massachusetts, 22 August, 1817. His paternal grandfather, David was a surgeon in the Massachusetts line during the Revolution, and his maternal grandfather was Elbridge Gerry. His father, David S. Townsend, was an officer of the U. S. Army and lost a leg at the battle of Chrysler's Field in the war of 1812. Edward was educated at Boston Latin school and at Harvard, and was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1837. He became 2d lieutenant in the 2d U.S. Artillery, 1 July, 1837, was adjutant in 1838-'46, promoted 1st lieutenant in 1838, assistant adjutant-general with brevet rank of captain in 1846, captain in 1848, brevet major in 1852, lieutenant-colonel, 7 March, 1861, colonel, 3 August, 1861, and adjutant-general with rank of brigadier-general, 22 February, 1869. He served during the Florida War in 1837-'8, on the northern frontier during the Canada border disturbances in 1838-'41, and thenceforward in the office of the adjutant-general of the army and as chief of staff to Lieutenant-General Scott in 1861. He was brevetted brigadier general, U. S. Army, 24 September, 1864, "for meritorious and faithful service during the rebellion," and major-general. 13 March. 1865, for "faithful, meritorious, and distinguished services in the adjutant-general's department during the rebellion." He was retired from active service, 15 June, 1880. During the entire Civil War General Townsend was the principal executive officer of the war department, and was perhaps brought into more intimate personal contact with President Lincoln and Secretary of War Stanton than any other military official. As adjutant-general of the army he originated the plan of a U. S. military prison, urged legislation on the subject, and established the prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. General Townsend is a member of the Society of the Cincinnati. He is the author of "Catechism of the Bible—The Pentateuch" (New York, 1859); "Catechism of the Bible—Judges and Kings " (1862); and "Anecdotes of the Civil War in the United States" (1884). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 147-148.
TOWNSEND, Frederick, soldier, born in Albany, New York, 21 September, 1825. He was graduated at Union College in 1844, and admitted to the bar. Having a leaning toward military matters, he became adjutant-general of the state in 1856. He found the militia in a most disordered condition and addressed himself to the task of making it what it ought to be. He prepared an annual report from this department for the first time, and he was reappointed by the next governor of the state. To his efficiency is due the fact that the state of New York sent so many troops to the field in the Civil War. He declined a reappointment as adjutant general in 1861, and organized a regiment, being commissioned colonel. He took part in the battle of Big Bethel, but soon afterward he was commissioned a major in the regular army and resigned his colonelcy. As major his duties led him to organize troops in Columbus, Ohio. Afterward he participated in the battles of Pea Ridge, Stone River, and other engagements at the west. In 1863 he was detailed as assistant provost-marshal-general in Albany, which position he filled for several years. In 1867 he was ordered to California and made a thorough inspection of all the military posts in Arizona. In 1868 he resigned from the army, and he has resided in Albany since that time. In 1878 he was appointed a brigadier-general in the state militia, and he afterward became adjutant-general of the state under Governor Alonzo B. Cornell. In this post he again addressed himself to the condition of the citizen soldiers and increased their numbers to 12,000 effective men. He successfully urged the adoption of a state service uniform and a state military camp. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 148.
TOWNSEND, George Alfred, author, born in Georgetown, Delaware, 30 January, 1841. His father, the Reverend Stephen Townsend, a Methodist clergyman for half a century, studied and practised medicine at the age of fifty, and at seventy obtained the degree of Ph. D. by actual university study. The son was educated mainly in Philadelphia, where he began writing for the press and speaking in public, and in 1860 adopted the profession of journalism. In 1862 he was a war-correspondent of the New York "Herald," describing for that journal McClellan's Peninsula Campaign and Pope's Campaign in Northern Virginia. Later in the year he went to Europe, where he wrote for English and American periodicals, and lectured on the Civil War. In 1864 he became war-correspondent of the New York "World." was permitted to sign his letters, and quickly made a reputation as a descriptive writer. After the war he became a professional lecturer, continuing also his miscellaneous writing for the press, and. going to Europe, described the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. His pen-name, "Gath," was first used in 1868 in letters to the Chicago "Tribune." In 1885 he built a house on the battle-field of Crampton's Gap, South Mountain, Maryland, where a small village has since sprung up, to which he gives the name Gapland. His publications in book-form are " The Bohemians, a play (New York, 1862); "Campaigns of a Non-Combatant" (1865); "Life of Garibaldi" (1867); "Real Life of Abraham Lincoln" (1867): "The New World compared with the Old " (1868); "Poems" (1870): "Washington Outside and Inside" (1871); "Mormon Trials at Salt Lake" (1872); "Washington Re-builded " (1873); "Tales of the Chesapeake" (1880); "Bohemian Days" (1881); "Poetical Addresses" (1883); "The Entailed Hat" (1884); "President Cromwell." a drama (1885); "Katy of Catoctin." a novel (1886); and a Campaign life of Levi P. Morton (1888). He is now writing a romance entitled "Dr. Priestley, or the Federalists." Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 148.
TOWNSEND, Jonas Holland, 1820-1872, African American, journalist, abolitionist leader, community activist. (Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Vol. 11, p. 216)
TOWNSEND, Robert, naval officer, born in Albany, New York, in 1819; died at sea, off Shanghai, China, 15 August, 1866. He was graduated at Union in 1835, and entered the U. S. Navy the same year as a midshipman. He served in the Mexican War in 1846-'7, was engaged in the capture of Vera Cruz, became 1st lieutenant in 1850, and resigned from the navy in 1851. At the beginning of the Civil War he re-entered the service as acting lieutenant, participated under Admiral David G. Farragut in the passage of the forts below New Orleans, and the taking of that city, and did efficient service in command of the " Miami" in the sounds of North Carolina. He was restored to the regular navy in 1862, with the rank of commander, was in charge of the iron-clad " Essex " at the siege of Port Hudson, and was subsequently division commander under Admiral David D. Porter, and in the Red River Campaign. He became captain in 1866, and afterward was ordered to the East Indian Squadron, where his conduct of affairs at Newchwang, China, preserved the peace of the port, and at the same time did not interfere with the authority of the native officials. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 149.
TOWNSEND, Thomas S., compiler, born in New York City, 27 August, 1829. His father, John R., was a well-known member of the New York bar. The son received a classical education, and at an early age entered the mercantile firm of Lawrence, Trimble and County, New York City. In 1860 he determined to form a chronological history of every important occurrence in connection with the impending Civil War by preserving from the newspapers every statement of value relating to any circumstance that directly or indirectly led to secession, to national complications growing out of the struggle, to the cause, conduct, and results of the rebellion, to personal records of soldiers from the lowest to the highest rank, and to the military and civil history of the Union and the Confederacy. This journalistic record comprises about 120 volumes containing 60,000 pages. William Cullen Bryant said of it: "The age has given birth to few literary undertakings that will bear comparison with this work. The forty academicians who compiled the dictionary of the French language had a far less laborious task." This collection is now in Columbia College library, New York City. He has delivered numerous lectures and addresses on the subject of the war, including an oration on Memorial day, 1885, in Brooklyn, New York, on " The Empire State in the Rebellion." Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 149-150.
TOWNSHEND, Norton Strange, educator, born in Clay-Coton, Northamptonshire, England, 20 December, 1815. He came to this country in 1830, and settled with his parents in Avon, Ohio, where he attended school and also taught. Subsequently he began the study of medicine, and was graduated in 1840 at the College of physicians and surgeons in New York. He then went abroad, and, after attending the World's anti-slavery convention in London in July, 1840, as the delegate of the Anti-slavery society of Ohio, he studied in the hospitals of Paris, Edinburgh, and Dublin. In 1841 he returned to Elyria, Ohio, where he settled in the practice of his profession, but in 1848 he was elected to the Ohio legislature, where he was active in securing a repeal of the 'black laws " of that state and the return of Salmon P. Chase to the U. S. Senate. He was a member of the convention that in 1850 framed the present constitution of Ohio, and in the same year was elected as a Democrat to Congress, serving from 1 December 1851, till 3 March, 1853. At the end of his term he was elected to the Ohio Senate, where he introduced measures that led to the founding of an asylum for training imbecile youth, of which institution he was a trustee for twenty-one years. Later he was active with Dr. John S. Newberry and others in the movement that aimed to establish an agricultural college in Ohio. In 1858 he was chosen a member of the board of agriculture and served till 1863, also in 1868-9. Early in 1863 he was appointed medical inspector in the U. S. Army, and he served in that capacity until the end of the Civil War. In 1867 he was named a member of the committee that was appointed to examine and report upon the system of wool appraisement and duties in the custom-houses of Boston, New York, and elsewhere, prior to the tariff revision of that year. He was appointed professor of agriculture in Iowa agricultural college in 1869, but resigned a year later to accept the appointment of trustee and assist in founding the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Ohio, in which institution, now known as the University of Ohio, he has held since 1873 the chair of agriculture. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 151.
TOWNSLEY, Theodore, radical abolitionist, follower of abolitionist John Brown (see entry for John Brown.) (Rodriguez, 2007, p. 206)
TRACY, Henry W., Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Congressional Globe)
TRAIN, Charles Russell, lawyer, born in Framingham, Massachusetts, 18 October, 1817, was graduated at Brown in 1837, studied law at Harvard, and was called to the bar in 1841. He was elected a member of the Massachusetts legislature in 1847, and was U. S. district attorney for northern Massachusetts from 1848 till 1851. He was a delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1853, a member of the governor's council in 1857-'8, and was elected to Congress in 1859, serving until 1863. He was a volunteer aide on the staff of General George H. Gordon, and took part in the battle of Antietam. He was again in the Massachusetts legislature from 1868 till 1871, and was attorney-general from 1871 till 1878. He published, in conjunction with Franklin F. Heard, "Precedents of Indictments, Special Pleas, etc., adapted to American Practice, with Notes" (Boston, 1855). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp.
TRASK, George, 1798-1875, Fitchburg, Massachusetts, Warren, Massachusetts, clergyman. Massachusetts Abolition Society, President, 1846, Vice-President, 1846-, 1850-. Also active in the temperance movement and anti-tobacco use. (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 154)
TRASK, George, clergyman, born in Beverly. Massachusetts, 15 August, 1798; died in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, 25 January, 1875. He was graduated at Bowdoin in 1826, and at Andover theological seminary in 1829, was ordained, 15 September, 1830, and held pastorates in Framingham, Warren, and Fitchburg, Massachusetts, till 1850, after which he was a temperance agent in the last-named town until his death. Mr. Trask became specially known for his efforts against the use of tobacco, in opposition to which he labored earnestly with voice and pen. He delivered many lectures throughout the United States, and was the author of many anti-tobacco tracts. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 154.
TREADWELL, Daniel, inventor, born in Ipswich, Massachusetts. 10 October, 1791; died in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 27 February, 1872. He early displayed inventive talent, his first device, made when he was quite young, being a machine for producing wooden screws. In 1818 he devised a new form of printing-press, and in 1819 went to England, where he conceived the idea of a power-press. This was completed in a year after his return, and was the first press by which a sheet was printed on this continent by other than hand power. It was widely used, and in New York City large editions of the Bible were published by its means. In 1825 he was employed by the city of Boston to make a survey for the introduction of water, and in 1826 he devised a system of turnouts for railway transportation on a single track. He completed the first successful machine for spinning hemp for cordage in 1829. Works capable of spinning 1,000 tons a year were erected in Boston in 1881, and by machines that he furnished in 1836 to the Charlestown Navy-yard all the hemp was spun and the cordage made for some time for the U. S. Navy. These machines were used in Canada, Ireland, and Russia, and one of them, called a circular hackle or lapper, has been generally adopted wherever hemp is spun for coarse cloth. In 1835 he perfected a method for making cannon from wrought-iron and steel, resembling the process that was subsequently introduced by Sir William Armstrong. He patented it and received government contracts, but the great cost of his cannon prevented a demand for them. From 1834 till 1845 he was Rumford professor in Harvard, and in 1822, with Dr. John Ware, he established and conducted the "Boston Journal of Philosophy and the Arts." His publications include "The Relations of Science to the Useful Arts" (Boston, 1855); "On the Practicability of constructing a Cannon of Great Calibre" (Cambridge, 1856); and " On the Construction of Hooped Cannon," a sequel to the foregoing (1864). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 115.
TREADWELL, Seymour Boughton, 1795-1867, political leader, temperance and anti-slavery activist. Wrote, “American Liberties and American Slavery Morally and Politically Illustrated,” 1838. Editor of anti-slavery newspaper, Michigan Freeman. (Appletons’, 1888, vol. VI, pp. 155-156)
TREADWELL, Seymour Boughton, politician, born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, 1 June, 1795; died in Jackson, Michigan, 9 June, 1867. His parents moved in his infancy to Monroe County, New York, where he was educated. He taught in western New York and Ohio, and in 1830 engaged in trade in Albion, New York, where he began to attract notice as a temperance and anti-slavery advocate. He moved to Rochester in 1837, and went to Michigan in 1839 to conduct the “Michigan Freeman,” an anti-slavery organ, at Jackson. He took an active part in all the conventions and movements of the Abolitionists, supporting James G. Birney for president in 1840 and 1844 and John P. Hale in 1852. In 1854 he was nominated by the Free-Soil party for commissioner of the state land-office and twice elected. He acquired note, especially by a remarkable state paper in which he denied the constitutionality of the payment by the state of the expenses of the judges of the supreme court. The correctness of his views on the question was maintained by the state auditors in opposition to the attorney-general. He lived in retirement after 1859 on a farm near Jackson. He became first known to the public as the author of a work entitled “American Liberties and American Slavery Morally and Politically Illustrated” (Rochester, 1838). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 155-156.
TREGO, William Henry, expressman, born in Middleburg, Carroll County, Maryland, 18 February, 1837. He was educated at the Baltimore public schools, entered the service of Adams Express Company at Baltimore in 1852, and passed through various grades to the superintendency in 1856. During the Civil War he had charge of the transportation of express matter for troops in the southern states. In 1877 he projected and organized on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad system the first trunk-line railway express in the United States, and he was intimately associated with its subsequent history. In 1887 he organized the railway express over the Erie system, allied with the Baltimore and Ohio express, and he brought about other railway express alliances which, under rulings of the U. S. Supreme Court, acquired an area rivalling that of corporate expresses, and advantages that seemed to menace the existence of the latter. Previously all express business on railroads was done by express companies as separate corporations, paying the railroads a certain percentage of the earnings for hauling, usually forty per cent. Under the railway express system the railway company performed the service directly, and secured the entire profit. The large financial interests that were involved placed the wealthy corporate expresses on the defensive. The question promised to become important in American railway management. The railway express that had been founded by Mr. Trego grew to great proportions in spite of a combined corporate opposition of ten years, when peculiar circumstances banished it as an institution from the United States. Early in 1887 a new management of the Philadelphia and Reading road sold that company's express to corporate interests. Later, the same year, embarrassments impelled the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad to part with its express, and in 1888 the remaining railway express, the Erie, succumbed to allied pressure, and was sold. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 156.
