D: Dana through Dwight

See below for annotated biographies of Free Soil Party leaders, members and supporters. Source: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography.

DANA, Richard Henry, Jr., 1815-1882, author, lawyer, anti-slavery activist.  Co-founder of the Free Soil Party and delegate to its convention in Buffalo, New York, in 1848.  He was the lawyer who represented the Fugitive Slave Shadrack in Boston in 1851 and Anthony Burns in Boston in 1854.  Wrote Two Years Before the Mast (1840). 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 71-72; Chas. Francis Adams, Richard Henry Dana, A Biography, 2 volumes (1890); E. W. Emerson; Sewell, 1976; pp. 156, 219;)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, pp. 60-61;

DANA, RICHARD HENRY (August 1, 1815- January 6, 1882), author, lawyer, the son of Richard Henry Dana [q.v.] and Ruth Charlotte (Smith) Dana, was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Solely as the writer of a remarkable first-hand account of sea adventure he has a permanent place in American literature; he was also one of the most active and influential lawyers of his day. Entering Harvard College in 1831, he gave up his studies two years later because of eye trouble resulting from measles, and on August 14, 1834 set sail on a voyage around Cape Horn to California as a common sailor on the brig Pilgrim. Two years later, a robust young man of twenty-one, he reached Boston on the ship Alert. Joining the senior class at Harvard in December 1836, he was graduated the following June, ranking at the head of his class for that year. He became instructor in elocution at Harvard in 1839-40, under Edward T. Channing, and · in 1866-68 he was a lecturer in the Harvard Law School. His Two Years Before the Mast (1840), published the year of his admission to the bar, was written from notes made during his voyage, and is a lively, fresh, and unconventional narrative. His definite and successful purpose in it was to give an account of sea life from the point of view of the forecastle, and to secure justice for the sailor. "In it," he wrote, "I have adhered closely to fact in every particular, and endeavored to give everything its true character." The book immediately became popular both in this country and in England, and has since been reprinted in many editions, including one in French attributed to James Fenimore Cooper.

His youthful taste of the salt of the sea had given him a liking for the law of the sea, and he immediately began to specialize in admiralty cases. His manual, The Seaman's Friend (1841), became at once a standard work on maritime law, being reprinted in England as The Seaman's Manual. Early becoming interested in both the political and social aspects of slavery, he was one of the founders of the Free-Soil party, was a delegate to the convention at Buffalo in 1848, and took personal part in its campaigns, as he did also in the later campaigns of the Republican party. In 1853 he was a member of the convention for the revision of the constitution of Massachusetts, taking a leading part in the debates. Although he did not become an Abolitionist, his political and legal activities involved him deeply in the anti-slavery movement. He was attorney for the defense of the persons involved in the rescue of the negro Shadrach in Boston in 1851, and in the Anthony Burns rendition case in 1854. Serving for five years, from April 1861 to September 1866, as United States attorney for the district of Massachusetts, he succeeded in persuading the Democratic Supreme Court of the United States to sustain the power of blockade and the taking of neutral vessels as prizes during the blockade by the Federal government. In 1867-68, with William M. Evarts, he was counsel for the United States in the proceedings against Jefferson Davis for treason. In 1877 he was senior counsel for the United States before the Fisheries Commission at Halifax. In his many years of practise he was alway, the advocate, working mainly in the courts and paying little attention to the business of the office, which he disliked and left largely to his partner. He laboriously prepared all his cases himself with indefatigable zeal.

Possibly because of Dana's inability to mingle with the throng and his unwillingness to descend to machine politics, he did not realize upon his political ambitions. Among the disappointments he suffered were his defeat by Benjamin F. Butler in a contest for a seat in Congress in 1868, and his failure to be confirmed by the Senate when he was appointed minister to England in 1876 by President Grant, who had named him without consulting the leaders of his party. Failing to attain high public office, he determined to give his later years to the intensive study of his favorite subject, international law, and to the preparation of an authoritative work upon it. As early as 1866, his edition of Henry Wheaton's Elements of International Law was accepted as an authority. An enthusiastic traveler, he visited England in 1856 and 1866, and met the great political and social leaders of the kingdom. The literary result of one of his trips was a book entitled To Cuba and Back (1859). He made a journey round the world in 1859-60, and in 1878 he went to Europe for rest, pleasure, and further study of the problems of international law. While in Rome, before he had written his projected work, !1e died suddenly of pneumonia, and was buried in the Protestant Cemetery, where lie the remains of Keats and Shelley. He married Sarah Watson of Hartford, Connecticut, August 25, 1841, and was survived by her and their six children, in whose religious and literary education he had taken great interest. He was a man of distinguished and dignified manner, with a certain formality that did not encourage intimacy.

[Chas. Francis Adams, Richard Henry Dana, A Biography, 2 volumes (1890); E. W. Emerson. The Early Years of the Saturday Club (1918); tribute of the bar, American Law Review, XVI (1882), 253; remarks by Rt. Reverend Wm. Lawrence, Bliss Perry, Moorfield Storey, and Joseph H. Choate, Cambridge Historical Society Pubs., no. X (1917); valuable information from the family.]

E. F. E.


DAYTON, William Lewis, 1807-1864, lawyer, statesman, diplomat, U.S. Senator.  Member of the Free Soil and Whig Party.  Opposed slavery and its expansion into the new territories.  Opposed the Fugitive Slave bill of 1850.  Supported the admission of California as a free state and the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.  First vice presidential nominee of Republican Party in 1856, on the ticket with John C. Frémont.  Lost the election to James Buchanan. 

(Goodell, 1852, p. 570; Rodriguez, 2007, p. 59; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 113; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 1, p. 166; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 6, p. 280; Sewell, 1976; p. 284, 285)

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

DAYTON, William Lewis, statesman, born in Baskingridge, New Jersey, 17 February, 1807; died in Paris, France, 1 December, 1864. He was graduated at Princeton in 1825, and received the degree of LL. D. from that college in 1857. He studied law in Litchfield, Connecticut, and was admitted to the bar in 1830, beginning his practice in Trenton, New Jersey In 1837 he was elected to the State Council (as the Senate was then called), being made chairman of the judiciary committee, the supreme court of the state in 1838, and in 1842, he became associate judge of was appointed to fill a vacancy in the U. S. Senate. His appointment was confirmed by the legislature in 1845, and he was also elected for the whole term. In the Senate debates on the Oregon question, the tariff, annexation of Texas, and the Mexican War, he took the position of a Free-Soil Whig. He was the friend and adviser of President Taylor, and opposed the Fugitive-Slave Bill, but advocated the admission of California as a free state, and the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. In 1856 he was nominated by the newly formed Republican Party for vice-president. In March, 1857, he was made attorney-general for the state of New Jersey, and held that office until 1861, when President Lincoln appointed him minister to France, where he remained until his death.—His son, William Lewis, who was graduated at Princeton in 1858, and practised law in Trenton, was appointed by President Arthur minister to the Netherlands. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 280.

Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 1, pp. 166-167

DAYTON, WILLIAM LEWIS (February 17, 1807-December 1, 1864), lawyer, politician, diplomat, great-grandson of Eli as Dayton [q.v.], was born at Baskingridge, New Jersey, his .father, Joel, being a mechanic who educated two sons to law and one to medicine. His mother, Nancy, daughter of Edward and Nancy (Crowell) Lewis, was a grand-daughter of Edward Lewis, a commissary of Washington's army. After finishing at the local academy under Dr. Brownlee, he was graduated from Princeton in 1825, taught school at Pluckemin, and read law with Peter D. Vroom at Somerville, being admitted to the bar in May term 1830. Despite feeble health and slowly maturing powers, his " large mind and strong common sense" (J. P. Bradley, post, 75) made Dayton a master of common law. Settling at Freehold, New Jersey, he attracted attention in November 1833 by persuading the court to quash certain indictments (L. Q. C. Elmer, post, 375), and became the leading lawyer there. Elected to the legislative council in 1837, as a Whig, he was chosen one of two new associate justices of the state supreme court on February 28, 1838. He decided the important case of Freeholders vs. Strader (3 Harrison, 110) but resigned in 1841, against friendly protests, to practise law in Trenton, the salary of a justice ($2,000) being too small to support his growing family. On July 2, 1842, Governor William Pennington appointed him United States senator for the unexpired term of S. L. Southard, and the legislature chose him for the full term to March 4, 1851. He resolutely defended his right to independence of action in the face of legislative instructions, insisting (December 1843) that, "if the legislature of New Jersey go further than to advise me of their wishes ... they usurp a power which does not belong to them" (Bradley, post, p. 85).

An independent Whig, he urged protection for home markets and industrial independence (speech of April 1844), and opposed the tariff of 1846. Favoring arbitration of the Northwestern claims, he thought statehood for Oregon undesirable and improbable. He voted against the treaty for the annexation of Texas (June 8, 1844), warning his Newark constituents that the annexation would mean the repeal of a protective tariff and four more slave states (speech of February 24, 1845). Although he protested against the Mexican War, " he invariably voted the necessary measures to sustain the executive in its prosecution" (Bradley, p. 99). He opposed the extension of slavery but voted for the ratification of the Mexican Treaty.

Following the policy of the new administration he opposed the compromise measures of 1850, especially the Fugitive-Slave Act, and lost his seat in the Senate to Commodore Robert Field Stockton, Democrat. Resuming law practise at Trenton, he was "almost invariably employed on one side or the other of every" important cause" (Bradley, post, u4). With Chancellor Green, S. G. Potts, and P. D. Vroom he had compiled the New Jersey revised statutes of 1847. He served as attorney-general of New Jersey 1857-61, and as such acted as prosecutor in the famous Donnelly murder case (2 Dutcher, 463, 601). His speech at the "Fusion Convention" in Trenton, May 28, 1856, resulted in his being nominated for vice-president on the ticket with Fremont, though many of his friends desired him to have first place, and in the Republican convention of 1860 his state supported him, on the first three ballots, for the presidential nomination (C. M. Knapp, New Jersey Politics During the Period of the Civil War and Reconstruction, 1924). In 1861 he was appointed minister to France. Not knowing French, quite unversed in diplomacy, he yet established the best of relations with Louis Napoleon's government, with diplomatic colleagues, and with the press. He wore court dress since "he had not come to France to make a point with the government about buttons" (Elmer, post, p. 391) and gained the entire confidence of the Emperor whom he had "frequently met during his residence in New Jersey" (Galignani's Messenger, Paris, December 5, 1864). Keeping both governments advised on innumerable topics, he was able to avert French intervention, to stop Confederate use of French ports, to prevent construction of six Southern war vessels, to intern the Rappahannock, and to force the Alabama out to meet the Kearsarge. His long letter on the war, November 16, 1862, to Drouyn de Buys, produced gratifying results (Seward to Dayton, January 9, 1863, see Executive Document No. 38, 37 Congress, 3 Session). Seward came to have much confidence in him, and referred to his "approved discretion" (Seward to Dayton, February 8, 1864). Dayton died abruptly at 9 p. m., December 1, 1864, of apoplexy, leaving an estate of over $100,000. His wife, Margaret Elmendorf Van Der Veer, whom he married May 22, 1833, bore him five sons and two daughters. Their married life was entirely happy. He had no enemies. At his funeral John Bigelow said of Dayton, "He could not act falsely."

[T. P. Bradley, "A Memoir of the Life and Character of Hon. Wm. L. Dayton," in Proc. New Jersey Historical Society, series 23, IV, 69-118; L. Q. C. Elmer, The Constitution and Govt. of the Province and State of New Jersey ... with Reminiscences of the Bench and Bar (1872), pp. 372-96; genealogy in Lewis Letter (Lisle, New York), November December 1889, pp. 135, 138; obituaries in many newspapers.]

W.L.W-y,


DEITZLER, George Washington, 1826-1884, abolitionist. Anti-slavery leader in Kansas.

Q. W. Wilder, Annals of Kansas (1875); G. T. Andreas, History of the State of Kansas (1883); L. W. Spring, Kansas (1885);

(Dictionary of American Biography, 1936, Vol. 3, pt. 1, pp. 201-202)

DEITZLER, GEORGE WASHINGTON (November 30, 1826-April 10, 1884), anti-slavery leader in Kansas, the son of Jacob and Maria Deitzler, was born at Pine Grove, Pennsylvania. There he grew to manhood with only a common-school education-"very common" he once said. While still a young man he emigrated to the new West. After a short residence in Illinois and in California he went in March 1855 to Lawrence, Kansas, where he engaged in farming and real-estate dealing. He soon took an active part in politics, so that when the plan to organize a free-state government, in opposition to the pro-slavery territorial government, was set on foot he was sent to Boston to see Amos Lawrence and other friends of the cause. He at once received an order for one hundred Sharps rifles which were very soon on their way to Kansas in boxes marked "books." Other shipments of "books" followed. Military companies armed with these new weapons were formed among the free-state men. In the so-called Wakarusa War in November 1855, Deitzler was aide-de-camp to the commander of the free-state forces and during part of the time was in full command. A few months later, when the territorial judiciary began to function, Chief Justice Lecornpte instructed a grand jury sitting at Lecompton that levying war on the authorities of the territory was treason against the federal government. Deitzler and several other free-state leaders were promptly indicted on a charge of treason. They were immediately arrested and kept in a prison tent at Lecompton for about four months. In September 1856 they were freed on bail. Later their cases were nolle-prossed.

Deitzler's activities in behalf of the free-state cause were incessant. He served on committees, attended meetings and conventions, of which there w ere many, counseled with other leaders, and wrote for the press. He was elected a member of the free-state territorial legislature of 1857-58 and was chosen speaker of the House of Representatives. He was also a member of the Kansas Senate under the Topeka constitution. In 1860 he became mayor of Lawrence and in 1866 treasurer of the University of Kansas. When the Civil War began he was active in organizing the first regiment of Kansas Volunteer Infantry and was appointed its colonel. In August 1861 his regiment took a prominent part in the battle of Wilson's Creek where he was severely wounded. Promoted to the rank of brigadier-general in November 1862, he served under Grant until October 1863 and then resigned on account of impaired health caused by his former wound. During all of these years he had remained a bachelor. His home was at the Eldridge House in Lawrence. In September 1864 he was married to Anna McNeil of Lexington, Missouri. A month later General Price led an invading Confederate army into Missouri and eastern Kansas. The entire militia of the latter state were called out-about 20,000 in number and Deitzler was placed in chief command with the rank of major-general. He directed the movements against the Confederates in the successful campaign that followed. Various enterprises engaged his attention after the return of peace. He promoted the Emporia Town Company and was a director in the new Leavenworth, Lawrence & Fort Gibson Railroad Company. In 1872 he removed with his family to California. While in southern Arizona in the spring of 1884 he was thrown from a buggy and killed.

