Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 4).djvu/30

LONO, Pierse, legislator, b. in Portsmouth, N. H., in 1739; d. there, 3 April, 1789. He was the son of Pierse Long, who was born in Limerick, Ireland, but came to this country and engaged in the shipping business in Portsmouth. The son entered his father's counting-room and was taken into partnership. He was a member of the Provin- cial congress of his native state in 1775, and served in the Revolutionary army as colonel of the 1st New Hampshire regiment. In the retreat from Ticonderoga his command was overtaken by the 9th British foot, which he turned upon and de- feated. He was a volunteer at the battle of Sara- toga, a delegate to the Continental congress in 1784-'6, a state councillor in 1786-'9, a member of the Constitutional convention in 1788, and was ap- pointed by President Washington collector of cus- toms at Portsmouth in January, 1789. He dis- charged the duties of the office until the following April, when he died.

LONG, Robert Carey, architect, b. about 1819 ; d. in New York city in July, 1849. He studied architecture, and practised his profession for several years in Baltimore. While in that city he was intrusted with designing and building the Athenaeum, occupied by the Maryland historical society and the Baltimore library company. He removed to New York city in 1848, and was rapid- ly acquiring a reputation when his career was cut short by cholera. He contributed a series of arti- cles entitled '" Architectonics " to the " New York Literary World," and read a paper before the New York historical society on " Aztec Architecture," which was printed in its " Transactions." He was also the author of " Ancient Architecture of America " (New York, 1849).

LONG, Stephen Harriman, engineer, b. in Hopkinton. N. H., 30 Dec, 1784 ; d. in Alton, 111., 4 Sept., 1864. He was graduated at Dartmouth in 1809, and after teaching for some time entered the U. S. army in December, 1814, as a lieutenant in the corps of engineers. After discharging the duties of assistant professor of mathematics at the U. S. military academy until April, 1816, he was transferred to the topographical engineers, with the brevet rank of major. From 1818 till 1823 he had charge of explorations between Mississippi river and the Rocky mountains, and of the sources of the Mississippi in 1828-'4, receiving the brevet of lieutenant-colonel. The highest summit of the Rocky mountains was named Long's peak in his honor. He was engaged in surveying the Balti- more and Ohio railroad from 1827 till 1830, and from 1837 till 1840 was engineer-in-chief of the Western and Atlantic railroad in Georgia, in which capacity he introduced a system of curves in the location of the road and a new kind of truss bridge, which was called by his name, and has been gener- ally adopted in the United States. On the organi- zation of the topographical engineers as a separate corps in 1838, he became major in that body, and in 1861 chief of topographical engineers, with the rank of colonel. An account of his first expedition to the Rocky mountains in 1819-'20 from the notes of Maj. Long and others, by Edwin James, was published in Philadelphia in 1823, and in 1824 appeared " Long's Expedition to the Source of St. Peter's River, Lake of the Woods, etc.," by Will- iam H. Keating (2 vols., Philadelphia). Col. Long was retired from active service in June, 1863, but continued, charged with important duties,, until his death. He was a member of the American philosophical society, and the author of a " Rail- road Manual " (1829), which was the first original treatise of the kind published in this country.

LONGACRE, James Barton, engraver, b. in Delaware county. Pa., 11 Aug., 1794: d. in Phila- delphia, 1 Jan., 1869. He was descended from an early Swedish colonist on the Delaware, whose name was originally Longker. He served his ap- prenticeship as an engraver in Philadelphia, and from 1819 till 1831 illustrated some of the best works that were published in this country. With James Herring, of New York, and afterward alone, he issued the '• National Portrait Gallery of Dis- tinguished Americans," in which many of the en- gravings were from sketches by his own hand (3 vols., New York, 1834-'9). From 1844 till his death he was engraver to the U. S. mint, and de- signed all the new coins that were struck during this time, including the double-eagle, the three- dollar piece, and the gold dollar. He was after- ward employed by the Chilian government to re- model the entire coinage of that country, and had completed the work shortly before his death.

LONGFELLOW, Stephen, lawyer, b. in Gorham. Me., 23 June. 1775 ; d. in Portland, Me., 2 Aug., 1849. He was of the fourth generation in lineal descent from William Longfellow, who had emigrated from Yorkshire to Massachusetts and settled in Newbury about 1675, and in 1676 married a sister of Judge Samuel Sewall. Stephen was graduated at Harvard in 1798, admitted to the bar in 1801. and practised successfully in Portland. He was a delegate to the Hartford convention in 1814, and was subsequently elected to the 18th congress as a Federalist, serving from 1 Dec, 1823, till 3 March, 1825. In 1834 he was president of the Maine historical society, having previously been its recording secretary. In 1828 he received the degree of LL. D. from Bowdoin. He compiled sixteen volumes of Massachusetts and twelve volumes of Maine " Reports." He married the daughter of Gen. Peleg Wadsworth, an officer in the Revolution. — Their son, Henry Wadsivortli, poet. b. in Portland, Me.. 27 Feb., 1807; d. in Cambridge, Mass., 24 March, 1882, was the second son in a family that included foursons and four daugh- ters. His birthplace, on Fore street, is shown in the engraving on page 11. He was named fora broth- er of his mother, who, a youth of nineteen, lately commissioned lieutenant in the U. S. navy, and

serving before

Tripoli under Com. Preble, had perished in the fire-ship " Intrepid," which was blown up in the night of 4 Sept., 1804. The boyhood of the poet was happy. A sweeter, simpler, more essentially human society has seldom existed than that of New England in the first quarter of this century, and the conditions of life in Portland were in some respects especially pleasant and propitious. The beautiful and wholesome situation of the town on the sea-shore ; the fine and picturesque harbor that afforded shelter to the vessels by which a mod- erate commerce with remote regions was carried on, giving vivacity to the port and widening the scope of the interests of the inhabitants; the general