Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 4).djvu/805

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
PHILLIPS
PHILLIPS
759

from that time until her death she appeared in opera, oratorio, and concerts in most of the states of the Union. The Adelaide Phillipps opera company was organized in 1876, and in 1879 she joined the Ideal opera company, remaining with the latter until 1881, when she made her last appearance on the stage in Cincinnati. Failing health compelled her to rest, and she went to Europe in the hope of recovery, but died suddenly at Carlsbad. Her stage name in Europe was Signorina Fillippi. Miss Phillipps's voice was a contralto, with a compass of two and one half octaves. The characters in which she excelled were Rosina, Leonora, and Azucena. See “Adelaide Phillipps, a Record,” by Mrs. Robert C. Waterston (Boston, 1883).


PHILLIPS, Barnet, journalist, b. in Philadelphia, Pa., 9 Nov., 1828. He was graduated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1847, studied in France and Germany, and became a journalist. Since 1872 he has been connected with the New York “Times” in a literary capacity. During 1878-'86 he was secretary of the American fish-cultural association, and in 1882 he was appointed honorary agent of the U. S. national museum, which place he still holds. Besides numerous articles on fish-culture and archælogy, he has published “The Struggle,” a novel (New York, 1878), and “Burning their Ships” (1879).

PHILLIPS, George, clergyman, b. in Rainham, Norfolk, England, in 1593; d. in Watertown, Mass., 1 July, 1644. He was a student at the University of Cambridge in 1613 and 1617, and settled at Boxted, Essex co., England, but became a non-conformist, and came to New England in June, 1630. He was the first minister of Watertown, Mass., from 30 July, 18630, till his death. He was a learned scholar and an able disputant, and published a work on “Infant Baptism” (1645).

PHILLIPS, Henry M., lawyer, b. in Philadelphia, Pa., 30 June, 1811; d. there, 3 Aug., 1884. His father was a lawyer in Philadelphia, and the son, after completing his course at the high-school of the Franklin institute, studied for the same profession and was admitted to the bar in 1831. In 1856 he was elected to congress from Pennsylvania, as a Democrat, and served one term. Mr. Phillips was chosen a trustee of Jefferson medical college in 1862, in 1867 appointed a member of the board of park commissioners, of which, in 1881, he became president, and in 1870 was made a member of the commission for the erection of municipal buildings for Philadelphia. He was chosen a director of the Philadelphia academy of music in 1870, and its president in 1872.—His nephew, Henry, author, b. in Philadelphia, 6 Sept., 1838; d. there, 6 June, 1895. He was educated at home and abroad, and admitted to the Philadelphia bar, but, owing to delicate health, was never able to follow his profession actively. His work had been mainly in archæology, philology, and numismatics. He ranks among the best authorities on these subjects in the United States, and was widely known in Europe, where two gold medals had been conferred on him for his writings. In 1862 he became treasurer, and in 1868 secretary, of the Numismatic and antiquarian society of Philadelphia, and after 1880 he had been secretary of the American philosophical society, and since 1885 its librarian. He was also a member of many learned societies at home and abroad, and in some cases is the only American that has been thus honored. His works on the paper currency of the American colonies and on American continental money were the first on those subjects, and the latter volume has been cited in the opinion of the U. S. supreme court in a decision on the legal-tender cases. Mr. Phillips had published, besides many papers, “History of American Colonial Paper Currency” (Albany, 1865); “History of American Continental Paper Money” (1866); “Pleasures of Numismatic Science” (Philadelphia, 1867); “Poems from the Spanish and German” (1878); “Faust” from the German of Chamisso (1881); and four volumes of translations from the Spanish, Hungarian, and German (1884-'7).

PHILLIPS, James, educator, b. in Nevendon, Essex, England, 22 April, 1792; d. in Chapel Hill, N. C., 16 March, 1867. He was the son of Richard Phillips, a clergyman of the Church of England. The son came to the United States in 1818, taught for a time in Harlem, N. Y., and in 1826 became professor of mathematics in the University of North Carolina, where he remained till his death. He was licensed as a preacher of the Presbyterian church in 1833, ordained in April, 1835, and preached regularly at the New Hope church, a few miles from the university, till his death. He projected a complete course of mathematical studies, and prepared treatises on algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and kindred subjects.

PHILLIPS, John, first mayor of Boston, b. in Boston, Mass., 26 Nov., 1770; d. there, 23 May, 1823. He was graduated at Harvard in 1788, and then studied law. In 1800 he was made public prosecutor, and in 1803 was chosen representative to the general court. He was sent to the Massachusetts senate in 1804, and continued member of that body until his death, serving as presiding officer in 1813-'23. In 1820 he was a member of the convention that met to consider the revision of the state constitution, and he took an active part in the proceedings of that body. Mr. Phillips was also active in the agitation tending toward the adoption of a city government in Boston, and was chairman of the committee of twelve that drew up and reported on a city charter for the town in 1822. In the choice for mayor that followed, Harrison Gray Otis and Josiah Quincy were the chief candidates for the office, but, as neither was able to secure an election, their friends agreed on Mr. Phillips, who was elected on 16 April, 1822. At the close of his term of office the precarious condition of his health led him to decline a re-election. In 1812 he was chosen a member of the corporation of Harvard, and he was also a fellow of the American academy of arts and sciences. He was invited in 1794 to deliver the annual Fourth of July oration before the people of Boston, and his address is said to have borne “the finest marks of intellectual vigor.”—His son, Wendell, orator, b. in Boston, Mass., 29 Nov., 1811; d. there, 2 Feb., 1884, entered the Boston Latin-school in 1822, and was graduated at Harvard in 1831, in the same class with the historian J. Lothrop Motley. As a student he showed no particular interest in reforms; indeed, he bore the reputation of having defeated the first attempt to form a temperance society at Harvard. Handsome in person, cultivated in manners, and of a kindly and generous disposition, he was popular among his fellow-students, and was noted for his fine elocution and his skill in debate. His heart had responded to Webster's fiery denunciation at Plymouth in 1820 of that “work of hell, foul and dark,” the slave-trade. “If the pulpit be silent whenever or wherever there may be a sinner bloody with this guilt within the hearing of its voice, the pulpit is false to its trust.” He had taken a boy's part in honoring Lafayette, and in the midst of such associations he was unconsciously fitted for his career. In college his favorite study was history. He gave a year to the story of the English