Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1889, volume 6).djvu/638

602 district of New York, holding this office about eighteen months. In 1862 he entered the National army as a volunteer, serving until 1865, during which time he became in succession chief-of-staff to Gen. Quincy A. Gillmore in the Department of the South, and military commandant of Charleston and Savannah, and attained by brevet the rank of brigadier-general of volunteers. From 1866 till 1868 he was lieutenant-governor of New York, having been chosen as a Republican, but he was defeated as candidate for the governorship in 1870. In 1872 he was elected to congress, and was also chosen as a presidential elector. From 1877 until 1883 he filled the office of U. S. attorney for the southern district of New York. Since that time he has been engaged in the practice of law. He is the author of numerous public addresses, including a eulogy on Gen. George H. Thomas.

WOODFORD, William, soldier, b. in Caroline, county, Va., in 1735 ; d. in New York city, 13 Nov., 1780. He served with credit during the French and Indian war, and in the autumn of 1775, on the assembling of the Virginia troops at Williamsburg, was chosen colonel of the 2d Vir- ginia regiment. At Hampton Roads, the first bat- tle of the Revolution in Virginia, he was engaged in preventing the destruction of the town of Hampton by Lord Dunmore, and sank five of his vessels. Col. Woodford had command of the Vir- ginians that defended Great Bridge on Elizabeth river, and defeated the force that was sent by Lord Dunmore to take it, after a sharp battle in which the British suffered a loss of fifty-five, while not a single Virginian was killed. He called the militia of Norfolk and Princess Anne counties to arms, and on 14 Dec, 1775, occupied Norfolk. He was appointed brigadier-general on 21 Feb., 1777, and given command of the 1st Virginia brigade. At the battle of the Brandywine he was wounded in the hand, but he took an active part in the battles of Germantown and Monmouth. He was then ordered to the relief of Charleston, S. C, and marched 500 miles with the Virginia and North Carolina troops in twenty-eight days. He reached Charleston in April, and was taken prisoner on 12 May, 1780. The British sent him to New York, where he died. Counties in Kentucky and Illi- nois bear his name.

WOODHOUSE, James, chemist, b. in Philadelphia, Pa., 17 Nov., 1770; d. there, 4 June, 1809. He was graduated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1787, and at its medical department in 1792. In 1791 he served as a surgeon in Gen. Arthur St. Clair's expedition against the western Indians. When Joseph Priestley declined to accept the chair of chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania in 1795, Dr. Woodhouse received the appointment, which he held until his death. He is said to have been the first to demonstrate the superiority of the Lehigh anthracite coal in Northampton county, Pa., over the bituminous coals of Virginia for intensity and regularity of heating power. He was a member of the American philosophical society, and contributed to its transactions, to Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell's &ldquo;Medical Repository,&rdquo; and to Dr. John R. Coxe's &ldquo;Medical Museum.&rdquo; Besides editing Parkinson's &ldquo;Chemical Pocket-Book&rdquo; (Philadelphia, 1802) and Chaptal's &ldquo;Elements of Chemistry&rdquo; (4th ed., 2 vols., 1807), he published &ldquo;Dissertation on the Chemical and Medical Properties of the Persimmon-Tree&rdquo; (1792); &ldquo;Observations on the Combinations of Acids, Bitters, and Astringents&rdquo; (1793); &ldquo;Answer to Dr. J. Priestley's Considerations on the Doctrine of Phlogiston and the Decomposition of Water&rdquo; (1794); &ldquo;Young

Pocket-Companion&rdquo; (1797); and &ldquo;Experiments and Observations in the Vegetation of Plants&rdquo; (1802).

WOODHULL, Maxwell, naval officer, b. in New York citv, 2 April, 1813 ; d. in Baltimore, Md., 19 Feb., 1863. He was the only son of Rich- ard Miller Woodhull, the founder of Williamsburg (now the eastern district of Brooklyn, N. Y.). Max- well Woodhull entered the navy as midshipman, 4 June, 1832, and served in the Mediterranean, on the coast of Africa, on the Brazil station, and in the Gulf of Mexico. During the Paraguay expe- dition he was executive officer of the flag-ship " Sa- bine," and he afterward commanded the brig " Bainbridge." Being attached to the coast sur- vey, he surveyed New York harbor and the ob- structions of Hell Gate, reported plans for their removal, and received the thanks of the Chamber of commerce of New York. He was also engaged on surveys on the New England coast. At the opening of the civil war he was assigned to special duty under the navy department, and promoted to the rank of commander, 1 July, 1861. He organ- ized the supply service for the blockading fleet, commanded the "Connecticut," was afterward transferred to the gun-boat " Cimerone," and led a division of the James river flotilla during Gen. George B. McClellan's peninsular campaign. Later he was attached to Admiral Charles Wilkes's flying squadron, and ordered with the " Cimerone " to Florida waters to open St. John's and St. Mary's rivers, which was accomplished, the squadron sev- eral times engaging the batteries of the enemy. Early in 1863 he was ordered to the north with his vessel for repairs. He was killed accidentally by the discharge of a gun from which a salute was being fired. — His son, Maxwell Van Zandt, en- tered the volunteer army in 1862 with the rank of captain, and was promoted to major and subse- quently to lieutenant-colonel and assistant adju- tant-general of the 15th army corps. He was brevetted colonel on the recommendation of Gen. John A. Logan, and brigadier-general of volunteers on that of Gen. Oliver O. Howard.

WOODHULL, Richard, colonist, b. in Thenford, Northampton, England, 13 Sept., 1620; d. in Brookhaven, N. Y., 17 Oct., 1690. He came to this country probably in 1648, on 29 April of which year he witnessed a deed at Easthampton, Long Island. He settled permanently at Brookhaven, Suffolk co., N. Y., in 1655, of which place he became proprietor in two patents — that of Gov. Richard Nicolls in 1666 and that of Geo. Thomas .Dongan in 1686. In 1663 he represented Brookhaven at the general court at Hartford in an effort to obtain aid against the usurpations of the Dutch. In 1666 he was appointed one of the justices of the court of assizes, and in 1673 he became deputy to the Dutch commissioners in New York, and by them was commissioned a magistrate for Brookhaven. — His great-grandson, Nathaniel, soldier, b. in St. George's manor, Long Island, N. Y., 30 Dec, 1722 ; d. in New Utrecht, Long Island, 10 Sept., 1776. He served as major, under Gen. Abercrombie, in the attack upon Crown Point and Ticonderoga in 1758, afterward accompanied Bradstreet against Fort Frontenac, and was a colonel under Gen. Jeffrey Amherst in 1760. He was a representative from Suffolk county in the colonial assembly from 1769 till 1775, and was active there in resisting the encroachments of the crown. The colonial government was suspended in Mav. 1775, from which time till April, 1777, New York was governed by the Provincial congress, of which Gen. Woodhull was president in 1775, and again in 1776. He was ap-