governor of Connecticut, and was annually reëlected to that office for ten years, when he was chosen chief magistrate. He was again chosen governor, in 1797, and was an incumbent of the chair of State at the time of his death, which occurred on the 1st of December, of that year, when he was in the seventy-second year of his age. Inflexible integrity, sterling virtue, and exalted piety, were the prominent traits of Governor Wolcott's character. He was also a bright example as a patriot and Christian.

POLITICAL

THOMAS COOPER.

as well as religious persecutions in Europe have, from time to time, driven many valuable men to this country for their own preservation and for our special benefit. Few of these have held a more prominent place in the public esteem than Dr. Thomas Cooper, for many years president of the College of South Carolina. He was a native of England, where he was born in 1759. He was graduated at Oxford University at the age of eighteen years. Bearing in his hand the honors of that institution, and in his heart the glowing enthusiasm of a liberal soul, he entered boldly and fearlessly upon the sea of politics, with a democratic idea as his guiding star. When the French Revolution blazed forth, young Cooper attached himself to the party in England that hailed the event with delight, and he soon became a marked man by friends and foes. When the atrocities of the so-called Republican party, in France, chilled the blood of even its warm friends in England, and enthusiasm began to cool, Cooper found his country an uncomfortable and perhaps a dangerous place to domicil in; and, in 1794, he came to America, with his friend Dr. Priestly, and other reformers. He resided awhile in New York city, then in Philadelphia, and became first a judge of a court of common pleas in Pennsylvania, and then professor of chemistry in Dickenson College, at Carlisle, in that State. He was a great student, yet, unlike many great students, he was a dispenser as well as a recipient of knowledge. His attainments were multifarious and extraordinary; and he wrote and published works on Law, Medical Jurisprudence, and Political Economy. He translated Justinian and Broussais; and he was a habitual writer upon current politics, always in favor of the Republican party. He efficiently sustained the administrations of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe. Jefferson offered him the Professorship of Chemistry in the University of Virginia, but be declined it. He subsequently filled the same chair in the College of South Carolina, where his lectures were of the highest order, not only on account of their scientific instructions, but for their beauty as specimens of English composition. He finally became president of that institution, yet, with all his wealth of knowledge and peculiar powers of impartation, the institution did not flourish to that degree which the accomplishments of its head taught its friends to expect. The reason may be found in the fact that Dr. Cooper was an avowed unbeliever in revealed religion, and Christian parents would not intrust their children to his care. He was the more dangerous in this respect, because his manners were captivating, and his opposition to Christianity was so courteous, that no one was repelled by a shock such as the writings of Paine and others give to the soul which had hitherto dwelt in an atmosphere of belief. Dr. Cooper was an esteemed resident of Columbia, South Carolina, for about twenty years, and died there, while in the performance of his duties as president of the college, on the 11th of May, 1839, in the eightieth year of his age.

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WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON.

SAMUEL HOPKINS:

EW theologians of our country have exerted a wider special influence than

the chief of the Calvinistic sect of Christians known as Hopkinsians. He was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, on the 17th of September, 1721, and in the excellent society of that town his youth was spent, and the labors of a farm were his occupation. He was graduated at Yale College, in 1741, and that year he heard both Whitefield and Gilbert Tennant preach. Their sermons made a deep impression upon his mind, and almost unsettled his reason. He remained a recluse in his father's house for several months, and then went to Northampton to study divinity under Jonathan Edwards. He was ordained a Christian minister at Great Barrington, Massachusetts, on the 28th of December, 1743. There he remained until 1769, when he was dismissed by an ecclesiastical council. He went to Newport, Rhode Island, in 1770, where he preached for awhile, but new views concerning vital religion, which he had put forth, displeased many of his hearers, and, at a meeting, they resolved not to give him a call as a pastor. He prepared to leave them, and preached a farewell sermon. That discourse so interested and impressed the people, that they urged him to remain and become their pastor. He complied, and the connection was severed only by his death thirty-three years afterward. When the British took possession of Rhode Island, in 1776, Mr. Hopkins retired, with his family, to Great Barrington, and preached at Newburyport, Canterbury, and Stamford. After the evacuation of Rhode Island, by the British, in 1780, he returned to Newport, but his flock were so scattered and impoverished, that they could not give him a stated salary. Yet he declined invitations to preach elsewhere to more favored congregations; and during the remainder of his life he continued a faithful pastor there, and subsisted upon the weekly contributions of his friends. He was deprived of the use of his limbs, by paralysis, in 1799, but so far recovered as to be able to preach again. He died on the 20th of December, 1803, at the age of eighty-two years. Dr. Hopkins was an inefficient preacher. His pen, and not his tongue, was the chief utterer of those sentiments which have made his name famous cs a Calvinistic theologian.1

