Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1889, volume 6).djvu/156

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132
TONER
TONYN

TONER, Joseph Meredith, physician, b. in Pittsburg, Pa., 30 April, 1825. He received his clas- sical education at Western Pennsylvania university and Mount St. Mary's college, was graduated at Vermont medical college in 1850 and Jefferson medical college in 1853, and, after a short resi- dence in Summitsville, Pa., and Harper's Ferry, Va., settled in Washington, D. C, in 1855. He was a founder of Providence hospital and of St. Ann's infant asylum, to which he is a visiting physician, and since 1856 has been the attending physician to St. Joseph's orphan asylum. Aware of the per- ishable character of much of the early medical lit- erature of this country, he devised a scheme for a repository of medical works that should be under the control of that profession in the United States and located at Washington, D. C. His resolution on that subject was adopted by the American medi- cal association in 1868, and resulted in the estab- lishment of the library of the American medical association. The collection is placed in the Smith- sonian institution, and has reached the number of 6,000 volumes, including pamphlets. In 1871 he founded the Toner lectures by placing $3,000 (which has grown to $5,000) in the hands of trustees, who are charged with the duty of annually procuring two lectures that contain some new fact valuable to medical science, the interest on the fund, save ten per cent, which is added to the permanent fund, being paid to the authors of the essays. These lectures are included in the regular list of the publications of the Smithsonian institution. It is the first attempt that has been made in this country to endow a course of lectures on such con- ditions. He gave in 1875 and three subsequent years the Toner medal at Jefferson medical college, to be awarded to the best thesis that embodies the results of original investigation. For many years he has given a similar medal to the University of Georgetown. He was president of the American medical association in 1873 and of the American health association in 1874, a vice-president of the International medical congress in 1876, and a vice- president and registrar of the International medi- cal congress in 1887. Dr. Toner has devoted much time and research to early American medical litera- ture, and has collected over 1,000 treatises pub- lished before 1800, and, besides publishing numer- ous monographs, has in preparation a " Biographi- cal Dictionary of Deceased American Physicians," of which more than 4,000 sketches are completed. He is an authority in the medical, biographical, and local history of the District of Columbia, and has devised a system of symbols of geographical localities, which has been adopted by the U. S. post-office department. In 1882 he gave his entire library, including manuscripts, to the U. S. gov- ernment. It consisted of 26,000 books and 18,000 pamphlets. He is a member of numerous medical, historical, and philosophical associations, has pub- lished more than fifty pamphlets, which include " Maternal Instinct " (Baltimore, 1864) ; " Compul- sory Vaccination " (1865) ; " Medical Register of the District of Columbia " (1867) ; " Necrological No- tices of Deceased Surgeons in the Rebellion " (Wash- ington, 1870) ; " Medical Register of the United States " (Philadelphia, 1874) ; " Dictionary of Ele- vations and Climatic Register of the United States " (New York, 1874); "Annals of Medical Progress and Medical Education in the United States " (1874); "Medical Men of the Revolution " (Phila- delphia, 1876) ; " Rocky Mountain Medical Associa- tion " (1877) ; and " Memorial Volume, with a Biog- raphy of its Members" (Washington, 1877). See life by Thomas Antisell (Washington, 1878).


TONTY, or TONTI, Chevalier Henry de, Italian explorer, b. in Gaeta, Italy, about 1650 : d. in Mobile, La. (now Ala.), in September, 1 704. His father, Lorenzo, was the inventor of the system of annuities that is called the Tontine. Henry took part in several naval and military engagements when quite young, in one of which he lost a hand. Its place was supplied by an iron one, which he used skilfully. On the recommendation of the Prince de Conti, the Sieur de La Salle took him into his service, and he embarked with the latter for Que- bec on 14 July, 1678. He completed the fort at Niagara, which had been designed by La Salle, and garrisoned it with thirty men. In 1679 he visited several of the Indian tribes, went to Detroit in ad- vance of La Salle, having first taken steps to strengthen and provision his garrison, and ad- vanced into the country of the Illinois, whom he won to the side of the French ; but this alliance proved unfortunate for the Illinois, who were at- tacked by the Iroquois on account of it and de- feated with loss almost under the eyes of Tonti. In 1680 he was ordered by La Salle to build a fort on the river of the Illinois,' but, learning that Fort Crevecceur was threatened by the Iroquois, he marched to its aid. There he met the Indians and had some parleying with them, during which he was wounded by an Onondaga warrior. Believing that the fort was not defensible, he retired in Sep- tember with the five men that constituted its gar- rison. He sailed up the Illinois, experiencing some losses in the voyage, and wintered in the Bay of Lake Michigan (Green bay) in 1681. He was sent by La Salle the same year to finish the fort on the Illinois which was begun the preceding year, to which he gave the name of St. Louis. He de- scended the Mississippi with La Salle, but on 15 May, 1682, was despatched by the latter, who had fallen sick, to Mackinaw for assistance. In 1684 he was at Fort St. Louis and repelled an attack of the Iroquois. In 1686 he went to the mouth of Mississippi river by way of Chicago and Fort Louis to seek tidings of La Salle, and on his return to Montreal he was sent to the Illinois country to col- lect a large force of Illinois Indians for the Seneca campaign. He was able to bring only eighty to Detroit, with whom he took part in the expedition of Denonville. Disheartened by the death of La Salle and of almost all the companions of his early adventures, he spent the last years of his life among the Illinois, who became much attached to him. He was discovered there by Iberville in 1700, supporting himself by hunting and trading in furs. A work purporting to be Tonti's memoirs was pub- lished in Paris in 1697, entitled "Dernieres de- couvertes de la Salle dans l'Amerique septentri- onale " (English translation, London, 1698 ; New York, 1814). Tonti declared to Iberville as well as to Father Marest that he had no hand in this work, which is full of errors and exaggerations. The real memoirs of Tonti have been published by Pierre Margry in " Origines Francaises des pays d'outre- mer ' (Paris, 1877-9). Vol. i. contains "Voyages et etat des Francs sur les lacs et le Mississippi sous les ordres de MM. de la Salle et de Tonty ae 1678 a 1684," and vol. iii. " Lettres de Henri de Tonty sur ce qu'il a appris de M. de la Salle, le voyage qu'il a fait pour l'aller chercher et son de- part prochain pour marcher contre les Iroquois, 1686-1689." Tonti wrote in 1693 a memoir ad- dressed to Count de Pontchartrain, which is also published in Margry's " Origines " (1867).


TONYN, Patrick, British soldier, b. in 1725; d. in London, England, 30 Dec, 1804. He became a captain in the 6th dragoons in 1751, with which regi-