Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1892, volume 3).djvu/655

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LARNED
LARNED
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the Spingler institute, New York, and settled in that city as a newspaper correspondent and a con- tributor of sketches, stories, and poems to periodi- cals. In 1870 she edited " The Revolution," a woman's-rights newspaper. She is the author of six volumes of " Home Stories " (New York, 1872-3) that were originally published in magazines and newspapers ; "Talks with Girls " (1873) ; " Old Tales Retold from Grecian Mythology " (1875) ; " The Norse Grandmother. Tales from the Eddas " (1880); and "Village Photographs" (1887).


LARNED, or LEARNED, Ebenezer, soldier, b. in Oxford, Mass., 18 April, 1728 : d. there, 1 April, 1801. He was a son of Col. Ebenezer, the largest landholder of Oxford. The son was a captain of rangers during the old French war, and marched with his company from Fort Edward to the relief of Fort William Henry. He was a delegate to the Provincial congress at Concord in 1774. In the beginning of the Revolutionary war he marched to Cambridge at the head of a regiment of eight months' militia, arriving after the battle of Lex- ington. He fought at Bunker Hill and served during the siege of Boston, unbarring the gates with his own hands at the evacuation. At Dor- chester he received an injury and was disabled. After retiring from the field for nearly a year, he was appointed a brigadier-general by the Conti- nental congress in April, 1777, and commanded a brigade at Saratoga. At Stillwater he was the first man to enter the breach. Soon afterward his health failed and he left the army. In 1779 he was chairman of the Constitutional convention.


LARNED, Edwin Channing, lawyer, b. in Providence, R. L, 14 July, 1820 ; d. in Lake Forest. 111., 18 Sept., 1884. His father was a merchant of Providence, and his grandfather. William Lamed, served in the war of the Revolution. Edwin was graduated at Brown in 1840. After graduation he was professor of mathematics for one year in Kemper college, Wis. He then studied law with Albert C. Greene, marrying one of the daugh- ters of his preceptor, and in 1847 removing to Chicago. He was an enthusiastic anti-slavery man, and gained his first celebrity by a speech in 1851, in answer to one by Stephen A. Douglas, on the fugitive-slave law. It was published in pamphlet- form, and was called by Mr. Douglas the best that had been made on that side of fhe question. In Chicago he was identified with many works of public interest. He was a warm friend of Abraham Lincoln, and in 1860 made speeches in his support. Afterward he was an active member of the Union defence committee, and by his writings and speeches did much to promote its objects. Mr. Lincoln appointed Mr. Earned U. S. district attor- ney for the northern district of Illinois in 1861, but he lost his health and was obliged to go to Europe for rest. After the war he continued his practice as a lawyer for a time, and then went to Cambridge, Mass., to live while his son was in Har- vard. Immediately after the Chicago fire in 1871 he returned to Chicago and devoted himself to the work of the Relief and aid society. In 1872-'3 he again visited Europe with his family. He wrote many letters from abroad for the press, and his published speeches and writings would fill a large volume. Failing health again obliged him to retire from active practice, but he continued to write, and produced a " Life of Swedenborg," not yet pub- lished, and many articles for the press. See " Me- morial of EdwinChanning Earned " (Chicago, 1886).


LARNED, Simon, merchant, b. in Thompson, Conn., 13 Aug., 1753; d. in Pittsfield, Mass., 16 Nov., 1817. In the Revolutionary war he served as a captain in the 3d Massachusetts regiment. He settled as a merchant in Pittsfield in 1784, was a representative in the general court in 1791, and served as county treasurer and sheriff for many years. He was elected to congress in the place of a member who had resigned in November, 1804, and served till the following March. In 1812 he was appointed colonel of the 9th U. S. infantry, and saw service at Plattsburgh and on the Mohawk. — His son, Sylvester, clergyman, b. in Pittsfield, Mass., 23 Aug., 1796 ; d. in New Orleans, La., 31 Aug., 1820, was graduated at Middlebury in 1813, and studied theology at Andover and at Princeton, where he was graduated in 1816. He was or- dained in New York city in July, 1817, and preached in various churches, attracting large au- diences by an extraordinary gift of pathetic ora- tory. Though invited to the pastorship of large churches in Baltimore, Alexandria, and Boston, he decided to go to the south as an evangelist with his friend. Rev. Elias Cornelius. Arriving in New Orleans in January, 1818, he organized the first Presbyterian church in that city. The build- ing was completed on 4 July, 1819. Remaining in New Orleans during the summer of 1820, he ministered to his parishioners during an epidemic of yellow fever until he was seized with the dis- ease. His "Life and Sermons" were published by Rev. Ralph R. Gurley (New York. 1844).— Simon's nephew. Benjamin Franklin, soldier, b. in Pittsfield, Mass.. 6 Sept., 1794; d. in Wash- ington, D. C. 6 Sept., 1862, entered the U. S. army as ensign on 21 Oct.. 1818, was promoted to a first lieutenancy in the summer of 1814, and took part in the defence of Fort Erie, receiving the brevet rank of captain for gallant conduct. In January, 1815. he was appointed regimental paymaster, and on the reduction of the army retained as paymaster of the 5th infantry, with rank and pay of major. In 1847. when two deputy paymaster-generalships were created. Maj. Lamed was appointed to one of them with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and on the death of Gen. Nathan Towson, in 1854, he succeeded to the paymaster-generalship by right of seniority, with the rank of colonel. At the begin- ning of the civil war he thoroughly reorganized his department; but his health, which was already im- paired, gave way under the strain.


LARNED, William Augustus, educator, b. in Thompson. Conn.. 23 June, 1806: d. in New Haven, Conn.. 3 Feb., 1862. He was graduated at Yale in 1826, taught for two years in Salisbury, N. C., was a tutor at Yale for the next three years, and then pursued the theological course. He was settled in a pastoral charge at Millbury. Mass., in May. 1834. but resigned in the autumn of 1835, on account of failing health, and associated himself with the Rev. Dr. Nathaniel S. S. Neman in a theological school that was established in Troy, N. Y., teaching Hebrew and Greek until the institution was discontinued in 1839. In that year he succeeded Ohauncev A. Goodrich in the professorship of rhetoric and English literature at Yale, which post he held till his death. He was a constant contributor to the - New Englander," and in 1854 and 1855 acted as its editor. In the later years of his life he prepared and printed, but did hot publish, a valuable edition of the "Oration of Demosthenes on the Crown," with philological and rhetorical notes.— His sister, Ellen Douglas, b. in Thompson, Conn.. 13 July. 1825, has assisted in compiling several genealogies, family histories, and historical sketches, is the author of a "History of Windham Countv, Conn." (Worcester, 1874; new ed., 1880), and of a " History of the Town of Wood-