ΟΝ

WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON.

the banks of the James River, in Charles City county, Virginia, is a plain mansion, around which is spread the beautiful estate of Berkeley, the birthplace of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and of one of the Presidents of the United States. The former was Benjamin Harrison, whose career we have already sketched. The latter was his son, William Henry Harrison, whose life we will now consider. He was born on the 9th of February, 1773. At a suitable age he was placed in Hampden Sydney College, where he was graduated; and then, under the supervision of his guardian (Robert Morris), in Philadelphia, prepared himself for the practice of the medical art. At about that time an

1. Dr. Hopkins not only embraced the whole Calvinistic doctrine of total depravity" and "predestination and election," but added thereto some extraordinary views concerning the origin and nature of sin, quite incompatible with reason or common sense. Yet many embraced his doctrines: and his two volumes of sermons have been extensively read and admired by those who have a taste for such metaphysical disquisitions.

army was gathering to chastise the hostile Indians in the North-west. Young Harrison's military genius was stirred within him, and having obtained an ensign's commission from President Washington, he joined the army at the age of nineteen years. He was promoted to a lieutenancy, in 1792; and, in 1794, he followed Wayne to conflicts with the North-western tribes, where he greatly distinguished himself. He was appointed secretary of the North-western Territory, in 1797, and resigned his military commission. Two years afterward, when only twenty-six years of age, he was elected the first delegate to Congress from the Territory.' On the erection of Indiana into a separate territorial government, in 1801, Harrison was appointed its chief magistrate, and he was continued in that office, by consecutive reappointments, until 1813,2 when the war with Great Britain called him to a more important sphere of action. He had already exhibited his military skill in the battle with the Indians at Tippecanoe, in the Autumn of 1811. He was commissioned a major-general in the Kentucky militia, by brevet, early in 1812. After the surrender of General Hull, at Detroit, he was appointed major-general in the army of the United States, and intrusted with the command of the North-western division. He was one of the best officers in that war; but, after achieving the battle of the Thames,

1. It included the present States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan. General St. Clair was then governor of the Territory. 2. He had also held the office of commissioner of Indian affairs, in that Territory, and had concluded no less than thirteen important treaties with the different tribes.

and other victories in the lake country, his military services were concluded. He resigned his commission, in 1814, in consequence of a misunderstanding with the Secretary of War, and retired to his farm at North Bend, Ohio. He served as commissioner in negotiating Indian treaties; and the voice of a grateful people afterward called him to represent them in the legislature of Ohio, and of the nation. He was elected to the Senate of the United States, in 1824. In 1828, he was appointed minister to Colombia, one of the South American Republics. He was recalled, by President Jackson, on account of some differences of opinion respecting diplomatic events in that region, when he returned home, and again sought the repose of private life. There he remained about ten years, when he was called forth to receive from the American people the highest honor in their gift-the chief magistracy of the Republic. He was elected President of the United States by an immense majority, and was inaugurated on the 4th of March, 1841. For more than twenty days he bore the unceasing clamors for office, with which the ears of a new president are always assailed; and then his slender constitution, pressed by the weight of almost threescore and ten years, suddenly gave way. The excitements of his new station increased a slight disease caused by a cold, and on the 4th of April-just one month after the inauguration pageant at the presidential mansion,-the honored occupant was a corpse. He was succeeded in office by the vice-president, John Tyler.

THE

ARTHUR ST. CLAIR.