TREMAIN, Henry Edwin, soldier, born in New York City, 14 November, 1840. He was graduated at the College of the City of New York in 1800 and then entered Columbia law-school. On 17 April, 1861, he enlisted in the 7th New York Regiment as a private, and served through its two months' campaign about Washington, after which, on, 13 July, he entered the National volunteer service as 1st lieutenant of the 2d New York Fire Zouaves. During the Peninsular Campaign he was on General Daniel R. Sickles’ staff, and was in the battles of Williamsburg, Fair Oaks, and Malvern Hill. He was then transferred to General John Pope's army, and engaged at Bartow Station and the second battle of Bull Run, where he was captured while endeavoring to check a temporary panic and the rapid advance of the enemy. After several months' confinement in Libby prison he was exchanged, resumed duty on General Sickles’ staff as assistant inspector-general, and was present at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, where he served as an aide to General Joseph Hooker. Meanwhile, on 25 April, 1863, he had been commissioned major, and was chief staff officer to General Sickles at the battle of Gettysburg. He was on General Daniel Butterfield's staff at Chattanooga, and took part in the battles of Dalton and Resaca. In 1864 he was ordered to the Army of the Potomac and served successively on the staffs of General David M. Gregg and General George Crook, participating in the cavalry battles under these officers, until the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia. He was brevetted brigadier-general of volunteers on 30 November, 1865, and continued on duty in the Carolinas until his discharge on 29 April, 1866. General Tremain then resumed his law studies and was graduated in 1867. after which he entered into practice, forming in 1868 the firm of Tremain and Tyler. From 1870 till 1885 he was usually retained either by or against the government in its legal controversies in New York, and he was connected with the Marie Garrison litigation involving the title to the Missouri Pacific Railroad. He has been active as a Republican in political canvasses, and for five terms, beginning in 1871. he has been president of the associate alumni of the College of the City of New York. On 19 April, 1887, he was elected colonel of the veterans of the 7th Regiment, the oldest organization of its kind in this country. His campaign notes of "Last Hours of Sheridan's Cavalry" were edited by John Watts de Peyster (1885). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 158.
TREMAIN, Lyman, lawyer and statesman, born in Durham, Greene County, New York, 14 June, 1819: died in New York City, 30 November, 1878. After passing through college, he studied law, and was called to the bar in 1840. He began practice in his native county, and continued it in Albany, was elected supervisor of Durham in 1842, and became district attorney in 1844. In 1840 he was elected surrogate and county judge of Greene County, and in 1858 he became attorney-general of the state of New York. He was sent to the assembly in 1866-'8 and in 1872 was elected congressman as a Republican over Samuel S. Cox. serving from 1 December, 1873, to 3 March, 1875.—His son, Lyman, soldier, born in Durham, Greene County, New York, in June, 1843: died near Petersburg, Virginia, 6 February, 1865, entered Hobart in 1860, but abandoned his studies in 1862, and entered the National Army. He was appointed adjutant of the 7th New York Heavy Artillery, served in the defences of Washington, and was afterward made assistant adjutant-general, with the rank of captain, on the staff, in Kilpatrick's division of the Army of the Potomac. In December, 1864, he was commissioned lieutenant-colonel of the 10th New York Cavalry. He commanded this regiment at the battle of Hatcher's run, where he received the wound of which he died. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 158.
TRENCHARD, Stephen Decatur, naval officer, born in Brooklyn. New York, 10 July, 1818, was appointed a midshipman in the U. S. Navy, 23 October. 1834, after making a cruise as acting midshipman in the European Squadron in 1832. He was at the naval school in Philadelphia in 1839-40, became passed midshipman, 16 July, 1840 and was on coast survey duty in 18456. During this service Trenchard was on board the brig "Washington" when she was wrecked off the coast of North Carolina, and was one of the few that were saved. He was made lieutenant, 27 February, 1847, was on the "Saratoga" in Mexico in that year, and while again on coast survey duty in 1853-'7 rescued the British bark "Adieu" off Gloucester, Massachusetts, when in great peril, saving all hands and the entire cargo, for which service he was presented with a sword by the queen of England, and a watch by the underwriters of the bark. He was in the "Powhatan" on her diplomatic cruise to China and Japan in 1857-'60, and acted as aide, or flag-lieutenant, to Commodore Josiah Tatnall, and was with the commodore when he visited the British Admiral Hope. Lieutenant Trenchard was slightly wounded at the battle of Peiho River. During the Civil War he was one of the first officers to go on duty, as he was ordered to command the "Keystone State" on 19 April, 1861. He went with that steamer to Norfolk Navy-yard; but the yard was burning when the "Keystone State" arrived, and the vessel assisted in rescuing such property as was saved. Lieutenant Trenchard was ordered on 19 June, 1861, to the " Rhode Island," which was first used as a supply and special despatch ship, but she was afterward converted into a heavily armed cruiser and ordered to the North Atlantic Squadron. While the "Rhode Island" was towing the " Monitor " from Hampton Roads to Beaufort, North Carolina, the latter foundered off Cape Hatteras, but, through the exertions of the officers and crew of the "Rhode Island," the majority of the " Monitor's " crew were saved. His vessel was afterward attached to the special West Indian Squadron to look after the " Alabama" and "Florida," and also to the South Atlantic Squadron for a short time. During her early service as a cruiser she captured several valuable prizes. Trenchard was made commander in July, 1862, and took an active part in both bombardments of Fort Fisher and its capture. He became captain in July, 1866, and commodore, 7 May, 1871, was on the examining board in 1871-'2, and served as light-house inspector and on headquarters duty in 1873-'5. He was promoted rear-admiral, 10 August, 1875, and commanded the North Atlantic Squadron in 1876-'8. In 1876 Admiral Trenchard had twenty-one vessels in his squadron, which was the largest since the war. He was retired, 10 July, 1880.—Stephen Decatur's son, Edward, artist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 17 August, 1850, studied art with Peter Moran and others during 1864-'72, and afterward at the National Academy and the Art Students' League. His works include "The Passing Shower" (1874), "The Old Wreck " (1875), and " Sea, Sand, and Solitude" (1876), all exhibited at the Academy of Design; "The Breaking Waves Dashed High" (1876); and "A Tropic Beach" (1879). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 158-159.
TRENHOLM, George A., merchant, born in South Carolina in 1806; died in Charleston, South Carolina, 10 December, 1876. He was for many years a merchant in Charleston. Prior to the Civil War his firm transacted a large business in cotton, and enjoyed almost unlimited credit abroad. During the war they were engaged extensively in blockade-running, and were interested in many daring attempts to obtain supplies from Nassau. He was a strong adherent of the Confederacy, and was appointed Secretary of the Confederate Treasury in 1864, which office he held until the close of the war. He was taken prisoner by National troops and held until October, 1865, when he was pardoned by President Johnson. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 159.
TRESCOT, William Henry, diplomatist, born in Charleston, South Carolina, 10 November, 1822. He was graduated at the College of Charleston in 1840, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1843. He also engaged in planting on one of the sea Islands near Beaufort. Mr. Trescott became U. S. secretary of legation at London in December, 1852, and assistant Secretary of State in June, 1860, but he resigned that office upon the secession of his state. He was elected to the legislature in 1862, 1864, and 1866, and during that period was on the staff of General Roswell S. Ripley and afterward a member of the executive council. He was selected by James L. Petigru to assist him in preparing the code of law for the state. At the close of the Civil War he was sent to Washington to represent the state on certain questions under the reconstruction acts. In June, 1877, he was appointed counsel for the United States on the fishery commission at Halifax, N. S. He was one of the plenipotentiaries to China to revise the treaties in April, 1880, and was appointed by Sec. Evarts to continue and conclude the negotiations with the Columbian minister, and the protocol in reference to the rights of the United States on the Isthmus of Panama, in February, 1881. He was appointed special envoy to the belligerents in South America (Peru, Chili, and Bolivia) in November, 1881, and plenipotentiary with General Grant to negotiate a commercial treaty with Mexico in August, 1882. At present he is practicing law in Washington, D. C, and is agent for the state of South Carolina for the settlement of direct tax questions. He is the author of "Thoughts on the Foreign Policy of the United States" (privately printed, Charleston, 1849); "Diplomacy of the Revolution" (New York, 1852); "Letter to Andrew P. Butler on the Diplomatic System of the United States" (1853); "An American View of the Eastern Question" (Charleston, 1854): "Diplomatic History of the Administrations of Washington and Adams" (Boston, 1857); a memoir of General Johnson Pettigrew (1870); and various addresses, including one on General Stephen Elliott, delivered before the South Carolina legislature. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 159.
TRESSLER, David Loy, clergyman, born in Loysvillc. Perry County, Pennsylvania, 5 February. 1839; died in Carthage, Illinois, 20 February, 1880. He was graduated at Pennsylvania College, Gettysburg, in 1860, with the highest honors of his class. In the autumn of the same year he became principal of Loysville Academy. In 1862 he raised a company of volunteers, and served as captain for nine months in the Civil War. participating in the battles of South Mountain. Antietam, and Fredericksburg, where he received two severe wounds. He was admitted to the bar in 1864, and was engaged in the practice of his profession until 1870, when he moved to Mendota, Illinois, and shortly afterward entered the ministry of the Lutheran church, accepting a call to Lena, Illinois In 1872 he became professor of ancient languages in Carthage College, Illinois, and its treasurer. In the following year he was elected president of the college, which post he occupied until his death. Under him the college was thoroughly organized, and prospered. In 1876 he received the degree of Ph. D. from Wittenberg College, Springfield, Ohio. He published two baccalaureate sermons and occasional articles in the periodicals of his church. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 159.
TRIMBLE, David, manufacturer, born in Frederick County, Virginia about 1782; died in Trimble's Furnace, Kentucky, 26 October, 1842. He was educated at William and Mary College, studied law, and moved to Kentucky in 1804. He was engaged in the war of 1812, and served during two campaigns under General William Henry Harrison. In 1817 he was elected to Congress, where he served without interruption till 1827, and was highly esteemed for his integrity and devotion to his public duties. After retiring from Congress he engaged in agriculture and iron manufacture, and in the latter industry did much to develop the resources of the state. —His nephew, Isaac Ridgeway, soldier, born in Culpeper County, Virginia, 15 May, 1802; died in Baltimore, Maryland, 2 January, 1888, was the son of John Trimble, who moved to Kentucky in 1805 and settled on the military reservation at Fort Stirling. His uncle David procured him the appointment of cadet at the U. S. Military Academy, where he entered in 1818, making the entire journey on horseback, and generally by night, to avoid being attacked by Indians. He was graduated in 1822, and detailed to survey the military road from Washington to Ohio River. He also served at Boston and New York. He resigned in 1832, and pursued the profession of civil engineering. In 1834 he became chief engineer of the Baltimore and Susquehanna Railroad, which he completed to York. Pennsylvania, in 1837. He was also chief engineer of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad, and of the Boston and Providence Railroad. He was engaged in large railroad operations in the West Indies when the Civil War began in 1861, and was on the point of setting out from Cuba when he was assigned to the command of the non-uniformed volunteers that were organized to defend Baltimore from northern troops. He entered the military service of the state of Virginia in May, 1861, as colonel of engineers, and was ordered by General Robert E. Lee to take charge of the construction of the field-works and forts for the defence of Norfolk. Upon their completion he was promoted brigadier, and ordered to report to General Joseph E. Johnston at Centreville, who directed him to locate and construct batteries at Evansport on Potomac River, so as to close that river against U. S. vessels. With them he effectually blockaded the river during the winter of 1861-'2. In November, 1861, he was assigned to the command of the 7th Brigade of Ewell's division, and when General Ewell was ordered to report to General Thomas J. Jackson in May, 1862, Trimble took an active part in the campaign that ensued against General Nathaniel P. Banks, General John C. Fremont, and General James Shields. He selected the Confederate position for the battle of Cross Keys, 8 June, 1862, with the consent of General Ewell, who gives him credit for it in his report. He led his brigade at the battle of Gaines's Mills and the subsequent seven days' battles. At the battle of Slaughter's Mountain, 12 August, 1862, between the armies of General John Pope and General Jackson, he did good service, and on the night of 27 August, 1862, with the 21st North Carolina and 21st Georgia Regiments, he captured Manassas Junction, with supplies of subsistence, clothing, and ammunition. For this General Jackson recommended his promotion to be major-general. When Jackson was promoted to command a corps he selected General Trimble to succeed him in command of his division. Trimble was wounded at the second battle of Bull Run, 28 August, 1862, was appointed major-general on 23 April, 1863, commanded a division of the 2d Corps at Chancellorsville, and in June, 1863, General Lee offered him the command of the valley district to form the left wing of the Army of Northern Virginia. He was in General George E. Pickett's charge on the third day of the battle of Gettysburg, where he was wounded and captured, and lost a leg. He remained in prison at Johnson's Island twenty-one months, and was exchanged in April, 1865. Hastening to rejoin General Lee, on reaching Lynchburg he found that Lee had surrendered the day before at Appomattox. He then returned to Baltimore, where he remained until his death. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 160-161.
TROTTER, James Fisher, jurist, born in Brunswick County, Virginia, 5 November, 1802: died in Holly Springs, Mississippi, 9 March, 1866. He emigrated with his parents to eastern Tennessee at an early age, received a careful education, and in 1820 was admitted to the bar. He settled in Hamilton, Monroe County, Mississippi, in 1823, and soon established a reputation as a constitutional lawyer. After serving several terms in the legislature, he was chosen, in 1837, a judge of the circuit court of his district, and in 1838 succeeded Judge John Black in the U. S. Senate, having been chosen as a Democrat. After serving from February to December of that year, he resigned to accept a seat in the court of appeals of Mississippi, which he held till 1840. He then resumed his profession, and was vice-chancellor of the northern district of the state in 1855-'7, and professor of law in the University of Mississippi in 1860-'2. He ardently supported the southern cause during the Civil War, but subsequently did much to promote peaceable submission to the U. S. authorities. He became a circuit judge in 1866. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 162.
