Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 2).djvu/223

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DONNELLY
DOOLITTLE
201

soldiers inhumanly and wantonly butchered when peacefully marching to and from Concord, April 19, 1775, by the rebels").


DONNELLY, Ignatius, author, b. in Philadelphia, 3 Nov., 1831. He was educated in the public schools of his native city, studied law, was admitted to the bar, and practised. He went to Minnesota in 1857, was elected lieutenant-governor in 1859, and again in 1861, and was then elected to congress as a republican, serving from 7 Dec., 1863, till 3 March, 1869. Besides doing journalistic work he has written an "Essay on the Sonnets of Shakespeare"; "Atlantis, the Antediluvian World" (New York, 1882), in which he attempts to demonstrate that there once existed in the Atlantic ocean, opposite the straits of Gibraltar, a large island, known to the ancients as "Atlantis"; and "Ragnarok" (1883), in which he tries to prove that the deposits of clay, gravel, and decomposed rocks, characteristic of the drift age, were the result of contact between the earth and a comet.—His sister, Eleanor Cecilia, poet, b. in Philadelphia, Pa., 6 Sept., 1838, received her education in the public schools of Philadelphia and at the French academy of Mme. Adèle Sigoigne, of that city. She is a singer, having a rich contralto voice of power and considerable range. Her poetical publications are "Out of Sweet Solitude" (Philadelphia, 1873); "Domus Dei" (1874); "Legend of the Best Beloved, and other Poems" (New York, 1880); "Crowned with Stars" (published by and for the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, 1881); "Hymns of the Sacred Heart," with music (Philadelphia, 1882); "Children of the Golden Sheaf, and other Poems" (1884); "Garland of Festival Songs," with music (New York, 1885); and "Little Compliments of the Season," original, selected, and translated verses (1886). She has also published "Our Birthday Banquet," in prose and verse (New York, 1885); "The Life of Father Felix" (Philadelphia, 1886); and two compilations, "Pearls from the Casket of the Sacred Heart of Jesus" (New York, 1880) and "Signori Leaflets" (1887). Her labors have received the special apostolic benediction of Pope Leo XIII., and she has been awarded a medallion by one of the chief religious orders of Rome. One of her poems was read at a grand academia in the Royal college of the Escorial, Madrid, Spain, in May, 1887.


DONOP, Carl Emil Kurt von, Count, British officer, b. in Germany in 1740; d. in New Jersey, 25 Oct., 1777. He was appointed to the command of four battalions of grenadiers and the yagers in the detachment of Hessian troops in the British employ destined for service in the American war. He landed on Long Island on 22 Aug., 1776, and took part in the battle there on 27 Aug. In December, 1776, when Gen. Howe went into winter quarters in New York, he left Donop as acting brigadier, with two Hessian brigades, the yagers and the 42d Highlanders, to hold the line from Trenton to Burlington. On hearing of the defeat of Rall, Donop hurriedly retreated to Princeton, abandoning his stores and his sick and wounded at Bordentown. In October, 1777, Sir William Howe gave verbal orders to Col. Donop to carry Red Bank, N. J., by assault, if it could be done easily; and on the 22d he, with his Hessians, attacked Fort Mercer at that place, but was repelled after a most desperate resistance, Donop being mortally wounded. He survived the battle three days, and said to a brother officer: "It is finishing a noble career early; but I die the victim of my ambition, and of the avarice of my sovereign."


DOOLITTLE, Amos, engraver, b. in Cheshire, Conn., in 1754; d. in New Haven, Conn., 31 Jan., 1832. He was entirely self-taught, and, after serving an apprenticeship with a silversmith, began business as an engraver in 1775. While a volunteer at Cambridge he visited the battle-ground of Lexington, and on his return to New Haven made an engraving of the action, his first attempt in that art. This is believed to have been the first historical engraving made in America. Mr. Doolittle executed three other historical prints in relation to the expedition to Concord and Lexington.


DOOLITTLE, Benjamin, clergyman, b. 10 July, 1695; d. 9 Jan., 1749. He was graduated at Yale in 1716, and was minister of Northfield, Mass., from 1718 until his death. He was also a physician, and published an interesting "Narrative of the Mischief by the French and Indians from 1744 to 1748," and an "Inquirv into Enthusiasm."


DOOLITTLE, Edwin Stafford, artist, b. in Albany, N. Y., in 1843; d. about 1880. He studied painting under John A. Hows in 1865, and in the studio of William Hart for a short time in 1866. In 1867 he opened a studio in New York, but in 1868 went to Europe. He studied art for some time in Rome, till failing health forced him to return to the United States. In 1869 he painted his "Shadow of a Great Rock in a Weary Land," of which he made several copies. In the summer of 1872 he studied under Jasper F. Cropsey, at Warwick, N. Y. His paintings comprise landscapes and marine subjects, and include "Sunset on an Adirondack Swamp"; "Chimney Rock, North Carolina"; "Gray's Peak, Colorado"; "A Pool in the Warwick Woodlands"; "Ruins of the Claudian Aqueduct on the Roman Campagna"; "On the Giuadecca Canal, Venice"; "The Arch of Titus"; "Autumn in the Catskill Clove"; "The Oxenstrasse. Lake Lucerne"; "The Old Toll-Gate"; and "Sunset on Schroon Lake." Mr. Doolittle also designed book-covers, decorated churches, and executed illuminations, the latter including "The Soliloquy of Friar Pacificus," for the Centennial exhibition at Philadelphia, which was afterward presented to the poet Longfellow, and of "A Prayer to the Virgin," now in the convent of the Sacred Heart at Savannah, Ga. He was the author of "Grace Church Chimes," and other poems.


DOOLITTLE, James Rood, senator, b. in Hampton. N. Y., 3 Jan., 1815; d. in Providence, R. I., 27 July, 1897. After attending Middlebury academy, he entered Hobart college, where he was graduated. He then studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1837, and practised at Rochester and at Warsaw, N. Y. He was elected district attorney of Wyoming county, N. Y., in 1845, and also served for some time as a colonel of militia. He removed to Wisconsin in 1851, and was elected judge of the first judicial circuit of that state in 1853, but resigned in 1856, and was elected U. S. senator as a Democratic Republican, to succeed Henry Dodge, serving two terms, from 1857 till 1869. He was a delegate to the peace convention of 1861. While in the senate, he served as chairman of the committee on Indian affairs and as member of other important committees. During the summer recess of 1865, he visited the Indians west of the Mississippi as a member of a special senate committee. He took a prominent part in debate on the various war and reconstruction measures, upholding the national government, but always insisting that the seceding states had never ceased to be a part of the Union. He opposed the fifteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States, on the ground that each state should determine questions of suffrage for itself. Mr. Doolittle retired from public life in 1869, and afterward resided in Racine, Wis.,