Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 4).djvu/724

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684
PAXTON
PAYER

this card brought on an altercation in State street with Robinson, another commissioner, which re- sulted in injuries that deprived Otis of his reason. On one of the anniversaries of the gunpowder plot Paxton's effigy was hanged between those of the devil and the pope and labelled " Every man's ser- vant, but no man's friend." Paxton and his fellow- commissioners at one time seized one of John Han- cock's vessels for smuggling wine, and a mob then forced them to flee to Castle William. Paxton was subsequently hanged again in effigy on the " Lib- erty-tree." Paxton was one of the writers of the " Hutchinson Letters." (See Franklix, Benjamin.) In 1776 he and his family went with the British army to Halifax, and in July of that year to Eng- land. He had been proscribed in Massachusetts, and his estate was confiscated. He then lived in obscurity, and died on the estate of William Burch, one of his fellow-commissioners.


PAXTON, Elisha Franklin, soldier, b. in Rockbridge county, Va., 4 March, 1828 ; d. near Chancellorsville, Va., 2 May, 1863. He was gradu- ated at Yale in 1847, studied at the Virginia mili- tary academy in Lexington, and became president of a bank in Lynchburg. He joined the Confeder- ate army, in which he rose to the rank of brigadier- general, commanded the Stonewall brigade and sub- sequently an army corps, and served at Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville, being killed in the last-named action.


PAXTON, John R., clergyman, b. in Canons- burg, Pa., 18 Sept., 1843. He entered Jefferson college, Canonsburg, in 1859, but was not gradu- ated until 1866, having left college to serve in the civil war, enlisting in the 140th Pennsylvania regi- ment, and becoming 2d lieutenant. He studied theology at Western theological seminary, Alle- gheny, Pa., and at Princeton, was ordained in 1870, and was pastor of the New York avenue Presbyte- rian church in Washington, D. C, from 1878 till 1882, when he became pastor of the 42d street Pres- byterian church in New York city, which charge he filled for many years. In 1887 he became chap- lain of the 7th regiment of New York. Union gave him the degree of D. D. in 1882. He has published several addresses and sermons.


PAXTON, Joseph, manufacturer, b. near New Hope, Bucks co., Pa., 3 Feb., 1786; d. in Columbia county. Pa., 21 Aug., 1861. He was educated at home by his mother, a Quaker, and during the war of 1812 held successively the commissions of ma- jor, lieutenant-colonel, and colonel of Pennsylvania troops. He was the principal projector of the Catawissa (now Reading) railroad, and through it did much to develop the mineral and agricultural region between Pottsville and Williamsport. Col. Paxton was the first to undertake the manufacture of iron on a large scale in the state, and among the first to import short-horn cattle. He was a friend and correspondent of Henry Clay and Dan- iel Webster, and an advocate of a protective tariff. — His son, Joseph Rupert, author, b. in Colum- bia county, Pa., 2 July, 1827 ; d. in Houston, Tex., 20 Aug., 1867. He was graduated at the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania in 1845, studied law, and in 1848 was admitted to the bar in Philadelphia, where he engaged in practice. In 1854-'5 he edited the " Bizarre" in that city. Shortly after the inau- guration of Pi-esident Lincoln he was offered a diplomatic appointment abroad, but chose to enter the National service, and became captain in the 15th U. S. infantry, in which he served until the close of the war, resigning on 1 July, 1865. At the battle of Nashville he was on the staff of Gen. George H. Thomas, rendering valuable services, and being accompanied in the fight by his only son, then a boy, Alexis R. Paxton, who has since become an officer in the regular army. In 1866 he travelled in Europe, with the view of obtaining matter for future literary work. He was well known in Philadelphia for his various acquirements, and also for his genial nature. He dramatized many of Dickens's stories, translated into English several French plays and into French "Reveries of a Bachelor," and was the author of "Jewelry and the Precious Stones, by Hipponax Roset," an anagram (Philadelphia, 1856). His mother, a daughter of Leonaixl Rupert, of Rupert, Pa., died, 14 Nov., 1887, in the hundred and first year of her age, preserving her faculties until the last.


PAYAN, Elisco (pi-an'), Colombian statesman, b. in Call in August, 1825. He studied philosophy and jurisprudence in the College of Santa Librada, and was admitted to the bar in 1847. He joined the Liberal party, was elected to the provincial assembly, served as representative in congress for Cauca in 1853-'4, and, when the Federal form of government was adopted, became a member of the commission to organize the new state of that name. He was successively deputy to the state assembly, district judge, and judge of the supreme court of the state. When the revolution of I860 began, Payan, as governor of the province of Buga, equipped a force to sustain the state government, but after sevei-al victories he was defeated and re- tired to the Pacific coast, where he captured the fleet of the government, and invaded the valley of the Cauca. This campaign insured the triumph of the Federal cause, and Payan was rewarded with the rank of general and the governorship of the state of Cauca, which place he occupied till 1867. He was a member of the chamber of deputies in 1868-'9, and in 1870-1 of the senate. In 1876 he was in command of a division of the army of the south, and by his victory at Batero insured the triumph of the government. He was elected to the Federal senate in 1880, and became its presi- dent, but in the same year resigned to enter the cabinet as secretary of war. In 1883 he was again elected governor of the state of Cauca, and as such sustained the Federal government in the revolution of 1885 with all the resources at his command, de- feating the revolutionary forces in numerous en- counters until the capitulation of Antioquia. The services that he rendered to the cause of the consti- tutional reform, his administrative talent, and mili- tary prestige gained for him in the elections of 1886 the vice-presidency of the republic, and as such, during a temporary absence of the president from January to June, 1887, he occupied the executive of the nation. When Nufiez abandoned the presi- dency, 12 Dec, 1887, Payan assumed the govern- ment, and his first measures were the decree of 19 Dee. conceding full liberty to the press, and that of 1 Jan.. 1888, recalling from banishment persons that had been expelled by Nuiiez.


PAYER, Julius (pi'-air), Austrian navigator, b. in Schoenau, 1 Sept., 1842. He received his education in the military academy of Vienna, entered the army as lieutenant in 1859, became professor of history in the military academy in 1865, and, being-attached in the following year to the general staff", determined the altitude of most of the Austrian alps. He accompanied the German expedition to the north pole, under command of Capt. Karl Koldewey, in 1869-'70, and discovered in the interior of Greenland a range of mountains with summits 11,000 feet high. The results of the expe- ditioii are recorded in "Die zweite deutsche Nordpolarfahrt " (Leipsic, 1874), which Payer wrote in