Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 2).djvu/430

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406
FANNING
FANNING

transferred to Fort Gadsden. On the reorganiza- tion of the army in 1821, he was appointed cap- tain in the 2d artillery, and served in the garrison at Detroit in 1822-'3, Fort Mackinaw, Mich., in 1823, and Fort Columbus in 1824, after which he was appointed acting major of the artillery-school at Fortress Monroe, Va. On 15 Aug., 1824, he re- ceived a brevet lieutenant-colonelcy, and became major on 3 Nov., 1832. He took part in the war against the Seminole Indians in 1835-'9, was bre- vetted colonel, 31 Dec, 1835, and became lieuten- ant-colonel of the 4th artillery, 16 Sept., 1838. During the Canada border disturbances in 1840-'l he was on the fi'ontier, after which he was on re- cruiting service in the western department.


FANNING, David, freebooter, b. in Johnston county, N. C, about 1754; d. in Digby, N. S., in 1825. He seems to have been a carpenter, but claimed that he was a " planter in the back part of the southern provinces." He trafficked with the Indians, and was connected with the notori- ous Col. McGirtli on the Pedee. When Wilming- ton was occupied by the British in 1781, Fanning, having been robbed by a party of men who called themselves Whigs, attached himself to the Tories, collected a small band of desperadoes, and scoured the country, committing frightful atrocities, but doing such good service to tiie British that Maj. Craig gave him a commission as lieutenant-colonel in the militia. By the rapidity and secrecy of his movements he succeeded in capturing many promi- nent Whigs, and hanged those who had incurred his personal resentment. At one time he dashed into the village of Pittsborough, where a court was in session, and carried off the judges, lawyers, offi- cers, and some of the citizens. Three weeks later he captured Col. Alston and thirty men in his own house ; and soon afterward, at Hillsborough, took Gov. Burke with his whole suite and a number of the principal inhabitants. He was excepted in every treaty and enactment made in favor of the royalists, and was one of the three persons ex- cluded by name from the benefit of the general " act of pardon and oblivion " of offences com- mitted during the Revolution. When the Whigs gained the ascendency in North Carolina he went to Florida, and afterward to St. John's, N. B., where he became a member of the assembly, but about 1800 was sentenced to be hanged. He escaped, and was pardoned. Fanning wrote, in 1790, a " Nar- rative of Adventures in North Carolina," which, with an introduction and notes by John H. Wheel- er, was printed privately (Richmond, Va., 1861).


FANNING, Edmund, partisan, b. in Long Isl- and in 1737 ; d. in London, England, 28 Feb., 1818. He was graduated at Yale in 1757, and settled as a lawyer in Hillsborough, N. C, where he was elected colonel of militia in 1763, clerk of the superior court in 1765, and subsequently went to the legisla- ture. Among the offices held by him was that of re- corder of deeds, and it was alleged that to his abuses of this trust and his exorbitant charges was due the rebellion of the regulators in Gov. Tryon's admin- istration. By his vicious character " nearly all the estates in Orange county were loaded with doubts as to their titles, and new and unnecessary deeds were demanded." Through his actions as recorder, added to his zeal in quelling opposition to the se- vere exactions of the government and in bringing the leaders of that opposition to the scaffold, he be- came obnoxious to the people, and, to escape the popular indignation, he accompanied Gov. Tryon, who was his father-in-law, to New York as his pri- vate secretary in 1771. He subsequently applied to the North Carolina legislature, through Gov. Martin, the successor of Gov. Tryon, for reparation for losses from destruction of his property ; but the petition was unanimously rejected, and the gov- ernor was rebuked for presenting it and thus " tri- fling with the dignity of the house." In 1774 Fan- ning received from the Brit- ish government the lucrative of- fice of surveyor- general, as a reward for his services to the crown and his losses in North Carolina. In 1777 he raised and command- ed a corps of 460 loyalists, which bore the name of the "as- sociated refu- gees,"or "king's American regiment." While

his regiment

was on Long Island some of his men entered a house, tied the owner of it to a bed-post, and held a candle under the ends of his fingers, to force him to disclose the hiding-place of his money. Fan- ning was equally severe toward all. During the war he was twice wounded, and in 1779 his property was confiscated. He removed to Nova Scotia near the close of the war, and became councillor and lieutenant-governor on 23 Sept., 1783, and three years later governor of Prince Edward Island. This office he held for nineteen years. He was made a major-general in the British army in 1793, lieuten- ant-general in 1799, and general in 1808. The de- gree of A. M. was given him by Harvard in 1764, and by Kings in 1772; the degree of D. C. L. by Oxford in 1774, and that of LL. D. by both Yale and Dartmouth in 1803.^IIis brother, Tlioiiias, of Suffolk county, N. Y., delivered the address before Gov. Tryon in November, 1776, and was deputed to present the submission of the committee of that county. In June, 1778, Fanning was captured and carried off by a party of Whigs.


FANNING, John Thomas, civil engineer, b. in Norwich, Conn., 31 Dec, 1837. He was educated in the public and normal schools of his native city, and then studied architecture until 1858. During the three following years he perfected himself in build- ing construction by labor as a mechanic, meanwhile pursuing studies in theoretical engineering. In 1861 he enlisted as a private in the 3d Connecticut regiment, and rose gradually until he attained the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He began the general practice of engineering and architecture in 1862, opening an office in Norwich, where he remained until 1870, having charge during that time of all the engineering work of the city, including the laying out of its cemetery and the construction of its public water-works, also making plans for numer- ous mills and water-powers in New England. From 1870 till 1880 he was engaged principally as chief and consulting engineer in building water-works for cities. While superintending the construction of water-works for Manchester, N. H., he removed his office to that city, whei-e he designed various pub- lic buildings. After 1880 he was called on by an association of citizens of New York and Brooklyn to make a report concerning an adequate public water-supply for these cities, and of all the citier