Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 02.djvu/318

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CODMAN


CODY


the united colonies he went to England in 1649, where after two years he obtained a com- mission to govern the islands of Rhode Island and Conanicut during his life. In October, 1652, Roger "Williams and John Clark secured a revocation of the comminission, but Coddington refused to give up the records and did not submit until 1655, when he united with the Quakers. In 1674 he was chosen governor of the colon}- and was re-elected in 1675 and again in 1678. He published Dmnonstration of True Love unto the Elders of Massachusetts, by one tcho teas in author- ity mth them (1674). See William Coddington in Bhode Island Colonial Affairs (1878). He died in Newport, R. I., Nov. 1, 1678.

CODMAN, John, clergyman, was born in Boston, Mass., Aug. 3, 1782; son of John and Margaret (Russell) Codman. His ancestors of the same name were Bostonians from the early historj' of the city. His father was a merchant and served in the state senate. The son was graduated at Harvard in 1802 and studied theol- ogy at Cambridge, Mass., and at Edinburgh, Scotland. He preached in London in 1807-08, and then returned to the United States to as- sume the pastorate of the second church at Dor- chester. Mass., where he spent the rest of his life. His views were extremely orthodox and his maintenance of them nearly cost him his church. He was at one time forcibly prevented from enter- ing his pulpit and his opponents left and organ- ized a new church. He visited England and Wales as a delegate to the Congregational union in 1834-35. He inherited a fortune of 8100,000 and gave to Princeton theological seminary a generous sum and to Andover his library of sev- eral thousand volumes. He was a member of the Massachusetts historical society. He received the honorarj- degree of A.B. from Yale in 1802, that of A.M. from Brown in 1814, and that of S.T.D. from the College of New Jersey in 1822 and from Harvard in 1840. He published Ser- mons and Addresses (1834), and ^4 Visit to England (1836). See his memoir by Dr. "VYilliam Allen, with six select sermons (1853) . He died in Dor- chester. Mass., Dec. 23, 1847.

CODMAN, John, author, was born in Dor- chester, Mass., Oct. 16, 1814; son of the Rev. John and Mary (Wheelwright) Codman, and grandson of John Codman, merchant. He en- tered Amherst with the class of 1834, but left the college in his junior j^ear to ship before the mast. He became a captain in the merchant service and visited all the principal ports of the world. Upon retiring from the service he travelled ex- tensively inland in both hemispheres, became an active advocate of free ships and free trade, and was acknowledged an expert authority on mari- time subjects. He wrote Sailors' Life and Sailors'


Yarns (1846); Ten Months in Brazil (1872); The Mormon Conninj (l,s76); The Round Trip (1881); Winter Sketches (1888); An American Transportin the Crimean War (1896). He died at the home of his daughter in Boston, Mass.. April 6, 1900.

CODY, William Frederick, scout, was born in Scott county, Iowa, Feb. 26, 1845. His father, Isaac Cody, an early pioneer, was one of the founders of the city of Leavenworth, Kan., and a representative in the first Lecompton legis- lature. As a free state advocate he was uncom- promising, and unable to maintain the unequal contest with political foes, he was finalh- obliged to flee from his home, and died from exposure in March, 1857. Young


Cody, but twelve years old, found em- ployment with army contractors engaged in carrj-ing stores to the various posts on the frontier, and here he gained his first experience as an Indian fighter. He continued this wild life until called to the deathbed of his mother, who kept the " Yalley Grove House,*' in Salt Creek VaUey. She died in the summer of 1861. after which he joined the 7th Kansas cavalry as an Indian scout, serving with the regiment until the close of the civil war. He afterward engaged in pro- curing supplies for railroad contractors and be- came notorious as a buffalo hunter, killing 4280 buffaloes in eighteen months, and thus gaining his sobriquet " Buffalo Bill." In 1868 he was ap- pointed by General Sheridan chief of scouts for the department of the Missouri and the Platte. He was guide to the 5th U.S. cavalry in their campaign against the Siotix and Chej-ennes, served with the Canadian river expedition of 1868-69, and continued in the army until 1872, when he resigned and was elected a member of the Nebraska legislature from the 26th district. At the end of his term he directed the hunting party of Alexis, grand duke of Russia, and so conducted the expedition as to avoid accident and return it loaded with game. He then ap- peared on the stage in Chicago and elsewhere in the character of a western scout and Indian hun- ter and was eminently successful. The Sioux war of 1876 determined him to leave the mimic stage, and he joined the 5th U.S. cavalry. In the Indian creek fight he killed Yellow Hand, the Cheyenne chief, in a hand-to-hand combat. At