Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 1).djvu/336

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
308
BOLLER
BOLTON

the legal profession in England, removed to Massachusetts about 1740, settled in Boston, married a daughter of Gov. Shirley in 1743, and became advocate-general. In 1745 he was sent to London as agent of the colony, to secure from the government the repayment of £183,649 advanced by Massachusetts for the Cape Breton expedition, in which mission he succeeded after three years. He was sent to England a second time as agent for the colony, but was dismissed by the general court in 1662, because of his connection with the deposed governor, and of his adherence to the episcopal form of worship. He still acted as agent of the council, and his popularity in the colony was restored when he obtained from Alderman Beckford in London, and sent over to Massachusetts in 1769. thirty-three letters of Grov. Bernard and Gen. Gage calumniating the colonists, for which act he was denounced by Lord North in parliament. In 1775 he wrote in favor of conciliatory measures toward the colonies. John Hancock declared, in the Massachusetts house of representatives, that there was no man to whom the colonies were more indebted. He published numerous political tracts relating chiefly to American affairs, among which the most important were "The Importance of Cape Breton truly Illustrated" (London, 1746); "Coloniae Anglicanaj Illustrati" (1763); "The Ancient Right of the English Nation to the American Fishery Examined and Stated" (1764); "The Mutual Interests of Great Britain and the American Colonies Considered" (1765); "The Importance of the Colonies in North America and the Interests of Great Britain with regard to them Considered" (1766); "Freedom of Speech and Writing upon Public Affairs Considered" (1766); "Epistle from Timoleon" (1768): "Continued Corruption of Standing Armies" (1768); "The Free Briton's Memorial, in Defence of the Right of Election" (1769) ; and "A Supplemental Memorial, on the Origin of Parliaments, etc." (1770). As agent for the council of the province of Massachusetts, he offered "A Petition to the King in Council, Jan. 26. 1774, with Illustrations intended to Promote the Harmony of Great Britain and her Colonies."


BOLLER, Alfred Pancoast, civil engineer, b. in Philadelphia, Pa., 23 Feb., 1840. He was graduated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1858, and at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N. Y., in 1861. He has been connected as assistant engineer with the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company (1862), Philadelphia and Erie Railroad (1864), and Atlantic and Great Western Railroad (1866); as chief engineer with the Hudson River Railroad (1866), Westside and Yonkers Railroad (1880), Yonkers Rapid Transit Commission (1881), Manhattan Elevated Railroad Company (1882), Albany and Greenbush Bridge Company (1882), and Staten Island Rapid Transit Railroad (1885); and he has held consulting relations with the Zaza railroad in Cuba (1877), Department of Public Parks, New York (1883), and with other corporations. For some years he has been engaged in business as a contractor, and has made a specialty of bridge construction. The double-track bridge over the Hudson river at Albany, the Eighth avenue bridge over the Harlem, the Madison avenue bridge over the same river, the Croton lake bridge, the Central avenue bridge, Newark, N. J., the great gas-holder tanks of the Bay State Gas Company, in Boston, the tunnel under the light-house grounds, Staten Island, and all of the locomotive turn-tables on the West Shore Railroad, were built under his supervision. He is a member of the American institutes of civil engineers and mining engineers, and is the author of various reports on bridge construction and of a " Practical Treatise on the Construction of Iron Highway Bridges" (New York, 1877).


BOLLES, Edwin Cortlandt, microscopist, b. in Hartford, Conn., 19 Sept., 1836. He was graduated at Trinity college, Hartford, in 1855, after which he studied theology and became a Universalist clergyman. His attention has been largely devoted to microscopy, in which science he has achieved eminence. From 1870 to 1875 he was professor of microscopy in St. Lawrence university, Canton, N. Y., and since 1870 has lectured on that subject in Tufts college at College Hill, Mass. He has contributed articles on his specialty to periodicals, and published sermons. He received the degree of Ph. D. from the university of St. Lawrence in 1860, and that of S. T. D. from Tufts college in 1881. He is a member of several scientific societies, to whose proceedings he has contributed papers.


BOLLES, John Augustus, lawyer, b. in Eastford, Conn., 16 April, 1809 ; d. in Washington, D. C., 25 May, 1878. He was graduated at Brown in 1829, admitted to the bar in Boston in 1833, and in 1843 chosen secretary of state under Gov. Marcus Morton. He was a member of the harbor and back bay commission in 1852. From 1862 till 1865 he served as judge-advocate on the staff of Gen. John A. Dix, who was his brother-in-law. He was brevetted brigadier-general of volunteers in 1865, and appointed naval solicitor the same year.


BOLLMAN, Eric, physician, b. in Hoya, Hanover, in 1769; d. in Jamaica, W. I., 9 Dec., 1821. He studied medicine at Göttingen, and practised in Carlsruhe and in Paris, where he settled at the beginning of the French revolution. He accompanied Count Narbonne, who fled to England in 1792, and in London fell in with Lally-Tollendal, who induced him to go to Austria and endeavor to find out where Gen. Lafayette was kept in confinement. He established himself as a physician in Vienna. Learning that Lafayette was a prisoner at Olmütz, he formed a plan to rescue him with the assistance of Francis Kinlock Huger, a young American. Communicating with the prisoner through the prison surgeon, the two fell upon his guards while he was taking exercise in a carriage, and succeeded in getting him away on a horse; but he rode in the wrong direction and was recaptured. Dr. Bollman escaped to Prussia, but was handed over to the Austrian authorities, who kept him in prison for nearly a year, and then released him on condition that he should leave the country. He came to the United States and was well received; but in 1806 was implicated in Aaron Burr's conspiracy and was Burr's agent in New Orleans. In 1814 he returned to Europe, and, after another visit to the United States, took up his residence in London. He published “Paragraphs on Banks” (2d ed., Philadelphia, 1811); “Improved System of the Money Concerns of the Union” (1816); and “Strictures on the Theories of M. Ricardo.”


BOLTON, Henry Carrington, chemist, b. in New York city, 28 Jan., 1843. He was graduated at Columbia in 1862, and then studied chemistry in Paris under Wurtz and Dumas, in Heidelberg under Bunsen, in Göttingen under Wohler, and in Berlin under Hofmann. In 1866 he received the degree of Ph. D. from the University of Göttingen, his thesis being on the “Fluorine Compounds of Uranium.” He then spent some years in travel, and from 1872 till 1877 was assistant in quantitative analysis in the Columbia School of Mines. In 1874 he was called to the chair of chemistry in the Woman's Medical College of the New York Infirmary, which