Alc-And: Alcott through Andrus

See below for annotated biographies of American abolitionists and anti-slavery activists. Sources include: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography and Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography.


ALCOTT, Amos Bronson, 1799-1888, abolitionist, educator, writer, philosopher, reformer.  Opposed the Mexican American War and the extension of slavery into Texas.  His home was a station on the Underground Railroad.  His second daughter was noted author Louisa May Alcott, who was also opposed to slavery.  Friend of abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips. 

(Baker, 1996; Bedell, 1980; Dahlstrand, 1982; Matteson, 2007; Schreiner, 2006)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 1, pp. 139-141)

ALCOTT, AMOS BRONSON (November 29, 1799- March 4, 1888), educator, author, mystic, was the most transcendental of the Transcendentalists. His father was Joseph Chatfield Alcox, a corruption of Alcocke, the name borne by the earliest definitely known ancestor, who came to Massachusetts in 1630 with the elder Winthrop. His mother was Anna Bronson, a daughter of Amos Bronson, a Connecticut sea-captain. Alcott, who owed the spelling of his surname to his own choice, was born on a large farm at Spindle Hill near Wolcott, Connecticut, in the same log-house in which his father was born before him. His formal education was of the meagerest, derived mainly from the district school and a few months of private instruction under two clergymen of the neighborhood. He desired to go to Yale, but being the eldest of eight children felt that he must help support the family,-although throughout life he always turned out to be a financial liability rather than asset to those w horn he would benefit. At nineteen he went to Virginia, hoping to teach school, but failing to secure a position he took up peddling. For four and a half years he offered his wares to Virginia and the Carolinas with as scant success as he was later to meet in offering ideas to the North. But his time was not wasted. To the example of the Virginia planters he owed something of the courtliness of manner for which he was later noted, and to the North Carolina Quakers he owed that faith in individual inspiration which became the corner-stone of his life and work. In March and April 1823 he read Penn, Barclay, Fox, Clarkson, and Law, and soon returned to New England with his mind bent on higher things than peddling.

The next ten years established Alcott's lifelong habit of spiritual success and temporal failure, the one largely the cause of the other. They were years of teaching-in the small Connecticut towns of Bristol, Wolcott, and Cheshire (1823-27), in Boston (1828-30), and in Germantown, Pennsylvania (1831-33). Although recognized as personally an able teacher, he worked out an educational program too far in advance of anything then known in America for it to be permissible. It was directed toward the harmonious development of the physical esthetic, intellectual, and moral natures, with especial emphasis on the imagination. To this end Alcott introduced in his schools organized play, gymnastics, the honor system, and juvenile libraries; minimized corporal punishment; beautified the school-rooms; and presented instruction and study as activities pleasant in themselves rather than as the means to discipline or acquisition of learning. These extraordinary changes everywhere aroused doubts of the schoolmaster's fitness, which were increased by only too well-founded suspicions of religious heresy. In fact, during this period, Alcott was writing in his diary: "I hold that the Christian religion is the best yet promulgated, but do not thence infer that it is not susceptible of improvement; nor do I wish to confound its doctrines with its founder, and to worship one of my fellow-beings." Such sentiments, however guardedly expressed, were highly offensive to the majority of Alcott's countrymen and together with his radical educational views were sufficient to defeat his work.

The situation was made no easier by the development of Alcott's general philosophy. His stay in Germantown was marked by the reading of Plato and Coleridge, under whose influence, later intensified by that of the Neo-Platonists, Alcott reached an extreme transcendental idealism which viewed the world as the visionary creation of the fallen soul of man, itself a distant emanation of the deity. The notion of preexistence, which most of the transcendentalists merely played with, became to Alcott a fundamental tenet. Spirit, temporarily imprisoned in the illusions of matter, could be freed, he thought, through its intuitive self-knowledge and utter devotion to its own inspirations. This philosophy Alcott integrated thoroughly with his personality, and without being given to trance or vision he lived in a state of quiet ecstasy which illuminated his whole being. Lacking all sense of humor, he was never willing, like Emerson, to compromise in the slightest degree with facts.

Thus when he opened a new school in the Masonic Temple in Boston on Sept, 22, 1834, it was of even more radical character than his previous ones. To his earlier reforms he now added great emphasis upon moral education cultivated by a conversational method of question and answer through which he endeavored to elicit from the children those rational ethical ideas which he believed innate in every one. The method was open to criticism as tending to develop habits of introspection far too early, but it was not this point which eventually aroused the wrath of Boston. The Record of a School, Exemplifying the General Principles of Spiritual Culture (1835), judiciously edited by Alcott's assistant, Elizabeth Peabody, was followed by Conversations with Children on the Gospels, Volume I (1836), Volume II (1837), less judiciously edited by Alcott himself. These works made it all too plain that Alcott was stimulating his pupils to independent thinking in religious matters. A single passage, however, constituted the cardinal offense: "A mother suffers when she has a child. When she is going to have a child, she gives up her body to God, and he works upon it, in a mysterious way, and with her aid, brings forth the Child's Spirit in a little Body of its own" (Conversations, I, 229). This modes t attempt to supplant the legend of the stork was promptly stigmatized as blasphemous and obscene by two prominent Boston newspapers, the Daily Advertiser and the Courier. Replies in Alcott's support by Emerson and James Freeman Clarke proved of no avail, and the attendance at the school dropped to one-third of its former numbers. Alcott fell deeply in debt, to cover which the furniture and school library were sold at auction in April 1837. The school itself lingered on, moving about from place to place until 1839 when it finally gave up the ghost owing to the refusal of various parents to permit their children to associate with a young colored girl who had been admitted.

He had married on May 23, 1830, Abigail May, sister of a distinguished Unitarian clergyman, and he was now the impoverished father of a growing family. Early in March 1840 the Alcotts moved their few belongings to Concord, where they took a small cottage at an annual rental of $50; with it went an acre of ground which Alcott proposed to till. The spectacle of a philosopher at the plough was very inspiring to Channing and others of Alcott's friends but less so to Alcott himself. Constant attendance at innumerable reform meetings-anti-slavery, vegetarian, temperance- interfered with his success as a farmer. For several years he had been in correspondence with a group of Englishmen, James Pierrepont Greaves, John Heraud, Charles Lane, and Henry Wright, who had founded near London a school which they called "Alcott House," and on May 8, 1842, with money supplied by Emerson, Alcott set sail to visit his spiritual offspring. He remained in England until October, during which time he had two interviews with Carlyle, who was plainly bored but sent to Emerson this immortal description: "The good Alcott; with his long, lean face and figure, with his gray worn temples and mild, radiant eyes; all bent on saving the world by a return to acorns and the golden age; he comes before one like a venerable Don Quixote, whom nobody can laugh at without loving." Alcott returned to America with a large collection of books on mysticism and with three living mystics, Henry Wright, Charles Lane, and his son William, who were to form the nucleus of a Utopian community.

The numerous cooperative communities which sprang up in America during the decade 1830-40 were largely inspired by a hatred of industrialism with its accompanying over-specialization and by a determination to return to larger and simpler modes of living. Their ultimate intent was sane, but they were ruined by the eccentricities so likely to develop in small minority movements. Of them all, however, none failed so swiftly and ignominiously as Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands. During the winter of 1843-44 he kept Wright and the Lanes at his house in Concord, where they worked out the plans for the new enterprise. In the spring Lane invested all his savings (about $2,000) in a hundred-acre tract near the village of Harvard, thirty miles south of Boston. Thither the party moved in June 1844. Others joined the community from time to time during the summer; at its largest it embraced eleven persons, for all of whom Mrs., Alcott acted as an unbelieving but faithful slave. The organization was based on strictly vegetarian principles; the eating of flesh, fish, or fowl, eggs, milk, cheese, or butter was forbidden; the labor of horses was dispensed with; the use of manure was disdained. In his zeal for spirituality, Alcott is said to have drawn a distinction between the "aspiring vegetables" which grow upward and those degraded forms which burrow in the earth; the former alone received the doubtful compliment of being eaten. The crops were planted late and carelessly; at harvest time the men left to attend a reform meeting, and Mrs. Alcott and her daughters rescued what they could from an impending storm. By winter 0the Lanes and Alcotts, sole remaining members of the community, were on the brink of starvation. In January 1845 the undertaking was finally abandoned.

The Alcotts returned to Concord to continue their long war with poverty, not to be ended until 1868, when the success of Little Women by Louisa M. Alcott [q.v.] placed her parents in comfortable circumstances. During the intervening years, in Concord 1845-47, in Boston 1848-54, in Walpole, New Hampshire, 1855-57, and again in Concord after 1857, the family was supported mainly by the efforts of Mrs. Alcott and Louisa in sewing, teaching, or domestic service, supplemented by the assistance of various friends. Meanwhile Alcott gradually developed a system of attractive but not particularly remunerative "conversations"-informal lectures and discussions-with which after 1853 he repeatedly toured the old Northwest. He was a brilliant, though rambling, talker, somewhat after the manner of Coleridge. On one occasion when Theodore Parker was present, he asked Alcott to define his terms. "Only God defines," replied the seer, "man can but confine." "Well, then, will you please confine," said Parker. But Alcott refused to confine or be confined; he soared above rational distinctions in the true mystic manner. Only in the field of education was he ever able to harness his inspiration to a definite program. Appointed superintendent of the dozen, schools of Concord in 1859, he introduced into the curriculum singing, calisthenics, and the study of physiology, and advocated the introduction of dancing, hours of directed conversation, and a course of readings aloud. He organized an informal parent-teachers club. His three school reports were models of sane educational thinking. In 1879 the Concord Summer School of Philosophy and Literature was modestly started in Alcott's library. Later it was more adequately housed and continued to flourish as a center of belated transcendentalism until his death in 1888. Alcott's direct service in connection with it terminated in 1882, as on October 24, while writing two sonnets on Immortality, he was stricken with paralysis from which he never fully recovered.

