Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1892, volume 3).djvu/35

Rh change of plan. This work discusses the use of liquor among the ancients, the history of the discovery of distillation, liquor adulterations, the effects of alcohol on the physical organs and functions, the social and moral results arising from the drinking habit, heredity, the use of alcohol as a medicine, and includes an inquiry into the methods of reformation. It has passed through three editions, and been translated into Swedish, German, French, Spanish, Malagasy, Burmese, and Mahratta. Mr. and Mrs. Gustafson are now (1887) preparing a series of school-books, intended to inculcate their views on the temperance question. &mdash; His wife, Zadel Barnes Buddington, author, b. in Middletown, Conn., about 1840, early began writing verses, stories, and sketches. Subsequently a paper by her in favor of the abolition of capital punishment attracted general attention. For two years she was political editor of a Massachusetts journal. Of her tribute to the poet Bryant, John Greenleaf Whittier wrote: &ldquo;I can only compare it with Milton's &lsquo;Lycidas&rsquo;; it is worthy of any living poet at least.&rdquo; Her poem of &ldquo;Little Martin Cragnan,&rdquo; based on the true story of a boy lost in Pittston mines through an act of heroism, became very popular. Mrs. Gustafson (who by her first marriage was Mrs. Buddington) has published &ldquo;Can the Old Love?&rdquo; (Boston, 1871); &ldquo;Meg, A Pastoral, and other Poems&rdquo; (Boston, 1879); and a new edition of &ldquo;Zophiel,&rdquo; by Maria Gowen Brooks, with a sketch of the author (Boston, 1879).

GUTHEIM, James Koppel, clergyman, b. in Menne, Westphalia, 15 Nov., 1817; d. in New Orleans, La., 11 May, 1886. He came to the United States in 1843, and was called as minister of a Cincinnati synagogue in 1846. In 1850 he assumed charge of a synagogue in New Orleans; but in 1863, refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the Union, he left New Orleans, and preached in Montgomery, Ala., and Columbus, Ga. At the close of the civil war he returned to New Orleans and was called to the New York Temple Emanuel in 1868. In 1872 he became minister of the New Orleans Temple Sinai, where he preached until his death. He took much interest in educational and charitable work, and was at one time president of the New Orleans board of education. The state senate adjourned on the day of his funeral.

GUTHERS, Karl, artist, b. in Switzerland in 1844. He was brought to the United States by his parents in 1851. His father settled in Cincinnati and was the first to introduce terra-cotta objects of art into this country. The son began his professional career by modelling clay in his father's studio. He afterward studied under a portrait-painter in Memphis, Tenn., and in 1868 went to Paris, where he studied with Cabasson and Pils, and was a pupil at the Académie des beaux arts. At the beginning of the Franco-Prussian war, he went to Belgium, studying in Brussels and Antwerp under Stalleart and Robert. He took up his residence in Rome in 1871, where he executed his first important work. He returned to Memphis in 1873, painting portraits and figure-pieces in oil and water-colors. In 1874 he removed to St. Louis, where he was connected with the art department of Washington university, and was instrumental in the organization of the school and museum of fine arts in the life class in which he taught from 1876 till 1883-'4. In the latter year he went to Paris, where he has since remained, studying in the Julian school. To the Centennial exhibition at Philadelphia he sent his &ldquo;Ecce Homo&rdquo; and his &ldquo;Awakening of Spring,&rdquo; receiving for the latter work a medal and diploma.

GUTHRIE, James, statesman, b. in Nelson county, Ky., 5 Dec, 1792; d. in Louisville, 13 March, 1869. He was educated at Bardstown, Ky., and studied law under John Rowan. In 1820 he began practice in Louisville, and at once entered on a successful career at the bar. He was elected to the lower house of the Kentucky legislature in 1827, and was a member of the upper house from 1831 till 1840. In 1840 he was president of the convention that framed the present constitution of the state. He was secretary of the U. S. treas- ury, under the administration of Franklin Pierce from 1853 till 1857. In 1865 he was elected U. S. senator, but resigned in 1868 on account of declin- ing health. He was president of the Louisville and Nashville railroad from 1860 till 1868.

GUTHRIE, John Julius, naval officer, b. in Washington, N. C, in 1814 ; d. at sea, near Cape Hatteras, in November, 1877. He became a mid- shipman in 1834, passed midshipman in 1838, and lieutenant in 1842. He served in the Mexican war and in the attack on the barrier forts in Canton river, China, in November, 1856, where he displayed gallantry. He pulled down the Chinese flag, which he presented to North Carolina as a trophy, and received the thanks of the legislature. In 1861, at the beginning of the civil war, he resigned his commission and entered the Confederate ser- vice. He was on active duty in New Orleans, and also commanded the " Advance," running the blockade between Wilmington and the Bermudas. At the close of the war he removed to Portsmouth, Va., and in 1865 was the first officer of the regular service who had joined the Confederates to be pardoned by the president. His disabilities were removed by a unanimous vote of congress. He was appointed in 1870 superintendent of the life- saving stations from Cape Henry to Cape Hatteras, and was drowned while endeavoring to succor the passengers and crew of the U. S. steamship " Hu- ron " in a storm off Cape Hatteras.

GUTHRIE, Samuel, chemist, b. in Brimfield, Mass., in 1782; d. in Sackett's Harbor, N. Y., 19 Oct., 1848. He studied medicine, and was among the earliest laborers in practical chemistry in the United States. He invented and first manufactured percussion pills, also inventing the punchlock for exploding them. This lock took the place of the old flint-lock in fire-arms, and was in turn superseded, after Dr. Guthrie's death, by the percussion-cap. In the course of his experiments he sustained lasting injuries and nearly lost his life from an accidental explosion. He also invented in 1830 a process for the rapid conversion of potato starch into molasses, which he published in Silliman's "American Journal of Science," to which he contributed occasional papers on scientific subjects. Dr. Guthrie was an original discoverer of chloroform, independently of the contemporaneous researches of Soubeiran, Liebig, and Dumas — made at the same time, but unknown to Guthrie. His chloroform was distributed and his process repeated and verified by the elder Silliman at Yale college in 1831, while the publication of Soubeiran and Liebig's discoveries were made in January and March, 1832, respectively. Dr. Guthrie's process was by distilling together alcohol and bleaching-powder and afterward purifying the distillate, thus obtaining pure chloroform. The exact composition of this substance, termed by Guthrie a "spirituous solution of chloric ether,'remained unknown till 1834, when Dumas published the results of his investigation, and named it chloroform. A committee of the Medieo-chirurgical society of Edinburgh awarded to Dr. Guthrie