Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1892, volume 3).djvu/681

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LAZCANO
LEA
645

ers Judah Halevy, Ibn Gabirol, and Moses ben Esra, several of which have been incorporated in the ritual of many American synagogues.


LAZCANO, Francis Xavier, Mexican author, b. in Puebla, Mexico, 22 Oct., 1702; d. there, 15 May, 1762. He entered the Society of Jesus, 22 Oct., 1717. and taught rhetoric and theology in Mexico and philosophy in Puebla. Among his works are " Vida y Virtudes de los PP. Keler y Provincial Mateo Ansaldo, de la Compania de Jesus" (Mexico, 1756); "Brevis notitia appariti- onis mirabilis B. Marias Virginis de Guadalupe " (Rome, 1757); "Zodiaco Guadalupano " (Mexico, 1776); and "Dos tratados de los Privilegios espi- rituales de los Jesuitas ye de los Indianos."


LAZELLE, Henry Martyn, soldier, b. in En- field, Mass., 8 Sept., 1832. He was graduated at the U. S. military academy in 1855, assigned to the infantry, served on the frontiers of Texas and New Mexico against the Apaches, and in February, 1859, was severely wounded in a skirmish with the latter in the Sacramento mountains. While sta- tioned at Fort Bliss, Tex., he was captured by the Confederates on 8 May, 1861, and held as a prisoner of war until he was exchanged on 28 July, 1862. He was promoted captain on 11 June, 1861, and served in 1862-3 as assistant commissary of prisoners at Washington, D. C, and in August, 1862, was agent for the exchange of prisoners of war in the west. He was appointed colonel of the 16th New York cavalry on 23 Oct., 1863, commanded that regi- ment in operations against Mosby's guerillas, and was afterward placed in command of a cavalry brigade. He was brevetted major in the regular army on 19 Sept., 1864, for gallantry in the action near Culpeper, Va., resigned his volunteer com- mission on 19 Oct., 1863, and served subsequently as provost-marshal-general of the military division of west Mississippi. He took part in the Yellow- stone expedition against the Sioux Indians in 1872, being engaged in the action on Powder river, Dakota ; also in the Yellowstone expedition of the autumn of 1873, and in the operations against the Sioux in 1874, and was promoted major on 15 Dec, 1874. In 1877 he served in the field against the Indians in Montana. He was commandant of cadets at the U. S. military academy in 1879-82, was promoted lieutenant-colonel on 26 June, 1882, represented the United States at the military ma- noeuvres in India in 1885, and served as assistant inspector -general of the department of the Co- lumbia till June, 1887, when he was placed in charge of the bureau of publication of war records at Washington, D. C, succeeding Col. Robert N. Scott. Lieut.-Col. Lazelle has contributed to vari- ous magazines, and has published " One Law in Nature " (New York, 1872), and a prize essay on " Improvements in the Art of War" (1882).


LAZENBY, William Rane, horticulturist, b. in Benton, N. Y., 5 Dec, 1852. He was graduated at Cornell in 1874, and subsequently became botan- ist to the New York state horticultural society and horticultural editor of the " Husbandman." Later he was appointed assistant professor of horti- culture in Cornell, and secretary of the Cornell experiment station. In 1881 he was called to the chair of botany and horticulture in the Ohio state university, and in 1883 he received the additional appointment of director of the Ohio experiment station. Prof. Lazenby was the author of the bills that established the New York and the Ohio ex- periment stations. He has also held the office of lecturer to the New York state grange, and was secretary of the National association of teachers of agriculture and horticulture in 1883-7 ; also of the Society for the promotion of agricultural science. Prof. Lazenby is a member of other scientific societies, and has written various papers on cross- fertilization, forest-tree culture, and similar sub- jects, which he has contributed to the proceedings of the various societies of which he is a member, and to official reports.


LEA, Luke, congressman, b. in Surry county, N. C, 26 Jan., 1782; d. near Fort Leavenworth, Kan., 17 June, 1851. He removed with his father to Tennessee in 1790, was clerk of the state house of representatives, and commanded a regiment under Gen. Jackson during the Indian wars in Florida. From 1833 till 1837 he was a representative in con- gress from Tennessee, having been chosen first as a Democrat and afterward as a Union Democrat. For thirty years he was cashier of the state bank of Tennessee, and in 1849 was appointed by Presi- dent Taylor Indian agent at Fort Leavenworth. He met his death by being thrown from his horse while returning from a visit to 1 he tribes near that place. — His son. John M., jurist, b. in Knoxville, Tenn., 25 Dec. 1818, was graduated at the Univer- sity of Nashville in 1837, admitted to the bar in 1840, and began the same year the practice of his profession in Nashville. He was appointed U. S. district attorney in 1842. and in 1850 elected mayor of Nashville. During a cholera epidemic in the fol- lowing year he was constantly among the sick and the dying in the hospitals, and by his judicious measures contributed largely to the stay of the pestilence. He was an ardent Unionist, and when Nashville fell into the hands of the government troops he was able, from his influence with the authorities, to do much to lighten the hardships which were necessarily felt by the families of the refugee Confederates. In 1865. at the urgent re- quest of the bar of Nashville, he accepted from Gov. William G. Brownlow the appointment of judge of the circuit court, but resigned in the fol- lowing year, and also declined a seat on the supreme bench of the state. When a bill to re- mand Tennessee to military control was before the reconstruction committee of congress, his oppo- sition prevented a report in its favor, and secured the defeat of the measure. In 1875 he was elected to the state senate, where he opposed every sug- gestion for repudiation of the public debt. He has been a liberal benefactor to the Tennessee school for the blind, the Woman's mission home, and other public charities, and is president of the Tennessee historical society.


LEA. Thomas Gibson, botanist, b. in Wilmington, Del., 14 Dec, 1785 ; d. in Waynesville, Ohio. 25 Sept., 1844. He was of Quaker descent, and his ancestors were among those who accompanied William Penn to this country. He was occupied with business pursuits until 1827, when he withdrew from all mercantile occupations and devoted himself to botany. He was an industrious collector, and left at his death an extensive herbarium with the synonyms and description of many new species, and an unfinished catalogue. There was published posthumously from his papers, by William S. Sullivan, a "Catalogue of Plants, Native and Naturalized, collected in the Vicinity of Cincinnati, Ohio" (Philadelphia, 1849). — His brother. Isaac, naturalist, b. in Wilmington, Del., 4 March, 1792; d. in Philadelphia, Pa., 8 Dec, 1886, showed in early youth great fondness for natural history. This was fostered by his mother, who was familiar with botany, and was developed by his association with Lardner Vanuxem, who encouraged his interest in mineralogy and geology. His birthright in the Society of