War-Way: Ward through Wayne

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.


WARD, Austin, New York, abolitionist leader.

(Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971)


WARD, George W., Plymouth, New Hampshire, abolitionist.  Manager, 1833-1837, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833.

(Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833)


WARD, Marcus Lawrence (November 9, 1812-April 25, 1884), governor of New Jersey, congressman, philanthropist. In 1856 he first took an active part in politics, embracing with vigor the cause of the newly formed Republican party. Because of his intense anti-slavery convictions, he went to Kansas in 1858 to take part in the struggle against the admission of slavery there, but found too much mob violence for his taste.  In 1860 he was a delegate to the Republican convention at Chicago which nominated Abraham Lincoln for the presidency.  In 1865 he was elected governor of New Jersey by a large majority. 

(M. D. Ogden, Memorial Cyclopedia of New Jersey, volume I (1915); W. H. Shaw, History of Essex and Hudson Counties, New Jersey (1884), volume I; The Biographical Encyclopedia of New Jersey of the Nineteenth Century (1877).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 432-433:

WARD, MARCUS LAWRENCE (November 9, 1812-April 25, 1884), governor of New Jersey, congressman, philanthropist, was the son of Moses and Fanny (Brown) Ward. His paternal ancestor, John Ward, came with his widowed mother from England and settled in 1635 at Wethersfield, Connecticut; in 1666 he became one of the founders of Newark, New Jersey. Here his descendant, Moses Ward, was for many years a successful manufacturer of candles, and here Moses' son Marcus was born. Educated in local private schools, he became a clerk in a variety store in Newark and later entered his father's establishment, becoming in time a partner in the firm of M. Ward & Son. In this connection he became widely known throughout the state and made a private fortune.

From his early years Ward took an interest in everything concerning his native city. He became a director in the National State Bank in Newark in 1846, was long chairman of the executive committee of the New Jersey Historical Society, and aided in the formation of the Newark Library Association and the New Jersey Art Union. In 1856 he first took an active part in politics, embracing with vigor the cause of the newly formed Republican party. Because of his intense anti-slavery convictions, he went to Kansas in 1858 to take part in the struggle against the admission of slavery there, but found too much mob violence for his taste, and soon returned to Newark and his business. In 1860 he was a delegate to the Republican convention at Chicago which nominated Abraham Lincoln for the presidency.

Soon after the outbreak of the Civil War he began to devise means to ameliorate the condition of the families of those New Jersey soldiers who by death or illness had left their wives and children destitute, and also the condition of such soldiers themselves as needed better hospital accommodations than the Government had prepared. With his own funds, and assuming direct oversight of the project, he took possession of a whole floor in the Newark Custom House, employed eight clerks, and there laid plans for carrying out his patriotic and benevolent ideas. He established a kind of free pension bureau, through which he secured soldiers' pay and transmitted it to their families. He founded a soldiers' hospital in his city-The Ward U. S. Hospital, the foundation of the later Soldiers' Home. In 1862 he consented to run as a Republican candidate for governor, but was defeated by the Democrat Joel Parker [q.v.]. He was a delegate in 1864 to the convention at Baltimore that renominated Lincoln; in the same year he became a member of the Republican National Committee, and continued as such until the nomination of General Grant for the presidency. In 1865 he was elected governor of New Jersey by a large majority. During his administration of three years (January 16, 1866-January 18, 1869) he secured the passage of a public-school law, an act eliminating partisanship in the control of the state prison, and other measures of reform. After a few years of retirement he was elected in 1872 representative in Congress from the sixth New Jersey district and served from March 4, 1873, to March 3, 1875. He was renominated in 1874, but was defeated in a Democratic tidal wave. Declining the federal office of commissioner of Indian affairs, he now retired to private life. After two trips to Europe he visited Florida, where he contracted the malarial fever which brought his death.

On June 30, 1840, Ward married Susan, daughter of John and Elizabeth (Longworth) Morris, by whom he had eight children; two sons, with their mother, survived him. The younger son, Marcus L. Ward, Jr., who outlived his brother, put the family fortune to a unique use by establishing at Maplewood, New Jersey, in memory of his father, the Ward Homestead, with accommodations for 120 bachelors and widowers who have been prominent in the business or Social life of New Jersey and are over sixty-five years of age. The Homestead is like a large country club in appearance, and has a large endowment fund.

[M. D. Ogden, Memorial Cyclopedia of New Jersey, volume I (1915); W. H. Shaw, History of Essex and Hudson Counties, New Jersey (1884), volume I; The Biographical Encyclopedia of New Jersey of the Nineteenth Century (1877); Proceedings New Jersey Historical Society, 2 series VIII (1885), IX (1887); John Livingston Portraits of Eminent Americans Now Living (1854), volume IV; Harper's Weekly, December 9, 1865; Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); New York Times, April 26, 1884.]

A. V-D.H.


WARD, Samuel, 1786-1839, New York, New York, banker, philanthropist, temperance activist.  Friend and supporter of the American Colonization Society. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, p. 354; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, p. 438; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 227)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, p. 354:

WARD, Samuel, banker, born in Rhode Island, 1 May, 1786; died in New York city, 27 November, 1839, received a common-school education, entered a banking-house as clerk, and in 1808 was taken into partnership, continuing a member of the firm of Prime, Ward and King until his death. In 1838 he secured through the Bank of England a loan of nearly $5,000,000 to enable the banks to resume specie payments, and established the Bank of commerce, becoming its president. He was a founder of the University of the city of New York and of the City temperance society, of which he was the first president, and was active in organizing mission churches, a patron of many charities, and the giver of large sums in aid of Protestant Episcopal churches and colleges in the west. Appletons’ Cylocpædia of American Biography, 1888.


WARD, Samuel Ringgold, 1817-1866, New York, American Missionary Association (AMA), African American, abolitionist leader, newspaper editor, author, orator, clergyman.  Member of the Liberty Party and the Free Soil Party.  Wrote Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro, His Anti-Slavery Labours in the United States, Canada and England, 1855.  Lecturer for American Anti-Slavery Society.  Member and contributor to the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada.

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 330; Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 128, 135, 136, 294, 307, 400n19; Sernett, Milton C. North Star Country: Upstate New York and the Crusade for African American Freedom. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2002, pp. 54-55, 62-64, 94, 117, 121, 126, 142, 149, 157-159, 169, 171-172; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 34, 46, 48, 53, 166, 446-447, 454; Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971, pp. 85-89, 96, 104, 132; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, p. 440; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 22, p. 649; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Volume 11, p. 380; See Ward's Autobiography; W. J. Wilson, "A Leaf from my Scrap Book ...," Autographs for Freedom, volume II (1854), ed. by Julia Griffiths; Journal of Negro History, October 1925). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, p. 440:

WARD, SAMUEL RINGGOLD (October 17, 1817-1866 ?), negro abolitionist, was born of slave parents on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. His parents ran away to Greenwich, New Jersey, in 1820. Six years later they removed to New York where the boy received an elementary education and became a teacher in colored schools. He was married in 1838 to a Miss Reynolds. His ability as a public speaker attracted the attention of Lewis Tappan [q.v.] and others and led to his appointment in 1839 as an agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society from which he was soon transferred to the service of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society. Licensed to preach by the New York Congregational (General) Association in 1839, he subsequently held two pastorates, at South Butler, Wayne County, New York, from 1841 to 1843, where his congregation was entirely white, and at Cortland, New York, from 1846 to 1851. He resigned the earlier pastorate because of throat trouble and subsequently studied medicine for a few months. He resumed his antislavery labors in 1844 with the Liberty Party and spoke in almost every state oi the North. In 1851 he removed to Syracuse where, in October of that year, he took an active part in the rescue of the negro fugitive Jerry. Fearing arrest, he fled to Canada where he became an agent of the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada. He organized branches of the society, lectured, and le nt assistance to the numerous fugitives in Canada. In April 1853 he was sent to England to secure financial aid for the Canadian effort and with the help of a committee raised the sum of 1,200 [pounds] in ten months.