TROWBRIDGE, William Petit, engineer, born in Oakland County, Michigan, 25 May, 1828. He was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1848 at the head of his class, and promoted 2d lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers. During the last year of his course he acted as assistant professor of chemistry, and after graduation he spent two years in the astronomical observatory at West Point, preparing himself for duty in the U. S. Coast Survey, to which he was ordered at his own request. In 1852 he was assigned to duty under Alexander D. Bache in the primary triangulation of the coast of Maine, which in 1852 was placed under his immediate charge. Later he executed surveys of Appomattox River, in Virginia, with a view to the improvement of its navigation, and also similar surveys of James River near Richmond. He also surveyed the Dutch Gap, and recommended the " cut-off” or canal, that was subsequently constructed. In 1853 he was sent to the Pacific Coast, where he conducted a series of tidal and magnetic observations extending through a period of three years along the coast from San Diego to Puget Sound. He became 1st lieutenant, 18 December, 1854, returned from the west in 1856, and resigned from the Corps of Engineers on 1 December to accept the professorship of mathematics in the University of Michigan, which chair he held for a year. At the solicitation of Supt. Alexander D. Bache he accepted the permanent appointment of assistant on the coast survey, and was engaged in preparing for publication the results of the Gulf stream exploration. In 1860 he was sent to Key West to superintend the erection of a permanent self-registering magnetic observatory, and in 1861 he prepared minute descriptions of the harbors, inlets, and rivers of the southern coast, for the use of the U.S. Navy. Later he was ordered to execute a hydrographic survey of Narragansett Bay, where there was a design to erect a U.S. Navy-yard, but the results of the survey were not favorable to the project. Soon after the beginning of the Civil War he was placed in charge of the engineer office in New York City, where his duties included the supply of materials for fortifications and other defences, and the construction and shipping of engineer equipage for armies in the field. He also was superintending engineer of the constructing of the fort at Willett's point, New York, of repairs of Fort Schuyler, New York, and in charge of works on Governor's Island in New York Harbor. In 1865 he became vice-president of the Novelty Iron-Works in New York City, with direction of their shops, where he remained for four years. He was then elected professor of dynamical engineering in the Sheffield scientific school of Yale until 1870, when he was called to take charge of the engineering department of the School of Mines of Columbia, which place he now holds. Professor Trowbridge held various state offices while he was in New Haven, notably that of adjutant-general with the rank of brigadier-general on the governor's staff in 1872-'6. The degree of A. M. was conferred on him by Rochester in 1850 and by Yale in 1870, that of Ph. D. by Princeton in 1879, and that of LL. D. by Trinity in 1880, and the University of Michigan in 1887. He is a member of scientific societies, and vice-president of the New York Academy of Sciences, was vice-president of the American association for the advancement of science, presiding over the section of mechanical science in 1882, and in 1878 was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. In addition to many papers in scientific journals and the transactions of societies of which he is a member, he has published " Proposed Plan for building a Bridge across the East River at Blackwell's Island " (New York. 1869); "Heat as a Source of Power" (1874); and "Turbine Wheels " (1879). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 165.
TROY, William, 1827-1905, Essex County, Virginia, enslaved African American, Baptist minister, author. Active in the Underground Railroad. Wrote Hair Breadth Escapes from Slavery to Freedom in 1861.
TRUE, Charles Kittridge, 1809-1878, abolitionist, educator, Methodist clergyman, author, censured for abolitionist views (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 165-166; Sernett, 2002, p. 81)
TRUE, Charles Kittridge, educator, born in Portland, Maine, 14 August, 1809; died in Brooklyn, New York, 20 June, 1878. He was graduated at Harvard in 1832, and was subsequently pastor of various Methodist churches, and principal of the Amenia seminary, New York He was professor of moral and intellectual philosophy at Wesleyan in 1849-'60. Harvard gave him the degree of D. D. in 1849. He edited the “Oregonian and Indian Advocate” in 1839, in Boston, Massachusetts, and was the author of “Elements of Logic” (Boston, 1840); “Shawmut or the Settlement of Boston” (1845) ; “John Winthrop and the Great Colony” (New York, 1875); “Life and Times of Sir Walter Raleigh” (Cincinnati, Ohio, 1878); “Life and Times of John Knox” (1878); “Memoirs of John Howard” (1878); “The Thirty Years' War” (1879); “Heroes of Holland” (1882); and “Life of Captain John Smith” (1882). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 165.
TRUMAN, Benjamin Cummings, author, born in Providence, R. I, 25 October, 1835. He was educated in Canterbury, Merrimack County, New Hampshire, and adopted the profession of journalism. In 1862-65 he served on the staff of Andrew Johnson, then military governor of Tennessee, and as a volunteer participated in the battles of Stone River, Nashville, Mobile, and other engagements. He afterward became private secretary to President Johnson, and in 1865-'6 was special commissioner to the southern states to inquire into the condition of the Negroes and poor white inhabitants. . He was special agent of the post-office department for the Pacific Coast in 1866-'9 and again in 1878-'9, was president and secretary of the Southern district agricultural society of California in 1873-'7, and now (1888) is connected with the Pacific Railroad Company. He has published "The South after the War" (New York, 1867); "Semi-Tropical California " (1870); "Occidental Sketches " (1878); " Winter Resorts of California" (1880); "From the Crescent City to the Golden Gate " (1882); "The Field of Honor," a history of duelling (1884); and Homes and Happiness in the Golden Gate " (1886). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 166.
TRUMBULL, Lyman, 1813-1896, lawyer, jurist, U.S. Senator, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery (Appletons’, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 166; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 10, Pt. 1, p. 19; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 21, p. 877; Congressional Globe)
TRUMBULL, Lyman, senator, born in Colchester, Connecticut, 12 October, 1813, began to teach at sixteen years of age, and at twenty was at the head of an academy in Georgia, where he studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1837. He moved to Belleville, Illinois, and in 1841 was secretary of the state of Illinois. In 1848 he was elected one of the justices of the state supreme court. In 1854 he was chosen to represent his district in Congress, but before his term began he was elected U. S. Senator, and took his seat, 4 March, 1855. Until that time he had affiliated with the Democratic party, but on the question of slavery he took a decided stand against his party and his colleague, Stephen A. Douglas, especially on the question of “popular sovereignty.” In 1860 he was brought forward by some Republicans as a candidate for president. He had no desire to be so considered, and when his friend, Abraham Lincoln, was nominated, he labored with earnestness for his election. In 1861 he was re-elected to the U. S. Senate, in which he did good service for the National cause, and was one of the first to propose the amendment to the Federal constitution for the abolition of slavery. He was one of the five Republican senators that voted for acquittal in the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson, and afterward he acted with the Democratic party, whose candidate for governor of Illinois he was in 1880. Since his retirement from Congress he has had a lucrative law practice in Chicago. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 166.
TRUMBULL, Henry Clay, author, born in Stonington, Connecticut, 8 June, 1831, was educated privately and for a time studied in Williston Seminary. In 1851 he moved to Hartford and engaged in railroad business, but in 1858 was appointed Sunday-school missionary for Connecticut, which office he held until 1862. He was commissioned to the 10th Connecticut Regiment as a chaplain, ordained a clergyman of the Congregational church, and served until the close of the Civil War, except during a part of 1863, when he was in prison in South Carolina and Virginia, having been captured before Fort Wagner. In 1865 he was appointed missionary secretary of the American Sunday school union for New England, and in 1872 normal secretary of the same. […]. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 167.
TRUTH, Sojourner (Isabella Baumfree), 1797?-1883, African American, anti-slavery activist, abolitionist, women’s rights activist. Truth, born as Isabella Baumfree, was born into slavery. She was treated harshly by her owner. Her father died of neglect. Two of her daughters, and all but one of her siblings, were taken away from her and sold. In 1827, she escaped with the aid of local Quakers. She was able to sue for the freedom of her son, Peter. This was one of the first cases of a Black woman successfully winning a suit against a White man. Around 1829, Truth moved to New York City. In 1843, she was inspired to rename herself Sojourner Truth. That year, she went on a religious mission, traveling through Long Island and Connecticut. Also that same year, she learned about the abolitionist movement. She became a member of the Northampton, Massachusetts, Association of Education and Industry, an egalitarian community. Through this community, she met abolitionist leader William Lloyd Garrison and African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass. She was so eloquent that abolitionist leaders sponsored her on a speaking tour. Beginning in 1850, she also began speaking at women’s rights conventions, becoming a leader in the women’s rights movement. Around 1850, she moved to Salem, Ohio. She used the offices of the Anti-Slavery Bugle as a center. She then traveled to Indiana, Kansas and Missouri. Wrote The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave, 1850. She was able to sustain herself by selling copies of her slave narrative. She was attacked by pro-slavery advocates in Kansas and Missouri. By the mid-1850s, she traveled to Battle Creek, Michigan. During the Civil War, she recruited African American soldiers for the Union Army as well as working to see for their care. On October 29, 1864, Truth met President Abraham Lincoln in the White House. She stayed in Washington for two years, assisting freed slaves. In December 1864, she was appointed counselor for the National Freedman’s Relief Association. After the war, she protested the segregation of streetcars in Washington, DC. It was the first sit-in protest. In March 1870, she met President Ulysses S. Grant to petition the federal government to establish a state for freed slaves. In 1867, Truth began working for the American Equal Rights Association, which sought suffrage in New York for women and African Americans.
(Mabee, 1970, pp. 83-85, 145, 270, 337, 342; Mabee, 1993; Painter, 1996; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 481-482; Stetson, 1994; Yellin, 1994, pp. 30, 139-158; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 603; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 814-816; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 21, p. 880; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Vol. 11, p. 236)
SOJOURNER TRUTH, lecturer, born in Ulster County, New York, about 1775; died in Battle Creek. Michigan, 26 November, 1883. Her parents were owned by Colonel Charles Ardinburgh, of Ulster County, and she was sold at the age of ten to John J. Dumont. Though she was emancipated by the act of New York which set at liberty in 1817 all slaves over the age of forty, she does not appear to have obtained her freedom until 1827, when she escaped and went to New York City. Subsequently she lived in Northampton, Massachusetts, and in 1851 began to lecture in western New York, accompanied by George Thompson, of England, and other Abolitionists, making her headquarters in Rochester, New York. Subsequently she travelled in various parts of the United States, lecturing on politics, temperance, and women's rights, and for the welfare of her race. She could neither read nor write, but, being nearly six feet in height and possessing a deep and powerful voice, she proved an effective lecturer. She carried with her a book that she called “The Book of Life,” containing the autographs of many distinguished persons that were identified with the anti-slavery movement. Her name was Isabella, but she called herself “Sojourner,” claiming to have heard this name whispered to her from the Lord. She added the appellation of “Truth” to signify that she should preach nothing but truth to all men. She spent much time in Washington, D. C., during the Civil War, and passed her last years in Battle Creek, Michigan, where a small monument was erected near her grave, by subscription. See “Narrative of Sojourner Truth, drawn from her 'Book of Life,' with Memorial Chapter,” by Mrs. Francis W. Titus (Battle Creek, 1884). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 603
TRUXTON, William Talbot, naval officer, born in Philadelphia. 11 March, 1824; died in Norfolk, Virginia, 25 February, 1887, entered the U.S. Navy as a midshipman, 9 February, 1841, attended the Naval Academy for one year, and was graduated as a passed midshipman, 10 August, 1847. He cruised in the frigate "Brandywine in 1847-'8 on the Brazil station, whence he returned in command of the prize-slaver "Independence." He served on the Pacific Station in the ship "Supply" in 1849-'52, in the brig " Dolphin " in 1853 on special service in connection with laying the trans-Atlantic cable, and in 1854 with the Strain Expedition to survey a route for a ship-canal across the Isthmus of Darien. He was promoted to master, 14 September, 1855, and to lieutenant the next day by action of the retiring board. He served in the brig " Perry " during the Paraguayan war in 1859-'60, and in the sloop "Dale," of which he succeeded in command in 1861, in the North Atlantic Squadron, where he continued to serve throughout the Civil War. He was promoted to lieutenant-commander, 16 July, 1862, and had the steamers " Alabama," " Ohocura," and "Tacony " in succession. He participated in the operations in the sounds of North Carolina, in various engagements with the Confederate batteries, in the capture of Plymouth, North Carolina and in both attacks on Fort Fisher. He was promoted to commander, 25 July, 1860, was superintendent of coal shipments for the navy in 1860-'7, commanded the sloop "Jamestown" in the Pacific Squadron in 18f!8-'70 on a special survey, and was Ordnance officer of the Boston Navy-yard in 1871-'3. He was promoted to captain, 25 September, 1873, commanded the ' Brooklyn,” of the North Atlantic Squadron, in 1873-'4, and the flag-ship of the South Atlantic station, 1874-'5. He was a member of the board of inspectors in 1870-'7, and served at the U.S. Navy yards at Boston and Norfolk in 1877-81. He was promoted to commodore, 11 May, 1882, and was commandant of the Norfolk Navy-yard in 1885-'6. He was promoted to rear-admiral by seniority, 18 February, 1886, but action on his nomination was delayed, and he was retired by law as a commodore. 11 March, 1886. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 171.
TUBMAN, Harriet, 1822-1913, Maryland, African American, abolitionist, leader of the Underground Railroad, orator, Civil War Scout and nurse. Member of the Troy Vigilance Committee. Tubman was enslaved from her birth. After being threatened to be sold in 1849, she escaped to Philadelphia. She began her mission as a guide in the Underground Railroad in December 1850. In the 1850s, she made 19 trips through Maryland, aiding fugitive slaves escaping to the North and to Canada. She aided an estimated 300 fugitive slaves, none of whom was ever recaptured. She often worked alone in her rescue activities. Her success resulted in a $40,000 bounty on her head. She was an advisor to radical abolitionist John Brown. In the spring of 1862, she volunteered for the Union Army as a Scout and a spy, often travelling behind Confederate lines. After the war, she moved to Auburn, New York, and worked with older former slaves and orphans. She also worked to support freeman’s schools and worked for women’s right to vote. In 1897, she was awarded a pension of $20 a month by Congress for her wartime service.
(Mabee, 1970, pp. 284, 321; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 37, 52, 307, 482-483, 489; Still, 1872; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 172; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 10, Pt. 1, p. 27; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 816-817; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 21, p. 888; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Vol. 11, p. 238)
TUBMAN, Harriet, abolitionist, born near Cambridge, Dorchester County, Maryland, about 1821. She was the child of slaves of pure African blood, whose name was Ross. Her original Christian name of Araminta she changed to Harriet. When about thirteen years old she received a fracture of the skull at the hands of an enraged overseer, which left her subject during her whole life to fits of somnolency. In 1844 she married a free colored man named Tubman. In 1849, in order to escape being sent to the cotton-plantations of the south, she fled by night, and reached Philadelphia in safety. In December, 1850, she visited Baltimore and brought away her sister and two children, and within a few months returned to aid in the escape of her brother and two other men. Thenceforth she devoted herself to guiding runaway slaves in their flight from the plantations of Maryland along the channels of the “underground railroad,” with the assistance of Thomas Garrett and others. At first she conducted the bands of escaped slaves into the state of New York, but, when the fugitive-slave act began to be strictly enforced, she piloted them through to Canada. She made nineteen journeys, and led away more than 300 slaves. A reward of $40,000 was offered for her apprehension. Among the people of her race and the agents of the “underground railroad”' she was known as “Moses.” During the Civil War she performed valuable service for the National government as a spy and as a nurse in the hospitals. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 172.
TUCK, Amos, 1810-1879, Parsonfield, Maine, lawyer, politician, abolitionist. Co-founder of the Republican Party. Free-Soil and Whig anti-slavery member of the U.S. Congress. Opposed the Democratic Party and its position supporting the annexation of Texas and the extension of slavery to the new territories. Elected to Congress in 1847 and served until 1853. Prominent anti-slavery congressman, allied with Joshua R. Giddings of Ohio and John G. Palfrey of Massachusetts. (Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 10, Pt. 1, p. 27)
TUCKER, Nathaniel Beverley, journalist, born in Winchester, Virginia, 8 June, 1820, was educated at the University of Virginia, founded the Washington "Sentinel" in 1853, was elected printer to the U. S. Senate in December of that year, and in 1857 was appointed consul to Liverpool, remaining till 1861. He was sent by the Confederate government in 1862 to England and France, and in 1863-"4 to Canada, to obtain commissary supplies. He went to Mexico after the Civil War closed, was there till Maximilian's reign came to an end, then returned to the United States, and has since resided in Washington, D. C. and Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p.
