Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1889, volume 6).djvu/593

Rh WIMMER, Boniface, R. C. prelate, b. in Thai- massing, Bavaria, 9 Jan., 1809 ; d. in Westmoreland county, Pa.. 8 Dec., 1887. He received a classical education, took an academic course at Ratisbon, and entered the Munich university with the in- tention of studying law, but, changing his mind, pursued a theological course in the Ratisbon sem- inary. On 81 July, 1831, he was ordained priest; and in the following year he was admitted to the Benedictine monastery in Metten, Bavaria, chang- ing his baptismal name Sebastian to Boniface. During 1833-'6 he labored as professor and priest in Edenstetler, Augsburg, in 1840 became profes- sor in the Louis gymnasium, Munich, and in 1846 arrived in the United States with four theological students and fifteen artisans, for the purpose of establishing an abbey for the education of German youth for the Roman Catholic priesthood. He set- tled near Beatty, Westmoreland co., Pa., and on 28 Sept., 1848, laid the foundation of the present St. Vincent's abbey. Two years afterward he founded St. Mary's priory in Elk county, Pa. Pope Pius IX. raised his original settlement to the dignity first of a monastery, then of an abbey, and ap- pointed him superior of St. Vincent's, 21 May, 1852, abbot ad triermium, 17 Sept., 1855, and abbot for life and president of the American congregation, 27 July, 1866. When the parent abbey was fully established and provided with a variety of manu- facturing industries for its support, he set about founding branches in the south, and organized col- onies in Louisiana, North Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia in 18?6-'7,and in southern Illinois in 1881. On 29 Dec, 1883, he celebrated the fiftieth anni- versary of his Benedictine profession amid cere- monies in which members of the order from all parts of the world participated, and on that occa- sion Pope Leo XIII. elevated him to the dignity of arch-abbot. He was a man of attractive manner, fine business abilitv, and large scholarship.

WIMPFFEN-BERNEBURG, Alexander Stanislaus, explorer, b. in Deux-Ponts in 1748; d. in Paris in 1819. He was a younger brother of the two French generals, Francois Louis and Felix, received his education in his native city, entered the French army, and served in this coun- try as a captain under Count Rochambeau in 1781-'2. He was afterward employed in the West Indies, but resigned in 1788, and visited the West Indies and Mexico. In 1804 he secured an em- ployment in the military household of Napoleon I., which he retained till 1814, when he retired to private life. He wrote " Voyage a, Saint Domingue dans les annees 1788, 1789, and 1790" (2 vols., Paris, 1797), which was translated into German as "Reisen nach St. Domingo" (Erfurt, 1798), and into English (London, 1797); "Voyage dans les Antilles Franeaises et Espagnoles" (Paris, 1799); " Impressions de voyage et essai sur le royaume de la Nouvelle Espagne" (1802); and "Histoire na- turelle du Cacao et du Sucre" (1805).

WINANS, Ross, inventor, b. in Vernon, N. J., in October, 1796; d. in Baltimore, Md., 11 April, 1877. He began life as a farmer, and exhibited at an early age great inventive genius. One of his first devices was a plough. Afterward he invented the friction-wheel for cars, and the outside bearing on axles, now almost indispensable to the use of railways. He was also the inventor of the eight- wheeled car system. He was sent to England by the Baltimore and Ohio railroad company to study the English^ systems, and spent a year in making observations that proved of great value to the com- pany. He built the first successful locomotive used on this railroad, and also invented the camel-back locomotive. He established in Baltimore the largest railway machine-shops in the country, and his sons were associated in their management. Mr. Winans was solicited by the Russian government, through the agency of George W. Whistler, to go to Russia and build rolling-stock for the railroad between Moscow and St. Petersburg, but declined to go him- self, and sent his two sons. During the civil war he took an active part in politics, and was chosen to represent Baltimore in the extra session of the Maryland legislature in 1861 ; but ho was arrested and imprisoned in Fort McIIenry. He made nu- merous compilations of gleanings from the works of eminent writers, upon philosophical subjects, and was himself the author of various pamphlets on religious subjects, and of " One Religion, Many Creeds" (Baltimore, 1870). — His son, Thomas Re Kay, engineer, b. in Vernon, N. J., 6 Dec, 1820: d. in Newport, R. I., 11 June, 1878, showed when a child great fondness for mechanical toys, which taste his father encouraged, and apprenticed him in his youth to a machinist. On reaching his ma- jority, he became associated in business with his father, and, with his brother William Lewis, was sent to Russia to arrange the contracts for furnish- ing and managing the equipment of the railroad between Moscow and St. Petersburg. In 1843, with Andrew M. Eastwick and Joseph Harrison, they concluded a contract with the Russian government for $3,000,000, and subsequently they held other contracts, from which the profits were very large. With his father and brother he invented a system of steam navigation commonly called the "cigar- ship," and for many years conducted elaborate, ex- pensive, and successful experiments, principally in European waters. After his return to the United States, he devoted his attention to the study of new inventions of the most diverse kinds. He devised a great improvement in the construction of organs, in- vented a tubular adjustment by which young trout could be more readily fed, and built a chimney 100 feet high to ventilate his residence in Baltimore.

WINANS, William, clergyman, b. in Pennsyl- vania, 3 Nov., 1788 ; d. in Amite county. Miss., 31 Aug., 1857. He entered the Western conference of the Methodist Episcopal church in 1808, went to Mississippi as a missionary in 1812, was a pioneer of his church in that state, and Louisiana, and took a conspicuous part in the organization of the Methodist Episcopal church, south. He exerted a wide influence in his denomination, and took part in the discussion of political questions. He pub- lished "Discourses on Fundamental Religious Subjects," edited by the Rev. Thomas O. Summers, D. D. (Nashville).

WINCHELL, James Manning, clergyman, b. in North East, Dutchess co., N. Y., 8 Sept., 1791 : d. in Boston, Mass.. 22 Feb., 1820. He entered Union college in 1808, but, deciding to become a minister, preferred to finish at a Baptist institution, and was graduated at Brown in 1812. Mr. Winchell was licensed by the Baptist church in North East on 4 Oct., 1812, and accepted an invitation to supply the pulpit in Bristol, R. I., for a year. He was then called to the 1st Baptist church in Boston, and was publicly recognized in that place on 14 March, 1814. Here he remained until his death, and won a high reputation for eloquence, and suavity and grace of manner. Mr. Winchell was one of the editors of the " American Baptist Magazine," and published "Jubilee Sermons: Two Discourses, exhibiting an Historical Sketch of the First Baptist Church in Boston from 1665 to 1818 " (Boston, 1819), and " Watts's Psalms and Hymns, with a Supplement" (1820). The lat-