He spoke at both the 1853 and 1854 meetings of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society and delivered numerous other addresses during his stay in Great Britain. He attracted the interest of some of the nobility and met many of the leading philanthropists. His Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro (London, 1855), records that John Candler, of Chelmsford, a Quaker, presented him with fifty acres of land in the parish of St. George, Jamaica, and he apparently accepted the gift, for about 1855 he went to Jamaica and in Kingston became the pastor of a small body of Baptists. He continued in this post until early in 1860 when he left Kingston and settled in St. George Parish. The new venture did not prosper and he died in great poverty in or after 1866. During his pastorate in Kingston he is said to have exercised a powerful influence over the colored population and was the head of a political party which controlled local elections. In 1866 he published in Jamaica his Reflections Upon the Gordon Rebellion. Ward's extraordinary oratorical ability is mentioned by a number of his contemporaries. He was frequently advertised during his lecture tours as "the black Daniel Webster."

[See Ward's Autobiography; W. J. Wilson, "A Leaf from my Scrap Book ...," Autographs for Freedom, volume II (1854), ed. by Julia Griffiths; Journal of Negro History, October 1925; information from Mr. Frank Cundall, of the Institute of Jamaica, and from Lord Olivier.]

F.L.  


WARD, Thomas W., Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1837-40.


WARDNER, Allen, 1786-1877, Alstead, New Hampshire, banker, businessman, politician.  Member of the American Colonization Society.


WARE, Henry (April 21, 1794-September 22, 1843), Unitarian clergyman.  He was one of the organizers and the president of the Cambridge Anti-Slavery Society, and was subjected to severe criticism in the University and the papers for publicly espousing the abolitionist movement. 

(E. F. Ware, Ware Genealogy (1901); John Ware; Memoir of the Life of Henry Ware, Jr. (1846); W. B. Sprague, Annals of the American Unitarian Pulpit (1865).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 448-449:

WARE, HENRY (April 21, 1794-September 22, 1843), Unitarian clergyman, son of Henry [q.v.] and Mary (Clark) Ware and brother of John and William Ware [qq.v.], was born in Hingham, Massachusetts, where his father was pastor, and lived there until 1805, when the elder Henry became professor of divinity at Harvard. The son received his early education in the schools of his native town and under tutors until 1807, in which year he was sent to Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts. The year following he entered Harvard College, from which he graduated in 1812. He was a somewhat frail, serious-minded youth, religiously inclined from childhood, mingling little in the social life of the college, but taking commendable rank as a scholar. From 1812 to 1814 he taught under Benjamin Abbot [q.v.] at Phillips Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire, and then returned to Harvard to complete the preparation for the ministry which he had been carrying on privately. He had written some verse and at a public gathering held in 1815 after the signing of the Treaty of Ghent he delivered a poem, subsequently published under the title A Poem Pronounced .. at the Celebration of Peace (1815). On January 1, 1817, he was ordained pastor of the Second Church (Unitarian), Boston, and in October of that year was married to Elizabeth Watson Waterhouse, daughter of Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse [q.v.] of Cambridge. John Fothergill Waterhouse Ware [q.v.] was their son.

Ware's life was comparatively short and ill health continually interfered with his activities. He was below medium height, thin, and stooping, and was careless as to his dress and personal appearance. His manner did not invite approach and few were on terms of intimacy with him. In spite of these handicaps, however, he became one of the leading ministers of New England, and his writings were widely read both in America and abroad. The whole purpose of his life was usefulness rather than high accomplishment, and into the various fields that he entered he put the full measure of his devotion. He succeeded Noah Worcester [q.v.] as editor of the Christian Disciple (1819-23), and in 1821 contributed articles, signed Artinius, to the Christian Register. In 1822 he projected Sunday evening services for those who had no stated places of worship, a missionary endeavor later carried on by the ministry-at-large. An advocate of preaching without manuscript, he published in 1824 Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching. He took a prominent part in the establishment of the American Unitarian Association, and was long a member of its executive committee. At the annual Phi Beta Kappa meeting at Harvard, August 26, 1824, made memorable by the presence of Lafayette, he delivered a poem entitled "The Vision of Liberty." In 1823, one of his three children died, and in less than a year, his wife; on June II, 1827, he married Mary Lovell Pickard (see E.B. Hall, Memoir of Mary L. Ware, 1853). To this marriage were born six children, one of whom was William Robert Ware [q.v.]. The condition of Ware's health led him to resign his pastorate in 1828, but his parishioners would not consent to a separation and the following year gave him a colleague in the person of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Meanwhile, he had been appointed first professor of pulpit eloquence and pastoral care in the Harvard Divinity School. After a seventeen month sojourn in Europe, during which he visited Wordsworth, Southey, Maria Edgeworth, and other persons of note, he felt unable to carry on both pastoral and professorial duties and, relinquishing his parish, he moved to Cambridge.

During his career at Harvard, though in the latter part of it he took over much of his father's work, he found time for considerable writing. One of his works, On the Formation of the Christian Character (1831), went through some fifteen editions and was republished abroad. To provide young people with books suitable for Sunday reading, he projected "The Sunday Library," for which he wrote the first volume, The Life of the Saviour (1833). This also had wide circulation. Other publications included sermons, addresses, reviews, and memoirs of Joseph Priestley, Nathan Parker, and Noah Worcester. After his death The Works of Henry Ware, Jr., D.D. (4 volumes, 1846-47), edited by Chandler Robbins, appeared. He was one of the organizers and the president of the Cambridge Anti-Slavery Society, and was subjected to severe criticism in the University and the papers for publicly espousing the abolitionist movement. Later his ardor cooled, for the impatience and intolerance of the abolitionists were repellent to one of his nature. Forced by failing strength to resign his professorship in 1842, he retired to Framingham, Massachusetts, where he died in his forty-ninth year. His body was taken to Cambridge and was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery.

[E. F. Ware, Ware Genealogy (1901); John Ware; Memoir of the Life of Henry Ware, Jr. (1846); W. B. Sprague, Annals of the American Unitarian Pulpit (1865); S. A. Eliot, Heralds of a Liberal Faith, volume II (1910); Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, volume II (1880); Christian Examiner, November 1843, March 1846.]

H.E.S.


WARE, John Fothergill Waterhouse (August 31, 1818-February 26, 1881), Unitarian clergyman.  He took great interest in the welfare of the freedmen, and had a leading part in establishing schools for colored children, which ultimately were taken over by the city. His activities in this field were carried on in the face of obstacles and at personal risk, necessitating at times his being attended by armed companions. 

