Mohawks," he preached fluently in it, received many converts into the church, and soon exerted a visible influence in restraining the immoralities of frontier life. He was instrumental in saving from torture and probable death Father Isaac Jogues
(q. v.), and he subsequently rescued two other Jesuits under similar circumstances. At the end of his mission, to which he was appointed for six years, he was persuaded by Gov. Peter Stuyvesant to remain in New York as senior pastor of the Dutch church, which office he occupied for twenty years. The building, erected in 1656, is shown in the illustration.
Although intolerant toward Lutherans and Independents, by his scholarship and character he exercised a marked influence in public affairs. To prevent bloodshed, he urged Stuyvesant to surrender the colony to the English in 1664. He published several treatises and tracts, and "A Short Account of the Mohawk Indians, their Country, Language, Figure, Costume, Religion, and Government" (Amsterdam, 1651). There is a translation in Hazard's "State Papers" and in the "New York Historical Society's Collections."—His son, Samuel, clergyman, b. in Koedyck, Holland, in 1634; d. after 1700, accompanied his father to this country, spent three years at Harvard, and in 1658 returned to Holland, where he studied at the universities of Utrecht and Leyden, and received at the latter his medical degree. Returning to America, he became associate pastor with his father in New York. In 1664 he was one of the Dutch commissioners that prepared the terms of surrender to the English, and it is probable that the rights of the Dutch Reformed church were preserved through his influence. He returned to Holland in 1668, and, being "well skilled in both Dutch and English," served the English and Scotch churches in Flushing and Dordrecht from 1685 till 1700, when he became pastor emeritus. The exact date of his death is not known.
MEIGGS, Henry, contractor, b. in Catskill, N. Y., 7 July, 1811: d. in Lima, Peru, 30 Sept., 1877. He came to New York city about 1835 and engaged in the lumber business. The financial crisis of 1837 caused his failure, but he at once established a new lumber-yard in Williamsburgh, and among his contracts at that time was the building of St. Mark's church, which he completed. In 1842 he again met with reverses and returned to New York, whence he shipped lumber to the Pacific coast. Subsequently he went to San Francisco with a cargo of lumber, which he sold for twenty times its cost. He soon built a fleet of sloops and schooners, with which he brought lumber from different points on the coast, and employed 500 men in felling trees for a single sawmill on the Bay of San Francisco. In this manner he attained a large fortune. In the financial depression of 1854 he was unable to meet his obligations, and, leaving debts to the amount of $1,000,000, he fled with his family on one of his schooners, which he had loaded with everything that his residence contained. He then engaged in the building of bridges on the Valparaiso and Santiago road in Chili, and in 1858 contracted with the government of that country for the construction of railroads, from which he realized a profit of $1,500,000. This gained for him the reputation of being the greatest railway-contractor in South America, and he next undertook the building of six railroads in Peru, of which three were completed and the remainder were in course of construction at the time of his death. Of these the Callao, Lima, and Oroya road ranks among the most daring achievements of modern engineering. It is a successful attempt to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, by a railway across the Andes, from Callao to the head of navigation on the Amazon. The height ascended by this road is within 136 feet of that of the summit of Mont Blanc. The road bends upon itself with sharp angles as it ascends the mountains, and pierces the obstructing peaks with thirty-two tunnels, which often come together so closely that they seem continuous to the traveller. Great gorges had to be traversed and torrent streams spanned by bridges that seemed to hang in mid-air. In several places the mountain-sides were so precipitous that the workmen could only reach the point at which a tunnel started by being let down with ropes from the edge of the cliff and held there until they had cut for themselves a foot-hold in the rock. The diamond-drill was used in many of the borings where the rocks were hard enough to scratch glass. One of the bridges, over a chasm 2,000 feet deep, leads to a tunnel at either end. The difficulties of the work were increased by the necessity of transporting all the implements, materials, and workmen up to these almost inaccessible heights. Before Mr. Meiggs's death the greater part of the work was completed and in running order. When the Peruvian government was unable to assist him, Mr. Meiggs sacrificed his own private means rather than allow the enterprise to fail. One of the public works that he undertook in Peru was the improvement of the environs of Lima. The city was surrounded by a rampart of filth and rubbish, the accumulated refuse of many generations. Mr. Meiggs replaced this by a park more than seven miles in length, and he provided for his own fortune by securing and afterward selling the adjoining property for building purposes. His success in South America made it possible for him to meet all of his former obligations, and those in California he paid in full with interest. The legislature of that state ultimately passed an act relieving him of all penalties on account of his connection with the over-issued bonds of San Francisco. He was a frequent contributor of funds to charities in the United States.
MEIGS, James Aitken, physician. b. in Philadelphia. 31 July, 1829; d. there, 9 Nov., 1879. He was graduated at the Central high-school of Philadelphia in 1848, and at the Jefferson medical college in 1851, and practised in his native city until his death. His first collegiate appointment was that of assistant to the chair of physiology in the Pennsylvania medical college. In 1854-'62 he was lecturer on climatology and physiology at Franklin institute, and also lectured frequently on physiological and ethnological subjects elsewhere in Philadelphia. He was professor of the institutes of medicine in Philadelphia college of medicine and surgery in 1857-'9, and was then transferred to the similar chair in the Pennsylvania medical college. About this time he delivered two systematic courses in physiology, illustrating them with an extensive series of vivisectal demonstrations, which attracted much attention from the fact that until that time no systematic effort had been made
