Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 1).djvu/724

682 Justification by Faith," "Four Discourses on the Duties of a Minister," and a "Preacher's Manual."

COLBORNE, Sir John, Lord Seaton, British soldier, b. in 1779 ; d. 17 April. 1863. He was educated at Christ's hospital, and Winchester school, entered the army in 1799, and served in Holland, Egypt, and Italy. He was in tlie battle of Maida in 1806, was military secretary to Sir John Moore, commanded a brigade in Wellington's army in Portugal, France, and Spain in 1810-'4, and did good service through the peninsular war. He originated and led the decisive movement of the 52d light infantry that secured the victory at Waterloo. He received several orders of knighthood for his services, and became lieutenant-governor of Guernsey, and major-general in 1825. He was made lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada in 1829, and firmly repressed the strong reform party that he found there. In 1835 he obtained a recall; but, as he was about to embark for Europe, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the forces in Canada. He returned to Quebec, and took efficient and prompt measures to check the rebellion then preparing, and, on its breaking out, took the field in person, in several engagements, and completely routed the insurgents. He was twice temporarily governor-general of British North America, rendered great services to that country, and was made a lieutenant-general in 1838. He returned to England in 1839, and on 14 December of that year was created Baron Seaton. He was also made a privy-councillor and given a pension of £2,000 per annum. He was afterward lord-high-commissioner of the Ionian isles, and commander of the forces in Ireland, but resigned in 1860, and was promoted to field-marshal on 30 March of that year.

COLBURN, Jeremiah, numismatist, b. in Boston, Mass., 12 Jan., 1815; d. there, 30 Dec., 1891. He began to collect coins, and afterward turned his attention to shells, minerals, etc., and finally to books, autographs, manuscripts, portraits, and engravings relating to America, including continental money and the more recent issues of paper tokens. In 1840 he began a collection of bank-notes. In 1857 he contributed articles to the &ldquo;Historical Magazine&rdquo; on American coins and coinage, which were followed for several years by short articles on these subjects in &ldquo;Notes and Queries.&rdquo; He was one of the founders of the Boston numismatic society, had been its curator, vice-president, and president, and since 1871 had been one of the editors of the &ldquo;American Journal of Numismatics.&rdquo;

COLBURN, Warren, educator, b. in Dedham, Mass., 1 March, 1793; d. in Lowell, Mass., 13 Sept., 1833. His parents were poor, and when a boy he worked in factories in the different villages to which they moved. He learned the machinist's trade, but early manifested a taste for mathematics, and was graduated at Harvard in 1820. He then opened a select school in Boston, but in April, 1823, became superintendent of the Boston manufacturing company at Waltham, Mass., and in August, 1824, of the Merrimack manufacturing company at Lowell. While here he invented important improvements in machinery, and delivered a series of popular lectures, illustrated with the magic lantern, on commerce, natural history, physics, and astronomy, which was continued through many years. He was also superintendent of schools at Lowell, was elected a fellow of the American academy of arts and sciences in 1827, and was for several years an examiner in mathematics at Harvard. His reputation rests largely on his &ldquo;First Lessons in Intellectual Arithmetic&rdquo; (Boston, 1821), the plan of which he had carefully completed while yet an

at Harvard. It had a large circulation, both here and abroad, and has been translated, not only into most of the languages of Europe, but also into several of the eastern tongues. He also published a &ldquo;Sequel&rdquo; to his arithmetic (1824; revised ed., 1833), and an &ldquo;Algebra&rdquo; (1827).

COLBURN, Zerah, mathematical prodigy, b. in Cabot, Vt., 1 Sept., 1804; d. in Norwich, Vt., 2 March, 1840. When only six years old he began to manifest extraordinary powers of computation. His father, wishing to make money by exhibiting the boy, left Vermont with him in the winter of 1810-'1. The offer of Dr. Wheelock, president of Dartmouth, to educate Zerah at his own expense was rejected, and the lad was placed on exhibition in Boston, where he attracted much attention. He mentally solved problems involving the use of numbers containing four or five places of figures with greater ease and rapidity than that to which experienced mathematicians could attain. The question, &ldquo;How many days and hours in 1,811 years?&rdquo; was answered correctly in twenty seconds. At this time he could not explain his processes; but a few years later he was able to do so, and it then appeared that he had no new methods, but merely possessed wonderful facility in using the ordinary ones. When he was nine years old he was able to solve questions like the following: &ldquo;What is 999,9992 &times; 492 &times; 25?&rdquo; The result occupies seventeen places of figures. He immediately gave the factors of 294,967,297, which French mathematicians had supposed to be a prime number. His performances show that his mental processes were inconceivably rapid, and his memory very powerful. After exhibiting his son in the middle and southern states, Mr. Colburn took him to England, Scotland, and Ireland, and finally placed him in the Lycée Napoleon at Paris, where he remained for eighteen months. In 1816 they were reduced to poverty in England, and Zerah attracted the attention of the Earl of Bristol, who placed him in Westminster school for three years; but a disagreement between Mr. Colburn and the earl caused the boy's removal from the school in 1819, and, in accordance with his father's suggestions, Zerah began to study for the stage. Abandoning this, he became assistant in a school, and soon began teaching on his own account, performing astronomical calculations at the same time for Dr. Thomas Young, then secretary of the board of longitude. After his father's death in 1824 he returned to the United States, and, after teaching for a few months in Fairfield, N. Y., removed to Burlington, Vt., where he studied at the university, and supported himself by teaching French. He united with the Methodist church in 1825, was for nine years an itinerant preacher, and in 1835 became professor of languages in Norwich university, Vermont. His remarkable faculty for computation left him about the time he reached manhood. Mr. Colburn's manners were unassuming, and he gave no evidence of great ability, aside from his early talent for calculation. He published his &ldquo;Memoirs&rdquo; (Springfield, 1833). &mdash; His nephew, Zerah, engineer, b. in Saratoga, N. Y., in 1832; d. in Massachusetts, 4 May, 1870, lost his father when a child, and removed with his mother to New Hampshire, where he worked on a farm. He afterward went to Boston, found employment in the Lowell machine-shop in 1847, and then on the Concord railroad, where he showed great talent for practical mechanics. He soon rose to be superintendent of Mr. Souther's locomotive-works in Boston, and afterward held a similar place in the works at Paterson, N. J., where he