Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 5).djvu/110

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Shawnees in Ohio. He established an independent mission in Ohio in 1761, where he was joined in 1762 by John Heckewelder; but the Pontiac war forced them to abandon the project. In January, 1764, he sailed for the Mosquito coast, where he labored two years, and he made a second visit there in 1767. He afterward united with the Protestant Episcopal church.

POST, Isaac, philanthropist, b. in Westbury, Queens co.. N. Y., 26 Feb., 1798; d. in Rochester, N. Y., 9 May, 1872. Being the son of Quaker parents, he was educated at the Westbury Friends' school. He engaged in the drug business, and removed to Scipio, N. Y., in 1823, and to Rochester, N. Y., in 1836, where he spent the remainder of his life. He was a warm adherent of William Lloyd Garrison, and one of the earliest laborers in the anti-slavery cause. His door was ever open to those who had escaped from bondage, and his hostility to the fugitive-slave law was bitter and uncompromising. He was a member of the Hicksite branch of the Quakers, but left that body because, in his opinion, it showed itself subservient to the slave power. Mr. Post resided in Rochester when public attention was first attracted to the manifestations by the Fox sisters, and became one of the earliest converts to Spiritualism. He was the author of “Voices from the Spirit World, being Communications from Many Spirits, by the Hand of Isaac Post, Medium” (Rochester, 1852). — His brother, Joseph, b. in Westbury, L. I., 30 Nov., 1803; d. there, 17 Jan., 1888, resembled Isaac in his profession of abolition principles. He was at one time proscribed and persecuted within his own sect, but lived long enough to witness a complete revolution of sentiment, and to be the recipient of many expressions of confidence and esteem from his co-religionists. When Isaac T. Hopper, Charles Marriot, and James S. Gibbons were disowned by the Society of Friends, on account of their outspoken opposition to slavery, they received encouragement and support from Joseph Post. Mr. Post passed his life in the same house in which he was born and died.

POST, Minturn, physician, b. in New York city, 28 June, 1808; d. there, 26 April, 1869. He was graduated at Columbia in 1827, and, after studying medicine under Dr. Valentine Mott, received his degree at the medical department of the University of Virginia in 1832. Subsequently he studied in Paris, and, settling in New York city on his return, he acquired a large practice, and became recognized as an authority on diseases of the chest. In 1843 he was called to be medical examiner of the New York life insurance company. He translated and added notes to Raciborski's “Auscultation and Percussion” (New York, 1839).

POST, Philip Sidney, soldier, b. in Florida, N. Y., 19 March, 1833; d. in Washington, D. C., 6 Jan., 1895. He was graduated at Union college, and was admitted to the bar. He then travelled through the northwest, his parents having meanwhile removed to Illinois, and took up his abode in Kansas, where he practised his profession, and also established and edited a newspaper. At the opening of the civil war he was chosen 2d lieutenant in the 59th Illinois infantry, and in 1862 he became its colonel. He was severely wounded at the battle of Pea Ridge, and made his way with much suffering, and under many difficulties, to St. Louis. Before fully recovering, he joined his regiment in front of Corinth, Miss., and was assigned to the command of a brigade. From May, 1862, till the close of the war he was constantly at the front. In the Army of the Cumberland, as first organized, he commanded the 1st brigade, 1st division, of the 20th|width=2%| 

army corps from its formation to its dissolution. He began the battle of Stone River, drove back the enemy several miles, and captured Leetown. During the Atlanta campaign he was transferred to Wood's division of the 4th army corps, and when that general was wounded at Lovejoy's station, Post took charge of the division, and with it opposed the progress of the Confederates toward the north. On 16 Nov., 1864, in a charge on Overton Hill, a grape-shot crushed through his hip, making what was for some days thought to be a mortal wound. On 10 Dec., 1864, he was brevetted brigadier-general of volunteers. After the surrender at Appomattox he was appointed to the command of the western district of Texas, where there was then a concentration of troops on the Mexican border. He remained there until 1866, when the withdrawal of the French from Mexico removed all danger of military complications. He was then earnestly recommended by Gen. George H. Thomas and others, under whom he had served, for the appointment of colonel in the regular army; but he did not wish to remain in the army. In 1866 he was appointed U. S. consul at Vienna, and in 1874 he became consul-general. His official reports have been quoted as authority. In 1878 he tendered his resignation, which, however, was not accepted till the year following. He resided at Galesburg, Ill., and in 1886 and 1894 was elected to congress as a Republican.

POST, Truman Marcellus, clergyman, b. in Middlebury, Vt., 3 June, 1810; d. in St. Louis, Mo., 31 Dec., 1886. He was graduated at Middlebury college in 1829, and then was principal of an academy at Castleton, Vt., for a year. In 1830 he returned to Middlebury as tutor, and remained for two years, also studying law. He spent the winter of 1832-'3 at Washington, D. C.. listening to debates in congress and at the supreme court. After spending a short time in St. Louis, Mo., he settled in Jacksonville, Ill., and was admitted to the bar. In 1833 he became professor of languages in Illinois college, and later he took the chair of history. He studied theology, and was ordained minister of the Congregational church in Jacksonville in 1840. He was called in 1847 to the 3d Presbyterian church in St. Louis, and in 1851 to the newly organized 1st Congregational church in that city, serving until his death. Dr. Post held the place of university professor of ancient and modern history at Washington university, and in 1873-'5 was Southworth lecturer on Congregationalism at Andover theological seminary, and was professor of ecclesiastical history in Northwestern theological seminary in Chicago. In 1855 he received the degree of D. D. from Middlebury college. He contributed to the “Biblical Repository” and other religious periodicals, and, besides various pamphlets, addresses, and sermons, was the author of “The Skeptical Era in Modern History” (New York, 1856).

POST, Wright, surgeon, b. in North Hempstead, N. Y., 19 Feb., 1766; d. in Throg's Neck, N. Y., 14 June, 1828. He studied medicine under Dr. Richard Bayley, and then for two years under Dr. John Sheldon in London. On his return in 1786 he began to practise in New York, and in 1787 delivered lectures on anatomy at the New York hospital. These efforts were interrupted by the “doctor's mob,” which broke into the building and destroyed the valuable anatomical specimens that had been collected. In 1792 he was appointed professor of surgery in the medical department of Columbia college, and he then visited the great schools of Europe, collecting a splendid anatomical cabinet, and returning to New York in 1793, after which he held the chair of anatomy until 1813.