Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 2).djvu/97

Rh Williams. In 1845 he was obliged, on account of his health, to go to a warm climate. He was connected with the educational departments of Georgia and Florida, was the founder of the Culloden female college, and afterward professor of natural science in Auburn college, Ala. In 1869 he was elected president of the Wesleyan university of Kentucky, but in 1875 resigned, and removed to New York city. He was a regular contributor to the religious press, and was the author of several educational and scientific works, including &ldquo;Manual of Botany&rdquo; (Macon, 1841); &ldquo;The Botany of the Southern States&rdquo; (New York, 1855); and &ldquo;Chemistry&rdquo; (1860).

DARBY, William, geographer, b. in Pennsyl- vania in 1775 ; d. in Washington, D. C. 9 Oct.. 1854. He was an officer under Gen. Jackson in Louisiana, and one of the surveyors of the boundary between the United States and Canada. With Theodore Dwight, Jr., he edited the "United States Gazetteer" in 18o0. His works include " Geographical Descrip- tion of Louisiana" (1816); " Plan of Pittsburg and Adjacent Country" (1817); " Emigrant's Guide to the Western Country" (1818); "Tour from New York to Detroit" (New York, 1819); "Geography and History of Florida," with a map (1821) : third edition of " Brooke's Universal Gazetteer " (1828) ; " View of the United States " (Philadelphia, 1828) ; "Lectures on the Discovery of America" (1828); " Mnemonica, a Register of Events from the Earli- est Period to 1829" (Baltimore, 1829) ; and " Geo- graphical Dictionary" (1843).

DARCEY, John S., physician, b. in Hanover, Morris co., N. J., 24 Feb., 1788; d. in Newark, N. J., 22 Oct., I860. His father was a physician, and with him he studied and succeeded to his large practice. He was a member of the state legisla- ture in 1819. In 1832, on the first appearance of Asiatic cholera in this country, he removed to Newark, N. J., and by his skill in the treatment of that disease, and his devotion to his patients and sympathy with their sufferings, attained a practice more extensive and exacting than any other in the state, which finally impaired his re- markably vigorous constitution. In 1835-'41 he was U. S. marshal for New Jersey. He exerted great influence in his party in the state, but was averse to holding office. On the incorporation of the New Jersey railroad company he was elected its president, and held the office till his death, a period of over thirty years. In 1849, his health failing, he made the overland journey to California, but his health was rather injured than benefited.

DARDEN, Miles, giant, b. in North Carolina in 1798; d. in Henderson county, Tenn.. 23 Jan., 1857. He was seven feet six inches in height, and at his death weighed more than one thousand pounds. Until 1853 he was active, energetic, and able to labor, but from that time was obliged to remain at home, or be moved about in a wagon. In 1850 it required thirteen and a half yards of cloth, one yard wide, to make him a coat. His coffin was eight feet long, thirty-five inches deep, thirty-two inches across the breast, eighteen across the head, and fourteen across the feet.

DARE, Virginia, the first child of English parents born in the New World, b. at Roanoke, Va., in August, 1587. She was the granddaughter of John White, governor of the colony sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh to found an agricultural state. The expedition sailed from Plymouth, England, 26 April, 1587, and reached the island of Roanoke, Virginia, in July of the same year. The mother of the child was the wife of one of her father's assistants. Virginia was born about a month after the arrival of the expedition. Nine days after her birth Gov. White sailed for England, and when he returned, a year later, all vestiges of the colony had disappeared. An inscription on the bark of a tree pointed to Croatan, a place supposed to be- long to a friendly tribe of Indians, but Croatan was never found.

DARGAN, Clara Victoria, poet. b. near Winns- boro, S. C., about 1840. She was of French descent, and of a family whose wealth was lost in the down- fall of the Confederacy. Her early education was very carefully conducted, and she was especially skilled in music. From 1852 till 1865 she resided with her family in Columbia, S. C. She began writing sketches and songs at the age of ten, and a year later produced a story that was much ad- mired. Her first published poem was " Forever Thine," in the Charleston "Courant" in 1859, un- der the pseudonym of "Claudia." During the following year she wrote several stories for the " Southern Guardian," signed " Esther Chesney." In 1863 she edited the literary department of the "Edgefield Advertiser," and became a contributor to various other periodicals. After the close of the civil war she became a teacher in Yorkville, S. C. She is the author of " Riverlands," a story of life on the River Ashley, which originally ap- peared as a prize story in the " Southern Fiekl and Fireside " (1863), and of another novel that ob- tained a prize and was published as a serial.

DARGAN, Edmund Spawn, jurist, b. in IMont- gomery county, N. C, 15 April, 1805; d. in Mobile, Ala., in November, 1879. He was the son of a Baptist minister of Irish descent, at whose death he was left without means. By his own exertions he obtained a fair knowledge of English, Latin, and Greek, although he was at work on a farm un- til he was twenty-three years old. He read law, was admitted to the bar in 1829, went to Alabama, and taught three months in Washington, Autauga CO. Here he was elected a justice of the peace, and filled the office for several years, meanwhile en- gaging in the practice of law. In 1833 he removed to Montgomery, and in 1841 was elected to the bench of the circuit court of the Mobile district, and removed to Mobile. He resigned the office of judge in 1842, and in 1844 was elected to the state senate. He was also mayor of Mobile the same year. Pie resigned from the senate the following year, and was elected to congress, serving from 1 Dec, 1845, till 3 March, 1847. On the question of the northwestern boundary of Oregon he made an able speech, and offered some valuable amend- ments to the resolution of notice. He was the first proposer of the line of adjustment finally adopted on the settlement of the question with the British government. He declined a renoini- nation, and in 1847 was elected to fill a vacancy on the bench of the supreme court of Alabama. In July, 1849, by the resignation of Justice Collier, he became chief justice, which office he resigned in December, 1852, and resumed the practice of law in Mobile. In 1861 he was a delegate to the State convention, and voted for the ordinance of seces- sion. He also served for one term as a representa- tive in the Confederate congress.

DARGAN, Theodore Alonza, physician, b. in Sleepy Hollow, S. C, 15 Aug., 1822 ; d. there, 10 Sept., 1881. He was of Scotch-Irish descent, and received his early education in Darlington, S. C. He was graduated at the South Carolina medical college at the age of twenty-one. At the beginning of the civil war he entered the Confederate service as surgeon, and served until the end. In 1859 he published a paper on the subject of "Typhoid Fever," which was extensively noticed.