(E. F. Ware, Ware Genealogy (1901); General Catalog of the Divinity School of Harvard University (1910); S. A. Eliot, .... Heralds of a Liberal Faith (1910), volume III; Boston Transcript, February, 28, 1881); Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, p. 357; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 450-451)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 450-451:

WARE, JOHN FOTHERGILL WATERHOUSE (August 31, 1818-February 26, 1881), Unitarian clergyman, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Henry Ware, 1794-1843 [q.v.] and Elizabeth Watson (Waterhouse) Ware. Willi am Robert Ware [q.v.] was his half-brother. Prepared for college in Cambridge, John graduated from Harvard in 1838, and would have been class poet, it is said, had not James Russell Lowell been in the same class. Entering the Harvard Divinity School, he finished the course there in 1842, and the following year became pastor of the Unitarian church in Fall River, Massachusetts, remaining there until 1846. His next pastorate, which lasted until 1864, was at Cambridgeport, Massachusetts.

During the Civil War, in an independent civil capacity, he rendered much service to the Union cause and especially to the soldiers themselves, lecturing or giving patriotic talks in various parts of the country, visiting the men in the camps-often in army boots and slouch hat-and preparing tracts, which were published and circulated among the soldiers by the American Unitarian Society. In 1864 he was called to be minister of the First Independent Society of Baltimore. His congregation, made up originally of old Marylanders, was augmented by many new-comers attracted by the quality of his preaching. The two elements did not mix readily, and the more conservative members found Ware's independence and disregard of ministerial conventions not to their liking. Accordingly, after some three years, July 1867, he resigned. Some of his friends then formed a new religious organization, the Church of the Saviour, the services of which were held in the Masonic Temple. So large did the evening attendance become that the use of an opera house was secured, and even this was sometimes over-crowded. In the summer time he held open-air services in Druid Hill Park. He took great interest in the welfare of the freedmen, and had a leading part in establishing schools for colored children, which ultimately were taken over by the city. His activities in this field were carried on in the face of obstacles and at personal risk, necessitating at times his being attended by armed companions. While living in Baltimore he spent his summers at Swampscott, Massachusetts, where he organized a church.

In July 1872 the condition of his health necessitated his returning North, and he became pastor of the Arlington Street Church, Boston, to which he mini3tered until his death. His preaching was direct and practical, more concerned with the problems of life than with those of theology. His interest was in men rather than in books, and his ruling ambition was to lessen the injustice and unhappiness of the world. A number of his sermons were printed separately and after his death some twenty-seven of them were published in a volume entitled Wrestling and Waiting (1882). Two of his books had wide circulation-The Silent Pastor, or Consolations for the Sick (1848) and Home Life: What It Is and What It Needs (1864). He was married on May 27, 1844, to Caroline Parsons, daughter of Nathan Rice of Cambridge; she died, September 18, 1848, and on October 10 of the following year he married Helen, daughter of Nathan Rice. By his first wife he had two children, and by his second, two. He died in Milton, Massachusetts, after a year of comparative inactivity caused by a coronary affection.

[E. F. Ware, Ware Genealogy (1901); General Catalog of the Divinity School of Harvard University (1910); S. A. Eliot, .... Heralds of a Liberal Faith (1910), volume III; Boston Transcript, February, 28, 1881.]

H. E. S.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, p. 357:

WARE, John Fothergill Waterhouse, clergyman, born in Boston, 31 August, 1818; died in Milton, Massachusetts, 26 February, 1881, was graduated at Harvard in 1838 and at the divinity-school in 1842. He was first settled as a pastor of the Unitarian society at Fall River, Massachusetts, afterward was stationed at Cambridgeport, and in 1864 became pastor of the Unitarian church in Baltimore, Md. During his residence in Baltimore he gave much attention to the religious needs and other wants of the negroes, and before and during the civil war was an anti-slavery man. Mr. Ware returned to Boston, and in 1872 became pastor of the Arlington street church. He organized a Unitarian society at Swampscott, Massachusetts, of which he was pastor at the time of his death, as well as of the Boston church. He was a favorite with the members of the Grand army of the republic, having been a worker among the soldiers during the civil war, and was a frequent orator before their organizations. He published “The Silent Pastor” (Boston, 1848); “Hymns and Tunes for Sunday-School Worship” (1858-'56-'60); and “Home Life: What it Is, and what it Needs” (1873).  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888.


WARE, Nicholas, 1769-1824, Augusta, Georgia, U.S. Senator.  Member of the Augusta auxiliary of the American Colonization Society.  Proponent of colonization. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, p. 358; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 71)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, p. 358:

WARE, Nicholas, senator, born in Caroline county, Virginia, in 1769; died in New York city, 7 September, 1824. While a youth he accompanied his father, Captain Robert Ware, to Edgefield, South Carolina. He afterward studied medicine at Augusta, Georgia, and then law, completing his studies at the Litchfield, Connecticut, law-school. He attained success in his profession at Augusta, represented Richmond county in the Georgia legislature, was mayor of Augusta, afterward judge of the city court, and U. S. senator from Georgia in 1821-'4. He was president of the board of trustees of Richmond county academy, Augusta, at the time of his death, and was also a trustee of the University of Georgia at Athens. Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.


WARE, S., S. Deerfield, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Vice-President, 1839-.


WARNER, James, Brooklyn, New York, abolitionist, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Executive Committee, 1844-1855.


WARNER, John, abolitionist leader, founding member, Electing Committee, Acting Committee, Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 1787.

(Basker, James G., gen. ed. Early American Abolitionists: A Collection of Anti-Slavery Writings, 1760-1820. New York: Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, 2005, pp. 92, 102; Nathan, 1991)


WARREN, Asa, New York, abolitionist leader.

(Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971)


WARREN, James, Cincinnati, Ohio, abolitionist.  Manager, 1833-1834, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS), December 1833.

(Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833)


WARREN, JLLF, Brighton, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Executive Committee, 1842-43.


WASHBURN, Cadwallader Colden (April 22, 1818-May 14, 1882), soldier, congressman, governor of Wisconsin, anti-slavery Republican congressman. Washburn's excellent reputation, and his early adherence to the principles upon which the Republican party was founded, brought him an unsolicited nomination and election to Congress in 1854. He sat in three successive congresses, his brother Israel [q.v.] represented a Maine district, and his brother Elihu an Illinois district. The three brothers, to the satisfaction of their respective constituencies, lent one another much aid, particularly on local matters. His outstanding act was to oppose vigorously a House plan to pacify the South by so amending the Constitution as to continue slavery indefinitely. His participation in the Washington Peace Convention of 1861 showed his desire to prevent war.