[The main facts of Deitzler's career are presented in his brief autobiography, now in the archives of the Kansas State Historical Society. Secondary sources are: Q. W. Wilder, Annals of Kansas (1875); G. T. Andreas, History of the State of Kansas (1883); L. W. Spring, Kansas (1885); F. W. Blackmar, Life of Chas. Robinson (1902); Trans. Kansas Historical Society, IV (1886-88); V (1891-96); VI (1897-1900); VIII (1903-04); X (1907-08); XIII (1913-14). The date of his death is sometimes given as April 11, although the Leavenworth Evening Standard, April 11, 1884, states that he died April 10.]

T. L. H.


DENNISON, William, 1815-1882, Civil War governor of Ohio, lawyer, founding member of Republican Party, state Senator, opposed admission of Texas and the extension of slavery into the new territories.  Anti-slavery man, supporter of Abraham Lincoln.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 142; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 1, p. 241; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 6, p. 446 Whitelaw Reid, Ohio in the War (1868), I, 1017-22, and index. Sewell, 1976; p. 325; See also E. O. Randall and D. V. Ryan, History of Ohio (1912), IV).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 1, p. 241;

DENNISON, WILLIAM (November 23, 1815-June 15, 1882), governor of Ohio, was the son of William Dennison, who with his New England wife, Mary Carter, about 1805 removed from New Jersey to Cincinnati, and there became a successful business man. The son attended Miami University, where he proved to be a capable student of political science, history, and literature. Graduating in 1835, he read law in the office of Nathaniel G. Pendleton, father of George H. Pendleton [q.v.]. He was admitted to the bar in 1840 and practised until 1848, when he was elected to the state Senate as a Whig. After a hot contest, which prevented organization of the Senate for two weeks, he was defeated as his party's candidate for the position of presiding officer.

In 1844, in his maiden speech before the public, Dennison had opposed the admission of Texas and the extension of the area of slavery. The position then taken foreshadowed his course through the next twenty years. As a member of the state Senate, he had a part in the fight for the repeal of the notorious "Black Laws," and while adhering to the Whig party through 1852 he was one of the first of the Ohio party leaders to join the Republican movement. In February 1856 he attended the preliminary convention at Pittsburgh and served as a member of the Committee on Resolutions; and in June he was acting chairman of the Ohio delegation in the Philadelphia Convention, which nominated Fremont. Three years later, as Republican candidate for governor, he defeated Judge Rufus P. Ranney, who ranked as the leader of the state bar, and thus found himself in the executive chair when the Civil War began. He came to the governor's chair with little experience in public affairs. Although he was well regarded by the business men of the capital city, to whom in large part he owed his nomination, he was but little known to the public, and his nomination was thought to be due to a dearth of able rivals. He campaigned with unexpected brilliance in 1859, but his success did not win for him the full confidence of the people, who decided that he was aristocratic and vain. Thus handicapped, he met the war crisis without adequate support in public opinion. Disposed in advance to be discontented, the people of Ohio were unable for a time to appreciate the energy and wisdom with which he performed his duties. Regarding the Ohio River as an unsafe line of defense for his state, Dennison dispatched McClellan with state troops to aid the loyal citizens of western Virginia in driving out the Confederates. He advocated a similar campaign in Kentucky, but the Federal government preferred to respect the state's neutrality. As a means of preventing the transportation of war supplies and war news without his approval, he practically assumed control of the railways, telegraph lines, and express companies at the outset of hostilities; and against the advice of his attorney-general, he used money refunded by the Federal government on account of state military expenditures without turning it into the treasury for reappropriation. Many complaints thus arose, not without some justification, in spite of the fact that he had with extraordinary promptness succeeded in placing in the field more than the state's quota of the troops called for by the Federal government. As a war governor, Dennison proved unpopular, and the party leaders did not venture to renominate him in 1861. Moreover, they felt the necessity of uniting with the War Democrats, and effected this purpose by supporting David Tod. Dennison accepted the situation without any show of personal feeling, and continued to give loyal support to his party. Governor Tod, in particular, constantly sought his advice and aid.

In 1864, Dennison acted as chairman of the Republican National Convention, and in the same year was appointed postmaster-general by Lincoln, which office he held until 1866, when he resigned it on account of dissatisfaction with President Johnson's course. In 1872 he was mentioned for the vice-presidential nomination, and in 1880 was defeated by Garfield for the Republican nomination as United States senator. In the same year he was chairman of the Sherman Committee in Ohio, and leader of his forces in the national convention. It is thought that had Grant been nominated, Dennison might have won the vice-presidency.

Notwithstanding his prominence in political affairs, Dennison was primarily a business man. Soon after his admission to the bar he had married the daughter of William Neil of Columbus, a promoter of stage transportation, and had settled in that city. In the early fifties he became president of the Exchange Bank, member of the city council, and organizer of the Franklin County Agricultural Society. In the dawning era of the railway, he was a pioneer promoter of the new type of transportation, leading in the organization, especially, of the Hocking Valley and Columbus & Xenia railroads. An enterprise of another type which he was influential in establishing was the Columbus Rolling Mills. By such ventures, notwithstanding heavy losses in the panic of 1873, he acquired a considerable fortune. To the end of his life, mostly on account of his reserved manner, few knew him well. On the street he spoke only to old and intimate friends. Yet no man knew better how to treat his fellows in parlor or office, and never, intentionally, did he mistreat friend or foe (Cincinnati Enquirer, June 16, 1882). He died in Columbus after a period of invalidism lasting about eighteen months.

[Most sketches of Dennison are based on Whitelaw Reid, Ohio in the War (1868), I, 1017-22, and index. See also E. O. Randall and D. V. Ryan, History of Ohio (1912), IV, Passim; Ohio Archeology and History Society Pubs., I, 1-23; IV, 444; IX, 149; Harper's Weekly, January 28, 1865; Ohio State Journal and Cincinnati Enquirer, June 16, 1882. The best source for the years of Dennison's governorship is his message of January 6, 1862, which includes documents.]

H. C. H.


DE WHITT, Alexander,  1798-1879, Massachusetts, Free-Soil U.S. Congressman, elected in 1853. Opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act. In 1854 he was reelected to congress representing the anti-slavery American Party. Later joined the Republican Party. Strong supporter of the Union during the Civil War.


DIX, John Adams  1798-1879, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Governor of New York, Railroad president, Union Major-General of volunteers, Editor, Free-Soil Party candidate for Governor of New York in 1848 (Lost).

