jected the offer, boldly avowed his republican principles, and from that time became identified with the revolutionary party in Virginia. He was one of the representatives of Virginia in the first Continental Congress, when his relative, Peyton Randolph, was chosen its president. In the Autumn of 1775, he was one of a committee of Congress who visited the American army at Cambridge, to devise plans for the future, with Washington; and the following year he warmly supported, and affixed his signature to, the Declaration of Independence. He was a member of the Foreign Committee until its dissolution in 1777, and at that time he returned to Virginia, and took his seat in the House of Burgesses. He was chosen speaker, and held that station until 1782, when he was elected governor of Virginia. As military lieutenant of his county, he was very active in endeavors to capture Arnold, the traitor, and with Nelson, kept the militia disciplined and vigilant, until the great victory at Yorktown. Mr. Harrison served as governor, two terms, and then retired to private life. He was again brought into the public service by being chosen governor, in 1791. On the day after the election, he invited a party of friends to dine with him. He had recently recovered from a severe attack of gout in the stomach; indulgence on that occasion invited its return, and the day following was his last on earth. He died in April, 1791. William Henry Harrison, the ninth President of the United States, was his son.

A1

JEREMY BELKNAP.

MONG the writers of New England, Jeremy Belknap, D.D., holds a high rank. He was a descendant of one of the early inhabitants of Boston, and was born in that city on the 4th of June, 1744. He was prepared for college in the grammar school of the celebrated John Lovell, and was graduated at Harvard, in 1762. While a lad, he was remarkable for the beauty and chasteness of his compositions, and his friends saw in him the germ of an elegant writer. He was equally fluent and correct in his conversation; and the profession of a gospel minister being consonant with his seriousness of thought, he applied himself to the study of theology. In 1767, he was ordained pastor of the church at Dover, New Hampshire, where he passed twenty years of his ministerial life, in the enjoyment of the cordial esteem of men of every class. He wrote considerable in favor of the colonies, before the war, but took very little part in public affairs during the Revolution. Toward the close of his labors in Dover, he wrote a history of New Hampshire, in two large volumes, which gained him great reputation as an accurate chronicler. In 1787, Dr. Belknap was called to the pastoral charge of a congregational church in Boston, and there he spent the remainder of his years, a faithful minister and an assiduous student. The fields of literature had great charms for him, and in pursuit of the pleasures to be found therein, he spent much time. The last literary labor of his life was an American Biography, in which he exhibited much patient research and careful analysis. He did not live to complete it, for, in June, 1798, he was suddenly prostrated by paralysis of the whole system, and died on the 20th of that month, at the age of fifty-four years. He experienced the "privilege" for which he aspired, as expressed in the following lines, found among his papers:

"When faith and patience, hope and love,
Have made us meet for heaven above,
How blest the privilege to rise,

Satched, in a moment, to the skies!
Unconscious to resign our breath,
Nor taste the bitterness of death."

VER

VERY few of the American settlers were descendants of aristocratic families, except the cavaliers of Virginia, and as a general rule, they were staunch republicans when the great political question of right and power was to be decided between the colonists and Great Britain. Robert Livingston, the first of the name who emigrated to America, was a lineal descendant of the Earl of Livingstone,' of Scotland. From him descended the family of that name so numerous at the period of the Revolution, and since, and who were all remarkable for their unflinching patriotism during the great struggle. Robert R. Livingston was a great grandson of the first "lord of the manor."2 To the careful research and accurate pen of John W. Francis, M.D., we are indebted for a record of the chief events of his life. He was born in the city of New York, in 1747, and was educated at King's (now Columbia) College, where he was graduated in 1764. He studied law under the guidance of William Smith, chief justice of New York, and became an eminent practitioner of that profession.

1. He was hereditary governor of Linlithgow Castle, in which Mary, Queen of Scots, was born, and bis daughter was one of the four ladies who accompanied that unfortunate Queen to France. 2. The Manor of Livingston, in Columbia county, New York. It was one of those manorial estates, established under the patroon privileges of the Dutch rule in that province. See note 1, page 260.

106

WILLIAM ALEXANDER.

His zeal for popular liberty was thoroughly awakened during the excitement incident to the Stamp Act, and he was an early participant in those movements which resulted in revolution. The brave General Montgomery, who fell at Quebec, had married his sister, and that event intensified his devotion to the republican cause. In 1776, he was elected a member of the Continental Congress, at the same time holding the office of delegate in the Provincial Congress of New York. He was appointed one of the committee to draft a Declaration of Independence, but, being called to duties at home, before the final vote was taken, his name does not appear upon that instrument.

Mr. Livingston was made Secretary of Foreign Affairs (Secretary of State) when the new organization of government, under the Articles of Confederation, was completed; and performed the duties of that station with rare ability, until 1783, when he was appointed Chancellor of the State of New York. He was a warm supporter of the Federal Constitution, in the New York convention held at Poughkeepsie in 1788, to consider it; and on the 30th of April, the following year, he administered the oath of office to Washington, the first President of the United States. In 1801, Mr. Jefferson appointed him resident minister at the court of Napoleon, and he successfully negotiated the purchase of Louisiana, from the French, for fifteen millions of dollars. By his enlightened patronage of Robert Fulton, in his experiments in steam navigation, he conferred a lasting benefit on mankind, and his name will always be honorably associated with that inventor, and the wonderful results of those experiments. Chancellor Livingston died at his seat, at Clermont, in Columbia county, on the 26th of February, 1813, in the sixty-sixth years of his age. "His person," says Dr. Francis, who knew him intimately, was tall and commanding, and of patrician dignity. Gentle and courteous in his manners, pure and upright in his morals, his benefactions to the poor were numerous and unostentatious. In his life, he was without reproach-in death, victorious over its terrors."

