Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1892, volume 3).djvu/656

620 stock, Conn." (1887).— His half-brother, Joseph Gay Eaton, lawyer, b. in Thompson, Conn., 29 April, 1819 ; d. in New York city, 3 June, 1870, was graduated at Yale in 1839, taught in Savannah, Ga., and Charleston, S. C, for a year and a half, studied law, taught in Waterloo, N. Y., and in 1842 became a tutor at Yale. In 1847 he resigned the tutorship, was admitted to the bar, and began Sractice in New Haven. In 1852 he removed to i ew York city. He was especially familiar with the law of patents, and became interested in the development of certain inventions. In 1855 he en- gaged in the manufacture of steam fire-engines of a design that was invented mainly by himself, and was the first used in New York city. In introduc- ing them he overcame strong opposition. In 1863 he was appointed by the U. S. government assist- ant inspector of iron-clads, and until the end of the war supervised the work in the Brooklyn navy- yard. He subsequently resumed legal practice. He was one of the founders of the Free-soil party in Connecticut, and in 1845 contributed to the " New Englander " a series of articles on " Massa- chusetts vs. South Carolina." During the later years of his life he interested himself in genealogi- cal subjects, and compiled records of his ances- tors which formed the basis of " The Learned Fam- ily," by William L. Learned (Albany, 1882).

LAROCHE, Antoine de, French navigator. He lived in the 17th century, and entered the Eng- lish naval service. All that is known about his voyages and discoveries is contained in the work of Seixasy Louera, entitled " Descripcion geographica de la region Magellanica." a section of which treats of the discovery that was made by De Laroche of a new passage from the North sea into the South sea. Laroche is said to have returned from the island of Chiloe in May, 1675, doubled Cape Horn, and tried to enter the south Atlantic by way of the Strait of Lemaire, for at that time it was not known that there was an open sea east of Staten island. The western winds were so violent, and the currents so rapid, that he was carried eastward without being able to approach the lands that lie along the Strait of Magellan. The month of May was already advanced, and winter was beginning. He despaired of safety, and his anxiety increased when he saw an unknown land before him in the east. After many efforts he succeeded in reaching a bay, where he anchored near a cape sloping southward, and where the sea was deep. He distinguished mountains near the coast covered with snow, and was exposed to very stormy winds. At the end of fourteen days the weather cleared, and he found that he was anchored at one of the extremities of this land, and discovered to the south and southeast other mountains covered with snow. A gale from the south now forced him northward for three days as far as the forty-sixth degree of south latitude. The storm calmed, and at about the forty-fifth de- gree he reached a country without inhabitants and which he represented as very pleasant. Here he spent six days, and procured water, wood, and fish. He then sailed for the Bay of All Saints in Brazil. Some writers have thought that Laroche's island was the land that was seen by Duclos-Guyot in June, 1756, which he named St. Pierre and which Cook named South Georgia in 1772.

LA ROCHE, R6ne, physician, b. in the island of Santo Domingo in 1755 : d. in Philadelphia, Pa., 6 June, 1819. He received a classical education in France, was graduated in medicine at the Univer- sity of Montpellier in 1779, and practised in Santo Domingo until in 1793 he was forced to flee to the United States in consequence of the revolu- tion in that island. He obtained a practice among the French families in Philadelphia, where he gained a reputation among native Americans by his successful treatment of yellow fever during the epidemic of 1794 and succeeding years. — His son, Rene, physician, b. in Philadelphia, Pa., in 1795 ; d. there in December, 1872, was the author of a trea- tise on " Pneumonia : its supposed Connection, Pathological and Etiological, with Autumnal Fe- vers " (Philadelphia, 1854) ; and of an exhaustive work on " Yellow Fever, considered in its Histori- cal, Pathological, Etiological, and Therapeutical Relations " (1855). For some years before his death he was engaged in preparing a history of medicine.

LAROSE, John Jacob, clergyman, b. in Le- high county, Pa., in February, 1755 ; d. near Mi- amisburgh, Ohio, 17 Nov., 1844. He served in the Revolutionary army in 1776, after which he taught in North Carolina, studied theology privately, was licensed in 1795, and preached in Guilford county, N. C, till 1804, when he removed to Ohio. In 1805 he organized the German Reformed church of St. John's, and in 1809 that of Germantown. He left manuscripts in German of theological treatises and many poems that were never published.

LARRABEE, Charles Hathaway, jurist, b. in Rome, N. Y., 9 Nov., 1820; d. in Tehachapi Pass, Cal., 20 Jan., 1883. He was taken to Ohio whe"n a child, educated at Granville college (now Denison university), read law, then engaged in civil engineering, aiding in the construction of the Lit- tle Miami railroad, the earliest work of the kind in Ohio, removed to Pontotoc, Miss., was there ad- mitted to the bar, and was an unsuccessful candi- date for the legislature. Removing to Chicago, 111., in 1844, he edited the " Democratic Advocate,*' was city attorney in 1846, and in 1847 founded Horicon, Wis., where he erected mills for utilizing the water-power at that place. He was a delegate to the State constitutional convention in 1847, in which body he effectively advocated the homestead exemption clause, and judge of the Wisconsin su- preme court from 1848 till 1858, when he resigned, and was elected to congress as a Democrat, serving from 5 Dec, 1859, till 3 March, 1861. His prompt and energetic support of the National government did much to promote the enrolment of volunteers among the Democrats of Wisconsin. In April, 1861, he raised a company in the 1st Wisconsin regiment, was commissioned lieutenant, and in the following month appointed major of the 5th Wis- consin infantry. He served through the peninsular campaign, and was in Gen. Winfield S. Hancock's brigade at Lewinsville, Lee's Mills, and Williams- burg, where he took part in a brilliant bayonet charge. He was appointed colonel of the 24th Wisconsin in August, 1862, fought with credit in Gen. Philip Sheridan's division at Perryville, and served in the Army of the Tennessee and that of the Cumberland till 27 Aug., 1863, when he re- signed on account of failing health and entered the invalid corps. He removed to California in the spring of 1864, practised law at Salem, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington territory, and finally settled at San Bernardino, Cal.

LARRABEE, William Clark, educator, b. in Cape Elizabeth, Me., 23 Dec, 1802 : d. in Greencastle, Ind., 4 May, 1859. He was graduated at Bowdoin in 1828, taught in Alfred, Me., for two years, was appointed in 1830 a tutor in the newly established Wesleyan university, and in the following year he was elected principal of Oneida conference seminary, Cazenovia, N. Y., where he continued for four years, becoming also, in 1832, a minister in the Oneida conference. In 1835 Mr. Larrabee was