Abbot, Francis Ellingwood (06 November 1836–23 October 1903), Unitarian clergyman and philosopher, was born in Boston, the son of Joseph Hale Abbot and Fanny Ellingwood Larcom. The senior Abbot was a schoolmaster and amateur scientist who reflected the strict moralism of early nineteenth-century Unitarianism, while his wife displayed a strong poetical bent, and Abbot’s life and career were influenced by both. After being educated at the Boston Latin School he entered Harvard College and graduated in 1859. While there he underwent a strong religious conversion, at least partly through the influence of his college friend ...
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Abbot, Francis Ellingwood (1836-1903), Unitarian clergyman and philosopher
Robert Bruce Mullin
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Abbot, Gorham Dummer (1807-1874), educator of women and clergyman
Patrick G. Williams
Abbot, Gorham Dummer (03 September 1807–03 August 1874), educator of women and clergyman, was born in Brunswick, Maine, the son of “Squire” Jacob Abbot, a land trustee and sometime merchant, and his wife and second cousin, Betsey Abbot. Gorham Abbot grew up in the nearby town of Hallowell and, like his four brothers, graduated from Bowdoin College (A.B., 1826; A.M., 1829) and studied at Andover Theological Seminary. All of the Abbot brothers became teachers and clergymen, the two eldest, ...
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Abbott, Charles Conrad (1843-1919), naturalist and archaeologist
Michael J. Brodhead
Abbott, Charles Conrad (04 June 1843–27 July 1919), naturalist and archaeologist, was born in Trenton, New Jersey, the son of Timothy Abbott, a banker, and Susan Conrad. As a child he loved nature and began a lifelong fascination with the flora and fauna of the Delaware River Valley. Like many young men drawn to natural history, he saw no prospects for turning his passion into a livelihood and so chose to study medicine....
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Abbott, Cleveland (1892-1955), Tuskegee Institute educator, administrator, and athletic coach
Anne M. Blaschke
Abbott, Cleveland (09 December 1892–14 April 1955), Tuskegee Institute educator, administrator, and athletic coach, was born in Yankton, South Dakota, one of seven children of Mollie Brown and Elbert B. Abbott. The family moved to Watertown, South Dakota, during Abbott’s childhood. Early on he excelled at sports, earning sixteen varsity letters at Watertown High School in football, basketball, track and field, and baseball. His family was among a small percentage of black residents of South Dakota in the early twentieth century....
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Abbott, Edith (1876-1957), social reformer, social work educator, and author
Kathleen Banks Nutter
Abbott, Edith (26 September 1876–28 July 1957), social reformer, social work educator, and author, was born in Grand Island, Nebraska, the daughter of Othman Ali Abbott, a lawyer and first lieutenant governor of Nebraska, and Elizabeth Maletta Griffin, a woman suffrage advocate. Abbott grew up in a comfortable and politically progressive household on the American prairie. However, the severe economic depression that began in 1893 caused Abbott to postpone her college plans after graduation from an Omaha girls’ boarding school. Instead, at the age of seventeen she became a teacher at the Grand Island High School....
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Abbott, Jacob (1803-1879), educator and author
Edward L. Lach, Jr.
Abbott, Jacob (14 November 1803–31 October 1879), educator and author, was born in Hallowell, Maine, the son of Jacob Abbot II, a merchant, and Betsey Chandler. He attended school in Brunswick, Maine, and also at the Hallowell Academy. At the age of fourteen he passed an entrance examination and was admitted into the sophomore class at Bowdoin College, from which he received an A.B. in 1820 and an A.M. in 1823. It was at Bowdoin that Abbott added the extra ...
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Abel-Henderson, Annie Heloise (1873-1947), historian and author
Marilyn Elizabeth Perry
Abel-Henderson, Annie Heloise (18 February 1873–14 March 1947), historian and author, was born in Fernhurst, Sussex, England, the daughter of George Abel and Amelia Anne Hogben. Her parents had immigrated to the United States in 1871 but had not found Kansas frontier life appealing and returned home to England. In 1884, however, they went back to Salina, Kansas, where George Abel worked as a gardener. Abel and two sisters joined their parents in 1885....