(Gaillard Hunt, Israel, Elihu and Cadwallader Washburn (1925); David Atwood and others, "In Memoriam: Hon. Cadwallader C. Washburn," Wisconsin Historical Society Collection,   volume IX (1882); C. W. Butterfield, "Cadwallader C. Washburn," Northwest Review (Minneapolis), March 1883).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 405-496:

WASHBURN, CADWALLADER COLDEN (April 22, 1818-May 14, 1882), soldier, congressman, governor of Wisconsin, pioneer industrialist, was one of the seven sons (an eighth died in infancy) of Israel and Martha (Benjamin) Washburn. His ancestry on both sides went back to early Massachusetts Puritans on the paternal side to John Washburn who settled in Duxbury in 1632-and his two grandfathers, Captain Israel Washburn and Lieutenant Samuel Benjamin, served with distinction in the Revolutionary War. In 1809 Washburn's father, who had left the ancestral home in Raynham, Massachusetts, three years before, bought a farm and a store at Livermore, Androscoggin County, Maine. Here he married and brought up his numerous brood of children, which included, besides the boys, three girls; Members of so large a family could not stay for long under the parental rooftree; hence, in 1839, equipped with what education he could get from the town schools, and deeply impressed by the advice of Reuel Washburn, a lawyer uncle, Cadwallader borrowed enough money to pay his way to the West, and was soon in Davenport, Iowa. Here, and across the Mississippi in Illinois, he taught school, worked in a store, did some surveying, and read law. In 1842 he opened a law office at Mineral Point, Wisconsin a small town not far from Galena, Illinois, where his brother Elihu B. Washburne [q.v.] had settled two years before. The foundation of his great fortune was soon laid. In 1844 he formed a partnership with Cyrus Woodman, an experienced land agent, and gradually abandoned the law for the far more lucrative business of entering public lands for settlers. Before long he partners owned in their own right valuable pine, mineral, and agricultural lands, and for a short time they operated the Mineral Point Bank. After 1855, when the partnership was amicably dissolved, Washburn carried on his now extensive operations alone. Even politics and the Civil War did not interfere seriously with the normal growth of this pioneer fortune. Proud of his honesty, and of the record of his bank, which never suspended specie payments and liquidated by meeting every obligation in full, Washburn rarely won the ill will of his neighbors; but his judgment on business matters was sound, and the opportunities for making money in a rapidly developing country were abundant. Washburn's excellent reputation, and his early adherence to the principles upon which the Republican party was founded, brought him an unsolicited nomination and election to Congress in 1854. He sat in three successive congresses, in each of which, by an odd coincidence, his brother Israel [q.v.] represented a Maine district, and his brother Elihu an Illinois district. The three brothers, to the satisfaction of their respective constituencies, lent one another much aid, particularly on local matters, but the representative from Wisconsin achieved no very great national prominence. His outstanding act was to oppose vigorously a House plan to pacify the South by so amending the Constitution as to continue slavery indefinitely; but his participation in the Washington Peace Convention of 1861 showed his desire to prevent war. When war came nevertheless, his record was admirable. He raised the 2nd Wisconsin Volunteer Cavalry, became its colonel, and by the end of 1862 was a major-general. His command saw hard service in most of the campaigns west of the Mississippi River, and participated in the fighting around Vicksburg. When the war ended, he was in charge of the Department of Western Tennessee, with headquarters at Memphis. After the war, as a rich man and a former major-general of volunteers, Washburn was clearly marked for a political career if he desired it, but politics never absorbed his chief interest. He served two more terms in Congress, 1867-71, as a thoroughly regular Republican, and one term,  January 1, 1872, to December 31, 1873, as governor of Wisconsin. He would probably have welcomed a seat in the United States Senate, or a cabinet appointment, but these honors were denied him, and he was content to devote his later years to the operation and expansion of his vast industrial enterprises. His pine lands brought him into the lumber business and his shrewd acquisition of water-power rights at the Falls of St. Anthony (Minneapolis) on the upper Mississippi enabled him to become one of the nation's foremost manufacturers of flour. In 1856 he helped organize the Minneapolis Mill Company, of which his younger brother, William D. Washburn [q.v.] became secretary. Some fifteen years later C. C. Washburn was one of the first to adopt the "New Process" of milling, which created a demand for the spring wheat of the Northwest and completely revolutionized the flour industry in the United States. Like his great rival, Charles A. Pillsbury [q.v.], he was prompt in substituting rollers for millstones. In 1877 Washburn, Crosby & Company was organized, and two years later reorganized, with Washburn, John Crosby, Charles J. Martin, and William E. Dunwoody [q.v.], as partners. Naturally Washburn's wealth drew him into many other lines of business. He was, for example, one of the projectors and builders of the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad. His private life was saddened, though not embittered, by the insanity of his wife, Jeannette Garr, a visitor to the West from New York City, whom he married  January 1, 1849. She became an invalid after the birth of their second child in 1852, and although she survived her husband by many years her mind was never restored. Perhaps as an outlet to his feelings, Washburn took much satisfaction in his philanthropies, among which were the Washburn Observatory of the University of Wisconsin, the Public Library at La Crosse (his residence after 1859), and an orphan asylum in Minneapolis. He suffered a stroke of paralysis in 1881, and died a year later at Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

[A manuscript sketch of C. C. Washburn's life, prepared by his brother Elihu, together with an extensive collection of Washburn and Woodman papers, is in the possession of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. See also Gaillard Hunt, Israel, Elihu and Cadwallader Washburn (1925); David Atwood and others, "In Memoriam: Hon. Cadwallader C. Washburn," Wisconsin Historical Society Collection,   volume IX (1882); C. W. Butterfield, "Cadwallader C. Washburn," Northwest Review (Minneapolis), March 1883; Biographical History of La Crosse, Trempealeau and Buffalo Counties, Wisconsin (1892); C. B. Kuhlmann, The Development of the Flour-Milling Industry in the U. S. (1929); W. C. Edgar, The Medal of Gold (1925); New York Times, May 1s, 1882; Republican and Leader (La Crosse), May 20, 27, 1882.]

J. D. H-s.


WASHBURN, Elihu Benjamin [See WASHBURNE, Elihu Benjamin, 1816-1887].


WASHBURN, Ichabod, 1798-1868, Worcester, Massachusetts, manufacturer, philanthropist, abolitionist.  Church Anti-Slavery Society, Treasurer, 1859-1864. 

(Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, p. 501)


WASHBURN, Israel (June 6, 1813-May 12, 1883), lawyer, congressman, governor of Maine, was a brother of Elihu B. Washburne, Cadwallader C. Washburn, and William D. Washburn [qq.v.]. In 1850 was elected, and for the next ten years represented the Penobscot district, first as a whig and later as a Republican. During part of that time his brothers Cadwallader and Elihu were all in the House, representing Wisconsin and Illinois respectively. His part in founding the Republican party was his most distinctive work in Washington. On May 9, 1854, the day after the Kansas-Nebraska bill passed the House, he called a meeting of some thirty anti-slavery representatives at the rooms of two Massachusetts congressmen; this group took further steps toward organizing a new party and Washburn is a strong contender for the honor of having been the first to suggest the name "Republican." He used it publicly shortly afterwards in a speech at Bangor. Washburn steadily and strongly opposed the extension of slavery.

(Gaillard Hunt, Israel, Elihu and Cadwallader Washburn (1925); In Memoriam: Israel Washburn, Jr. (1884); L. C. Hatch, Maine, a History (3 volumes, 1919); Henry Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power (3 volumes, 1873-77).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 502-503:

WASHBURN, ISRAEL (June 6, 1813-May 12, 1883), lawyer, congressman, governor of Maine, was a brother of Elihu B. Washburne, Cadwallader C. Washburn, and William D. Washburn [qq.v.]. They were born in Livermore, Maine, the sons of Israel and Martha (Benjamin) Washburn. Their father sat in the Massachusetts legislature from 1815 to 1819. The failure of his store in 1829 prevented Israel, eldest of eleven children, from attending college, but he studied law with his uncle, Reuel Washburn, and in 1834 was admitted to the bar. He made his home at Orono until 1863, when he moved to Portland. He held several local offices and sat in the Maine legislature in 1842 during the Northeast Boundary dispute. In 1848 he was defeated for Congress but in 1850 was elected, and for the next ten years represented the Penobscot district, first as a whig and later as a Republican. During part of that time his brothers Cadwallader and Elihu were all in the House, representing Wisconsin and Illinois respectively.

