Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 1).djvu/154

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BACON
BACON

pastoral work, he occupied the chair of didactic theology in Yale until 1871, and thereafter was lecturer on ecclesiastical polity and American church history. He was a representative of the liberal orthodoxy and historic polity of the ancient New England churches. His life was incessantly occupied in the discussion of questions bearing on the interests of humanity and religion. Probably no subject of serious importance that came into general notice during his long career escaped his earnest and active attention. A public question which absorbed much of his thought after 1823 was that of slavery. His constant position was that of resistance to slavery on the one hand, and of resistance to the extravagances of certain abo- litionists on the other; and he thought himself well rewarded for forty years of debate, in which, as he was wont to say of himself, quoting the lan- guage of Baxter, that, " where others had had one enemy he had had two," when he learned that Abraham Lincoln referred to his volume on slavery as the source of his own clear and sober convictions on that subject. He was a strong supporter of the union throughout the civil war, and took active part in the va- rious constitu- tional, econom- ical, and moral discussions to which it gave rise. He was in- fluential in se- curing the re- peal of the "om- nibus clause " in the Connec- ticut divorce law. In March, 1874, he was moderator of the council that rebuked Henry

Ward Beecher’s

society for irregularly expelling Theodore Tilton, and in February, 1876, of the advisory council called by the Plymouth society. During his later years he was, by general consent, regarded as the foremost man among American Congregationalists. He became known in oral de- bate, in which he excelled, by his books, and pre- eminently by his contributions to the periodical press. From 1826 till 1838 he was one of' the edi- tors of the " Christian Spectator." In 1843 he aided in establishing " The New Englander " review, to which he continued to contribute copiously until his death. In that publication appeared many articles from his pen denouncing, on religious and political grounds, the policy of the government in respect to slavery. With Drs. Storrs and Thompson he founded the " Independent " in 1847, and contin- ued with them in the editorship of it for sixteen years. He had great delight in historical studies, especially in the history of the Puritans, both in England and in America. Besides innumerable pamphlets and reviews, he published " Select Works of Richard Baxter," with a biography (1830); "Manual for Young Church-Members" (1833) ; " Thirteen Historical Discourses " on the 200th anniversary of the beginning of the 1st church in New Plaven (1839) ; " Views and Re- views ; an Appeal against Division " (1840) ; " Sla- very Discussed in Occasional Essays " (1846) ; " Christian Self-Culture " (1862) ; ""Four Com- memorative Discourses " (1866) ; " Genesis of the New England Churches" (1874); "Sketch of Rev. David Bacon " (1876) ; and " Three Civic Orations for New Haven" (1879).— Delia, daughter of David, author, b. in Tallniadge, Ohio, 2 Feb., 1811 ; d. in Hartford, Coim., 2 Sept., 1859. She was a teacher, resided for some time in Boston, and there delivered a course of lectures. She published anony- mously " Tales of the Puritans " (New Haven), and " The Bride of Fort Edward," a drama (New York, 1839). Later she published in London and Boston " Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfold- ed" (1857), with a preface by Nathaniel Haw- thorne, in which she sought to prove that Lord Bacon, conjointly with other writers, was the author of the Shakespearean plays. See Haw- thorne's " Recollections of a Grif ted "Woman " in his "Our Old Home." and Mrs. Farrar's "Recollec- tions of Seventy Years." — Leonard's son, Leonard Woolsey, clergyman, b. in New Haven, Conn., 1 Jan., 1830. He was graduated at Yale in 1850, then studied theology at Andover and Yale, and medicine at Yale, receiving his degree in 1855. He served as pastor of Congregational or Presby- terian churches in Rochester, N. Y., Litchfield and Stamford, Conn., Brooklyn, N. Y., and Baltimore, Md., and then spent five years in Europe, chiefly at Geneva. Returning in 1877, he served as pastor in Norwich, Conn., and Philadelphia, Pa. He has written much for the periodical press, and pub- lished, besides pamphlets and musical composi- tions, " The Vatican Council " (1872) ; " Church Papers " (1876) ; " A Life worth Living : Life of Emily Bliss Gould " (1878) ; " Sunday Observance and Sunday Law," including six sermons on the Sabbath question, by his brother, George Blagdon Bacon (1882) ; " The Simplicity that is in Christ " (1886) ; and sundry translations from the French and German, and compilations of psalmody. — An- other son, Theodore, lawyer, and his five brothers, "have won professional and literary distinction. — A daughter, Rebecca Taylor, became distinguished by her philanthropic labors in the founding of the Hampton, Va., institute and the New Haven school of nursing.


BACON, David Francis, physician, b. in Pros- pect, Conn., 30 Nov., 1813; d. in New York, 23 Jan., 1866. He was graduated at Yale in 1831, and at the medical school in 1836. Soon after the completion of his studies he was sent as principal colonial physician to Liberia by the American colonization society. During the greater part of his life he resided in New York, and was actively interested in politics. He was a frecpient contrib- utor to periodical literature, and published " Lives of the Apostles " (New York, 1835), and also " Wan- derings on the Seas and Shores of Africa " (1843).


BACON, David William, Catholic bishop, b. in Brooklyn, N. Y., in 1814; d. in New York, 5 Nov., 1874. He received a classical training in the New York Roman Catholic schools, whence he proceeded to Mount St. Mary's college and seminary, Emmettsburg, Md., and having completed his course returned to New York, where he was ordained in 1838, and soon afterward became pastor of the church of the Assumption in Brooklyn. He was unwearied in his efforts for the extension of the Roman Catholic church in that city, and, though his own congregation was the largest in Brooklyn, he was not satisfied until he had purchased the land and erected the church of St. Mary, Star of the Sea, at the corner of Court and Luqueer streets, the largest church edifice in the city, where he was pastor during the last years of his residence in Brooklyn. In 1855 he was consecrated bishop of the newly created diocese of Portland, Me., which