Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 4).djvu/561

Rh land&rdquo; (Amsterdam, 1682), and several works on Chinese history and institutions.

NILES, Hezekiah, editor, b. in Chester county. Pa., 10 Oct.. 1777 ; d. in Wilmington, Del., 2 April, 1839. He learned printing, and about 1800 be- came a member of an unsuccessful publishing firm in Wilmington. He then removed to Baltimore, Md., where for six years he edited a daily paper. He is chiefly known as the founder, printer, and publisher of " Niles's Register," a weekly journal published in Baltimore, which he edited from 1811 until 1836, and which is considered so valuable as a source of information concerning American his- tory that the first 32 volumes, extending from 1812 till 1827, were reprinted. The " Register " was continued by his son, William Ogden Niles, and others, until 27 June, 1849, making altogether 76 volumes. He advocated the protection of national industry, and was with Mathew Cary a champion of the " American system." In addition to a series of humorous essays entitled " Quill Driving," pub- lished in a periodical, he compiled a work entitled " Principles and Acts of the Revolution " (Balti- more, 1822). The towns of Niles, Mich., and Niles, Ohio, were named in his honor.

NILES, John Milton, postmaster-general, b. in Windsor. Conn.. 20 Aug., 1787; d. in Hartford, Conn., 31 May, 1856. After receiving a common- school education, he studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1817, and began to prac- tise in Hartford. In that year he es- tablished the Hart- ford " Times." which he edited, and to which he contributed for thirty years. He was an active Democratic politician and a supporter of state-rights doctrines. In 1820 he was appointed a judge of the Hartford county court, which office he held for several years, and in 1829 he was postmaster of the city. He was appointed U. S. sen- ator in place of Nathan Smith, as a Whig, and sub- sequently elected to this post, serving from 21 Dec, 1835, till 3 March, 1839, and again from 4 Dec, 1843, till 3 March, 1849. From 19 May, 1840, till 6 March, 1841, he was postmaster-general under President Van Buren. In 1851-'2 he travelled in Europe, and he spent his latter years in horticul- tural pursuits. He bequeathed his library to the Historical society of Connecticut, and left $70,000 in trust to the city of Hartford as a charity fund, the income of which he directed to be annually distributed to the poor. He edited for publication an English work entitled " The Independent Whig" (1816); a "Gazetteer of Connecticut and Rhode Island," with Dr. John C. Pease (Hartford, 1819) ; " Lives of Perry, Lawrence, Pike, and Har- rison" (1820); a "History of the Revolution in Mexico and South America, with a View of Texas " (1839); "The Civil Officer" (New York, 1840); and a new edition of Archibald Robbins's "Jour- nal of the Loss of the Brig 'Commerce' upon the West Coast of Africa" (Hartford, 1842). NILES, SamueL clergyman, b. on Block island, R. I., 1 May, 1674 ; d. in Braintree, Mass.. 1 May, 1762. He was graduated at Harvard in 1699 aiid preached in a district of Rhode Island called the " ministerial lands," and in Kingston, R. I., from 1702 till 1710. P'rom 1711 until his death he was pastor of the 2d church in Braintree, Mass. In 1759 he received the degree of M. A. from Har- vard. He was the author of " Tristitife Ecclesi- arum, or a Brief and Sorrowful Account of the Present Churches in New England " (1745) ; " God's Wonder-working Providence for New England in the Reduction of Louisburg," a tract in verse (1747) ; " Vindicatioji of Divers Important Doc- trines " (1752) ; "The True Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin," in answer to Dr. John Taylor's work on the same subject (1757) ; and an unfinished " His- tory of the Indian and French Wars," published in the Massachusetts historical collections. His diary, kept for sixty years, containing a complete history of the town of Braintree, is still extant. — His son, SanineL jurist, b. in Braintree, Mass., 14 May, 1711 ; d. in Lebanon, Conn., 30 April, 1804, was graduated at Harvard in 1731, was judge of the court of common pleas for Suffolk county, a councillor, and the friend, neighbor, and legal ad- viser of John Adams. — The second Samuel's son, Nathaniel, lawyer, b. in South Kingston, R. I., 3 April, 1741; "d. in West Fairlee, Vt., 31 Oct., 1828, studied at Harvard, and was graduated in 1766 at Princeton, where he was known as " Both- eration primus." Subsequently he studied medi- cine and law, tai;ght for a time in New Yoi'k city, and then studied theology under Dr. Joseph Bel- lamy. He preached in various New England towns, and finally settled in Norwich, Conn., where he in- vented a process of making wire from bar-iron by water-power. He afterward erected a wool-card manufactory in that town. After the Revolution he bought a tract of land in Orange county. Vt., in what is now West Fairlee, being the first in- habitant of that place, and preaching in his own house there for nearly forty years. He was a mem- ber of the Vermont legislature, serving as its speaker in 1784, a judge of the supreme court, six times a presidential elector, and a representative to congress, serving from 24 Oct., 1791, till 3 March, 1795. He was also a "censor" for revising the state constitution. He received the degree of A. M. in 1772 from Harvard, and in 1791 from Dart- mouth, of which institution he was a trustee from 1793 till 1820. He published "Four Discourses on Secret Prayer" (1773); "Two Discourses on Confession of Sin and Forgiveness " (1773) ; two upon " Liberty " ; two sermons entitled " The Per- fection of God," the " Fountain of Good " (1777) ; a sermon on " Vain Amusements " ; and a " Let- ter to a Friend concerning the Doctrine that Im- penitent Sinners have the Natural Power to make to Themselves New Plearts." He contributed papers to the " Theological Magazine," and was the au- thor of " The American Hero," a popular war- song during the Revolution, written upon iiearing of the news of the battle of Bunker Hill. — Another son, Samuel, clergyman, b. in Braintree, Mass., 14 Dec, 1744; d. in Abington, Mass., 16 Jan., 1814, was graduated at Princeton in 1769, and was known there as " Botheration secundus." After studying theology under Dr. Joseph Bellamy and his father- in-law. Rev. Ezekiel Dodge, he was ordained pastor of a Congregational church in Abington on 25 Sept., 1771, and preached there for forty years. He published a sermon on the death of Gen. Wash- ington (1800), a sermon before the Massachusetts missionary society (1801), and a pamphlet entitled " Remarks on a Sermon by John Reed" (1813). — Nathaniel's grandson, Nathaniel, lawyer, b. in South Kingston, R. I., 15 Sept., 1835, was educated