His part in founding the Republican party was his most distinctive work in Washington. On May 9, 1854, the day after the Kansas-Nebraska bill passed the House and ten weeks after the original meeting at Ripon, Wisconsin, he called a meeting of some thirty anti-slavery representatives at the rooms of two Massachusetts congressmen; this group took further steps toward organizing a new party and Washburn is a strong contender for the honor of having been the first to suggest the name "Republican." He used it publicly shortly afterwards in a speech at Bangor. Washburn steadily and strongly opposed the extension of slave1'y; in 1856 he supported Nathaniel P. Banks [q.v.] for the speakership; for a time he was chairman of the committee on ways and means.

On January 1, 1861, he resigned from the House to succeed Lot M. Morrill [q.v.] as governor of Maine; later that year he was reelected. He has been ranked with John A. Andrew and Oliver P. Morton [qq.v.] among "the great war governors of the North" (Hamlin, post, p. 357), because of his contribution to Maine's excellent war record. Immediately upon the call for volunteers, he summoned the legislature to meet in special session and, though Maine was asked for only two regiments, that body provided for ten, appropriating a million dollars. By 1862, however, recruiting had slackened, and Washburn wrote Lincoln that he would have to resort to drafting to secure "three-year" men. He declined renomination for the governorship and in 1863 was appointed collector of the port of Portland. He was several times disappointed in his cherished ambition of a Senate seat, partly through the opposition of James G. Blaine [q.v.]. In 1878, he lost his collectorship, after planning to buy a newspaper to attack the Blaine group. From March 3 of that year until his death he was president of the Rumford Falls & Buckfield Railroad.

Washburn has been described as a "solid, hard-working man of sound knowledge and of rigid integrity" (Hunt, post, p. 40). Short, serious, and spectacled, he was less impressive than his brothers i; appearance. He was quick-tempered, was a good story-teller, and had a strong love of literature. He wrote Notes, Historical, Descriptive, and Personal, of Livermore ... Maine (1874), read papers on the "North-Eastern Boundary" and on Ether Shepley before the Maine Historical Society (Collections, I series, VIII, 1881), and was a frequent contributor to the Universalist Quarterly. He was a trustee oi Tufts College from its opening in 1852 until his death, declining an offer of the presidency in 1878. On October 24, 1841, he married Mary Maud Webster of Orono, by whom he had two sons and two daughters. She died in 1873 and he married in January 1876 Rebina Napier Brown of Bangor. He died in Philadelphia, whither he had gone for medical treatment, and was buried in Bangor.

[Gaillard Hunt, Israel, Elihu and Cadwallader Washburn (1925); In Memoriam: Israel Washburn, Jr. (1884); L. C. Hatch, Maine, a History (3 volumes, 1919); Henry Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power (3 volumes, 1873-77); J. S. Pike, First Blows of the Civil War (1879); C. E. Hamlin, Life and Times of Hannibal Hamlin (1899); Francis Curtis, The Republican Party, a History (2 volumes, 1904); F. A. Shannon, Organization and Administration of the Union Army, (2 volumes, 1928), I, 272; Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); New England Historical and Genealogical Register, January 1884; New York Herald, May 13, 1883; Daily Eastern Argus (Portland), May 14, 1883.]

J.B.P.


WASHBURN, William Barrett, 1820-1887, businessman. Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts.  U.S. Senator.  Served in Congress 1863-1872, and U.S. Senate May 1874-March 1875.  Voted for the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, p. 372; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, pp. 372:

WASHBURN, William Barrett, senator, born in Winchendon, Massachusetts, 31 January, 1820; died in Springfield, Massachusetts, 5 October, 1887. He was graduated at Yale in 1844, and became a manufacturer at Greenfield, Massachusetts, where he was for many years president of the National bank, and which he represented in both branches of the legislature in 1850-'4. He was identified with the Republican party from its organization in 1856, and at the beginning of the civil war contributed liberally to the National cause. In 1862 he was sent to congress as a Republican, and he was returned biennially till on 1 January, 1872, he resigned his seat to become governor of Massachusetts. This office he resigned also during his third term to fill the vacancy that was made in the U. S. senate by the death of Charles Sumner, serving from 1 May, 1874, till 3 March, 1875, when he withdrew from public affairs. Besides holding many offices of trust under corporate societies, he was a trustee of Yale, of the Massachusetts agricultural college, and of Smith college, of which he was also a benefactor, and a member of the board of overseers of Amherst from 1864 till 1877. Harvard conferred the degree of LL. D. upon him in 1872. By his will he made the American board, the American home missionary society, and the American missionary association residuary legatees, leaving to each society about $50,000. He was also a great benefactor of the Greenfield public library. He died suddenly while attending a session of the American board of commissioners for foreign missions, of which he was a member.  Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, pp. 372.


WASHBURNE, Elihu Benjamin, 1816-1887, statesman, lawyer.  Member of the U.S. House of Representatives.  Congressman from December 1853 through march 1869.  Called “Father of the House.”  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, pp. 370-371; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, p. 504; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 22, p. 750; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe).  Dictionary of

American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, p. 504:

WASHBURNE, ELIHU BENJAMIN (September 23, 1816--October 23, 1887), congressman, cabinet member, diplomat, historian, was the third of eleven children born to Israel and Martha (Benjamin) Washburn at Livermore, Maine. After the failure of the father's country store in 1829 the large family was forced to rely on a small and not-too-fertile farm for subsistence, and as a result several of the brothers, among them Elihu, were early forced to fend for themselves. Leaving home at the age of fourteen, he added an "e" to his name in imitation of his English forebears and embarked on the road of education and hard work which led him to a position not the least prominent among five brothers-Israel, Cadwallader C., William D. [qq. v.], Elihu, and Charles-notable for their service to state and nation.

A short experience at farm work convinced him that he was not destined for an agricultural career; he disliked his three months of school teaching more than anything he ever turned his hand to; a newspaper publisher to whom he apprenticed himself failed, and while he was working for another printer a hernia incapacitated him for further typesetting. These experiences led him to the decision to study law, and accordingly, after several months in Maine Wesleyan Seminary, Kent's Hill, followed by an apprenticeship in a Boston law office, he entered the Harvard Law School in 1839, where he came under the influence of Joseph Story [q.v.]. Armed with membership in the Massachusetts bar and a few law books, he turned his face westward in 1840, resolved to settle in Iowa Territory.

His brother Cadwallader, who had already settled at Rock Island, Illinois, persuaded the newcomer that Illinois was a more favorable location than Iowa, and that the most likely place for a briefless lawyer was the boom town of Galena, where lead mines had recently been opened. Within a month after his arrival Washburne had begun to make a living and some political speeches. He presently formed a connection which was to be of considerable importance, both personally and professionally, with Charles Hempstead, the leader of the town's dozen lawyers. The latter, partially paralyzed, needed clerical assistance in his practice and in return threw sundry minor cases to his quasi-partner. This association lasted for a year, after which Washburne practised independently until 1845, when he entered an actual partnership with Hempstead. In this year he married, July 31, one of his benefactor's relatives, Adele Gratiot, a descendant of the French settlers around St. Louis. Seven children were born to them. Washburne's connection by marriage with Missouri, indirect though it was, commended him to the attention of Thomas Hart Benton [q. v.] on his entry into Congress eight years later, and was of no disadvantage in launching his career.