176.
TUCKER, John Randolph, statesman, born in Winchester, Virginia, 24 December, 1823, received his early education at a private school near his home, entered Richmond Academy, and finished his studies at the University of Virginia, where he was graduated in law in 1844. He was admitted to the bar in 1845, and began the practice of his profession in Winchester. He was a presidential elector on the Democratic ticket in 1852 and 1856, was elected attorney general of Virginia in May, 1857, to fill an unexpired term, and was re-elected in 1859 and in 1863. He was dispossessed of this office by the results of the war. He was elected professor of equity and public law in Washington and Lee University. Lexington, in 1870, and continued in this office until he was elected in 1874 to Congress, of which he was a member till 1887. He was for a short time chairman of the ways and means committee, and was a member of that committee for eight years. He was chairman of the judiciary committee in the 48th and 49th Congresses. Mr. Tucker is an orator of much power, and has taken an active part, in the debates on the tariff, in opposition to the protective policy. His speeches on other questions include those on the electoral commission bill, the constitutional doctrine as to the presidential count, the Hawaiian treaty in 1876, the use of the army at the polls, in 1870, and Chinese emigration, in 1883. He delivered an address before the Social science association in 1877, and one in 1887 before the law-school of Yale, which in that year gave him the degree of LL. D. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 176.
TUCKER, St. George, was a lawyer by profession, and was clerk of the Virginia legislature. He joined the Confederate Army, held a lieutenant-colonel's commission, and died from exposure in the seven days' battles around Richmond. He was the author of "Hansford: a Tale of Bacon's Rebellion" (Richmond, 1853); "The Southern Crop"; and the dedicatory poem of Washington's equestrian statue at Richmond. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp.
TUCKER, John Randolph, naval officer, born in Alexandria, Virginia, 31 January, 1812; died in Petersburg, Virginia, 12 June, 1883. He received his early education in his native city, and on 1 June, 1826, entered the U. S. Navy as a midshipman. He became lieutenant, 20 December 1837, served as executive officer on board the bomb-brig "Stromboli" during the war with Mexico, and participated in the capture of Tabasco and other naval operations. During the latter part of the war Tucker succeeded to the command of the vessel. On 14 September, 1855, he received his commission as a commander, and was ordered to take charge of the receiving ship "Pennsylvania" at Norfolk. His next post was that of ordnance-officer of the Norfolk Navy-yard. He resigned his commission on 18 April, 1861, after the passage by Virginia of a secession ordinance, and on 21 April was appointed a commander in the Virginia Navy. On 22 April he was directed by Governor Letcher to "conduct the naval defences of James River," but on 3 June he was ordered to the command of the steamer " Yorktown," which afterward became the "Patrick Henry." When Virginia joined the Confederate States, Tucker, with all other officers of the state navy, was transferred to the Confederate service with the same rank he had held in the U. S. Navy. The " Patrick Henry" participated in the various conflicts in Hampton Roads, including the battle between the "Merrimac" and the " Monitor" on 9 March, and on the 13th Tucker was placed in command of the wooden fleet. Soon after the repulse of the National Squadron at Drewry's Bluff, in which his vessel took part, Tucker was promoted on 13 May, 1863, to the rank of captain, and ordered to Charleston, South Carolina, where he commanded the Confederate naval forces as flag-officer of the station. When Charleston was evacuated in February, 1865, Captain Tucker returned to Drewry's Bluff, organized the naval brigade, and commanded it there until Richmond was evacuated, when he reported to General Robert E. Lee, and was attached to Custis Lee's division of General Ewell's corps, which formed the rearguard of the Confederate Army on the retreat from Richmond. In 1866 Captain Tucker was appointed to the command of the Peruvian Navy with the rank of rear-admiral. During the war between Peru, Chili, and Spain he commanded the combined fleets of the two republics. When that war ceased, his rank and emoluments were continued, and he was made president of the Peruvian hydrographic commission of the Amazon. His last service was the exploration and survey of the upper Amazon and its tributaries. In a short time he returned to Petersburg. Virginia, where he died. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 176.
TUFTS, Hannah, Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS), Boston, Massachusetts (Yellin, 1994, p. 62)
TUPPER, Henry Allen, clergyman, born in Charleston, South Carolina, 29 February, 1828. His father, Tristram, a merchant of Charleston, was at one time president of the South Carolina Railroad. The son was educated in part at Charleston College, and was graduated at Madison University, New York, in 1848, and at its theological seminary in 1850. Having entered the ministry, he became, after three years' service in Graniteville, South Carolina, pastor of the Baptist church at Washington, Georgia, in which relation he continued for nearly twenty years. During the Civil War he was chaplain of the 9th Georgia Regiment of the Confederate Army. […]. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 182.
TURCHIN, John Basil, or Ivan Yasilevitch Turchininoff, soldier, born in the province of Don. Russia, 30 January, 1822. He entered the artillery school at St. Petersburg in 1830, was graduated in 1841, and entered the horse-artillery service as an ensign. He participated in the Hungarian Campaign, in 1849 entered the military academy for officers of the general staff, was graduated in 1852, and was assigned to the stuff of the Imperial guards. During the Crimean war he was promoted till he reached the grade of colonel, was senior staff-officer of the active corps, and prepared the plan that was adopted for the defence of the coast of Finland. He came to the United States in 1856, and was employed in the engineer department of the Illinois Central Railroad Company until 19 June. 1861, when he was appointed colonel of the 19th Illinois Volunteers. He served with his regiment in Missouri. Kentucky, and Alabama, where he took an active part in the capture of Huntsville and Decatur. He was promoted to be a brigadier-general of volunteers. 17 July, 1862, served in the cavalry of the Army of the Cumberland, and resigned, 10 October, 1864. After the close of the war he was a solicitor of patents in Chicago till 1870, for the next three years was employed as a civil engineer, and in 1873 he established the Polish colony of Radone, in Washington County, Illinois, where he now (1889) resides on a farm. He is an occasional contributor of scientific and military articles to periodicals. In January, 1865, he wrote "Military Rambles," a series of criticisms, issued monthly at Chicago, and he has also published "The Campaign and Battle of Chickamauga" (Chicago. 1888). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 182
TURNBULL, Laurence, physician, born in Shotts, Lanarkshire, Scotland, 10 September, 1821. He was graduated at the Philadelphia College of pharmacy in 1842, taking as his thesis "Salicine." which he had found in the populus tremuoides, and then engaged in the business of manufacturing chemicals. For his success in the production of citrate of iron he received an award of merit from the Franklin Institute, and he also discovered that biborate of sodium would bleach colored oils and ointments. Entering the office of Dr. John K. Mitchell, he studied medicine, and was graduated at the Jefferson Medical College in 1845. He was appointed resident physician of the Philadelphia Hospital in 1845, and was out-door physician to the guardians of the poor in 1846-'8, also vaccine physician to the city of Philadelphia in 1847-'50. Meanwhile, in 1848-'50. he was lecturer on chemistry applied to the arts in Franklin institute, and from 1857 till 1887 he was physician to the department of diseases of the eye and ear in the Howard hospital. At the beginning of the Civil War he was a volunteer surgeon in the hospital-department service on Potomac River, for the relief of the Pennsylvania troops, in Emory Hospital, and at Fort Monroe. Dr. Turnbull has made a specialty of diseases of the ear, and is aural surgeon of the Jefferson Medical College hospital, and superintendent of the ear clinic in I877-'88. […]. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 183-184.
TURNBULL, Robert James, political writer, born in New Smyrna, Florida, in January, 1775; died in Charleston, South Carolina, 15 June, 1833. He was the son of a British physician, who obtained grants from the government in 1772 to establish a Greek colony in Florida. About 15,000 Greeks, Moravians, and other inhabitants of the Mediterranean Islands were induced to emigrate, and they founded New Smyrna, so named in honor of Mrs. Turnbull, who was of Greek descent and a native of Smyrna. The project was unsuccessful, and Dr. Turnbull forfeited his grants by adhering to the cause of the colonies during the Revolutionary war, when he settled in Charleston, South Carolina. The son was educated in England, and then studied law in Charleston and Philadelphia. After his admission to the bar he practised in Charleston until 1810, when he retired to a large plantation in the country. While in Europe he wrote a "Visit to the Philadelphia Penitentiary" (London. 1797), which was translated into French (Paris. 1800), and attracted attention both at home and abroad. He became a leader in the nullification movement, and wrote a series of articles on that subject in 1827 for the "Charleston Mercury," which were afterward issued as " The Crisis," and became the text-book of the nullification party. Mr. Turnbull was "reputed the ablest writer in favor of the principle of nullification." He argued that "each state has the unquestionable right to judge of the infractions of the constitution, and to interpose its sovereign power to arrest their progress and to protect its citizens," which principle he incorporated in his treatise on "The Tribunal of Dernier Ressort" (1830). In 1831 he was a member of the Free trade convention that assembled at Columbia, South Carolina, and wrote the report of that body, and he was active in the similar convention in Charleston in February, 1832. He delivered an oration before an assemblage of the nullification party that showed its influence in the subsequent election, and in November of the same year he was a delegate to the convention of the people of South Carolina that passed the nullifying ordinance, and prepared the address of that convention to the people. After the proclamation of President Jackson was received in South Carolina he was the first to enlist when volunteers were called for, in addition to the organized militia, to resist the National government. A monument was erected to his memory in Charleston by his political admirers and associates. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 184.
TURNBULL, William, engineer, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 9 October, 1800: died in Wilmington, North Carolina, 9 December, 1857. He was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1819, and entered the army as 2d lieutenant in the artillery. After serving in garrison at Fort McHenry for a year he was on topographical duty until 1832. being made in 1831 assistant topographical engineer, with the brevet of captain. From 1832 till 1843 he was superintending topographical engineer of the construction of the Potomac aqueduct. This work, one of the earliest of the important undertakings of American engineers, gave Colonel Turnbull a high rank among his professional associates. The piers of the aqueduct were founded by coffer-darns on rock, sometimes covered by twenty feet of mud, and nearly forty feet below the water surface. He was made major, 7 July, 1838, and had charge of the repairs of the j Potomac (long) bridge in 1841-3. Subsequently he had charge of Lake Ontario Harbor improvement, the extension of Buffalo Harbor, and inspection of harbor improvements on Lake Champlain, Lake Ontario, and Lake Erie. In the war with Mexico he was topographical engineer of the array under General Winfield Scott, and was engaged in the siege of Vera Cruz, the castles of Cerro Gordo, Pedregal, and Churubusco, and the operations that ended with the capture of the city of Mexico. His services gained for him the brevets-of-lieutenant colonel and colonel. During 1848-9 he had charge of the construction of the New Orleans custom-house, and he was assistant in the topographical bureau at Washington, D. C. in 1850-'2 and 1853-'4, where he examined into the practicability of bridging Susquehanna River at Havre de Grace, and the expediency of an additional canal around the Falls of Ohio. He was light-house engineer for Oswego harbor, New York, in 1853-'5, in charge of harbor improvements of Lake Champlain, Lake Ontario, and the eastern part of Lake Erie in 1853-'6, and of the improvement of Cape Pear River, North Carolina, in 1856-'7. The illustration shown above represents the Potomac aqueduct as designed by him. Among his various government reports that were published was one "On the Survey and Construction of the Potomac Aqueduct," with twenty-one plates (Washington, 1838).—His son, Charles Nesbit, engineer, born in Washington, D. C, 14 August, 1832; died in Boston, Massachusetts, 2 December, 1874. was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1854, and made 2d lieutenant of Topographical Engineers. He was on the survey of the boundary-line between the United States and Mexico in 1854-'6, on that of the northern lakes in 1857-"9. and at the U. S. Military Academy as assistant professor of mathematics in 1859-'60. During the Civil War he served at first on the staff of General Benjamin P. Butler and in the Department of the Gulf, after which, in 1863-'4, he was with the Army of the Potomac. He received his promotion as captain of Topographical Engineers, 14 July, 1862, and was transferred to the Corps of Engineers on 3 March, 1863. In June, 1864, he was chief engineer of the cavalry corps, during General Philip H. Sheridan's raid, and later chief engineer of the 8th Army Corps. He received the brevets of major, lieutenant-colonel, and colonel for his services, and after the war served on the repairs of Port Hamilton. Colonel Turnbull resigned on 31 December 1865, and engaged in the commission business in Boston, Massachusetts, where he continued until his death. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 184-185.
TURNER, Charles Coche, naval officer, born in Virginia about 1805; died in Baltimore, Maryland, 4 March, 1861. He entered the U.S. Navy as a midshipman, 10 May, 1820, was commissioned lieutenant, 17 May, 1828, and served in the sloop " Vandalia," suppressing piracy, and in the Seminole War in 1834-'5. He was in the sloop "Peacock" in the East Indies in 1836-'8, during which time he had a narrow escape on a reef in the Persian Gulf, in which it was necessary to throw the guns overboard in order to save the ship. He commanded the store-ship "Erie" in 1844-'7, visited the Mediterranean, African, and Pacific Squadrons, and assisted in operations for the conquest of California during the Mexican War. He was promoted to master-commandant, 22 March, 1847, served on ordnance duty in Washington in 1849-'51, was fleet-captain in the Mediterranean Squadron in 1852-'3, and commanded the sloop "Levant" on the coast of Africa in 1853-'6. He was on waiting orders in 1857, and served at the Washington Navy-yard from 1857 till 1860. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 185.
TURNER, Eliza Sproat, 1826-1903, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, writer, poet, women’s rights activist and leader, abolitionist. Leader of the Women’s Congress. Founder of the New Century Club. Co-founder, New Century Guild of Working Women. Member of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in the 1850s. Co-founder of the Pennsylvania Women’s Suffrage Association in 1869.
TURNER, Henry McNeal, A. M. E. bishop, born in Newberry Court-House, South Carolina, 1 February, 1833. He is of African descent. After he was licensed to preach in 1853 his native eloquence created quite a sensation, and in 1858 he was admitted into the Missouri conference of the African Methodist Episcopal church, and transferred to the Baltimore conference. He studied four years as a non-matriculated student in Trinity College, and was stationed at Israel church, Washington, D. C, in 1863. He greatly assisted in the organization of the 1st Colored Regiment, U. S. Infantry, of which President Lincoln commissioned him the chaplain. At the close of the Civil War President Johnson commissioned him to a chaplaincy in the regular army, but he declined. He was sent into Georgia to assist in the work of reconstruction, called the first Republican state contention, and was elected twice to the Georgia legislature. In 1869 he was appointed postmaster of Matron, but resigned, and in the same year was made coast inspector of customs. In 1870 he was elected book agent of his denomination, and in 1880 he became bishop. His chief work is "Methodist Polity." Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 186.
