Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 1).djvu/21



AARON, Samuel, educator, b. in New Britain, Bucks co., Pa., in 1800; d. in Mount Holly, N. J., 11 April, 1865. He was left an orphan at six years of age, and became the ward of an uncle, upon whose farm he worked for several years, attending school only in winter. A small legacy inherited from his father enabled him at the age of sixteen to enter the Doylestown, Pa., academy, where he fitted himself to become a teacher, and at the age of twenty was engaged as an assistant instructor in the classical and mathematical school in Burlington, N. J. Here he studied and taught, and soon opened an independent day school at Bridge Point, but was presently invited to become principal of Doylestown academy. In 1829 he was ordained, and became pastor of a Baptist church in New Britain. In 1833 he took charge of the Burlington high school, serving at the same time as pastor of the Baptist church in that city. Accepting in 1841 an invitation from a church in Norristown, Pa., he remained there three years, when he opened the Treemount seminary near Norristown, which under his management soon became prosperous, and won a high reputation for the thoroughness of its training and discipline. The financial disasters of 1857 found Mr. Aaron with his name pledged as security for a friend, and he was obliged to sacrifice all his property to the creditors. He was soon offered the head-mastership of Mt. Holly, N. J., institute, a large, well-established school for boys, where, in company with his son as joint principal, he spent the remainder of his life. During these years he was pastor of a church in Mt. Holly. He prepared a valuable series of text-books introducing certain improvements in methods of instruction, which added greatly to his reputation as an educator. His only publication in book form, aside from his text-books, was entitled "Faithful Translation" (Philadelphia, 1842). He was among the early advocates of temperance, and was an earnest supporter of the anti-slavery cause from its beginning.

ABAD, or ABADIANO, Diego José, Mexican poet, b. near Jiquilpan, between Michoacan and Guadalajara, 1 July, 1727; d. in Italy, 30 Sept., 1779. He became a Jesuit in early youth, and afterward taught philosophy and civil and canon law in Zacatecas and the city of Mexico. When forty years old, and while rector of the college of Querétaro, he began the study of medicine, in the practice of which he was successful. Then he went to Italy and published a volume of Latin poetry, under the title of "Heroica Deo carmina," to which he owes his greatest fame. Among other works he wrote descriptions of the principal rivers of the world in a book called "Geografia hidráulica." Several editions of the "Heroica Deo carmina" were published, in Madrid (1769), Venice (1774), Ferrara (1776), and Cecina (1780).

ABADIE, Eugene Hilarian, surgeon, b. in Paris, France, 16 Aug., 1810; d. in St. Louis. 12 Dec., 1874. He entered the U. S. army in 1836, with the rank of assistant surgeon. In 1853 he was promoted surgeon, and as such served through the civil war, receiving the brevet rank of colonel in March, 1865. His first service was with the Creek nation, then recently removed from their hereditary lands in Georgia, and until the Seminole war he was engaged with the migrating tribes. After this service he was stationed at the forts in New York harbor, and at various regular posts in the interior until the war with Mexico, where he was on duty in 1848, but was ordered to Point Isabel, Texas, in 1849. Changing from station to station as the exigencies of the service demanded, he was in Texas when the U. S. forces in that state were surrendered by Gen. Twiggs, and before the close of 1861 he was paroled as a prisoner of war and permitted to go north. He was stationed at West Point in 1862-'64, during which period he was detailed to serve on medical boards in Philadelphia and New York. In 1865 he became chief medical officer of the military division of west Mississippi, in 1866 medical director of the department of Missouri, and lastly acting assistant medical purveyor at St. Louis. At the time of his death he had seen more years of actual service than any, save two, of the army surgeons.

ABAD Y QUEIPO, Manuel, Spanish bishop, b. in Asturias about 1775; d. about 1824. He studied theology in Spain, and went to Mexico. From Michoacan he was sent to Spain to plead against a royal decree affecting the interests of the priesthood, and was successful in his mission. In 1809 he was consecrated bishop of Michoacan. During the first period of the revolutionary war he adhered to the royal party, and went to the city of Mexico. After his return to Michoacan, through intrigues of his opponents, he was sent to Spain and imprisoned. But he obtained an interview with King Ferdinand VII., who not only pardoned him, but appointed him his minister of justice. Yet the Inquisitors imprisoned him again for his opposition to the Inquisition. Afterward he was bishop of Fortora, but was again in prison in 1823, where he died, it is believed, in the following year.

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