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 1, pp. 325-327 Raybeck, 1970 pp. 67, 68, 177,206, 208, Foner, 1971 pp. 153-155, 160, 164; Sewell, 1976; pp. 147-149, 166, 172-174, 229).

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

DIX, John Adams, born in Boscawen, New Hampshire, 24 July, 1798; died in New York City, 21 April, 1879. His early education was received at Salisbury, Phillips Exeter Academy, and the College of Montreal. In December, 1812, he was appointed cadet, and going to Baltimore aided his father, Major Timothy Dix of the 14th U. S. Infantry, and also studied at St. Mary's College. He was made ensign in 1813, and accompanied his regiment, taking part in the operations on the Canadian frontier. Subsequently he served in the 21st U.S. Infantry at Fort Constitution, New Hampshire, where he became 2d lieutenant in March, 1814, was adjutant to Colonel John De B. Walback, and in August was transferred to the 3d Artillery. In 1819 he was appointed aide-de-camp to General Jacob Brown, then in command of the Northern military department, and stationed at Brownsville, where he studied law, and later, under the guidance of William West, was admitted to the bar in Washington. He was in 1820 sent as special messenger to the court of Denmark. On his return he was stationed at Fort Monroe, but continued ill-health led him to resign his commission in the army, 29 July, 1828, after having attained the rank of captain. He then settled in Cooperstown, New York, and began the practice of law. In 1830 he moved to Albany, having been appointed adjutant-general of the state by Governor Enos B. Throop. In 1833  Dix was appointed secretary of state and superintendent of common schools, publishing during this period numerous reports concerning the schools, and also a very important report in relation to a geological survey of the state (1836). He was a prominent member of the "Albany Regency," who practically ruled the Democratic Party of that day. Going out of office in 1840, on the defeat of the Democratic candidates and the election of General Harrison to the presidency, He turned to literary Pursuits, and was editor-in-chief of "The Northern light," a journal of a high literary and scientific character, which was published from 1841 till 1843. In 1841 he was elected a member of the assembly. In the following year he went abroad, and spent nearly two years in Madeira, Spain, and Italy. From 1845 till 1849 he was a U. S. Senator, being elected as a Democrat, when he became involved in the Free-Soil movement, against his judgment and will, but under the pressure of influences that it was impossible for him to resist. He always regarded the Free-Soil movement as a great political blunder, and labored to heal the consequent breach in the Democratic Party, as a strenuous supporter of the successive Democratic administrations up to the beginning of the Civil War. In 1848 he was nominated by the Free-Soil Democratic Party as governor, but was overwhelmingly defeated by Hamilton Fish. President Pierce appointed him assistant treasurer of New York, and obtained his consent to be minister to France, but the nomination was never made. In the canvass of 1856 he supported Buchanan and Breckenridge, and in 1860 earnestly opposed the election of Mr. Lincoln, voting for Breckenridge and Lane. In May, 1861, he was appointed postmaster of New York, after the defalcations in that office. On 10 January, 1861, at the urgent request of the leading bankers and financiers of New York, he was appointed Secretary of the Treasury by President Buchanan, and he held that office until the close of the administration. His appointment immediately relieved the government from a financial deadlock, gave it the funds that it needed but had failed to obtain, and produced a general confidence in its stability. When he took the office there were two revenue cutters at New Orleans, and he ordered them to New York. The captain of one of them, after consulting with the collector at New Orleans, refused to obey. Secretary Dix thereupon telegraphed: " Tell Lieutenant Caldwell to arrest Captain Breshwood, assume command of the cutter, and obey the order I gave through you. If Captain Breshwood, after arrest, undertakes to interfere with the command of the cutter, tell. Lieutenant Caldwell to consider him as a mutineer, and treat him accordingly. If anyone attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot." At the beginning of the Civil War he took an active part in the formation of  the Union Defence Committee, and was its first president; he also presided at the great meeting in Union square, 24 April, 1861. On the president's first call for troops, he organized and sent to the field seventeen regiments, and was appointed one of the four major-generals to command the New York state forces. In June following he was commissioned major-general of volunteers, and ordered to Washington by General Scott to take command of the Arlington and Alexandria Department. By a successful political intrigue, this disposition was changed, and he was sent in July to Baltimore to take command of the Department of Maryland, which was considered a post of small comparative importance; but, on the defeat of the Federal forces at Bull Run, things changed; Maryland became for the time the centre and key of the national position, and it was through General Dix's energetic and judicious measures that the state and the city were prevented from going over to the Confederate cause. In May, 1862, General Dix was sent from Baltimore to Fort Monroe, and in the summer of 1863, after the trouble connected with the draft riots, he was transferred to New York, as commander of the Department of the East, which place he held until the close of the war. In 1866 he was appointed naval officer of the port of New York, the prelude to another appointment during the same year, that of minister to France. In 1872 he was elected governor of the state of New York as a Republican by a majority of 53,000, and, while holding that office, rendered the County great service in thwarting the proceedings of the inflationists in Congress, and, with the aid of the legislature, strengthening the national administration in its attitude of opposition to them. On a renomination, in 1874, he was defeated, in consequence partly of the reaction against the president under the "third-term" panic, and partly of the studious apathy of prominent Republican politicians who desired his defeat. During his lifetime General Dix held other places of importance, being elected a vestryman of Trinity Church (1849), and in 1872 comptroller of that corporation, delegate to the convention of the diocese of New York, and deputy to the general convention of the Episcopal Church. In 1853 he became president of the Mississippi and Missouri Railway Company, and in 1863 became the first president of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, an office which he held until 1868, also filling a similar place for a few months in 1872 to the Erie Railway Company. He married Catharine Morgan, adopted daughter of John J. Morgan, of New York, formerly member of Congress, and had by her seven children, of whom three survived him. He was a man of very large reading and thorough culture, spoke several languages with fluency, and was distinguished for proficiency in classical studies, and for ability and elegance as an orator. Among his published works are "Sketch of the Resources of the City of New York " (New York, 1827); " Decisions of the Superintendents of Common Schools" (Albany, 1837); "A Winter in Madeira, and a Summer in Spain and Florence" (New York, 1850; 5th ed.. 1833): "Speeches and Occasional Addressee" (2 vols., 1864); "Dies Irae," translation (printed privately, 1863; also revised ed., 1875); and "Stabat Mater," translation (printed privately, 1868).   Son, Charles Temple, artist, born in Albany, 25 February, 1838; died in Rome, Italy, 11 March, 1873, studied at Union, and early turned his attention to art. He had made good progress in his studies when, at the beginning of the Civil War, he was chosen aide-de-camp on the staff of his father, and won credit from his faithful performance of duty.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 183-184 Memoirs of John Adams Dix (2 volumes, 1883) compiled by Morgan Dix.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 1, pp. 325-327.

