Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 1).djvu/337

Rh he resigned in 1877, when he became professor of chemistry and natural science in Trinity College. The celebration of the centennial of chemistry at Northumberland, Pa., the home of Joseph Priestley, who discovered oxygen in 1774, was suggested and brought about by Dr. Bolton. Among his investigations, that of the action of organic acids on minerals is perhaps the most important; but most of his work has been literary, and his private collection of early chemical books is not surpassed in the United States. Dr. Bolton is a prominent member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and was its general secretary in 1878 and 1879, and vice-president of the chemical section in 1882. For several years he was corresponding secretary of the New York Academy of Sciences. He has been a large contributor to chemical literature, and his numerous papers may be found in the &ldquo;American Chemist,&rdquo; &ldquo;Proceedings of the New York Academy of Sciences,&rdquo; &ldquo;Chemical News&rdquo; (London), and similar periodicals. In 1883 he began the annual preparation of a &ldquo;Record of the Progress of Chemistry&rdquo; for the annual reports of the Smithsonian institution. Among his compilations are &ldquo;Literature of Uranium&rdquo; (1870, revised ed., 1886); &ldquo;Literature of Manganese&rdquo; (1877); and an extensive &ldquo;Catalogue of Scientific and Technical Periodicals, 1665-1882&rdquo; (Smithsonian institution, Washington, 1885). He is the author of &ldquo;Student's Guide in Quantitative Analysis&rdquo; (New York, 1879), and has edited several minor chemical text-books.

BOLTON, Sarah Knowles, author, b. in Farmington, Conn., 15 Sept., 1841. Her maiden name was Knowles. She married Charles E. Bolton, a merchant and philanthropist. She has written extensively for the press, was one of the first corresponding secretaries of the Woman's national temperance union, was for three years associate editor of the Boston &ldquo;Congregationalist,&rdquo; and travelled for two years in Europe, studying profit-sharing, female higher education, and other social questions. Her published works are &ldquo;Orlean Lamar, and other poems&rdquo; (New York, 1863); &ldquo;The Present Problem,&rdquo; a novelette (1874); &ldquo;How Success is Won&rdquo; (Boston, 1884); &ldquo;Lives of Poor Boys who became Famous&rdquo; (New York, 1885); &ldquo;Girls who became Famous&rdquo; (1886); &ldquo;Social Studies in England&rdquo; {Boston, 1886); and a collection of short stories under the title &ldquo;Stories from Life&rdquo; (New York, 1886). She presented a paper on &ldquo;Employers and Employed&rdquo; to the Social science association. She was engaged in 1886 on a joint collection of poems by herself and her son,.

BOLTON, Sarah Tittle, poet, b. in Newport, Ky., 18 Dec., 1815; d. in Indianapolis, Ind., 4 Aug., 1893. Her father, Jonathan B. Barrett, removed to Indiana. At sixteen she married an editor, Nathaniel Bolton. In 1855 her husband was appointed consul at Geneva, and during the two years that she spent abroad she wrote letters to American newspapers. She contributed numerous short poems to periodicals, among them &ldquo;Paddle Your Own Canoe&rdquo; and &ldquo;Left on the Battlefield.&rdquo; A volume of her poems was published in New York in 1865, and a complete collection, with a life by Jonathan W. Gordon (Indianapolis, 1886).

BOMBERGER, John Henry Augustus, clergyman, b. in Lancaster, Pa., 13 Jan., 1817; d. in Collegeville, Pa., 19 Aug., 1890. He was graduated at Marshall college and at Mercersburg seminary, became a minister of the German Reformed church in 1838, was a pastor at Waynesborough, Pa., in 1840-'5, at Easton, Pa., in 1845-'54, and in the 1st Reformed church of Philadelphia from 1854 till

1870, when he became president of Ursinus college, at Collegeville, Pa. He translated six volumes of Herzog's &ldquo;Protestant Theological and Ecclesiastical Encyclopaedia,&rdquo; condensed into two volumes (Philadelphia, 1856-'8), and published &ldquo;Five Years at Race Street Church&rdquo; (1859); &ldquo;The Revised Liturgy&rdquo; (1866); &ldquo;Reformed not Ritualistic&rdquo; (1867).

BOMFORD, George, military officer, b. in New York in 1780 : d. in Boston, Mass., 25 March. 1848. He entered West Point from New York, was graduated in 1805, and became lieutenant in the corps of engineers. He served as assistant engineer on the fortifications of New York harbor in 1805-'8, then on the defences of Chesapeake bay from 1808 till 1810, and as superintending engineer of the works on Governor's island from 1810 till 1812. During the war of 1812-'5 with Great Britain he served in the ordnance department, with the rank of major on the staff, was appointed assistant commissary-general of ordnance, 18 June, 1812, and attached to the corps of engineers, 6 July, 1812. He introduced bomb cannons, made on a pattern of his own invention, which were called columbiads, a form of heavy gun combining the qualities of gun, howitzer, and mortar. He was promoted lieutenant-colonel, 9 Feb., 1815, and was continued on ordnance duty, though attached to the artillery after the reorganization of the army in 1821. On the organization of the ordnance corps he was promoted colonel, and appointed chief of ordnance, 30 May, 1832. He was in command of the ordnance corps and bureau at Washington until 1 Feb., 1842, when he became inspector of arsenals, ordnance, arms, and munitions of war, in which duty he continued until his death. The cannons invented by him were further developed by Dahlgren, but were superseded by the Rodman type about the beginning of the civil war. In July, 1841, he conducted experiments to ascertain the expansive force of powder in a gun by firing bullets through tubes inserted in the sides. — His son, James Y., b. on Governor's island. New York harbor, 5 Oct., 1811 ; d. in Elizabeth, N. J., 6 Jan., 1892, was graduated at West Point in 1832, and served as first lieutenant in Texas, and as captain in the war with Mexico. He was engaged in the battles of Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, and Monterey, the siege of Vera Cruz, the battle of Cerro Gordo, the capture of San Antonio, and the battle of Churubusco, receiving the brevet of major, 20 Aug., 1847, for gallantry at Contreras and Churubusco. He was brevetted lieutenant-colonel for gallant and meritorious conduct at the battle of Molino del Rey, distinguished himself at the storming of Chapultepec, and was present at the capture of Mexico. Serving on frontier duty in Texas at the beginning of the civil war, he was promoted major, 17 Oct., 1860, and was prisoner of war from 9 May, 1861, till 9 April, 1862, On 10 Jan., 1862, he was made a lieutenant-colonel, and, after his return to his regiment, was engaged in the movements of Gen. Buell's army in Alabama and Kentucky. At the battle of Perryville he served as chief of staff to Gen. McCook," and received the brevet of colonel for meritorious services in that action. He was retii-ed from active service 8 June, 1872.

BONAPARTE, Charles Lucien Jules Laurent, prince of Canino and Musignano, ornithologist, b. in Paris, 24 May, 1803; d. there, 30 July, 1857. He was the eldest son of Lucien Bonaparte, and in 1822 married a daughter of Joseph Bonaparte, king of Spain. Soon afterward he settled with his father-in-law in Philadelphia, and during his residence in the United States studied the