TURNER, Daniel, soldier, born in Warren County, North Carolina, 21 September, 1796: died at Mare Island, California, 21 July, 1860, was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1814, and entered the army as 2d lieutenant in the corps of artillery. He served during the second war with England as acting assistant engineer in erecting temporary defences for New York City, after which he was ordered to Plattsburg. On the reduction of the army, he resigned on 17 May, 1815, and then spent two years at William and Mary College. He was elected to the lower branch of the North Carolina legislature, serving from 1819 till 1823. Mr. Turner was elected to Congress, and served from 3 December, 1827, till 3 March, 1829, after which, in 1847-'54. he was principal of the Warrenton, North Carolina, female seminary. His last office was that of superintending engineer of the construction of the public works at Mare Island Navy-yard, San Francisco harbor, which he held from the establishment of that U.S. Navy-yard in 1854 till the time of his death. [Son of James Turner, U.S. Senator]. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 186.
TURNER, John Wesley, soldier, born in Saratoga County. New York, 19 July, 1833. He was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1855, and assigned to the 1st U.S. Artillery. He took part with his battery in the war against, the Seminoles in 1857-'8, and served in garrisons till 1861, when he was promoted 1st lieutenant, and then captain and commissary of subsistence, in which capacity and in command of a breaching battery in the reduction of Fort Pulaski he rendered valuable service. He was appointed colonel and chief of staff of the Department of the South, was active in the operations against Fort Wagner and Fort Sumter, and in September, 1863, was appointed brigadier-general of volunteers. General Turner assumed command of a division of the 10th Corps, Army of the James, participating in the campaigns in front of Richmond till August, 1864. Subsequently he served as chief of staff in the Department of North Carolina and Virginia till March, 1865, when, in command of an independent division of the 24th Corps, he was present in the closing incidents of the war, terminating in the surrender at Appomattox. He was brevetted major "for gallant and meritorious service sat Fort Wagner, lieutenant-colonel for similar services " in action at the explosion of the Petersburg mine," colonel for the capture of Fort Gregg, major-general of volunteers "for gallant and meritorious service on several occasions before the enemy," and brigadier-general and major-general, U. S. Army, for services "in the field during the rebellion." General Turner was mustered out of the volunteer service in September, 1866, was depot commissary at St. Louis till 1871. Turner was on duty in the Indian Department till 4 September of that year, when he resigned from the army. Since that time he has been engaged as a civil engineer, and since 1877, he has been a street commissioner and member of the board of public works of St. Louis, Missouri. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 186.
TURNER, Nat, insurgent, born in Virginia about 1800; died in Jerusalem. Virginia. 11 November, 1831. He was a Negro slave who believed himself chosen of the Lord to lead his people to freedom. For a long time he claimed to have heard voices in the air and to have seen signs in the sky. Portents were written on the fallen leaves of the woods and in spots of blood upon the corn in the field to inform him of a divine mission. In his Bible, which he knew by heart, he found prophecies of the great work he was called upon to do. He was regarded as having unusual mental power and resources, but he failed to make plans that promised success. Taking six men into his confidence in the autumn of 1831, he set out at an appointed time to go from house to house and kill every white person, irrespective of age or sex, to inspire universal terror, and arouse the whole slave population. They began at Turner's own home, where they killed his master, and then, going to other plantations, were joined by other slaves. An advance-guard on horseback surrounded each house in turn, holding it until their followers on foot, armed with axes, scythes, and muskets, came up to complete the work of destruction, while the horsemen rode on to the next house. In forty-eight hours fifty-five white persons were killed without loss to the Negroes, whose numbers had increased to sixty. The insurgents then moved toward Jerusalem, where they expected to find plenty of fire-arms and to be joined by large numbers; but they separated and were attacked by two bodies of white men and dispersed. Turner escaped to the woods, and, after spending nearly two months in hiding, was captured, taken to Jerusalem, and after a trial hanged. This outbreak, known as the Southampton Insurrection, resulted in the trial of fifty-three Negroes, of whom seventeen were hanged, and many others, suspected of complicity, were tortured, burned, shot, and mutilated. Terror spread through the states as far west as Kentucky, and south and southwest to Georgia and Louisiana; but no evidences were ever discovered of a concerted movement among the slaves. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 187.
TURNER, Peter, naval officer, born in Rhode Island. 17 February, 1803; died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 17 February, 1871. He entered the U.S. Navy as a midshipman. 4 March, 1823, became a passed midshipman, 23 March, 1829, and was commissioned lieutenant, 21 June, 1832. During the Mexican war he was present at the fall of Vera Cruz, and participated in the boat expedition at Tuspan and the second expedition at Tabasco, where he served with credit, He commanded the store-ship "Southampton" in the Pacific Squadron in 1851—'2. He was placed on the reserved list in 1855, and was on waiting orders until 1861, when he was commissioned commander on 1 July, and was governor of the Naval Asylum at Philadelphia during the Civil War. He was promoted to commodore, 25 July, 1862. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 187.
TURNER, Thomas, naval officer, born in Washington, D. C, 23 December, 1808; died in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania. 24 March, 1883. He entered the U.S. Navy as a midshipman. 21 April, 1825, became a passed midshipman, 4 June, 1831, and was commissioned a lieutenant, 22 December, 1835. He served in the frigate "Macedonian"' in the exploring expedition of 1837-'8, and in the frigate '"Columbia," the flagship of the East India Squadron, in 1838-'41, during which time he participated in the destruction of the Malay pirates' towns of Quallat Battoo and Mucke, on the Island of Sumatra. 1 January, 1839. He commanded the store-ship " Fredonia," of the Gulf Squadron, from June till October, 1847, was then transferred to the sloop "Albany," and commanded the schooner "Reefer" in the attack on Tuspau in April, 1847. He was promoted to commander, 14 September, 1855,and had charge of the sloop '"Saratoga," on the Home Squadron, in 1858'60. On 6 March, 1860, he captured at Vera Cruz the steamers "Miramon" and "Marques do Habana," which had been purchased in Spain by General Miramon, and had attempted to blockade the port of Vera Cruz in the interests of the revolutionary party. He commanded the armored ship "New Ironsides" in the South Atlantic Squadron, and was highly commended for the skill and ability with which he handled this vessel in the attacks on the forts at Charleston, 7 April, 1863, and in other operations there until August. 1863. He was promoted to commodore, 13 December, 1862, and to rear-admiral, 24 June, 1868, and commanded the South Pacific Squadron in 1868-'70 during the great earthquake in Peru, where he rendered timely assistance to the sufferers. He was retired, 21 April, 1870, after forty-five rears of active service. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 187-188.
TUTTLE, James Madison, soldier, born in Summerfield, Monroe County, Ohio, 24 September, 1823. He was brought up on a farm in Iowa, afterward engaged in trade in Van Buren County in the same state, was elected its sheriff in 1855, and in 1859 recorder and treasurer. At the opening of the Civil War he joined the 2d Iowa Regiment as a captain, and became successively lieutenant-colonel and colonel. He served with credit at Fort Donelson, and at Shiloh commanded a brigade until General William H. L. Wallace was mortally wounded, after which he led the 2d Division. For his services in these battles he was promoted brigadier-general, 9 June, 1862. He afterward commanded at Cairo, Illinois, and resigned, 14 June, 1864. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 190.
TWEEDALE, William, civil engineer, born in Beith, Ayrshire, Scotland, 18 May, 1823. He came with his parents to New York in 1833, and was graduated at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1853. In 1855 he was a bridge engineer and contractor in Chicago, and in 1859, having obtained the contract for the construction of bridges and buildings on the Dubuque and Sioux City Railway, he moved to the former place. At the opening of the Civil War he raised a company for an engineer regiment, and was mustered in as captain. He was engaged in the engineering operations against New Madrid, which resulted in its capture, and cut a passage for a fleet of transports across the lower end of Island No. 8. This was used for the transportation of troops across the river from New Madrid to operate against Island No. 10, and resulted in the evacuation of the latter. He was in command of advanced parties of engineers with General John Pope's division in the siege of Corinth, and in the pursuit that followed its evacuation under General James B. McPherson. He was afterward engaged in the reconstruction of railroads, dredging of rivers, and the removal of debris at various points on Mississippi River. He was promoted brevet-colonel of volunteers, 13 March, 1865, and was mustered out on 31 May the same year. He moved to Topeka, Kansas, in 1867, superintended the erection of the east wing of the state capitol in 1867-'8, and the west wing in 1879-80, and was engineer of the bridge across the Kansas River at Topeka. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 191.
TWIGGS, David Emanuel, born in Richmond County, Georgia, in 1790; died in Augusta, Georgia, 15 September, 1862. His father, General John Twiggs, raised a brigade at his own expense at the opening of the Revolution. The son was appointed captain in the 8th infantry, 12 March, 1812, became major of the 28th Infantry, 21 September, 1814, and was disbanded. 15 June, 1815. He was reinstated on 2 December, 1815, as captain in the 7th Infantry, served throughout the war with Great Britain, and became major of the 1st U.S. Infantry, 14 May, 1825, lieutenant-colonel of the 4th U.S. Infantry, 15 July, 1831, and colonel. 2d U.S. Dragoons, 8 June, 1836. He served in the Mexican war under General Zachary Taylor at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, was promoted brigadier-general, 30 June, 1840, and brevetted major-general for gallantry at Monterey and presented with a sword by Congress. Being transferred to General Winfield Scott's army, he commanded a brigade at Vera Cruz. During the operations against the city of Mexico he led the 2d Division of regulars, and in 1848 he was military governor of Vera Cruz. He was in command of the Department of Texas in February, 1861, and surrendered his army and military stores to the Confederate General Ben. McCulloch, for which he was dishonorably dismissed from the army. He was appointed a major-general in the Confederate Army, 22 May, 1861, and assigned to the command of the district of Louisiana, but resigned toward the end of the year.—His brother, Levi, soldier, born in Richmond County, Georgia, 21 May, 1793: died in Chapultepec, Mexico, 13 September, 1847, was educated at Franklin College in his native state, which he left to serve in the war of 1812, and in 1813 joined the Marine Corps as 2d lieutenant. He was in the frigate "President" under Commodore Stephen Decatur on her last cruise, was promoted 1st lieutenant, and by his skill elicited the applause of his commander. On 2 June, 1847, he enlisted as a volunteer in the Mexican war, and was killed at Chapultepec. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 191-192.
TYLER, Charles Humphrey, soldier, born in Virginia in 1826; died in West Point. Georgia, 17 April, 1865. He was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy in 1848, and became 2d lieutenant in the 2d U.S. Dragoons. 25 April. 1849. He served in garrison in the cavalry-school at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on frontier duty, and in the Utah Expedition of 1857-'9. On 28 June, 1861, he was promoted captain, but he was dismissed from the Army on 1 June, 1861, for deserting his post. He then entered the Confederate service, became a brigadier-general, and was killed in battle at West Point, Georgia. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 192.
TYLER, Daniel, engineer, born in Brooklyn, Windham County, Connecticut, 7 January, 1799 ; died in New York ; City, 30 November, 1882. His father served in the Revolutionary army, and his mother was a granddaughter of Jonathan Edwards. After graduation at the U. S. Military Academy in 1819 as 2d lieutenant of light artillery, he served in garrison in New England in 1819-'24. and on the reorganization of the army, 1 June, 1821. he was made 2d lieutenant in the 5th U.S. Infantry. In 1824-'6 he served in the Fort Monroe artillery-school for practice, of which he was for a time adjutant. He became 1st lieutenant in the 1st U.S. Artillery on 6 May, 1824. and in 1826 commanded the Pikesville Arsenal, near Baltimore, Maryland While there he translated from the French a work on "Manoeuvres of Artillery," which led to his being sent to Europe in January, 1828, to obtain data for a more comprehensive work for the regular army. In April, 1829, he was admitted into the artillery-school of practice at Metz, and began a translation of the latest French system of artillery. The task was completed at the end of a year, and 300 lithographed copies in three volumes were sent to the war department in Washington, D. C. He also collected copies of every drawing and memoir connected with the French system of field, siege, sea-coast, and mountain artillery at a personal expense of about $2,000, which he offered to the government at Washington, provided a board should adopt the system for the U. S. Artillery. This was not done, but he received from the government $1,600 for his collection of drawings. After his return in 1829 he was kept on ordnance duty to prepare a translation of the "School of the Driver," which in the French service is separate from the artillery. In 1830 he was sent to the Springfield Armory to report upon the manufacture of small arms, and he was a member of the board that met to reorganize the national armories. In 1832 he was made superintendent of the inspectors of contract arms. He resigned on 31 May, 1834, became president of an iron and coal company in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, and was sent to Great Britain to examine the methods of coal-mining and operating furnaces and rolling-mills. On his return in 1835 he erected the first coke hot-blast furnace that was built in this country, and succeeded in making pig-iron, but the operations of the company were suspended. In 1840 he became president of the Norwich and Worcester Railroad, and completed the road. In 1843 he was appointed president and engineer of the Morris Canal and Banking Company. In 1845-'9 he was president of the Macon and Western Railroad, and he was afterward superintending engineer of the Dauphin and Susquehanna Railroad and Coal Company and of the Auburn and Allentown Railroad, and president and engineer of the Schuylkill and Susquehanna Railroad Company. At the beginning of the Civil War he became colonel of the 1st Connecticut Volunteers, 23 April, 1861, and commanded a division at the battles of Blackburn's Ford and Bull Run, 18-21 July, 1861. He was mustered out at the expiration of service on 11 August, 1861, but was reappointed in the U. S. volunteer service, with the rank of brigadier-general, on 13 March, 1862. He served with the Army of the Mississippi, engaged in the siege of Corinth from' 29 April till 8 June, 1862, organized volunteer regiments in Connecticut from 13 August till 15 September, 1862, served on the military commission that investigated General Don Carlos Buell’s Campaign in Kentucky and Tennessee, 24 November, 1862, till 10 May, 1863, and guarded the upper Potomac, and was in command of Harper's Ferry and Maryland Heights in June. Afterward he was in command of troops in Baltimore, Maryland, and of the District of Delaware, and resigned his commission on 6 April, 1864. General Tyler then travelled extensively in the south, in Cuba, and in Europe, and on his return in 1872 founded large cotton and iron manufactories in Alabama and built the town of Anniston, Alabama In 1873-'9 he was president of the Mobile and Montgomery Railroad. Subsequently he invested in Texas land, and established the " Capote farm " of 20,000 acres, which was his winter residence. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 192-193.
TYLER. Erastus, soldier, born in West Bloomfield, Ontario County, New York, 24 April, 1822. He moved to Ohio, and was educated at Granville College. In 1845 he engaged in business, which he continued until the beginning of the Civil War. He was commissioned colonel of the 7th Ohio Volunteers in April, 1861, and led his men into western Virginia, where he was assigned by General Frederick W. Lander to a brigade, which he commanded with credit at Cross Lanes, West Virginia, 26 August, 1861, Winchester, Virginia, 23 March, 1862, and Port Republic, Virginia, 9 June, 1862. He commanded a brigade at the battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia, where he was wounded, 13 December, 1862. On 14 May, 1862, he was made brigadier-general, and on 24 August, 1865, was mustered out of service. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 193.
