Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 09.djvu/346

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SHAYS


SHEA


of the mine. The cliarge was nobly made, and Colonel Shaw was killed, riding at the head of liis troops. His body was buried in a trench with his colored soldiersand in a sliort while the waters had waslied out the trench and carried the bodies out to sea. A portrait of him hangs in Memorial Hall at Harvard and a bas-relief designed and execute<l by St. Gaudens, the sculptor, represent- ing Shaw riding at the head of his regiment, was placed in Boston Common, opposite the State House, in 1898. He was killed at Fort Wagner, S.C, July 18, 1863.

SHAYS, Daniel, soldier, was born in Hopkin- ton, Mass.. in 1747; son of poor parents of Irish descent. His early life was spent on a farm in Framingliam. Mass. He subsequently removed to Great Barrington and to Pelliam, Mass.. was appointed ensign in the Massachusetts militia in 1775, and served in the battle of Bunker Hill. He was appointed lieutenant in Colonel Varnum's regiment in 1776; served as a recruiting officer and marched a company to West Point, where he obtained a captaincy in the Continental army in 1779, and participated in the storming of Stony Point and the capture of Burgoyne. In 1780 Gen- eral Lafayette presented him with a sword and at the same time conferred a like honor on other officers. He was suspected of having sold this Bword and was discharged from the army at Newark, N.J., in October, 1780, while serving in Colonel Putnam's regiment, and retired to Pel- ham. Mass., where, about 1782, he became a leader in the movement of the inhabitants of that sec- tion against what they designated as oppressive fees and taxation inaugurated by the new state government, Shaj's adopting the methods which had been successful in overthrowing like griev- ances wlien the colonists opposed British rule. He led a band of 1000 insurgents which met at Springfield and in spite of the presence of the state militia prevented a session of the supreme court in September, 1786, and the courts at Wor- cester in November and December, 1786. He re- tired with his men to Rutland, Vt., Dec. 9, 1786, offered to desert his men if granted a pardon for himself, but failing in this, in January-, 1787, with Luke Day in command of a body of insurgents, he planned the capture of the Springfield arsenal. Shays attacked it alone with his command of 1 100 men on Jan. 25, 1787, the instructions he had sent to Day having been intercepted by General S'lepard, commander of the state militia. The insurgents were driven back to Ludlow, ten miles distant, where Shays joined forces with Day and Eli Parsons, the B-rkshire leader, and the entire insurgent army retreated tiirough South Hadley and Amherst, Mass., to Pdliam, where they en- trenched. On Jan. 30, 17^7. Gen. Benjamin Lin- coln with a force of over 4000 state troops, ordered


Shays to surrender. He asked for time to petition the general court, which Lincoln refused and Shays marched his army to Petersham, where on Feb. 3, 1787, 150 insurgents were ciptured and Shays escaped into New Hampsliire with 300 men. This ended the rebellion. He was granted a pardon and in 1820 a pension for his services in the Revolutionary war. He made his home at Sparta, N.Y., where he died, Sept. 29, 1825.

SHEA, John Dawson Gilmary, author, was born in New York city. July 2, 1824; son of

James and (XJpsall) Sliea. His father

came from Ireland in 1815; was a tutor in the family of General Schuyler in New Jersey, and subsequentl}^ conducted a private school in New York city, which became part of the grammar school of Columbia college in 1829. After attend- ing Columbia grammar school he took a clerk- ship with a Spanish merchant in New York city, where he mastered the Spanish, French. Italian and German languages. He was admitted to the bar in 1846, and after practising two years, determined to enter the order of the Jesuits. He was a student at St. John's college, Fordham, N.Y., 1848-54, and after 1854 devoted himself to literary work, serving as editor of the Historical Magazine, 1859-65; of the Catholic Neics, 1887- 92, and as an associate and chief editor in Frank Leslie's publishing house up to the time of his death. He was a charter member of the United States Catholic Historical society and its first president; and a member or corresponding mem- ber of the leading historical societies of the world. The honorary degree of LL.D. was con- ferred on him by the College of St. Francis Xavier, New York, by St. John's college. Fordham, N.Y., and bj' Georgetown college, and he received an honorary medal from the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, in 1883. He edited the Cramoisy Series of Narratives and Documents on the Early History of the French-American Colonies (24 vols., 1857-68); "Washington's Private Diary" (1861); Cadwallader Colden's " History of the Five Indian Nations," edition of 1727 (1866); Alsop's "Maryland" (1869); Library of American Linguis- tic (15 vols., 1860-74); and Life of Pins IX. (1875); translated DeCourcy's Catholic Church in the United States (1856); Charlevoix's i//s/o?-y and General Description of New France (6 vols., 1866-72); Hennepin's Description of Louisiana

(1880); LeClercq's Establishment of the Faith

(1881); Penalosa's Expedition (1882); corrected Catholic Bibles, and revised by the. Vulgate, Challoner's original Bible of 1750 (1871). He is the author of: The Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley (1853); History of the Catholic Mission among the Indian Tribes of the United States (1854); The Fallen Brave (1861); Early Voyages up and down the Mississippi