Fai-Fin: Fairbank through Finney

See below for annotated biographies of American abolitionists and anti-slavery activists. Sources include: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography and Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography.


FAIRBANK, Calvin, 1816-1898, abolitionist, Methodist clergyman, active on the Underground Railroad.  He developed into a militant Abolitionist, eager to distinguish himself, and was one of the few who engaged in the actual abduction of slaves.

Dictionary of American Biography, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 2, p. 247:

FAIRBANK, CALVIN (November 3, 1816-October 12, 1898), Methodist clergyman, Abolitionist, the fourth of the ten children of Chester and Betsey (Abbott) Fairbank, was born in Pike Township, Allegany County (now Eagle Township, Wyoming County), New York, whither his parents had migrated in 1815 from Vermont. From his mother, a zealous Methodist, he early became imbued with backwoods Methodism; and from a pair of escaped slaves, to whose cabin he was assigned during a quarterly meeting, he learned to abhor slavery. His emotionalism unchecked by education or good judgment, he developed into a militant Abolitionist, eager to distinguish himself, and was one of the few who engaged in the actual abduction of slaves. He began this work in April 1837 while steering a lumber raft down the Ohio River; a negro on the Virginia bank, after a little coaxing, confessed a longing for freedom, was promptly taken aboard the raft, ferried to the Ohio side, and turned loose. Thereafter, as chance offered, Fairbank acted as passenger agent for the underground railway, smuggling runaway negroes from Virginia and Kentucky into Ohio, where he delivered them to Levi Coffin and other Abolitionists for transportation to Canada or to safer parts of the United States. At one time, with money supplied by Salmon P. Chase and others, he bought a young woman who otherwise would have been sold to a New Orleans procurer. He became an adept at disguising and concealing his charges in transit and was entirely without fear. Once he ventured as far as Little Rock, Arkansas, to find a young negro who had been deprived illegally of his freedom and conducted him safely from there to free soil. In all he effected the liberation of forty -seven slaves. In 1842 he was ordained as a Methodist elder. Gravitating to Oberlin, he enrolled in the preparatory department of the Collegiate Institute, but before the end of the year he was arrested in Lexington, Kentucky, for his part in the escape of Lewis Hayden and his family. He pleaded his own case, was convicted and sentenced to fifteen years in the Frankfort penitentiary, and served from February 18, 1845, until August 23, 1849, when he was pardoned by Governor John J. Crittenden. Meanwhile his father had died of cholera at Lexington while working to secure his son's release. Fairbank soon resumed his operations along the Ohio. He was kidnapped at Jeffersonville, Ind., November 4, 1851, spirited into Kentucky, and again sent to the penitentiary on a fifteen-year sentence. This time he was systematically overworked, kept in a filthy cell, and frequently and mercilessly flogged. He was incarcerated until April 15, 1864, when he was pardoned by Lieut.-Governor Richard T. Jacob. On June 9, 1864, at Oxford, Ohio, he married Mandana Tileston of Williamsburg, Massachusetts, to whom he had been engaged for twelve years. She died Sept 29, 1876, in Williamsburg; and on June 5, 1879, Fairbank married Adeline Winegar. For some ten years he was an employee of missionary and benevolent societies in New York. Later he was superintendent and general agent of the Moore Street Industrial Institute of Richmond, Virginia. He lectured or preached from time to time, the cruelty and immorality of slaveholders and his own exploits being the staple of his discourses. In his old age he wrote an incoherent and untrustworthy but revealing autobiography. His last days were spent, close to poverty, in Angelica, Allegany County, New York.

[Reverend Calvin Fairbank during Slavery Times: How He "Fought the Good Fight" to Prepare "The Way" (Chicago, 1890); L. S. Fairbanks, Genealogy of the Fairbanks Family (privately printed, 1897); General Catalog of Oberlin College1833-1908 (1909); Laura S. Haviland, A Woman's Life-Work (Cincinnati, 1881), chap. vi; Christian Advocate (New York), May 12, November 3, 1898.]

G.H.G.


FAIRBANK, Dexter, Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Vice-President, 1839-40, Executive Committee, 1839-


FAIRBANKS, Dexter, Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Vice-President, 1839-40, Executive Committee, 1839-


FAIRBANKS, Asa, abolitionist, Providence, Rhode Island, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1846-64.


FAIRBANKS, Dexter, abolitionist, New York, New York, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Executive Committee, 1841-42.


FAIRBANKS, Drury, Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Counsellor, 1835-38.


FAIRCHILD, Edward H., anti-slavery agent.  Lectured against slavery in Erie and Crawford Counties in Ohio.  Later was first president of Berea College. 

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 188, 393n23)


FAIRFAX, Ferdinando, charter member of the American Colonization Society, founded in Washington, DC, in 1816.  Favored individual manumission of slaves. 

(Burin, Eric. Slavery and the Peculiar Solution: A History of the American Colonization Society. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 2005, pp. 10-11, 14; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 2-4, 252n2)


FAIRFIELD, John, died 1861, abolitionist.  Aided fugitive slaves as a “conductor” in the Underground Railroad in Western Virginia.  Rescued and aided fugitive slaves for more than 12 years. 

(Switala, 2001; Wagner, 2007)


FARMER, John, Society of Friends, Quaker, radical abolitionist reformer. Farmer was disowned by Quakers for his stand against slavery.

(Drake, Thomas. Quakers and Slavery in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1950, pp. 29-32, 34, 36-38, 40, 47, 51, 136, 159; Rodriguez, 2007, p. 433; Soderlund, Jean R. Quakers & Slavery: A Divided Spirit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985, pp. 22, 35, 249)


FARNHAM, Eliza, 1815-1864, anti-slavery activist, prison reformer, novelist. 

(Farnham, Eliza, My Early Days, 1859, an autobiographical novel)


FARNSWORTH, Amos, abolitionist, Groton, Massachusetts, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1837-40, 1840-42, 1843-53.


FARNSWORTH, Benjamin Franklin, 1793-1851, abolitionist, educator, Providence, Rhode Island.  Manager, American Anti-Slavery Society, 1835-1836. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 411)

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 411:

FARNSWORTH, Benjamin Franklin, educator. born in Bridgeton, Maine, 17 December, 1793; died in Louisville, Kentucky, 4 June, 1851. He was graduated at Dartmouth in 1813, studied for the ministry, and was pastor of the Baptist church at Edenton, North Carolina, for two years. From 1821 till 1823 he was principal of the Bridgewater, Massachusetts, academy, and then took charge of a girls' high-school at Worcester, Massachusetts. He next edited the “Christian Watchman,” of Boston, which he left, in 1826, to take the chair of theology at the New Hampton, New Hampshire, theological institute. Here he remained until 1833, when, after teaching school for a time in Providence, Rhode Island, he was elected president of Georgetown, Kentucky, college, from which he afterward received the degree of D. D. The following year he was chosen president of the University of Louisville, where he remained until his death. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 411.


FARNSWORTH, John Franklin, 1820-1897, Chicago, Illinois, Union soldier.  Colonel, 8th Illinois Cavalry, later commissioned Brigadier General, 1861-1862.  Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois, 1857-1861, 1863-1873.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 411-412; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 2, p. 284; Congressional Globe)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 411-412;

FARNSWORTH, John Franklin, legislator, born in Eaton, Quebec, Canada, 27 March, 1820. He removed with his parents to Michigan in 1834, received an academic education, studied and practised law, and afterward went to Chicago, Illinois. He was elected to congress as a Republican, and served from 1857 till 1861, when he became colonel of the 8th Illinois cavalry. He subsequently raised the 17th Illinois regiment, by order of the war department, and was commissioned brigadier-general, 29 November, 1862, but was compelled to resign from the army in March, 1863, owing to injuries received in the field. He then removed to St. Charles, Illinois, and from 1863 till 1873 was again a member of congress. Since 1873 he has been engaged in the practice, of his profession in Washington, D. C. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 411-412.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 2, p. 284:

FARNSWORTH, JOHN FRANKLIN (March 27, 1820-July 14, 1897), politician and soldier, was born at Eaton, Canada, of New England ancestry, the son of John Farnsworth and his wife, Sally Patten. At an early age he became a resident of Michigan, practising surveying. In 1842 he set up as a lawyer in St. Charles, Illinois, and on October 12, 1846, he married Mary A. Clark. He entered politics as a Democrat but after 1846 he espoused the anti-slavery cause as a supporter of Owen Lovejoy. About 1852 he moved to Chicago and in 1856 he was elected to Congress as a Republican from the 2nd or Chicago district, the Democratic State Register characterizing him as "a full-blown Lovejoy abolitionist" (September 25, 1856). In 1858 he was reelected from the same district. He gained the approval of his anti-slavery constituents by a resolution of inquiry into violations of provisions of the Ashburton Treaty with regard to the slave-trade (Aurora Beacon, January 6, 1859), and by a resolution satirizing Buchanan's proposal to annex Cuba by the suggestion of annexing British America (Belleville Advocate, February 9, 1859). He was defeated for renomination in 1860 by Isaac N. Arnold, and refused to run as an independent.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Farnsworth raised the 8th Illinois Cavalry, which was attached to the Army of the Potomac. His nephew, Elon J. Farnsworth [q.v.], served under him for a time as captain. J. F. Farnsworth was promoted brigadier-general November 29, 1862, but had previously commanded a cavalry brigade. He served in the Peninsular and Antietam campaigns. Disabled by severe injuries at the end of 1862, he resigned his commission and took the seat in Congress to which he had been  elected in the fall. He assumed decisive ground in the Illinois campaign of 1863 on behalf of the Emancipation Proclamation. He voted for the Thirteenth Amendment and spoke for the repeal of the Fugitive-Slave Law (Rockford Register, July 9, 16, 1864). He was reelected to Congress in the fall of 1864, and by virtue of successive elections served until March 3, 1873. With regard to Reconstruction, he was at first one of the radicals. He spoke in favor of the Fourteenth Amendment and of the reconstruction acts. He urged the impeachment of Johnson in 1867, and took an active part in the impeachment proceedings of 1868.

