Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1889, volume 6).djvu/48

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TALON
TANEY

fisheries along the river St. Lawrence, built the first brewery in North America, and tried to open a road across the country to Acadia. Under his auspices Saint-Simon and Albanel penetrated to Hudson bay, and Daumont de Saint-Lusson took possession in the king's name of the country of the upper lakes, and he prepared the way for the remarkable series of explorations that led to the discovery of the whole of the great northwest. He urged upon the king a measure from which, according to Francis Parkraan, had it taken effect, momentous consequences must have sprung. This was the purchase or seizure of New York, involving the isolation of New England, the subjection of the Iroquois, and the undisputed control for France of half the American continent. He also established a military aristocracy in Canada, promoted immigration, and took special care to provide for the increase of the population, laying restrictions and taxes upon the unmarried of" both sexes. His health failing in 1668, he asked for his recall, which Louis XIV. granted with strong expressions of regret; but two years later he resumed the intendancy till 1672, when he returned to France and obtained a high post in the king's household. In 1671 the seigniory that he had founded at Des Islets in Canada was erected into a barony : in 1675 his two other seigniories of Ormale and Orsainville were likewise made baronies, and he afterward took the title of Count d'Orsainville. In 1666 he addressed to the king a memoir upon the Indian company, and his "Memoire a Sa Majeste sur l'etat present du Canada" (1667), which is preserved in the National library at Paris, has always been consulted by the Canadian historians, and is greatly praised by Francis Parkman in his " Old Regime in Canada." Talon's portrait is preserved in the Hotel -Dieu of Quebec.


TALON, Pierre, explorer, b. in Canada in the second half of the 17th century; d. after 1700. His father, Lucien, accompanied by the entire family, joined La Salle's expedition in 1684. He was also, with a younger brother, a member of the party that entered the country of the Illinois in 1687. After the assassination of La Salle, Pierre took refuge among the Cenis Indians, by whom he was well treated. On the arrival of a Spanish force at the village, he was arrested, but was soon released and asked to remain, as interpreter, with Franciscan missionaries who accompanied the soldiers. He then told the Spaniards that his three brothers and a sister were slaves among the Clamcoets or Carancaguaces. and, at his request, a detachment was sent for them. Two of his brothers and his sister were rescued, but the other brother remained with the Indians until 1691. They all went to Mexico after some time, and were taken into the service of the viceroy. Talon wrote an account of the death of La Salle, which is preserved in the French depot de la marine, and is entitled " Interrogations faites a Pierre et Jean Talon, par ordre de Mr. le Comte de Pontchartrain, a leur arrivee de la Vera Cruz, le 14 Septembre, 1698." Charlevoix made use of this document in his account of the death of La Salle. He says that the author, who seems strongly prejudiced against La Salle, agrees with Joutel as to the manner of the murder, but not as to the names of the assassins and the attendant circumstances.


TALTON, Augustus, clergyman, b. in Ralls county, Mo., in 1854. He is the first colored Roman Catholic priest in the United States. He was born in slavery and suffered many hardships in his childhood, but at length escaped with his Earents, reaching Quincy, 111., in 1861. In childhood e showed an aptitude for learning, and in his days of bondage it was no unusual thing for him to sit up half the night painfully spelling his way through such books as came within his reach. He was employed in a tobacco-factory in Quincy, but still continued his night studies under the auspices of the professors in St. Francis's college. In 1873, when he left the tobacco-factory, by doing odd jobs, he was able to spend part of the day in the college. He set out for Rome on 15 Feb., 1880, and, entering one of the colleges of the Propaganda on 12 March, spent two years in studying philosophy and four in going through the theological curriculum, and attracted the favorable notice of his superiors. He was ordained priest on 24 April, 1886, and returned to Quincy, 111., where he was appointed pastor of a white congregation.


TAMMANY, Indian chief, lived in the 17th century. He was chief of the Delawares, and was variously called Temane, Tamenand, Taminent, Tameny, and Tammany. According to one account, he was the first Indian to welcome William Penn to this country, and was a party to Penn's famous treaty. Another story places his wigwam on the present site of Princeton college, and another says that he lived in the hills of northeastern Pennsylvania, and that he died at an advanced age near a spring in Bucks county, Pa. He was a sagamore, and belonged to the Lenni Lennape confederacy of New York and Pennsylvania, which warred perpetually against the Six Nations and the Manhattan Indians. The tradition is that the evil spirit sought to gain a share in the administration of his kingdom, but Tammany refused to hold intercourse with him. The enemy then resorted to strategy, and attempted to enter his country, but was foiled by the chief, and at length determined to destroy him. A duel was waged for many moons, during which forests were trampled under foot, which have since remained prairie lands. Finally Tammany tripped his adversary, threw him to the ground, and would have scalped him, but the evil spirit extricated himself and escaped to Manhattan, where he was welcomed by the natives, and afterward made his home with them. Tammany appears to have been a brave and influential chieftain, and his nation reverenced his memory by bestowing his name upon those that deserved that honor. He is now chiefly known as the patron of a Democratic political organization in New York city called the Tammany society.


TANEY, Roger Brooke (taw'-ny), jurist, b. in Calvert county, Md., 17 March, 1777; d. in Washington, D. C., 12 Oct., 1864. He was the son of a Roman Catholic planter, of a family that came to Maryland in the early emigration from England, who had been educated in St. Omer, France, and Bruges, United Netherlands, in the Jesuit college, and was frequently elected to the house of delegates. The son was graduated at Dickinson college in 1795. He read law in Annapolis with Jeremiah Chase, then a judge of the general court, and was admitted to the bar in 1799. His father, who was ambitious of political honors for his son, persuaded him to begin practice in his native county, where, in the autumn of the same year, he was elected to the house of delegates. He was the youngest member in that body, yet was distinguished for the maturity of his opinions and his dialectic powers. He was defeated at the next election by a Republican, and in March, 1801, removed to Frederick. Although he was unknown in that part of the state, his acuteness, thoroughness, and eloquence brought him a lucrative practice, and before many years passed he was retained