Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1889, volume 6).djvu/180

156 ists, supporting James G. Birnev for president in 1840 and 1844 and John P. Hale" in 1852. In 1854 he was nominated by the Free-soil party for com- missioner of the state land-office and twice elected. He acquired note, especially by a remarkable state paper in which he denied the constitutionality of the payment by the state of the expenses of the judges' of the supreme court. The correctness of his views on the question was maintained by the state auditors in opposition to the attorney-gen- eral. He lived in retirement after 1859 on a farm near Jackson. He became first known to the pub- lic as the author of a work entitled "American Liberties and American Slavery Morally and Po- litically Illustrated " (Rochester, 1838).

TREAT, Robert, governor of Connecticut, b. in England in 1622 ; d. in Milford, Conn., 12 July, 1710. Early in the 17th century he came to Weth- ersfield, Conn., with his father, Richard, who died there in 1669. The latter was a deputy from 1644 till 1658, assistant or magistrate from 1658 till 1665, and a patentee of the charter that was granted to Connecticut by Charles II. in 1662. His estate of about 900 acres in what is now Glastonbury was long known as the Treat farm. The son removed to Milford in 1639, and, although only eighteen years of age, was appointed one of nine men to survey and lay out the land. He was a deputy in 1653-'9 and again in 1665, and was assistant from 1659 till 1664. Mr. Treat was active in op- posing the movement for consolidation of Con- necticut and New Haven. The dissatisfied fac- tion of the New Haven colony determined to seek another settlement, and the result was the found- ing of Newark, N. J. Robert Treat went with them, and was the first town-clerk of the new set- tlement as well as a deputy to the 1st assembly from 1667 till 1672. He was also granted a home lot of eight acres there. In 1672 he returned to Milford, where he had been made lieutenant in the train-band in 1654, and promoted captain in 1661. He became major in 1673. In 1675 he was chosen commander-in-chief of the forces for the war with King Philip, and drove the Indians from North- 'field and Springfield. In their assault upon Had- ley he put them to flight, and he took an active part in the destruction of the fort of the Narra- gansetts, 19 Dec, 1675. Maj. Treat is said to have been the last to leave the fort. He was elected deputy governor of Connecticut in 1676, and served till 1683, when he was elected governor. He was chosen again to the former post in 1698 and served till 1708. In 1683 he was elected governor and served till 1698, not including the two years under Sir Edmund Andros. In 1683 a dispute arose with the governor of New York, who claimed that Rye, Greenwich, and Stamford belonged to his ju- risdiction. Gov. Treat was chosen one of the com- missioners to settle the controversy, and a compro- mise was made by giving up Rye and retaining the two other towns. When King James II. deter- mined to withdraw their charters from the colonies and place them under a governor appointed by the crown, the loss of the liberties of the colony seems to have been a foregone conclusion from the very beginning to Mr. Treat's mind, and he determined to delay the calamity as long as possible. Accord- ing to the " instructions " that he drew up for the colony's agent, his duty was flrst to prevent if pos- sible the loss of the charter, and secondly, failing in this, to plead that the colony might not be di- vided and united to others, but allowed to remain intact. Subsequently the hope was expressed that if Connecticut was to be united with some other colony, she might be annexed to Massachusetts rather than to New York. When Gov. Andros demanded the surrender of the charter, the governor and council replied that they could not comply with the request till they had heard from the king. Finally Andros went to Hartford on 31 Oct., 1687, to take charge of the government, and, according to Dummer, an almost contemporary writer, he " seized their charter for the king." It is commonly supposed that he did not obtain the charter. (See Andros.) There is no record that he ever demanded it of the assembly. He had gained possession of the government, was loyally received by the people, and, moreover, the proceedings of the next day prove that Andros could have known nothing of the hiding of the charter from him. This act of disloyalty would certainly have caused trouble : but the hiding of a charter may have been strictly true, though there is no mention of it in the records or by contemporary writers. On 1 Nov., Gov. Treat, though on various pretexts he had refused to surrender the charter for about two years, was made one of Gov. Andros's council, and within a week colonel of militia in New Haven county. Connecticut suffered less from the tyrannical acts of Andros than any other of the colonies, doubtless owing to the guidance of Mr. Treat. On 9 May, 1689, after the rebellion against Andros, Gov. Treat and the old magistrates under the charter resumed the offices from which they had been deposed in 1687. — His son, Samuel, clergyman, b. in Milford, Conn., in 1648 ; d. in Eastham, Mass., 18 March, 1717. was graduated at Harvard in 1669, received a call to Eastham, on Cape Cod, in 1672, and was ordained in 1675 at a salary of £50 a year, which was subsequently increased, besides several grants of land. He had about 500 Indians under his pastoral care, whose affections he so effectually gained by visiting their wigwams and joining in their festivities that they looked upon him as a father. He translated the " Confession of Faith " into the Nauset dialect for the use of the Indians. In 1678 and in 1713 he preached the election sermon, the former at Plymouth. He was the grandfather of Robert Treat Paine, the signer of the Declaration of Independence, and the great-grandfather of the Rev. James Freeman, the first Unitarian clergyman of Boston. — Samuel's great-grandson, Joseph, soldier, b. in Bangor, Me., 8 Dec., 1775 ; d. there, 27 Feb., 1853, became a civil engineer, but was commissioned captain in the 21st U. S. infantry on 12 March, 1812. Owing to the envy of some of his superior officers, he was accused of cowardice at the battle of Chippewa, 5 July, 1814; but upon trial he was honorably acquitted, none of his accusers appearing against him. He was mustered out in 1815, in 1817 and 1818 was a member of the general court of Massachusetts, and in 1820 of the Maine constitutional convention. He after- ward became brigadier-general in the state militia. Gen. Treat published a pamphlet entitled " The Vindication of Capt. Joseph Treat, late of the 21st U. S. Infantry, against the Atrocious Calumnies Comprehended in Maj.-Gen. Brown's Official Report of the Battle of Chippeway" (Philadelphia, 1815). — Samuel's descendant in the seventh generation, John Harvey, author, b. in Pittsfield, N. H., 23 July, 1839, removed to Andover, Mass., in 1856, and was graduated at Harvard in 1862, after which he engaged in business with his father in Lawrence, Mass. In 1869 and 1875 he travelled extensively in Europe and the East. He is a member of historical societies in this country and England. In 1888 he presented to Harvard a large collection of rare boolvs and to its Museum of comparative zoology his large collection of entomological sped-