Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1889, volume 6).djvu/196

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TSONDATSAA
TUCKER

and in 1860 was appointed minister of the Swiss republic to Brazil, which office he retained eight years, devoting most of that time to exploring the country and forming collections of plants for the museums of Neufchatel, Glarus, and Freiburg. In 1868 he was promoted minister to Vienna. His works include “Untersuchungen über die Fauna Perus” (St. Gall, 1844-'7): “Peruanische Reiseskizzen während der Jahre 1838-'42” (2 vols., 1846); “Die Ketchuasprache” (2 vols., Vienna, 1853); “Reise durch die Andes von Südamerika” (Gotha, 1860); “Die brasilianische Provinz Minas-Geraes” (1863); and “Reisen durch Südamerika” (5 vols., Leipsic, 1866-'9). He also edited, in association with Dr. Mariano Eduardo de Rivera, “Antigüedades Peruanas” (Vienna, 1851; translated by Rev. F. L. Hawks, New York, 1853).


TSONDATSAA, Charles, Indian convert, lived in the 17th century. He acted as guide to Father Brebeuf, and was converted to Christianity by that missionary. He was taken prisoner by the Iroquois in 1643, being one of the party that accompanied Father Jogues, but escaped to Three Rivers. He became the prop of the Christian religion among the Hurons, preached to them frequently, and made many converts. His pagan companions, on one occasion, induced him to enter an Indian vapor-bath. They then increased the heat, declaring that he must pronounce three words in favor of his titular demon if he would escape suffocation. He refused, and was almost dead when he was released. His only revenge on his torturers after he recovered was to say to them: “You nearly killed me, but you could not make me sin.” He continued to labor for several years among his countrymen, and eventually converted nearly all his persecutors.


TUBMAN, Harriet, abolitionist, b. near Cambridge, Dorchester co., Md., about 1821. She was the child of slaves of pure African blood, whose name was Ross. Her original Christian name of Araminta she changed to Harriet. When about thirteen years old she received a fracture of the skull at the hands of an enraged overseer, which left her subject during her whole life to fits of somnolency. In 1844 she married a free colored man named Tubman. In 1849, in order to escape being sent to the cotton-plantations of the south, she fled by night, and reached Philadelphia in safety. In December, 1850, she visited Baltimore and brought away her sister and two children, and within a few months returned to aid in the escape of her brother and two other men. Thenceforth she devoted herself to guiding runaway slaves in their flight from the plantations of Maryland along the channels of the “underground railroad,” with the assistance of Thomas Garrett and others. At first she conducted the bands of escaped slaves into the state of New York, but, when the fugitive-slave act began to be strictly enforced, she piloted them through to Canada. She made nineteen journeys, and led away more than 300 slaves. A reward of $40,000 was offered for her apprehension. Among the people of her race and the agents of the “underground railroad” she was known as “Moses.” During the civil war she performed valuable service for the National government as a spy and as a nurse in the hospitals.


TUCK, Joseph Henry, inventor, b. in Dorches- ter, Mass., 12 March, 1812. He is a grandson of John Tuck, who was a chaplain in the Revolution- ary army. Joseph was graduated at the Boston high-school, and afterward apprenticed to a watch- maker. He was subsequently employed in a candle- factory, where he brought to perfection his first in- vention, the endless wick. He went to England in 1837, began business as an engineer in London, and for twenty-five years was constantly engaged in the invention and introduction of improved ma- chinery. He took out fifty-five patents in different countries. Among his inventions are a candle-ma- chine, wrought-iron and bitumen gas- and water- pipes, a ventilating-machine, a dredging-machine, a rotary engine, a new system of breakwaters for harbors, and his steam-engine packing, the most profitable of his inventions. In spite of great op- position on the part of English engineers, he or- ganized a company to lay the first submarine elec- tric cable, between Dover and Calais, in 1848-'9. He derived no pecuniary advantage from this great enterprise, as he was defrauded of the profits by those whom he had aided in its promotion. He furnished plans for the excavation of the Suez canal, which were accepted by the contractors ; but ill health forced him to abandon his connection with this enterprise, and he returned to the United States in 1865. His constitution had been so much injured by his long-continued and severe labors in Europe that he was forced to live in retirement for several years, but he engaged in real-estate operations in Brooklyn in 1869.


TUCKER, Henry Holcombe, clergyman, b. in Warren county, Ga., 10 May, 1819. He received his early education in Philadelphia, and entered the University of Pennsylvania in 1834, but finished his course in Columbian college (now university), Washington, D. C, where he was graduated in 1838. He then studied law, was called to the bar in 1846, and practised his profession until 1848 r when he entered Mercer university with the view of preparing himself for the Baptist ministry. He was appointed pastor of the Baptist church in Alexandria, Va., in 1854, but feeble health com- pelled him to resign in less than a year. Since that time he has held no pastorate, but has preached in various parts of the United States. In 1856 he was elected professor of belles-lettres and meta- physics in Mercer university, which office he filled until 1862, when the university was for a time sus- pended by the war. In 1860 he received the de- gree of D. D. from Columbian university. He was elected president of Mercer university in 1866, and was principally instrumental in removing that in- stitution from Penfield to Macon. He resigned in 1871, and spent a year in Europe, during which he assisted in the organization of a Baptist church in Rome, and officiated for several months in the American chapel in Paris. In 1874 he was elected chancellor of the University of Georgia, and he re- mained in this office until 1878, when he assumed the editorship of the " Christian Index " at Atlanta. He was the founder of the Georgia relief and hospital association, which rendered such great as- sistance to the sick and wounded of the south dur- ing the civil war. Besides a series of letters on " Religious Liberty " to Alexander H. Stephens (1855), which were the subject of wide comment,, and several sermons, he has published " The Gos- pel in Enoch, or Truth in the Concrete: a Doc- trinal and Biographical Sketch " (Philadelphia, 1868), and "The Old Theology restated in Ser- mons " (1884). One of his sermons, " The Position of Baptism in the Christian System" (1882), has been translated into Armenian, German, Greek, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish. He is now editor and proprietor of the " Christian Index."


TUCKER, John, clergyman, b. in Amesbury, Mass., 19 Sept., 1719; d. in Newbury. Mass., 22 March, 1792. He was graduated at Harvard in 1741, studied theology, and on 20 Nov., 1745, was ordained as colleague minister of Newbury, Mass,