The election of 1870 made it evident that Farnsworth had outstripped the sentiment of his district. His former majority of 14,000 in the election of 1870 had sunk to a plurality of 300. He was not renominated in 1872. In 1874 he contested the 4th District against Hurlbut the Republican candidate, in a hot campaign (Chicago Tribune, October 12 and 28, 1874), and in 1880 was mentioned as a possible Democratic candidate for governor (Illinois State Register, January 9, 16, 1880). His political career, however, was at an end. In that year he removed to Washington where he practised law until his death, and acquired a considerable fortune in real estate.

[In addition to contemporary newspapers and the Congressional Globe, see Moses F. Farnsworth, Farnsworth Memorial (1897); Biography Dir. American Congress (1928); Abner Hard, History of the Eighth Cavalry Regt., Illinois Volunteers (1868); Chicago Tribune and Evening Star (Washington), July 15, 1897.]

T. C. P.


FARAN, JAMES JOHN (December 29, 1808-December 12, 1892), politician, editor.  In 1844 he was elected to represent Hamilton County in Congress and was returned in 1846. While serving in this capacity he voted for the Wilmot Proviso restricting the limits of slavery.

Dictionary of American Biography, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 2, pp. 270-270:

FARAN, JAMES JOHN (December 29, 1808-December 12, 1892), politician, editor  was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of Charles P. and Phoebe K. Faran. His early education was acquired in the public schools of his native city and later completed at Miami University. Upon his graduation in 1831 young Faran entered the law office of Judge O. M. Spencer under whose guidance he received his legal training. In 1833 he was admitted to the bar and began to practise law. His deep interest in public affairs soon made him a factor in the political life of his community and state. He was elected as a Democrat to the Ohio House of Representatives in 1835. In 1837 and again in 1838 he was reelected and during the session of 1838 he served as speaker. His dignity, courtesy, and fairness made him an excellent presiding officer and gained for him an enviable reputation. In 1839 he was elected to the Ohio Senate and was reelected in 1841 and 1842. From 1841 to 1843, as speaker, he again demonstrated his parliamentary ability. In 1844 he was elected to represent Hamilton County in Congress and was returned in 1846. While serving in this capacity he voted for the Wilmot Proviso restricting the limits of slavery. At the close of his second term he voluntarily retired from public life and devoted himself to editing the Cincinnati Enquirer which he, together with Washington McLean, had purchased in 1844. As early as 1834 Faran began to write editorials for the Democratic Reporter which were published during the heated congressional race between Robert T. Lytle and Bellamy Storer. Ten years later he became one of the proprietors of the Cincinnati Enquirer and retained his connection until 1881. Under his editorial supervision the paper became a powerful Democratic organ not only in Hamilton County but throughout the state. He was a vigorous and ready writer, and in his editorials he expounded the principles of Jeffersonian Democracy. In 1854 he was appointed ty Governor Medill one of the commissioners to supervise the erection of the present State House. The following year he was the Democratic nominee for mayor of Cincinnati and after one of the most bitter and exciting campaigns ever known in the city he defeated the Know-Nothing candidate, James D. Taylor, proprietor of the Cincinnati Times. During the administration of President Buchanan he was appointed postmaster of Cincinnati but was removed before the expiration of his term because he conscientiously sympathized with Stephen A. Douglas on the Kansas-Nebraska question. This brought to a close his public life. Although he was frequently urged by his friends to allow his name to be suggested for the governorship and other high positions, he preferred to remain in retirement. In 1840 he married Angelina Russell, daughter of Robert Russell of Columbus, Ohio. For more than half a century Faran was a conspicuous figure in Ohio politics. His tall, erect form never failed to attract attention, while his integrity, frankness, firm convictions, and facile pen made him a man of influence in the affairs of his city and state.

[Charles T. Greve, Centennial History of Cincinnati (1904), II, 291-92; W. A. Taylor, Ohio in Congress (1899), pp. 188-89; Biography Cyclopedia and Portrait Gallery of Ohio, V (1895), 1194; Cincinnati Enquirer, Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, Cincinnati Times-Star, December 13, 1892.J R. C. M. Historical Society]

C. D.R.


FARLEY, George F., Middlesex County, Massachusetts, political leader, Free Soil Party.

(Wilson, Henry, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Volume 2.  Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1872, 345)


FAUGÈRES, Margaretta Bleecker, 1771-1801, New York, playwright, poet, abolitionist.  Wrote and published extensively on the anti-slavery movement.


FAULK, ANDREW JACKSON (November 26, 1814-September 4, 1898), third governor of Dakota Territory. Because of his opposition to the further extension of slavery in the territories, he became an advocate of Colonel Samuel Black's anti-slavery resolution in the Democratic state convention at Pittsburgh in 1849, and following its repudiation by the succeeding convention, he shifted from the Democratic to the newly formed Republican party.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 2, p. 284:

FAULK, ANDREW JACKSON (November 26, 1814-September 4, 1898), third governor of Dakota Territory,
was born at Milford, Pike County, Pennsylvania. In 1815 his parents, John and Margaret (Heiner) Faulk, moved to Kittanning, in Armstrong County, where Andrew received his education in the subscription schools and Kittanning Academy. Later he learned the printing trade, then studied law under Michael Gallagher and Joseph Buffington, though he was not admitted to the bar until 1866. In 1835 he married Charlotte McMath, of Washington County, Pennsylvania. Faulk essayed a crusader's role in local politics early in life, first through the medium of the Armstrong County Democrat, which he edited and published from 1837 to 1841, and then by means of various county offices which he held from 1840 to 1860. He attacked the Pennsylvania law permitting imprisonment for debt and gave active support to Thaddeus Stevens's free-school program. Because of his opposition to the further extension of slavery in the territories, he became an advocate of Colonel Samuel Black's anti-slavery resolution in the Democratic state convention at Pittsburgh in 1849, and following its repudiation by the succeeding convention, he shifted from the Democratic to the newly formed Republican party. In 1861 he was appointed by President Lincoln post trader to the Yankton Indian reservation, on the Missouri River, which at the time was the principal supply base for the military stations and Indian agencies in th!! upper Missouri country. His work at the post was important, for his tactful and honest policy in dealing with the professedly friendly Yankton Indians did much to prevent their alliance with the hostile Santee Sioux to make war on the whites while the federal troops were occupied in the Civil War. From 1864 to 1866 Faulk was again in Pennsylvania. There he assisted in organizing and superintending the Latonia Coal Company of New York, and promoted the Paxton Oil Company of Pittsburgh. In 1866 he returned to Dakota as territorial governor and superintendent of Indian-affairs, by virtue of President Johnson's appointment. During his two-year term of office he aided the geologist, E. N. Hayden, in calling attention to the mineral resources to be found in the Black Hills by bringing the Black Hills question before the territorial legislature, and by inducing that body to appeal to Congress for help in recovering the region from the Indians. As an advisory member of General Sherman's commission which negotiated the treaty of Fort Laramie, establishing the Indians west of the Missouri River, Faulk aided in opening the Black Hills to white settlers. His policy aimed at peace with the Indians and in achieving that end he showed an unusual knowledge of Indian affairs. After retiring from the governorship he continued to reside at Yankton until his death. He was at various times mayor and alderman of Yankton, United States court commissioner, clerk of the territorial courts for the second judicial district, and for many years president of the Dakota bar association.

[Press and Dakotan (Yankton, S. D.), September 8, 1898; (S. D.) Memorial and Biography Record (1897), pp. 223- 35; S. D. History Colls., I (1902), 135; Monthly South Dakotan, July 1898; House Journal ... of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Dakota, 1866-69, passim.]

T. D. M. G.H.G.


FAYERWEATHER, Sarah Ann Harris, 1812-1878, African American, anti-slavery reformer.

(Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Volume 4, p. 329).


FEE, Reverend John Gregg, 1816-1901, American Missionary Association, clergyman, educator, abolitionist.  Founder of Berea College, Madison County, Kentucky. The land for Berea College was granted by abolitionist politician Cassius M. Clay.  Became active in the abolitionist movement in 1844.  Founded two anti-slavery churches.  Fee was educated at Lane University.  Fee was a religious abolitionist.  He wrote Non-Fellowship with Slaveholders the Duty of Christians in 1849.

(Filling, 1960, pp. 213, 222, 247, 272; Goodell, 1852, p. 492; Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 141, 142, 157203, 220, 228, 229, 232, 236, 238, 241, 258, 326, 339, 376; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 166, 380; Autobiography of John G. Fee, Berea, Kentucky, 1891; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 2, p. 310, Volume 7, p. 786)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 2, p. 310:

FEE, JOHN GREGG (September 9, 1816-January 11, 1901), Abolitionist, founder of Berea College, eldest son of John Fee and Elizabeth Gregg, was born in Bracken County, Kentucky. From his father, a landowner of Scotch and English descent, he received an inflexible will, humanized, however, by his inheritance from a tender Scotch-Irish mother of Quaker stock. Early in life he began to prepare for the ministry, studying first at a subscription school near his home and then at Augusta and Miami Colleges. He graduated from the former. In 1842 he entered Lane Theological Seminary, and after two years consecrated himself to the cause of Abolition. Returning to convert his slaveholding parents, he failed and was disinherited. On September 26, 1844, he married Mathilda Hamilton, also of Bracken County. She was gifted with affection, courage, and endurance, and proved a most sympathetic partner.

Fee established two anti-slavery churches in Lewis and Bracken counties and labored with them for some years, though censured by the Synod for introducing Abolition into Church affairs, and though shot at, clubbed, and stoned. Preaching, speaking at conventions, and the preparation of anti-slavery pamphlets filled his days. In 1853 friends of freedom in Madison County invited him to give a series of sermons. There he established what still stands as Berea Union Church, and in the next year he moved to Berea as its pastor. In 1855 he founded an abolitionist school-now Berea College. About this time he was the victim of a series of mobs. Finally, in 1859, while he was in the East raising money for the college, John Brown's raid occurred. False reports of a speech of his in Henry Ward Beecher's church fanned the flames, and Fee and ten other Bereans were driven from the state. Not until 1863 was he finally able to return to Kentucky to work with the negro soldiers in Camp Nelson. With the close of the war, he returned to Berea to build up both church and college, serving as pastor of the former and trustee of the latter. In 1894 his wife died, and the next year he retired from his pastorate. He remained in Berea, however, preaching and serving the college, until his death.

