Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1892, volume 3).djvu/429

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
JAMES
JAMES
397

and was elected to the state senate. He is the au- thor of " Digest of the Statute and Common Law of Carolina " (Columbia, 1814).


JAMES, Charles Tillinghast, senator, b. in West Greenwich, R. I., in 1804 ; d. in Sag Harbor, N. Y., 17 Oct., 1862. He received a limited educa- tion, learned the trade of a carpenter, and in 1823 began to study mechanics, at the same time learn- ing, as a workman in the machine-shops, the con- struction of cotton-machinery. He afterward re- moved to Providence, became superintendent of Slater's steam cotton-mills, and was chosen major- general of Rhode Island militia. After a few years' residence in Providence, he removed to Newbury- port, Mass., where he erected the Bartlett and James mills ; subsequently built cotton-mills in Salem, Mass., and in the states of New York, Pennsylva- nia, Indiana, and Tennessee, and, returning in 1849 to Rhode Island, erected the Atlantic delaine-mill at Olneyville. He was U. S. senator from Rhode Island from 1851 till 1857, and after his retirement from the senate devoted his attention to the per- fection of several inventions, among which was a rifled cannon and a new projectile. He was an ex- cellent marksman, and thoroughly versed in the use and construction of fire-arras. In 1838 Brown university conferred upon him the honorary de- gree of M. A. Gen. James died of wounds that he received from the explosion of a shell of his own manufacture, with which he was experimenting. He wrote a series of papers on the culture and manufacture of cotton in the south.


JAMES, Edmund Janes, political economist, b. in Jacksonville, 111., 21 May, 1855. He studied at Harvard, and then at the University of Halle, in Prussia, where in 1877 he took the degree of Ph. D. After teaching in Illinois until 1883, he was appointed in that year to the professorship of public finance and administration in the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. James is a member of scien- tific societies, and was vice-president of the Ameri- can economic association in 1885. He was editor of the " Illinois School Journal " during 1880-'3, and in 1884 became associate editor of the "Fi- nanzarchiv " of Wurzburg, Germany. His scien- tific papers number about 100, and have been contributed to journals and the proceedings of societies both at home and abroad. He is now (1887) preparing for the National government re- ports on the " Teaching of Political Science in the Schools and Universities of Europe and America" and the " Relation of the Government to the Pres- ervation and Extension of our Forests." Dr. James has also published a translation of Isocrates's " Panegyrics " (Cambridge, 1874) ; " Entwickelung des amerikanischen Zolltariffs" (Jena. 1877); and " Relation of Modern Municipality to the Gas Supply " (Baltimore, 1886).


JAMES, Edwin, geologist, b. in Weybridge, Vt., 27 Aug., 1797 ; d. in Burlington, Iowa,"28 Oct., 1861. He was graduated at Middlebury college in 1816, and then spent three years in Albany, where he studied medicine with his brother, Dr. Daniel James, botany with Dr. John Torrey, and geology under Prof. Amos Eaton. In 1820 he was ap- pointed botanist and geologist to the exploring ex- pedition of Maj. Samuel H. Long, and was actively engaged in field work during that year. For two years following he was occupied in compiling and preparing for the press the report of the " Expedi- tion to the Rocky Mountains, 1818-'19 " (2 vols., with atlas, Philadelphia and London, 1823). He then received the appointment of surgeon in the U. S. army, and for six years was stationed at frontier outposts. During this time, in addition to his professional duties, he was occupied with the study of the native Indian dialects, and pre- pared a translation of the New Testament in the Ojibway language (1833). In 1830 he resigned his commission and returned to Albany, where for a short time he was associated with Edward C. Dela- van in the editorship of the " Temperance Her- ald and Journal." Meanwhile he also prepared for the press " The Narrative of John Tanner," a strange frontier character, who was stolen when a child by the Indians (New York, 1830). In 1834 he again went west, and in 1836 settled in the vicinity of Burlington. Iowa, where he spent the remainder of his life, mainly in agricultural pur- suits. Dr. James was the earliest botanical ex- plorer of the Rocky mountains, and his name was originally given by Maj. Long to the mountain that has since been known as Pike's peak.


JAMES, Henry, theologian, b. in Albany, N. Y., 3 June, 1811 ; d. in Cambridge, Mass., 18 Dec., 1882. When he was twelve years of age an accident so injured his leg that amputation was necessary. He was graduated at Union in 1830. Having inherited wealth from his father, a merchant in Albany, he did not immediately adopt a profession, but studied law for a time in Albany, and afterward became a student in Princeton theological seminary. There he argued with the professors against the doctrine of justification by faith, and infused his unorthodox opinions into the minds of other students. He therefore decided in 1835, after two years' residence in Princeton, to leave the institution. Going to England, he continued the study of theology and philosophy, and was attracted to the tenets of the Sandemanian sect. After his return he published an edition of Robert Sandeman's "Letters on Theron and Aspasia," with an introductory essay (New York, 1839). In 1840, in a pamphlet entitled " Remarks on the Apostolic Gospel," he denied the doctrine of the Trinity, while affirming the divinity of Christ. In 1843 lie visited Europe again, and there became familiar with the writings and doctrines of Emanuel Swedenborg, and in the main adopted the theological system and social philosophy of that thinker, but objected to the ecclesiastical organization of the New Jerusalem church. " What is the State ? " a lecture delivered in Albany, was published in 1846, and in 1847 a " Letter to a Swedenborgian," in which he opposed ecclesiasticism, while approving the Swedenborgian doctrines. A series of lectures that he delivered in New York city in 1849 were published under the title " Moralism and Christianity, or Man's Experience and Destiny " (New York, 1850) ; also a second series, delivered in 1851, in a volume entitled " Lectures and Miscellanies " (1852), containing, besides the lectures, some magazine and review articles. His subsequent works elucidated more fully his theological system, in which the central idea was the absolute divinity of God and the divine humanity of Christ, and set forth social doctrines similar to the teachings of the theoretical socialists. On repeated visits to England he frequented the society of Thomas Carlyle and other leaders of thought. At home he was the intimate associate of the transcendental philosophers, though differing with them in opinion. He resided for many years in New York city, and for some time in Newport, R. I., but in 1866 removed to Cambridge, Mass. He contributed to the New York " Tribune " a series of letters on " English and Continental Life," and in later life published "Personal Recollections of Carlyle " and other reminiscences in the periodicals. Besides the works already mentioned he published " The Church of