Alcott's publications included Observations on the Principles and Methods of Infant Instruction (1830); The Doctrine and Discipline of Human Culture (1836); the mystical "Orphic Sayings" contributed to the Dial (1840); Tablets (1868); Concord Days (1872); Table Talk (1877); New Connecticut, a poetical autobiography covering his boyhood and youth (privately printed in 1881, published1887); Sonnets and Canzonets, in memory of his wife, who died in 1877 (1882); Ralph Waldo Emerson (privately printed in 1865, revised and published in 1882, together with Alcott's finest poem, "Ion"). Alcott's verse has ease and melody, while his prose, at its best, possesses an oracular quality almost equal to that of Emerson. But he was never able for long to communicate the glow of his personality to the printed page, and his writings as a whole are undoubtedly tedious. Hence a later generation has been at a loss to account for his influence over such men as Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Channing, and W. T. Harris. The loftiness which they found in his serene unworldly spirit can now only be glimpsed, as it were, between the lines; while it is also between, not in, his deeds, that one senses a nature much too sweet and simple for this complex world.

[F. B. Sanborn and W. T. Harris, A. Bronson Alcott, His Life and Philosophy (1893),containing copious excerpts from Alcott's letters and diary; R. W. Emerson, sketch in the New American Cyclopedia (1858); Clara Endicott Sears, Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands(1915), containing also a reprint of Transcendental Wild Oats by Louisa M. Alcott, whose personal animus against Lane is to be discounted; a brief but exceptionally discriminating estimate of Alcott by H.C. Goddard in Cambridge History of American Lit. (1917), I, 336-39; a more diffuse but still valuable discussion by O.B. Frothingham, Transcendentalism in New England (1876),ch. X; a sympathetic account of Alcott's educational career by Honore Willsie Morrow, The Father of Little Women (1927).]

E.S.B.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, pp. 40-41;

ALCOTT, Amos Bronson, educator, born in Wolcott, Connecticut, 29 Nov., 1799. His father was a farmer. While yet a boy he was provided with a trunk of various merchandise, and set out to make his way in the south. He landed at Norfolk, Virginia, and went among the plantations, talking with the people and reading their books. They liked him as a companion, and were glad to hold discussions with him on intellectual subjects. They would keep him under their roofs for weeks, reading and conversing, while he forgot all about his commercial duties. But when he returned to the north his employer discovered he had not sold five dollars' worth of his stock. He relinquished his trade in 1823, and established an infant school, which immediately attracted attention. His method of teaching was by conversation, not by books. In 1828 he went to Boston and established another school, showing singular skill and sympathy in his methods of teaching young children. His success caused him to be widely known, and a sketch of him and his methods, under the title of “A Record of Mr. Alcott's School,” by E. P. Peabody, was published in Boston in 1834 (3d ed., revised, 1874). This was followed in 1836 by a transcript of the colloquies of the children with their teacher, in “Conversations with Children on the Gospel.” His school was so far in advance of the thought of the day that it was denounced by the press, and as a result he gave it up and removed to Concord, Massachusetts, where he devoted himself to the study of natural theology, reform in education, diet, and civil and social institutions. In order to disseminate his reformatory views more thoroughly, he went upon the lecture platform, where he was an attractive speaker, and his personal worth and originality of thought always secured him a respectful hearing. In 1842 he went to England, on the invitation of James P. Greaves, of London, the friend and fellow-laborer of Pestalozzi in Switzerland. Before his arrival Mr. Greaves died, but Mr. Alcott was cordially received by Mr. Greaves's friends, who had given the name of “Alcott House” to their school at Ham, near London. On his return to America, he brought with him two English friends, Charles Lane and H. G. Wright. Mr. Lane bought an estate near Harvard, in Worcester county, Massachusetts, which he named “Fruitlands,” and there all went for the purpose of founding a community, but the enterprise was a failure. Messrs. Lane and Wright soon returned to England, and the property was sold. Mr. Alcott removed to Boston, and afterward returned to Concord. He has since then led the life of a peripatetic philosopher, conversing in cities and villages, wherever invited, on divinity, human nature, ethics, dietetics, and a wide range of practical questions. These conversations, which were at first casual, gradually assumed a more formal character. The topics were often printed on cards, and the company met at a fixed time and place. Of late years they have attracted much attention. Mr. Alcott has all through his life attached great importance to diet and government of the body, and still more to race and complexion. He has been regarded as a leader in the transcendental style of thought, but in later years has been claimed as a convert to orthodox Christianity. He has published “Tablets” (1868); “Concord Days,” personal reminiscences of the town (1872); “Table Talk” (1877); and “Sonnets and Canzonets” (1877), besides numerous contributions to periodical literature, including papers entitled “Orphic Sayings” in “The Dial” (Boston, 1839-'42). After taking up his residence in Concord, he allowed the peculiarities of his mind to find expression in quaint and curious arrangement of his grounds. The fence enclosing them, built entirely by himself, is made wholly of pine boughs, knotted, gnarled, and twisted in every conceivable shape, no two pieces being alike. They seem to be the result of many years of fragmentary collection in his walks. The engraving presented on the previous page is a view of Mr. Alcott's home in Concord, Massachusetts. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888.


ALCOTT, Louisa May, 1832-1888, writer, opponent of slavery, feminist.  Author of Little Women: Or Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy (1868).  Daughter of abolitionist Amos Bronson Alcott. Their home was a station on the Underground Railroad. 

(Eisenlein, 2001; MacDonald, 1983; Saxton, 1977).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 1, pp.

ALCOTT, LOUISA MAY (November 29, 1832- March 6, 1888), author, was the second daughter of Amos Bronson Alcott [q.v.] and Abigail (May) Alcott. She was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, but her childhood and youth were passed mainly in Boston and Concord, Massachusetts. She obtained her education almost entirely from her father, although Thoreau was an early instructor, and she received friendly guidance and inspiration from Emerson and Theodore Parker. At the age of sixteen she began to write for publication, and produced her first book, Flower Fables, which was not published for six years. In her efforts to assist her family she tried teaching, sewing, and even domestic service. At the age of seventeen, having shown some talent in amateur theatricals, she contemplated a stage career. "I like tragic plays, and shall be a Siddons if I can," she confided to her diary (Cheney, p. 63). She wrote a number of melodramatic plays, such as The Bandit's Bride and The Captive of Castile; or, The Moorish Maiden's Vow, one of which, The Rival Prima Donnas was accepted by Barry of the Boston Theatre, but never produced. She had more success, however, with poems and short stories and by 1860 her work began to be published in the Atlantic Monthly. During the Civil War she became a nurse in the Union Hospital at Georgetown where she rendered efficient service until her health broke down. Her letters to her family, in a revised form and under the title "Hospital Sketches," were published by Frank B. Sanborn in the Commonwealth in 1863 and later in the same year brought out in book form. They excited widespread interest, and were followed, in 1864, by her first novel Moods. In 1865 she visited Europe, and on this trip made the acquaintance of a Polish youth, who was the original of Laurie in Little Women. In 1867 she became editor of Merry's Museum, a magazine for children.

The first volume of Little Women, founded on her own family life, was written in 1868; its success was immediate and its popularity so great that she promptly produced a second volume (1869); both were translated into several languages and had a phenomenal sale. From this time she was able to make her family financially independent. In 1870 An Old Fashioned Girl was published and she again visited Europe. It was during this sojourn that Little Men (1871) was written. Work (1873), which recounts her own early experience, was followed by Eight Cousins (1875); Rose in Bloom (1876); Silver Pitchers (1876); A Modern Mephistopheles (1877); Under the Lilacs (1878),written during her mother's last illness; Jack and Jill (1880); Aunt] Jo' s Scrap-Bag (6 volumes, 1872-82); Proverb Stories (1882); Spinning-Wheel Stories (1884); Lulu's Library (3 volumes, 1886-89); Jo's Boys (1886); and A Garland for Girls (1888). Much of her work was done in Boston where the climate suited her better than in Concord; there she spent her last years, and wrote her final books. She died on March 6, 1888, two days after the death of her father. In appearance she was striking, her well-proportioned figure indicating strength and activity. She possessed ardent sympathies. A born champion of persons and causes dear to her heart, she espoused both woman's suffrage and the temperance movement. Literature was to her always a means to moral edification rather than anesthetic end in itself. Nevertheless, her books, after half a century, still retain their appeal to youthful readers. Their charm lies in their freshness, humor, and true understanding of the feelings and pursuits of boys and girls. Her characters are full of the buoyant, free, and hopeful spirit characteristic of their creator.

[Ednah D. Cheney, Louisa May Alcott, Her Life, Letters, and Journals (1889); Maria S. Porter, Recollections of Louisa M. Alcott, etc. (1893); F. B. Sanborn, Recollections of Seventy Years (1909); Clara Endicott Sears, Fruitlands (1915); Gamaliel Bradford, Portraits of American Women (1919).]

C. T.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 41;

ALCOTT, Louisa May, author, born in Germantown, now a part of Philadelphia, 29 Nov., 1832. She is a daughter of Amos Bronson Alcott. When she was about two years of age her parents removed to Boston, and in her eighth year to Concord, Massachusetts. At the age of eleven she was brought under the influence of the community that endeavored to establish itself near Harvard, in Worcester county Thoreau was for a time her teacher; but she was instructed mainly by her father. She began to write for publication at the age of sixteen, but with no marked success for fifteen years. During that time she devoted ten years to teaching. In 1862 she went to Washington as a volunteer nurse, and for many months labored in the military hospitals. At this time she wrote to her mother and sisters letters containing sketches of hospital life and experience, which on her return were revised and published in book form (Boston, 1863), and attracted much attention. In 1866 she went to Europe to recuperate her health, which had been seriously impaired by her hospital work, and on her return in 1867 she wrote “Little Women,” which was published the following year, and made her famous. The sales in less than three years amounted to 87,000 copies. Her characters are drawn from life, and are full of the buoyant, free, hopeful New England spirit which marks her own enthusiastic love for nature, freedom, and life. Her other stories are conceived in the same vein, and have been almost equally popular. They are: “Flower Fables or Fairy Tales” (Boston, 1855); '”Hospital Sketches,” her first book, now out of print, reissued with other stories (1869); “An Old-Fashioned Girl” (1869); “Little Men” (1871); a series called “Aunt Jo's Scrap Bag” (1871-'82), containing “My Boys,” “Shawl Straps,” “Cupid and Chow-Chow,” “My Girls,” “Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore,” and “An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving”; “Work, A Story of Experience” (1873); “Eight Cousins” (1874); “Rose in Bloom” (1876); “Silver Pitchers” (1876); “Under the Lilacs” (1878); “Jack and Gill” (1880); “Moods” (1864), reissued in a revised edition (1881); “Proverb Stories” (1882); “Spinning- Wheel Stories” (1884); “Lulu's Library,” the first of a new series (1885). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888.


