Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/795

MACKEAN There were 1,178 horses, 2,199 milch cows, 3,238 other cattle, 7,288 sheep, and 962 swine. Capital, Smithport. MACKEAN, Thomas, an American jurist, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, born in Chester co., Pa., March 19, 1734, died in Philadelphia, June 24, 1817. In 1757 he was admitted to the bar, and in 1762 was elect- ed a member of the Pennsylvania assembly, to which he was annually returned for the next 17 years. In 1765 he attended the general congress of the colonies at New York, and formed one of the committee who framed the address to the British house of commons ; and in the same year he was appointed judge of the court of common pleas for New Castle county. In September, 1774, he took his seat in the first continental congress, as a delegate from the lower counties in Delaware. He was a member of congress, of which he was elected president in 1781, until February, 1783, being the only member who served without interruption during the whole revolutionary period. In 1777, while still a representative in congress from Delaware, he was appointed chief justice of Pennsylvania, and in the same year he also officiated as president of the state of Delaware, for which he drew up a constitu- tion. He retired from the bench in 1799, on being elected governor of the state. His ad- ministration lasted until 1808, when he with- drew from public life. As a jurist he held a high position for integrity, impartiality, and learning. In politics he was one of the lead- ers of the republican party, the ascendancy of which in Pennsylvania was in no small degree owing to his exertions. McKEEYER, Isaac, an American naval officer, born in Pennsylvania in April, 1793, died in Norfolk, Va., April 1, 1856. He entered the navy as a midshipman in 1809, was made a lieutenant in 1814, and commanded one of a flotilla of five gunboats under the command of Lieut. Thomas ap Catesby Jones, which was captured by a British expedition upon Lake Borgne, La., in December, 1814. The gunboats mounted collectively 23 guns, and were manned by 182 men. The British expedition consisted of 42 large barges and other boats, manned by over 1,000 seamen and marines. The en- gagement, which was very severe, lasted more than three hours, and over 200 of the British were killed and wounded. Lieut. McKeever's vessel was the last one attacked, and he was severely wounded, together with most of his officers, before he surrendered. He became a commander in 1830, and a captain in 1838, performing much active service in both grades. He commanded the squadron on the coast of Brazil from 1851 to 1854. In 1855 he com- manded the navy yard at Norfolk, Va. MeKENDREE, William, an American bishop, born in King William co., Va., July 5, 1757, died March 5, 1835. He served several years in the American army of the revolution, attained the rank of adjutant, and was present at the MACKENZIE 7S9 surrender of Cornwallis. In 1787 he joined the Methodist conference, and in 1794 he ac- companied Asbury in his tour to South Caro- lina. _ From 1795 to 1799 he travelled vast cir- cuits in eastern and southern Virginia, and in 1800 accompanied Bishops Asbury and What- coat into Tennessee and Kentucky to superin- tend the western conference, which then com- prised Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and por- tions of Virginia and Illinois. He most ef- fectively directed the labors of the itinerant ministers, by which churches were gathered throughout all this extensive, thinly populated section, till 1808, when he was elected bish- op. The next year was spent with Asbury in a visitation of nearly all parts of the United States and portions of Canada. Through much bodily infirmity Bishop McKendree continued his laborious superintendency till his death. M(KEiDREE COLLEGE. See LEBANON, 111. MACKENZIE, Sir Alexander, a Scottish trav- eller, born probably in Inverness, died in 1820. He emigrated to Canada when a young man, and obtained a situation in the counting house of Mr. Gregory, one of the partners in the northwest fur company. In 1789 he set out on an exploring expedition from Fort Chipewyan, on Lake Athabasca, where he had been stationed for about eight years, with four canoes and a party of 12 persons. For six weeks he threaded his way along the rivers and lakes of British America, till he reached the great northern ocean in lat. 69. Having returned to Fort Chipewyan, he started in October, 1792, to explore the country toward the Pacific, reaching that ocean July 23, 1793, and regaining in safety the point of departure. He published a detailed account of these ex- plorations, under the title of "Voyages from Montreal, on the Eiver St. Lawrence, through the Continent of North America, to the Fro- zen and Pacific Oceans, in the years 1789 and 1793 " (London, 1801). He was knighted, and the river by which he had descended from Slave lake to the ocean was called after him. MACKENZIE, Alexander Slidell, an American naval officer, born in New York, April 6, 1803, died in Tarrytown, N. Y., Sept. 13, 1848. His name was originally Slidell ; that of Mackenzie, the name of his mother, was added to his own in 1837, at the request of a maternal uncle. He entered the navy as a midshipman in 1815, and made his first cruise to the Mediterranean in the frigate Java, commanded by Capt. Oli- ver H. Perry. In 1822 he took command of a merchant vessel to improve himself in seaman- ship. He was made lieutenant in 1825, and commander in 1841, and in both grades was in active duty in the Mediterranean, the West Indies, the Brazilian waters, and the Pacific In 1842 he commanded the brig Somers, manned chiefly by naval apprentices ; and on his passage from the coast of Africa in the autumn of that year, the existence of a muti- nous plot on board was discovered, the princi- pals of which were immediately placed in close