Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 1).djvu/256

BELLOT, Joseph René, explorer, b. in Paris, France, in March, 1826; lost on an ice-floe 18 Aug., 1858. He was a midshipman at the siege of Vera Cruz in 1838, and rose to be a lieutenant in 1851. In 1853 he joined Belcher's English expe- dition to search for Franklin. While carrying despatches over the ice he was overtaken by a storm, and the ice on which he stood was severed from the land. Leaving his two companions, he crossed a hummock to reconnoitre, and was never seen more. His diary, narrating his arctic adven- tures, was published in 1855.

BELLOWS, Albert F., painter, b. in Milford, Mass., 29 Nov., 1829 ; d. in Auburndale, Mass., 24 Nov., 1883. He was taken as a child to Salem, and, when sixteen years old, entered an architect's office in Boston, where he remained three years. He then went into partnership with an archi- tect of established reputation, but, in 1840, decid- ed to give his entire attention to painting. He accepted in that year the principalship of the New England school of design, and held it until 1846, when he went abroad and studied for many years in Europe, especially in Paris and Antwerp. His early works, mostly genre pictures in oil, in- clude " The First Pair of Boots," The Sorrows of Boyhood," and "The Lost Child." In 1865 he turned his attention to water-color painting, studying chiefly in England, and he has excelled in this branch of the art, especially in his land- scapes. Among his later water-colors are " The Notch at Lancaster " (1867) ; " Afternoon in Sur- rey" (1868); "The Thames at Windsor"; "The Reaper's Child " ; " New England Homestead " ; and " A Devonshire Cottage." His " Sunday in Devonshire " (in oils) and his " Study of a Plead," " Autumn Woods," and " Sunday Afternoon in New England " (in water-colors), were sent to the exhibition at Philadelphia in 1876. To the Paris exhibition of 1878 he sent " A New England Vil- lage SeliDol " (in oil) and " A New England Home- stead " (in water-colors). Other pictu'" s by his hand are " The Willow Wagon," " The Nook," " Salem Turnpike," " The Christening Party," and " Coasting in New England." About a dozen of his pictures have been engraved. Most of his work in this country was done in New York and Boston. He was elected associate of the national academy in 1859, academician in 1861, and in 1868 honorary member of the royal Belgian soci- ety of water-colorists — an honor rarely bestowed upon foreigners. He was also one of the early members of the American society of painters in water-colors. Mr. Bellows frequently painted in oils with the spatula, without using a brush — a method that gives great purity to the tints, but is only productive of good results in, the hands of a skilful artist. In water-color painting he followed almost entirely the old school, which, for the high lights of the picture, depends on the color of the paper on which it is painted.

BELLOWS, Benjamin, b. in Walpole, N. H., 6 Oct., 1740; d. there in June, 1802. He was chosen town cleric when only nineteen years old, and held the office till 1776. He was a member of the colonial and afterward of the state legislature, and was appointed a delegate to the continental congress in 1781, but his business forced him to de- cline. He was a member of the state convention that ratified the federal constitution in 1788. He presided over the New Hampshire electoral col- lege that voted for Washington in 1788, and was a member of the one that voted for John Adams in 1796. He was active in the colonial and state mi- litia, rising from the rank of corporal to that of brigadier-general, and served during the revolu- tionary war as a colonel.

BELLOWS, Henry Adams, jurist, b. in Wal- pole, N. II., in October, 1803 ; d. in Concord, N. H., 11 March, 1873. His father's death in 1819 left him to support his mother and a younger brother and sister. The family owned a house in West- minster, Vt., a small village on the western bank of Connecticut river, and, living there, young Bel- lows taught in one of the public schools of Wal- pole, crossing the river daily. An opportunity ofliered for him to study law in the office of Will- iam C. Bradley, a leading man of his day, and al- though the time that must necessarily be devoted to study seriously curtailed the family income, the struggle was bravely maintained, until, in 1826, he was admitted to the bar, and, in 1828, opened an office in Littleton, N. II. Throughout these years of hardship his mother nobly seconded his efforts. For many years the young lawyer's life was a con- tinual struggle with poverty ; but his unswerving rectitude and professional devotion to the interests of others at last won recognition. He removed to Concord in 1850, a favorable opportunity offering through the appointment of Ira Perley to the su- preme bench, and there he soon acquired a large practice. Pie could never bring himself to the ex- tortionate methods so common in the profession, and such was his generosity that his actual receipts were largely consumed for the benefit of others. He was especially liberal in sustaining the Unita- rian church society of Concord, and gave more than a tenth of his income to its support. He was appointed associate judge of the supreme court in 1859, and after ten years of service in that capaci- ty, became chief justice on the death of Judge Perley. An unusual fairness of mind marked all his decisions. He never, either as a practising law- yer or on the bench of the supreme court, would lend his influence to defend an unjust cause or shield a criminal. Without extraordinary mental brilliance, he had, by nature, a rare thoroughness of method and soundness of judgment.

BELLOWS, Henry Whitney, clergyman, b. in Boston, Mass., 11 June, 1814; d. in New York city, 30 Jan., 1882. He was graduated at Harvard in 1832, and at Cambridge divinity school in 1837, was ordained pastor of the first Congregational church in New York, 2 Jan., 1839, and attained a reputation as a ready and elo- quent pulpit ora- tor and also as a lecturer on so- cial questions. The name of the church was changed, upon its removal from Chambers street to Broadway, to the church of the Divine Unity, and after its sec- ond removal to All - Souls. In 1846 he founded the " Christian

Inquirer," a weekly Unitarian paper, of which he was the principal writer till 1850. He was also associated in the editorship of the " Christian Examiner" and the "Liberal Christian." In 1853 he delivered a notable " Phi Beta Kappa Oration,"