Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 2).djvu/229

Rh a member of the democratic national convention in 1856, and the republican national convention in 1864, state treasurer of Ohio in 1861 and 1863, chairman of the republican executive committee in 1863-'4, and supplied the place of Gov. as elector at large on the republican ticket in 1868.

DORSEY, James Owen, ethnologist, b. in Baltimore, Md., 31 Oct., 1848 ; d. in Washington, D. C., 4 Feb., 1895. He studied at the Central high school from 1862 till 1863, and then at the theological seminary of Virginia from 1867 till 1871. After being ordained a deacon, 18 April, 1871, he was sent as a missionary of the Protestant Episcopal church to the Ponka Indians in Dakota, where he remained for two years. From 1873 till 1878 he was engaged in parish work in Maryland. He was appointed ethnologist to the U. S. geological and geographical survey of the Rocky mountain region under Major J. W. Powell, and sent to the Omaha Indians in Nebraska, remaining there until 1880. Meanwhile, in 1879, he had been «transf erred to the bureau of ethnology in the Smithsonian institu- tion, and in 1880 was also appointed Ponka inter- preter to Gen. Cook's commission. Prior to 1884 his investigations were confined to the languages, mythology, and sociology of tribes of the Dakotan or Siouan family, but after that time he made original researches for linguistic material among nineteen Oregon tribes of the Athapascan, Kusan, Takilman, and Yaknon families. Pie was made member of the council of the Anthropological so- ciety of Washington in 1884. and general secretary in 1885, vice-president of the section on anthro- pology of the American association for the ad- vancement of science in 1885, honorable local correspondent of the Victoria institute of Great Britain in 1885, and member of the Italiana Re- gale Societa Didascalica in 1886, from which or- ganization in 1886 he received a gold medal for his works on sociology. A record of his work will be found in the annual reports of the Smithsonian institution. He published " Ponka ABC Wa-ba- ru," a Ponka primer (1873) ; " Siouan Phonology " (1883); "Osage War Customs" (1884); "Kansas Mourning and War Customs " (1885) ; " Omaha Sociology" (1885); "Siouan Migrations" (1886); " Indian Personal Names" (1886) ; "The Dhegiha Language, Myth Stories, and Letters"; "Omaha and Ponka Letters"; and " Dhegiha-English and English-Dhegiha Dictionary," of over 20.000 words,

DORSE Y, John Syng physician, b. in Philadelphia, 23 Dec, 1783; d. there, 12 Nov., 1818. He received his early education at the Friends' academy in Philadelphia, studied medicine, and was graduated at the University of Pennsyl- vania in 1802. The yellow fever broke out in Philadelphia a few weeks later, and committed such ravages that a hospital was opened, ^nd the young graduate received the appointment of resi- dent physician. He combatted the idea of conta- gion, and strengthened his theory regarding the disease by courting infection in the most reckless manner. The next year, 1803, he visited France and England, attended the lectures of Humphry Davy, the distinguished chemist, and afterward visited the medical schools of Paris, returning to Philadelphia after an absence of about a year. He was elected adjunct professor of sitrgery in the school where he had been graduated but five years previously, was transferred to the chair of materia medica in 1816, and. having given two courses of lectures on that subject, was chosen to the profes- sorship of anatomy made vacant by the death of Dr. Wistar. On the evening after delivering his introductory lecture he was attacked by a fever, and died at the end of a week. He had the repu- tation of being one of the first surgeons of Amer- ica. He contributed papers to the " Portfolio " and other medical journals, and published an edition of "Cooper's Surgery" in the notes, and "Ele- ments of Surgery" (Philadelphia, 1813). The last was adopted as a text-book in the University of Edinburgh, and was long a favorite in this country.

DORSEY, Sarah Anne, author, b. in Natchez, Miss., 16 Feb., 1829 ; d. in New Orleans, La., 4 July, 1879. Her maiden name was Ellis. She received a careful education, and enjoyed the advantage of extended foreign travel. Her mother was a sister of Catherine Warfield, author of " The Household of Bouverie," who died in 1877, and left in Mrs. Dorsey's hands a mass of manuscript, the greater part of which is still unpublished. Mrs. Dorsey's mother married Gen. Charles G. Dahlgren, after- ward of the Confederate army, and the daughter, in 1853, married Samuel W. Dorsey, of Ellicott's mills, Md., who was then practising law and plant- ing in Tensas parish, Louisiana. Mrs. Dorsey used her pencil with artistic skill, and performed on the harp with exquisite taste. She spoke fluent- ly several modern languages, was a proficient in Latin and Greek, and a student of Sanskrit. She began her literary career by writing for the New York " Churchman." receiving from that journal the pen-name of " Filia Ecclesiae." Mrs. Dorsey built a chapel on her plantation, and devoted much time to the religious instruction of her slaves, teaching a class of fifty or sixty negroes every Sunday. In 1800 she sent to New York, to be published, the choral services that she had ar- ranged and used successfully among her black pu- pils for years, but the war began, and the collection remained unpublished. Mr. Dorsey lost nearly a quarter of a million dollars by the civil war. Their home was burned in a skirmish, and several men were killed in the garden. They took their slaves to Texas, where Mrs. Dorsey acted as nurse in a Con- federate hospital. After the death of Mr. Dorsey in 1875. she removed from her plantation in Tensas parish, and resided at Beauvoir, a small place on the Gulf shore, which, by her will, was given to Jefferson Davis. Here she continued her literary labors, acting also as amanuensis to Mr. Davis in the preparation of his " Rise and Fall of the Con- federate Government." She afterward removed to New Orleans, and submitted to a surgical opera- tion for cancer, which proved unavailing. Her published works are " Recollections of Henry Wat- kins Allen, ex-governor of Louisiana " (New York, 1860); "Lucia Dare" (1867); "Agnes Graham" (Philadelphia, 1869); "Atalie or a Southern Villeggiatura " (1871) ; and " Panola ; a tale of Louisiana " (1877).

DORSEY, Stephen W., politician, b. in Benson, Vt., 28 Feb., 1842. He received an academical education, and removed with his father's family to Oberlin, Ohio. At the beginning of the civil war he enlisted in the national army, served in the west until 1804, was transferred to the Army of the Potomac, with which he remained until the close of the war. Returning to Ohio, he resumed business as an employee of the Sandusky tool company, was soon afterward made president of the company, and was elected on the same day, without his knowledge, president of the Arkansas central railway company. He removed to Arkansas, and was chosen chairman of the Republican county and state committees. He was elected as a Republican to the U. S. senate, serving from 3 March, 1873, till 3 March, 1879. During the presidential canvass of