Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 2).djvu/487

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FINE
FINK
459

ated at Franklin college, Ohio, in 1839, and was licensed to preach in the Associate Reformed church on 12 June of that year. He has held pastorates at Chillicothe, Springfield, and Xenia, Ohio, and Newark, N. J., and in 1867-'8 edited the "Family Treasure," published in Cincinnati. He has published about twenty sermons. — His brother, Samuel, educator, b. in West Middletown, Pa., 20 Oct., 1818, was graduated at Franklin college, Ohio, in 1839, studied at Alleghany, Pa., theological seminary, and on 12 Oct., 1842, was ordained as a clergyman of the Associate Reformed church. He was principal of Edinburg academy, Wooster, Ohio, in 1846-'8, of Chillicothe female college in 1850-'3, president of Madison college, Antrim, Ohio, in 1853-'6, and pastor of a Presbyterian church in Pittsburg, Pa., in 1857-61, editing at the same time, for two years, the " Pennsylvania Teacher." He was professor of logic and rhetoric in the Western university of Pennsylvania in 1861-'3, taught in 1863-'5, was professor in the Western military academy, Dayton, Ohio, in 1865-'70, and has held various pastorates. Dr. Findley is a corresponding member of the American entomological society, and has published "Rambles among the Insects" (Philadelphia, 1878).


FINE, John, jurist, b. in New York city, 26 Aug., 1794; d. in Ogdensburg, N. Y., 4 Jan., 1867. He was graduated at Columbia in 1809, studied in the Litchfield, Conn., law-school, and began practice in Ogdensburg, N. Y., in 1815. He was county treasurer in 1821-'33, first judge of the court of common pleas of St. Lawrence county in 1824-'37, and again from 1844 till the abolition of the court in 1847, having in the mean time been elected to congress as a Democrat, and served one term in 1839-'41. He was state senator in 1848, and after that time occupied several local offices of trust, till age and failing eyesight prevented his taking an active part in public affairs. Judge Fine was an active member of the Presbyterian church, and a prominent delegate to its general assembly. He published a volume of "Lectures on Law" (1852).


FINK, Albert, civil engineer, b. near Frankfort-on-the-Main, Germany, 27 Oct., 1827. He was graduated at the Polytechnic institute, Darmstadt, in 1848, where he studied architecture, and emigrated to this country in 1849. He soon found employment as draughtsman in the service of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, and became chief office assistant of Benjamin H. Latrobe. In this capacity he had the superintendence of the design and construction of buildings and bridges. That portion of the road between Cumberland and Wheeling being then in process of construction, Mr. Fink designed and supervised the building of the first important iron bridges in this country, that over the Monongahela river and the viaduct over Trey Run. After this portion of the road was completed, the section from Grafton to Parkersburg was begun, and many of the bridges and tunnels were built under his supervision. During this time Mr. Fink was also consulting engineer of the Norfolk and Petersburg railway, then building, and designed the bridge at Norfolk. In 1857 he left the service of the Baltimore and Ohio road, and became assistant to Geo. McLeod, chief engineer of the Louisville and Nashville road. While connected with the latter corporation he built the Green river bridge, that over the Cumberland at Nashville, and the great bridge over the Ohio at Louisville. During the civil war he served as chief engineer and superintendent of the road and machinery department. During this period bridges were destroyed, connections severed, and the op- erating force kept constantly on the alert to guard against disaster and repair the gaps. The money loss involved by these depredations, the damage caused by which Mr. Fink was called upon to make good, was estimated at not less than $620,450. In 1865 he was made general manager, and in 1870 elected vice-president. The financial crisis of 1873 led him to study the question of the cost of transportation, and he subsequently issued two pamphlets on the subject. About the same time the growing evils of unrestrained railway competition forced upon his mind the necessity for a remedy, and suggested the possibility of co-operation instead of warfare on the part of rival corporations. This led him to devise his plan for the creation of the Southern railway and steamship association, which was adopted. In October, 1875, Mr. Fink resigned the office of vice-president and general manager of the Louisville and Nashville road, and undertook the organization and management of the above-named association, with the title of “general commissioner.” In June, 1877, he set out on a visit to his native land. Arrived in New York, he was waited on by Messrs. Vanderbilt, Jewett, Scott, and Garrett, presidents of the four great trunk-lines of railway, who requested that he should remain in that city and attempt the organization of a “pool” of the west-bound traffic of these roads, on the plan of a division of tonnage, which he had succeeded in putting into operation in the south. Mr. Fink accordingly accepted the commissionership of the trunk-lines, and has been able to effect a complete revolution in the traffic management of the more important American railways.


FINK, Frederick, artist, b. in Little Falls, N. Y., 18 Dec., 1817; d. in 1849. He studied medicine in Albany, but became a merchant, and afterward studied painting with Samuel F. B. Morse, and later in Europe. He painted many excellent genre pictures, the most notable of which are “The Artist's Studio,” “The Shipwrecked Mariner,” and “The Negro Wood-Sawyer.”


FINK, Michael (in religion, Louis Maria), R. C. bishop, b. in Trifsterberg, Bavaria, in 1834. He studied in the Latin school and gymnasium of Ratisbon, and came to the United States in 1852. He joined the order of St. Benedict shortly afterward, and made his profession in the abbey of St. Vincent, Westmoreland county, Pa., in 1854. He finished his theological studies in 1857, and was ordained priest. He was then stationed at Bellefonte, Pa,, and at Newark, N. J. He was next sent to Covington, Ky., where he established a convent of Benedictine nuns, and built a church. He then went to Chicago as pastor of St. Joseph's church, and his missionary labors were so successful that the church couid not contain the numbers who came to hear him, whereupon he built a new and costly one, with schools attached to it. He was next appointed prior of the Benedictine monastery of Atchison, Kan., and also vicar-general of the vicar-apostolate of Kansas. He became coadjutor bishop in 1871, and was transferred to the newly