ALDEN, Joseph W., 1807-1885, educator, clergyman, writer

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 42.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 1, pp. 147-148.)

ALDEN, JOSEPH (January 4, 1807-August 30, 1885), educator, author, began his career as a teacher at the age of fourteen in a district school and finished it with a fifteen-year term as principal of a normal school, having been in the meantime a professor and college president. He was a descendant in the sixth generation of John Alden of Plymouth, and was born in Cairo, New York, the son of Eliab and Mary (Hathaway)Alden. He entered Brown University but transferred to Union College, where he graduated in 1829 (Union University Centennial Catalogue, 1795-1895, elsewhere given as 1828). For two years he studied at Princeton Theological Seminary and was subsequently a tutor at Princeton. In 1834 he was ordained pastor of the Congregational Church, Williamstown, Massachusetts, but resigned after a few months to accept a professorship at Williams College. Thereafter, although acting as a supply and as college pastor, he gave his entire time to educational work and writing. At Williams, where he served from 1835 to 1852, he was first professor of Latin, and then of English language and literature, political economy, and history. In the latter year he accepted the chair of mental and moral philosophy at Lafayette College, leaving there in 1857 to take the presidency of Jefferson College, which office he held for five years. From 1867 to 1882 he was principal of the State Normal School at Albany, New York. He was twice married: first, in 1834, to Isabella, daughter of Reverend Gilbert R. Livingston; and second, June 30, 1882, to Amelia, daughter of George W. Daly, of Tompkinsville, Staten Island. He left a son, William Livingston Alden[q.v.].

He was more highly regarded as a teacher than as an administrator and was best-known perhaps as an author. His success in the class-room was largely due to his ability to clarify a subject quickly and reveal the essential facts. A clear thinker himself, he trained his students to think logically. For generalities or splurge he had no tolerance, and was likely to make one who indulged in them feel ridiculous. His lesser success as an official was due to the impression of impatience and condescension he gave to those who had dealings with him, his habit of pointing out errors for the pleasure of correcting them, and a tendency to lose his balance and make ill advised remarks. "He was a man of fine presence, about five feet ten inches tall, and well-proportioned, with massive head well-rounded, hair a little thinned on top and turned to iron grey, and whiskers of the Burnside order" (J. W. Wightman, History of the Jefferson College Class of 1860, l9II).

His published writings, which number more than seventy, disclose tireless industry and a wide range of interests. They are chiefly of a didactic nature, many of them books for Sunday-school libraries, others intended to be used in the classroom. His was the practical type of mind and he wrote with a view to getting results in every-day life, whether his subject was philosophy, government, or religion. Among these writings are: The Aged Pilgrim (1846); Alice Gordon, or the Uses of Orphanage (1847); The Lawyer's Daughter (1847); Anecdotes of the Puritans (1849); Christian Ethics (1866); Elements of Intellectual Philosophy (1866); Elizabeth Benton, or Religion in Connection with Fashionable Life (1846); The Example of Washington Commended to the Young (1846); The Jewish Washington, or Lessons in Patriotism and Piety Suggested by the History of Nehemiah (1846); Studies in Bryant, with introduction by W. C. Bryant (1876); A Textbook of Ethics (1867); Thoughts on the Religious Life, with introduction by W. C. Bryant (1879); Self-Education: What to Do and How to Dolt (1880); First Principles of Political Economy (1879); Introduction to the Use of the English Language (1875); Science of Government (1866); Normal Class Outlines (1900).

[Calvin Durfee, Williams Biography Annals (1871); General Catalog Williams Col1ege (1910); Princeton Theol. Seminary Necr. Report, 1886; An Historical Sketch of the State Normal College at Albany, New York, 1844-1894; New York. Herald, New York Tribune August 31, 1885; New York Observer, September 3, 1885.]

H.E.S.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 42.

ALDEN, Joseph, educator, born in Cairo, New York, 4 January, 1807; died in New York, 30 Aug., 1885. At the age of fourteen he began teaching in a public school and showed great ability in this direction. He was graduated at Union college in 1829, and studied at Princeton theological seminary, where for two years he was tutor. In 1834 he was ordained pastor of the Congregational church in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and subsequently (1835-'52) became professor of Latin, and then of rhetoric and political economy, in Williams college. Prom 1852 to 1857 he was professor of mental and moral philosophy at Lafayette college. In 1857 he became president of Jefferson college, and from 1867 to 1872 he was principal of the Albany, New York., normal school. He was a prolific writer, and prepared more than 70 volumes, mostly Sunday-school literature. Among his works are “The Example of Washington,” “Citizen's Manual,” “Christian Ethics,” “The Science of Government,” “Elements of Intellectual Philosophy,” and “First Steps in Political Economy.” He was also a constant contributor to periodical literature and for some time editor of the New York "Observer” and of the Philadelphia “Christian Library.” Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 42.


ALDIS, Asa, St. Albans, Vermont, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1835-37


ALKINSON, Stanwood,   Boston, Massachusetts, abolitionist, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1855-1860


ALLAN, William T., 1810-1882, born in Tennessee, Alabama, clergyman, abolitionist leader, Oberlin College, Illinois, anti-slavery agent.  His father, John Allan, was a pastor in Huntsville, Alabama, who owned 15 slaves.  John Allan supported the Colonization movement and was a member and co-founder of the Alabama Society for the Emancipation of Slavery.  William Allan became a Lecturing Agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS).  Charter Member of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society in April 1835.  He graduated from Oberlin College in 1836.  He lectured in New York, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois.  He organized chapters of the new Liberty Party in Iowa and Illinois in 1840.  His home in Illinois was a station on the Underground Railroad.  His father died in 1843, and freed his slaves in his will.

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 92-93, 160-164, 185-186; Filler, 1960, p. 68)


ALLEN, Abram, Clinton C., Ohio, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1843-52


ALLEN, Abram, Putnam County, Ohio, Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1838-39


ALLEN, Albert G., Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Treasurer, 1835-36


ALLEN, Charles, Worcester, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Vice-President, 1850


ALLEN, Reverend George, 1808-1876, Worcester, Massachusetts, educator, theologian, anti-slavery agent.  Lectured extensively against slavery.

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 187, 285, 393n20; Rice, 1883; Zilversmit, Arthur. The First Emancipation: The Abolition of Slavery in the North. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967, pp. 99, 104, 153; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 52.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 1, pp. 190-191.)

ALLEN, GEORGE (December 17, 1808-May 28, 1876), educator, Episcopal clergyman, author, was the son of Sarah (Prentiss) Allen and Heman Allen, a successful lawyer, distinguished judge, and member of Congress. Though born at Milton, Vermont, George Allen considered himself "a native of Burlington." His first steps toward scholarship followed a well-marked path. "My earliest instruction in Greek and Latin," he wrote, "was given partly by students in my father's office, by students of the University of Vermont, such as may have happened to keep our district school of winters, and partly by the principal of an academy at Burlington ... " (Penn Monthly, August 1876,p.648). At sixteen he was sent to Canada, where he studied French in the household of Father Consigny and acquired a sympathetic understanding of Roman Catholicism. In 1823 he entered the University of Vermont, where, he wrote, "the classical instruction was at fir st miserable, contemptible .... My best studies I made by myself ... " (Ibid., p. 649). Nevertheless he was influenced by Robertson, Porter, and Marsh, the latter, particularly, awakening his interest in Coleridge, Wordsworth, and the German Romanticists. He graduated in 1827.

He began his teaching in an academy at Georgia, Vermont. Of this experience he later wrote, "You will la ugh to hear me say that I even taught Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, quite furiously." From 1828 to 1830 he filled a vacancy in Languages, which was the occasion for beginning serious classical study. He said, "I did five years' reading during those eighteen months." During 1830 he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 183r. On July 7 of the same year he married Mary Hancock Withington. After his father was elected to Congress, he gave some attention to the law office, but soon slighted it for a newly awakened interest in religion and the church. In 1832 he was confirmed and began to study Hebrew and theology, while he taught classics at the Vermont Episcopal Institute. In May 1834 he was ordained and began to preach. Because of ill health, the strenuous combination of two professions was relinquished, and he accepted the rectors hip of a church in St. Albans, where he spent three happy and significant years. With the practise in sermon writing, he experienced a "reawakening of a literary spirit, more intense and enthusiastic . . . than I had ever known before .... " The reawakening bore fruit in an article, "The Study of Works of Genius," published in the New York Review, and in his justly celebrated "Critical Review" of McVickar's edition of Coleridge's Aids to Reflection (Churchman, March 7 to May 9, 1840).

In 1837 he returned to teaching, and continued in that profession till his death. For eight years he was professor of Languages in Delaware College, whence he was called in 1845 to the chair of Latin and Greek at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1864 he was made professor of Greek. About the middle of the century a movement began having as its objective a greater university with curtailment of the college. This found expression in a much-discussed "Letter and By Laws," reported by the trustees November 3, 1852. To the views of the letter and its proposals Allen raised vigorous objections in a closely reasoned statement covering twenty-one pages. In 1847 he startled, and even alienated, some of his friend s by becoming a Catholic. This sudden and superficially inexplicable change was due to several factors,-notably, his life and study in the household of Father Consigny, the secession of a number of the Oxford group to join the Roman church, and the fact that he had defended Mr. Hoyt, former associate and close friend, who had taken a similar action a year earlier. Allen served, for a time, as counsel in Philadelphia for Pope Pius IX.

Besides classical literature, Allen cultivated an interest in music, chess, and military science. His published works include The Remains of W. S. Graham (1849); The Life of Philidor (1863); The History of the Automaton Chess Player in America (1859), and many articles for the United States Service Magazine, edited by Coppee. His chess collection, about 1,000 volumes, was the best in the United States when, at his death, it was purchased by the Library Company of Philadelphia. Though his scholarly attainments were well known and recognized by such men as Hadley, Felton, and Woolsey, he published no contribution to classical scholarship. As a teacher, how ever, he had few rivals. His colleagues united in saying of him: "He wanted no one of the qualities of the finished gentleman, the polished scholar, the efficient instructor... he taught with brilliant success ... [and] as a scholar, especially in Greek literature, he combined the nicest accuracy with a broad range of attainment. " (Penn Monthly, July 1876, p. 574).

