Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 2).djvu/264

242 brothers. She was sent to a convent of the Visitation to prepare for her first communion, and, her con- fessor being an old missionary who had spent years among the Indians of Louisiana, her thoughts wei'e turned to religious work in America. In 1798 she resided at Grenoble, and devoted herself to caring for the prisoners and educating the children of the streets. This life lasted until 1801, when she or- ganized a community of religious women, whose sole occupation was to be teaching. This com- munity was afterward amalgamated with the So- ciety of the Sacred Heart, founded by Madame Barat. In 1818 she sailed for the United States with four companions, and landed at New Orleans. After a stay of two months she went to St. Louis, where she opened a school under circumstances of great difficulty. She next removed to Florissant, where she established a permanent centre of her order, Madame Duchesne worked a great refor- mation in the habits of the Creoles, Indians, and colored women who came under her influence. In 1820 she founded a community of the Sacred Heart congregation in Barreins, on the Bois-Brule, and also a boarding-school, and free schools for Indians and for white adults. Slie next founded the house of Gi'and-coteau, principally devoted to the edu- cation of the poor. In 1824 a hurricane damaged some of her houses, but she set to work with re- newed energy, and in 1825 established an institu- tion in the parish of St. Michel among the descend- ants of the French exiles of Acadia. In 1827 the present house of the order was founded in St. Louis. She closed her ten years' work as a relig- ious pioneer by the foundation of a house in St. Charles. Madame Duchesne governed all her scat- tered houses with firmness and discretion till 1840, when she was superseded by Madame Galitzin, and became a simple nun again. She then petitioned to be allowed to fulfil her original intention of go- ing as a missionary among the Indians. With three companions she joined a Jesuit mission among the Pottawattamies. She was well received, but the hardships of such a life for a woman over seventy were considered too great, and she was forced by her superiors to return to St. Charles at the end of a year. She lived to see her order flour- ish in all the great cities of the United States.

DUCKINFIELD, or DUKINFIELD, Sir Nathaniel, bart., d. in England in 1824. He was a member of the council of North Carolina, where he owned large estates, and in 1772, while on a A'isit to England, was induced to purchase a com- mission in the British army. When the war began he refused to serve against the Americans, and on his regiment being ordered to this country he con- trived to remain behind. This exhibition of pa- .triotism did not avail him, however, as in 1779 his estates were confiscated. He was intimate with James Iredell, afterward one of the judges of the supreme court of the state, and maintained a cor- respondence with him until the close of 1791. In 1783 he married a niece of Gen. Warde, on whose staff he was serving as aide-de-camp. In 1789 the British government made him an allowance of £3,000 for his losses as a loyalist. He never re- turned to this coLintrv.

DU COUDRAY, Philippe Charles Jean Baptiste Tronson, French soldier, b. in Rheims, France, 8 Sept., 1738 ; d. in the United States, 11 Sept., 1777. He was educated in the army as a mining engineer, and evinced such unusual talent that he was promoted, over the heads of 180 senior officers, for services in Corsica. He was adjutant- general of artillery, and ranked as one of the best military engineers in France, when, in 1776, he offered his services to Silas Deane and Benjamin Franklin, who were then engaging officers for the American army. An arrangement was therefore entered into by which Du Coudray, on condition of his furnishing certain supplies, was to receive a commission as major-general in the American ser- vice, with the command of the artillery. On his arrival in this country, he claimed that the right to command the engineers was included in this arrangement. Gen. Knox (at that time at the head of the artillery). Gen. Sullivan, Gen. Greene, and other American officers, were greatly dissatis- fied with the negotiations of Franklin and Deane, and threatened to resign. Du Coudray was ap- pointed inspector- general, with the rank of major- general, 11 Aug., 1777, and placed in charge of the works on the Delaware. While he was hastening to the battle of the Brandywine, his horse, becoming restive on a ferry-boat as he was crossing the Schuyl- kill, plunged with him into the river, and he was drowned. His works include " L'artillerie nou- velle " (Paris, 1772); " Memoire sur le salpetre" (1774); " Nouvelles experiences sur lefer" (1776).

DUCRUE, Bennon Francis, clergyman, b. in Munich, Bavaria, in 1721 ; d. in Bavaria in 1779. He was a Jesuit, and was sent by his superiors to Mexico, where he performed missionary duty for over twenty years. He returned to Europe after the Jesuits were expelled from the Spanisli colo- nies. He wrote in German a " Relation of the So- ciety of Jesus of the Province of Mexico, and par- ticularly of California in 1767, with other docu- ments worthy of being known." This relation is found in vol. xvi. of the journal of Mur. Inde- pendently of what concerns the Jesuits in Cali- fornia, it contains interesting notices on the ge- ography and production of that peninsula. Mur added notes to the I'elation, and some specimens of the Californian language, which were communi- cated to him by Ducrue.

DUDLEY, Benjamin Winslow, surgeon, b. in Spottsylvania county, Va., 12 April, 1785 ; d. in Lex- ington, Ky., 20 Jan., 1870. He studied at Transyl- vania university, and was graduated at the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania in 1806, presentinsr a thesis on the " Medical Topog- raphy of Lexington." From 1810 till 1814 he was in Europe, where he studied under Sir Astley Cooper and John Abernethy in London, and under Paul A. Dubois and F. II. Larrey in Paris. On his return to the United States he settled in Lex- ington, Ky., remaining there in successful practice till 1854, and achieving the reputation of being the most successful surgeon west of the AUeghanies. He operated for stone in the bladder two hundred and twenty-five times, losing only six patients, and had occasion to repeat the operation in but one instance. He performed the lateral operation ex- clusively, and almost always with the gorget, an instrument now becoming obsolete. His success was so great that in England he was declared to be " the lithotomist of the nineteenth century." Dr. Dudley published several medical essays, was active in the organization in 1817 of the medical depart- ment of Transylvania university, long the leading school in the west, and for many years held there the professorships of anatomy and surgery.

DUDLEY, Charles Benjamin, chemist, b. in Oxford, N. Y., 14 July, 1842. He was graduated at Yale in 1871, and then pursued a course in the Sheffield scientific school, receiving the degree of Ph. D. in 1874. In September of the same year he became instructor of physics in the University of Pennsylvania, but resigned at the end of the year. He became chemist to the Pennsylvania railroad