TYLER, John, tenth president of the United States, born at Greenway, Charles City County, Virginia, 29 March, 1790; died in Richmond, Virginia, i8 January, 1802. He was the second son of Judge John Tyler and Mary Armistead. In early boyhood he attended the small school kept by a Mr. McMurdo, who was so diligent in his use of the birch that in later years Mr. Tyler said " it was a wonder he did not whip all the sense out of his scholars." At the age of eleven young Tyler was one of the ringleaders in a rebellion in which the despotic McMurdo was overpowered by numbers, tied hand and foot, and left locked up in the school-house until late at night, when a passing traveller effected an entrance and released him. On complaining to Judge Tyler, the indignant school-master was met with the apt reply, "Sic semper tyrannis!" The future president was graduated at William and Mary in 1807. At college he showed a strong interest in ancient history. He was also fond of poetry and music, and, like Thomas Jefferson, was a skilful performer on the violin. In 1809 he was admitted to the bar, and had already begun to obtain a good practice when he was elected to the legislature, and took his seat in that body in December, 1811. He was here a firm supporter of Mr. Madison's administration, and the war with Great Britain, which soon followed, afforded him an opportunity to become conspicuous as a forcible and persuasive orator. One of his earliest public acts is especially interesting in view of the famous struggle with the Whigs, which in later years he conducted as president. The charter of the first Bank of the United States, established in 1791, was to expire in twenty years; and in 1811 the question of renewing the charter came before Congress. The bank was very unpopular in Virginia, and the assembly of that state, by a vote of 125 to 35, instructed its senators at Washington, Richard Brent and William B. Giles, to vote against a recharter. The instructions denounced the bank as an institution in the founding of which Congress had exceeded its powers and grossly violated state rights. Yet there were many in Congress who, without approving the principle upon which the bank was founded, thought the eve of war an inopportune season for making a radical change in the financial system of the nation. Of the two Virginia senators, Brent voted in favor of the recharter, and Giles spoke on the same side, and although, in obedience to instructions, he voted contrary to his own opinion, he did so under protest. On 14 January, 1812, Mr. Tyler, in the Virginia Legislature, introduced resolutions of censure, in which the senators were taken to task, while the Virginia doctrines, as to the unconstitutional character of the bank and the binding force of instructions, were formally asserted.
Mr. Tyler married, 29 March, 1813, Letitia, daughter of Robert Christian, and a few weeks afterward was called into the field at the head of a company of militia to take part in the defence of Richmond and its neighborhood, now threatened by the British. This military service lasted for a month, during which Mr. Tyler's company was not called into action. He was re-elected to the legislature annually, until in November, 1816, he was chosen to fill a vacancy in the U. S. House of Representatives. In the regular election to the next Congress, out of 200 votes given in his native county, he received all but one. As a member of Congress he soon made himself conspicuous as a strict constructionist. When Mr. Calhoun introduced his bill in favor of internal improvements, Mr. Tyler voted against it. He opposed the bill for changing the per diem allowance of members of Congress to an annual salary of $1,500. He opposed, as premature, Mr. Clay's proposal to add to the general appropriation bill a provision for $18,000 for a minister to the provinces of the La Plata, thus committing the United States to a recognition of the independence of those revolted provinces. He also voted against the proposal for a national bankrupt act. He condemned, as arbitrary and insubordinate, the course of General Jackson in Florida, and contributed an able speech to the long debate over the question as to censuring that gallant commander. He was a member of a committee for inquiring into the affairs of the national bank, and his most elaborate speech was in favor of Mr. Trimble's motion to issue a scire facias against that institution. On all these points Mr. Tyler's course seems to have pleased his constituents; in the spring election of 1819 he did not consider it necessary to issue the usual circular address, or in any way to engage in a personal canvass. He simply distributed copies of his speech against the bank, and was re-elected to Congress unanimously. The most important question that came before the 16th Congress related to the admission of Missouri to the Union. In the debates over this question Mr. Tyler took ground against the imposition of any restrictions upon the extension of slavery. At the same time he declared himself on principle opposed to the perpetuation of slavery, and he sought to reconcile these positions by the argument that in diffusing the slave population over a wide area the evils of the institution would be diminished and the prospects of ultimate emancipation increased. "Slavery," said he, "has been represented on all hands as a dark cloud, and the candor of the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Whitman] drove him to the admission that it would be well to disperse this cloud. In this sentiment I entirely concur with him. How can you otherwise disarm it? Will you suffer it to increase in its darkness over one particular portion of this land till its horrors shall burst upon it? Will you permit the lightnings of its wrath to break upon the south, when by the interposition of a wise system of legislation you may reduce it to a summer's cloud? New York and Pennsylvania, he argued, had been able to emancipate their slaves only by reducing their number by exportation. Dispersion, moreover, would be likely to ameliorate the condition of the black man, for by making his labor scarce in each particular locality it would increase the demand for it, and would thus make it the interest of the master to deal fairly and generously with his slaves. To the objection that the increase of the slave population would fully keep up with its territorial expansion, he replied by denying that such would be the case. His next argument was that if an old state, such as Virginia, could have slaves, while a new state, such as Missouri, was to be prevented by Federal authority from having them, then the old and new states would at once be placed upon a different footing, which was contrary to the spirit of the constitution. If Congress could thus impose one restriction upon a state, where was the exercise of such a power to end f Once grant such a power, and what was to prevent a slave-holding majority in Congress from forcing slavery upon some territory where it was not wanted? Mr. Tyler pursued the argument so far as to deny "that congress, under its constitutional authority to establish rules and regulations for the territories, had any control whatever over slavery in the territorial domain." (See life, by Lyon Or. Tyler, vol. i., p. 319.) Mr. Tyler was unquestionably foremost among the members of Congress in occupying this position. When the Missouri compromise bill was adopted by a vote of 134 to 42. all but five of the nays were from the south, and from Virginia alone there were seventeen, of which Mr. Tyler's vote was one. The Richmond "Enquirer" of 7 March, 1820, in denouncing the compromise, observed, in language of prophetic interest, that the southern and western representatives now owe it to themselves to keep their eyes firmly fixed on Texas; if we are cooped up on the north, we must have elbow-room to the west." Mr. Tyler's further action in this Congress related chiefly to the question of a protective tariff, of which he was an unflinching opponent. In 1821, finding his health seriously impaired, he declined a re-election, and returned to private life. His retirement, however, was of short duration, for in 1823 he was again elected to the Virginia legislature. Here, as a friend to the candidacy of William H. Crawford for the presidency, he disapproved the attacks upon the congressional caucus begun by the legislature of Tennessee in the interests of Andrew Jackson. The next year he was nominated to fill the vacancy in the United States Senate created by the death of John Taylor; but Littleton W. Tazewell was elected over him. He opposed the attempt to remove William and Mary College to Richmond, and was afterward made successively rector and chancellor of the college, which prospered signally under his management. In December, 1825, he was chosen by the legislature to the governorship of Virginia, and in the following year he was re-elected by a unanimous vote. A new division of parties was now beginning to show itself in national politics. The administration of John Quincy Adams had pronounced itself in favor of what was then, without much regard to history, described as the " American system" of government banking, high tariffs, and internal improvements. Those persons who were inclined to a loose construction of the constitution were' soon drawn to the side of the administration, while the strict constructionists were gradually united in opposition. Many members of Crawford's party, under the lead of John Randolph, became thus united with the Jacksonians, while others, of whom Mr. Tyler was one of the most distinguished, maintained a certain independence in opposition. It is to be set down to Mr. Tyler's credit that he never attached any importance to the malicious story, believed by so many Jacksonians, of a corrupt bargain between Adams and Clay. (See Adams, John Q., Clay, Henry, and Jackson, Andrew.) Soon after the meeting of the Virginia legislature, in December, 1826, the friends of Clay and Adams combined with the members of the opposite party who were dissatisfied with Randolph, and thus Mr. Tyler was elected to the U. S. Senate by a majority of 115 votes to 110. Some indiscreet friends of Jackson now attempted to show that there must have been some secret and reprehensible understanding between Tyler and Clay; but this scheme failed completely. In the Senate Mr. Tyler took a conspicuous stand against the so-called "tariff of abominations" enacted in 1828. which Benton, Van Buren, and other prominent Jacksonians, not yet quite clear as to their proper attitude, were induced to support. There was thus some ground for the opinion entertained at this time by Tyler, that the Jacksonians were not really strict constructionists. In February, 1830, after taking part in the Virginia convention for revising the state constitution, Mr. Tyler returned to his seat in the Senate, and found himself first drawn toward Jackson by the veto message of the latter, 27 May, upon the Maysville turnpike bill. He attacked the irregularity of Jackson s appointment of commissioners to negotiate a commercial treaty with Turkey without duly informing the Senate. On the other hand, he voted in favor of confirming the appointment of Van Buren as minister to Great Britain. In the presidential election of 1832 he supported Jackson as a less objectionable candidate than the others. Clay, Wirt, and Floyd. Mr. Tyler disapproved of nullification, and condemned the course of South Carolina as both unconstitutional and impolitic. At the same time he objected to President Jackson's famous proclamation of 10 December, 1832, as a " tremendous engine of federalism," tending to the "consolidation " of the states into a single political body. Under the influence of those feelings he undertook to play the part of mediator between Clay and Calhoun, and in that capacity earnestly supported the compromise tariff introduced by the former in the Senate, 12 February, 1833. On the so-called "force bill," clothing the president with extraordinary powers for the purpose of enforcing the tariff law, Mr. Tyler snowed that he had the courage of his convictions. When the bill was put to vote, 20 February, 1833, some of its opponents happened to be absent: others got up and went out in order to avoid putting themselves on record. The vote, as then taken, stood: yeas, thirty-two; nay, one (John Tyler). As President Jackson's first term had witnessed a division in the Democratic party between the nullifiers led by Calhoun and the unconditional upholders of the Union, led by the president himself, with Benton, Blair, and Van Buren, so his second term witnessed a somewhat similar division arising out of the war upon the United States bank. The tendency of this fresh division was to bring Mr. Tyler and his friends nearer to co-operation with Mr. Calhoun, while at the same time it furnished points of contact that might, if occasion should offer, bo laid hold of for the purpose of forming a temporary alliance with Mr. (May and the National Republicans. The origin of the name "Whig," in its strange and anomalous-application to the combination in 1834, is to be found in the fact that it pleased the fancy of President Jackson's opponents to represent him as a kind of arbitrary tyrant. On this view it seemed proper that they should be designated "Whigs," and at first there were some attempts to discredit the supporters of the administration by calling them "Tories." On the question of the bank, when it came to the removal of the deposits, Mr. Tyler broke with the administration. Against the bank he had fought, on every fitting occasion, since the beginning of his public career. In 1834 he declared emphatically : "I believe the bank to be the original sin against the constitution, which, in the progress of our history, has called into existence a numerous progeny of usurpations. Shall I permit this serpent, however bright its scales or erect its mien, to exist by and through my vote" Nevertheless, strongly as he disapproved of the bank, Mr. Tyler disapproved still more strongly of the methods by which President Jackson assailed it. There seemed at that time to be growing up in the United States a spirit of extreme unbridled democracy quite foreign to the spirit in which our constitutional government, with its carefully arranged checks and limitations, was founded. It was a spirit that prompted mere majorities to insist upon having their way, even at the cost of overriding all constitutional checks and limits. This spirit possessed many members of Jackson's party, and it found expression in what Benton grotesque]v called the "demos krateo" principle. A good illustration of it was to be seen in Benton's argument, after the election of 1824, that Jackson, having received a plurality of electoral votes, ought to be declared president, and that the House of Representatives, in choosing Adams, was "defying the will of the people." In similar wise President Jackson, after his triumphant re-election in 1832, was inclined to interpret his huge majorities as meaning that the people were ready to uphold him in any course that he might see fit to pursue. This feeling no doubt strengthened him in his determined attitude toward the nullifiers, and it certainly contributed to his arbitrary and overbearing method of dealing with the bank, culminating in 1833 in his removal of the deposits. There was ground for maintaining that in this act the president exceeded his powers, and it seemed to illustrate the tendency of unbridled democracy toward despotism, under the leadership of a headstrong and popular chief. Mr. Tyler saw in it such a tendency, and he believed that the only safeguard for constitutional government, whether against the arbitrariness of Jackson or the latitudinarianism of the National Republicans, lay in a most rigid adherence to strict constructionist doctrines. Accordingly, in his speech of 24 February, 1834, he proposed to go directly to the root of the matter and submit the question of a national bank to the people in the shape of a constitutional amendment, either expressly forbidding or expressly allowing Congress to create such an institution. According to his own account, he found Clay and Webster ready to co-operate with him in this course, while Calhoun held aloof. Nothing came of the project; but it is easy to see in Mr. Tyler's attitude at this time the basis for a short-lived alliance with the National Republicans, whenever circumstances should suggest it. On Mr. Clay's famous resolution to censure the president he voted in the affirmative. In the course of 1835 the seriousness of the schism in the Democratic party was fully revealed. Not only had the small body of nullifiers broken away, under the lead of Calhoun, but a much larger party was formed in the southern states under the appellation of "state-rights Whigs." They differed with the National Republicans on the fundamental questions of tariff, bank, and internal improvements, and agreed with them only in opposition to Jackson as an alleged violator of the constitution. Even in this opposition they differed from the party of Webster and Clay, for they grounded it largely upon a theory of state rights which the latter statesmen had been far from accepting. The "state-rights Whigs" now nominated Hugh L. White, of Tennessee, for president, and John Tyler for vice-president. The National Republicans wishing to gather votes from the other parties, nominated for president General William II. Harrison as a more colorless candidate than Webster or (Hay. The Democratic followers of Jackson nominated Van Buren, who received a large majority of both popular and electoral votes, in spite of the defections above mentioned. There was a great deal of bolting in this election. Massachusetts threw its vote for Webster for president, and South Carolina for Willie P. Mangum. Virginia, which voted for Van Buren, rejected his colleague, Richard M. Johnson, and cast its twenty three electoral votes Smith, of Alabama, for vice-president. Mr. White obtained the electoral votes of Tennessee and Georgia, twenty-six in all, but Mr. Tyler made a better showing; he carried, besides these two states, Maryland and South Carolina, milking forty-seven votes in all. The unevenness of the results was such that the election of a vice-president devolved upon the Senate, which chose Mr. Johnson. In the course of the year preceding the election an incident occurred which emphasized more than ever Mr. Tyler's hostility to the Jackson party. Benton's famous resolutions for expunging the vote of censure upon the president were before the Senate, and the Democratic legislature of Virginia instructed the two senators from that state to vote in the affirmative. As to the binding force of such instructions Mr. Tyler had long ago, in the case of Giles and Brent, above mentioned, placed himself unmistakably upon record. His colleague, Benjamin Watkins Leigh, was known to entertain similar views. On receiving the instructions, both senators refused to obey them. Both voted against the Benton resolutions, but Mr. Leigh kept his seat, while Mr. Tyler resigned and returned home, 29 February, 1830. About this time the followers of Calhoun were bringing forward what was known as the " gag resolution " against all petitions and motions relating in any way to the abolition of slavery. (See Atuerto.v, Charles G.) Mr. Tyler's resignation occurred before this measure as to the right or petition and the question as to slavery, and thus gave a distinct moral advantage to the Abolitionists. On the seventh anniversary of the Virginia colonization society, 10 January, 1838, he was chosen its president. In the spring election of that year he was returned to the Virginia legislature. In January. 