Fee was a clear thinker and a forceful speaker. He was calm but earnest, and was gifted with in intensity of moral purpose. Considering sects "contrary to the spirit of the Gospel, a hindrance to reform," he established a union church; hating slavery, he fought it in spite of family opposition, ostracism, and violence. He was never influenced by expediency; whatever seemed to him to be right he did without regard for consequences, but with steadfast devotion. [Nat. Christian Assn, Autobiography of John G. Fee (1891); John A. R. Rogers, Birth of Berea College (1903); Berea College, Kentucky: An Interesting History, approved by the Prudential Committee, Cincinnati (1875 and 1883); the Berea Quarterly, February 1901.]

W. P. F.


FELL, Stephen, New York, American Abolition Society.

(Radical Abolitionist, Volume 1, No. 1, New York, August 1855)


FENDALL, Philip Ricard, 1794-1868, Alexandria, Virginia, Recording Secretary, American Colonization Society, 1834-41, Executive Committee, 1839-40. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 429-430; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 226)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 429-430;

FENDALL, Philip Ricard, lawyer, born in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1794; died in Washington, D. C., 16 February, 1868. He was graduated at Princeton in 1815, and was admitted to the bar in Alexandria about 1820. Some years later he removed to Washington, D. C., where he filled the office of district attorney in 1841-'5, and 1849-'53. He ranked for years as the ablest advocate of the capital, and wrote much on literary and political topics. Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.


FENTON, Reuben Eaton, 1819-1885, Carroll Chatauqua County, New York, statesman, lawyer, U.S. Congressman.  Voted against extension of slavery in the Kansas-Nebraska Bill.  Elected Governor in 1864. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 430-431; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 2, p. 326)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 2, p. 326-327:

FENTON, REUBEN EATON (July 4, 1819-August 25, 1885), United States senator, governor of New York, banker, was born in Carroll, Chautauqua County, New York, the youngest son of George W. and Elsie (Owen) Fenton. Forced to curtail his academic and legal studies at the age of seventeen when his father failed in business, he devoted himself assiduously to lumbering in a n effort to retrieve the family losses. For years his life was spent in the logging camps and in piloting his rafts down the Allegheny and Ohio rivers. At length, having paid his father's debts and se cured a comfortable competence for himself, he entered upon a crowded political career, partly prefaced by a term of eight years as supervisor of Carroll, beginning in 1843. In 1849 he was elected to the Assembly as a Democrat. He was sent to Congress in 1852 when the controversy arose over the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. His maiden address against this measure (Congressional Globe, 33 Congress, 1 Session, pp. 156 ff.), marked his secession from the Democratic party on the slavery question. He was one of the leaders in the formation, and afterward in the conduct, of the Republican party, serving in 1855 as presiding officer of the first Republican state convention in New York. In 1854 he was defeated for Congress on the Know-Nothing ticket, but in 1856 he was elected as the Republican candidate, serving until 1864, when he resigned to become governor of New York. Nominated to head the state ticket in 1864, he fully appreciated the importance of vindicating the President by bringing about Governor Seymour's downfall, and was credited with a vigorous campaign. His vote exceeded that of Lincoln and he at once became a figure of national importance. In the campaign of 1866, despite many obstacles, he was reelected by a majority of over 13,000 (E. A. Werner, Civil List ... of the ... State of New York, 1888, p. 166).

Fenton's conduct in office gave rise to conflicting estimates of his ability as an executive. He is associated with proposals of reform in the registry law and the prison system, and with numerous educational reforms,-the establishment of Cornell University, of state normal
schools, and the abolition of the school rate bills (Messages from the Governors, V, 605, 695, 697, 778-81, 850-55). Hence, even the New York Times (February 4, 1868) conceded that his "administration of state affairs" had in the main been a success. A contrary impression, however, was created by ugly newspaper allegations. When, in 1868, Fenton signed the bill which legalized the acts of the Erie directorate, charges were made that his signature had been bought (New York Herald, April 21-30, 1868; New York Times, April 20-May 8, 1868; Sun, April 21, 1868; also New York Commercial Advertiser, January 2, 1869; the Nation, March 18, 1869), although a subsequent investigation did not support them (see Documents of the Senate of the State of New York, 1869, no. 52, pp. 146-48, 151-55).

Fenton succeeded in building up one of the most powerful political machines in the history of the state and came to be regarded as its ablest political organizer after Martin Van Buren. This achievement had been effected not without making a powerful group of enemies who eventually brought about his political downfall. In 1869 Fenton engaged in a ruthless campaign against Edward D. Morgan [q.v.] for the senatorial nomination. His success, due to his liberal disposition of choice assignments, aroused much factional feeling (Harper's Weekly, June 24, 1871). After his election to the Senate in that year, he made strenuous attempts to keep in the favor of President Grant. When it was obvious that Conkling was to be the distributor of the state patronage, Fenton offered to withdraw his own candidacy for the presidency if the patronage question could be settled satisfactorily (New York Times, July 24, 1872). Relations were terminated between him and Conkling. The latter, capitalizing the support of the administration, carried the feud to his own state, and brought about the defeat of Fenton in the state convention of 1871. Finally, the recognition of the Murphy Arthur organization in New York City was a stunning blow from which Fenton never recovered. In 1872 he supported the candidacy of Horace Greeley for the presidency.

On the expiration of his senatorial term in 1875, he devoted himself principally to his business interests. He served as president of the First National Bank of Jamestown and gained a reputation for his special knowledge of monetary affairs. In 1878 President Hayes sent him abroad as chairman of the United States commission to the International Monetary Conference held in Paris in that year. He died in Jamestown, New York. His first wife, Jane, daughter of John Frew of Frewsburg, whom he married in 1838, died two years later. His second wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Joel Scudder, survived him.

[Biographical material is found in Obed Edson and Georgia Drew Merrill, History of Chautauqua County (1894); Chauncey M. Depew, Orations, Addresses, and Speeches (1910), I, 259 ff.; A Sketch of the Life of Governor Fenton (1866), a political pamphlet; obituary notices of August 26, 1885, in New York Times and New York World. Fenton's public papers as governor are found in State of New York, Messages from the Governors, Volume V (1909), ed. by Chas. Z. Lincoln. His political career is treated in Homer A. Stebbins, A Political History of the State of New York, I865-69 (1913), and De Alva S. Alexander, A Political History of the State of New York (1909), volumes II, III.]

R. B. M.


FERRIS, Benjamin, Wilmington, Delaware, abolitionist.  Vice president and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833.

(Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 442; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 7, p. 854)

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 442:

FERRIS, Benjamin, author, died in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1867. He was a watchmaker, lived for many years in Philadelphia, and was clerk of the Philadelphia meeting of Friends. He published “History of the Early Settlements on the Delaware, from its Discovery to the Colonization under William Penn” (Wilmington, 1846). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 442.


FERRIS, Zeba, abolitionist, Delaware, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1838-40.


FESSENDEN, Samuel Clement, 1815-1881, Maine, lawyer, jurist, U.S. Congressman, Maine 37th, Congress 1861-1863, abolitionist. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 443-444; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 2, p. 368; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 7, p. 861; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe).  

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 443-444:

FESSENDEN, Samuel Clement, lawyer, born in New Gloucester, Maine, 7 March, 1815; died in 1881, was graduated at Bowdoin in 1834, and at Bangor theological seminary in 1837, and was pastor of the 2d Congregational church in Thomaston (now Rockland) from then till 1856. In that year he established the “Maine Evangelist,” and in 1858 studied law, was admitted to the bar, and began practice. He was elected judge of the municipal court of Rockland, and was a representative from Maine to the 37th congress, serving from July, 1861, till March, 1863. Until the rise of the Republican party he was an abolitionist. In 1865 he was appointed a member of the board of examiners of the U. S. patent-office. In 1879 he was U. S. consul at St. John's, N. B. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 443-444.


FESSENDEN, Samuel, 1784-1869, Portland, Maine, lawyer, jurist, soldier, abolitionist.  Vice president, 1833-1839, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833.  Leader, active member of the Liberty Party.  Early member of the Republican Party.  Nominee for Governor of Maine.  Father of Treasury Secretary William Pitt Fessenden and Congressman Samuel Clement Fessenden. 

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 301; Sinha, 2016, pp. 377, 405, 465-466, 561; Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 443; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 2, p. 346).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 2, p. 346:

FESSENDEN, SAMUEL (July 16, 1784-March 19, 1869), lawyer, Abolitionist, was born at Fryeburg, Maine, the son of William and Sarah (Clement) Fessenden. He attended Fryeburg Academy, graduated at Dartmouth in 1806, taught school for a short time, studied law, was admitted to the Maine bar in 1809, and began practise at New Gloucester, where he resided until he moved to Portland in 1822. On December 16, 1813, he married Deborah Chandler who took into their household William Pitt Fessenden [q.v.], his illegitimate son. He secured a considerable practise from the start and is reported to have greatly increased his local prestige by thrashing the town bully in front of the court-house. He was well over six feet in height, strikingly handsome, an effective speaker, and usually referred to as "General." He actually held that rank in the militia. While at New Gloucester he was active in politics, as what Democrats loved to denounce-"a high-toned Federalist." From 1813 to 1815 he represented the town in the General Court at Boston, and in 1818-19 served in the Senate. While in the lower house in 1814 he made two notable speeches, one denouncing the national administration for the depressed conditions in Maine and the other, at a later session, supporting the call for the Hartford Convention. These have been frequently quoted by subsequent historians as illustrating the lengths to which prominent Federalists were willing to go in the direction of disunion. Following the separation of Maine from Massachusetts he represented Portland in the legislature, 1825-26.

