YALE
YANCEY
YALE, Elihu, fouiuler of Yale college, was
born luar Boston. Mass., April 5, 1G49; son of
Daviil Yale. lie was taken to England in 1G52,
where he remained until 1678, when he visited
the East Indies and
for five years was
governor of a settle-
ment at Madras, be-
coming very wealthy.
Upon his return to
England, at the sug-
gestion of Mr. Duni-
nier of London, he
presented the Colle-
giate School of Con-
necticut with a li-
brary of rare books,
a portrait of George
I., and with goods
that sold for more
than £2500. In 1718
the school moved from Saybrook to New Haven,
and the name was then changed to Yale college.
A large portrait of Elihu Yale hangs in Alumni
Hall. Yale university New Haven, Conn. He
died in England, July 8, 1721.
YANCEY, William Lowndes, orator and Confederate States senator, was born at the Falls of the Ogeechee, Warren county, Ga., Aug. 10, 1814; son of Benjamin Cudwortli and Caroline (Bird) Yancey; grandson of Maj. James Yan- cey, a Revolutionary officer in Virginia and South Carolina, who later settled in Laurens, S.C., where he was a lawj-er and member of the legislature, and whose wife was a Miss Cud worth, of an English family, who had settled in Massachu- setts and later in Charleston, S.C.; also a grand- son of William Bird, of the " Aviary," Warren county. Ga., whose familj- had removed thither from Birdsborough, Pa. His Yancey ancestors were of Welsh origin, early seated in Virginia. Benjamin Cudworth Yancey, a lawyer in Abbe- ville. S.C, who later removed to Charleston, where he Vjecame associated with Judge Daniel E. Huger. died in 1817, age thirty-four years, a lawyer of the higliest rank. William L. Yancey matriculated at Williams college, Mass., but did not continue to graduation owing to a reduced condition of his finances. Returning to Georgia at the age of eigliteen years, he read law for a short time at Sparta, and then entered the law office of Benjamin F. Perry at Greenville, S.C,, where he remained two years, during which time he edited for six months the Greenville Mount- aineer, the only Union paper in the mountain region of South Carolina. On Aug. 13. 1H.3."), he married Sarah Caroline, daugliter of George
Washington and Elizabeth R. (Earle) Earle, of
Greenville, S.C. and granddaugliter of John and
Thomasine (Prince) Earle. and of Col. Eiias (q.v.)
and Frances W. (Robinson) Earle, of South
Carolina. In the winter of 1836 he removed with
his family and the slaves of his wife to the vic-
inity of Cahawba, Ala., to enter upon life as a cot-
ton planter, having given up the law; while
there he edited the Cahawba Democrat and the
Cahawba Gazette two weekly newspapers; in
1839 removed to Wetumpka. Cossa count}- (now
Elmore) and entered on the practice of the law in
copartnership with Sampson W. Harris; was the
editor and proprietor of the Wetumpka Argtcs,
a large and influential weekly paper; elected to
the Alabama legislature in 1841, and in 1843 de-
clined a re-election; elected to the state senate
in 1843, from which he resigned in 1844, in which
year he was chosen at a special election to com-
plete the term of Hon. Dixon H. Lewis in the
28th congress, taking his seat Dec. 2, 1844: re-
elected to the 29th congress, but resigned in
August, 1846, and removed to Montgomery, Ala.,
when he became the law partner of the Hon.
John A. Elmore. In 1848 he wrote and secured
the passage, through the Democratic convention,
of the " Alabama Platform; " led the delegation
in the Democratic national conventions of 184S,
and 1856, and was an elector on the Buchanan
and Breckinridge ticket in 1856. In 1860 he was
selected as an elector from the state at large and
in the campaign which followed he delivei'ed
povrerful speeches in Cooper Union hall. New
Y'ork city, and in other of the large cities of the
north, making an appeal to the people of the
north to maintain constitutional government in
all the states and territories and to protect the
property of all citizens as provided in that in-
strument. At the Charleston Democratic na-
tional convention of 1860, where he was a delegate,
he took the lead in support of the policy of Presi-
dent Buchanan and in opposition to " Squatter
Sovereignty " as unconstitutional, which led to
the disruption of the party and the nomination
of an ultra Southern candidate in opposition to
Stephen A. Douglas. He supported the candi-
dacy of Breckinridge. He was a member of the
Alabama state constitutional convention that met
at Montgomeiy, Jan. 7, 1861, and he reported the
ordinance which declared for secession. He re-
signed from that body to accept from the provis-
ional President of tiie Confederate States govern-
ment the appointment as head of the commission
sent to Europe to present the Confederate cause
to the governments of England and France, the
other members of the commission being A. Dud-
ley Mann of Virginia and A. P. Rostof Louisiana.
