Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1892, volume 3).djvu/83

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
HAMILTON
HAMILTON
61

attached to the staff of Gen. Benjamin F. Butler, and then acted as military secretary to Gen. Scott until the retirement of the latter. He next served as assistant chief of staff to Gen. Henry W. Halleck, at St. Louis, Mo., with the rank of colonel. He was commissioned brigadier-general of volunteers on 12 Nov., 1861, and ordered to command the department of St. Louis. He participated in the important operations of the armies of the Tennessee and of the Cumberland, was the first to suggest the cutting of a canal to turn the enemy's position at Island No. 10, and commanded a division in the operations against that island and New Madrid, for which he was made a major-general on 17 Sept., 1862. At the battle of Farmington he commanded the reserve. On 27 Feb., 1863, he was compelled by feeble health to resign. From 1871 till 1875 he filled the post of hydrographic engineer for the department of docks in New York city. He is the author of a "History of the National Flag of the United States " (New York, 1852), and on 14 June, 1877, the centennial anniversary of its adoption, delivered an address on " Our National Flag." — Allan McLane, physician, son of Philip, b. in Brooklyn, N. Y., 6 Oct., 1848, was graduated at the College of physicians and surgeons in New York city in 1870, and practised in that city, devoting his attention to nervous diseases. He invented a dynamometer in 1874, and was one of the first to practise galvano- cautery in the United States, and the first to employ monobromate of camphor in treating delirium tremens and nitro-glycerine in epilepsy. He had charge in 1872-'3 of the New York state hospital for diseases of the nervous system, afterward became visiting physician to the epileptic and para- lytic hospital on Blackwell's island, New York city, and lectured on nervous diseases in the Long Island college hospital. In the trial of President Garfield's assassin he testified as an expert in behalf of the government. He edited in 1875 the "American Psychological Journal," is the author of a work on " Clinical Electro-Therapeutics" (New York, 1873), and also of text-books on " Nervous Diseases" (1878-'81), and "Medical Jurisprudence" (1887), and has published in professional journals articles on epilepsy, sensory epilepsy, ascending general paresis, tremors, and inco-ordination.


HAMILTON, Andrew, lawyer, b. in Scotland about 1676; d. in Philadelphia, 4 Aug., 1741. His parentage and career in the Old World he seems to have kept secret, as well as his real name. At one time he was called Trent, nor is it known exactly at what date he began to use the name of Hamilton. In his address to the Pennsylvania assembly in 1739 he speaks of “liberty, the love of which as it first drew me to, so it constantly prevailed on me to reside in this Province, tho' to the manifest prejudice of my fortune.” Probably Hamilton was his real name, but for private reasons he saw fit to discard it for a time. About 1697 he came to Accomac county, Va., where he obtained employment as steward of a plantation, and for a time kept a classical school. His marriage, while steward, with the widow of the owner of the estate is said to have brought him influential connections, and he began the practice of the law. Previous to 1716 Hamilton removed to Philadelphia, and in 1717 was made attorney-general of Pennsylvania. In March, 1721, he was called to the provincial council, and accepted on condition that his duties should not interfere with his practice. He resigned the office in 1724, and in 1727 was appointed prothonotary of the supreme court and recorder of Philadelphia. He was elected to the assembly from Bucks county in the same year, chosen speaker in 1729, and re-elected annually until his retirement in 1739, with the exception of a single year. Hamilton, in company with his son-in-law, Allen, purchased the ground now comprised within Independence square, Philadelphia, whereon to erect “a suitable building” to be used as a legislative hall, the assembly, prior to 1729, having met in a private residence. The state-house, afterward Independence Hall, was not completed until subsequent to Hamilton's death, the conveyance to the province being made by his son. The crowning glory of Hamilton's professional career was his defence of John Peter Zenger in 1735, which he undertook without fee or reward. Zenger was a printer in New York city, and in his newspaper had asserted that judges were arbitrarily displaced, and new courts erected without consent of the legislature, by which trials by jury were taken away when a governor was so disposed. The attorney-general charged him with libel, and Zenger's lawyers, on objecting to the legality of the judge's commissions, were stricken from the list of attorneys. Fearing that the advocate, who had subsequently been appointed by the court, might be overawed by the bench, at the head of which was Chief-Justice De Lancey, a member of the governor's council, Hamilton voluntarily went to New York, and appeared in the case. He admitted the printing and publishing of the article, but advanced the doctrine, novel at that time, that the truth of the facts in the alleged libel could be set up as a defence, and that in this proceeding the jury were judges of both the law and the facts. The offer of evidence to prove the truth of Zenger's statements was rejected, but Hamilton then appealed to the jury to say from the evidence that they had met with in their daily lives that the contents of the defendant's article were not false. His eloquence secured a verdict of “not guilty.” The people of New York and the other colonies hailed the result with delight, since it insured free discussion of the conduct of public men. Gouverneur Morris referred to Hamilton as “the day-star of the American Revolution,” and the common council of New York passed a resolution thanking him for his services, and presented him with the freedom of the city. His fame spread to England, an account of the trial passing through four editions there within three months. Hamilton was for many years a trustee of the general loan-office, the province's agency for issuing paper money, and in 1737 was appointed judge of the vice-admiralty court, the only office he held at the time of his death. — His son, James, governor of Pennsylvania, b. probably in Accomac county, Va., about 1710; d. in New York city, 14 Aug., 1783, was made prothonotary of the supreme court of Pennsylvania when his father resigned that office. He was elected to the provincial assembly in 1734,