Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 2).djvu/488

460 erected see of Leavenworth in 1877. Under his care the number of his co-religionists in that diocese increased from 35,000 to 80,000.

FINLEY, Jesse Johnson, senator, b. in Wilson county, Tenn., 18 Nov., 1812. He was educated at Ijebanon, Tenn., and in 1886-7 was captain of a company of mounted volunteers from Tennessee that served in the Seminole war in Florida. On his return he studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1838, and in 1840 removed to Mississippi county, Arkansas, where he was elected to the state senate in 1841. The following year he resigned and went to Memphis, Tenn., where he practised law. He was elected mayor in 1845, and after the expiration of his term of office in 1846 removed to Marianna, Jackson co., Fla. In 1850 he was elected to the state senate, and in 1852 was presidential elector on the Whig ticket. In 1853 he was appointed judge of the western circuit of Florida to fill a vacancy, and was subsequently elected to the same office for two terms without opposition. He was appointed judge of the Confederate court for the district of Florida in 1861, but resigned in March, 1862, and volunteered as a private in the array. He was promoted successively to captain, colonel, and brigadier-<yeneral. At the close of the war Judge Finley went to Lake City, Fla., and in 1871 re- moved to Jacksonville in the same state. He was then elected to congress as a Conservative Demo- crat, and served in 1875-9. In 1880 he was nomi- nated against his wishes and took his seat, but was subsequently unseated by the rival candidate. In March, 1887, he was selected by the governor to supply the vacancy in the United States senate that had been occasioned by the expiration of the term of Charles W. Jones, until a choice could be made by the legislature.

FINLEY, John, poet, b. in Brownsburg, Rock- bridge CO., Va., 11 Jan., 1797; d. in Richmond, Ind., 23 Dec, 1860. He received a common-school education, removed about 1818 to Cincinnati, Ohio, and in 1828 to Richmond, Ind. He was one of the editors and proprietors of the Richmond " Palla- dium " in 1831-4, a member of the legislature for three years, and enrolling clerk of the state senate for an equal period. He was clerk of the Wayne county courts in 1838-'45, and mayor of Richmond from 1852 till his death. Mr. Finley's poems were collected in a volume entitled " The Hoosier's Nest and Other Poems " (Cincinnati, 1805). The best known of these is " Bachelor's Hall."

FINLEY, Robert, clergyman. b. in Princeton, N. J., in 1772 ; d. in Athens* Ga., 3 Oct., 1817. His father, James Finley, came to this country from Scotland in 1769. Robert was graduated at Prince- ton in 1787, and taught until 1793, when he be- came a tutor in the college, studying theology at the same time. He was licensed to preach on 16 Sept., 1794, and on 16 June, 1795, was ordained pastor of the Presbyterian church at Baskingridge, N. J., where he also conducted a successful school. In 1815 he suggested the formation of Bible-classes throughout the church, and his plan was recom- mended by the general assembly. He had been for some time interested in plans' for improving the condition of the free negroes, and, having con- versed and corresponded with many prominent men in regard to the colonization scheme, went to Washington in 1816 to secure for it government sanction. The result of his efforts was the forma- tion, on 28 Dec, 1816, of the American coloniza- tion society, and in January, 1817, he established an auxiliary society in New Jersey. In July, 1817, he became president of Franklin college, Athens, Ga. He was a trustee of Princeton from 1806 till he resigned, in 1817, on his departure for Georgia, and, in accepting his resignation, the college gave him the degree of D. D. Dr. Finley was a man of decision and energy, and held high rank as a preacher. Besides several sermons, he published " Thoughts on the Colonization of the Free Blacks," a pamphlet that had much to do with awakening public attention to his enterprise (1816). — His son, Robert Smith, clergvman, b. in Baskingridge, N. J., 9 May, 1804; d."in Talladega, Ala., 2 July, 1860, was graduated at Princeton in 1821, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in Cincinnati, but abandoned his profession for the ministry, and was ordained as a Presbyterian clergyman in 1842. He was for some time a missionary among the slaves near Natchez, Miss., and edited for six years, in St. Louis, the *' Liberian Advocate," a journal devoted to his lather's scheme of colonization. He was pastor at Metuchen, N. J., in 1850-'8, a,nd in the latter year became principal of the Presbyte- rian female institute at Talladega, Ala.

FINLEY, Robert W., clergyman, b. in Bucks county, Pa., 9 June, 1750; d. in Germantown, Ohio, 8 Dec, 1840. His mother, who had some acquaintance with medicine, opened a hospital for wounded soldiers during the Revolutionary war, and ministered to them with her own hand. Robert received a classical and theological education at Princeton, being licensed to preach as a Presbyterian, and in 1777 volunteered to go as a missionary to the new settlements in the Carolinas and Georgia. During this time Mr. Finley. who was an earnest patriot, was often with Gen. Marion in his expeditions, and narrowly escaped death at the hands of Tories in the jaartisan warfare then raging in that district. He removed to Virginia about 1784, two years later to Ohio, and in 1788 to Kentucky, where, after suffering from the depredations of wolves and savages, he finally settled in Bourbon county. Here, besides preaching to two congregations, lie conducted a classical school, said to have been the first in Kentucky. He removed to a place near Chillicothe, Ohio, in 1796, and in 1808 became a Methodist, joining the Ohio conference as an itinerant preacher about 1812. He labored for years with great success, and, when almost eighty years old, set off on horseback, as a missionary, for Sault Ste. Marie, where he formed a circuit and appointed a camp-meeting.— His son, James Bradley, clergyman, b. in North Carolina, 1 July, 1781 ; d. in Cincinnati, Ohio. 6 Sept., 1856, was educated by his father, entered the Ohio Methodist conference in 1809, and in 1816-'21 was presiding elder of the Steubenville, Ohio, and Lebanon districts. He was a missionary to the Wyandot Indians in 1821-'7, and retained the superintendency of the mission till 1829, subsequently continuing in the itinerant ministry till 1845, when he became chaplain of the Ohio penitentiary. He retained this office till 1849, and then acted as conference missionary and pastor in southern Ohio till his death. His principal publications are "History of the Wyandot Mission " (Cincinnati, 1840); " "Memorials of Prison Life" (1850); "Autobiography," edited bv Rev. W. P. Strickland (1858); "Sketches of Western Methodism" (1854); and "Personal Reminiscences illustrative of Indian Life" (1857). — Another son, John P., educator, b. in South Carolina, 18 June, 1783; d. 8 May, 1825, removed with his parents to the west, was educated by his father, and in 1810-'22 taught in schools and academies in Ohio, and also preached with success. He was given the chair of languages in Augusta college, Ky., in 1822, and in 1823 became an itinerant minister of the Methodist Episcopal church.