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Acrelius, Israel (1714-1800), Lutheran clergyman and author
Thaddeus Russell
Acrelius, Israel (04 December 1714–25 April 1800), Lutheran clergyman and author, was born in Öster-Âker, Sweden, the son of Johan Acrelius, a pastor, and Sara Gahm. At the age of twelve he entered the University of Uppsala, where he trained for the ministry and received his ordination in 1743. Acrelius then served as a domestic chaplain until 1745, when he became the pastor of Riala, Kulla, and Norra Ljusterö....
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Adams, Charles Francis (1835-1915), railroad official, civic leader, and historian
John F. Stover
Adams, Charles Francis (27 May 1835–20 March 1915), railroad official, civic leader, and historian, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Charles Francis Adams (1807–1886), a diplomat and politician, and Abigail Brown Brooks. He was the grandson of John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) and great-grandson of ...
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Adams, Charles Francis (1835-1915)
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Charles Francis Adams, Jr. During his Civil War service. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-B8171-7390).
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Adams, Cyrus Cornelius (07 January 1849–04 May 1928), geographer and editor
Michael P. Conzen
Adams, Cyrus Cornelius (07 January 1849–04 May 1928), geographer and editor, was born in Naperville, Illinois, the son of Cyrus Adams and Cornelia Stevens, farmers. He was raised by his aunt and uncle in Bloomington, Minnesota, and attended the nascent University of Minnesota for a year, continuing at the first University of Chicago. He became a reporter for the Chicago ...
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Adams, George Burton (1851-1925), historian
Laura R. Robinson
Adams, George Burton (03 June 1851–26 May 1925), historian, was born in Fairfield, Vermont, the son of Calvin Carlton Adams, a Congregational clergyman, and Emeline Nelson. Adams attended Beloit College in Wisconsin, from which he received a B.A. in 1873. He then enrolled at Yale University, returning temporarily to teach at Beloit in 1874–1875. He earned a B.D. from Yale in 1877....
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Adams, Harriet Chalmers (22 October 1875–17 July 1937)
Tamar Y. Rothenberg
Adams, Harriet Chalmers (22 October 1875–17 July 1937), explorer, lecturer, and writer, was born Harriet Chalmers in Stockton, California. Her father, Alexander Chalmers, Canadian via Scotland, came to California in 1864 to try his luck mining; he later ran a dry goods store with his brother before becoming a mine superintendent and part-owner. Her mother, Frances Wilkins, had grown up in the Sierra Nevada foothills. From the age of eleven Harriet and her sister Anna had private tutors. Her mother encouraged Harriet’s love of reading, while travels with her father developed her interest in the natural world as well as the Native American and Spanish-speaking cultures in the region. At thirteen Harriet and her father spent more than six months meandering the length of the Sierras from Oregon to Mexico, cementing her lifelong love of adventure. As a young woman Harriet continued her indoor and outdoor studies and had an active social life. She was fluent in Spanish and spoke Portuguese, French, Italian, and German as well....
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Adams, Harriet Chalmers (22 October 1875–17 July 1937)
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Harriet Chalmers Adams. Harriet Chalmers Adams. Harriet Chalmers Adams, 1908. Glass negative. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-DIG-npcc-19900).
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Adams, Herbert Baxter (1850-1901), historian and educator
Raymond J. Cunningham
Adams, Herbert Baxter (16 April 1850–30 July 1901), historian and educator, was born in Shutesbury, Massachusetts, the son of Nathaniel Dickinson Adams, a lumber merchant, and Harriet Hastings. Adams’s father died when the boy was six; as a result the family moved to nearby Amherst where his mother had relatives. There he attended local schools and later Phillips Exeter Academy....
