Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 09.djvu/225

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SAFFOLD


SAFFOKD


macy after 1879 : edited Attfield's " Medical and Pharmaceutical Chemistry" (8tli ed., 1879); was chemical editor of the Encyclopsedia Britannica, American reprint (9th ed., 1880-84), and of the

  • • United States Dispensatory," with Joseph P.

Remington and Horatio C. Wood (loth, 16th, 17th and 18th eds., 1882-98); was made a member of the committee of revision of the *' United States Pharmacopeia." and is the author of: Handbook of Chemical Experimentation for Lectures (1877) ; Handbook of Industrial Organic Chemistry {1891- 98), which passed through three editions and ap- peared in both German and Russian translations ; Textbook of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, with Vir- gil Coblentz (1899), and numerous addresses and lectures.

SAFFOLD, Reuben, jurist, was born in Wilkes county, Ga.. Sept. 4. 1788 : son of Reuben Saffold, a Revolutionary soldier residing in Wilkes county, who received a land grant in Washington county as a bounty for his services. Reuben Saffold, Jr., received a liberal education ; studied law under Edward Payne, and engaged in practice at Watkinsville, Ga., until 1813, when he re- moved to Jackson, Miss. Ter. (now Clarke county, Ala.). He married, April 1, 1811, Mary, daughter of Col. Josepli (a Revolutionary soldier) and Jane (Walker) Phillips, early settlers of South Alabama. He served as a private at the fight of Burnt Corn ; commanded a company against the Indians on the Perdido in 1814, and represented Clarke county in the territorial legislature. He was a member of the Alabama state constitutional convention in 1819 ; removed to Dallas county. Ala., in 1820 ; was judge of the circuit court of the state, 1819- 32 ; judge of the supreme court. 1832-36, and its chief justice. 1835-36, and resumed the practice of law in 1836. He died in Dallas county, Ala., Feb. 15, 1847, and was buried at his country place " Belvoir." near Selma.

SAFFORD, James Merrill, geologist, was born in Putnam, now Zanesville, Ohio, Aug. 13. 1822 ; son of Harry and Patience (Van Home) Safford ; grandson of Jonas and Joanna (Merrill) Safford, and of Isaac and Dorothy (John) Marple Van Home, and a descendant of Thomas Safford, who came from England to America in 1630, and was living in Ipswich, Mass., 1641. His maternal grandfather was descended from an ancient fam- ily of Hc>llanders in the time the Dutch possessed New York, then called New Amsterdam. He was a soldier of the Revolution from first to last ; was taken prisoner at Fort Washington, and was present at the surrender at Yorktown. James Merrill Safford was graduated from the Ohio uni- versity in 1844. and spent the following year in post-graduate study at Yale. He was professor of natural science at Cumberland university, Lebanon, Tenn., 1848-72, and was also state geol-


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ogist of Tennessee, 1854-60. He was married, Aug. 24, 1852, to Mrs. Catherine Kennedy (How- ard) Owen of Lebanon, Tenn. He was a mem- ber of the state board of health of Tennessee, 1866-88. He was reappointed state geologist of Tennessee in 1871, and was continued in this office until 1889. In 1872 he was made professor of chemistry in the medical depart- ment of the Univer- sity of Nashville, which after 1874 was associated with the medical department of Vanderbilt univer- sity. He received the degrees of A.M. and Ph.D. from Yale in 1866, and that of M.D. from the University

of Nashville in 1872. In 1875 he accepted the chair of geology in Vanderbilt university, which position he held until 1900 (25 years), when ad- vanced age and ill health caused him to retire from active work. Besides many papers on geol- ogical subjects, he published : Geological Recon- noissance of Tennessee (1856); Geology of Ten- nessee (1869), and assisted in the preparation of "Introduction to the Resources of Tennessee" (1874). As special agent of the U.S. census of 1880 he made a "Report on the Cotton Produc- tion of the State of Tennessee" (1884). and was an editor of " The Elements of the Geology of Tennessee" (1900). a school book by Foster and Webb, Nashville, Tenn. After an active life, he resided in 1903 with his daughter, Mrs. D. H. Morrow, in Dallas, Texas.

SAFFORD, Truman Henry, mathematician, was born in Royalton. Vt., Jan. 6, 1836. At an early age his remarkable mathematical ability attracted attention. In 1845 he prepared an almanac, and at the age of fourteen calculated the elliptic elements of the first comet of 1849. He graduated from Harvard in 1854, and spent several successive years in study at the observa- tory. He was officially connected with Harvard observatory, 1854-66. being assistant observer in the Astronomical observatory. 1863-66. He was professor of astronomy in the University of Chicago, and director of the Dearborn observa- tory, 1865-74 : was connected with the U.S. coast survey, 1874-76, and was professor of astronomy. Williams college. 1876-1901. At different times, he devoted himself to computing the orbits of planets and comets, to making observations for a standard catalogue of right ascensions, to the study of the nebulae, and to latitude and longi-