[The best accounts of George Allen are: An Autobiographical Fragment, in the Penn Missouri, August 1876; a sketch by R. E. Thompson, Penn Missouri, July 1876; and W. G. Smith's George Allen: An Address to the Society of Alumni of the University of Pennsylvania., June 13, 1900. The Archives of the University of Pennsylvania, especially 1849-64, contain significant letters, which, with unpublished essays and lectures, help to form an accurate estimate of his work. For family hist. see C. J. F. Binney, History and Genealogy of the Prentice, or Prentiss, Family in New England (1 883), p. 306.]

T.W.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 52.

ALLEN, George, educator, born in Milton, Vt., 17 Dec., 1808; died in Worcester, Massachusetts, 28 May, 1876. He was graduated at the university of Vermont in 1827, studied law, and was admitted to practice in 1831. Subsequently he studied theology, and from 1834 to 1837 was rector of an Episcopal church at St. Albans, Vt. In 1837 he became professor of ancient languages in Delaware college, Newark, Delaware, and in 1845 professor of ancient languages, and then of Greek alone, in the university of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Prof. Allen published a “Life of Philidor,” the chess-player (Philadelphia, 1863). In 1847 he became a Catholic. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 52.


ALLEN, James, Bangor, Maine, Church Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1861-64


ALLEN, John, clergyman, opposed slavery. 

(Sinha, 2016, pp. 117, 222)


ALLEN, John, Seedoud, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Vice President, 1839-40


ALLEN, Moses, New York, New York, American Colonization Society, Vice-President, 1833-1841. 
(Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961)


ALLEN, Richard, 1760-1831, clergyman, free African American, former slave.  Founder, Free African Society, in 1787.  Founded Bethel African Methodist Church (AME) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1794. 

(Allen, 1983; Conyers, 2000; Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 170, 328-329; George, 1973; Hammond, 2011, p. 75; Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 133, 187; Nash, Gary B., & Soderlund, Jean R. Freedom by Degrees: Emancipation in Pennsylvania and Its Aftermath. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991, pp. 127, 160, 171, 182, 193, 198-199; Payne, 1981; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 25, 26, 28, 156-160, 294-295, 559-560; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, pp. 54-55.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 1, pp. 204-205.) 

ALLEN, RICHARD (February 14, 1760-March26, 1831), founder and first bishop of the African ' Methodist Episcopal Church, was born a slave in Philadelphia, and at an early age was sold to a farmer near Dover, Delaware. Reaching manhood at the time of the increasing toleration and religious liberty granted such sects as the Quakers, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists, he early manifested interest in religion. He was converted under the influence of the Methodists and immediately became a religious worker. Impressed with his deep piety, his master permitted Allen to conduct religious services in his home, was himself converted at one of the meetings, and made it possible for Allen and his family to obtain their freedom. Allen educated himself by private study. While working at such occupations as wood-cutting and hauling he embraced every opportunity for preaching to both whites and blacks. He traveled through various parts of Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland; and at the meeting of the first general conference of the Methodist Church in Baltimore, in 1784, was accepted by that hierarchy as a minister of promise. He then traveled with Richard Watcoat and Bishop Asbury, who gave him appointments to preach. Coming to Philadelphia in 1786, he was asked to preach occasionally at the St. George Methodist Church. He began also to conduct prayer-meetings among his own people. He immediately thought of making a special appeal to the negroes by establishing for them a separate place of worship, but both the whites and the blacks objected. When, however, the forceful preaching of Allen attracted to the church a large number of negroes, the white members objected to their presence, pulled them from their knees one Sunday when in an attitude of prayer, and ordered them to the gallery. Rather than submit to the insult, the negroes withdrew and established in 1787 an independent organization known as the "Free African Society." Out of this body some few went with Absalom Jones to establish the African Protestant Episcopal Church, but Richard Allen influenced the majority to organize an independent Methodist church. The church thus founded was dedicated by Bishop Asbury in 1794. Allen was ordained deacon in 1799, and elder in 1816. In the meantime, other negro churches; separated from the whites in the same way in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, offered the opportunity. for national organization. This was effected by sixteen congregations in 1816, and Allen was chosen bishop. Thus began the African Methodist Episcopal Church, which is one of the strongest organizations ever effected by negroes. Allen labored incessantly for the promotion of this cause until he died in 1831. By that time he had finally succeeded in impressing the public and had won national standing for his denomination. It was not allowed to expand in the South after the supposed connection of certain of its members with the Denmark Vesey plot in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1822; but the work had found its way into the Northern states east of the Mississippi River. In 1836, five years after Allen's death, the churches numbered eighty-six. There were four conferences, two bishops, and twenty-seven ministers. These served 7,594 members, and controlled $125,000 worth of property. Allen had made the Church not only an agency for religious uplift; but, forced into the anti-slavery movement and the Underground Railroad effort, the institution had become a factor in the battle for freedom. [The Life, Experience, and Gospel Labors of the Rt. Reverend Richard Allen, Written by Himself (1793, republished 1888); Absalom Jones and Rich. Allen, Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People, during the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia in the year I793 (1794); sketch in R. R. Wright's Centennial Encyclopedia of the African M. E. Church (1916), pp. 5-6; a treatment of "Allen's contribution to the development of the Church in C.G. Woodson, History of the Negro Church (1921) in the chapter entitled "The Independent Church Movement," pp. 71-99.]

C.G.W.


ALLEN, William, Buffalo, New York, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS).


ALLEN, William G., born 1820, free African American abolitionist, publisher and editor. Manager and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society in December 1833.  Publisher with Henry Highland Garnet of The National Watchman, Troy, New York, founded 1842.

(Filler, Louis. The Crusade Against Slavery, 1830-1860. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960, pp. 142, 249, 261; Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 107, 109; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, p. 48; Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 1, p. 346; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Volume 1, p. 127)


ALLEN, William T., Huntsville, Alabama, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1834-37


ALLEY, John B., 1817-1896, Lynn, Massachusetts, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1863-1876, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.  Alley was an Anti-slavery member of the Liberty and Free Soil Parties. Co-Edited the “Free-Soiler Newspaper.

(Congressional Globe; Wilson, Henry, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Volume 2.  Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1872 Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1774-1927 (1928).


ALLISON, William Boyd, 1829-1909, Republican, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives 1863-1871, U.S. Senator, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 58; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 1, pp. 220-222:

ALLISON, WILLIAM BOYD (March 2, 1829- August 4, 1908), congressman, was born in Perry township, Ashland County, Ohio, the son of John and Margaret (Williams) Allison: His parents gave him a strong constitution; and life about the log cabin and on the farm developed him into a sturdy, dignified youth of some five feet, eight inches, with a broad frame and a bushy shock of hair. Some of that restless ambition which brought his Scotch-Irish forebears from Ireland to Pennsylvania sent their descendant searching from one early institution to another for his educational equipment. "Professor Parrot's School," two years of Wooster Academy, one of Allegheny College, an interlude of school-teaching, and a final year of life at Western Reserve constituted his academic experience. Back in Ashland County again, he gained admission to the bar at twenty and launched himself upon his legal and political career forthwith. He was twice married: in 1854, to Anna Carter who died in 1860, and in 1873 to Mary Nealley.

Like many another Ohioan of those days, Allison abandoned the Whigism of his father to unite with Democrats in the new Republican venture. They made Chase governor (1855); but Allison felt a degree of disappointment because he himself failed of election as district attorney. In this mood he set his face westward, first toward Chicago and thence by chance to Galena and across the Mississippi to Dubuque, Ia. The Dubuque of those days was a place to stir the imagination the chief city between St. Louis and St. Paul, thriving on river commerce, and optimistic about becoming a railroad center to tap the rich hinterland westward. Here Allison stopped and remained. He entered the law firm of Samuels & Allison, but politics proved a more engaging profession. The aggressiveness of the Middle West found expression in the Allisoi1 of the next ten years. From that stronghold of the Democrats, Dubuque, he set forth to help unite the Republican organization of the state sufficiently to elect Kirkwood governor in 1859. At Chicago in 1860 he switched from futile support of his friend Chase to Lincoln as the candidate, giving the party more assurance. As a special aid on Kirkwood's staff in 1861, he raised and equipped four regiments in northeastern Iowa, securing important cooperation from Major-General Baker. Finally the congressional Republican organization recognized him in 1862 with a nomination to Congress from the newly created third district, and a combination of absentee soldier votes and local personal effectiveness made Allison a member of the Iowa delegation in the Thirty-eighth Congress, a place he retained four terms. Thus, he passed under the tutelage of Thaddeus Stevens at the same time as did Blaine and Garfield.

As a representative, Allison labored for harmony between loyalty to his party and loyalty to his section, a balancing feat incumbent upon all successful congressmen. He usually avoided a vindictive attitude toward his associates, cultivating a normal friendliness instead. As a Republican from the inception of the party, he gave his vote to the Lincoln administration for new loans, continuance of the bounty system, amendment of the National Bank Act, and the Thirteenth Amendment, and acted with the majority in the House on the impeachment of Johnson and the Wade-Davis reconstruction program. As a midwestern representative he at all times advocated Mississippi improvements and increased transportation largess; and he sometimes voted with the inflationists on the currency issue. His current tariff pronouncements urged the lowering of wool and iron schedules to give the Middle Border less costly clothing and cheaper iron rails. It was his uneven record on the currency (Palimpsest, VI, 274) and his urgency for lowered schedules throughout his congressional period that made Allison's reputation as a moderationist a reputation which was to cling to him through his thirty-five years in the Senate and to determine his peculiar function and unique importance in that body. By 1869 Allison felt that his constituents, for whom he had fought many a battle in the Ways and Means Committee, should place him in the Senate. Disappointment came then, and again in 1870. Eastern tariff interests propagandized the state against him; his chief competitor for the nomination, James Harlan, was more widely known at home than he; and Allison's entanglement with Blaine and others in railroad-construction projects lessened his availability (Atlantic, LXX, 549; Oberholtzer, History of the United States (1922), II, 545, 602 ff.; T. C. Smith, Life and Letters of James Abram Garfield (1925), pp. 528 ff.). It is significant of this period in American development that Allison's career, like that of two of his coadjutors, Garfield and Henry Wilson, suffered no permanent ill effects from the disclosures. He simply put the matter behind. him, enjoyed a European trip (1871) which gave him contacts with foreign students of finance, and returned to ride into the Senate on a wave of anti-Harlanism (1872).

