Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 2).djvu/498

470 year he was ordained as an evangelist, and went to Savannah, Ga., to preach among the seamen and others not belonging to any church. In April, 1824, while yet in Savannah, he declined an invita- tion to supply the pastorate in CoTicord, N. IT., during the session of the legislature, and on the same day he declined the solicitation to represent the American foreign mission board as a missionary to Palestine or to China. He was also offered the professorship of mathematics and natural philoso- phy in Middlebury college, Vt., but declined it, and became professor of Latin and Greek in Amherst in 1824, adding to his duties as instructor the de- partment of belles-lettres from 1825 till 1833, and from 1833 till 1836 was professor of languages (in- cluding the modern) at Amherst. He was trans- ferred to the chair of intellectual and moral philoso- phy, and held it from 1836 till the time of his death. In 1846, on account of failing health, he visited Palestine, where he died, and was buried in Jeru- salem on Mount Sion. He was the father of the author Helen Hunt Jackson {q. v.). He published a " Manual of Classical Literature," based upon the German work of J. J. Eschenburg, with additions and a supplemental volume of plates (Philadel- phia, 1836; 4th ed., 1843); "Sermons" (1850); " Young Peter's Tour Around the World " ; and " Story of Aleck ; or, The History of Pitcairn's Island." His biography was published, with se- lections from his sermons and other writings, by Ileman Humphrey, D. D. (Amherst, 1850).

FISKE, Oliver, physician, b. 2 Sept., 1762; d. in Boston, Mass., in 1836. He was a son of the Rev. Nathan Fiske, of Brookfield, Mass., served for a short time in the army during the Revolutionary war, and at its close entered Harvard, where he was graduated in 1787. He began practice in Wor- cester in 1790, was mainly instrumental in estab- lishing the Massachusetts medical society, and was elected its president soon after its organization. In 1803 he was appointed special justice of the court of common pleas, and during the five years succeeding 1809 was a member of the' executive council. He was corresponding secretary of the Linnjean society of New England, counsellor of the American antiquarian society, and a member of the American academy of arts and sciences. He published an oration delivered at Worcester in 1797, an essay on "Spotted Fever," forming part of the " Transactions of the Massachusetts Medi- cal Society," and other writings.

FITCH, Asa, naturalist, b. in Salem, N. Y.. 24 Feb., 1809; d. there, 8 April, 1878. He was at first an agriculturist and country physician, but relinquished medical practice in 1838 to devote his time to scientific agriculture and the study of natural history. He was made New York state entomologist in 1854, and for many years published annual reports on insects injurious to vegetation. Most of these have been collected at interv-als, and issued in three volumes by the state authorities.

FITCH, Benjamin, philanthropist, b. in New York, 13 June, 1802 ; d. in New York city, 7 Nov., 1883. His father, Stephen Fitch, was a Quaker, and had him educated at the Quaker settlement in Mt. Lebanon, Conn. He was taken to Buft'alo in 1812 by his father, who went there to see Red Jacket, the Seneca chief, in behalf of the govern- ment. He was in Buffalo when it. was burned by the British in 1813. He went to Albany, and sub- sequently to New York, where he became clerk in a store. In 1824 he opened a general country store in Buffalo, and subsequently engaged in the dry- goods business in Rochester, Buffalo, New York, and Chicago, retiring with a large fortune in 1853. Returning from Europe at the outbreak of the civil war, he induced many volunteers to enlist in the service by promising to care for their families, which led to his founding, in 1866, the Fitch home in Darien, Conn., for soldiers' orphans. He added a public hall and an art gallery, and also built a church in Darien. He gave the land and building tor the Fitch creche, founded in 1880. In 1881 he founded the Fitch institute, which was organized on the plan of the Cooper institute in New York. On the occasion of his last visit to Buffalo he gave $15,000 to the Charity organization society. He made liberal annual gifts of money to the chil- dren of the Fitch home.

FITCH, Ebenezer, educator, b. in Norwich, Conn., 26 Sept., 1756 ; d. in West Bloomfield, N. Y., 21 March. 1833. He was descended from James, minister of Saybrook and of Norwich, was graduated at Yale in 1777, and was a tutor there in 1780-'83 and 1786-'91. In 1791 he became principal of Will- iamstovvn academy, and when this became Williams college, in June, 1793, he was elected its first presi- dent, an office which he held until 1815, when he resigned to become pastor of the Presbyterian church in West Bloomfield, N. Y. He resigned this charge in 1827, but preached occasionally after that almost till the time of his death.

FITCH, Eleazar Thompson, educator, b. in New Haven, Conn., 1 Jan., 1791 ; d. there, 31 Jan., 1871. He was graduated at Yale in 1810, and after- ward was a teacher at East Windsor llill, and subse- quently in the New Haven IIo[)kins grammar-school. In 1812 he entered Andover theological seminary, where, after completing the regular course, he re- mained, pursuing advanced studies, giving as- sistance in instruction, and preaching, until his election, in 1817, to.siicceed President Dwight in the office of professor of divinity at Yale. One liranch of his work was to teach theology to graduates, and in this his classes increased so that he was led to urge upon the corporation the founding of a theological department, which was organized in 1822. In this department he filled the chair of homiletics, at the same time being college preacher and pastor, and giving instruction in the academical department in natural theology and the evidences of Christianity. He delivered to successive classes a series of sermons in system- atic theology, and some of his doctrinal views thus presented becoming publicly controverted, he was compelled to defend them as publicly. Im- paired health compelled him to resign his cilice as professor, yet he retained his connection with the theological seminary as lecturer until 1801, and with the theological faculty as professor emeritus until his death. At his resignation he, became a meiuber of the " Circle of retired Clergy- men and Laymen," in whose meetings he took an active part. He wrote theological reviews and other articles for periodicals, and a volume of his sermons was published in 1871.

FITCH, Elijah, clergyman, b. in 1745; d. in Hopkinton, Mass., 16 Dec, 1788. He was gradu- ated at Yale in 1765, and became a minister of the Congregational chui-eh in Hopkinton in 1771, where he remained till his death. He was the author of " The Beauties of Religion, a long Poem addressed to Youth," and also of a short poem entitled "The Choice" (Providence, 1789).

FITCH, Graham Newell, senator, b. in Le Roy, N. Y., 5 Dec, 1809; d. in Logansport, Ind., 29 Nov., 1892. He studied at the medical college in Fairfield, N. Y., and settled at Logansport in 1834, where he always resided. From 1844 till 1847 he was a professor in Rush medical college.