Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1892, volume 3).djvu/747

Rh Caripe " ; and " Recherches anatoraiques sur quel- ques oiseaux rares ou peu connusdans leur organi- sation profonde." The last two appeared in the "Annates du museum d'histoire naturelle" (Paris).

LHERMITTE, Jean Marthe Adrien, Baron (lair-meet), French naval officer, b. in Coutances, France, 29 Sept., 1766 ; d. in Plessis Piquet, near Paris, 28 Aug., 1826. He entered the navy as mid- shipman in 1780, and was engaged in the war of American independence. He became a lieutenant in 1787, served in Santo Domingo in 1790-'3, was made a commander in 1796, and in 1805 appointed to the command of a squadron of eight vessels to prey on English commerce.

L'HOMMEDIEU, Ezra, lawyer, b. in Strong- hold, L. I., 30 Aug., 1734 ; d. there, 28 Sept., 1811. His ancestor, Benjamin, was a Huguenot, of Ro- chelle, France, who came to New York in 1687. and settled in Southold in 1690. He was graduated at Yale in 1754, studied law. and practised in New York city. He was a delegate to the Xew York provincial congress in 1775-'8, and assisted in forming the first state constitution. Mr. L'Hom- medieu was a member of the Xew York assembly in l777-'83, and chosen a delegate to the Conti- nental congress in 1779, 1781, 1783. 1787, and 1788. He was state senator from 1784 till 1792. and from 1794 till 1809, was once a member of the council of appointment, and was regent of the state uni- versity from 1787 until his death. In politics he was a Federalist. Mr. L'Hommedieu contributed papers to the first Xew York agricultural society.

LIBRAMENTO, Joaquim Francisco de (lee- brah-men'-to), Brazilian philanthropist, b. in Nossa Senhora do Desterro, 22 March, 1761 ; d. in Mar- seilles, France, in 1829. He made good progress at school, and at the death of his father gave for charitable purposes all the property that he in- herited, and entered a convent, where, instead of his family name of Costa, he took that of Libra- mento. He founded an asylum for the destitute by asking alms throughout the province, and after- ward went to Lisbon-, where Queen Maria granted the institution an income of 300 millreis. He re- turned in 1796, took charge of the asylum, and. after erecting the chapel " Do Menino Deus," went in 1800 to Bahia, where he built the "Seminario de Orphaos de San Joaquim," which was also granted an annual income by the queen. In 1809 Libra- mento visited the province of Sao Paulo, where he founded two seminaries amid great obstacles and persecutions. In 1820 he went to Rio de Janeiro, where, after many difficulties, the Seminary of Ja- caucanga, for the education of the poor, was opened under his direction, and, though he was old and in feeble health, he gave lessons because the institution had no means to pay teachers. In 1826 he went to Lisbon and Rome on a charitable mis- sion, but in the latter city his health failed, and lie died on his way home.

LICK, James, philanthropist, b. in Fredericksburg, Pa., 25 Aug., 1796 ; d. in San Francisco, Cal., 1 Oct., 1876. He received a common-school education, and obtained employment as an organ- and piano-maker in Hanover, Pa., and then in Baltimore, Md. In 1820 he established himself in business in Philadelphia, but a year later emigrated to Buenos Ayres, where for some time he engaged in the manufacture of musical instruments. Subsequently he went to Valparaiso and various other places, but in 1847 settled in California, where he invested largely in real estate, and employed his means in other enterprises, which resulted in his accumulating a great fortune. The last years of his life were spent in San Francisco, where he was President of the Society of California pioneers. He ad the reputation of being " unlovable, eccentric, solitary, selfish, and avaricious," and it is said that his disagreeable character was the result of disappointment in love. In his younger days he was attached to the daughter of a wealthy miller, but his suit was rejected by the father on account of Lick's poverty. The disappointed suitor then vowed to build a mill which should be far superior to that of the Pennsylvania miller, and in after- years erected one near San Jose" at an expense of $200,000. The interior was finished in costly California woods, highly polished, and before it was burned it was regarded as one of the curiosities of the neighborhood. In 1874 he assigned real and personal property valued at about $ 3,000,000 to seven trustees for various public and philanthropic enterprises ; but twice before his death he revoked this gift, requiring each time a new board of trustees. Besides many bequests to friends, relatives, and charities, he left $60,000 for the erection of a bronze monument in Golden Gate park to Francis Scott Key, the author of " The Star-Spangled Banner," $100,000 for three groups of bronze statuary rep- resenting three historical periods of California his- tory, to be erected in front of the city hall in San Francisco, $100,000 to found an old ladies' home in San Francisco, $150,000 for the building and maintenance of free public baths in that city, $540,000 to found and endow a California school of mechanical arts, and $700,000 to construct an

observatory and erecting therein a telescope more powerful than any that had been made, the same to be a department of the University of California. During the present year (1887) the trustees who have had charge of the construction of this ob- servatory since Mr. Lick's death will, when it is completed, transfer it to the regents of the Uni- versity of California. (See illustration.) It is on the summit of Mount Hamilton, fifty miles south of San Francisco, on a reservation of 1,790 acres, em- bracing a circle of over one mile below the sum- mit of the mountain. The telescope, which is the largest in the world, has an object-glass of thirty- six inches clear aperture, and the dome is turned by hydraulic power and the floor is elevated and lowered by like means, whereby the chair is ad- justed to any height to reach the eye-piece of the telescope, the base of the pier sustaining the great equatorial telescope contains, in a vault with- in its foundations, the remains of James Lick, which were placed there in January, 1887, and above which the pier rises thirty feet.

LIEBER, Francis, publicist, b. in Berlin, Germany, 18 March, 1800; d. in New York city, 2 Oct., 1872. His father, William, was engaged in commerce, and suffered heavy losses during the Napoleonic wars of 1789-1815. The son had begun the study of medicine when, in 1815, he joined the Prussian army as a volunteer, fought at Ligny and