BAXTER.
BAYARD.
Merchants national bank, one of the board of
overseers of liowdoin college, president of the
Maine liistorieal society, the Portland public
library, and the Portland publishing c-onipany.
Throughout his ac-
tive business life
he found time to
devote to study
and authorship. His
early contributions
were to the New
York Home Journal
and other first-class
publications. He
became widely
known as a lecturer,
and several poems de-
livered by him on
public occasions were
widely published, including one delivered in 1882,
on the occasion of the celebration of the seventy-
fifth anniversary of the birth of the poet Long-
fellow by the Maine historical society, and
another on the celebration of the eighty-fourth
anniversary of the birth of the venerable Profes-
sor Packard, Longfellow's tutor, at Bowdoin
college. In 1889, on the occasion of tlie centen-
nial celebration by the city of Portland of the
adoption of the Federal constitution, he delivered
the oration. At the World's congress in Chicago
in 1893, he read before the American historical
association a paper on "The Present Status of
Pre-Columbian Discovery," which elicited warm
commendation. He was elected mayor of the
BAXTEU LIBBAKT.
city of Portland in 18ini, and to his administration
Portlanrl owes her model lugh school building,
the introtluction of manual training into her
public schools, and many important reforms in
municipal management. In 1881 Bowdoin col-
lege conferred upon him the honorary degree
of A.M. His publi.shed books include: "Idyls
of the Y^ear, Poems" (1884); "George Cleeve
and His Times" (1885); "The British Invasion
from the North" (1887); " Documentary History
of Maine" (1889); "Sir Ferdinando Gorges and
His Province of Maine" (1890); "Christopher
Levitt, the Pioneer Colonist of Casco Bay"
(1893), and "The Pioneers of New Fjance in
New England" (1894).
BAXTER, John, jurist, was born in North Carolina in 1819. He practised law in North Carolina until 1857, when he took up his resi- dence in Knoxville, Tenn. He was several times elected to the house of representatives of the state legislature, was speaker, and a judge of the supreme court. He was a firm Union man during the civil war, and a member of the Republican party. He acted as chairman of the judiciary committee of the state constitutional convention in 1870, and in 1877 was made a judge of the sixth judicial district by President Hayes. He died April 2, 1886.
BAXTER, Lydia, poet, was born at Peters- burg, Rensselaer county, N. Y., Sept. 2, 1809. She is chiefly known as the author of "The Gates Ajar," and other Sundaj^ -school hymns, which became widely known and very popular. In 1855 she published a book of poems, prin- cipally of a religious character, entitled " Gems by the Wayside. " She died in New Y^ork city, Jan. 23, 1874.
BAXTER, Marion Babcock, lecturer, was born at Litchfield, Mich., April 12, 1850, daugh- ter of A. E. Babcock, an Adventist preacher. Her mother was a woman of rare gifts and marked Christian character. At twenty j-ears of age she delivered her first public address at Jonesville, Mich. It attracted wide and favor- able attention, and fixed her vocation as a lec- turer. From that time she was constantly before the public, speaking to large audiences in all parts of the country, temperance generally being her theme. She became a prominent member of the women's Christian temperance union, and also of the national W. C. T. U. lec- ture bureau. In 1891 she was elected state presi- dent of the White Rose clubs of Michigan, a partisan organization of women, for the support of the Prohibition party. She has written several poems.
BAYARD, George Dashiell, soldier, was born at Seneca Falls, N. Y'., Dec. 18, 1835, son of Samuel J. Bayard. His parents removed to Iowa, and his early education was acquired at a mil- itary school in that state, where he became an expert swordsman imder the instruction of
