Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1889, volume 6).djvu/713

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
COWLES
DAVIN

and breadth of research, and their strength and reason of bearing, they are not excelled by any judge in England or America." He has frequently been compared to Lord Mansfield. Judge Cowen was more than six feet in height, and possessed great dignity of presence and unassuming man- ners. In 1812 he was one of the founders, in Northumberland, Saratoga co., N. Y., of the first temperance society in the United States. He was the author of " Civil Jurisdiction of Justices of the Peace in New York " (2 vols., 1844) ; " New York Reports, 1823-'8 " (9 vols., 1824-'30) ; and a "Digested Index of Reports" (1831); and edited " Phillipps on Evidence h (5 vols., 1850).


COWLES, Augustus Woodruff, educator, b. in Reading, N. Y., 12 July, 1819. After gradua- tion at Union college in 1841, he taught, studied theology in New York city, and in 1847-'56 was pastor of the Presbyterian church in Brockport. He was then made president of Elmira college, where he still remains. The degree of D. D. was given to him by Ingham university in 1858, and that of LL. D. by Hamilton college in 1886. Dr. Cowles was the first president of a college that was fully chartered expressly for the collegiate education of women, with a course of study honor- ably equivalent to the courses in colleges for men. He has gained considerable reputation as an artist, first introduced the special study of art criticism into a college curriculum, and has delivered free- hand illustrated lectures on art.


CURTIS, James Langdon, presidential candi- date, b. in Stratford, Conn., 19 Feb., 1816. He was educated in his native town, and engaged in business in New York city, where, as colonel of the 9th regiment, he did good service in putting down the flour riots in 1835. He was nominated by the Labor party for governor of Connecticut in 1884, and in 1888 became the candidate of the National American party for president.


CUSHING, William, author, b. in Lunenburg, Worcester co., Mass., 15 May, 1811. His brother, Edmund Lambert (1807-'83), was chief justice of New Hampshire in 1874-'6. William was gradu- ated at Harvard in 1832, and at the divinity-school there in 1839, and preached till 1857, when he re- moved to a farm in Clinton, Mass. He went to Cambridge in 1868, became library assistant in the Harvard library, and since 1878, when he was discharged, has engaged in literary pursuits. He spent several years in collecting material for a volume entitled " The Century of Authors', 1778- 1880," the manuscript of which has been used in the preparation of this work. His published books are " Index to the North American Review " (Bos- ton, 1878) ; " Index to the Christian Examiner " (1879); and " Initials and Pseudonyms " (1885-'8); and he has in preparation a work entitled " Ano- nyms." Another brother is Luther Stearns Cu'sh- ing


DAME, Harriet Patience, nurse, b. in Barn- stead, N. H., 5 Jan., 1815. Her parents moved to Barnstead about 1797, and in 1843 Miss Dame went to Concord, where she resided until the civil war. She joined the 2d New Hampshire regiment as hospital matron in June, 1861, and remained with it until it was mustered out in December, 1865. Miss Dame was inside the trenches at Fair Oaks, where she passed a dark night alone in the thick woods, the only woman in the brigade, car- ing for the wounded of other regiments as well as her own. She was on duty as nurse near the old stone church at Centreville while her regiment participated in the second battle of Bull Run. There she was taken prisoner, but was soon released. Miss Dame was appointed matron of the 18th army corps hospital in September, 1864, and had super- vision of the nurses on duty. Of her services, Gen. Gilman Marston, who was long colonel of the 2d regiment, said : " Wherever the regiment went she went, often going on foot, and sometimes camping on the field without tent. . . . She was truly an angel of mercy, the bravest woman I ever knew. I have seen her face a battery without flinching. In August, 1867, she was appointed to a clerkship in the treasury department, where she still remains. In 1886 she deposited $1,000 with a committee of the 2d regiment veterans to erect a building for headquarters for their encampment at Lake Winnipiseogee, N. H.


DARWIN, Charles Robert, English naturalist, b. in Shrewsbury, England, 12 Feb., 1809; d. in Down, Kent, England, 18 April, 1882. He was a grandson of Dr. Erasmus Darwin. Immediately after his graduation at Cambridge in 1831 he volunteered to accompany the ship '• Beagle" as natural- ist on an exploring expedition around the world, on which he was engaged till 2 Oct., 1836. Leaving the ship at Valparai- so, Darwin crossed the South American continent to Buenos Ayres, discovering on his way the gi- gantic fossil remains

that first brought

his name into notice. On his return he settled on a country estate in Kent, where he spent his life in scientific occupations, writing his remarkable works on botany and natural history, and pro- pounding the theory of the origin of species by the natural selection of favorable variations, which soon became celebrated as the Darwinian theory. His writings that relate to this hemisphere include "Journal of Researches during a Voyage Around the World " (1839) ; " Geological Observations in South America" (1846); and many papers, such as " The Connection of Certain Volcanic Phenomena in South America." See " Darwin " by Grant Al- len (1885), also " Life and Letters of Charles Dar- win," by his son Francis Darwin (2 vols., New York, 1888).


DAVIN, Nicholas Flood, Canadian journalist, b. in Kilfinane, Ireland, 13 Jan., 1843. He was educated in London, and also studied at Queen's university, but never took a degree. In 1868 he was called to the English bar, and he has practised both in London and in Toronto. For five years he was a reporter in the gallery of the British house of commons, and also a contributor to the " Pall Mall Gazette." During the Franco-Prussian war he was correspondent of the " Irish Times " and the London " Standard." In 1872 he went to Canada, and he has there edited the Toronto "Globe" and "Mail," and in 1882 established the Regina " Leader," the first large paper in Assiniboia. He was sent by the Canadian government in 1879 to Washington to inquire into the working of the American system of educating Indian children. Subsequently he investigated the same