His moderate earnings from the law were transmuted into a comfortable competence by careful investments in western lands, and he gradually turned his energies into political channels. He became a wheel-horse of the local Whig party, placed Henry Clay in nomination for the presidency at Baltimore in 1844, and ran unsuccessfully for Congress four years later. He was more fortunate in 1852, and in the following year began sixteen years of service in the House which covered the periods of the Civil War and reconstruction. He kept a sharp lookout for the interests of his section (particularly directed toward preventing the misappropriation of public lands to the uses of railroad speculators) and at the same time cast a keen and malevolent eye upon those who would raid the federal treasury. The lobbyist or the known corruptionist fared badly at his hands, and his last long speech in the House (January 6, 1869), on a pension bill, was one of a number of blasts against those who were at the time leading Congress along forbidden paths. For a time he was chairman of the committee on commerce and for two years, chairman of the committee on appropriations, where his efforts to keep down expenses made him the first of a long succession of "watchdogs of the treasury."

Physical disabilities kept him from active military duty during the Civil War, but he used his talents in Congress to aid his personal and political friend Lincoln, and to forward the military fortunes of his fellow townsman and protege, Ulysses S. Grant. He was the sole person to greet Lincoln on his secret arrival in Washington for the inauguration in 1861 (Hunt, post, pp. 229-30). He proposed Grant's name as brigadier-general of volunteers and sponsored the bills by which Grant was made successively lieutenant-general and general. When war gave way to reconstruction, Washburne found himself in the forefront of the Radicals and a member of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction. He turned against Lincoln's successor and when members of the vindictive party "competed with one another in phrasing violent abuse of Andrew Johnson ... Elihu Washburne deserved one of the prizes" (Ibid., p. 238).

His early sponsorship of Grant continued through the campaign of 1868, when Grant heard the news of his election over telegraph wires run to Washburne's library in Galena. His stanch support was rewarded by appointment as secretary of state in Grant's cabinet, a post which he assumed March 5, 1869, resigned March 10, and vacated March 16. It is probable that this was a courtesy appointment preliminary to his designation, March 17, as minister to France, and designed to give him prestige in the French capital. His connection with the Grant administration remained close and he and Grant were friends until the spring of 1880, when an abortive boom for Washburne ran foul of Grant's own futile aspirations for a third term. Washburne himself immediately adhered to Grant's candidacy, though apparently without great enthusiasm, and remained at least outwardly loyal to his former chief. During the convention he himself received as many as forty-four votes, and it was later contended by his friends that with Grant's support he r:ould have received the nomination which went to Garfield. Be that as it may, Grant vented his disappointment on Washburne and the two never met again.

Meantime he had rendered capable service through very trying times in Europe. As minister to France he witnessed the downfall of the empire of the third Napoleon and, remaining until the autumn of 1877, rounded out the longest term of any American minister to France down to that time. He was the only official representative of a foreign government to remain in Paris throughout the siege and the Commune, and his two volumes of memoirs, Recollections of a Minister to France, 1869-1877 (1887), constitute a valuable account of those exciting days. In addition to his service to his own country, during the war he made himself useful by looking after the interests of German residents of France. On his retirement from public. life he devoted himself to historical and literary activities, serving as president of the Chicago Historical Society from 1884 to 1887 and publisi1ing, in addition to the Recollections of a Minister, several works of some historical value, particularly sketches of early Illinois political figures, pre-pared for the Chicago Historical Society. For the same society he edited "The Edwards Papers" (Collections, volume III, 1884), a selection from the manuscripts of Governor Ninian Edwards [ q.v.] of Illinois.

[Gaillard Hunt, Israel, Elihu, and Cadwallader Washburn (1925); J. V. Fuller, "Elihu Benjamin Washburne," in S. F. Bemis, The American Secretaries of State, volume VII (1928); G. W. Smith, "Elihu B. Washburne," in Chicago Historical Society Colts., volume IV (1890); Encyclopedia of Biography of Illinois, volume II (1894); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); General Grant's Letters to a Friend, 1861-1880 (1897), ed. by J. G. Wilson, being letters to Washburne; Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the U.S., 1870-77; Chicago Tribune, October 24, 1887; Washburne Papers (101 volumes), MSS. Division, Library of Congress]

L. E. E.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, pp. 370-371:

WASHBURNE, Elihu Benjamin, statesman, born in Livermore, Maine, 23 September, 1816; died in Chicago, Illinois, 22 October, 1887, wrote his family name with a final “e.” He was educated at public schools, and, after working on his father's farm, entered the office of the “Christian Intelligencer” in Gardiner in 1833 as a printer's apprentice. The paper was discontinued a year later, and he was chosen to teach in the district school. In May, 1835, he entered the office of the “Kennebec Journal,” at Augusta, where he continued for a year, during which time he rose gradually until he became an assistant of the editor, and acquired his first knowledge of political life during the sessions of the state legislature. He then decided to study law, and entered Kent's Hill Seminary in 1836. After a year in that institution he began his professional studies in the office of John Otis in Hallowell, who, impressed by his diligence and ambition, aided him financially and took him into his own home to board. In March, 1839, he entered the law-school at Harvard, where among his class-mates were Richard H. Dana. Charles Devens, and William M. Evarts. He was admitted to the bar in 1840, and at once determined to establish himself in the west. Settling in Galena, Illinois, he there entered into law-partnership with Charles S. Hempstead, and, being a strong Whig, made speeches in behalf of that party, which had nominated William H. Harrison for the presidency. In 1844 he was a delegate to the Whig national convention in Baltimore that selected Henry Clay as its candidate, and on his return he visited that statesman in Washington. Meanwhile his business increased, and he was frequently called upon to practise in the supreme court of the state. In 1848 he was nominated for congress in the Galena district, but was defeated by Colonel Edward D. Baker. In 1852, as a delegate to the National Whig convention, he advocated the nomination of General Winfield Scott, and in the same year he was elected to congress, serving thereafter from 5 December, 1853, till 6 March, 1869. He soon gained an excellent reputation, and, on the election of Nathaniel P. Banks as speaker in 1855, was given the chairmanship of the committee on commerce, which he held for ten years. He was selected by the house to accompany William H. Seward, representing the senate, to receive Abraham Lincoln when he arrived in Washington after his election. From the length of his continuous service he became recognized as the “Father of the House,” and in that capacity administered the oath as speaker to Schuyler Colfax three times, and to James G. Blaine once. From his continual habit of closely scrutinizing all demands that were made upon the treasury and persistently demanding that the finances of the government should be administered with the strictest economy, he acquired the name of the “Watch-dog of the Treasury.” He was a steadfast friend of Ulysses S. Grant during the civil war, and every promotion that the latter received was given either solely or in part upon the recommendation of Mr. Washburne. Subsequently he originated the bills that made General Grant lieutenant-general and general. Mr. Washburne was a member of the joint committee on reconstruction and chairman of the committee of the whole house in the matter of the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. He opposed all grants of the public lands and all subsidies to railroad companies, and resisted with all his power what he called “the greatest legislative crime in history”—the bill that subordinated the first mortgage of the government on the Pacific railroad to the mortgage of the railroad companies. He also opposed “log rolling” river and harbor bills, all extravagant appropriations for public buildings, all subsidies for steamship lines, and all undue renewals of patents. Among the important bills that he introduced was the one that provided for the establishment of national cemeteries. At the beginning of his administration President Grant appointed Mr. Washburne secretary of state, which office he resigned soon afterward to become minister to France. This place he held during the Franco-Prussian war, and on the withdrawal of the German ambassador, the latter was ordered by Count Bismarck to turn over his archives to the American legation. At the request of Bismarck, and with the permission of the French minister of foreign affairs, he exercised his official influence with remarkable tact and skill for the protection of the Germans in Paris and acted as the representative of the various German states and other foreign governments. When the empire was overthrown, Mr. Washburne was the first foreign representative to recognize the new republic. He remained in Paris during the siege, and was at his post when the Commune ruled the city. He visited the venerable archbishop Darboy of Paris when he was hurried to prison, and succeeded in having the prelate removed to more comfortable quarters, but failed to prevent his murder. He retained the respect and good-will of the French during all the changes of government, and the emperor of Germany recognized his services by conferring upon him the Order of the Red Eagle. This he declined, owing to the provision of the U. S. constitution that prevented its acceptance, but on his resignation in 1877 the emperor sent him his life-size portrait, and he was similarly honored by Bismarck, Thiers, and Gambetta. On his return to this country he settled in Chicago, and in 1880 his name was brought forward as a candidate for the presidency, but he refused to have it presented to the convention. He was president of the Chicago historical society from November, 1884, till his death, and was frequently invited to lecture on his foreign experiences. He wrote a series of articles on that subject for “Scribner's Magazine,” which were expanded into “Recollections of a Minister to France, 1869-1877” (2 vols., New York, 1887). His collection of pictures, documents, and autographs he desired to be given to the city of Chicago, provided they should be exhibited free to the general public. Efforts are being made to secure the erection of a suitable building in Lincoln park for their exhibition. Mr. Washburne edited “History of the English Settlement in Edwards County, Illinois” (Chicago, 1882); and “The Edwards Papers” (1884). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, pp. 370-371.