1830, his friends put him forward for re-election to the U. S. Senate, and in the memorable contest that ensued, in which William C. Rives was his principal competitor, the result was a deadlock, and the question was indefinitely postponed before any choice had been made. Meanwhile the financial crisis of 1837—the most severe, in many respects, that has ever been known in this country—had wrecked the administration of President Van Buren. The causes of that crisis, indeed, lav deeper than any acts of any administration. The primary cause was the sudden development of wild speculation in western lands, consequent upon the rapid building of railroads, which would probably have brought about a general prostration of credit, even if President Jackson had never made war upon the United States bank. But there is no doubt that some measures of Jackson's administration—such as the removal of the deposits and their lodgment in the so-called " pet banks," the distribution of the surplus followed by the sudden stoppage of distribution, and the sharpness of the remedy supplied by the specie circular —had much to do with the virulence of the crisis. For the moment it seemed to many people that all the evil resulted from the suppression of the bank, and that the proper cure was the reinstatement of the bank, and because President Van Buren was too wise and clear-sighted to lend his aid to such a policy, his chances for re-election were ruined. The cry for the moment was that the hard-hearted administration was doing nothing to relieve the distress of the people, and there was a general' combination against Van Buren. For the single purpose of defeating him, all differences of policy were for the moment subordinated. In the Whig convention at Harrisburg. 4 December, 1839, no platform of principles was adopted. General Harrison was again nominated for the presidency, as a candidate fit to conciliate the anti-Masons and National Republicans whom Clay had offended, and Mr. Tyler was nominated for the vice-presidency in order to catch the votes of such Democrats as were dissatisfied with the administration. In the uproarious canvass that followed there was probably less appeal to sober reason and a more liberal use of clap-trap than in any other presidential contest in our history. Borne upon a great wave of popular excitement, "Tippecanoe, and Tyler too, were carried to the White House. By the death of President Harrison, 4 April, 1841, just a month after the inauguration, Mr. Tyler became president of the United States. The situation thus developed was not long in producing startling results. Although no platform had been adopted in the nominating convention, it soon appeared that Mr. Clay and his friends intended to use their victory in support of the old National Republican policy of a national bank, a high tariff, and internal improvements. Doubtless most, people who voted for Harrison did so in the belief that his election meant the victory of Clay's doctrines and the reestablishment of the United States bank. Mr. Clay's own course, immediately after the inauguration, showed so plainly that he regarded the election as his own victory that General Harrison felt called upon to administer a rebuke to him. "You seem to forget, sir," said he, "that it is I who am president." Tyler, on the other hand, regarded the Whig triumph as signifying the overthrow of what, he considered a corrupt and tyrannical faction led by Jackson. Van Buren, and Benton; he professed to regard the old National Republican doctrines as virtually postponed by the alliance between them and his own followers. In truth, it was as ill-yoked an alliance as ever was made. The elements of a fierce quarrel were scarcely concealed, and the removal of President Harrison was all that was needed to kindle the flames of strife. "Tyler dares not resist," said Clay; "I'll drive him before me." On the other hand, the new president declared: "1 pray you to believe that my back is to the wall, and that, while I shall deplore the assaults. I shall, if practicable, beat back the assailants"; and he was as good as his word. Congress met in extra session, 31 May, 1841, the Senate standing 28 Whigs to 22 Democrats, the house 133 Whigs to 108 Democrats. In his opening message President Tyler briefly recounted the recent history of the United States bank, the sub-treasury system, and other financial schemes, and ended with the precautionary words: 'I shall be ready to concur with you in the adoption of such system as you may propose, reserving to myself the ultimate power of rejecting any measure which may, in my view of it, conflict with the constitution or otherwise jeopardy the prosperity of the country, a power which I could not part with, even if I would, out which I will not believe any act of yours will call into requisition." Congress disregarded the warning. The ground was cleared for action by a bill for abolishing Van Buren's sub-treasury system, which passed both houses and was signed by the president. But an amendment offered by Mr. Clay, for the repeal of the law of 1836 regulating the deposits in the state banks, was defeated by the votes of a small party led by William C. Rives. The great question then came up. On constitutional grounds, Mr. Tyler's objection to the United States bank had always been that Congress had no power to create such a corporation within the limits of a state without the consent of the state ascertained beforehand. He did not deny, however, the power of Congress to establish a district bank for the District of Columbia, and, provided the several states should consent, there seemed to be no reason why this district bank should not set up its branch offices all over the country. Mr. Clay's so-called "fiscal bank" bill of 1841 did not make proper provision for securing the assent of the states, and on that ground Mr. Rives proposed an amendment substituting a clause of a bill suggested by Thomas Ewing, Secretary of the Treasury, to the effect that such assent should be formally secured. Mr. Rives's amendment was supported not only by several "state-rights Whigs," but also by Senators Richard H. Bayard and Rufus Choate, and other friends of Mr. Webster. If adopted, its effect would have been conciliatory, and it might perhaps have averted for a moment the rupture between the ill-yoked allies. The Democrats, well aware of this, voted against the amendment, and it was lost. The bill incorporating the fiscal bank of the United States was then passed by both houses, and on 16 August was vetoed. An attempt to pass the bill over the veto failed of the requisite two-third majority. The Whig leaders had already shown a disposition to entrap the president. Before the passage of Mr. Clay's bill, John Minor Botts was sent to the White House with a private suggestion for a compromise. Mr. Tyler refused to listen to the suggestion except with the understanding that, should it meet with his disapproval, he should not hear from it again. The suggestion turned out to be a proposal that Congress should authorize the establishment of branches of the district bank in any state of which the legislature at its very next session should not expressly refuse its consent to any such proceeding; and that, moreover, in case the interests of the public should seem to require it, even such express refusal might be disregarded and overridden. By this means the obnoxious institution might first be established in the Whig states, and then forced upon the Democratic states in spite of themselves. The president indignantly rejected the suggestion as "a contemptible subterfuge, behind which he would not skulk." The device, nevertheless, became incorporated in Mr. Clay's bill, and it was pretended that it was put there in order to smooth the way for the president to adopt the measure, but that in his unreasonable obstinacy he refused to avail himself of the opportunity. After his veto of August these tortuous methods were renewed. Messengers went to and fro between the president and members of his cabinet on the one hand, and leading Whig members of Congress on the other, conditional assurances were translated into the indicative mood, whispered messages were magnified and distorted, and presently appeared upon the scene an outline of a bill that it was assumed the president would sign. This new measure was known as the '• fiscal corporation " bill. Like the fiscal bank bill, it created a bank in the District of Columbia, with branches throughout the states, and it made no proper provision for the consent of the states. The president had admitted that a " fiscal agency " of the United States government, established in Washington for the purpose of collecting, keeping, and disbursing the public revenue, was desirable if not indispensable; a regular bank of discount, engaged in commercial transactions throughout the states, and having the United States government as its principal share-holder and Federal officers exerting a controlling influence upon its directorship, was an entirely different affair—something, in his opinion, neither desirable nor permissible. In the "fiscal corporation" bill an attempt was made to hoodwink the president and the public by a pretence of forbidding discounts and loans and limiting the operations of the fiscal agency exclusively to exchanges. While this project was maturing, the Whig newspapers fulminated with threats against the president in case he should persist in his course; private letters warned him of plots to assassinate him, and Mr. Clay in the Senate referred to his resignation in 1836, and asked why, if constitutional scruples again hindered him from obeying the will of the people, did he not now resign his lofty position and leave it for those who could be more compliant! To this it was aptly replied by Mr. Rives that " the president was an independent branch of the government as well as Congress, and was not called upon to resign because he differed in opinion with them." Some of the Whigs seem really to have hoped that such a storm could be raised as would browbeat the president into resigning, whereby the government would be temporarily left in the hands of William L. Southard, then president pro tempore of the Senate. But Mr. Tyler was neither to be hoodwinked nor bullied. The " fiscal corporation" bill was passed by the Senate on Saturday, 4 September, 1841; on Thursday, the 9th, the president's veto message was received; on Saturday, the 11th, Thomas Ewing, Secretary of the Treasury, John Bell, Secretary of War, George E. Badger, Secretary of the Navy, John J. Crittenden, Attorney-General, and Francis Granger, Postmaster-General, resigned their places. The adjournment of Congress had been fixed for Monday, the 13th, and it was hoped that, suddenly confronted by a unanimous resignation of the cabinet and confused by want of time in which to appoint a new cabinet, the president would give up the game. But the resignation was not unanimous, for Daniel Webster, Secretary of State, remained at his post, and on Monday morning the president nominated Walter Forward, of Pennsylvania, for Secretary of the Treasury; John McLean, of Ohio, for Secretary of War; Abel P. Upshur, of Virginia, for Secretary of the Navy; Hugh S. Legale, of South Carolina, for attorney-general; and Charles A. Wickliffe, of Kentucky, for postmaster-general. These appointments were duly confirmed. Whether the defection of Mr. Webster at this moment would have been so fatal to the president as some of the Whigs were inclined to believe, may well be doubted, but there can be no doubt that his adherence to the president was of great value.
By remaining in the cabinet Mr. Webster showed himself too clear-sighted to contribute to a victory of which the whole profit would be reaped by his rival. Mr. Clay, and the president was glad to retain his hold upon so strong an element in the north as that which Mr. Webster represented. Some of the leading Whig members of Congress now issued addresses to the people, in which they loudly condemned the conduct of the president and declared that " all political connection between them and John Tyler was at an end from that day forth." It was open war between the two departments of government. Although many Whig members, like Preston, Talmadge, Johnson and Marshall, really sympathized with Mr. Tyler, only a few, commonly known as " the corporal's guard," openly recognized him as their leader. But the Democratic members came to his support as an ally against the Whigs. The state elections of 1841 showed some symptoms of a reaction in favor of the president's views, for in general the Whigs lost ground in them. As the spectre of the crisis of 1837 faded away in the distance, the people began to recover from the sudden and overmastering impulse that had swept the country in 1840, and the popular enthusiasm for the bank soon died away. Mr. Tyler had really won a victory of the first magnitude, as was conclusively shown in 1844, when the presidential platform of the Whigs was careful to make no allusion whatever to the bank. On this crucial question the doctrines of paternal government had received a crushing and permanent defeat. In the next session of Congress the strife with the president was renewed: but it was now tariff, not bank, that furnished the subject of discussion. Diminished importations, due to the general prostration of business, had now diminished the revenue until it was insufficient to meet the expenses of government. The Whigs accordingly carried through Congress a bill continuing the protective duties of 1833, and providing that the surplus revenue, which was thus sure soon to accumulate, should be distributed among the states. But the compromise act of 1833, in which Mr. Tyler had played an important part, had provided that the protective policy should come to an end in 1842. Both on this ground, and because of the provision for distributing the surplus, the president vetoed the new bill. Congress then devised and passed another bill, providing for a tariff for revenue, with incidental protection, but still contemplating a distribution of the surplus, if there should be any. The president vetoed this bill. Congress received the veto message with great indignation, and on the motion of ex-President John Q. Adams it was referred to a committee, which condemned it as an unwarrantable assumption of power, and after a caustic summary of Mr. Tyler's acts since his accession to office, concluded with a reference to impeachment. This report called forth from the president a formal protest; but the victory was already his. The Whigs were afraid to go before the country in the autumn elections with the tariff question unsettled, and the bill was accordingly passed by both houses, without the distributing clause, and was at once signed by the president. The distributing clause was then passed in a separate bill, but a "pocket veto" disposed of it. Congress adjourned on 31 August, 1842, and in the elections the Whig majority of twenty-five in the House of Representatives gave place to a Democratic majority of sixty-one. On the remaining question of National Republican policy, that of internal improvements, the most noteworthy action of President Tyler was early in 1844, when two river-and-harbor bills were passed by Congress, the one relating to the eastern, the other to She western states. Mr. Tyler vetoed the former, but signed the latter, on the ground that the Mississippi River, as a great common highway for the commerce of the whole country, was the legitimate concern of the national government in a sense that was not true of any other American River. An unsuccessful attempt was made to pass the other bill over the veto. The rest of Mr. Tyler's administration was taken up with the Ashburton treaty with Great Britain (see Webster, Daniel), the Oregon question, and the annexation of Texas. Texas had won its independence from Mexico in 1836, and its governor, as well as the majority of its inhabitants, were citizens of the United States. From a broad national standpoint it was in every way desirable that Texas, as well as Oregon, should belong to our Federal Union. In the eastern states there was certainly a failure to appreciate the value of Oregon, which was nevertheless claimed as indisputably our property. On the other hand, it was felt, by a certain element in South Carolina, that if the northern states were, to have ample room for expansion beyond the Rocky mountains, the southern states must have Texas added to their number as a counterpoise, or else the existence of slavery would be imperilled, and these fears were strengthened by the growth of anti-slavery sentiment at the north. The Whigs, who by reason of their tariff policy found their chief strength at the north, were disposed to avail themselves of this anti-slavery sentiment, and accordingly declared themselves opposed to the annexation of Texas. In the meantime the political pressure brought to bear upon Mr. Webster in Massachusetts induced resignation of his portfolio, and he was succeeded in the state department by Hugh S. Legare, 9 May, 1843. In a few weeks Legare was succeeded by Mr. Upshur, after whose death, on 28 February, 1844, the place was filled by John C. Calhoun. After a negotiation extending over two years, a treaty was concluded, 12 April, 1844, with the government of Texas, providing for annexation. The treaty was rejected by the Senate, by a vote of 35 to 16, all the Whigs and seven Democrats voting in the negative. Thus by the summer of 1844 the alliance between the Whig party and Mr. Tylers wing of the Democrats had passed away. At the same time the division among the Democrats, which had become marked during Jackson's administration, still continued; and while the opposition to Mr. Tyler was strong enough to prevent his nomination in the Democratic national convention, which met at Baltimore on 27 May, 1844, on the other hand he was able to prevent the nomination of Mr. Van Buren, who had declared himself opposed to the immediate annexation of Texas. The result was the nomination of James K. Polk, as a kind of compromise candidate, in so far as he belonged to the " loco-foco " wing of the party, but was at the same time in favor of annexation. On the same day, 27 May, another convention at Baltimore nominated Mr. Tyler for a second term. He accepted the nomination in order to coerce the Democrats into submitting to him and his friends a formal invitation to re-enter the ranks; and accordingly a meeting of Democrats at the Carleton house. New York, on fi August, adopted a series of resolutions commending the principal acts of his administration, and entreating that in the general interests of the opposition he should withdraw. In response to this appeal, Mr. Tyler accordingly withdrew his name. The northern opposition to the annexation of Texas seemed to have weakened the strength of the Whigs in the south, and their candidate, Henry Clay, declared himself willing to see Texas admitted at some future time. But this device cut both ways; for while it was popular in the south, and is supposed to have acquired for Clay many proslavery votes, carrying for him Tennessee, North Carolina, Delaware. and Maryland by bare majorities, it certainly led many anti-slavery Whigs to throw away their votes upon the "Liberty" candidate. James G. Birney, and thus surrender New York to the Democrats. The victory of the Democrats in November was reflected in the course pursued in the ensuing Congress. One of the party watchwords, in reference to the Oregon question, had been "fifty-four forty, or fight," and the House of Representatives now proceeded to pass a bill organizing a territorial government for Oregon up to that parallel of latitude. The Senate, however, laid the bill upon the table, because it prohibited slavery in the territory. A joint resolution for the annexation of Texas was passed by both houses. Proposals for prohibiting slavery there were defeated, and the affair was arranged by extending the Missouri compromise-line westward through the Texan territory to be acquired by the annexation. North of that line slavery was to be prohibited; south of it the question was to be determined by the people living on the spot. The resolutions were signed by President Tyler, and instructions in accordance therewith were despatched by him to Texas on the last day of his term of office, 3 March. 