Justification by Faith," "Four Discourses on the Duties of a Minister," and a "Preacher's Manual."
COLBORNE, Sir John, Lord Seaton, British soldier, b. in 1779 ; d. 17 April. 1863. He was educated at Christ's hospital, and Winchester school, entered the army in 1799, and served in Holland, Egypt, and Italy. He was in tlie battle of Maida in 1806, was military secretary to Sir John Moore,
commanded a brigade in Wellington's army in Portugal, France, and Spain in 1810-'4, and did good service through the peninsular war. He originated and led the decisive movement of the
52d light infantry that secured the victory at Waterloo. He received several orders of knighthood for his services, and became lieutenant-governor of Guernsey, and major-general in 1825. He
was made lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada in 1829, and firmly repressed the strong reform party that he found there. In 1835 he obtained a recall; but, as he was about to embark for Europe, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the forces in
Canada. He returned to Quebec, and took efficient
and prompt measures to check the rebellion then
preparing, and, on its breaking out, took the field
in person, in several engagements, and completely
routed the insurgents. He was twice temporarily
governor-general of British North America, rendered great services to that country, and was made a lieutenant-general in 1838. He returned to England in 1839, and on 14 December of that year was
created Baron Seaton. He was also made a privy-councillor and given a pension of £2,000 per annum. He was afterward lord-high-commissioner of the Ionian isles, and commander of the forces in
Ireland, but resigned in 1860, and was promoted to field-marshal on 30 March of that year.
COLBURN, Jeremiah, numismatist, b. in Boston,
Mass., 12 Jan., 1815; d. there, 30 Dec., 1891.
He began to collect coins, and afterward turned
his attention to shells, minerals, etc., and finally to
books, autographs, manuscripts, portraits, and
engravings relating to America, including continental
money and the more recent issues of paper tokens.
In 1840 he began a collection of bank-notes. In
1857 he contributed articles to the “Historical
Magazine” on American coins and coinage, which
were followed for several years by short articles on
these subjects in “Notes and Queries.” He was
one of the founders of the Boston numismatic
society, had been its curator, vice-president, and president,
and since 1871 had been one of the editors of
the “American Journal of Numismatics.”
COLBURN, Warren, educator, b. in Dedham,
Mass., 1 March, 1793; d. in Lowell, Mass., 13 Sept.,
1833. His parents were poor, and when a boy he
worked in factories in the different villages to which
they moved. He learned the machinist's trade,
but early manifested a taste for mathematics, and
was graduated at Harvard in 1820. He then
opened a select school in Boston, but in April,
1823, became superintendent of the Boston
manufacturing company at Waltham, Mass., and in
August, 1824, of the Merrimack manufacturing
company at Lowell. While here he invented
important improvements in machinery, and delivered
a series of popular lectures, illustrated with the
magic lantern, on commerce, natural history, physics,
and astronomy, which was continued through
many years. He was also superintendent of schools
at Lowell, was elected a fellow of the American academy
of arts and sciences in 1827, and was for several
years an examiner in mathematics at Harvard. His
reputation rests largely on his “First Lessons in
Intellectual Arithmetic” (Boston, 1821), the plan of
which he had carefully completed while yet an un-
dergraduate at Harvard. It had a large circulation,
both here and abroad, and has been translated,
not only into most of the languages of
Europe, but also into several of the eastern tongues.
He also published a “Sequel” to his arithmetic
(1824; revised ed., 1833), and an “Algebra” (1827).
COLBURN, Zerah, mathematical prodigy, b.
in Cabot, Vt., 1 Sept., 1804; d. in Norwich, Vt.,
2 March, 1840. When only six years old he began
to manifest extraordinary powers of computation.
His father, wishing to make money by exhibiting
the boy, left Vermont with him in the winter of
1810-'1. The offer of Dr. Wheelock, president of
Dartmouth, to educate Zerah at his own expense
was rejected, and the lad was placed on exhibition
in Boston, where he attracted much attention. He
mentally solved problems involving the use of
numbers containing four or five places of figures
with greater ease and rapidity than that to which
experienced mathematicians could attain. The
question, “How many days and hours in 1,811
years?” was answered correctly in twenty seconds.
At this time he could not explain his processes;
but a few years later he was able to do so, and it
then appeared that he had no new methods, but
merely possessed wonderful facility in using the
ordinary ones. When he was nine years old he
was able to solve questions like the following:
“What is 999,9992 × 492 × 25?” The result
occupies seventeen places of figures. He immediately
gave the factors of 294,967,297, which French
mathematicians had supposed to be a prime number.
His performances show that his mental
processes were inconceivably rapid, and his memory
very powerful. After exhibiting his son in the
middle and southern states, Mr. Colburn took him
to England, Scotland, and Ireland, and finally
placed him in the Lycée Napoleon at Paris, where
he remained for eighteen months. In 1816 they
were reduced to poverty in England, and Zerah
attracted the attention of the Earl of Bristol, who
placed him in Westminster school for three years;
but a disagreement between Mr. Colburn and the
earl caused the boy's removal from the school in
1819, and, in accordance with his father's suggestions,
Zerah began to study for the stage.
Abandoning this, he became assistant in a school, and
soon began teaching on his own account, performing
astronomical calculations at the same time for
Dr. Thomas Young, then secretary of the board of
longitude. After his father's death in 1824 he
returned to the United States, and, after teaching for
a few months in Fairfield, N. Y., removed to
Burlington, Vt., where he studied at the university,
and supported himself by teaching French. He
united with the Methodist church in 1825, was for
nine years an itinerant preacher, and in 1835
became professor of languages in Norwich university,
Vermont. His remarkable faculty for
computation left him about the time he reached
manhood. Mr. Colburn's manners were unassuming,
and he gave no evidence of great ability, aside
from his early talent for calculation. He published
his “Memoirs” (Springfield, 1833). — His nephew,
Zerah, engineer, b. in Saratoga, N. Y., in 1832;
d. in Massachusetts, 4 May, 1870, lost his father
when a child, and removed with his mother to
New Hampshire, where he worked on a farm. He
afterward went to Boston, found employment in
the Lowell machine-shop in 1847, and then on
the Concord railroad, where he showed great
talent for practical mechanics. He soon rose to
be superintendent of Mr. Souther's locomotive-works
in Boston, and afterward held a similar
place in the works at Paterson, N. J., where he in-
