Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 4).djvu/175

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McLEAN
MACLEAN
148

having been appointed assistant quartermaster- general, lie was placed on the staff. He remained on active service until the battle of Lundy's Ijane, where he was taken prisoner and detained on parole at Greenbush, near Albany, N. Y., till the end of the war. After his return he was admitted to the bar, and in a short time was employed as counsel in the difficulties that arose out of contentions be- tween the Hudson bay and the Northwest companies. He represented Storraont and Cornwall for several years in the legislative assembly of Upper Canada, and was twice elected speaker of that body. In 1837 he was appointed a judge of the court of king's bench, and the same year took an active part in suppressing the rebellion. He resigned his judge- ship in 1856, but was soon afterward appointed chief justice of Upper Canada by John A. Mac- donald, which place he retained till he was ap- pointed president of the court of error and appeal, in which capacity he officiated till his death. Mr. McLean was noted for his liberal hospitality while on circuit. His elder brother, John, was for years sheriff of Kingston, and his youngest brother, Alex- ander, entered the royal Newfoundland regiment, subsequently enlisted in the Stormont militia, saw a great deal of service in the war of 1812, and was wounded at the capture of Ogdensburg. He was afterward a member of the provincial parliament, and treasurer of Stormont and Glengarry.


McLean, Daniel Veech, educator, b. in Fay- ette county. Pa., 24 Nov., 1801 ; d. in Red Bank, N. J., 23 Nov., 1869. He was brought up in Koss county, Ohio, graduated at Ohio university in 1824, taught in Chambersburg, Pa., in 1825-'6, and in 1827 entered Princeton seminary, where he re- mained two years. He was ordained as an evange- list in Miami, Ohio, on 29 June, 1831, and preached for two years at Lebanon. Ohio, and then took charge of the church at Tennent, Monmouth co., N. J., and four years later of a church organized by him at Freehold, with which he remained till 1850, when he was chosen president of Lafayette college. He devoted himself to raising an endow- ment for the college, and secured $100,000 by the sale of scholarshii^s. which, however, afforded but a temporary relief. In 1857 he resigned his post, and returned to the ministry, spending four years in London, where he preached frequently, and after his return to the United States serving as pastor at Plainfleld, N. J., in 1862-'3, and then at Red Bank till his death. He received the degree of D. D. from Lafayette college in 1862.


MacLEAN, Francis, British soldier, b. in Scot- land about 1727; d. in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1781. He served in the Dutch war, was at the capture of Bergen-op-Zoora by Count Lowendahl, was captured and held a prisoner by the French, and subsequently served in Portugal, and during the Revolutionary war in this country, rising to the rank of general. He commanded the fort at Penobscot, Me., against which an expedition was sent from Boston in July, 1779, when he success- fully defended it with 700 men against an attack- ing force of 2,000 Americans.


McLEAN, John, merchant, b. in Thomaston, Me., in 1761 ; d. in Bostdn, Mass., in 1823. He was educated in the public schools of Milton, Mass., to which place his parents had removed, and those of Boston, engaged in trade in that city, and accu- mulated a fortune. When he died he left $25,000 to found a professorship of ancient and modern history at Harvard, and upward of $100,000 to the Massachusetts general hospital, wliieh was devoted to the asylum for the insane at Somerville, since flailed the McLean asylum.


MACLEAN, John, educator, b. in Glasgow, Scotland, 1 March, 1771 ; d. in Princeton, N. J., 17 Feb., 1814. He studied chemistry and surgery at Edinburgh, London, and Paris, completed his medical course at Glasgow, and was admitted a member of the faculty of that city at the age of twenty-one. While in Paris he became an adherent of the new theories of chemistry that had been developed by Lavoisier. Embracing republican views, he determined to become an American citi- zen, and emigrated to the United States in April, 1795. He settled in Princeton, N. J., where he delivered a course of lectures on chemistry, and on 1 Oct., 1795, was appointed professor of chem- istry and natural history in the college. In April, 1797, he was appointed professor of mathematics, and natural philosophy also. His chemical in- structions embraced the practical applications of chemistry to agriculture and manufactures as well as theoretical science. In the second year of his instructions at Princeton he wrote two " Lectures on Combustion " in answer to a pamphlet by Dr. Joseph Priestley that upheld the phlogistic theory, and a controversy between Priestley and Maclean was carried on for some time in the "columns of the New York "Medical Repository." In 1812 Dr. Maclean accepted the chair of natural philosophy and chemistry at William and Mary college, but at the end of the college year was compelled by sickness to resign. His " Memoir " was written by his son John (printed privately, Princeton, 1885). — His son, John, educator, b. in Princeton, N. J., 3 March, 1800 ; d. there, 10 Aug., 1886, was gradu- ated at Princeton in 1816, taught for a year, en- tered the Princeton theological semina- ry in 1818, and was tutor of Greek in the college while attending theologi- cal lectures for two years. In 1822 he was appointed pro- fessor of mathe- matics and natural philosophy. In 1829 he exchanged this chair for that of ancient languages. In 1847 he was re- lieved of the charge of the Latin de- partment. In 1854 he succeeded Dr.

James Carnahan as

president of the college, which office he resigned in 1868. He was given the degree of D. D. by Wash- ington college. Pa., in 1841. and that of LL. D. by the University of the state of New York in 1854. The legislature of New Jersey, in establishing the common-school system of the state, followed the suggestions of a lecture on " A School System for New Jersey," delivered by Dr. Maclean before the Literary and philosophical society of New Jer- sey in January, 1828, and afterward published and widely distributed in pamphlet-form (Princeton, 1829). In the discussion of the questions that di- vided the Presbyterian church into the old- and new-school branches he took an active part, pub- lishing a series of letters in " The Presbyterian," afterward issued in pamphlet-form, in defence of the action of the assembly of 1837. Notable among his many contributions to the " Princeton Review " were two articles in 1841 controverting the argument that unfermented grape-juice was