Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 1).djvu/396

368 Aug., 1880. He was descended from a Roman Catholic family, early settlers of Maryland, and was a grand-nephew of Archbishop Carroll. Pie contributed to Porter's " Spirit of the Times," over the well-known signature of " Stirrup," and was the associate of Lewis Gaylord Clark in founding and editing the " Knickerbocker," a magazine that enjoyed great popularity from 1833 until 1864. Mr. Brent was also a painter. His best lit- erary work was " Life Almost Alone," published as a serial in the " Knickerbocker," and " Was it a Ghost i " a theory and discussion of the celebrated murder of the Joyce children (Boston, 1868).

BRENT, Richard, senator, b. in Virginia ; d. in Washington, D. C, 30 Dec, 1814. He was a representative in congress from 7 Dec, 1795, till 3 March, 1799, and again from 7 Dec, 1801, till 3 March, 1803. He was elected a senator from Vir- ginia, and served from 22 May, 1809, till his death.

BRENTANO, Lorenzo, journalist, b. in Mannheim, Germany, 4 Nov., 1813; d. in Chicago, 18 Sept., 1891. He received a thorough classical training, and studied jurisprudence at Heidelberg and Freiburg. He was admitted to practice in Baden, and after attaining the legal age was elected to the chamber of deputies. He took part in the revolution of 1848, being a member of the Frankfort parliament, and subsequently president of the provisional republican government established in 1849, by the then hopeful revolutionists. The power of Prussia intervened in July of that year, and the grand duke was re-established. Brentano effected his escape, and only knew that he had been sentenced to imprisonment for life after reaching the United States. He settled as a farmer in Kalamazoo co., Mich., and remained there until 1859, when he removed to Chicago and was admitted to the bar. He soon became editor of the &ldquo;Illinois Staats-Zeitung,&rdquo; and in 1862 was a member of the state legislature. For five years he was president of the Chicago board of education. In 1868 he was presidential elector on the Grant and Colfax ticket. In 1869, a general amnesty having been granted to the revolutionists of 1849, he revisited his native land. He was appointed U. S. consul at Dresden in 1872, and served until 1876, when he was elected to congress, where he served until 3 March, 1879. After leaving congress he devoted much time to historical and literary researches designed to compare and contrast the American and European codes of criminal procedure. In this line of work he has published a report of the trial of the assassin of President Garfield, and a history of the celebrated case of King v. Missouri (U. S. Supreme Court Reports, 107). This last was republished in Leipsic. In 1884 Mr. Brentano gave up active work, owing to partial paralysis.

BRENTON, Jahleel, sailor, b. in Rhode Island, 22 Aug., 1770; d. in Elford, England, 3 April, 1844. He was the eldest son of Rear-Admiral Jahleel Brenton, who, with his family, came to America early in the 17th century. The father held a lieutenant's commission in the royal navy when the war for independence began, and re- mained loyal to the crown, as did nearly all the Americans who were in the navy at that time. Young Jahleel was appointed midshipman on his father's ship in 1781. In 1802 he married Isabella Stewart, an American lady, to whom he had long been engaged. She died in 1817, and in 1822 he married a cousin, Harriet Brenton, who survived him. He rose to eminence in his profession, at- taining the rank of rear-admiral of the blue in 1830, having rendered gallant and distinguished s^rvices wherever he met the enemies of Great Britain. Fortunately he was not called ui)on to encounter the navy of his native land during the war of 1812. He was very devout, and gave a great part of his time and energy to religious and charitable work, especially among sailors. He wrote " The Hope of the Navy " (London, 1839) ; " An Appeal to the British Nation on Behalf of her Sailors" (1841); "Memoir of Capt. E. P. Brenton " (1842) ; and " Coast Fisheries " (1843). A memoir of his life and services was published in 1846 by the Rev. Henry Raikes (new ed. abridged, and edited by Sir Launcelot Charles Lee Brenton, onlv son of the admiral, 1855).

BRENTON, Samuel, clergyman, b. in Gallatin CO., Ky., 22 Nov., 1810 ; d. in Fort Wayne, Ind., 29 March, 1857. He received an English educa- tion, and at the age of twenty entered the Methodist ministry and served as a preacher until 1848, when he suffered a stroke of paralysis. During his min- istry he had studied law, and was admitted to the bar. He served for a year as registrar in the land- office at Fort Wayne, and in 1851 was elected as a whig to congress. He was defeated for the next congress, but in the mean time had been chosen president of Fort Wayne college and filled the office acceptably until 1854, when he was re-elected as a republican to the 34th and 35th congresses.

BRENTON, William, governor of Rhode Island, b. in England early in the 17th century ; d. in Newport, R. I., in 1674. The family canie from Hammersmith, England, where they were persons of wealth and high social standing during the reign of Charles I. William Brenton represented the colony at Boston for several years, beginning in 1635, was lieutenant-governor of Rhode Island prior to 1660, president of the colony between 1660 and 1661, and governor under the charter obtained from Charles II. from 1666 till 1669. His original grant gave him a certain number of acres for every mile of land surveyed, and on the strength of this he secured much valuable property. He was one of the nine original proprietaries of Rhode Island. He selected and surveyed the site of Newport, built a large brick house where Fort Adams now stands, arid laid out handsome walks around it. His name is preserved in Brenton's Point and Brenton's Reef, Narragansett bay.

BRESSANI, Francesco Giiuseppe, Italian Jesuit missionary, b. in Rome in 1612 ; d. in Flor- ence, 9 Sept., 1672. After spending two years with the Indians near Quebec he was sent on a mission to the Hurons in 1644, was captured on the way by the Iroquois and tortured, but was afterward made over to an old squaw to take the place of a deceased relative. She sent him to Fort Orange (now Albany, N. Y.), where the Dutch paid a large ransom for him, and on his recovery sent him to France. He came again to this country in the spring of 1645, maimed and disfigured, and lived with the Hurons until 1650, when he returned to Italy, in broken health. He published " Relazione dei Missionarii della Compagnia de Gesu nella Nuova-Prancia " (Macerata, 1653 ; English trans- lation, Montreal, 1852).

BRETON, Raymond (bray-tong), French mis- sionary, b. in 1609 ; d. in 1679. He entered the Do- minican order, and for twenty years devoted him- self to preaching and study in Santo Domingo and other parts of the West Indies. He published a French-and-Caribbean dictionary, a Caribbean grammar, and a Caribbean catechism.

BREVARD, Ephraim, patriot, b. about 1750; d. in Charlotte, N. C, about 1783. He was graduated at Princeton in 1768, studied medicine, and settled at Charlotte to practise. He sympathized