WASHINGTON, Augustus, 1820-1875, African American, abolitionist, newspaper publisher, Liberian statesman, Black civil rights activist, educator.  Rejected, then later supported African colonization.  Emigrated to Liberia.  Elected to Liberian House of Representatives in 1863 and later became Speaker.  In 1871, elected to Liberian Senate.

(Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Volume 11, p. 458). 


WASHINGTON, Bushrod, 1762-1829, Washington, DC, founding officer and life member and supporter of the American Colonization Society. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, p. 384; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, p. 508; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 27, 30, 34, 36, 51, 70, 128, 173)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, p. 384:

WASHINGTON, Bushrod, jurist, born in Westmoreland county, Virginia, 5 June, 1762; died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 26 November, 1829, was the son of John Augustine, a younger brother of the general. He was graduated at William and Mary in 1778, studied law with James Wilson, of Philadelphia, and began practice in his native county. His professional duties were interrupted by his entrance into the patriot army, and he served as a private in the Revolution. He was a member of the Virginia house of delegates in 1 787, and the next year of that to ratify the constitution of the United States. He subsequently removed to Alexandria, and thence to Richmond, Virginia. He was appointed an associate justice of the U. S. supreme court in 1798, which office he held until his death. Judge Washington was the first president of the Colonization society, and a learned jurist. He was the favorite nephew of General Washington. At the death of Mrs. Washington he inherited the mansion and 400 acres of the Mount Vernon estate. He died without issue. Judge Washington’s publications include “Reports of Cases argued and determined in the Court of Appeals of Virginia” (2 vols., Richmond, Virginia, 1798-'9), and “Reports of Cases determined in the Circuit Court of the United States, for the 3d Circuit, from 1803 till 1827,” edited by Richard Peters (4 vols., 1826-'9). Of these Horace Binney says in his “Life of Bushrod Washington” (printed privately, Philadelphia, 1858): “I have never thought that his reports of his own decisions did him entire justice, while they in no inadequate manner at all fully represent his judicial powers, nor the ready command he held of his learning in the law.” See also a sketch of Judge Washington in Mr. Justice Story's “Miscellaneous Writings” (Philadelphia, 1852).  Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.


WASHINGTON, George, 1732-1799, Westmoreland County, Virginia, general, statesman, first President of the United States.  Washington was the owner of Mt. Vernon estate, which had numerous enslaved peoples.  He, however, wrote that he was, in principle, opposed to slavery. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, pp. 373-384. Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography, 1936, Volume XIX, pp. 509-527; Longacre, James B. & James Herring, National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans.  Philadelphia: American Academy of Fine Arts, 1834-1839)


WATERBURY, Calvin, abolitionist, agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS),m worked in Ohio and New York. 

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 185)


WATERS, George, Holden, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1838-40.


WATERS, Henry, abolitionist.  American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Executive Committee, 1853-55.


WATKINS, William, Baltimore, Maryland, African American, abolitionist leader, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1834-35.  Worked with abolitionist leader William Lloyd Garrison.  Opposed colonization to Africa.  Advocate of Black education. 

(Sinha, 2016, pp. 83, 116, 170, 199, 202-204, 206, 220, 301, 303)


WATKINS, William J., African American abolitionist.  Son of William Watkins.


WATTERSON, Harvey Magee (November 23, 1811-October 1, 1891), editor and congressman from Tennessee.  In 1851 he went to Washington as editor of the Washington Union. Watterson had always been a Democrat, but he was opposed to the extension of slavery and retired from the editorship of the Union because he could not support the policy of the administration in regard to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. He opposed session and remained a Unionist throughout the Civil War.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 551-552:

WATTERSON, HARVEY MAGEE (November 23, 1811-October 1, 1891), editor and congressman from Tennessee, was born at Beech Grove, Bedford County, Tennessee. His father, William S. Waterson, emigrated from Virginia to Tennessee in 1804, served on Andrew Jackson's staff in the War of 1812, accumulated a fortune as a cotton planter, and was a prominent figure in the Tennessee railroad movement at the time of his death in 1851. Harvey Watterson was educated at Cumberland College, Princeton, Kentucky. He studied law, was admitted to the bar, and began the practice of his profession at Shelbyville, Tennessee, in 1830. The next year he was elected to the lower house of the state legislature and by successive reëlections served until 1839 (Courier-Journal, post). In that year he was elected to the federal House of Representatives and was reelected in 1841. According to the testimony of his son, Watterson did not take his duties at Washington seriously, but, provided with an excellent income by his father, directed his energies to revelry and occasional escapades of a graver nature, "his principal yokemate in the pleasures and dissipations of those times being Franklin Pierce" (Marse Henry, post, I, 26). At the end of his second term in the house he was sent by President Tyler on a diplomatic mission to Buenos Aires to obtain information on the foreign relations of Argentina, commercial matters, and the war then raging with Uruguay. In February 1844 he was nominated charge, but the Senate in the following June rejected the nomination (S. F. Bemis, American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy, volume V, 1928, p. 216).