Allison ran as a Grant supporter and yet enjoyed the favor of the liberals. A curious ability to unite opposing groups had become his forte; and he employed it so effectively throughout the next three decades that the erratic state of Weaver, of Larrabee, and of Cummins returned him to the Senate five times successively. He employed as senator a personal technique of rare effectiveness: an invariable friendliness in manner of approach which brought liking without dangerous intimacy; an unobtrusiveness and a lack of great wealth which allayed jealousy; a ready expression of sympathy for younger politicians and an avoidance of controversy which maintained his leadership of the delegation at Washington; a moderation of speech and of outward attitude which gave conservative constituents a sense of security and radical constituents a gleam of hope. And one thing more-the capstone to the whole edifice of his local and national success Allison had become identified with the nation-wide, expansive business urge of the time, especially in the fields of manufacturing and transportation. He chose the two highest official committees with the result that he was chairman of Appropriations for twenty-seven years (1881-1908), and had a place on Finance during thirty years. Also as senior senator he inherited from Sherman in 1897 the highest unofficial place in the Senate, chairmanship of the caucus. These powerful committee-ships of course ramified influentially into the committee on committees and the steering committee, and brought Allison into close harmony with the other dominant beneficiaries by seniority, Aldrich, O. H. Platt, Spooner, and Hale. Allison's special function in the joint leadership was best described by its dominant personality, Senator Aldrich, as that of "a master of the arts of conciliation and construction." Such he was in currency legislation, when his amendment emasculated Eland' s bill (1878) but stayed the appetite of Silverites by substituting, for remonetization, limited silver purchase and a bimetallic conference (Congressional Record, 45 Congress, 2 Session, H. R. No. 1093). Again (1892), to gain time for the passing of the silver craze he acted as chairman of the Brussels Monetary Conference. In Cleveland's second term he actively offset the silver majority of the Finance Committee and Senate. The Gold Standard Act (1900) followed upon careful preliminary cooperation between Allison, Platt, and Aldrich. Rooseveltian tendencies toward currency expansion were forestalled by united action between Allison, Aldrich, O. H. Platt, and Cannon. Thus Allison became one of the few western men popular with eastern financiers, who felt that his conservatism bore evidence of genius.

The tariff gave Allison the special school and theatre of his powers. As party harmonizers, he and Morrill and Aldrich united the Republican caucus behind that substitute for the Mills bill which brought Republican victory in 1888 and acknowledged its commitments in 1890 in the form of the McKinley tariff. In his role of moderate protectionist he often won encomiums from local constituents, while national protective organizations were lauding his work with Aldrich for drastic enforcement of customs regulations (1888--90). Democrats demonstrated a like confidence in him, particularly as regards the sugar schedule of 1894. The burden of reconciling conflicting importunities, especially on lumber, coal, and silver, for the so-called Dingley bill (1897) was shouldered by Allison. In the days of Roosevelt the result of the united efforts of Allison, Platt, and Aldrich is summed up in the fact that the Roosevelt administration postponed settlement of the tariff until the days of its successor.

Transportation legislation was Allison's greatest problem. He sympathized fully with railroad needs as voiced by Perkins, Hughitt, Fish, and Dodge and always worked hard to justify their faith in him. Yet he realized the closeness of the subject to everyday life, to legislative usage, to campaign exigencies; seeing intervention inevitable he sought to guide it into safe channels. From 1885, when Cullom as chairman of the Interstate Commerce Committee found Allison the safe man to follow, until the era of Hepburn's bill (1906), when Roosevelt utilized an amendment bearing Allison's name for reaching an agreement with conservative opponents, Iowa's senior senator was balancing the railroad problem for many Republicans. In the words of Depew, "He could grant to an adversary an amendment with such grace and deference to superior judgment that the flattered enemy accepted a few suggestions from the master as a tribute to his talents. The post-mortem revealed his mistake" (Congressional Record, 60 Congress, 2 Session, p. 1988).

When death took Allison he was the senior, by eight years, of any colleague left in the Senate; he was a national institution; and by reason of that fact the Republican party stood in immense debt to this moderationist. Not a campaign from 1880 on but he had helped to correlate the concrete necessities of the national committee with congressional performance. Not a party so lit from the days of Conkling and Garfield to those of Aldrich and Roosevelt but he served as a go-between. Scarcely a legislative tangle but what this most modest and benignant of drill-sergeants, almost first on the roll-call, beckoned pleasantly for the faithful to follow. His political value was further enhanced by his disinclination to demand that his party pay him in kind. Cabinet honors he declined from Garfield, Harrison, and McKinley. He continued the even tenor of his way, enjoying with three or four others control through the Senate of the political affairs of the expanding republic.

[The chief available source in general is the Congress Rec. with accompanying docs. Iowan background is furnished by the Annals of I a., series 3; I a. History Rec.; Ia. Journal of History and Politics; the Palimpsest; D. E. Clark, Kirkwood (1917); J. E. Briggs, Hepburn (1913); J. Brigham, Harlan (1913); F. E. Haynes, Third Party Movements (1916); O. B. Clark, Politics of Ia. (1911); and S. J. Buck, Granger Movement (1913). Allison's personal and private papers are available only under restrictions in the History, Memorial, and Art Department of Ia.]

J.P.N.

Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888,Volume I, p. 58:

ALLISON, William Boyd, senator, born in Perry, Wayne county, 2 March, 1829. He spent his early years on a farm, and was educated at Alleghany college, Pennsylvania, and Western Reserve college, Ohio. He studied law, and practised in Ohio until 1857, when he went to Dubuque, Iowa. He was a delegate to the Chicago convention of 1860, a member of the governor's staff in 1861, and rendered valuable service in raising troops for the war. He was elected in 1862 to the 38th congress, as a republican, and returned for the three succeeding congresses, serving in the house of representatives from 7 Dec., 1863, till 3 March, 1871. In 1873 he was elected to the U. S. senate, as a republican, for the term ending in 1879, and he has been twice reelected. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888,Volume I, p. 58. Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936.)


ALVORD, John Watson, 1807-1880, abolitionist, anti-slavery agent, clergyman. Congregational minister.  Worked around Ohio area.  Secretary, Boston Tract Society.  Chaplain with General Sheridan’s Union Forces in Civil War.  Worked with former slaves. 

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 164, 185; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 1, p. 399).


AMES, Oakes, 1804-1873, manufacturer, businessman, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 2nd Massachusetts District 1862-1873, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, pp. 65-66; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 1, pp. 251-253; Oakes, Ames, A Memoir, 1883; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 1, pp. 251-253:

AMES, OAKES (January 10, 1804-May 8, 1873), manufacturer, capitalist, and politician, the son of Oliver Ames [q.v.] and Susannah Angier, was born in Easton, Massachusetts. He received a district-school education, supplemented at sixteen by a few months in Dighton Academy. Entering his father's shovel factory as a laborer, he became familiar with every process, was made a superintendent, and soon became his father's main reliance. He showed zeal, business acumen, and marked inventiveness. In 1844 his father retired, turning the business over to Oakes and his brother Oliver Ames, Jr. [q.v.], who carried it on under the name Oliver Ames & Sons. The two brothers rapidly expanded the business. The discovery of gold in California in 1848 lent it marked impetus, and Oakes Ames was responsible for the sale of large consignments to California merchants and adventurers upon credit. Heavy losses were ultimately sustained upon these ventures, but were more than recouped through the gold rush to Australia and the agricultural development of the Northwest. The Ames shovel was declared to be "legal tender in every part of the Mississippi Valley," and was known even in South Africa (Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1873, article "Oakes Ames"; E. L. Sabin, Building the Pacific Railway, 1919, p. 71). At the beginning of the Civil War the business was valued at $4,000,000, and the war enormously increased its prosperity.

Ames became known in the late fifties as an ardent Free-Soiler, a director of the Emigrant Aid Company during the Kansas conflict, and an adherent of the Republican party. In 1860 he was made a member of the executive council of Massachusetts, and Governor Andrew relied heavily upon his business experience. In 1862 Ames was urged by influential men to run for the national House, was elected for the second Massachusetts district, and took his seat in the Thirty-eighth Congress. He was reelected four times, serving till his death. His position in Congress was not conspicuous. He rarely made a speech; his most important committees were those on manufactures and the Pacific Railroad. His knowledge of business, however, and his shrewd judgment made him a valued working member and gave him the confidence of President Lincoln.

In 1865 Ames was drawn with his brother Oliver into connection with the Credit Mobilier, a company formed to carry on the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad. The Credit Mobilier as promoted by T. C. Durant, vice-president of the Union Pacific, to keep in the hands of a small group all the profits derivable from building the road. Durant became president, the two Ames brothers were prominent among the subscribers, and largely through Oakes Ames's efforts the capital by September 21, 1865, was brought up to $2,500,000. After the line had been completed to the 100th meridian, the managers of the Credit Mobilier split into two hos tile factions, one led by Durant and the other by Ames. The upshot was an arrangement by which Oliver Ames became president of the Union Pacific, and Oakes Ames took virtual control of the Credit Mobilier's work. On August 16, 1867, when only 247 miles had been built, he contracted in his own name to build 667 miles more, at prices varying from $42,000 to $96,000 a mile, according to the terrain. He then (October 15, 1867) executed legal papers assigning these contracts, which aggregated some $47,000,000, to seven trustees (Congressional Globe, 42 Congress, 3 Session, p. 1724). These trustees acted for the stockholders of the Credit Mobilier, and the profits were to be paid to holders of the Credit Mobilier s tock. Upon this basis the remainder of the Union Pacific line was built and turned over to the Union Pacific company. Though this method of building the transcontinental railway was vicious, exhausting the company's endowment of government grants, and by excessive costs and profits loading it with debt, it was the accepted method of building railways in 1860-80. Ames merely used the tools at hand. His purpose, he later said, was "to connect my name conspicuously with the greatest public work of the present century" (Ibid., p. 1724).