HERE were brave soldiers, full of confidence in themselves and their companions-in-arms, during the War for Independence, who lacked skill as leaders, and failed in winning that fame to which their courage entitled them. Arthur St. Clair was of that number. He was an officer of acknowledged bravery and prudence, yet he was far from being an expert military leader. He was born at Edinburgh, in Scotland, in 1734, and was a lieutenant in the army under Wolfe, in the campaign against Canada, in 1759. He remained in America, after the peace, and was placed in command of Fort Ligonier, in Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania. He also received a grant of a thousand acres of land in that then wilderness, and resided there until the beginning of the Revolution. He was appointed to the command of a battalion of Pennsylvania militia, in January, 1776, and received from Congress the commission of colonel. He raised a regiment, proceeded to the northern department to operate against Canada, and, in August, was promoted to brigadier-general. He behaved with great bravery and skill in the battles at Trenton and Princeton; and, in February, 1777, he was commissioned a major-general. He was placed in command of Ticonderoga the following Summer. The post was weak in many ways, and when, in July, Burgoyne, with a powerful army, approached and took an advantageous position, St. Clair abandoned it, and retreated toward the Hudson, where Schuyler was preparing to meet the invaders. That retreat proved a disastrous one in the loss of men and munitions. A court of inquiry honorably acquitted him; and, in 1780, he was ordered to Rhode Island. Circumstances prevented his taking command there; and, in 1781, when the allied American and French armies proceeded to attack Cornwallis, at Yorktown, in Virginia, he remained in Philadelphia, with a considerable force, to protect Congress. He obtained permission to join the main army, and arrived at Yorktown during the siege. After the capture of the British army there, he proceeded to join General

FRANCOIS XAVIER MARTIN.

243

Greene, in the South, and on his way he drove the British from Wilmington, North Carolina.

General St. Clair was a member of the executive council of Pennsylvania, in 1783, and was elected to Congress three years afterward. He was president of that body, early in 1787. Upon the erection of the North-western Territory into a government, in 1788, he was appointed its governor, and held that office until 1802, when Ohio was admitted into the Union as a sovereign State.

St. Clair commanded an army against the Miami Indians, in 1791; and, in the Autumn of that year, was defeated with the loss of almost seven hundred men. He was then suffering from severe illness, yet bore himself bravely. Public censure was loud and ungenerous, but a committee of the House of Representatives acquitted him of all blame. When he retired from public life, in 1802, he was an old man, and almost ruined in fortune. He resided in dreary loneliness near Laurel Hill, Westmoreland county, and for a long time vainly petitioned Congress to allow certain claims. He finally obtained a pension of sixty dollars a month, and his last days were made comfortable. He died on the 31st of August, 1818, at the age of eighty-four years. His remains rest in the graveyard of the Presbyterian Church, at Greensburg, and over it the Masonic fraternity placed a handsome monument, in 1832.

PERHA

FRANCOIS XAVIER MARTIN.

ERHAPS one of the most learned jurists and erudite scholars that ever adorned the profession of the law, in this country, was François Xavier Martin, better known to the general reader as the accomplished Historian of North Carolina.' He was born at Marseilles, in France, on the 17th of March, 1762. At the age of twenty years he came to America. The war of the Revolution was then just drawing to a close, and he took up his residence at Newbern, in North Carolina, and prepared himself for the profession of the law. On his first appearance at the bar, he gave evidence of that acuteness which marked his whole career, in whatever station in life he was called to act. His practice became extensive and lucrative, and he soon took a high social position in his adopted State. In 1806, he was called to represent Newbern district in the House of Commons of North Carolina. Soon after the close of his duties therein, President Madison (in 1809) appointed him United States Judge of the Mississippi Territory, and he made his residence at Natchez. On the 1st of February, 1815, he was elevated by Governor Claiborne to the bench of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, as one of the associate judges. He held that office for twenty-two years, when, in January, 1837, he became chief justice of the State, on the death of Judge Mathews. Chief Justice Martin remained at the head of the Supremo Court of Louisiana until the adoption of the present constitution of that State, in the Autumn of 1845, when he retired to private life. He was then in the eighty-fourth year of his age. Judge Martin lived but a little more than a year after his retirement. He died on the 10th of December, 1846. No man ever left an official station with fewer stains of sins of omission or commission upon his garment, than Judge Martin, for through his long life not a syllable in disparagement of his honesty and integrity was ever uttered. His memory is cherished with the deepest affection by the members of his profession, and by the community in which he lived.

1. His History of North Carolina, including the story of its discovery, settlement, and progress of colonization, until the beginning of the Revolution, was commenced in 1791, but was not published until 1829, when it was issued from a New Orleans press, in two octavo volumes.