WILLIAM ALEXANDER.

NLY one, of all the American officers of the Revolution, bore a title of nobility by William Alexander, who claimed the title of Earl of Stirling. He was the son of James Alexander, of Scotland, who took refuge in America, in 1716, after a warm participation in the cause of the son of James the Second, "pretender" to the rightful heirship of the throne of England. William was born in the city of New York, in 1726. His mother was the widow of David Provoost, a bold smuggler in the early part of the last century, and well known by the name of "Ready Money Provoost." Young Alexander joined the army in the French and Indian war, and was secretary to General Shirley. He accompanied that officer to England, in 1755, and there made the acquaintance of some of the leading men of the realm. By their advice, he instituted proceedings to obtain the title of Earl of Stirling, to which his father was heir-presumptive when he left Scotland. Although he did not obtain a legal recognition of the title, his right to it was generally conceded, and from that time he was addressed as Earl of Stirling. He returned to America in 1761, married the daughter of Philip Livingston (sister of Governor Livingston, of New Jersey), and built a fine mansion, on his estate, at Baskenridge. He was a member of the New Jersey Provincial Council for a number of years; and when the choice between republicanism and royalty had to be made, he was found on the side of the people.

TIMOTHY DWIGHT.

107 In 1775, the Provincial Convention of New Jersey appointed him colonel of the first regiment of militia, and in March, 1776, Congress gave him the commission of a brigadier. General Lee left him in command at New York in April, and in August, he fought valiantly in the battle near Brooklyn, and was made prisoner. He was exchanged; and in February following, Congress made him a majorgeneral. He performed active and varied services until the Summer of 1781, when he was ordered to the command of the northern army, with his headquarters at Albany. An invasion from Canada was then expected. Indeed it was commenced under St. Leger, but the vigorous preparations of Stirling intimidated him, and the scheme was abandoned. Late in the Autumn, he took command in New Jersey, and had jurisdiction and general supervision of military affairs, in that State and in New York, to Fishkill above the Hudson Highlands. Lord Stirling was again in command at Albany, in 1782, where he died, on the 15th of January, 1783, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. It is a singular fact, that during the War for Independence, Lord Stirling had command, at different times, of every brigade of the American army, except those of South Carolina and Georgia.

TIMOTHY DWIGHT.

WENTY days after the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the the students of Yale College on the subject of the future of the States then just declared "free and independent," in language truly prophetic.' That young prophet was Timothy Dwight, a grandson of the celebrated Jonathan Edwards, and many years the honored president of that ancient institution of learning. He was born at Northampton, Massachusetts, on the 14th of May, 1752. He was educated at Yale College, where he was graduated in 1769. From that period, until 1771, he taught a grammar school, in New Haven, and at the same time he devoted eight hours each day to severe study. At the age of nineteen years he was chosen a tutor in Yale College, and performed the duties of his station with great satisfaction for six years. It was while he was engaged in that vocation that he delivered the address above alluded to. He took his second degree in 1772, and, on that occasion, he delivered a learned dissertation on the history, eloquence, and poetry of the Bible. At about that time he commenced his sacred epic, The Conquest of Canaan, and finished it at the age of twenty-two years. Severe application and want of bodily exercise now seriously affected his health, but it was speedily restored by a change of habits, and sickness was a stranger to him during the next forty years.2

Mr. Dwight married in the Spring of 1777; and in June following, he was licensed to preach the gospel. In September, he withdrew from the college, was appointed chaplain to General Parson's brigade, and joined the Continental

1. After speaking of the establishment of a republican government, having for its basis the virtue and intelligence of the people, he referred to the necessary influence which such a government would have on the general advancement of mankind. He spoke of the yet undeveloped resources of the soil and mines, the organization of new States, the vast increase of population; and then referred to the condition of that portion of the Continent under Spanish rule, from which during the last twenty years, we have received such vast accessions of territory. After speaking of the vices and degradation of the people, he says, "the moment our interest demands it, these extensive regions will be our own; the present race of inhabitants will either be entirely exterminated, or revive to the native human dignity, by the generous and beneficent influence of just laws and rational freedom."

2. He was always afflicted with a painful disease of the eyes, caused by his intense use of them in study too soon after recovering from the small-pox.

"Columbia Columbia! to glory arise,

The queen of the world, and the child of the skies,"

was the most celebrated. That, too, like his address the year before, was truly prophetic. On receiving the news of his father's death, he left the army, settled at the homestead in Northampton, and with filial regard cherished his aged mother, for several years. He preached occasionally in the neighboring towns, and superintended a school at Hadley. In 1781, he was elected a member of the Massachusetts legislature, but he soon abandoned civil employment for that of clerical duties. He was ordained pastor of a church at Greenfield, near Fairfield, Connecticut, where he opened an academy, and labored industriously in the cause of religion and education, for twelve years. The building in which ho taught school, on "Greenfield Hill," is yet [1854] standing. In 1785, his Conquest of Canaan was first published, three thousand subscribers for it having been obtained. In 1794, another poem, called Greenfield Hill, was published, and increased his fame as an epic poet. Higher and more arduous duties now awaited him. On the death of Dr. Stiles, in 1795, he was chosen President of Yale College, and for ten years performed the duties and received the emoluments of Professor of Theology, in that institution, by annual appointment, when