Unfortunately, at a critical moment, Ames resorted to improper acts. When Congress opened on November 21, 1867, it was evident that the Union Pacific-Credit Mobilier arrangement might come under fire. The statutes required that the Union Pacific stock be paid for in actual cash; but as a matter of fact, it was issued to Ames and other Credit Mobilier men "who paid for it at not more than thirty cents on the dollar in roadmaking" (Wilson Investigative Report, p. iii). An inquiry would be embarrassing. Moreover, on December 9, C. C. Washburn of Wisconsin introduced in the House a bill to regulate by law the rates on the Union Pacific. Ames took what he deemed a fair precautionary step by selling shares of the Credit Mobilier to other members of Congress. He had 343 shares issued him for the purpose. "I shall put [these]," he wrote from Washington on January 25, 1868, "where they will do the most good to us. I am here on the spot and can better judge where they should go" (Poland Investigative Report, p. 4). By January 30 he was able to write: "I don't fear any investigation here. I have used this [the Credit Mobilier shares] where it will produce most good to us, I think. In view of ... Washburn's move here, I go in for making our bond dividend in full" (Ibid., p. 5). The stock was sold at par value, with interest from the previous July. Later evidence indicated that at this time Ames himself considered the stock worth at least double the par value. In fact, he wrote on February 22, 1868, that some holders considered it worth $300- $350 a share (Congressional Globe, 42 Congress, 3 Session, p. 1718). In all, later investigators traced contracts for the delivery of 160 shares to members of Congress. When some men hesitated, Ames assured them that "we are not coming to Congress to ask any favors" (Ibid., p. 1718). He later admitted, however, that he did wish the negative favor of non-interference. "I have found," he said, "there is no difficulty in inducing men to look after their own property" (Ibid., p. 1719).

The revelation of the stock sales came about through a quarrel between Ames and Colonel H. S. McComb of Delaware, an associate who alleged that an unfilled subscription entitled him to $25,000 worth of stock which he had not received. Ames resisted the claim. Colonel McComb finally threatened to use, in a way to create a scandal, certain letters which Ames had written during the distribution of the stock. To this blackmailing gesture Ames refused to yield. McComb then filed affidavits in a Pennsylvania court in the summer of 1872 alleging Ames's misuse of stock. The result of the affidavits was that the letters of Ames which McComb held were published in full in the New York Sun of September 4, 1872, under the caption "The King of Frauds: How the Credit Mobilier Bought Its Way into Congress." The presidential campaign was at its height and the effect was stupendous. Congressmen who had accepted the stock and were standing for reelection seemed panic-stricken. Many who had called themselves friends of Ames and begged for favors now denied any connection with him or the company and left him to face the storm alone.

At the opening of Congress in December 1872 two committees of inquiry were appointed by the House, one under Luke P. Poland of Vermont to ascertain if any member had given or received bribes, and another under Jeremiah M. Wilson of Indiana to discover if the government had been defrauded(Rhodes, Volume VII, ch. 1). Public pressure forced the removal of the rule of secrecy from the hearings, and the disclosures day by day riveted national attention. Several congressmen Senator Henry L. Wilson of Massachusetts and Representatives H. L. D awes and G. W. Scofield had first accepted shares and then feeling the impropriety had returned them. Other members received shares to be paid for from dividends. Representative B. M. Boyer of Pennsylvania, who had bought seventy-five shares for his wife, stood almost alone in maintaining that his purchase was "both honest and honorable, and consistent with my position as a member of Congress" (Poland Investigative Report,p.208), Those most discreditably involved were Senator Patterson of New Hampshire and Representatives James Brooks of New York and Schuyler Colfax of Indiana. Between Ames and Representative James A. Garfield of Ohio arose a sharp issue of veracity J. A. Garfield, Review of the Transactions of the Credit Mobilier Company, 1873). The Poland Committee formally reported Ames "guilty of selling to members of Congress shares of stock in the Credit Mobilier of America for prices much below the true value of such stock, with intent thereby to influence the votes and decisions of such members in matters to be brought before Congress for action" (House Reports, 42 Congress, 3 Session, No. 77, p. 19). It recommended that he and James Brooks be expelled. In debate Representative Poland led the attack upon Ames with much effectiveness. Ames replied in a long speech, read by the clerk, attempting a justification of his actions. He declared that his motive had been purely patriotic, that he had taken staggering financial risks, and that the stock had not been worth more than par when he sold it. Financially, he asserted, he would have been better off if he had never heard of the Union Pacific, for at its completion the railroad was in debt about $6,000,000, the burden of which fell upon himself and others. The Wilson Committee had reported that the Credit Mobilier h ad defrauded the government. Ames denied this, saying that the Credit Mobilier profits were less than $10,000,000 upon $70,000,000 of expenditures. Partly because the Judiciary Committee threw grave doubt upon the right of the House to expel a member for offenses committed so long previously, partly because expulsion was felt to be too harsh a punishment, the House dropped that penalty. It instead took up a resolution declaring that it "absolutely condemns the conduct of Oakes Ames" (Congressional Globe, 42 Congress, 3 Session, 1 p. 1832). This was pass ed by a vote of 182 to 36; At once Ames's seat was surrounded by members who assured him that they had acted with reluctance and that they felt the warmest confidence in the rectitude of his intentions(Oberholtzer, II, 607). The consensus of historical opinion has been that Ames's action was highly improper, but that he had not contemplated bribery. He was a product of his time, and his ethical perceptions, like those of other business men of the day, were blunt. He declared that he believed his sales of stock to Congressmen were the "same thing as going into a business community and interesting the leading business men by giving them shares." His steps had been selfish and unethical, but not consciously corrupt.

Returning broken and dispirited to his North Easton home, Ames was given a hearty reception by his constituents, while plans were made by Boston business men for a complimentary dinner. But business worries (including grave financial difficulties through which the Easton manufactory had passed in 1870) and political disgrace had undermined his health. He was stricken by paralysis and lived but four days. His death was followed by a revulsion of feeling in his favor. The dedication of a memorial hall in his honor in North Easton, November 17, 1881, evoked tributes from Governor John D. Long, George S. Boutwell, E. E. Hale, Blaine, Evarts, Tilden, and others, and the Massachusetts legislature in 1883 passed a resolution of vindication. A monument had meanwhile been erected to him by the Union Pacific at Sherman Summit, Wyo.

In personality Oakes Ames was rugged, laborious, taciturn, and kindly. He was of simple and abstemious habits, with many homely traits which dated back to his early days as a workman. In his time he was known as a temperance advocate, and had other Puritanical qualities. But business shrewdness and keenness, allied with a speculative bent, were his salient characteristics.

[A brief anonymous sketch was published in 1883, Oakes Ames, A Memoir. The two volumes on The Credit Mobilier of America by J.B. Crawford (1880) and R. Hazard (1881) both defend Ames. For the Poland and Wilson Reports see House Reports, 42 Congress, 3 Session, Nos. 77, 78, and Senate Reports, 42 Congress, 3 Session, No. 519. A few items of information may be found in J.P. Davis, The Union Pacific Railway (1894), and E. L. Sabin, Building the Pacific Railway (1919). The relations of Ames and Garfield are treated in T. C. Smith, Life and Letters of James A. Garfield (1925), Volume I, ch. 15. Good general accounts of the Credit Mobilier scandal are offered by J. F. Rhodes, History of the U.S., Volume VII (1906), ch. I, and E. P. Oberholtzer, History of the U. S., Volume II, (1922), pp. 600 ff. Some interesting pages, not altogether accurate, occur in George F. Hoar, Autobiography of Seventy Years(1903), Volume I, ch. 22.]

A. N.

Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888,Volume I, pp. 65-66;

AMES, Oakes, manufacturer, born in Easton, Massachusetts, 10 January, 1804; died in North Easton, Massachusetts, 8 May, 1873. He was the eldest son of Oliver Ames, a blacksmith, who had acquired considerable reputation in the making of shovels and picks. After obtaining a public-school education, he entered his father's workshops and made himself familiar with every step of the manufacture. He became a partner in the business, and with his brother, Oliver, Jr., established the firm of Oliver Ames & Sons. This house carried on an enormous trade during the gold excitement in California, and again a few years later in Australia. During the civil war they furnished extensive supplies of swords and shovels to the government. In the building of the Union Pacific railroad they were directly interested, and obtained large contracts, which were subsequently transferred to the Credit Mobilier of America, a corporation in which Oakes Ames was one of the largest stockholders. In 1861 he was called into the executive council of Massachusetts. He served continuously in congress from 1862 to 1873 as representative from the 2d Massachusetts district. His relations with the Credit Mobilier led to an investigation, which resulted in his being censured by a vote of the house of representatives. Subsequent to his withdrawal from political life he resided at North Easton, where he died of apoplexy. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 65-66.


ANDERSON, Isaac, 1780-1857, clergyman, educator.  Founder of the Southern and Western Theological Seminary in 1819 in Maryville, Tennessee.


ANDERSON, John, born c. 1831, African American, fugitive slave, abolitionist. 

(Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Volume 1, p. 171)


ANDERSON, Lucien, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery

(Congressional Globe; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928)


ANDERSON, Osborne Perry, 1830-1872, African American abolitionist, member of African American Chatham Community in Ontario, Canada.  Wrote anti-slavery articles for Provincial Freedman for Black community.  Was part of John Brown’s raid at the U.S. Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, October 16, 1859; hanged with John Brown, 1859.

(Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, p. 327; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Volume 1, p. 181)


ANDERSON, Robert, New York, abolitionist leader

(Sorin, 1971)


ANDREW, James Osgood, 1794-1871, North Carolina, American Colonization Society, Vice-President, 1836-1841. 

(Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 1, p. 277; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961)


ANDREW, John Albion, 1818-1867, reformer, anti-slavery advocate, Governor of Massachusetts, member Conscience Whig, Free Soil Party, Republican Party.  In Boston, he took a prominent part in the defense of fugitive slaves Shadrach, Burns and Sims.   Supported John Brown in his legal defense. 

(American National Biography, Volume 1, 2002, p. 489; Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 72-73; Dictionary of American Biography, 1936, pp. 279-281).

Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography, 1936, pp. 279-281:

ANDREW, JOHN ALBION (May 31, 1818- October 30, 1867), governor of Massachusetts, was born at Windham, Maine, of Massachusetts stock, his earliest ancestor of whom we have record, Robert Andrew, having come as it appears from England, settled in what is now Boxford, and died there a prosperous landowner in 1668. Robert's son, Joseph, moved to Salem, where the main stem of the Andrews continued to live. Jonathan Andrew, the father of the future governor, moved to Windham, Maine, in 1807, established a general store, married Nancy Green Pierce, prospered, and became the leading man of the village. On John Andrew's education unusual pains were lavished. His mother, a woman of attainments and force of character, had been a school-teacher and for a time taught the boy herself. Later, when the family was larger, finding the district school inadequate, the parents built a tiny school-house near their own door and here John, his brother, and two sisters were carefully grounded in the rudiments. The next stage, following the custom of the time, was the local academy and in due course the boy attended for a brief time the academies at Portland, North Yarmouth, and Bridgton. Late in 1831, when he was in his fourteenth year, the serious illness of his mother, to  whom he was much attached, called him home and he remained there until her death in the early spring of 1832. Soon afterward he returned to his studies, this time at Gorham Academy, where he prepared for college, entering Bowdoin in 1833. As a student he ranked among the lowest in his class. He spent more time in social fellowship than in study and graduated with more competency in argument and public speaking than in any other field. As a boy he had been stirred by the Anti-Slavery movement; he had now become a determined foe of slavery and his conviction on this issue was to shape h is political course.

He was not yet twenty when he arrived in Boston in 1837, and entered the law office of Fuller & Wash burn as a student, and he was still very youthful in appearance in 1840 when he was admitted to the bar. His progress in the profession was gradual, partly because he was of a slow-maturing type, partly because of his incurably sociable temperament which was always leading him away from the paths of legal preferment. He was active in the Unitarian Church and assistant editor of the church paper, secretary for many years of the Boston Port Society, and one of the most devoted visitors to the prisons, where he was to be found every Sunday afternoon and whence he derived more law cases than fees. It was said of him at this period, "No one who had a 'hard case,' with no money to pay for legal assistance, was ever turned away from his office for that reason; and no one however guilty was denied whatever assistance his case was fairly entitled to receive"(Chandler, p. 79). His father, with his younger son and two daughters, had removed from Maine to Massachusetts and settled at Boxford not far from Boston so as to be near the elder son. There the family hearth continued and the family life was maintained, Andrew returning constantly to recount his experiences in the city and to renew his strength in the atmosphere of love and admiration. So a decade passed while he established relations, made friends, set the foundations for the career which lay hidden before him. In 1847 he became engaged to Eliza Jones Hersey and in 1848was married.

During all this time, Andrew's interest in the Anti-Slavery movement never wavered. His association with the members of James Freeman Clarke's church and other reforming and aspiring groups had deepened the religious and humanitarian side of his nature. When the slavery question again became a burning issue he took a leading part in its discussion. Though he rejected the extreme positions of Garrison and Wendell Phillips, he maintained the firm and uncompromising opposition to slavery which represented the best spirit of Massachusetts. He took part with Bowditch, Howe, Sumner, Theodore Parker, Charles Francis Adams, and others in the fugitive slave case of the brig Ottoman in the summer of 1846 and read the resolutions at the Faneuil Hall meeting where John Quincy Adams, then in his eightieth year, presided. From this time on he was drawn into closer relations with Sumner and Howe and the Young Whigs. Politics, which had always fascinated him, now took a larger part of his thought. The campaign of 1848 stirred him deeply. He was one of the organizers of the Free-Soil party with its platform "Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men,'' and he gave himself whole-heartedly to the campaign. With the Know-Nothing movement which swept over Massachusetts four years later he had little in common, and it was not until the Republican party appeared that he was again able to engage with full conviction. In 1857 he was nominated and elected on the Banks or Republican ticket to the legislature. There in the session of 1858 he won distinction by a speech so brilliant and effective that it made him at once one of the leaders of the party. Though he declined reelection his place was established and his popularity grew.

John Brown's raid, his capture, trial, and death had an effect that could not have been predicted upon Andrew's career. When the raid failed and Brown was made prisoner, Andrew took a leading part in raising funds for his defense. When sentence had been pronounced, he took part in a public meeting to raise funds for Brown's family and on that occasion used the words, "John Brown himself is right," which aroused a storm of enthusiasm among anti-slavery men everywhere. When at the instance of the Southern senators a committee was set up to investigate the raid, Andrew was cited to appear and testify. His bearing and testimony before the committee, which had the widest publicity, gave lively satisfaction to anti-slavery men, especially to Massachusetts anti-slavery men. The episode made him more popular than before and in consequence he was almost unanimously chosen delegate to the Republican National Convention at Chicago and made chairman of the delegation. He shared in the nomination of Lincoln, went to Springfield to see him, and brought back a lofty but just opinion of the great leader. One honor led to another. It had long been growing evident that Andrew was one to whom his fellow citizens were well disposed. In the month of July, 1860, a well-informed observer described him as "the most popular man in Massachusetts." In the following month occasion offered a proof. Governor Banks, whose renomination was taken for granted, suddenly declined, five days before the nominating convention. The "machine" had settled upon Henry L. Dawes, a Conservative. But no sooner was it known that Andrew's nomination was a possibility than a legion of friends hastened to his support and he was nominated on the first ballot by a great majority. By an even greater majority-in fact the greatest popular majority in the history of the state up to that time-he was elected governor on the same ticket on which Lincoln became President.

Andrew was now at his utmost vigor of mind and body. Forty-two years of age, strong and sturdy of build, full of energy, capable of great effort and equal to unusual strains of endurance, he was ready for the great labors before him. The crisis was swift in appearance. He had not written his inaugural address before warnings reached him from Adams, and Sumner that the government at Washington was in danger. He at once took steps to put the state militia in a position of readiness. Other warnings followed and within a month he had obtained from the legislature an emergency fund of $100,000, with which to arm, equip, and transport the militia if needed for the defense of Washington. Then came the firing on Fort Sumter and Lincoln's call for troops. Andrew so labored that the Massachusetts regiments were ready and went forward before those of any other state. The 6th Massachusetts was the only armed regiment to reach Washington on that critical 19th of April before the city was cut off from the North-as it remained for nearly a week. As the war went on, the Governor came to be more and more the embodiment of the patriotic spirit of the State. His short, rotund, figure, once ridiculed, became beloved. The upper circles of society found him an agreeable guest. The chorus, still remembered in Massachusetts, made to rally the pro-slavery mobs

"Tell John Andrew
Tell John Andrew
Tell John Andrew
   John Brown's dead"

would now have brought him votes in any town in the state. There was no longer any question about his reelection. The state felt that he was enlisted for the war.

In 1862, when the first fine enthusiasm was over, when the tale of deaths and wounds, losses and defeats chilled the spirits and the delay of emancipation discouraged the most ardent, the governors of several northern states united in what has been called the Altoona Conference to urge upon the President the emancipation of the negroes and a more vigorous prosecution of the war. Andrew was a member of the Conference. By a singular coincidence President Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation the day before the Conference met, but the governors went on to Washington, conferred with the President, and doubtless contributed something to that increased vigor which became apparent from then on. With emancipation secured there was one other thing that Andrew had at heart. This was to give the negro the full standing of a man by making him a soldier and admitting him to the army. He urged that the negroes be organized into separate corps and regiments. Nothing that he ever undertook appealed to him more powerfully and when he finally had the consent of the War Department and got his first negro regiment, the 54th, organized he felt it a great achievement. "I stand or fall," he declared, ~'as a man and a magistrate, with the rise and fall in history of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment." It was a great venture for, without some such test, one may doubt whether the negro would have achieved his citizenship in the United States. At the election of 1864 Andrew was reelected governor. The end of the war was now in sight. Andrew, absorbed with the problems which would come with peace, labored to establish the negro in his rights and to provide for cooperation between the North and the South. In his farewell message delivered in January 1866, he advocated a lenient and friendly policy toward the Southern states and reconstruction without retribution. When he retired from office, at the close of 1866, it became apparent that the war had worn him out. His friends had already noted that he had overdrawn his physical resources, and he had been warned to husband his strength. Through the greater part of 1867 he continued, however, to take an active interest in public affairs; he worked for reform in the usury laws and in the divorce law, and took a prominent position in opposing the principle of total prohibition. He resisted several minor attacks of ill health and worked on at his legal business, but finally, on October 29, he was stricken with apoplexy and died on the following day amid the general grief of the city.

[Henry Greenleaf Pearson, The Life of John A. Andrew (1904); Peleg W. Chandler, Memoir of Governor Andrew(1880); Albert Gallatin Browne, Sketch of the Official Life of John A. Andrew (1868); A Memorial Volume Containing the Exercises of the Dedication of the Statue of John A. Andrew (1878); Elias Nason, Discourse on the Life and Character of the Hon. John Albion Andrew (1868); Samuel Burnham, "Hon. John Albion Andrew" in New England History and Genealogical Register, January 1869; Moorfield Storey, Life of Charles Sumner (1900), pp. 52, 192, 209, 271, 295.]