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Adams, John (1772-1863), educator
Frederick S. Allis
Adams, John (18 September 1772–24 April 1863), educator, was born in Canterbury, Connecticut, the son of Captain John Adams, a farmer and a veteran of the Revolution, and Mary Parker. As a boy Adams worked as a farmhand, and in his late teens his family decided, at great personal sacrifice, to send him to Yale, where he spent four years, graduating in 1795. On his return to Canterbury after graduation, Adams found his mother seriously ill and decided to teach school in town so that he could nurse her properly. During that period a woman named Elizabeth Ripley came to visit in Canterbury. Apparently it was love at first sight, and the two were married in 1798; they would have ten children. In the early 1800s he held positions at Plainfield Academy in Plainfield, Connecticut, and at Bacon Academy in Colchester, Connecticut, and successfully built up both schools. This was followed, in 1810, with his acceptance of the offer to become principal of Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts....
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Adams, Numa Pompilius Garfield (1885-1940), physician and medical educator
Shari Rudavsky
Adams, Numa Pompilius Garfield (26 February 1885–29 August 1940), physician and medical educator, was born in Delaplane, Virginia. Little is known about Adams’s family and early life. He attended a country school run by his uncle Robert Adams. Adams received additional instruction and inspiration from his grandmother Amanda, a midwife who shared with him the secrets of herbal medicine. When Adams was thirteen, his family moved to Steelton, Pennsylvania. Soon Adams taught himself how to read music and purchased a used cornet, which he taught himself to play, a skill that later helped him pay for his education....
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Adams, William (1807-1880), minister and seminary president
Gardiner H. Shattuck
Adams, William (25 January 1807–31 August 1880), minister and seminary president, was born in Colchester, Connecticut, the son of John Adams, an educator, and Elizabeth Ripley. Adams grew up in Andover, Massachusetts, where his father was the principal of Phillips Academy. He entered Yale College in 1824, where he received his A.B. in 1827. After college he returned home to study at Andover Theological Seminary and to assist his father in teaching. He completed his seminary training in 1830 and was ordained a Congregational minister. He began service as the pastor of a church in Brighton, Massachusetts, in 1831. He married Susan P. Magoun in July 1831. His wife’s illness forced him to resign from the Brighton pastorate in early 1834, but following her death in May, he accepted a ministerial call to the Broome Street (later Central) Presbyterian Church in New York City. Since the Congregational and Presbyterian denominations then enjoyed a spirit of mutual respect and cooperation, Adams switched denominations and was installed as pastor in November 1834. In August 1835 he married Martha B. Magoun, the sister of his first wife....
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Adamski, George (17 April 1891–23 April 1965), lecturer and writer on occult subjects and on UFOs during the 1950s' flying saucer enthusiasm
Robert S. Ellwood
Adamski, George (17 April 1891–23 April 1965), lecturer and writer on occult subjects and on UFOs during the 1950s' flying saucer enthusiasm, lecturer and writer on occult subjects and on UFOs during the 1950s’ flying saucer enthusiasm, was born in Poland. His parents (names unknown) brought him to the United States when he was one or two. The family settled in Dunkirk, New York; their life was hard, and Adamski received little formal education. He joined the Thirteenth U.S. Cavalry Regiment in 1913 as an enlisted man, serving on the Mexican border, and was honorably discharged in 1916. On 25 December 1917 he married Mary A. Shimbersky (d. 1954). After leaving the army, Adamski worked as a painter in Yellowstone National Park, in a flour mill in Portland, Oregon, and by 1921 was working in a cement factory in California. He continued to live in California, reportedly supporting himself and his wife through a variety of jobs, including by the 1930s teaching and lecturing on occult subjects....
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Adler, Cyrus (1863-1940), academic administrator and Jewish communal leader
Ira Robinson
Adler, Cyrus (13 September 1863–07 April 1940), academic administrator and Jewish communal leader, was born in Van Buren, Arkansas, to Samuel Adler, a merchant and planter, and Sarah Sulzberger. At an early age Adler’s family moved to Philadelphia and then to New York, where his father died in 1867. The family returned to Philadelphia, where his mother’s brother, David Sulzberger, became head of the household and was a great influence on Adler’s upbringing. As a boy, Adler received an intensive education in Judaic subjects from a consortium of Philadelphia rabbis, headed by ...
