ever since, being now (1898) head of the firm of G. P. Putnam's Sons. He has served on the executive committees of the Free-trade league, the Reform club, the Civil-service reform association, and other political organizations, and in 1887-'8 as secretary of the American publishers' copyright league. He has written articles on literary property for journals and cyclopædias; a pamphlet on “International Copyright” (New York, 1879); and, conjointly with his brother, John Bishop Putnam, “Authors and Publishers” (1882).
PUTNAM, James, jurist, b. in Danvers, Mass., in 1725; d. in St. John, New Brunswick, 23 Oct., 1789. He was a relative of Gen. Israel Putnam. He was graduated at Harvard in 1746, studied law with Judge Edmund Trowbridge, and began practice at Worcester. He was appointed attorney-general of the province when Jonathan Sewall was promoted to the bench of the admiralty court, and was the last to hold that office under the provincial government. In 1757 he was a major, and in service under Lord Loudon. In 1775 he was one of those that signed the address to Gov. Thomas Hutchinson, approving his course, and later he accompanied the British army to New York, and thence to Halifax, where, in 1776, he embarked for England. In 1778 a writ of banishment and proscription was issued against him. On the organization of the government of the province of New Brunswick in 1783, he was appointed a member of the royal council and a judge of the superior court. He remained in office till his death. John Adams was a student at law in Judge Putnam's office. — His son, James, b. in 1756; d. in England in March, 1838, was graduated at Harvard in 1774, and was one of the eighteen country gentlemen that were driven to Boston, and addressed Gen. Gage on his departure in 1775. He went to England, became a barrack-master, a member of the royal household, and an executor of the Duke of Kent.
PUTNAM, James Osborne, lawyer, b. in Attica, N. Y., 4 July, 1818. His father, Harvey (1793-1855), was a representative in congress in 1838-'9 and 1847-'51, having been chosen as a Whig. The son studied at Hamilton college and then at Yale, where he was graduated in 1839. He read law in his father's office, was admitted as a practitioner in 1842, and the same year began practice in Buffalo. In 1851-'3 he was postmaster there. In 1853 he was elected to the state senate, where he was the author of the bill, that became a law in 1855, requiring the title of church real property to be vested in trustees. In 1857 he was the unsuccessful nominee of the American party for secretary of state. He was chosen a presidential elector on the Republican ticket in 1860, and appointed U. S. consul at Havre, France, in 1861. In 1880 he became U. S. minister to Belgium, and while he was filling this mission he was appointed by the U. S. government a delegate to the International industrial property congress in Paris in 1881. He has published “Orations, Speeches, and Miscellanies” (Buffalo, 1880).
PUTNAM, John Phelps, jurist, b. in Hartford, Conn., 21 March, 1817; d. in Boston, 5 Jan., 1882. His father, a native of Hartford, was a merchant there and mayor of the city, and was descended from the same family to which Gen. Israel Putnam belonged. The son was graduated at Yale in 1837 and at Harvard law-school in 1839, and was admitted to the bar in 1840. He began practice in Boston, and prosecuted his profession for many years in that city with success. In 1851-'2 he served in the legislature, and in 1859, when the superior court was established, he was appointed one of the judges. He was a trustee of the Boston music-hall, and one of the chief promoters of the enterprise that resulted in placing the great organ in that building. He was also a trustee of the Protestant Episcopal theological school in Cambridge. Between 1847 and 1848 he edited fifteen volumes of the “Annual Digest” of the decisions of all the courts of the United States (Boston, 1852).
PUTNAM, Sallie A. Brock, author, b. in Madison Court-House, Va., about 1845. She was educated by private tutors, and early developed a taste for literature. She married the Rev. Richard Putnam, of New York, in 1883. Her publications include “Richmond During the War,” under the pen-name of “Virginia Madison” (New York, 1867); “The Southern Amaranth” (1868); and “Kenneth My King” (1872). She has in preparation “Poets and Poetry of America.”
PUTNAM, Samuel, jurist, b. in Danvers, Mass., 13 April, 1768; d. in Somerville, Mass., 3 July, 1853. He was graduated at Harvard in 1787, studied law, and began practice in Salem in 1790. He soon attained high rank at the Essex county bar, and represented that county in the state senate in 1808-'14, and in the legislature in 1812. From 1814 till 1842 he was judge of the supreme court of Massachusetts. Harvard gave him the degree of LL. D. in 1825. — His daughter-in-law, Mary Traill Spence Lowell, author, b. in Boston, Mass., 3 Dec., 1810, is a daughter of the Rev. Charles Lowell. She married Samuel R. Putnam, a merchant of Boston, in 1832, and subsequently resided several years abroad. She has contributed to the “North American Review” articles on Polish and Hungarian literature (1848-'50), and to the “Christian Examiner” articles on the history of Hungary (1850-'1), and is the author of “Records of an Obscure Man” (1861); “The Tragedy of Errors” and the “Tragedy of Success,” a dramatic poem in two parts (1862); “Memoir of William Lowell Putnam” (1862); “Fifteen Days” (1866); and a “Memoir of Charles Lowell” (1885). — Her son, William Lowell, soldier, b. in Boston, 9 July, 1840; d. near Ball's Bluff, Va., 21 Oct., 1861, was educated in France and at Harvard, where he studied mental science and law. He entered the 20th Massachusetts regiment in 1861, was ordered to the field in September, and was killed while leading his battalion to the rescue of a wounded officer. When he was borne to the hospital-tent he declined the surgeon's assistance, bidding him go to those whom his services could benefit, since his own life could not be saved. He was a youth of much promise, possessing remarkable natural endowments and many accomplishments. See the memoir by his mother mentioned above.
PUTNAM, William Le Baron, lawyer, b. in Bath, Me., 12 May, 1835. He was graduated at Bowdoin in 1855, admitted to the bar of Portland in 1858, and has since continued there in active practice. He was mayor of Portland in 1869. He declined the appointment of judge of the supreme court of Maine in 1883. In September, 1887, he was appointed by President Cleveland a commissioner to negotiate with Great Britain in the settlement of the rights of American fishermen in the territorial waters of Canada and Newfoundland.
PUYS, Zachary du, French soldier. He was commandant of the fort of Quebec in 1655, and in 1656 was selected to plant a colony among the Onondagas. With ten soldiers of the garrison and forty other Frenchmen, he established a small settlement on Lake Onondaga. In 1658 the colony was surrounded by Indians, who, as the French