1845. The friends of annexation defended the constitutionality of this proceeding, and the opponents denounced it. After leaving the White House, Mr. Tyler took up his residence on an estate that he had purchased three miles from Greenway, on the bank of James River. To this estate he gave the name of "Sherwood Forest," and there he lived the rest of his life. (See illustration on page 196.) In a letter published in the Richmond "Enquirer" on 17 January, 1861, he recommended a convention of border states—including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, as well as Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri—for the purpose of devising some method of adjusting the difficulties brought on by the secession of South Carolina. The scheme adopted by this convention was to be submitted to the other states, and, if adopted, was to be incorporated into the Federal constitution. In acting upon Mr. Tyler's suggestion, the Virginia legislature enlarged it into a proposal of a peace convention to be composed of delegates from all the states. At the same time Mr. Tyler was appointed a commissioner to President Buchanan, while Judge John Robertson was appointed commissioner to the state of South Carolina, the object being to persuade both parties to abstain from any acts of hostility until the proposed peace convention should have had an opportunity to meet and discuss the situation. In discharge of this mission Mr. Tyler arrived on 21 January in Washington. President Buchanan declined to give any assurances, but in his message to Congress, on 28 January, he deprecated a hasty resort to hostile measures. The peace convention, consisting of delegates from thirteen northern and seven border states, met at Washington on 4 February and chose Mr. Tyler as its president. Several resolutions were adopted and reported to Congress, 27 February; but on 2 March they were rejected in the Senate by a vote of 28 to 7. and two days later the house adjourned without having taken a vote upon them. On 28 February, anticipating the fate of the resolutions in Congress, Mr. Tyler made a speech on the steps of the Exchange hotel in Richmond, and declared his belief that no arrangement could be made, and that nothing was left for Virginia but to act promptly in the exercise of her powers as a sovereign state. The next day he took his seat in the state convention, where he advocated the immediate passing of an ordinance of secession. His attitude seems to have been substantially the same that it had been twenty-eight years before, when he disapproved the heresy of nullification, but condemned with still greater emphasis the measures taken by President Jackson to suppress that heresy. This feeling that secession was unadvisable, but coercion wholly indefensible, was shared by Mr. Tyler with many people in the border states. On the removal of the government of the southern Confederacy from Montgomery to Richmond, in May, 1861, he was unanimously elected a member of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States. In the following autumn he was elected to the permanent congress, but he died before taking his seat. His biography has been ably written by one of his younger sons, Lyon Gardiner Tyler, "Letters and Times of the Tylers" (2 vols., Richmond, 1884-'5). See also "Seven Decades of the Union," by Henry A. Wise (Philadelphia, 1872).— His wife, Letitia Christian, born at Cedar Grove, New Kent Co., Virginia, 12 November, 1790; died in Washington, D. C, 9 September, 1842, was the daughter of Robert Christian, a planter in New Kent County, Virginia She married Mr. Tyler on 29 March, 1813, and moved with him to his home in Charles City County. When he became president she accompanied him to Washington; but her health was delicate, and she died shortly afterward. Mrs. Tyler was unable to assume any social cares, and the duties of mistress of the White House devolved upon her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Robert Tyler. She possessed great beauty of person and of character, and, before the failure of her health, was especially fitted for a social life.—Their son, Robert, born in New Kent County, Virginia, in 1818; died in Montgomery, Alabama, 3 December, 1877. was educated at William and Mary, and adopted the profession of law. He married Priscilla, a daughter of Thomas Apthorpe Cooper, the tragedian, in 1839, and when his father became president his wife assumed the duties of mistress of the White House till after Mrs. John Tyler's death, when they devolved upon her daughter, Mrs. Letitia Semple. Mr. Tyler moved to Philadelphia in 1843, practised law there, and held several civil offices. In 1844 he was elected president of the Irish repeal association. A little later he became prothonotary of the supreme court of Pennsylvania, and in 1858 he was chairman of the Democratic executive committee of the state. He moved to Richmond at the beginning of the Civil War, and was appointed register of the treasury. After the war he edited the "Mail and Advertiser" in Montgomery, Alabama He published " Ahasuerus," a poem (New York. 1842); "Death, or Medora's Dream." a poem (1843); "Is Virginia a Repudiating State? and the States' Guarantee," two letters (Richmond, Virginia, 1858).—President Tyler's second wife, Julia Gardiner, born on Gardiner's Island, near Easthampton, New York, in 1820, was the eldest daughter of David Gardiner, a descendant of the Gardiners of Gardiner's Island. She was educated at the Chegary Institute, New York City, spent several months in Europe, and in the winter of 1844 accompanied her father to Washington, D. C. A few weeks afterward he was killed by the explosion of a gun on the war-steamer "Princeton," which occurred during a pleasure excursion in which he and his daughter were of the presidential party. His body was taken to the White House, and Miss Gardiner, being thrown in the society of the president under these peculiar circumstances, became the object of his marked attention, which resulted in their marriage in New York City, 26 June, 1844. For the succeeding eight months she presided over the White House with dignity and grace, her residence there terminating with a birth-night ball on 22 February, 1845. Mrs. Tyler retired with her husband to "Sherwood Forest" in Virginia at the conclusion of his term, and after the Civil War resided for several years at her mother's residence on Castleton Hill, Staten Island, and subsequently in Richmond, Virginia She is a convert to Roman Catholicism, and devoted to the charities of that church.—Her son, Lyon Gardiner, born in Charles City County, Virginia, in August, 1853. was graduated at the University of Virginia in 1875. and then studied law. During his college course he was elected orator of the Jefferson society, and obtained a scholarship as best editor of the " Virginia University Magazine." In January, 1877. he was elected professor of belles-lettres in William and Mary College, which place he held until November, 1878, when he became head of a high-school in Memphis, Tennessee. He settled in Richmond, Virginia, in 1882, and entered on the practice of law, also taking an active interest in politics. He was a candidate for the house of delegates in 1885. and again in 1887, when he was elected. In that body ne advocated the bills to establish a labor bureau, to regulate child labor, and to aid William and Mary College. In 1888 he was elected president of William and Mary, which office he now fills. He has published "The Letters and Times of the Tylers " (2 vols., Richmond, 1884-'5). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 193-200.
TYLER, Robert Ogden, soldier, born in Greene County, New York, 22 December, 1831; died in Boston, Massachusetts, 1 December, 1874. When he was seven years old his parents took him to Hartford, Connecticut, and he was appointed from that state to the U. S. Military Academy, where he was graduated in 1853. He was assigned to the 3d U.S. Artillery, and served on frontier duty till the Civil War, being engaged against hostile Indians in the Spokane Expedition of 1858. In April, 1861, he was on the expedition to relieve Fort Sumter, and witnessed its bombardment, and on 17 May, after opening communication through Baltimore in command of a light battery, after the attack on the 6th Massachusetts Regiment, he was made assistant quartermaster with rank of captain, and served in the defences of Washington. On 20 August, at the special request of the Connecticut authorities, he was allowed by the war department to undertake the reorganization of the 4th Connecticut Regiment, which had become demoralized, and was commissioned its colonel. Under Colonel Tyler the regiment became one of the best in the army, and in January, 1862, it was made the 2d Connecticut Heavy Artillery. With it he took part in the Peninsular Campaign, and on 29 November, 1862, he was made brigadier-general of volunteers. At Fredericksburg, he had charge of the artillery of the centre grand division and was brevetted major for gallantry, and on 2 May, 1863, he was given command of the artillery reserve of the Army of the Potomac. In this capacity he did efficient service at Chancellorsville, at Gettysburg, where two horses were shot under him, and in the Rapidan Campaign. He was subsequently a division commander in the 22d Corps, covering Washington, and in May, 1864, was assigned a division of heavy artillery that acted as infantry. On 19 May, while on the extreme right in the actions about Spotsylvania, he drove back an attack of Ewell's corps, and was publicly thanked, with his men, by General Meade for " gallant conduct and brilliant success." At Cold Harbor, he led a brigade of picked regiments and received a severe wound in the ankle which lamed him for life and permanently shattered his constitution. He saw no more active service. At the close of the war he had received the brevets of lieutenant-colonel for Gettysburg, colonel for Spotsylvania, major-general of volunteers and brigadier-general, U. S. Army, for Cold Harbor, and major-general, U. S. array, for services throughout the war. The Connecticut legislature thanked him in a resolution, and the citizens of Hartford presented him with a sword. After the war General Tyler served as chief in the quartermaster's department successively at Charleston, Louisville, San Francisco, New York City, and Boston, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, pp. 200-201.
TYLER, Edward Royall, clergyman, born in Guilford, Vermont, in 1800; died in New Haven, Connecticut. 28 September, 1848, was graduated at Yale in 1825 and at the divinity-school in 1828. He was pastor of the South church in Middletown, Connecticut, from 1827 till 1832, and of the Congregational church in Colebrook. Connecticut, in 18336. In 1836-'7 he was agent of the American anti-slavery society. From 1838 till 1842 he was editor of the "Connecticut Observer," and he was the founder, editor, and proprietor of the " New Englander." Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 201.
TYNDALE, Hector, soldier, born in Philadelphia, 24 March. 1821: died there, 19 March, 1880. His father was a merchant engaged in the importation of china and glassware, and young Tyndale succeeded to the business in 1845, in partnership with his brother-in-law, Edward P. Mitchell. He made several tours of Europe, inspecting closely all the chief factories, and becoming practically familiar with the whole art of pottery. His natural taste, thus cultivated, made him a most expert connoisseur, and led to his selection in 1876 as one of the judges of that section of the Centennial exhibition, in which capacity he wrote the elaborate report on pottery. His private collection was one of the most complete in the country. He first became interested in politics in 1856 as a Free-Soiler, and was a member of the first Republican committee in Philadelphia. He was not an Abolitionist, and had neither knowledge of nor sympathy with John Brown's raid, but when Mrs. Brown came to Philadelphia on her way to pay her last visit to her husband and bring back his body after his execution, she was without escort and was believed to be in personal danger. An appeal was made to Tyndale, who at once accepted the risks and dangers of escorting her. In the course of this self-imposed duty he was subjected to insults and threats, and on the morning of the execution was shot at by an unseen assassin. It had been threatened in the more violent newspapers of the south that John Brown's body should not be restored to his friends, but ignommiously treated, and a "nigger's" body substituted for his friends. When the coffin was delivered to Tyndale by the authorities, he refused to receive it until it was opened and the body was identified. He was in Europe when he heard the news of the firing on Fort Sumter, and at once returned home and offered his services to the government. He was commissioned major of the 28th Pennsylvania Regiment in June, 1861, and in August was put in command of Sandy Hook, opposite Harper's Ferry. The regiment fought in twenty-four battles and nineteen smaller engagements, in all of which Tyndale took part, except when he was disabled by wounds. He was promoted to lieutenant-colonel in April, 1802, and served in General Nathaniel P. Banks's corps in the Shenandoah valley, under General John Pope at Chantilly and the second battle of Bull Run, and later in General Joseph K. F. Mansfield's corps. At Antietam as the senior officer, he commanded a brigade in General George S. Greene's division of the 12th Corps, holding the ground in front of the Dunker church against three separate assaults of the enemy, in which the brigade captured seven battle-flags and four guns. Early in the day he received a wound in the hip, but he kept the field until the afternoon, when he was struck in the head by a musket-ball and carried off the field. For "conspicuous gallantry, self-possession, and good judgment at Antietam" he was promoted to brigadier-general of volunteers, 29 November, 1862. After slow and partial recovery from his wounds he applied for active duty, and in May, 1863, was assigned to a brigade under General Erasmus D. Keyes near Yorktown. and served with the Army of the Potomac until September, when he was sent with General Joseph Hooker to the relief of Chattanooga. In the battle of Wauhatchie he carried by a bayonet charge a hill (subsequently known as Tyndale's hill), thus turning the flank of the enemy and relieving General John W. Geary's division from an assault by superior numbers. He also participated in the series of battles around Chattanooga, and in the march to the relief of Knoxville. He was sent home on sick-leave in May, 1864, and, finding his disability likely to be lasting, he resigned in August. In March, 1865, he was brevetted major-general of volunteers for gallant and meritorious services during the war. In 1868 he was the Republican nominee for mayor of Philadelphia, and was defeated by 68 votes in a poll of more than 120,000. In 1872 his kinsman. Professor John Tyndall of London, delivered a series of lectures in this country, and resolving to devote the proceeds to the establishment of a fund "for the promotion of science in the United States by the support in European universities or elsewhere of American pupils who may evince decided talents in physics," he appointed General Tyndale with Professor Joseph Henry and Dr. Edward L. Youmans trustees. Professor Tyndall in 1885 changed the trust and established three scholarships, in Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania. The last-named institution called its share the Hector Tyndale scholarship in physics. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 202.
TYNER, James Noble, postmaster-general, born in Brookville, Indiana, 17 January, 1826. He was graduated at Brookville Academy in 1844, and from 1846 till 1854 was associated with his father in business. He then studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1857, and practised in Peru, Indiana He was secretary of the Indiana Senate in 1857-'61, a presidential elector in 1860, and from 1861 till 1866 served as a special agent of the post-office department. He was chosen to Congress as a Republican, to fill the vacancy caused by the election of Daniel D. Pratt to the U. S. Senate, and served from 1869 till 1875, being a member of the committees on appropriations and post-offices. President Grant then appointed him second assistant postmaster-general, and from the resignation of Marshall Jewell till the end of Grant's administration, 3 March. 1877, he was postmaster-general. In April, 1877, he became first assistant postmaster-general, which office he resigned in October. 1881. Mr. Tyner was the delegate from the United States to the International Postal Congress in Paris in 1878. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. VI, p. 202.