Returning to Tennessee in 1845, Watterson was at once elected to the state Senate and was made its presiding officer. In September 1849 he became the proprietor of the Nashville Daily Union, whose editorship he took over the following year (S. L. Sioussat, "Tennessee, the Compromise of 1850, and the Nashville Convention," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, December 1915, p. 235 n.). He remained as editor of the Nashville paper until 1851, when he went to Washington as editor of the Washington Union. Watterson had always been a Democrat, but he was opposed to the extension of slavery and retired from the editorship of the Union because he could not support the policy of the administration in regard to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. He retired to private life in Tennessee, refusing the governorship of Oregon, and, in 1857, a nomination to Congress. He supported Stephen A. Douglas [q.v.] in the campaign of 1860. He was a member of the secession convention of Tennessee but opposed secession. He remained a Unionist throughout the war, living in retirement on his plantation at Beech Grove. He supported Andrew Johnson [q.v.] during his presidency, and for the ten years after the war lived at Washington engaged in the practice of law. After the death of his wife he divided his time between Washington and Louisville, Kentucky, where his son, Henry Watterson [q.v.], was editor of the Courier-Journal. At the time of his death he was on the editorial staff of the Courier-Journal, in which his writings were signed "An Old Fogy." He was buried in the Cave Hill Cemetery at Louisville. Watterson married in 1830 Talitha Black, daughter of James Black of Maury County, Tennessee. He was a member of the Presbyterian Church. He was sponsored in his political life by Andrew Jackson [q.v.], the close friend of his father. In ante-helium days he was a man of great influence in Tennessee politics and was the recognized leader of the Union wing of the Democratic party in the last decade before the war. He was a vigorous editor and a writer of merit, but his reputation in that line as in others has been obscured by the fame of his son, and only child.

[See obituary in Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky), October 2, 1891; Henry Watterson, "Marse Henry"; an A1ttobiography (2 volumes, 1919); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); and The South in the Building of the Nation (1909), volume XII.]

R.S.C.


WATTLES, Augustus, 1807-1883, established school for free Blacks.  He donated his entire inheritance to found trade and agricultural schools for them in Indiana and Ohio.  Agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society.  Worked with Emigrant Aid Society in Lawrence, Kansas.  Edited Herald of Freedom. 

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 164-165; Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 104, 155, 394n31, 403n29).  Dictionary of American Biography)


WATTLES, John O., Clermont County, Ohio, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1840-42.


WAUGH, J. S., Butler County, Ohio, Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1835-39.


WAY, Henry H., Indiana, Society of Friends, Quaker, abolitionist, editor of the Free Labor Advocate newspaper of the Friends Anti-Slavery Society.

(Drake, Thomas. Quakers and Slavery in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1950, p. 165)


WAYLAND, Francis, 1796-1865, New York, New York, educator, physician, anti-slavery activist. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, p. 397; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, p. 558)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, p. 397:

WAYLAND, Francis, educator, born in New York city, 11 March, 1796; died in Providence, Rhode Island, 30 September, 1865. He was the son of Francis Wayland, a Baptist minister, who emigrated from England, and was the pastor of churches in Poughkeepsie, Troy, Albany, and Saratoga Springs. The son was graduated in 1813 at Union college, then under the presidency of Dr. Eliphalet Nott, whose spirit and methods influenced largely his own future course as a college president. Immediately upon his graduation he spent three years in the study of medicine. Having meanwhile united with a Baptist church, and feeling that duty called him to the Christian ministry, he entered in 1816 the Andover theological seminary, but at the end of a year he left to become a tutor in Union college, which office he held for four years. He was called in 1821 to the pastorate of the 1st Baptist church in Boston, and soon became recognized as a man of rich and varied gifts. His preaching, though unaided by an attractive delivery, was greatly admired for its broad and deep thoughtfulness and its fine grace of expression. His sermons on “The Moral Dignity of the Missionary Enterprise” (1823) and “The Duties of an American Citizen” (1825) placed him in the front rank of American preachers. The former, in particular, has obtained wide celebrity. In 1826 he accepted a professorship in Union college, but he left it in February, 1827, to take the presidency of Brown university, which office he filled for twenty-eight years with distinguished honor to himself and the highest advantage to the university. It felt at once in all its departments the inspiration of a new life, and speedily enjoyed a greatly enlarged prosperity. Dr. Wayland's instructions in psychology, political economy, and ethics, especially the last, were in a high degree stimulating to his pupils, while his strong personality was felt by the students of every class as an educating and elevating force. Not satisfied with the old text-books, he prepared lectures on all the subjects that he taught. He delivered weekly sermons to the students in the chapel, often attended their prayer-meetings, and gathered them for Bible instruction. In all these services he was singularly effective. Though he was naturally conservative, his clear perceptions and sound judgment made him a pioneer reformer in educational methods. In 1850 his views led to a reorganization of Brown university, so as to give a place to the more modern branches of learning, and to allow a larger liberty in the election of studies, changes that since his day have almost universally been adopted. After his retirement from the presidency in 1855 he served for a year and a half as pastor of the 1st Baptist church in Providence. Subsequently he gave his strength to religious and humane work, devoting much time to the inmates of the Rhode Island state prison and reform school. He received the degree of D. D. from Union in 1827 and Harvard in 1829, and that of LL. D. from the latter in 1852. Dr. Wayland was a prolific author. Besides about fifty sermons and addresses, his published works are “Occasional Discourses” (Boston, 1833); “Elements of Moral Science” (New York, 1835; abridged ed. for schools, Boston, 1836; with notes and analysis by Joseph Angus, D. D., London, 1857; with analysis by Reverend George B. Wheeler, 1863; translated into several foreign languages) “Elements of Political Economy” (New York, 1837; abridged ed., Boston, 1840); “Moral Law of Accumulation” (Boston, 1837); “The Limitations of Human Responsibility” (1838); “Thoughts on the Present Collegiate System in the United States” (1842); '”Domestic Slavery considered as a Scriptural Institution,” a correspondence between Dr. Wayland and Reverend Richard Fuller, of Beaufort, South Carolina (1845); “Sermons delivered in the Chapel of Brown University” (1849); “Report to the Corporation of Brown University on the Changes in the System of Collegiate Education” (Providence, 1850); memoirs of Harriet Ware (1850) and Adoniram Judson (2 vols., Boston, 1853); “Elements of Intellectual Philosophy” (1854); “Notes on the Principles and Practices of Baptist Churches” (1857); “Sermons to the Churches” (1858); “Salvation by Christ” (1859); “Letters on the Ministry of the Gospel,” addressed to Heman Lincoln (1863); and “Memoir of Thomas Chalmers, D. D.” (1864). See a memoir, with selections from his personal reminiscences and correspondence, by his sons, Francis and Heman Lincoln Wayland (2 vols., New York, 1867), and his funeral sermon by Prof. George I. Chace (1866).  Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.


WAYNE, James Moore, 1790-1867, Savannah, Georgia, jurist, Court of Common Pleas.  Member of the Savannah auxiliary of the American Colonization Society. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, p. 400; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, p. 565; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 71)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, p. 400:

WAYNE, James Moore, jurist, born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1790; died in Washington, D. C., 5 July, 1867. He was graduated at Princeton in 1808, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1810, and began practice at Savannah. He served for two years in the state house of representatives, was elected mayor of Savannah in 1823, and chosen judge of the superior court in 1824, serving for five years. He was a member of congress in 1829-'35, took an active part as a debater, and was a supporter of General Andrew Jackson, who appointed him, 9 January, 1835, associate justice of the U. S. supreme court. His opinions upon admiralty jurisprudence are cited as being of high authority. In congress he favored free-trade, opposed internal improvements by congress, except of rivers and harbors, and opposed a recharter of the U. S. bank, claiming that it would confer dangerous political powers upon a few individuals. He took an active part in the removal of the Indians to the west. Judge Wayne presided in two conventions that were held for revising the constitution of Georgia. Princeton college gave him the degree of LL. D. in 1849. Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.



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.