DIX, JOHN ADAMS (July 24, 1798--April 21, 1879), soldier in two wars, cabinet officer, and governor, the son of Colonel Timothy and Abigail (Wilkins) Dix, began life in New England with a highly unusual training. This was because his father, a merchant and local leader of Boscawen, New Hampshire, was a man of marked individuality and versatile talents. After giving the boy a good elementary education in the classics, English literature, and public speaking, including a year in Phillips Exeter Academy, and helping personally to instruct him in music and drawing, the father sent him to the College of Montreal, a Catholic institution. This was for tuition in French and contact with a different civilization. After fifteen months here the boy was recalled by the outbreak of the War of 1812, and was sent to a distant relative in Boston who saw that he was privately prepared in Spanish, La tin, mathematics, and elocution. But when he chafed to enter military service, his father, who had become a major of infantry in Baltimore, consented, helped the spirited fourteen-year-old had to obtain a commission, and was proud to see him participate in the battle of Lundy's Lane as an ensign. Young Dix, large for his years, made an ardent soldier, and at Chrysler's Field wept when ordered to go to the rear with a body of prisoners.

The death of his father in the campaign of 1813 ushered in what Dix called "the most trying period of my life" (Memoirs, I, 50). His father's large family, nine children in all, were left in straitened circumstances, and the youth had not only to support himself but to contribute aid to his stepmother. During years "full of anxiety and trial" he remained in the army, gradually rising to the rank of major, and serving for a time in Washington, New York, and elsewhere as traveling aide to Major-General Jacob Brown. He read much, was a close student, and improved his social opportunities in the capital, meeting Madison, Randolph, and others of note, and becoming intimate with Calhoun. The belief that he could find a better field than the army was strengthened by the advice of friends, who were struck by his forensic talents, industry, and handsome bearing. He studied law, partly under the direction of Attorney-General William Wirt, and was admitted to the bar in the District of Columbia (1824); while he also did much newspaper writing upon political subjects in the last years of Monroe's administration.

His determination to resign from the army was fixed by his marriage in 1826 to Catharine Morgan, adopted daughter of John J. Morgan, a Representative from New York who owned large areas of land up-state and who offered Dix the position of managing agent at Cooperstown. Settling in this town in 1828, Dix practised law for three years, became county leader of the Jacksonian Democracy, and made himself so prominent that at the end of 1830 Governor Throop appointed him adjutant-general of the state. The salary was only $800, but Dix seized the place because it carried a seat in the powerful "Albany Regency." From this point his rise in political life was rapid, being checked only by occasional defeats of his party at the hands of the Whigs. He made an especial mark as secretary of state (1833-39) of New York; this position carried with it the superintendency of the public schools, and he did much to improve the training of teachers, while he also took the first steps toward organizing a geological survey of the state. Labors of this nature displayed his scholarly bent to advantage. Following the Harrison victory of 1840, he not only practised law, but established in Albany a literary and scientific journal, the Northern Light, which endured for a little more than two years (1841-43). It might have lasted longer but for a breakdown in his wife's health, which took him to Madeira and the Mediterranean, and resulted in a small volume of travel sketches.

Embarkation in national politics came immediately after Dix's return home, when he was elected (1845) to the United States Senate for the five unexpired years of Silas Wright's term. Here he manifested an especial interest in international affairs-he spoke for fixing the Oregon boundary at the 49th parallel, and against the withdrawal of the United States diplomatic agent from the Papal States-while he showed the free-soil sentiments that were ultimately to carry him out of the Democratic party. He was consistently aligned during the Mexican War with the anti-slavery or Barnburner Democrats; he supported the Wilmot Proviso; and in 1848 he was in favor of the separate nomination of Van Buren by the free-soil Democrats, though he opposed any alliance with the free-soil Whigs, and acquiesced very reluctantly in the final free-soil nomination of himself for governor (Alexander, post, II, 133). Indeed, his son said that to be associated with Whigs in this campaign was a painful and distressing surprise to him. His last speech in the Senate, in 1849, opposed the admission of New Mexico and California unless the enabling act prohibited slavery in these states.

In the next decade Dix should have been accepted as one of the leaders of Democracy. He was a cultivated writer, a fluent, vigorous speaker, a man of great courage, prompt decision, and proved executive ability. The opposition of the slavery wing of the party was, however, a fatal impediment. Franklin Pierce in 1853 intended to make him secretary of state, but party enemies interfered, and when he was offered the post of minister to France, this also was snatched from him by Southern opposition (James Ford Rhodes, History of the United States, From the Compromise of 1850, volume I, 1892, pp. 387, 395). The results were a withdrawal from public life, another trip abroad, a term as president of the Chicago & Rock Island, ·and the Mississippi & Missouri railroads (1854-57), and practise at the New York City bar. In 1860-61, however, public sentiment in New York City forced his promotion in striking fashion. A disastrous defalcation in the post-office caused his appointment as postmaster by Buchanan to straighten out affairs; and this had no sooner been accomplished than the moneyed interests of the East, in the crisis following the secession of South Carolina, demanded that he be made secretary of the treasury. He took office in January 1861, living at the White House till March.

Dix's chief service to the Union was in his brief period at the head of the treasury. Bankers and financiers had complete confidence in him, and though other states were seceding, he quickly obtained five millions at an average rate of slightly over ten per cent (John Jay Knox, United States Notes, 1884, p. 76). Moreover, one of his dispatches was as a clarion call to the North. On January 29, 1861, he telegraphed a treasury official in New Orleans to take possession of a revenue cutter there, concluding with the words: "If anyone attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot" (Memoirs, I, 371). In a dark hour this was a heartening vindication of the national honor. He placed the chaotic department in order and handed it over to Chase in excellent condition. Lincoln rewarded him by commissioning him a major-general, and he was ordered to Washington in June to take charge of the Alexandria and Arlington Department. It was believed, however, that at sixty-three he was too old for active service, and political intrigue resulted in changing this assignment to the Department of Maryland. In Baltimore, at Fortress Monroe, and later in New York as commander of the Department of the East, he did useful but never spectacular service. His authority in New York lasted just two years (July 1863-July 1865); arriving just after the end of the draft riots, he took energetic steps to suppress sympathizers with the Confederacy.

Dix's career after the war was that of a distinguished and honored man well past his prime, chosen to public offices with the expectation that he would occupy them with passive dignity. As minister to France for three years, 1866-69, he was popular with the American colony but played no important role in diplomacy. Returning to America, he was the recipient in 1872 of an extraordinary compliment. Though still a Democrat, he was nominated for governor by the New York Republicans as the candidate who could best help defeat Horace Greeley in Greeley's own state, and he was elected by a majority of 53,000. Though then in his seventy-fifth year, he was still vigorous, and discharged the routine duties of his office capably. His was not the hand, however, to carry through the great task of cleansing the state's Augean stables, and in 1874 he was defeated for reelection by Samuel J. Tilden. His last years were spent in peaceful retirement in New York City, with occasional appearances in behalf of civil service reform and other causes dear to him. He left behind him a reputation for loftiness of purpose, serene purity of life, and an amount of learning remarkable in politics. For a number of years he was a vestryman of Trinity Church, New York, of which, in 1862, his son Morgan Dix [q.v.] became the rector.

His published works include: A Winter in Madeira; and a Sumner in Spain and Florence (1850), a popular book which went through five editions; Speeches and Occasional Addresses (2 volumes, 1864); translations of Dies Irae (1863), and Stabat Mater (1868), in which he took especial pride.

