Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1892, volume 3).djvu/183

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
HEATON
HECK
155

the chairman. This body, in May, 1697, presented their petition to Gov. Fletcher and the council for a charter, in which they say that they had then almost completed a church-edifice. Fletcher granted them the charter of incorporation of Trin- ity church, New York, in which Heathcote leads the list of its first vestry. In the same year, and again in 1702. he was appointed receiver-general of the province. In 1701 his large estate in West- chester county was erected into the " Lordship and Manor of Scarsdale." From 1711 till 1714 he was mayor of New York, during the same time that his brother, Sir Gilbert Heathcote, bart., was lord- mayor of London. In 1715 he was appointed judge of admiralty for the provinces of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, and " surveyor-gen- eral of the customs for the eastern district of North America," comprising all the British colo- nies north of Virginia. In addition to the ordi- nary duties of a collector of customs, he was in all matters the chief authority to decide all revenue questions between the differ- ent provincial cus- toms officers and the merchants of their respective districts. Both of these latter offices, as well as all his earlier ones ex- cept the two mayoral- ties above named, he held until his death. He married Martha, daughter of Colonel William (Tangier) Smith, chief justice of New York ; of his

six children four

died minors, and his large estates descended to two daughters, Anne, the elder, wife of Gov. James De Lancey, of New York, and Martha, the younger, wife of Dr. Lewis Johnston, of New Jer- sey, both of whom have many descendants. Heathcote was a man of great force of character, clear-headed, and courteous, very firm but concilia- tory, and won and held the confidence of all. He was a warm and sincere member of the Church of England, the first American member of the So- ciety for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts, and, in addition to being the leader in the organization of Trinity church. New York, was the leader in founding the Church of England in Westchester county, every one of its early parishes and churches having been organized and pecun- iarily aided by him. With the Rev. George Muir- son, rector of Rye, he introduced episcopacy into Connecticut, the two making together missionary expeditions from Rye into that colony with that object in 1707-'8. So great was the opposition they met that on these occasions Col. Heathcote always went fully armed. His full and numerous letters and despatches to the government in Eng- land, and to the Propagation society, printed in the archives of New York and in those of the Episcopal church, afford the most authentic ac- counts of the people and the places, and public matters, civil and ecclesiastical, of his days, and historians of all views have relied upon them.


HEATON, David, politician, b. in Hamilton. Ohio, 10 March, 1823; d. in Washington, D. C, 25 June, 1870. He received an academic educa- tion, read law, and was admitted to practice. In 1855 he was elected to the state senate of Ohio. In the fall of 1857 he removed to Minnesota, and was elected to the state senate three times. He was appointed in 1863 by Sec. Chase as special agent of the treasury department, and U. S. de- positary at Newbern, N. C, and afterward third auditor in the treasury department, but declined. He became president of the National bank of New- bern in the fall of 1865. Mr. Heaton was the au- thor of the Republican platform adopted at Raleigh, 27 March, 1867, and contributed largely to Repub- lican papers. He was elected to the Constitution- al convention of North Carolina in 1867, and was chairman of the committee on the bill of rights. He was elected a representative in congress from North Carolina in April, 1868, and was re-elected in the autumn of that year, serving from 15 July, 1868, till the time of his death.


HEAVYSEGE, Charles, Canadian poet, b. in Yorkshire, England, in 1816; d. in Montreal in 1876. He received a limited education, was a wood-carver, and emigrated to Montreal, Canada, in 1853. Here he worked at his trade, which made such demands on his time that he found no leis- ure for the study of any books but the Bible and Shakespeare. He wrote frequently for the daily press, and acquired reputation as a poet. His first published poem was a juvenile effort. " The Re- volt of Tartarus " ; his second appearance was as the author of fifty sonnets, published, like the pre- ceding, anonymously. Then followed " Saul : A Drama in three Parts " (Montreal, 1857) ; " Count Filippo, or the Unequal Marriage," a drama in five acts (Montreal) ; " Ode on Shakespeare " and " Jephtha's Daughter " (1855).


HEBERT, Paul Octave, soldier, b. in Bayou Goula. Herville parish, La., 12 Nov., 1818; d. in New Orleans, 29 Aug., 1880. He was graduated at the U. S. military academy in 1840. in the class with William T. Sherman, George H. Thomas, and other officers who afterward became distinguished. In 1841-'2 he was assistant professor of engineer- ing at the military academy, and in 1843-'5 em- ployed at the western passes of the mouth of the Mississippi river. He resigned from the army in 1841, was appointed chief engineer of the state of Louisiana, and in an official report opposed the " Raccourci cut-off." He held this office until the Mexican war, when he was reappointed in the army as lieutenant-colonel of the 14th volunteer infantry, and participated in the battles of Con- treras and Chapultepec, and the capture of the city of Mexico, receiving the brevet of colonel for bravery at the battle of Molino del Rev. When the army disbanded, in 1848, he returned to his plantation at Bayou Goula, La. In 1851 he was sent as U. S. commissioner to the World's fair at Paris. He was a member of the convention that framed a new state constitution in 1852, and in 1853-'6 was governor of the state. One of the notable ap- pointments of his term was that of Gen. William T. Sherman as president of the Louisiana military academy. In 1861 he was appointed a brigadier- general of the provisional Confederate army, and was afterward confirmed in that rank by the Con- federate congress. He was first in command of Louisiana, then of the trans-Mississippi depart- ment, afterward of Texas, and the Galveston de- fences. In 1873 he became state engineer and commissioner on the Mississippi levee.


HECK, Barbara, an early American Methodist, b. in Ballingarry, County Limerick, Ireland; d. in Augusta, Canada, in 1804. She was a member of a colony of Germans who came from the Rhine Palatinate and settled in Ballingarry and other parts of the west of Ireland about 1708. She