Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 4).djvu/307

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MAXWELL
MAXWELL

at the University of Virginia in 1841, he studied law, was admitted to the bar, and began to practise in TaUahassee, Fla. He was a member of the Florida house of representatives in 1847, secretary of state in 1848, and state senator in 1849. He was then elected to congress from Florida as a Demo- crat, serving from 5 Dec, 1853, till 3 March, 1857, and from that date until 18Q1 he was navy agent at Pensacola. From 32 Feb., 1862. till the end of the civil war he was a Confederate senator. In 1866 he was made president of the Pensacola and Montgomery railroad, and in the same year a jus- tice of the state supreme court, but held office only a short time. He became judge of the first circuit of Florida in 1877, and chief justice in 1887.


MAXWELL, George Troupe, physician, b. in Bryan county, G-a., 6 Aug.. 1827. He studied at the Chatham academy in Savannah, Ga., and was graduated at the medical department of the Uni- versity of the city of New York in 1848. Dr. Max- well practised in Tallahassee, Fla., until 1857, when he was appointed surgeon of the marine hospital in Key West, Fla. In 1860 he removed to Savannah, as he had been elected professor of obstetrics and diseases of women and children in Oglethorpe medical college, but a year later he enlisted as a private in the 1st Florida regiment, and served for four months in the Confederate army. He was then commissioned major of cavalry, and in 1862 promoted to colonel. Late in 1863 he organized the Florida brigade in the Army of the Tennessee, and led it, under Gen. Braxton Bragg, until the battle of Missionary Ridge, where he was captured. He was imprisoned on Johnson's island in Lake Erie until March, 1865. Meanwhile he had been recommended for promotion to brigadier- general. On the close of the war he returned to Florida, and was elected a delegate from Leon county to the convention that was held for the purpose of remodelling the constitution and reor- ganizing the state government, and in 1866 he was elected to the legislature. In 1871 he removed to Delaware, and has since made Middletown his resi- dence. Dr. Maxwell has held various offices in the Delaware medical society, including that of vice- president in 1874. He claims to have invented the laryngoscope independently several months "before Prof. Johann N. Czermack announced his discov- ery, and he was the first American physician to see the vocal cords of a living person. He had con- tributed professional papers to the medical journals, and published " An Exposition of the Liability of the Kegro Race to Yellow Fever " ; and a history of his invention of the laryngoscope (1872).


MAXWELL, Hugh, soldier, b. in Ireland, 27 April, 1738; d. at sea, 14 Oct., 1799. His father, Hugh, brought him to New England in the year of his birth. He served during five campaigns in the old French wars, and was taken prisoner at Fort Edward, barely escaping with his life. In 1773 he removed to Charlemont (now Heath), Mass. He was lieutenant at Bunker Hill, where he was wounded, became major in Col. John Bailey's regiment. 7 July, 1777, and at the close of the war became lieutenant-colonel. His death occurred on his return from a visit to the West Indies. — His brother, Thompson, soldier, b. in Bedford, Mass., in 1742 ; d. in 1825, was a ranger in the French war from 1758 till 1763. He assisted in destroying the tea in Boston harbor in 1773. and fought at Bunker Hill and Three Rivers. He was a member of the Massachusetts constitutional convention, but in 1800 removed to Miami county, Ohio. He was taken prisoner during the war of 1812-'15, and in 1814 was deputy barrack-master in Missouri.


MAXWELL, Hugh, lawyer, b. in Paisley, Scot- land, in 1787 ; d. in New York city, 31 March, . He was brought to this country in early childhood, graduated at Columbia college in 1808, studied law, and was admitted to the bar. He was made assistant judge-advocate-general in the U. S. army in 1814, in 1819 elected district attorney for New York county, serving by successive re- elections until 1829. Among his best-known cases were the " conspiracy trials." when Jacob Barker, the Quaker banker, Henry Eckford, the ship-build- er, and others, were convicted of a conspiracy to de- fraud certain insurance companies. These trials were celebrated in several stanzas by Halleck, who commented with great severity on the course of " Mae Surll." The poem appears in the poet's life. Maxwell afterward became an active Whig, and from 1849 till 1852 was collector of the port of New York, after which he practised law again for a short time, and then retired from active life. He possessed a fine library, and at the time of his death was the oldest member of the St. Andrew's society, of which he was president in 1835.


MAXWELL, Sidney Denise, statistician, b. in Centreville, Montgomery co., Ohio, 23 Dec, 1831. He studied law, settled in Cincinnati in 1868, and in 1862-'3 was army correspondent of the Cincin- nati " Commercial,"' also serving as a private in the 131st Ohio regiment, and rising to the rank of colonel. In 1864-'5 he was aide-de-camp to the gov- ernor of Ohio. He was assistant city editor of the Cincinnati " Gazette " from 1868 till 1871, and agent of the Western associated press from 1870 till . Since 1871 he has been superintendent of the Cincinnati chamber of commerce, and is now (1888) its statistician. In addition to pamphlets and the annual reports of the chamber of commerce, he has published '• The Suburbs of Cincinnati " (Cincinnati, 1870), and " The Manufactures of Cin- cinnati and their Relations to the Future Progress of the Citv " (1878).


MAXWELL, William, soldier, d. 12 Nov., 1798. Little is known of his personal history. It is believed that he was born in Ireland and brought to New Jersey in his early years. He entered the colonial service in 1758, serving in the French war and until the Revolution, when he became colonel of the 2d New Jersey battalion, with which he served in the disastrous campaign of 1776 in Canada. On 16 July, 1774, he was appointed one of the committee on the part of Sussex county. N. J., to act with committees from other counties to appoint deputies to represent New Jersey in the general congress. In 1775-6 he was a member of the provincial congress of New Jersey from Sussex county. Col. Maxwell was one of the remonstrants against the decision of the council of officers that was held on 7 July, 1776, to abandon Crown Point. In a memorial to congress dated 28 Aug., 1776, he says that he had been in "constant service in the army fifteen years, since the spring of 1758; had served his country to the utmost of his power and hopes with some good efl'ect, which he can make himself appear if requisite ; notwithstanding, he feels himself much aggrieved by having a younger officer, St. Clair, promoted over him." Congress appointed him brigadier-general, 23 Oct., 1776. He was with Gen. Schuyler on Lake Champlain, harassed the enemy after the battle of Trenton, and, during the winter and spring of 1777, was stationed near the enemy's lines in Elizabethtown. In the autumn of that year he commanded a New Jersey brigade at the battles of Brandywine and Gerraantown, was with the army at Valley Forge, and pursued Sir Henry Clinton across New Jersey