[The all-sufficient source upon Dix's life is the Memoirs of John Adams Dix (2 volumes, 1883) compiled by Morgan Dix. This is supplemented by some of his own works, notably the first two mentioned above. Brief characterizations may be found in the Atlantic Monthly, August 1883, in D. S. Alexander, Political History of the State of New York, II (1906), 2 ff., and in C. C. Coffin, The History of Boscawen and Webster(1878), pp. 348-56, with a genealogy of the Dix family on pp. 518-20. See also obituaries in New York Times, April 21, 22, 23, 1879, and New York Herald, April 22, 23, 1879.]

A.N.


DOOLITTLE, James Rood, 1815-1897, lawyer, jurist, statesman.  Democratic and Republican U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, 1857-1869.  “At the New York state convention of 1847 he wrote the "corner-stone resolution" in which ‘the democracy of New York ... declare ... their uncompromising hostility to the extension of slavery into territory now free, or which may be hereafter acquired by any action of the government of the United States.’ This became the essential plank in the Free-Soil platform of 1848 and, in modified phraseology, in the Republican platform of 1856.” As a senator he voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 201-202; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 1, pp. 374-375; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 6, p. 746; Congressional Globe)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 1, pp. 374-375

DOOLITTLE, JAMES ROOD (January 3, 1815-July 27, 1897), lawyer, statesman, was born in Hampton Township, Washington County, New York, the eldest child of Reuben Doolittle of Colonial and English stock and Sarah (Rood) Doolittle. Reared on a farm in western New York, he obtained his preliminary education in the rural school. He graduated from Geneva (now Hobart) College in 1834. In 1837 he was admitted to the bar in Rochester and the same year he married Mary L. Cutting. He began to practise in Rochester, but four years later settled at 'Warsaw, New York, where from 1847 to 1850 he was district attorney of Wyoming County. He also took a prominent part in politics as a Democrat. In 1844 he campaigned extensively for Polk, and at the New York state convention of 1847 he wrote the "corner-stone resolution" in which "the democracy of New York ... declare ... their uncompromising hostility to the extension of slavery into territory now free, or which may be hereafter acquired by any action of the government of the United States." This became the essential plank in the Free-Soil platform of 1848 and, in modified phraseology, in the Republican platform of 1856. Doolittle remained a leader of the Barnburner faction of the Democratic party until 1856, except that he supported Van Buren in 1848. Meanwhile (1851) he settled in Racine, Wis., and two years later was elected judge of the first judicial circuit. In 1856 he identified himself with the Republican party.

He was elected, as a Republican, to the United States Senate in 1857 and served till March 4, 1869. His career in politics divides sharply into two periods-before the death of Lincoln and after that event. Although a "state-rights" Republican, prominent in the movement which resulted in Wisconsin's nullification of the Fugitive- Slave Law, he became as senator one of the staunchest and ablest proponents of the doctrine of no compromise with the slave states. Like Carl Schurz, Byron Paine, and other Wisconsin Republicans, he was determined to carry out the party platform, restricting slavery rigorously within the states where it existed under state law. This he believed to be the constitutional method. He was a close personal friend and adviser of Lincoln. Early in 1864 he addressed at Springfield, Illinois, a great mass-meeting called to decide whether or not Lincoln must be superseded. In his first dozen words: "I believe in God Almighty ! Under Him I believe in Abraham Lincoln," Doolittle aroused such a demonstration for Lincoln that the President's opponents beat a hasty retreat. Johnson's struggle with Congress over reconstruction brought Doolittle into sharp collision with the radical Republicans, who, as he believed, were violating the Constitution in keeping states out of the Union. He ably supported the President, arguing that Johnson was merely carrying into execution Lincoln's policies. On the impeachment question he voted for acquittal; in the presidential canvass of 1868 he supported Seymour against Grant. The Wisconsin legislature, in 1867, called for Doolittle's resignation, which he refused. In 1869 he retired to make his home in Racine, but opened a law office in Chicago where he practised law extensively almost to the day of his death at the age of eighty-two.

Doolittle was an outstanding personality, physically and mentally. His presence on any platform guaranteed an interested audience. His voice was remarkably fine and so powerful that he could address 20,000 persons with perfect success. He was accounted a great lawyer, was a wide reader and popular lecturer on Bible subjects. He was in great demand for speeches on special occasions and on diverse social, religious, and economic themes. His so-called "betrayal" of the Republican party ended his political career. As a Democrat he was defeated for governor of Wisconsin in 1871, for congressman from his congressional district twice, and once for judge of his judicial circuit. His "Johnsonizing" was bitterly resented, but leading Republicans who had known him long pronounced his motives pure. His nature was strongly emotional and somewhat sentimental. He tended to "fundamentalism" in religion, lecturing on the fulfilment of Bible prophecies. The Constitution he construed with Jeffersonian strictness. In practical politics he was keen, shrewd, masterful, winning the encomium of so skilled a political tactician as E. W. (Boss) Keyes. His personality radiated good will and compelled attention.

[There is a biography in The Doolittle Family in America, pt. VII (1908), comp. by Wm. F. Doolittle, pp. 653-710. Collections of pamphlets and clippings; also several hundred letters, manuscript speeches, etc., are in State History Lib., Madison, Wis. See also D. Mowry, "Vice-President Johnson and Senator Doolittle," in Pubs. Southern Historical Assn., vol. IX, and "Doolittle Correspondence" in the same, vols. IX-XI (1905- 07); Biography Dir. of the American Congress (1928); obituary in Chicago Tribune, July 28, 1897.]

J. S-r.


DOUGLASS, Frederick, 1817-1895, African American, escaped slave, author, diplomat, orator, newspaper publisher, radical abolitionist leader.  Published The North Star abolitionist newspaper with Martin Delany.  Wrote Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas: An American Slave, in 1845.  Also wrote My Bondage, My Freedom, 1855.  Manager, American Anti-Slavery Society, 1848-1853. 

(Dumond, 1961, pp. 331-333; Filler, 1960; Foner, 1964; Mabee, 1970; McFeely, 1991;  Quarles, 1948; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 264-265; Sewell, 1976; pp. 96, 176, 185, 287; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 217; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 251-254; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 6, p. 816; The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. II. New York: James T. White, 1892, pp. 309-310; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Vol. 4, p. 67).

DOUGLASS, FREDERICK (February 1817?--February 20, 1895), abolitionist, orator, journalist, was named Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, but assumed the name of Douglass after his escape from slavery. He was born at Tuckahoe near Easton, Talbot County, Maryland, the son of an unknown white father and Harriet Bailey, a slave who had also some Indian blood. As a child he experienced neglect and cruelty, indulgence and hard work; but particularly the tyranny and circumscription of an ambitious human being who was legally classed as real estate. He turned at last upon his cruelest master, and by fighting back for the first time, realize d that resistance paid even in slavery. He was sent to Baltimore as a house servant and learned to read and write with the assistance of his mistress. Soon he conceived the possibility of freedom. The settlement of his dead master's estate sent him back to the country as a field hand. He conspired with a half dozen of his fellows to escape but their plan was betrayed and he was thrown into jail. His master's forbearance secured his return to Baltimore, where he learned the trade of a ship's calker and eventually was permitted to hire his own time. A second attempt to escape, September 3, 1838, was entirely successful. He went to New York City; married Anna Murray, a free colored woman whom he had met in Baltimore, and together they went to New Bedford, where he became a common laborer.

