Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 1).djvu/506

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BUSH
BUSHNELL

fairs for the province of Canada. He entered par- liament in 1857, and was appointed treasurer of the Royal household on the return of Lord Palmer- ston to office in 1859. In 1876 he was summoned to the house of peers in his father's barony of Ash- ford, and was appointed Under-secretary of state for war in succession to Lord Cadogan in March, 1878, and held that office until the Conservatives lost control of the government in 1880. He mar- ried a daughter of Sir Alan Napier MacNab, so long p'rominent in Canada. In 1879 Lord Bury entered the Roman Catholic church, and in 1885 he visited the United States. He is the author of a history of American colonization, entitled " Exo- dus of the Western Nations " (London, 1865); " A Report on the Condition of the Indians of British North America," and other historical papers.


BUSH, George, theologian, b. in Norwich, Vt., 12 June, 1796; d. in Rochester, N. Y., 19 Sept., 1859. He was graduated at Dartmouth in 1818, studied theology at Princeton, was a tutor there in 1823-'4, was ordained in the Presbyterian ministry, spent four years as a missionary in Indiana, and in 1831 became professor of Hebrew and oriental literature in the university of New York. He published a “Life of Mohammed” (New York, 1832), and a “Treatise on the Millennium” (1833), in which he maintained that that period was the time when Christianity supplanted Roman paganism. He also published a “Bible Atlas,” “Illustrations from the Scriptures,” a “Hebrew Grammar,” and commentaries on Exodus and other books of the Old Testament. In 1844 he published a monthly magazine called “Hierophant,” devoted to the elucidation of scriptural prophecies. The same year he issued, in New York, a work entitled “Anastasis,” in which he opposed the doctrine of the literal resurrection of the body. Attacks upon this work, which attracted much attention, he answered in “The Resurrection of Christ.” He subsequently united with the New Jerusalem church, translated and published the diary of Swedenborg in 1845, became editor of the “New Church Repository,” and published in 1845 “The Soul, an Inquiry into Scripture Psychology,” in 1847 “Mesmer and Swedenborg,” in which he argued that the doctrines of Swedenborg were corroborated by the developments of mesmerism, in 1855 “New Church Miscellanies,” and in 1857 “Priesthood and Clergy Unknown to Christianity.” A memoir of him, by W. M. Fernald, was published in 1860.


BUSH, Norton, artist, b. in Rochester, N. Y., 22 Feb., 1834. He studied art in his native town, and in 1851 became a pupil of Jasper P. Cropsey in New York. Most of his life has been spent in San Francisco. In 1853, 1868, and 1875 he visited South America, and he has devoted himself spe- cially to painting the scenery of the tropics. He was elected, in 1877, director of the San Francisco art association, of which he had been a member since 1874, and was president of the Sacramento " Bric-a-Brac Club " from 1879 till 1882. Among his works are "Mount Diablo" (1858); "City of Panama " (1869): " Western Slope of the Cordil- leras " (1872); " Mount Chimborazo " (1876); " Lake Tahoe " (1885); and " Sutter's Fort, Califor- nia, in 1846 and 1886 " (1886). His " Summit of the Sierras" (1868) is in the Crocker gallery, Sac- ramento, and his " Lake Nicaragua " (1869) in the Stanford gallery, San Francisco.


BUSHNELL, Charles Ira, editor, b. in New York city, 28 July, 1826; d. there in 1883. He was of the same family as David Bushnell, the inventor. He studied law with Thecxlore Sedgwick in New York, but did not practise, devoting his time to the editorship and publication of many personal nar- ratives of the revolution and the collection of coins and medals. He directed his attention particu- larly to the antiquities of his own city, of which he collected many curious memorials. A full list of his numerous publications, most of which have been printed privately, is given in Duyckinck's " Cyclopaedia of American Literature." Among them are " An Arrangement of Tradesmen's Cards, etc., Current for the last Sixty Years" (1858); a series of " Crumbs for Antiquarians "; and " Recol- lections of Christopher Hawkins " (New York, 1864).


BUSHNELL, David, inventor, b. in Saybrook, Conn., in 1742; d. in Warrenton, Ga., in 1824. He was graduated at Yale in 1775. He had previously given some attention to submarine warfare, and during his college course he matured plans that led to the production of what may be called the earli- est of torpedoes. His intention was to fix a small powder-magazine to the bottom of a vessel, and to explode it by a clock-work apparatus. In order to do this, he contrived a tortoise-shaped diving-boat of iron plate, which contained air enough to sup- ply a man for half an hour. This boat, called the "American Turtle," was propelled by a sort of screw, and guided by means of a compass made visible by phosphorus. The torpedo was carried outside of the boat, but could be detached by the concealed operator contained within. It was con- nected by a line to a screw, which was to be driven into the bottom of the hostile ship. As soon as this was eflfected, the torpedo was to be cast oflE when it floated against the vessel's side. The ac- tion of casting off set the clock-work going, and then the operator had time to retii-e to a safe dis- tance before the catastrophe. A detailed account of this machine is given in the " Transactions of the American Philosophical Society " and in Silli- man's " American Journal of Science " in 1820. A machine capable of conveying an operator with 100 pounds of powder was tested on " The Eagle," a British 64-gun-ship lying in New York harbor, but the attempt proved unsuccessful. In 1777, in an attack on the frigate " Cerberus " at anchor off New London, he blew tip a schooner astern of the frigate, and killed several men on board. This was the first vessel ever destroyed in such a manner. Mr. Bnshnell invented several other machines for the annoyance of the British shipping; but from accidents, not militating against the philosophical principles on which their success depended, they but partially succeeded. In January, 1778. he sent a fleet of kegs down the Delaware, to destroy the British ships that held possession of the river, against which fire-ships had been ineffectually em- ployed. Owing to the darkness, they were left at too great a distance from the shipping, and were dispersed by the ice, but during the following day exploded and blew up a boat, occasioning no little alarm to the British seamen. This incident gave rise to the humorous poem by Francis Hopkinson, entitled " The Battle of the Kegs." Mr. Bushnell served continuously during the war, attaining the rank of captain in the corps of sappers and miners, and was on duty at New York, Hudson Highlands, Philadelphia, Yorktown, and elsewhere. Later he went to France, and was supposed to have died there, but he appeared to have been subse- quently at the head of one of the most important schools in Georgia, after which he settled in War- renton. where he practised medicine as Dr. Bush.


BUSHNELL, Horace, clergyman, b. in New Preston. Litchfield co., Conn.. 14 April, 1802; d. in Hartford. Conn., 17 Feb., 1876. He was the son of a farmer, and was employed, when a boy, in a