Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 5).djvu/423

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SARAVIA
SARGENT

hand in manuscript for every village of his converts, si ' that in his absence the native sexton might ivacl (lie Sunday service; "Catecismo Chinanteco." which is still hi use in the mountain-villages: and "Noticiade la Conversion de la Naciun ('hinau- trca. y sucesos acaecidos en ella al Antor," which is preserved in manuscript in the archive of the Dominican convent of Oajaca.


SARAVIA, Melehor Bravo de. governor of Chili, IP. in Sofia early in the 10th century; d. in Spain about 1579. In 1547, when the audience of New Granada was created, he was appointed judge, but did not take his seat, as he was promoted by the emperor to the audience of Peru, where he ar- rived in June, 1549. In 1552, at the death of An- tonio de Mendoza, viceroy of Peru, the audience took charge of the government, and directed the o|u'r:itions against the rebellious Francisco Her- nandez Giron. Saravia showed much zeal and good-will, but little aptitude in military affairs; nevertheless. King Philip II. in 1569 rewarded him with the governorship of Chili, which he held un- til 1575. He then returned to Spain, where he died several years afterward. Saravia left an interesting book entitled " Antigiiedades Peruanas," whirh is frequently cited by Juan de Velasco in his " His- toria del reino de Quito."


SARGEANT, Nathaniel Peaslee, jurist, b. in Mei linen, Mass., 2 Nov., 1731; d. in Haverhill, Mass.. 13 Oct., 1791. He was graduated at Har- vard in 1750, and engaged in the practice of law in Haverhill. He espoused the cause of liberty, was a delegate to the Provincial congress in 1775, and became a representative and judge of the superior court the next year. In 1789-'91 he was chief justice of 'Massachusetts.


SARGENT, Aaron Augustus, senator, b. in Newburyport, Mass., 28 Sept., 1827; d. in San Francisco, Cal., 14 Aug., 1887. He learned the printer's trade, and when twenty years old was a reporter in Washington, D. C. He removed to California in 1849, where he engaged in mining, and established the " Nevada Journal." He studied law while editing that paper, was admitted to the bar in 1854, and elected district attorney of Nevada county two years later. He was vice-president of the Republican national convention in 1800, the same year chosen to congress, served by re-elec- tion till 1872, and the day following the expira- tion of his term in the house of representatives took his seat in the U. S. senate, which he held in 1872-'9. In 18G1 he was the author of the first Pacific railroad act that was passed in congress, lie was appointed United States minister to Ger- many in March, 1882, and held office till the ac- tion of the German authorities in excluding Ameri- can pork from the empire made his incumbency personally distasteful. President Arthur offered him the Russian mission, but he declined it. Mr. Sargent was an able debater, and exercised much influence in the Republican party.


SARGENT, James, inventor, b. in Chester, Vt.. 1 Dec., 1824. He was educated in district schools and worked on a farm until he was eighteen years old. During the ensuing four years he was engaged in a woollen-factory, where he had special charge of the machinery. In 1848. having acquired proficiency in the art of making daguerreotypes, he travelled through the country engaged in that pursuit, but in 1852 he returned to New England and devoted himself to the manufacture and sale of an automatic apple-parer. The financial diffi- culties of 1857 compelled him to give up that busi- ness, and he became a partner in the Yale and Greenleaf lock company. Having a natural fond- ness for mechanics, he devoted himself at first to the study of the mechanism of locks, and acquired expertness as a lock-picker. Further investigation of the subject led him to invent a lock that was proof against professional skill, for which, in 1865, he received a patent. He then established himself in Rochester, N. Y.. where he began its manufac- ture. One of the features of this lock was the in- troduction of a powerful magnet that held the parts sufficiently under control to prevent the use of a micrometer to measure motion or determine the relative positions of the unlocking devices. Subsequently he improved this lock by the intro- duction of an automatic mechanical device in lieu of the magnet. In 1873 he invented the time- locks that bear his name, which were the first ever successfully used in this country, and are now largely used in banking establishments. Mr. Sar- gent has devised various styles of his locks for special uses, and from time to time has added improvements to the original patterns.


SARGENT, Nathan, b. in Pultney, Vt.. 5 May, 1794; d. in Washington, D. C., 2 Feb., 1875. lie was educated in his native town, admitted to the bar, and settled in Cahawba, Ala., in 1816, where he became county and probate judge. He removed to Buffalo, N. Y., in 1820. and to Philadelphia in 1830, where he established a Whig newspaper. He after- ward became Washington correspondent of the " United States Gazette," and was widely known under his pen-name of ' Oliver Oldschool." He was sergeant-at-arms of the U. S. house of repre- sentatives in 1849-'51, register of the U. S. treasury in 1851-'3, and commissioner of customs in 1861-'7. For several subsequent years he was president of the Washington reform-school. He published " Life of Henry Clay" (New York, 1844), and "Public Men and" Events " (2 vols., 1875).


SARGENT, Paul Dudley, soldier, b. in Salem, Mass., in 1745; d. in Sullivan, Me., 28 Sept., 1828. His ancestor, William, came to this country from Gloucester, England, before 1678, and his father, Epes, was a colonel of militia before the Revolution, and a justice of the general session court for more than thirty years. He died in Gloucester, Mass., in 1762. Paul commanded a regiment at the siege of Boston, was wounded at Bunker Hill, commanded a brigade in the summer of 1776, and fought at Harlem, White Plains, Trenton, and Princeton. After the war he was chief justice of the court of common pleas of Hancock county, Me., for many years, judge of probate, justice of the same, first representative to the general court, postmaster, and an overseer of Bowdoin. — His nephew, Winthrop, soldier, b. in Gloucester, Mass., 1 May, 1753; d. in New Orleans, 3 June, 1820, was graduated at Harvard, and in 1771 became captain of a ship belonging to his father, who was a merchant. In 1775 he entered the Revolutionary army, and was naval agent at Gloucester, 1 Jan., 1776, and captain of Gen. Henry Knox's regiment of artillery, 16 March, 1776, serving throughout the war, and taking part in the siege of Boston, the battles of Long Island, White Plains, Trenton, the Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth, attaining the rank of major. He became connected with the Ohio company in 1786, under Gen. Rufus Putnam, and was appointed surveyor of the Northwest territory by congress. He was its secretary in 1787, and was its governor in 1798-1801. During the Indian wars in 1791 and in 1794-'5 he became adjutant-general, and was wounded in the expedition under Gen. Arthur St. Clair. He was a member of the American academy of arts and sciences, and of the Philosophical society, an original member of