Suddenly a career opened. He had read Garrison's Liberator, and in 1841 he attended a convention of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in Nantucket. An abolitionist who had heard him speak to his colored friends asked him to address the convention. He did so with hesitation and stammering, but with extraordinary effect. Much to his own surprise, he was immediately employed as an agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. He took part in the Rhode Island campaign against the new constitution which proposed the disfranchisement of the blacks; and he became the central figure in the famous "One Hundred Conventions" of the New England Anti-Slavery Society. It was a baptism of fire and brought out the full stature of the man. He was mobbed and mocked, beaten, compelled to ride in "Jim Crow" cars, ·and refused accommodations; but he carried the programme through to the bitter end.  

Physically, Douglass was a commanding person, over six feet in height, with brown skin, frizzly hair, leonine head, strong constitution, and a fine voice. Persons who had heard him on the platform began to doubt his story. They questioned if this man who spoke good English and bore himself with independent self-assertion could ever have been a slave. Thereupon he wrote his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass which Wendell Phillips advised him to burn. It was a daring recital of facts and Phillips feared that it might lead to his reenslavement. Douglass published the little book in 1845, however, and then, to avoid possible consequences, visited Great Britain and Ireland. Here he remained two years, meeting nearly all of the English Liberals. For the first time in his life he was treated as a man and an equal. The resultant effect upon his character was tremendous. He began to conceive emancipation not simply as physical freedom; but as social equality and economic and spiritual opportunity. He returned to the United States in 1847 with money to buy his freedom and to establish a newspaper for his race. Differences immediately arose with his white' abolitionist friends. Garrison did not believe such a journal was needed and others, even more radical, thought that the very buying of his freedom was condoning slavery. Differences too arose as to political procedure in the abolition campaign. In all these matters, however, Douglass was eminently practical. With all his intense feeling and his reasons for greater depth of feeling than any white abolitionist, he had a clear head and a steady hand. He allowed his freedom to be bought from his former master; he established the North Star and issued it for seventeen years. He lectured, supported woman suffrage, took part in politics, endeavored to help Harriet Beecher Stowe establish an industrial school for colored youth, and counseled with John Brown. When Brown was arrested, the Governor of Virginia tried to apprehend Douglass as a conspirator. Douglass hastily fled to Canada and for six months again lectured in England and Scotland.

With the Civil War came his great opportunity. He thundered against slavery as its real cause; he offered black men as soldiers and pleaded with black men to give their services. He assisted in recruiting the celebrated 54th and 55th Massachusetts colored regiments, giving his own sons as first recruits. Lincoln called him into conference and during Reconstruction, Douglass agitated in support of suffrage and civil rights for the freedmen. His last years were spent in ease and honor. He was successively secretary of the Santo Domingo Commission, marshal and recorder of deeds of the District of Columbia, and finally United States minister to Haiti. His second marriage, in 1884, to Helen Pitts, a white woman, brought a flurry of criticism, but he laughingly remarked that he was quite impartial-his first wife "was the color of my mother, and the second, the color of my father." He was active to the very close of his career, having attended a woman-suffrage convention on the day of his death.

[The chief sources of information about Frederick Douglass are his autobiographies: The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), republished in England and translated into French and German; My Bondage and My Freedom (1855); Life and Times of Frederi.ck Douglass (1881). The best biographies are: F. M. Holland, Frederick Douglass, the Colored Orator (1891); C. W. Chesnutt, Frederick Douglass (1899); Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass (1907). There are numerous references in W. P. and F. J. Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison 1805-1879 (4 volumes, 1885-89), and throughout the literature of the abolition controversy. Many of Douglass's speeches have been published.]

W. E. B. D.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, p. 217:

DOUGLASS, Frederick, orator, born in Tuckahoe, near Easton, Talbot county, Maryland, in February, 1817. His mother was a negro slave, and his father a white man. He was a slave on the plantation of Colonel Edward Lloyd, until at the age of ten he was sent to Baltimore to live with a relative of his master. He learned to read and write from one of his master's relatives, to whom he was lent when about nine years of age. His master allowed him later to hire his own time for three dollars a week, and he was employed in a ship-yard, and, in accordance with a resolution long entertained, fled from Baltimore and from slavery, 3 September, 1838. He made his way to New York, and thence to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he married and lived for two or three years, supporting himself by day-labor on the wharves and in various workshops. While there he changed his name from Lloyd to Douglass. He was aided in his efforts for self-education by William Lloyd Garrison. In the summer of 1841 he attended an anti-slavery convention at Nantucket, and made a speech, which was so well received that he was offered the agency of the Massachusetts anti-slavery society. In this capacity he travelled and lectured through the New England states for four years. Large audiences were attracted by his graphic descriptions of slavery and his eloquent appeals. In 1845 he went to Europe, and lectured on slavery to enthusiastic audiences in nearly all the large towns of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. In 1846 his friends in England contributed $750 to have him manumitted in due form of law. He remained two years in Great Britain, and in 1847 began at Rochester, New York, the publication of '”Frederick Douglass's Paper,” whose title was changed to “The North Star,” a weekly journal, which he continued for some years. His supposed implication in the John Brown raid in 1859 led Governor Wise, of Virginia, to make a requisition for his arrest upon the governor of Michigan, where he then was, and in consequence of this Mr. Douglass went to England, and remained six or eight months. He then returned to Rochester, and continued the publication of his paper. When the civil war began in 1861 he urged upon President Lincoln the employment of colored troops and the proclamation of emancipation. In 1863, when permission was given to employ such troops, he assisted in enlisting men to fill colored regiments, especially the 54th and 55th Massachusetts. After the abolition of slavery he discontinued his paper and applied himself to the preparation and delivery of lectures before lyceums. In September, 1870, he became editor of the “New National Era” in Washington, which was continued by his sons, Lewis and Frederick. In 1871 he was appointed assistant secretary to the commission to Santo Domingo; and on his return President Grant appointed him one of the territorial council of the District of Columbia. In 1872 he was elected presidential elector at large for the state of New York, and was appointed to carry the electoral vote of the state to Washington. In 1876 he was appointed U. S. marshal for the District of Columbia, which office he retained till 1881, after which he became recorder of deeds in the District, from which office he was removed by President Cleveland in 1886. In the autumn of 1886 he revisited England, to inform the friends he had made as a fugitive slave of the progress of the African race in the United States, with the intention of spending the winter on the continent and the following summer in the United Kingdom. His published works are entitled “Narrative of my Experience in Slavery” (Boston, 1844); “My Bondage and my Freedom” (Rochester, 1855); and “Life and Times of Frederick Douglass” (Hartford, 1881). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 217.


DURKEE, Charles, c. 1805-1870, Royalton, Vermont, merchant, territorial legislature in Wisconsin, U.S. Congressman, Senator, Territorial Governor of Utah.  Two-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives from the Free Soil Party, serving March 1849 to March 1853.  Republican U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, 1855-1861.

(Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 272-273; Sewell, 1976; pp.168n, 175-175, 213, 308, 331)

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

DURKEE, Charles, senator, born in Royalton, Vermont, 5 December, 1807: died in Omaha, Neb. 14 January. 1870. He was educated in his native town and in the Burlington Academy, after which he engaged in business, and later emigrated to the territory of Wisconsin, where he was one of the founders of Southport, now Kenosha. He was a member of the first territorial legislature of Wisconsin, held in Burlington (Iowa and Minnesota being then parts of the territory). In 1847 he was again a member of the territorial legislature, and in 1848 was elected to the first state legislature of Wisconsin. He was elected as a Free-Soiler to Congress, serving from 6 December, 1849, till 3 March, 1853, and was the first distinctive anti-slavery man in Congress from the northwest. In 1855 he was chosen as a Republican to the U. S. Senate from Wisconsin, succeeding Isaac P. Walker. He was a member of the Peace Congress in 1861, and was appointed governor of Utah in 1865, holding that office until failing health compelled him to resign. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. II, pp. 272-273.


DWIGHT, Theodore, 1796-1866, Connecticut, abolitionist, author, reformer, son of Theodore Dwight, 1764-1846. Supported Free-Soil movement in Kansas.

(Dumond, 1961, pp. 47, 113; Locke, 1901, pp. 93, 103f, 103n, 126, 151, 155, 166, 170, 171, 178, 183; Mason, 2006, pp. 31, 86, 147, 225, 229, 293-294n157; Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 1, p. 570; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 7, p. 195)

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

DWIGHT, Theodore, author, born in Hartford, Connecticut, 3 March, 1796; died in Brooklyn, New York, 16 October, 1866, was graduated at Yale in 1814, and began to study theology with his uncle, President Dwight, but illness forced him to abandon it in 1818, and he visited Europe for his health. He moved to Brooklyn in 1833, and engaged in various public and philanthropic enterprises, becoming a director of many religious and educational societies, and being active from 1826 till 1854 in multiplying and perfecting Sunday-schools. In 1854-'8 he engaged with George Walter in a systematic effort to send Free-Soil settlers to Kansas, and it is estimated that, directly or indirectly, they induced 9,000 persons to go thither. Mr. Dwight was a prolific writer, and at various times was on the editorial staff of the New York “Daily Advertiser,” his father's paper, the “American Magazine,” the “Family Visitor,” the “Protestant Vindicator,” the “Christian Alliance,” the “Israelite Indeed,” and the “New York Presbyterian,” of which he was at one time chief editor and publisher. In his later years he was employed in the New York custom-house. Mr. Dwight was familiar with six or eight languages. At the time of his death, which was the result of a railroad accident, he was translating educational works into Spanish, for introduction into the Spanish-American countries. He published “A Tour in Italy in 1821” (New York, 1824); “New Gazetteer of the United States,” with William Darby (Hartford, 1833); “President Dwight's Decisions of Questions discussed by the Senior Class in Yale College in 1813-'4” (New York, 1833); “History of Connecticut” and “The Northern Traveller” (1841); “Summer Tour of New England” (1847); “The Roman Republic of 1849” (1851); “The Kansas War; or the Exploits of Chivalry in the 19th Century” (1859); and the “Autobiography of General Garibaldi,” edited (1859). He was also the author of numerous educational works. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 3, Pt. 1, p. 570;

DWIGHT, THEODORE (March 3, 1796-October 16, 1866), author, educator, was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the son of Theodore [q.v.] and Abigail (Alsop) Dwight. His father was the secretary of the Hartford Convention; his mother was a sister of Richard Alsop [q.v.]. With such parents it was natural that Theodore should be fed from early childhood on unadulterated Federalism and Calvinism and that the diet should be topped off with a four-year course at Yale, where he graduated in 1814, under his uncle Timothy [q.v.], whose memory he revered and whose classroom utterances, taken down in shorthand, he published as President Dwight's Decisions of Questions Discussed by the Senior Class in Yale College in 1813 and 1814 (1833). He had intended to study theology under his uncle, but an attack of scarlet fever followed by a hemorrhage of the lungs made him relinquish his plans and turn to less strenuous employment. He traveled abroad for his health in 1818-19 and in October 1820 went again to England and France for a longer stay. In Paris he engaged with the Reverend Francis Leo in distributing free copies of De Sacy's French New Testament and was arrested for collecting an unlawful number of persons on the streets. He spoke French, Spanish, and Italian well and had a fair command of German, Portuguese, and modern Greek. At home in New York and in Brooklyn, where he lived from 1833 till his death, he taught school, worked on his father's paper, the New York Daily Advertiser, busied himself as author, editor, and translator of English books into Spanish, and engaged in various philanthropic, religious, and educational enterprises. At one time or another he worked for the Protestant Vindicator, the Family Visitor, the Christian Alliance and Family Visitor, the New York Presbyterian, and the Youth's Penny Paper. A venture of his own was Dwight's American Magazine and Family Newspaper, 1845-52. On April 24, 1827, he married Eleanor Boyd of New York. He has the distinction of having introduced vocal music into the New York public schools. From 1854 to 1858 he worked with George Walter to send Free-Soil settlers to Kansas; together they persuaded about 3,000 persons to emigrate to the new territory. His knowledge of the Romance languages, his republicanism, and his de sire to protestantize Catholic countries led him to entertain many political exiles from the Latin countries of Europe and the Americas. Of these guests the most famous was Garibaldi, who intrusted to him his autobiography for publication in the United States.

Dwight's more important books are: A Journal of a Tour in Italy in the Year 1821 (1824); The Northern Traveller, containing the Routes to Niagara, Quebec, and the Springs (1825; 6th ed., 1841); Sketches of Scenery and Manners in the United States (1829); A New Gazetteer of the United States of America (1833, with William Darby [q.v.], Dwight being responsible for New York, New Jersey, and New England); Lessons in Greek (1833, an interesting attempt at a rational method of instruction); The Father's Book, or Suggestions for the Government and Instruction of Young Children on Principles Appropriate to a Christian Country (1834, also published in London), of considerable interest; The School-Master's Friend, with the Committee-Man's Guide: Containing Suggestions on Education, Modes of Teaching and Governing, ... Plans of School Houses, Furniture, Apparatus, Practical Hints, and Anecdotes on Different Systems (1835); Open Covenants, or Nunneries and Popish Seminaries Dangerous to the Morals and Degrading to the Character of a Republican Community (1836); Dictionary of Roots and Derivations (1837); The History of Connecticut (1840); Summer Tours, or Notes of a Traveler through some of the Middle and Northern States (1847, originally published in 1834 as Things as They Are; republished in Glasgow in 1848 as Travels in America); The Roman Republic of 1849 (1851); an edition with much new material of Maria Monk's Awful Disclosures (1855); Life of General Garibaldi, Translated from his Private Papers with the History of his Splendid Exploits in Rome, Lombardy, Sicily, and Naples to the Present Time (1861). Dwight's admiration for Garibaldi, it may be added, was unbounded. During his last years he worked in the New York Customs House. He died from s hock and injuries received in jumping from a moving train in Jersey City.

[B. W. Dwight, The History of the Descendants of John Dwight of Dedham, Massachusetts (1874); F. B. Dexter, Biography Sketches Grads. Yale College, vol. VI (1912).]

G.H.G.



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