While he had shown ability as a legislator and politician and for a time seemed destined for active political life, he failed to follow up his early success. This was due, apparently, to two reasons. On moving to Portland he formed a partnership with Thomas A. Deblois which lasted more than thirty years and became increasingly absorbed in professional work. Fessenden was especially interested in the law of real property and handled most of the business in that field while his partner handled commercial cases. Between them, they had probably the largest practise in the state prior to the Civil War, and the senior member was generally accepted as belonging to a select group of two or three outstanding leaders at the bar. Many successful lawyers received their training in this office. A second reason for his withdrawal from politics was his growing interest in the slavery question and dislike of the attitude maintained by both major parties. He became a member of the Anti-Slavery Society, held office, took an active part in its propaganda, and incurred the odium attached to membership in such a radical organization. He was a candidate for Congress and also for the governorship on Liberty party tickets, apparently for the purpose of demonstrating the growing strength of anti-slavery sentiment. He was not, however, as extreme in his doctrines as some of his associates, and believed in the necessity of preserving the union of the states.

In 1861 he retired from active practise and spent his latter years in the home of one of his sons. He was blind for some years before his death. His personal qualities were such as to gain him the affection and respect of associates and the public at large. He was equally considerate and generous to younger members of the bar, poor clients, and negro refugees.

[Wm. Willis, A History of the Law, the Courts, and the Lawyers of Maine (1863); C. E. Hamlin, The Life and Times of Hannibal Hamlin (1899); New-England History and Genealogy Register, April 1871. See also Francis Fessenden, Life and Public Services of William Pitt Fessenden (2 volumes, 1907), which contains much valuable material on various members of the family and gives a special sketch of Samuel Fessenden: I, 34-39.]

W. A. R.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 443:

FESSENDEN, Samuel, lawyer, born in Fryeburg, Maine, 16 July, 1784; died near Portland, Maine, 13 March, 1869. His father, the Reverend William Fessenden, graduated at Harvard in 1768, was the first minister of Fryeburg, and frequently a member of the Massachusetts legislature. He also served as judge of probate. Samuel received his early education at the Fryeburg academy, and was graduated at Dartmouth in 1806. He studied law with Judge Dana, of Fryeburg, was admitted to the bar in 1809, and began practice at New Gloucester, where he rose to distinction in his profession. In 1815-'16 he was in the general court of Massachusetts, of which state Maine was then a district, and in 1818-'19 represented his district in the Massachusetts senate. For fourteen years he was major-general of the 12th division of Massachusetts militia, to which office he was elected on leaving the senate, and to which he gave much attention. He removed to Portland in 1822, and about 1828 declined the presidency of Dartmouth. He was an ardent Federalist, and one of the early members of the anti-slavery party in Maine. In 1847 he was nominated for governor and for congress by the Liberty party, receiving large votes. For forty years he stood at the head of the bar in Maine. He was an active philanthropist. He published two orations and a treatise on the institution, duties, and importance of juries. The degree of LL. D. was conferred upon him by Bowdoin in 1846. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 443.


FESSENDEN, William Pitt, 1806-1869, lawyer, statesman, U.S. Congressman, U.S. Senator, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury.  Elected to Congress in 1840 as a member of the Whig Party opposing slavery.  Moved to repeal rule that excluded anti-slavery petitions before Congress.  Strong leader in Congress opposing slavery.  Elected to the Senate in 1854.  He opposed the Kansas-Nebraska bill as well as the Dred Scott Supreme Court Case.  Co-founder of the Republican Party.  Prominent leader of the anti-slavery faction of the Republican Party in the U.S. Senate.  As U.S. Senator, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Father was abolitionist Samuel Fessenden. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 443-444; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 2, p. 368; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 7, p. 861; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 2, p. 368:

FESSENDEN, WILLIAM PITT (October 16, 1806-September 8, 1869), lawyer, politician, financier, was the son of Samuel Fessenden and Ruth Greene, and a descendant of Nicholas Fessenden who came to America in the seventeenth century and settled at Cambridge, Massachusetts He was born out of wedlock at Boscawen, New Hampshire, and spent his early years in the home of his grandparents at Fryeburg, Maine, but when his father married in 1813 he became a member of the new household. He appears to have been a precocious boy and his entrance to college was delayed for some time on account of his extreme youth. He graduated from Bowdoin College, nevertheless, in 1823, although his diploma was withheld for a year on the ground that he had been "repeatedly guilty of profane swearing" and had "indicated a disorganizing spirit" and that "his general character and the bad influence of his example" called for punishment. Fessenden himself denied that he had been guilty of some of the alleged offenses. He was destined to receive the honorary degree of doctor of laws from Bowdoin in 1858 and to be a member of the governing boards of the college for the last twenty-six years of his life.

After graduation he studied law, with some interruptions, and was admitted to the bar in 1827. After two years at Bridgton he moved to Portland and except for a year in Bangor, maintained a residence there for the rest of his life. After his return from Bridgton he made his first appearance in public office when in 1831 he was elected to the legislature on the anti-Jackson ticket. He was engaged to Ellen, sister of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and her death before their marriage was a great blow to him. On April 23, 1832, he married Ellen Maria Deering, daughter of James Deering, a prominent Portland merchant. In 1835 he formed a partnership with William Willis which lasted until his election to the United States Senate almost twenty years later. He had by 1835 established a reputation as one of the able lawyers of the state. In a few years he was considered by many the equal of his father, then the leader of the Maine bar, against whom he frequently appeared in important litigation. He was active in the Whig party and in 1837 by special invitation accompanied Daniel Webster on a tour of several months in the western states. He was for many years on cordial terms with the great Whig leader, who had been his godfather in 1806, and with his family, but his letters show that he had some definite reservations as to Webster's political conduct and the chapter closed with Fessenden in opposition to his nomination for the presidency at the Whig convention of 1852.

In 1839 he was elected to another term in the Maine legislature, being a member of the judiciary committee and assisting in a revision of the statutes. The following year he was elected to Congress, where he remained a single term. His two years in the lower house were, naturally enough, without special distinction but some of his remarks in debate seem to have drawn favorable attention. His letters show that this first experience in Washington gave him certain unfavorable impressions of public life and participants in it, which he retained to the end. Unlike his abolitionist father, he was in the beginning conservative on the slavery issue, but a view of the situation at Washington aroused his contempt for "the mean subserviency of these northern hirelings" (Fessenden, post, I, 23), and in another letter he expressed admiration of John Quincy Adams for "his indomitable spirit and the uprighteousness of his soul." From that time on his hostility to the institution grew steadily and the following decade saw him among the active organizers of the new Republican party.

For twelve years following his retirement from Congress he held no important public office although he served two terms in the legislature in 1845-46 and 1853-54, was active in Whig party councils, and was several times an unsuccessful candidate for the national Senate and House. The growth of anti-slavery sentiment in Maine was decidedly to his advantage and on January 4, 1854, an anti-slavery combination in the legislature elected him to the United States Senate. He was sworn in on February 23, and on March 3 delivered the first great speech of his senatorial career, in opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska bill (Congressional Globe, 33 Congress, l Session, App., pp. 319- 24). For the next fifteen years he was one of the dominant figures in national affairs.

In 1857 he was assigned to the finance committee which, under existing rules, then handled both revenue and appropriation bills in the upper house. He had approximately ten years' service in the committee, more than half of this period as chairman, and, due to the responsibilities entailed by the Civil War, earned a permanent place among American public financiers. In 1857, when his most important work began, he suffered a severe loss in the death of his wife and his own health became permanently impaired. He is reported to have been one of the numerous victims of the mysterious epidemic said to have originated in the National Hotel. Thereafter he was inclined to be morose and unsociable in his habits and given to displays of irritability which would have been ruinous to any one but a man of commanding ability and high character. With a few friends, however, he was always on the best of terms and his letters to members of his family are hard to reconcile with his reputation for harshness and austerity. His constant references to his garden in Portland, or to fly-fishing on Maine trout streams, disclose a very different personality from the one appearing in speeches on the Morrill tariff, Reconstruction, and the Fourteenth Amendment.

As a leader of the opposition to the Buchanan administration he advanced steadily in prestige and he was now regarded as one of the greatest debaters who had yet appeared in Congress. Contemporaries sometimes found it hard to realize that a man of his slight physique, poor health, and unobtrusive manners was nevertheless one of the greatest intellectual forces in the government. In 1859 he was elected for a six-year term and was thus assured of a full share in the opportunities and responsibilities of the Civil War. "Let them stand firm like men and not tremble and shake before rebellion," he wrote when the final break impended, and his own conduct justified such advice.

When the Thirty-seventh Congress met in July 1861, he became chairman of the finance committee and carried a tremendous burden of work and responsibility in putting the finances of the country on a war footing. He did a great deal of the preliminary work in preparing bills and was in charge of their passage on the floor of the Senate. His reputation as a debater is seen to be well deserved by an examination of the debates on the great revenue and appropriation measures of the war period. His quick temper is equally apparent and even with the lapse of years the rasp of some of his comments can still be felt. He consistently tried, apparently, to confine expenditures to the legitimate outlays necessitated by the war, to avoid dangerous and wasteful precedents, to follow strictly the regular rules of procedure, and, as far as possible in view of extraordinary needs, to be economical and businesslike. "it is time for us to begin to think a little more about the money" he declared on one occasion early in the war, "the event of this war depends upon whether we can support it or not" (Congressional Globe, 37 Congress, 2 Session, p. 1038). Such a course inevitably meant opposition to a variety of personal and sectional projects and stirred the wrath of the proponents of a swarm of expensive, futile, but popular measures growing out of wartime conditions.

