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272 Health, and Guide to Protection against Epidemic Diseases "' (Philadelphia, 3d ed., 1885).

BLACK, Jeremiah Sullivan, jurist, b. in the Glades, Somerset co., Pa., 10 Jan., 1810 ; d. at his home in York, Pa., 19 Aug., 1883. His ancestry was Scotch-Irish. James Black, his grandfather, came to America from the north of Ireland, and settled in Somerset co.. Pa., where, in 1778, Henry Black, father of Jeremiah, a man of note in his day, was born. Jeremiah's early education was obtained at school near his father's farm. He studied law, was taken into the office of Chaun- cey Forward, a lawyer in Somer- set county, and was admitted to the bar in 1831. In 1838 he mar- ried a daughter of Mr. Forward. After an active and successful practice of eleven years, he was raised to the bench. He was a Jeffersonian democrat, and was nominated by a democrat- ic governor, in April, 1842, for president- judge of the district where he lived, which post he held for nine years. In 1851 Judge Black was elected one of the supreme court judges of Pennsylvania. After serving the short term of three years, he was re-elected, in 1854, for a full term of fifteen years. On the accession of James Buchanan to the presidency, in 1857, Judge Black became attorney-general. He was very industrious and successful, in connection with Edwin M. Stanton, in protecting the interests of the nation against false claimants to grants of land made by the Mexican government to settlers in California before that country came under the control of the United States. When the seces- sion crisis arrived, in 1860-'l, Buchanan held that there was no authority for coercing a state, if it chose to secede and set up as an independent gov- ernment ; but Attorney-General Black was of the opinion that it was the duty of the government to put down insurrection, and that the constitution contained no provision for a dissolution of the union in any manner whatever. Gen. Cass having resigned as secretary of state in December, 1860, Judge Black was appointed to fill the vacancy, Edwin M. Stanton taking the post of attorney- general. Judge Black occupied this office during the remainder of Buchanan's administration, and exerted himself to save the government from fall- ing into the hands of the secessionists. In March, 1861, when Abraham Lincoln became president. Judge Black retired from public life. He was ap- pointed U. S. supreme court reporter, but soon re- signed that office, and entered again upon the practice of law at his home, near York, Pa. He was engaged in several prominent lawsuits during the last twenty years of his life, and retained his vigor and professional skill to the close of his career. The Vanderbilt will contest, the Milliken case, and the McGarrahan claim were among the more noted cases in which he was engaged. He was a contributor to periodical literature, fur- nished an account of the Erie railway litigation, argued the third-term question in magazine arti- cles, and had a newspaper discussion with Jeffer- son Davis. — His son, Chauncey Forward, was elected lieutenant-governor of Pennsylvania in 1882, and in 1886 was the democratic candidate for the governorship.

BLACK, John, diplomatist, b. in New York in 1792 ; d. in Albany, N. Y., 19 Nov., 1873. He was for forty years a resident of the city of Mexico, where he was a long time United States consul, and where he performed the duties of minister during the Mexican war.

BLACK, William, clergyman, b. in England in 1760; d. 8 Sept., 1834. He emigrated to Nova Scotia in 1775, and there became a Wesleyan Methodist preacher, and the founder of the Wes- leyan church in that province. Afterward he was the general superintendent of the Wesleyan mis- sions in British America.

BLACKBURN, Gideon, clergyman, b. in Au- gusta CO., Va., 27 Aug., 1772 ; d. in Caiiiiiville, 111., 23 Aug., 1838. He was educated at Martin acade- my, Washington co., Tenn., licensed to preach by AlDingdon presbytery in 1795, and settled many years at Marysville, Tenn. He was minister of Franklin, Tenn., in 1811-'3, and of Louisville, Ky., in 1823-'7. He passed the last forty years of his life in the western states, in preaching, organ- izing churches, and, from 1803 to 1809, during a part of each year, in his mission to the Cherokees, establishing a school at Hywassee. He established a school in Tennessee in 1806, and from 1827 till 1830 was president of Center college, Kentucky.

BLACKBURN, Joseph Clay Styles, U. S. senator, b. in Woodford county, Ky., 1 Oct., 1838. He was graduated at Center college, Danville, Ky., in 1857, studied law with George B. Kincaid in Lexington, Ky., was admitted to the bar in 1858, and practised in Chicago till 1860, when he re- turned to his native county. He entered the Con- federate army in 1861, and served through the war. In 1865 he resumed the practice of law, and in 1871-3 was in the Kentucky legislature. In 1875 he entered congress as a Democrat. He was re- elected in 1876, 1878, 1880, and 1882, and became U. S. senator in 1885. — His half-brother, Luke (1816-'87), was governor of Kentucky in 1879.

BLACKBURN, William, pioneer, b. in Vir- ginia in 1814 ; d. in California in 1867. He went to California in 1845, took part as volunteer in the conquest of that country in 1846-'7, and was ap- pointed alcalde at Santa Cruz immediately there- after. In tliis office he served two years, and in 1850 was elected county judge of Santa Cruz CO. He was one of the best representatives of the large class of early popular alcaldes in the new territory, legally untrained but socially important men, who administered justice after a manner less accurate in a technical sense than useful for the needs of the singular community of those days. His decisions were in some cases widely discussed, and are often quoted in historical sketches.

BLACKBURN, William Jasper, editor, b. in Randolph co.. Ark., 24 July, 1820. He was early left an orphan, and received his education in public schools, also studying during the years 1838-'9 in Jackson College, Columbia, Tenn.; after which lie became a printer, and worked in various offices in Arkansas and Louisiana. Later he settled in Homer. La., where he established " Blackburn's Homer Iliad," in which he editorially condemned the assault on Charles Sumner by Preston S. Brooks, being the only southern editor that denounced that action. Although born m a slave state, he was always o[)posed to slavery, and his office was