honors. He was elected a member of the national academy in 1860, and has been awarded medals in Austria, Bavaria, Belgium, and Germany. In 1867 he was decorated with the cross of the legion of honor, and in 1869 with that of St. Stanislaus, of which he received also the second class in 1872. In 1882 his studio at Irvington, N. Y., was destroyed by fire, with many valuable pictures. Among his best-known works are: “Laramie Peak” (1861), now in the Buffalo academy of fine arts; “Lander's Peak in the Rocky Mountains” (1863), bought by James McHenry, of London, for $25,000; “North Fork of the Platte” (1864); “Looking down the Yosemite” (1865); “El Capitan on Merced River” (1866); “Storm on Mt. Rosalie” (1866); “Valley of the Yosemite” (1866), in the Lenox library; "Settlement of California" and “Discovery of Hudson River,” both in the Capitol at Washington; “Emerald Pool on Mt. Whitney” (1870); “In the Rocky Mountains” (1871); “Great Trees of California” (1874); “Valley of Kern River, California” (1875); “Mt. Whitney, Sierra Nevada” (1877); “Estes Park, Colorado,” “Mountain Lake,” and “Mount Corcoran, in Sierra Nevada” (1878), Corcoran gallery, Washington; “Geysers” (1883); “Storm on the Matterhorn,” and “View on Kern River” (1884); “Valley of Zermatt, Switzerland” (1885) : “On the Saco, New Hampshire,” and “California Oaks” (1886).
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BIGELOW, Erastus Brigham, inventor, b. in West Boylston, Mass., 2 April, 1814; d. in Boston, Mass., 6 Dec., 1879. He was the son of a cotton-weaver, and it was his parents' desire that he should become a physician, but, his father's business not being successful, he was unable to continue his studies, and so turned his attention to inventing. Before he had reached the age of eighteen years he had devised a handloom for suspender-webbing, and also a machine for making piping-cord. His work on “Stenography,” a short manual on shorthand writing, was written and published about this time. In 1838 he patented an automatic loom for weaving counterpanes, which he subsequently modified so as to produce an article equal to the finest imported counterpanes. He then invented a loom for weaving coach-lace, and soon afterward turned his attention to carpet-weaving. In 1839 he contracted to produce a power-loom capable of weaving two-ply ingrain carpets, such as had been hitherto woven exclusively by the handloom, which only produced eight yards a day. With his first loom he succeeded in obtaining ten or twelve yards daily, which he increased by improvements until a product of twenty-five yards was regularly obtained. Afterward he invented a power-loom for weaving Brussels tapestry and velvet tapestry carpets, his most important invention, which attracted much attention at the World's Fair in London in 1851. The town of Clinton, Worcester co., Mass., owes its growth and manufacturing importance to him, as it contains the coach-lace works, the Lancaster Quilt Company, and the Bigelow Carpet Company, all of which are direct results of his inventive ability. In 1862 Mr. Bigelow prepared a scheme of uniform taxation throughout the United States by means of stamps, and he published “The Tariff Question, considered in regard to the Policy of England and the Interests of the United States” (Boston, 1863). Mr. Bigelow was elected a member of the Boston Historical Society in April, 1864, and in 1869 presented to that society six large volumes entitled “Inventions of Erastus Brigham Bigelow patented in England from 1837 to 1868,” in which were gathered the printed specifications of eighteen patents granted to him in England. See the memorial sketch by Robert C. Winthrop in “Winthrop's Addresses and Speeches” (Boston, 1886).
BIGELOW, Jacob, physician, b. in Sudbury, Mass., 27 Feb., 1787; d. in Boston, 10 Jan., 1879.
He was graduated at Harvard in 1806, studied
medicine, opened his office in Boston in 1810, and
displayed unusual skill. In 1811 he delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa society a poem on "Professional Life," afterward published at Boston. He early made a reputation as a botanist, had an extensive European correspondence, and different
plants were named for him by Sir J. E. Smith, in
the supplement to "Rees's Cyclopaedia," by Schrader in Germany, and De Candolle in France. He was one of the committee of five selected in 1820 to
form the "American Pharmacopoeia," and is to be
credited with the principle of the nomenclature of materia medica afterward adopted by the British colleges, substituting a single for a double word whenever practicable. He founded Mount Auburn, the first garden cemetery established in the United States, and the model after which all others in the
country have been made. The much-admired stone
tower, chapel, gate, and fence were all built after
his designs. During a term of twenty years Dr.
Bigelow was a physician of the Massachusetts general hospital, and in 1856 the trustees of that institution ordered a marble bust of him to be placed in the hall. He was professor of materia medica in Harvard university from 1815 to 1855, and from
1816 to 1827 held the Rumford professorship in the same institution, delivering lectures on the application of science to the useful arts. These lectures
were published in a volume entitled "Elements of
Technology," republished with the title "Useful
Arts considered in Connection with the Applications
of Science" (2 vols.. New York, 1840). Notable
among his papers was one entitled "A Discourse
on Self-Limited Disease," which was delivered as an
address before the Massachusetts medical society in
1835, and had a marked effect in modifying the
practice of physicians. He was during many years
the president of that society, and was also president of the American academy of arts and sciences. Retiring from the active practice of his profession some years before his death. Dr. Bigelow gave much attention to the subject of education, and especially to the matter of establishing and developing
technological schools. In an address "On the Limits of Education," delivered in 1865 before the Massachusetts institute of technology, he emphasized the necessity of students devoting themselves to special technical branches of knowledge. He published, besides works already mentioned, "Florula Bostoniensis" (1814; enlarged eds., 1824 and 1840); an edition, with notes, of Sir J. E. Smith's work on botany (1814); "American Medical Botany" (3 vols., Boston, 1817-20); "Nature in