In general Fessenden supported: Secretary Chase's financial program and did much to secure its adoption by Congress. In the very important matter of the legal-tender notes, resorted to in 1862, he expressed disapproval and voted for the unsuccessful Collamer amendment striking this feature from the bill. His speech on the evils of irredeemable paper and the dangers of inflation is a classic on the subject (Ibid., pp. 762-67). He admitted, however, that the situation was without a parallel in the history of the United States and afterward stated that the legal tenders were probably the only resource available at the time. Later on, as secretary of the treasury, he stood firm against further inflation, and when the war was over assumed the offensive against greenback heresies. In one matter he had a clearer vision than most of his colleagues or Secretary Chase himself, namely, the need of a drastic taxing program, which was too long delayed by political cowardice and inertia. At the first war session he declared himself in favor of an income tax as best calculated to meet current needs (Ibid., 37 Congress, l Session, p.255).

On June 29, 1864, Secretary Chase resigned and President Lincoln promptly selected Fessenden as his successor, sending the nomination to the Senate while Fessenden himself was seeking a White House appointment to recommend Hugh McCulloch. He accepted the post reluctantly and with a definite understanding that he would be relieved as soon as the situation permitted. Faced at the beginning with an almost empty treasury, unpaid bills, including the army's pay, maturing loans, inadequate revenue, and countless difficulties in detail, he was able during his brief tenure to meet emergencies and to turn the department over to his successor in relatively sound condition. He raised the interest rate on government bonds and through the sales organization of Jay Cooke marketed another great loan, standing firmly against any further inflation of the currency. He had been reelected to the Senate for a third term on January 5, 1865, and his resignation as secretary took effect on March 3.

With the prestige of the preceding years behind him Fessenden was certain to take an outstanding part in Reconstruction. As Lincoln had said of him he was "a Radical without the petulant and vicious fretfulness of many Radicals" (John G. Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln, 1890, IX, 100). His opposition to some features of the Confiscation Act, his refusal to be stampeded into an attempt to expel Senator Garrett Davis who had written some foolish resolutions which were alleged to be treasonable, and similar incidents, had tended to differentiate his position from that of Sumner, Wade, and other leaders. As a matter of fact, however, in his views as to policy toward the Southern states, he was, as Carl Schurz says, "in point of principle not far apart from Mr. Stevens" (The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz, III, 1908, p. 219). On December 21, 1865, he became chairman of the famous joint committee on Reconstruction and its report, largely his personal work, is one of the great state papers in American history. His views of Reconstruction might well be summarized by his statement in reply to President Johnson's attack on the committee. He said the South had been subdued under the laws of war and, "there was nothing better established than the principle that the conquerors had the power to change the form of government, to punish, to exact security, and take entire charge of the conquered people" (Fessenden, post, II, 9-10).He was equally emphatic that Reconstruction was a function of Congress and not of the President.

Fessenden's feeling toward the latter was made perfectly clear. He had little respect for him as a man and thoroughly disapproved of his policies and official conduct. He believed, however, that the President had not been guilty of any impeachable offenses and that the attempt to apply the remedy of impeachment would permanently lower the standards of American politics and government. He declined to vote on the Tenure of Office Act, but said that he disapproved of it on principle and that it would be productive of great evil. By 1867 he was definitely aligned with the conservatives. When impeachment finally came his position as a majority leader was especially difficult. His own view, stated again and again, was that the impeachment trial was a judicial process, not the summary removal of an unpopular and ill-advised executive. To a relative he wrote, "If he was impeached for general cussedness, there would be no difficulty in the case. That, however, is not the question to be tried" (Fessenden, post, II, 184). To Neal Dow, who had written him that Maine expected him to vote for conviction, he replied in terms worthy of Edmund Burke: "I wish you, my dear sir, and all others my friends and constituents, to understand that ... I, not they, have solemnly sworn to do impartial justice .... The opinions and wishes of my party friends ought not to have a feather's weight with me in coming to a conclusion" (Ibid., II, 187-88). The official reasons for his vote of "not guilty" are found in the lengthy opinion which he filed in the official record (Congressional Globe, 40 Congress, 2 Session, pp. 452-57).

Fessenden undoubtedly reached the high point of his career by this vote, but it brought a tremendous storm of partisan denunciation which he faced courageously and in confidence that his course would eventually be justified by events. Throughout his senatorial career he showed himself indifferent to public opposition or acclaim, and he had already taken the unpopular side on many less conspicuous issues. As the excitement of the trial passed away, the country began to appreciate his courage and wisdom and he lived long enough to realize that the tide was turning. Whether he could have secured a reelection is problematical as his death occurred before the attitude of the majority in the Maine legislature was definitely settled. His ability and strength of character, had he survived and been returned to the Senate for another term, would have been of inestimable value in the following decade. As it was, even if he appears at times to have interpreted America in terms of ledgers, balance sheets, and Supreme Court decisions, and if he lacked the sympathetic understanding of the feelings and motives of the common man which characterized Lincoln, he has a secure place among the great leaders of the Civil War era when courage in governmental circles was not always as much in evidence as on the battlefield.

[Life and Public Services of William Pitt Fessenden, by his son Francis Fessenden (2 volumes, 1907), is the best source of information. While defective in arrangement and methods of presentation it gives a fair and comprehensive survey of his activities and contains personal correspondence and other material not available in official records. Brief sketches also occur in the following: G. H. Preble, "William Pitt Fessenden," New-England. History and Genealogical Register, April 1871; A. F. Moulton, Memorials of Maine (1916); L. C. Hatch, Maine: A History, volume II (1919), and History of Bowdoin College (1927).]

W.A.R.
R.G.C-I

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 443-444:

FESSENDEN, William Pitt, senator, born in Boscawen, New Hampshire, 16 October, 1806; died in Portland, Maine, 8 September, 1869, was graduated at Bowdoin in 1823, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1827. He practised law first in Bridgeton, a year in Bangor, and afterward in Portland, Maine. He was a member of the legislature of that state in 1832, and its leading debater. He refused nominations to congress in 1831 and in 1838, and served in the legislature again in 1840, becoming chairman of the house committee to revise the statutes of the state. He was elected to congress as a Whig in 1840, serving one term, during which time he moved the repeal of the rule that excluded anti-slavery petitions, and spoke upon the loan and bankrupt bills, and the army. He gave his attention wholly to his law business till he was again in the legislature in 1845-'6. He acquired a national reputation as a lawyer and an anti-slavery Whig, and in 1849 prosecuted before the supreme court an appeal from an adverse decision of Judge Story, and gained a reversal by an argument which Daniel Webster pronounced the best he had heard in twenty years. He was again in the legislature in 1853 and 1854, when his strong anti-slavery principles caused his election to the U. S. senate by the vote of the Whigs and anti-slavery Democrats. Taking his seat in February, 1854, he made, a week afterward, an electric speech against the Kansas-Nebraska bill, which placed him in the front rank of the senate. He took a leading part in the formation of the Republican party, and from 1854 till 1860 was one of the ablest opponents of the pro-slavery measures of the Democratic administrations. His speech on the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, in 1856, received the highest praise, and in 1858 his speech on the Lecompton constitution of Kansas, and his criticisms of the opinion of the supreme court in the Dred Scott case, were considered the ablest discussion of those topics. He was re-elected to the senate in 1859 without the formality of a nomination. In 1861 he was a member of the Peace congress. By the secession of the southern senators the Republicans acquired control of the senate, and placed Mr. Fessenden at the head of the finance committee. During the civil war he was the most conspicuous senator in sustaining the national credit. He opposed the legal-tender act as unnecessary and unjust. As chairman of the finance committee, Mr. Fessenden prepared and carried through the senate all measures relating to revenue, taxation, and appropriations, and, as declared by Mr. Sumner, was “in the financial field all that our best generals were in arms.” When Sec. Chase resigned in 1864, Mr. Fessenden was called by the unanimous appeal of the nation to the head of the treasury. It was the darkest hour of our national finances. Sec. Chase had just withdrawn a loan from the market for want of acceptable bids; the capacity of the country to lend seemed exhausted. The currency had been enormously inflated, and gold was at 280. Mr. Fessenden refused the office, but at last accepted in obedience to the universal public pressure. When his acceptance became known, gold fell to 225, with no bidders. He declared that no more currency should be issued, and, making an appeal to the people, he prepared and put upon the market the seven-thirty loan, which proved a triumphant success. This loan was in the form of bonds bearing interest at the rate of 7·30 per cent., which were issued in denominations as low as $50, so that people of moderate means could take them. He also framed and recommended the measures, adopted by congress, which permitted the subsequent consolidation and funding of the government loans into the four and four-and-a-half per cent bonds. The financial situation becoming favorable, Mr. Fessenden, in accordance with his expressed intention, resigned the secretaryship in 1865 to return to the senate, to which he had now for the third time been elected. He was again made chairman of the finance committee, and was also appointed chairman of the joint committee on reconstruction, and wrote its celebrated report, pronounced one of the ablest state papers ever submitted to congress. It vindicated the power of congress over the rebellious states, showed their relations to the government under the constitution and the law of nations, and recommended the constitutional safeguards made necessary by the rebellion. Mr. Fessenden was now the acknowledged leader in the senate of the Republicans, when he imperilled his party standing by opposing the impeachment of President Johnson in 1868. He gave his reasons for voting “not guilty” upon the articles, and was subjected to a storm of detraction from his own party such as public men have rarely met. His last service was in 1869, and his last speech was upon the bill to strengthen the public credit. He advocated the payment of the principal of the public debt in gold, and opposed the notion that it might lawfully be paid in depreciated greenbacks. His public character was described as of the highest type of patriotism, courage, integrity, and disinterestedness, while his personal character was beyond reproach. He was noted for his swiftness of retort. He was a member of the Whig national conventions that nominated Harrison (1840), Taylor (1848), and Scott (1852). For several years he was a regent of the Smithsonian institution. He received the degree of LL.D. from Bowdoin in 1858, and from Harvard in 1864. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 443-444.


FEW, William, 1748-1828, soldier, statesman, political leader, founding father, abolitionist.  Representative of Georgia at the Constitutional Convention.  U.S. Senator.  Soldier in the Revolutionary War. 

(Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 2, p. 352)


FIELD, Chester, Worcester, Massachusetts, Church Anti-Slavery Society, Executive Committee, 1859


FIELD, DAVID DUDLEY (February 13, 1805- April 13, 1894), lawyer, law reformer.

 Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 2, pp. 360-362:

FIELD, DAVID DUDLEY (February 13, 1805- April 13, 1894), lawyer, law reformer, born at Haddam, Connecticut, was the eldest son of Reverend David Dudley Field [q.v.] and Submit (Dickinson) Field. On his mother's side he was descended from Captain Noah Dickinson who had served with General Putnam in the French war. He attended the Academy at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and William’s College, from which he withdrew before the graduation of his class in 1825. He studied law with Harmanus Bleecker in Albany, and with the firm of Henry and Robert Sedgwick in New York. In 1828, he was admitted to the New York bar, and two years later became the partner of Robert Sedgwick on the retirement of Henry. He was married three times: first to Jane Lucinda Hopkins, who died in 1836; second, to Mrs. Harriet Davidson, who died in 1864; and third, to Mrs. Mary E. Carr, who died in 1876. Field attained some prominence in politics although his temperament was not such as to fit him for great success in that field. He was too rigid and unbending, and too likely to form and express opinions without regard to party leadership. He was Democratic nominee for election to the New York Assembly in 1841, but was defeated. Later, he broke vehemently with his party on two important issues,-the annexation of Texas, which he rightly declared meant war with Mexico; and the slavery question. In 1847 he was a delegate to the Democratic convention in Syracuse, where he introduced the "Corner-Stone" resolution, declaring "uncompromising hostility to the extension of slavery into territory now free, or which may be hereafter acquired by any action of the Government of the United States" (H. M. Field, post, p. 115). When the Republican party nominated Fremont for president, Field favored his candidacy; and when Lincoln spoke for the first time in New York City, Field was one of his supporters on the platform at Cooper Institute. Although not a delegate to the Chicago convention of 1860, Field attended, and his influence with Horace Greeley and others at the time when they had conceded the nomination to Seward, is thought by many to have been chiefly responsible for Lincoln's nomination. He was chairman of the New York delegation to the Peace Conference in Washington in 1861. After the assassination of Lincoln, he ceased to act with the Republicans. In 1876, at the suggestion of Tilden, he was elected to Congress to fill the two months' unexpired term of Representative Smith Ely, in order that he might participate in the Hayes-Tilden election contest.

Field's political activities, though important in themselves, were in reality mere episodes in a life devoted to law and law reform. He was prominent as a lawyer for sixty years and in the great cases litigated in the ten years following the Civil War was an outstanding figure. Many of these cases involved constitutional questions of the utmost importance, for example, the Milligan case, which was argued in 1867 before the United States Supreme Court on the part of the United States, by Attorney-General Stanbery and Benjamin F. Butler, and for Milligan by Field, Jeremiah S. Black and James A. Garfield. The decision upheld the contention that, since the civil courts were open, the military commission which had tried and convicted Lamdin P. Milligan was without jurisdiction in the case; and that, the period of suspension of the writ of habeas corpus having expired, a writ should be issued and Milligan discharged from custody.

Then followed the Cummings case in which Field and his associates convinced the United States Supreme Court of the invalidity of the Missouri constitutional provision requiring all citizens to take an oath of loyalty declaring that they had not been in armed hostility to the state or given aid and comfort to persons engaged in such hostility. The McCardle case of 1868 involved the constitutionality of the Reconstruction Act of 1867 under which military governments had been set up in states lately in rebellion. McCardle was being held for trial before a military commission in Mississippi on the charge of inciting to insurrection, disorder, and violence. On the hearing in the United States Supreme Court, eminent counsel including Charles O'Conor were associated with Field for McCardle, and the case was argued on its merits. Before a decision was rendered, the act of 1867 was amended, and subsequently McCardle was discharged. A fourth constitutional case argued by Field was the Cruikshank case (1875) in which the constitutionality of the Enforcement Act of 1870 was involved. The decision of the circuit court for Louisiana convicting Cruikshank of conspiring to prevent negroes from exercising their right to vote, was, upon reasoning adduced by Field, reversed by the United States Supreme Court.

A chapter in Field's professional life which was the subject of bitter controversy concerned the Erie Railroad litigation of 1869. Field was counsel for Jay Gould and James Fisk [qq.v.] and was charged by Samuel Bowles and others with unprofessional conduct in having, it was alleged, in connection with a stockholders' meeting, engaged in a conspiracy to carry an election for Fisk and Gould by the use and abuse of legal process and proceedings. A large amount of controversial literature was produced, characteristic examples of which were by Charles Francis Adams (Chapters of Erie, 1871), by George Tick. nor Curtis (An In Inquiry into the Albany and Susquehanna Railroad Litigations of 1869), by Jeremiah S. Black (Galaxy, March 1872), and by Albert Stickney (North American Review, April 1871; Galaxy, October 1872). Field's conduct was considered by the Committee on Grievances of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, which presented a report "of such a character that the consequences to Mr. Field, if the recommendations had been adopted, would have been of the most serious character" (Theron G. Strong, Landmarks of a Lawyer's Lifetime, 1914, p. 192). No vote was taken on the recommendations. His opponents also put the worst construction on the fact that, from 1873 to 1878, he served as chief counsel for the defendant in the prosecution of "Boss" Tweed, who had become a director, along with Gould and Fisk, of the Erie Railroad.

Field's skill and learning as a lawyer were, however, never questioned. He served with distinction as counsel for Tilden in opposition to William M. Evarts, before the Hayes-Tilden Electoral Commission of 1876. As late as 1882, when he was seventy-seven years old, he argued for the plaintiff the case of New York vs. Louisiana before the United States Supreme Court. But while he was a leader among practising lawyers, the work in which he made for himself a permanent name was that of law reform, with special reference to codification, both of municipal a11d international law. He had been at the bar only eleven years when in 1839 he began an agitation from which he did not desist until his death. His purpose was to reduce to written form the whole body of law of New York, both substantive and adjective, and in the latter field to combine in one series of proceedings actions both at law and in equity. It was through his efforts that there were added to the New York State Constitution of 1846 provisions (Article I, Section 7, and Article VI, Section 24) directing the legislature to appoint three commissioners to " reduce into a written and systematic code the whole body of the law of this state, or so much and such parts thereof as to the said Commissioners shall seem practicable and expedient"; and three other commissioners "to revise, reform, simplify and abridge the rules, practice, pleadings, forms and proceedings of the courts of record." The legislature at its next session appointed the required commissions, of which Field became a member. Largely through his personal effort two procedural codes were prepared and reported to the legislature. The first commission to codify the substantive law produced no permanent result, and a new commission with Field as chairman was not appointed until 1857. Between 1860 and 1865, complete political, civil and penal codes were reported, but only one of them, the Penal Code (1881) was adopted by the legislature. The Civil Code was twice rejected by the Assembly and thrice passed by it, on two occasions receiving the assent of the Senate, but  failing to obtain the approval of the governor. The concept of these codes was wholly Field's, and the execution of them almost equally so. With him on the commission were William Curtis Noyes and Alexander W. Bradford, but neither of them did any large part of the work of codification, which was done by Field with the assistance of Austin Abbott, Benjamin Vaughan Abbott and Thomas G. Shearman. The struggle for the adoption of the Civil Code was a battle royal between Field, almost single-handed, and the leaders of the New York bar. James C. Carter was appointed by the Association of the Bar of the City of New York to head the opposition, by means of arguments and addresses to the successive legislatures and governors. The struggle was not devoid of personal bitterness. "Few men," says Strong, "have been subjected to greater ridicule and abuse than David Dudley Field," but, he continues, "the Code of Civil Procedure ... is a monument to his legal capacity, untiring zeal and constructive force that will immortalize his name as the 'Father of the Code' " (Landmarks of a Lawyer's Life, p. 420). The Civil Procedure Code has been adopted in whole or in part by twenty-four states, as well as by several foreign nations. Almost equal recognition has been given to the Criminal Procedure Code. The state of California adopted all five of the "Field" codes.

The passion for codification was almost an obsession with Field, and so it came about naturally that while engaged in the struggle for the adoption of his New York Codes, he headed a movement for the codification of the law of nations. The drafting of the New York Codes was completed in 1865. The successful issue, during the next year, of his brother's attempt to lay the Atlantic cable stirred Field's imagination, and caused him to believe that a further bond be. tween nations might be forged by the preparation of an international code. At the Manchester meeting of the British Association for the Promotion of Social Science, in September 1866, he proposed the appointment of a committee to prepare the outline of such a code. The committee was appointed with Field as a member. When the work moved slowly because the widely separated members could not meet for conference, Field essayed the task alone. With the assistance of Austin Abbott, Howard P. Wilds, Charles F. Stone and President F. A. P. Barnard of Columbia College, he prepared, and published in 1872, a Draft Outline of an International Code, dealing with the relations between states in time of peace. The second edition, published in 1876, included Part II on War. An Italian translation of the first edition was published in 1874, and a French translation of the second edition, in 1881. From 1866 to his death, Field visited Europe nearly every year to attend conferences devoted to international affairs, before which he read many papers; and he was instrumental in the formation of the Association for the Reform and Codification of the Law of Nations, the first meeting of which was held in Brussels in October 1873.

Both as a lawyer and as a jurist, Field made a deep impression on his generation. His positive achievements were of a high order, such as could come only from a man of great natural ability and of extensive learning. At the same time, he was aggressive and relentless in the prosecution of his designs, strong in his feelings and passions, positive in his opinions, and combative in temperament. One of his maxims was, "The only men who make any lasting impression on the world are fighters." Therefore he made many enemies, and a few stanch friends. All found him stalwart and impressive. Some found him cold and forbidding, while others who professed to know him more intimately found in him a magnetic and sympathetic personality.

