Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 1).djvu/155

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BACON
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embraced the states of Maine and New Hampshire. His labors here were unremitting, and were attended with great success. In August, 1874, he made a voyage to Europe for his health, which had been impaired by his labors, but it was too late for him to be benefited. On his arrival in France he was obliged to go immediately into the hospital at Brest, where he remained until he was carried on board ship to return, and, on his arrival in New York, was carried to St. Vincent's hospital, where he died the next evening. He was a man of fine personal presence and an accomplished scholar.


BACON, Edmund, lawyer, b. in Virginia in January, 1776; d. in Edgefield, S. C, 2 Feb., 1826. While quite young he was chosen by the citizens of Augusta, Ga., where he was at school, to welcome Washington, then on an official tour through the south as president. "This delicate and honorable task," says a contemporary historian. Judge O'Neall, "he accomplished in an address so fortunate as to have attracted not only the attention of that great man, but to have procured from him, for the orator, a present of several law books." He was graduated at the Litchfield, Conn., law school and settled in Savannah, where he acquired a fortune at the bar before attaining the age of thirty-three. He was retained in the settlement of the estate of Gen. Nathaniel Greene, near Savannah, and it is a curious coincidence that a quotation from one of the law books presented to Mr. Bacon by Gen. Washington enabled him to gain a mooted point for the succession to the estate of the second general of the revolution. Owing to ill health, he removed in search of a more healthful location to Edgefield, where he soon became a leading practitioner. He is the "Ned Brace" of Judge Longstreet's "Georgia Scenes," and as a wit and humorist was conspicuous among his contemporaries. He displayed a lavish hospitality, and was the acknowledged autocrat of the table, insomuch that on a certain occasion, when the learned Dr. Jonathan Maxcy, president of South Carolina college, was present as a guest, no sooner had Mr. Bacon left the room than Dr. Maxcy enthusiastically exclaimed, "A perfect Garrick, sir! A living, breathing, acting Garrick!"


BACON, Edwin Munroe, journalist, b. in Providence, R. I., 20 Oct., 1844. He was educated in private schools, finishing his studies in the academy at Foxboro, Mass. At the age of nineteen he was appointed on the staff of the Boston "Advertiser," and has since been connected as reporter, correspondent, managing editor, and editor-in-chief with various journals. He was chief editor of the Boston "Globe " during its career as an independent paper. In May, 1866, he assumed the editorial control of the Boston "Post." The degree of A. M. was conferred on him by Dartmouth in 1879. He has edited several works, among them " King's Hand-Book of Boston" and "Boston Illustrated," and written a "Dictionary of Boston" (Boston, 1883, new ed., 1886).


BACON, Ezekiel, jurist, b. in Boston, Mass., 1 Sept., 1776; d. in Utica, N. Y., 18 Oct., 1870. He was graduated at Yale college in 1794, studied law in the Litchfield, Conn., law school, and began practice at Stockbridge, Mass. He was a member of the legislature in 1806-'7; a representative in congress from 1807 to 1813; chief justice of the court of common pleas for the western district of Massachusetts in 1813, and from that year till 1815 first comptroller of the U. S. treasury. He removed to Utica, N. Y., in 1816 ; was a member of the legislature of that state, judge of the court of common pleas, and a member of the state constitutional convention of 1821. In 1824 he was a democratic candidate for congress, but was defeated. He published "Recollections of Fifty Years" (1843).


BACON, Henry, artist, b. in Haverhill, Mass., in 1840. He volunteered in the 13th Massachusetts infantry for the civil war, and was wounded. In 1864 he went to Paris and entered the Ecole des beaux arts, studying also under Cabanel and Edward Prere. His best-known work is "Boston Boys and General Gage," which was first exhibited in the Paris salon of 1875 and at the Philadelphia centennial in 1876. His favorite subjects are figures so treated as to tell a story, historical or imaginative, in the most effective manner. His professional residence is for the most part in Paris, and he is a frequent exhibitor at the salon. The titles of some of his more important pictures are "Paying the Scot" (1870); "Franklin at Home" (1876); "Les Adieux" and "Land! Land!" (1878); "In Normandy " (Paris salon, 1878); "The Luck of Roaring Camp" (1881); and "Lover's Quarrel" (1882); " Le Plainariste."


BACON, John Edmund, lawyer, b. in Edgefield C. H., S. C., 3 March, 1832. He was a grandson of Edmund Bacon, was graduated at South Carolina college in 1851, and studied afterward at Leipsic, Germany. He read law at Litchfield, Conn., and soon won distinction at the bar. His aptitude for the languages, ancient and modern, led to his appointment as secretary of legation to St. Petersburg in 1858, and he acted as charge d'affaires until the arrival of the Hon. F. W. Pickens as U. S. minister. In 1859 he married at St. Petersburg Rebecca Calhoun, youngest daughter of Gov. Pickens. While on his wedding tour he heard of the election of Mr. Lincoln and sent his resignation to the department of state. In 1861 he returned to South Carolina, entered the confederate army as a private, and rose to the rank of major. In 1866 he was sent with Gov. James L. Orr to arrange with President Johnson for the restoration of South Carolina to the union. In 1867 he was elected district judge, but was soon afterward deposed by the federal general then in command of that department. In 1872 he was a democratic nominee for congress, but was defeated by R. B. Elliott, the able negro politician. Judge Bacon has travelled extensively in Russia, and has occupied his leisure time in the collection and preparation of materials for a future history of that country. In 1886 he was appointed charge d'affaires for the United States in Uruguay and Paraguay.


BACON, Nathaniel, "the Virginia rebel," a colonial leader, b. in Suffolk, England, 2 Jan., 1647 ; d. in October, 1676. He was educated in the inns of court, London, and settled on a large estate near the head of James river in Virginia. He became a member of the council in 1672, and gained great popularity by his winning manners and eloquent speech. The' Virginians were dissatisfied with the measures taken by Gov. Berkeley for defence against the Indians, and chose Bacon, on the outbreak of a fresh Indian war, to lead the colonial military forces. Although the governor refused to commission him, a force collected and defeated the Indians. On 29 May, 1676. Gov. Berkeley proclaimed Bacon a rebel, and sent a force against him. He was captured and tried before the governor and council on 10 June, when he was acquitted, restored to his seat in the council, and promised a commission as general for the Indian war. But the governor refused to issue the promised commission. The high rates of taxation, the attempts of the governor to curtail the franchise, and other unpopular measures, in conjunction with