Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 4).djvu/382

MITCHELL, Robert B., lawyer, b. in Rich- land county, Ohio, 4 April, 1823 ; d. in Washington, D. C, 26 Jan., 1882. He was educated at Washing- ton college. Pa., and then studied law. During the Mexican war he served in the Ohio volunteers as 1st lieutenant, and on its conclusion he resumed the practice of his profession. In 1856 he moved to Kansas, and took an active part with the free-state men in their struggle with the pro-slavery party. He was a member of the territorial legislature in 1857-8, and treasurer in 1858-'61. At the begin- ning of the civil war he was made colonel of the 2d Kansas volunteers, and was severely wounded at the battle of Wilson's Creek. On his recovery he raised a regiment of cavalry, and was commis- sioned brigadier-general of volunteers on 8 April, 1862. He was given command of the 13th division of Gen. Don Carlos Buell's army, and participated in the battle of Perryville. During 1865-'7 he was governor of New Mexico, and, after completing his term of office, settled in Washington, D. C, where he remained until his death.

MITCHELL, Samuel Augustus, geographer, b. in Bristol, Conn., 30 March, 1792 : d. in Philadel- phia. Pa., 20 Dec, 1868. He early devoted his at- tention to teaching, and attained reputation in that occupation. The imperfection of the common text- books on geography led him to prepare better works. For forty years he resided in Philadelphia, making, revising, and improving his various geog- raphies, atlases, and maps, until his publications — twenty-four in number — had an aggregate sale of 400,000 copies annually. He also published " General View of the World, Physical, Political, and Statistical " (Philadelphia, 1846), and " New Travellers' Guide through the United States" {1850), as well as an edition of John James Audu- bon's " Birds of Ameiica."

MITCHELL, Samuel Thomas, educator, b. in Toledo, Ohio, 24 Sept., 1851. He was graduated at Wilberforce university, Xenia, Ohio, in 1873, and in 1875-'80 taught in Springfield, Ohio. In 1879 he became principal of Lincoln institute, Jefferson City, Mo., where he remained until 1884, and he has since been president of Wilberforce university. Mr. Mitchell presided over the IMis- souri state teachers' association in Jefferson City in 1875. was a member of the general conference of the African IMethodist Episcopal church in 1884, and founded the present educational system in that denomination.

MITCHELL, Stephen Mix, jurist, b. in Wethersfield, Conn., 9 Dec, 1743 ; d. there. 30 Sept., 1835. He was graduated at Yale in 1763, and, after holding the office of tutor there during 1766-'9, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1772. Settling in Wethersfield, he there began the practice of his profession, and in 1783 was elected a delegate to the Continental congress, and re-elected in 1785 and 1787. He was appointed associate justice of the Hartford county court in 1779, and in 1790-'5 was presiding judge. He was then made judge of the superior court, and became its chief justice in 1807. On the death of Roger Sherman he was elected to fill his seat in the U. S. senate, and served from 2 Dec, 1793, till 3 iNlarch, 1795. It was largely owing to his efforts that Connecticut was able to establish her title to the tract of land in Ohio known as the Western Re- serve, which was subsequently sold and the pro- ceeds devoted to the school fund. In 1805 he was a presidential elector, and in 1807 Yale conferred on him the degree of LL. D. — His son, Alfred, clergyman, b. in Wethersfield, Conn., 19 May, 1790; d. in Norwich, Conn., 19 Dec, 1881, was graduated at Yale in 1809, studied theology under Rev. Ebenezer Porter and at Andover theological seminary, and preached for a short time in Bridge- water, Mass. He was ordained on 27 Oct., 1814, in Norwich, Conn., where he had been called in charge of the Congregational church, and he continued there until his death. His publications include several sermons, mostly memorial, and were print- ed in the " Evangelical Magazine." — Alfred's son, Donald Grant, author, b. in Norwich, Conn., 12 April, 1822, was fitted for college at Ellington, Conn., at the academy of Dr. John Hall, who fur- nished some traits to the portrait of the hero of his only novel, " Doctor Johns." He was graduated at Yale in 1841. and after leaving college worked three years, for the benefit of his health, on a farm be- longing to his mater- nal grandfather, in the neighborhood of Nor- wich. He acquired at this time that taste for agricultural pursuits to which he afterward gave pleasant expres- sion in his " Edge- wood " books. He gained the prize of a silver medal from the New York agricultural

society for plans of

farm-buildings, and became a correspondent of the " Albany Cultivator," to which he subsequently contributed letters from abroad. His health continuing delicate, he went to Europe in 1844, and spent two years in England, the island of Jersey, and on the continent, return- ing to the United States in 1846 with the materials for his first book. " Fresh Gleanings, or a New Sheaf from the Old Field of Continental Europe" (New York, 1847). The study of law in New York city proving too confining, he went abroad again in 1848, travelled through England and Switzerland, and was residing in Paris at the time of that out- break of June, 1848, which is forecast in " The Bat- tle Summer" (New York, 1849). Returning once more to New York, he issued, first in weekly num- bers and afterward in a volume, " The Lorgnette, or Studies of the Town, by an Opera-Goer" (2 A^ols., 1850). This was a series of satirical sketches, something after the plan of Irving's " Salma- gundi." The same year saw the publication of his most popular book, " Reveries of a Bachelor." the nucleus of which was a paper entitled " A Bache- lor's Reverie," originally contributed to the " South- ern Literary Messenger." " Dream Life " (1851), written in similar strain, succeeded the " Reveries " in 1851. In both of these the history of a life is told in a series of dissolving views, and, as the titles imply, with the haziness and remoteness of effect that is produced by a dream. They were something between the formal novel and such studies of life as Irving's " Sketch-Book," which they resembled not a little in their tender and genial sentiment and in their chastely delicate English. In May, 1853, Mr. Mitchell was appointed U. S. consul at Venice. On the 31st of the same month he married Mary F. Pringle, of Charleston. S. C, and sailed at once for Europe. At Venice he began collecting mate- rial for a history of the Venetian republic, which was never written, although traces of his Venetian studies appear in his later writings, such as " Titian and his Times," a lecture before the Yale art-school,