[The chief sources of information are Field's own writings contained in Speeches, Arguments and Miscellaneous Papers (3 volumes, 1884-90), ed. by A. P. Sprague; a Life by Henry Martyn Field (1898); Helen K. Hoy's biographical sketch in Lewis's Great American Lawyers (1908), V, 125-74; and an article by S. Newton Fiero in New York State Bar Association Proc., 1895, XVIII, 177-93; F. C. Pierce, Field Genealogy (1901); American Law Review, May-June, 1894; New York Tribune, April 14, 1894; High Finance in the Sixties, ed. by Frederick C. Hicks (Yale University Press, 1929).)

F.C.H.


FIELD, Issac, abolitionist, Iowa Territory, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1839-40.


FIELD, Dr. Nathaniel, 1805-1888, Jeffersonville, IN, physician, legislative representative, clergyman, abolitionist.  Vice President, American Anti-Slavery Society, 1835-1839.  He inherited slaves from his relatives and immediately emancipated them.  He also aided fugitive slaves in the Underground Railroad.    

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 450)

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 450:

FIELD, Nathaniel, physician, born in Jefferson county, Kentucky, 7 November, 1805; died in Jeffersonville, Clark county, Ind., 28 August, 1888. His father served. in the Revolutionary war, and emigrated to Kentucky in 1784. Nathaniel was educated in the best schools, and was graduated at Transylvania medical school, Lexington, Kentucky. He first settled in northern Alabama, and practised there three years, when he returned to Kentucky. In the autumn of 1829 he removed to Jeffersonville, Ind., where he afterward resided. He was a member of the legislature from 1838 till 1839. In the spring of the latter year he organized the city government of Jeffersonville, under a charter that he drafted and had passed by the legislature. In 1830 he established the first Christian (or Campbellite) church in that city, and in 1847 the Second Advent Christian church. He served as pastor of the former for seventeen years, and of the latter for forty years, without compensation, believing it to be wrong to earn a livelihood by preaching, or to “make merchandise of the gospel.” He voted against the entire township, in 1834, on the proposition to expel the free negroes, and was compelled to face a mob in consequence. He was one of the original abolitionists of the west, and emancipated several valuable slaves that he had inherited. He held a debate, in 1852, with Elder Thomas P. Connelly on the “State of the Dead,” and the arguments were published in book-form. He also published a humorous poem, entitled “Arts of Imposture and Deception Peculiar to American Society” (1858). Dr. Field was the author of a monograph on “Asiatic Cholera,” contributed many essays to medical journals, and prepared in manuscript lectures on “Capital Punishment,” “The Mosaic Record of Creation,” “The Age of the Haman Race,” and “The Chronology of Fossils.” Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 450.


FINDLEY, William, 1741-1821, member of U.S. Congress, elected 1791-1799 and 1803-1817, Pennsylvania, opposed slavery.

(Appletons, 1888, Volume II, p. 458; Locke, Mary Stoughton. Anti-Slavery in America from the Introduction of African Slaves to the Prohibition of the Slave Trade (1619-1808). Boston: Ginn & Co., 1901, pp. 93, 153; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 2, p. 385; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 7, p. 918)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 2, p. 385:

FINDLEY, WILLIAM (1741-April 5, 1821), congressman, was a descendant of one of the signers of the Solemn League and Covenant in Scotland. His grandparents emigrated to North Ireland during the persecution of the Presbyterians by the last two Stuart kings. In their adopted country, where William Findley was born, the members of the family played a conspicuous part in the thrilling events of the time. While the formal education of William was limited, he had a strong intellect, which he cultivated by reading. He landed in America in 1763 and established himself in a flourishing Scotch-Irish settlement near Waynesboro, in what is now Franklin County, Pennsylvania. For several years he worked at the weaver's trade, to which he had been apprenticed in Ireland, and at the same time he taught school for a number of terms. After his marriage in 1769, he purchased a farm and settled thereon. He identified himself with the interests of the colonists in the long controversy with the mother country and vigorously espoused their cause. He became a member of the first committee of observation from his county, and upon the opening of hostilities he entered the army and soon rose to the rank of captain. Near the close of the war he moved beyond the mountains into Westmoreland County to a farm near the present site of Latrobe. He was elected to the council of censors, on which he served from 1783 to 1790, and held various other public offices, among which were those of assemblyman, state supreme executive councilman, and delegate to the state constitutional convention of 1789-90.

Findley displayed early in life that ability for leadership which won for him a long and creditable career in public service. Indeed, he was a consummate politician. Because of his large personal acquaintance and his inherent ability he became a formidable factor in shaping public opinion not only in western Pennsylvania but throughout the state. An Anti-Federalist, he vigorously opposed the ratification of the Federal Constitution and later Hamilton's financial measures. In 1791 he was elected to Congress, where he served continuously until 1817 with the exception of four years, from 1799 to 1803, when he served in the state Senate. Although openly hostile to the Federalist legislative program, he was consulted frequently by Washington and his cabinet concerning frontier problems. Especially significant was Findley's persistent opposition to the early practise of referring practically all questions of importance to the heads of departments for their consideration. It was upon a recommendation made by him that the first standing committee, that of ways and means, was appointed.

Findley was one of the prominent men identified with the Whiskey Insurrection of 1794. Feeling as he did that the tax on whiskey was exorbitant and unjust, he encouraged open resistance to the government at first. Later, however, he counseled moderation and obedience to the law and displayed real statesmanship in working for a compromise. In 1796 he published a History of the Insurrection in the Four Western Counties of Pennsylvania, in which he attempted to vindicate his own position as well as to furnish an acceptable apology for those who participated actively in the insurrection. Throughout his public career Findley was a faithful guardian of the interests of the frontiersmen, who were his associates and his friends.

[R. M. Ewing, "Life and Times of Wm. Findley," Western Pennsylvania History Magazine, October 1919; G.D. Albert, History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania (1882); J. H. Campbell, History of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick and of the Hibernian Society 1771-1892 (1892); W. C. Armor, Scotch-Irish Bibliog. of Pennsylvania (1906); Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Volume V (1881); Democratic Press (Philadelphia), April 11, 1821.]

A.E.M.

Appletons, 1888, Volume II, p. 458:

FINDLAY, William, governor of Pennsylvania, born in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, 20 June, 1768; died in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 12 November, 1846. After receiving a common-school education, he became a farmer, and early took part in politics as a Democrat. His first office was that of brigade-inspector of militia. He was elected to the legislature in 1797 and 1803, and in 1807-'17 was state treasurer. He was governor from 1817 till 1820, and in the latter year was an unsuccessful candidate for re-election. Party spirit ran high during his administration, and in 1817 his opponents secured the appointment of a committee to investigate the late treasurer's conduct of his office. This investigation, though Governor Findlay offered no witness in his behalf, resulted in a report that his conduct had been “not only faithful, but meritorious and beneficial to the state.” The building of the state capitol was begun during Governor Findlay's administration, and its corner-stone was laid by him. He was elected to the U. S. senate in 1821, and served one term, and in 1827-'40. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 458.


FINLEY, C. B., Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1836-37.


FINLEY, James B.,  abolitionist, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Executive Committee, 1853-55.


FINLEY, James C., Dr., Cincinnati, Ohio.  Manager of the Cincinnati auxiliary of the American Colonization Society (ACS).  Son of ACS founder Reverend Robert S. Finley.  Volunteered to go to Liberia. 

(Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 140)


FINLEY, Robert, Reverend, 1772-1817, clergyman, founding officer and Vice President, American Colonization Society, 1816. 

(Burin, Eric. Slavery and the Peculiar Solution: A History of the American Colonization Society. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 2005; Campbell, Penelope. Maryland in Africa: The Maryland State Colonization Society, 1831-1857. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1971, pp. 12, 18, 38-40, 42, 80, 94, 97, 131, 189; Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 460; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 2, p., p. 391; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 15-35 passim, 26, 30, 33, 69)


FINLEY, Robert Smith, 1804-1860, Cincinnati, Ohio.  Member and Secretary of the Cincinnati auxiliary of the American Colonization Society (ACS).  Son of ACS founder Robert S. Finley.  Traveling agent for the Society.  Organized numerous societies in Ohio. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 460; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 140, 144-145, 147, 210, 227, 231-232, 234)


FINNEY, Reverend Charles Grandison, 1792-1875, clergyman, advocate of social reforms, author, publisher, president of Oberlin College, Ohio, 1851-1866, abolitionist.  Manager, American Anti-Slavery Society, 1840-1841.  Vice President, 1840, Ohio State Anti-Slavery Society.  American Presbyterian Minister and leader in the “Second Great Awakening” in the United States.  Also considered one of the “fathers of modern revivalism,” 1825-1835, in upstate New York and Manhattan. 

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 154, 158-159, 163; Goodell, 1852, p. 492; Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 130, 151, 153, 218, 253, 291, 339, 403n25; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 511, 518; Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971, pp. 12, 55, 67, 69, 97, 111-112; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 461; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 2, p. 394; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 290-292; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 7, p. 935; Proceedings of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Convention, 1835)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 2, p. 394:

FINNEY, CHARLES GRANDISON (August 29, 1792-August 16, 1875), revivalist, educator, intimately associated with the early history of Oberlin College and from 1851 to 1866 its president, was born in Warren, Connecticut, the son of Sylvester and Rebecca (Rice) Finney. He was of early New England stock, and his father was a soldier in the Revolutionary War. When he was two years old his parents joined the westward migration, settling in Hanover (now Kirkland), Oneida County, New York, where among pioneer conditions he grew up. He attended such common schools as existed there, and spent two years at Hamilton Oneida Academy, Clinton, where the principal, Seth Norton, took especial interest in him, training his natural ability for music, and stimulating his desire for a college education. After the removal of his parents to Henderson, on Lake Ontario, he taught a district school for several years, and then went to Warren, Connecticut, to prepare for Yale. He did not enter, however; being persuaded by his schoolmaster that he could do the work of the college curriculum by himself in two years. Accordingly he went to New Jersey where he taught and studied privately. In 1818 he entered the law office of Benjamin Wright, Adams, New York, and later was admitted to the bar.