W. B. P.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 72-73)

ANDREW, John Albion, statesman, born in Windham, Maine, 31 May, 1818; died in Boston, Massachusetts, 30 Oct., 1867. His father, descended from an early settler of Boxford, Massachusetts, was a prosperous merchant in Windham. John Albion was graduated at Bowdoin in 1837. He was a negligent student, though fond of reading, and in his professional life always felt the lack of training in the habit of close application. He immediately entered on the study of the law in the office of Henry H. Fuller, in Boston, where in 1840 he was admitted to the bar. Until the outbreak of the war he practised his profession in that city, attaining special distinction in the fugitive-slave cases of Shadrach Burns and Sims, which arose under the fugitive-slave law of 1850. He became interested in the slavery question in early youth, and was attracted toward many of the reform movements of the day. After his admission to the bar he took an active interest in politics and frequently spoke on the stump on behalf of the whig party, of which he was an enthusiastic member. From the year 1848 he was closely identified with the anti-slavery party of Massachusetts, but held no office until 1858, when he was elected a member of the state legislature from Boston, and at once took a leading position in that body. In 1860 he was a delegate to the Chicago republican convention, and, after voting for Mr. Seward on the early ballots, announced the change of the vote of part of the Massachusetts delegation to Mr. Lincoln. In the same year he was nominated for governor by a popular impulse. Many feared that the radicalism of his opinions would render him unsafe in action, and the political managers regarded him as an intruder and opposed his nomination; yet he was elected the twenty-first governor of Massachusetts since the adoption of the constitution of 1780 by the largest popular vote ever cast for any candidate. He was energetic in placing the militia of Massachusetts on a war footing, in anticipation of the impending conflict between the government and the seceded states. He had announced this purpose in his inaugural address in 1861, and, upon being inducted into office, he sent a confidential message to the governors of Maine and New Hampshire, inviting their cooperation in preparing the militia for service and providing supplies of war material. This course of action was not regarded with favor at the time by a majority of the legislature, although his opponents refrained from a direct collision. On receiving the president's proclamation of 15 April, 1861, he despatched five regiments of infantry, a battalion of riflemen, and a battery of artillery to the defence of the capital. Of these, the Massachusetts 6th was the first to tread southern soil, passing through New York while the regiments of that state were mustering, and shedding the first blood of the war in the streets of Baltimore, where it was assailed by the mob. Gov. Andrew sent a telegram to Mayor Brown, praying him to have the bodies of the slain carefully sent forward to him at the expense of the common wealth of Massachusetts. He was equally active in raising the Massachusetts contingent of three years' volunteers, and was laborious in his efforts to aid every provision for the comfort of the sick and wounded soldiers. He was four times reëlected governor, holding that office till January, 1866, and was only then released by his positive declination of another renomination, in order to attend to his private business, as the pecuniary sacrifice involved in holding the office was more than he was able to sustain, and his health was seriously affected by his arduous labors. In 1862 he was one of the most urgent of the northern governors in impressing upon the administration at Washington the necessity of adopting the emancipation policy, and of accepting the services of colored troops. In September, 1862, he took the most prominent part in the meeting of governors of the northern states, held at Altoona, Penn., to devise ways and means to encourage and strengthen the hands of the government. The address of the governors to the people of the north was prepared by him. Gov. Andrew interfered on various occasions to prevent the federal authorities from making arbitrary arrests among southern sympathizers in Massachusetts previous to the suspension of the habeas-corpus act. In January, 1863, he obtained from the secretary of war the first authorization for raising colored troops, and the first colored regiment (54th Massachusetts infantry) was despatched from Boston in May of that year. Gov. Andrew was particular in selecting the best officers for the black troops and in providing them with the most complete equipment. Though famous as the war governor of Massachusetts, he also bestowed proper attention on the domestic affairs of the commonwealth. In his first message he recommended that the provision in the law preventing a person against whom a decree of divorce has been granted from marrying again, should be modified; but the proposition met with strong opposition in the legislature, especially from clergymen, and it was not till 1864 that an act was passed conferring power upon the supreme court to remove the penalty resting upon divorced persons. He also recommended a reform in the usury laws, such as was finally effected by an act passed in 1867. He was strongly opposed to capital punishment, and recommended its repeal. A law requiring representatives in congress to be residents of the districts from which they are elected was vetoed by him on the ground that it was both unconstitutional and inexpedient, but was passed over his veto. Of the twelve veto messages sent by Gov. Andrew during his incumbency, only one other, in the case of a resolve to grant additional pay to members, was followed by the passage of the act over the veto. His final term as governor expired 5 January, 1866. In a valedictory address to the legislature he advocated a generous and conciliatory policy toward the southern states, “demanding no attitude of humiliation; inflicting no acts of humiliation.” Gov. Andrew was modest and simple in his habits and manner of life, emotional and quick in sympathy for the wronged or the unfortunate, exceedingly joyous and mirthful in temperament, and companionable with all classes of persons. The distinguished ability that shone out in his administration as governor of Massachusetts, the many sterling qualities that were summed up in his character, his social address, and the charm of his conversational powers, together with his clear and forcible style as an orator, combined to render him conspicuous among the state governors of the war period, and one of the most influential persons in civil life not connected with the federal administration. Soon after the expiration of his last term as governor he was tendered, but declined, the presidency of Antioch college, Ohio. He presided over the first national Unitarian convention, held in 1865, and was a leader of the conservative wing of that denomination—those who believed with Channing and the early Unitarians in the supernaturalism of Christ's birth and mission, as opposed to Theodore Parker and his disciples. After retiring from public life Mr. Andrew entered upon a lucrative legal practice. In January, 1867, he represented before the general court about 30,000 petitioners for a license law, and delivered an argument against the principle of total prohibition. His death, which occurred suddenly from apoplexy, was noticed by public meetings in various cities. He married, 25 Dec., 1848, Miss Eliza Jane Hersey, of Hingham, Massachusetts, who with their four children survived him. See “Memoir of Gov. Andrew, with Personal Reminiscences,” by Peleg W. Chandler (Boston, 1880), “Discourse on the Life and Character of Gov. Andrew,” by Rev. E. Nason (Boston, 1868), and “Men of Our Times,” by Harriet Beecher Stowe. A life of Gov. Andrew, by Edwin P. Whipple, was left unfinished at the time of Mr. Whipple’s death in 1886. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888.


ANDREWS, Josiah, New York, abolitionist leader

(Sorin, 1971)


ANDREWS, Samuel C., Ohio, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1838-39


ANDREWS, Stephan Pearl, 1812-1886, abolitionist, anarchist, philosopher, linguist, writer, labor advocate, lawyer, ardent opponent of slavery, lectured publicly on the evils of slavery. Opposed annexation of Texas and slavery in the Territory. 

(Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 1, pp. 298-299; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 25-26;

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. p. 76)

ANDREWS, Stephen Pearl, author, born in Templeton, Massachusetts, 22 March, 1812; died in New York city, 21 May, 1886. He studied at Amherst college, and then, removing to New Orleans, became a lawyer. He was the first counsel of Mrs. Myra Clark Gaines in her celebrated suits. He was an ardent abolitionist, and in 1839 removed to Texas, where he converted many of the slave-owners, who were also large land-owners, by showing them that they would become rapidly rich from the sale of land if immigration were induced by throwing the country open to free labor. Here he acquired considerable wealth in the practice of his profession. His impetuous and logical eloquence gained him a wide repute and great personal popularity; but, on the other hand, his seemingly reckless and fanatical opposition to slavery aroused an intense feeling of opposition, and his life was seriously endangered. In 1843 he went to England in the hope that, with the aid of the British anti-slavery society, he might raise sufficient money there to pay for the slaves and make Texas a free state. He was well received, and the scheme was taken up and favorably considered by the British government; but, after some months of consultation, the project was abandoned through fear that it would lead to war with the United States, as the knowledge of it was already being used to strengthen the movement that ultimately led to the annexation of Texas and to the Mexican war. Mr. Andrews went to Boston and became a leader in the anti-slavery movement there. While in England he learned of phonography, and during seven years after his return he devoted his attention to its introduction, and was the founder of the present system of phonographic reporting. He removed to New York in 1847, and published a series of phonographic instruction-books and edited two journals in the interest of phonography and spelling reform, which were printed in phonetic type, the “Anglo-Saxon” and the “Propagandist.” He spoke several languages, and is said to have been familiar with thirty. Among his works are one on the Chinese language, and one entitled “New French Instructor,” embodying a new method. He was a tireless student and an incessant worker; but his mental labor was performed without effort or fatigue. While yet a young man he announced the discovery of the unity of law in the universe, and to the development of this theory he devoted the last thirty-five years of his life. The elements of this science are contained in his “Basic Outline of Universology” (New York, 1872). He asserted that there is a science of language, as exact as that of mathematics or of chemistry, forming a domain of universology; and by the application of this science he evolved a “scientific” language, destined, he believed, to become “the universal language.” This scientific universal language he called “Alwato” (ahl-wah'-to). It was so far elaborated that for some years before his death he conversed and corresponded in it with several of his pupils, and was preparing a dictionary of Alwato, a portion of which was in type at the time of his decease. The philosophy evolved from universology he called “Integralism.” In it he believed would be found the ultimate reconciliation of the great thinkers of all schools and the scientific adjustment of freedom and order, not by a superficial eclecticism, but by a radical adjustment of all the possible forms of thought, belief, and idea. In 1882 he instituted a series of conferences known as the “Colloquium,” for the interchange of ideas between men of the utmost diversity of religious, philosophical, and political views. Among those associated with him in this were Prof. Louis Elsberg, Rev. Dr. Rylance, Rev. Dr. Newman, Rabbi Gottheil, Rev. Dr. Sampson, Rev. Dr. Collyer, Prof. J. S. Sedgwick, T. B. Wakeman, and Rabbi Huebsch. Mr. Andrews was a prominent member of the Liberal club of New York, and for some time was its vice-president. His contributions to periodicals are numerous. He was a member of the American academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Ethnological Society. His works include “Comparison of the Common Law with the Roman, French, or Spanish Civil Law on Entails and other Limited Property in Real Estate” (New Orleans, 1839); “Cost the Limit of Price” (New York, 1851); “The Constitution of Government in the Sovereignty of the Individual” (1851); “Love, Marriage, and Divorce, and the Sovereignty of the Individual: a Discussion by Henry James, Horace Greeley, and Stephen Pearl Andrews,” edited by Stephen Pearl Andrews (1853); “Discoveries in Chinese; or, The Symbolism of the Primitive Characters of the Chinese System of Writing as a Contribution to Philology and Ethnology and a Practical Aid in the Acquisition of the Chinese Language” (1854); “Constitution or Organic Basis of the New Catholic Church” (1860); “The Great American Crisis,” a series of papers published in the “Continental Monthly” (1863-'64); “A Universal Language” (“Continental Monthly,” 1864); “The Primary Synopsis of Universology and Alwato” (1871); “Primary Grammar of Alwato” (Boston, 1877); “The Labor Dollar” (1881); “Elements of Universology” (New York, 1881); “Ideological Etymology” (1881); “Transactions of the Colloquium, with Documents and Exhibits” (vols. i and ii, New York, 1882-'83); “The Church and Religion of the Future,” a series of tracts (1886); and text-books of phonography. His dictionary of Alwato was published posthumously by his sons. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888.


ANDRUS, Joseph R., Reverend, clergyman, agent of the American Colonization Society.  Went to Africa to establish a colony.  He died on the expedition. 

(Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 62)


ANDRUS, Sylvester

(Gates, 2013, Volume 6, p. 588)



Sources:
Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volumes I-VI, Edited by James Grant Wilson & John Fiske, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888-1889.