Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/214

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204: PEABODY PEACH PEABODY, Andrew Preston, an American clergy- man, born in Beverly, Mass., March 19, 1811. He graduated at Harvard college in 1826, stud- ied theology, and in 1832-'3 was a tutor in mathematics in the college. In 1833 he was ordained in the south parish church in Ports- mouth, N. H., of which he was pastor till Sept. 1, 1860, when he became preacher and Plummer professor of Christian morals in Harvard university, from which in 1852 he had received the degree of D. D. Dr. Pea- body has been industrious as a contributor to periodical literature and a lecturer. From April, 1854, to October, 1863, he was editor of the " North American Review." He has pub- lished more than 100 sermons, orations, tracts, and pamphlets; also "Lectures on Christian Doctrine" (1844); "Christian Consolations" (1846); "Christianity the Religion of Na- ture " (1864) ; " Sermons for Children " (1866) ; Reminiscences of European Travel " (1868) ; "Moral Philosophy" (1873); "Christianity and Science" (1874); and " Christian Belief and Life" (1875). Several of his works have passed through many editions, and with the Rev. John Hopkins Morison he is now (1875) preparing a commentary on the New Testament. PEABODY, George, an American merchant, born in Danvers, Mass., Feb. 18, 1795, died in London, Nov. 4, 1869. After serving as a clerk in Thetford, Vt., and in Newburyport, Mass., he went to Georgetown, D. C., where he became a partner of Elisha Riggs in a drygoods house, which was removed to Balti- more in 1815, and in 1822 had branches in New York and Philadelphia. In 1837 he set- tled in London, where in 1843 he established the banking house of George Peabody and co. In 1851 he supplied the sum needed to arrange and display the contributions from the United States in the great exhibition. In 1852 he gave $10,000 toward the second Grinnell arc- tic expedition under Dr. Kane, and $30,000 to found the Peabody institute in the S. por- tion of Danvers (now Peabody), to which subsequently he added $170,000, with $50,- 000 more for a similar institution in North Danvers. He revisited the United States in 1857, and founded the Peabody institute in Baltimore, Md., with $300,000, subsequently increased to $1,000,000. In 1862 he matured his plan for building lodging houses for the poor in London, contributing in all 500,000, with which down to 1874 buildings had been erected in different districts sufficient to ac- commodate 6,000 persons. In 1866, on an- other visit to the United States, he founded an institute of archaeology in connection with Harvard college, with $150,000, gave $150,000 toward a department of physical science in Yale college, and made a gift of $2,100,000, increased in 1869 to $3,500,000, for the pro- motion of education in the south, besides con- tributing to other objects about $200,000. On his return to London in 1867, the queen offered him a baronetcy, which he declined. In 1868 he endowed an art school in Rome, and in 1869 made his last visit to the United States, when he endowed the Peabody museum at Salem, Mass., with $150,000, gave $20,000 for a pub- lic library at Newburyport, $30,000 to Phillips academy at Andover, $20,000 to the Maryland historical society, $10,000 to the public library of Thetford, Vt., $25,000 to Kenyon college, Ohio, and $60,000 to Washington college, Va. During his absence, on July 23, 1869, the prince of Wales unveiled a statue of him by W. W. Story, erected by the citizens of London, on the east side of the royal exchange. He re- turned to London in October, and died within a month. His obsequies were celebrated in Westminster abbey on Nov. 12 ; his remains were brought home in H. B. M. turret ship Mon- arch, and buried in Danvers (now Peabody). He left $5,000,000, mostly to his relatives. PEABODY, William Bonrn Oliver, an American clergyman, born in Exeter, N. H., July 9, 1799, died in Springfield, Mass., May 28, 1847. He graduated at Harvard college in 1817, and from 1820 till his death was pastor of a Unitarian society in Springfield. He wrote on ornithol- ogy, a memoir of Alexander Wilson in Sparks's "American Biography," and a few hymns and sacred poems. A memoir by his brother, the Rev. O. W. B. Peabody, with selections from his sermons, was completed by Everett Peabody (1849), who edited his "Literary Remains" (1850). His twin brother, OLIVER WILLIAM BOURN, practised law and edited a newspaper in Exeter, N. H., became in 1822 associate editor of the "North American Review," in 1842 professor of English literature in Jef- ferson college, Louisiana, and in 1845 minister of a Unitarian congregation in Burlington, Vt., where he died July 5, 1848. PEACE RIVER, a large stream of British North America, rising in British Columbia, near the source of the Fraser, in about lat. 55 N. It flows first N., receiving Finlay's branch from the N. W., and then breaking through the Rocky mountains pursues a general N. E. course to Lake Athabasca, whence its waters find their way to the Arctic ocean through the Slave and Mackenzie rivers. Its length is about 1,000 m. Its navigation by the Hudson Bay company's boats is interrupted only by a small fall and a few rapids. Its valley is rich and beautiful, and capable of cultivation. PEACH (Fr. peche ; Lat. persica a fruit tree widely cultivated in all countries where the climate is not too severe. It belongs to the rose family (rosacece), and was formerly called Persica vulgaris. Its close affinity with the almond led later botanists to unite it with that, and it now stands in most modern works as amygdalus Persica; but there are not suffi- cient botanical differences between the peach, almond, apricot, plum, and cherry to separate them as distinct genera, and the most recent view places them all in one genus, prunus, grouped in several subgenera ; in view of this the botanical name for the peach likely to be