At this period he was a handsome fellow, six feet two inches tall, erect, alert, full of energy and fond of outdoor sports. Having a musical voice of wide range, he organized the young people of the town into a chorus and trained them; he also took great delight in playing the 'cello. Fond of dancing and attractive personally, he was popular at all social gatherings. He had the moral stamina and religious tendency of his New England ancestry, but as a youth had received little religious training. Not until in his study of the law he came across references to Mosaic institutions, did he own a Bible. What preaching he had heard repelled him. Although at Adams he attended the church services and was a friend of George W. Gale [q.v.], its pastor, he was frankly critical of the dogmas taught and the prevailing practises. His own study of the Bible, however, together with his natural religious sensitiveness, finally resulted, after violent struggles, in his conversion. This event and his immediate subsequent experiences were attended by great emotional excitation. He seemed to see the Lord standing before him; he received a "mighty baptism of the Holy Spirit," and wept aloud with joy and love; wave after wave came over him, until he cried, "I shall die if these waves continue to pass over me" (Memoirs, p. 20). At another time, he beheld the glory of God about him, and a light ineffable shone into his soul. He saw all nature worshipping God except man, and broke into a flood of tears that mankind did not praise God.

His conversion involved a retainer from the Lord to plead his cause. He thought no more of the law, but straightway applied himself to the conversion of his fellow men. In 1823 he put himself under the care of the St. Lawrence Presbytery as a candidate for the ministry. Some of the members urged him to study theology at Princeton, but he refused on the ground that he did not want to be under such influences as they had been. His pastor, Mr. Gale, and another clergyman were accordingly appointed to superintend his studies. Extremely independent, and aggressively opposed to Gale's views on the atonement, he worked out his theology largely on the basis of his own study of the Scriptures. The Presbytery licensed him, however, in March 1824, and he was ordained in July of the same year. The following October he married Lydia Andrews of Whitestown, Oneida County, New York.

For almost a decade he conducted revivals in the Middle and Eastern States with results that attracted attention all over the country. He cast aside the ordinary conventions of the pulpit; used expressive language and homely illustrations; was startlingly direct and even personal in his appeal to men's consciences and in his prayers, so that he was threatened with tar and feathers, and even with death. He portrayed the terrible guilt and awful consequences of disobeying the divine law, and put the fear of God into his hearers. His command over all classes was phenomenal; he broke down contrary wills by his logic and by the superior force of his own will. Violent physical manifestations resulted from his preaching; people burst into tears, shrieked, fainted, and fell into trances. Nevertheless, he produced permanent beneficial results; lives were transformed and whole towns cleansed. His views, methods, and idiosyncrasies subjected him to widespread persecution and misrepresentation, and awakened severe criticism, even in his own denomination. Lyman Beecher and Asahel Nettleton opposed him vigorously. As a result a convention was held at New Lebanon, New York, in July 1827, composed of Presbyterian and Congregational ministers, friends and opponents of Finney, to consider the points in controversy. The general effect of this gathering seems to have been in Finney's favor.

In 1832 he became pastor of the Second Free Presbyterian Church, New York, for the use of which Lewis Tappan and others had leased the Chatham Street Theatre. At his installation service he was stricken with the cholera, which was then prevalent in the city. After he recovered, his labors resulted in many converts and the establishment of several other churches. He shortly became dissatisfied with the working of the disciplinary system in Presbyterian churches, and the Broadway Tabernacle was organized for him, its place of worship being constructed in conformity with his desires. He withdrew from the Presbytery in 1836, and the church became Congregational in polity. While in New York he delivered lectures on revivals, which were printed weekly in the New York Evangelist, and published in book form in 1835. The work went through many editions and was widely read abroad. He also took a decided stand on the slavery question, but did not, he says, "make it a hobby, or divert the attention of the people from the work of converting souls" (Memoirs, p. 324).

While he was in New York, young men asked him to take them as students in theology. Having no time for such work, he proposed as a partial substitute to give a course of theological lectures each year, and a room in the Tabernacle was provided for this purpose. When, however, in 1835, after the students at Lane Seminary had left that institution because of restrictions placed on discussion of the slavery question, he was invited to establish a theological department for them in the newly founded college at Oberlin, Ohio, and Arthur Tappan had guaranteed him financial support, he accepted. He retained his pastorate in New York, giving to it about six months of the year. This dual arrangement was detrimental to his health, and on April 6, 1837, his connection with the church was severed. During the thirty-eight remaining years of his life he was connected with Oberlin College, upon the character of which he exerted a powerful influence. From 1851 to 1866 he was president, although relieved of much administrative detail; and from 1835 to 1872 he was also pastor of the First Congregational Church, Oberlin. He long carried on his evangelistic work during a part of each year, visiting Great Britain in 1849-50 and again in 1859-60, where his preaching had great effect. Through the Oberlin Evangelist, established in 1839, to which he contributed regularly, his views on doctrinal and practical matters were disseminated. As his theology developed, certain aspects of it aroused opposition. He was in general a New School Calvinist, but the emphasis that he laid upon the individual's ability to repent was exceptional. He also taught that sin and holiness, which he viewed as attaching only to voluntary actions, cannot coexist in a person; and that a high plane of experience is possible in the Christian life, in which one becomes superior to one's weakness and enjoys a state of spiritual stability, which he designated as sanctification. This view was attacked as tending to Arminianism and Perfectionism, and "Oberlin theology" was long in ill-repute among more conservative Calvinists. Having this exalted idea of what a Christian should strive to attain, and feeling that a church should always be at a revival pitch, he was averse to popular amusements and other pursuits which might prove a hindrance. He was a strong advocate of temperance and opposed to the use of tobacco, and even tea and coffee. Although made a Mason in his youth he attacked the order later and published in 1869 The Character, Claims, and Practical Workings of Freemasonry. His Lectures on Systematic Theology were published in two volumes in 1846 and 1847, and after some revision, republished in England in 1851. Among his other works are: Sermons on Important Subjects (3rd ed., 1836); Lectures to Professing Christians (1837); and Skeletons of a Course of Theological Lectures (1840). In the forties he was an editor of the Oberlin Quarterly Review and later was a frequent contributor to the Advance and the Independent. Two volumes of sermons delivered at Oberlin and reported by Prof. Henry Cowles were published posthumously as Sermons on Gospel Themes (1876) and Sermons on the Way of Salvation (1891). Finney's first wife died in 1847, and he later married Mrs. Elizabeth Ford Atkinson, after whose death in 1863 he married Mrs. Rebecca (Allen) Rayl, an assistant principal of the women's department at Oberlin. He retained his vigor in an unusual degree to the last, delivering his final course of lectures in his eighty-third year. Death came at the end of a quiet Sunday in August, from some affection of the heart.

[Memoirs of Reverend Charles G. Finney, Written by Himself (1876), deals chiefly with his evangelistic activities. A more complete account of his life and characteristics, including a lengthy statement of his theology, may be found in G. Frederick Wright's Charles Grandison Finney (1891). See also Wm. C. Cochran, Charles Grandison Finney: Memorial Address (1908); D. L. Leonard, The Story of Oberlin (1898); Nathan Sheppard, Heroic Stature (1897); Hiram Mead, "Charles Grandison Finney," Congress Quarterly, January 1877; Jas. H. Fairchild, "The Doctrine of Sanctification at Oberlin," Ibid., April 1876; Reminiscences of Reverend Charles G. Finney (1876); F. H. Foster, A Genetic History of the New England Theology (1907); reviews of Finney's Lectures on Systematic Theology by Geo. Duffield in Biblical Repository, April, July 1848 and by Charles Hodge [q.v.] in Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review, April 1847; G. F. Wright, "Dr. Hodge's Misrepresentations of President Finney's System of Theology," Bibliotheca Sacra, April 1876, and "President Finney's System of Theology in its Relation to the So-Called New England Theology," Ibid., October 1877; A. T. Swing, "President Finney and an Oberlin Theology," Ibid., July 1900.]

H.E.S.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 461:

FINNEY, Charles Grandison, clergyman, born in Warren, Litchfield county, Connecticut, 29 August, 1792; died in Oberlin, Ohio, 16 August, 1875. He removed with his father to Oneida county, New York, in 1794, and when about twenty years old engaged in teaching in New Jersey. He began to study law in Jefferson county, New York, in 1818, but, having been converted in 1821, studied theology, was licensed to preach in the Presbyterian church in 1824, and began to labor as an evangelist. He met with great success in Utica, Troy, Philadelphia, Boston, and New York. On his second visit to the last city, in 1832, the Chatham street theatre was bought and made into a church for him, and the New York “Evangelist” established as an advocate of the revival. His labors here resulted in the establishment of seven “free Presbyterian” churches, and in 1834 he became pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle, which had been built especially for him. Mr. Finney accepted, in 1835, the professorship of theology at Oberlin, which had just been founded by his friends, and retained it until his death. Here he assisted in establishing the “Oberlin Evangelist,” and afterward the “Oberlin Quarterly.” He also became pastor of the Congregational church in Oberlin in 1837; but continued at intervals to preach in New York and elsewhere. He spent three years in England as a revivalist, in 1849-'51 and 1858-'60, adding to his reputation for eloquence, and in 1851-'66 was president of Oberlin. Prof. Finney relied greatly on doctrinal preaching in his revivals, as opposed to animal excitement, and his sermons were plain, logical, and direct. He was an Abolitionist, an anti-mason, and an advocate of total abstinence. His chief works are “Lectures on Revivals,” which have been translated into several foreign languages (Boston, 1835; 13th ed., 1840; enlarged ed., Oberlin, 1868); “Lectures to Professing Christians” (Oberlin, 1836); “Sermons on Important Subjects” (New York, 1839); and “Lectures on Systematic Theology” (2 vols., Oberlin, 1847; London, 1851). After his death were published his “Memoirs,” written by himself (New York, 1876). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 461.



Sources:
Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volumes I-VI, Edited by James Grant Wilson & John Fiske, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888-1889.