Cometes” was communicated to the Royal society by Benjamin Franklin (London, 1766). — Prof. Winthrop's son, James, jurist, b. in Cambridge, Mass., in 1752; d. there, 26 Sept., 1821, was graduated at Harvard in 1769, and was wounded at Bunker Hill. He was librarian of Harvard from 1772 till 1787; for several years a judge of the court of common pleas; and long register of probate. He bequeathed his valuable library to Alleghany college, Meadville, Pa. He published “Attempt to translate the Prophetic Part of the Apocalypse of St. John into Familiar Language” (Boston, 1794); “Systematic Arrangement of Several Scripture Prophecies relating to Antichrist” (1795); “Attempt to arrange, in the Order of Time, Scripture Prophecies yet to be Fulfilled” (Cambridge, 1803); and scientific and literary contributions to current literature. — John Winthrop the younger's great-grandson, Thomas Lindall, merchant, b. in New London, Conn., 6 March, 1760; d. in Boston, Mass., 22 Feb., 1841, was graduated at Harvard in 1780, and in 1786 married Elizabeth Bowdoin Temple, a granddaughter of Gov. James Bowdoin and the daughter of Sir John Temple, British consul-general in the United States. In early life he was an active Federalist, but he joined the Republicans at the beginning of the war of 1812-'15, and was successively a state senator, lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts in 1826-'32, and a presidential elector. Few men of his time were so widely esteemed throughout New England for integrity, public spirit, and unostentatious hospitality. Among his many posts of public usefulness were those of president of the Massachusetts agricultural society, the Massachusetts historical society, and the American antiquarian society. —
|
|
Thomas Lindall's youngest son, Robert Charles, statesman, b. in Boston, 12 May, 1809, was graduated at Harvard in 1828, studied law with Daniel Webster, was admitted to the bar in 1831, but after a brief professional career became active in local politics as a Henry Clay Whig. From 1834 till 1840 he was a member of the lower house of the Massachusetts legislature, of which he was chosen speaker in 1838, 1839, and 1840. In the last-named year he was elected to congress, where he served ten years with much distinction, maintaining the reputation he had already acquired as a ready debater and accomplished parliamentarian, and adding to it by a series of impressive speeches upon public questions, many of which are still consulted as authorities. The earliest resolution in favor of international arbitration by a commission of civilians was offered by him. In 1847-'9 he was speaker of the house, but he was defeated for a second term by a plurality of two, after a contest that lasted three weeks. In 1850 he was appointed by the governor of Massachusetts to Daniel Webster's seat in the senate, when the latter became secretary of state. His course on the slavery question was often distasteful to men of extreme opinions in both sections of the Union, and in 1851 he was defeated for election to the senate by a coalition of Democrats and Free-soilers, after a struggle of six weeks. In the same year he was Whig candidate for governor of the state, and received a large plurality; but the constitution then required a majority, and the election was thrown into the legislature, where the same coalition defeated him. This occasioned a change in the state constitution, which now requires merely a plurality, but Mr. Winthrop declined to be a candidate again, and successively refused various other candidacies and appointments, preferring gradually to retire from political life and devote himself to literary, historical, and philanthropic occupations. From time to time, however, his voice was still heard in presidential elections, and he gave active and influential support to Gen. Winfield Scott in 1852, to Millard Fillmore in 1856, to John Bell in 1860, and to Gen. McClellan in 1864, when a speech of his at New London was the last, but not the least memorable, of his political addresses. Of the Boston provident association he was the laborious president for twenty-five years, of the Massachusetts historical society for thirty years, of the Alumni of Harvard for eight years, besides serving as chairman of the overseers of the poor of Boston, and in many other posts of dignity and usefulness. He was the chosen counsellor of George Peabody in several of his munificent benefactions, and has been from the outset at the head of the latter's important trust for southern education. It is as the favorite orator of great historical anniversaries that Mr. Winthrop has long been chiefly associated in the popular mind, and he has uniformly received the commendation of the best judges, not merely for the scholarship and finish of these productions, but for the manifestation in them of a fervid eloquence that the weight of years has failed to quench. They may be found scattered through four volumes of “Addresses and Speeches,” the first of which was published in 1852 and the last in 1886. Among the most admired of them have been an “Address on laying the Corner-Stone of the National Monument to Washington” in 1848, and one on the completion of that monument in 1885, the latter prepared at the request of congress; an “Address to the Alumni of Harvard,” in 1857; an “Oration on the 250th Anniversary of the Landing of the Pilgrims,” in 1870; the “Boston Centennial Oration,” 4 July, 1876; an address on unveiling the statue of Col. Prescott on Bunker Hill, in 1881; and, in the same year, an oration on the hundredth anniversary of the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, delivered by invitation of congress. He has been thought equally to excel in shorter and less formal utterances. Several speeches of his on Boston common during the civil war excited much enthusiasm by their patriotic ring; while his brief tributes to John Quincy Adams, John C. Calhoun, Edward Everett, Daniel Webster, Abraham Lincoln, and many other eminent men with whom he had been associated at different periods, are models of graceful and discriminating eulogy. Besides the collected works already cited, he is the author of the “Life and Letters of John Winthrop” (2 vols., Boston, 1864), and “Washington, Bowdoin, and Franklin” (1876). A portrait of him, in the capitol at Washington, presented by citizens of Massachusetts, commemorates at once his speakership and his Yorktown oration; while another, in the hall of the Massachusetts historical society, is a fit reminder of his services to New England history. — Thomas Lindall's nephew, Benjamin Robert, capitalist, b. in New
