Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 2).djvu/170

150 DE SAUSSURE, Henry William, jurist, h. in Poeotaligo, S. C, 16 Aug., 1763; d. in Charleston, 29 March, 1839. He was descended from an an- cient family of Lorraine, France. His grandfather. Henry, emigrated to South Carolina in 1730, and Daniel, his father, took an active part in the Revo- lution, and was president of the state senate in 1790-1. Henry William served as a volunteer during the siege of Charleston in 1780, and passed two months in a prison-ship. He was then sent to Philadelphia to be exchanged, studied law with Jared Ingersoll, and was admitted to the bar of Philadelphia in 1784, and in 1785 to that of Charles- ton. He was a delegate to the South Carolina con- stitutional convention of October, 1789, and in 1791 was a member of the legislature. In 1794 Presi- dent Washington appointed him director of the U. S. mint. When dining with him on one occa- sion, Gen. Washington said : " I have long desired to see gold coined at the Mint, but your predecessor found insuperable difficulties. I should be grati- fied if it could be accomplished." The director re- plied, " I will try " ; and a few weeks afterward he carried to the president a handful of gold eagles, the first gold coined at the Mint of the United States. He resigned the office in November, 1795, and received from Washington an autograph letter regretting his determination to retire, and expressing " entire satisfaction " with his administration. He then returned to the practice of the law in South Carolina, and was elected a chancellor of the state in 1808. Prom 1809 till 1829 the number of decrees in the circuit court of equity and the court of appeals was 2,888, and of these Chancellor De Saussure delivered 1,314. In 1837 his health became impaired, and he resigned. Gov. Butler, in communicating to the legislature the resignation of the chancellor,' said : " He has occupied, and now occupies, a striking position to the people of the present generation. He is the last of the Revolutionary patriots who has held office under the authority of the state." He published " Reports of the Court of Chancery and Court of Equity in South Carolina from the Revolution till 1813 "' (4 vols., Columbia, S. C, 1817-'9 ; revised ed., 2 vols.. Philadelphia). — His grandson, Wilmot Gibbes, lawyer, b. in Charleston, S. C, 23 July, 1822 ; d. 1 Feb., 1886, was graduated at; South Carolina college in 1840, and admitted to the bar in 1843. He was a member of the legislature for ten years, was in command of the state troops that took possession of Fort Moultrie when Maj. Anderson evacuated it in December, 1860, as lieutenant-colonel was in command of the artillery on Morris Island during the bombardment of Fort Sumter in April, 1861, and was treasurer, and subsequently adjutant and inspector-general, of South Carolina. He was president of the state society of the Cincinnati, the St. Andrews society, the Charleston library society, the St. Cecilia society, and the Huguenot society of South Carolina. His published addresses include "The Stamp- Act of Great Britain, and the Resistance of the Colonies," showing that South Carolina, on 26 March, 1776, adopted a constitution by which the royal government ceased to exist there; "The Causes which led to the Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown"; "The Centennial Celebration of the Organization of the Cincinnati"; "Memoir of Gen. William Moultrie"; and "Muster-roll of the South Carolina Soldiers of the Continental Line and Militia who served during the Revolution." He also prepared an address on the celebration by the Huguenot society of America of the bicentennial anniversary of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (New York', 1885).

DES BARRES, Joseph Frederick Wallet, English soldier, b. in 1722 ; d. in Halifax, N. S., 24 Oct., 1824. He came of a French family that fled to England on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. After studying under the Bernoullis. he entered the Royal military college at Woolwich, and after graduation embarked, in March, 1756, for America, as lieutenant in the 60th foot. He commanded for a time a corps of field artillery, which he had him- self recruited in Pennsylvania and Maryland, and in 1757 led a volunteer detachment against Indians who had attacked Schenect.-idy. ciqjtured the chiefs, and won them over to the English. He distin- guished himself as an engineer at the siege of Louisburg, in 1758, and at the siege of Quebec was aide-de-camp to Gen. Wolfe. That officer received his mortal wound while Des Barres was making a report to him, and fell, dying, in the arms of his aide. In 1760, and afterward, Des Barres con- ducted the engineering operations for the defence of Quebec and the reduction of Fort Jacques Cartier and other French strongholds, thus completing the conquest of Canada. He afterward made designs and estimates for fortifying Halifax, and in 1762 was directing engineer and quartermaster-general in the expedition for retaking Newfoundland, re- ceiving public thanks for his services. He was then sent to New York to report on the expediency of establishing a chain of military posts through the colonies, and from 1763 till 1773 was engaged in surveying the coast of Nova Scotia. He returned to England in 1774, was thanked by the king for his services, and was selected by Lord Howe to pre- pare charts of the North Atlantic coast. Having adapted the surveys of Holland, De Brahm, and others to nautical purposes, he published them under the title " The Atlantic Neptune " (2 vols., 1777). He was made governor of Cape Breton in 1784, and given the military command of that and Prince Edward Island, founded the town of Sydney, and opened and worked the valuable coal-fields at the entrance of the river. In this office he was also engaged in aiding the royalists of the United States, and removing them from the country after the Revolution. He was made lieutenant-governor and commander-in-chief of Prince Edward Island in 1804. Even in his ninety-fifth year he was lithe and active, and planned a five years' tour in Eu- rope. He was Capt. Cook's teacher in navigation. He wrote a work on " Cape Breton," which was ])rinted privately (London, 1804), but afterward suppressed. — His grandson, William Frederick, Canadian jurist, b. at the Elysian Fields, Cumber- land, Nova Scotia, 14 Feb., 1800; d. in Halifax. N. S., 16 June, 1885, was educated at the old Halifax grammar-school, studied law, and was ad- mitted to the bar in 1821. He settled at Guys- boro', and soon attained a leading place in his pro- fession. From 1836 till 1848 he represented Guys- boro' in the Nova Scotia assembly, and held the office of solicitor-general in Howe's government. In 1848 he was appointed a puisne judge of the su- preme court of Nova Scotia, retaining his seat on the bench till 1881. He was the first liberal in politics appointed to a supreme court judgeship in Nova Scotia.

DESCHAMPS, Isaac, jurist, b. in 1723: d. 11 Aug., 1801. He was of Swiss extraction, and in early life settled in Nova Scotia. In 1754 he was clerk at Fort Edward (Windsor), and aided in suppressing the disturbance of the Acadian French in that year. He was a member of the assembly in 1761, "and justice of the court of common pleas for Kings county. In 1768 he was judge of Prince Edward Island, and from 1770 till 1785 of the